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I am a huge fan of keeping things simple. People are constantly asking what the best workout for someone new to training is and, with all the information out there (some good and some bad), it is easy to get confused.

Below is something I jotted down really quickly for an guy who was just beginning his training career and wondering what the best way to get started was.

Workout A

Squat
bench press
chin up

Workout B

deadlift
row
DB shoulder press

Alternate between between those two workouts 3 times a week

Example:

Week 1

mon - A
wed - B
fri - A

Week 2

mon - B
wed - A
fri - B

repeat

Sets and Reps

On mondays and fridays perform 3 sets x 5reps.

On wed perform 3 sets x 10 reps

Intensity

Since you are totally new to training start with a low intensity and don’t worry about maxing out or hitting faillure. Even though you are using 5 repetitions per set, this is not 5 max repetitions. You shouldn’t be hitting failure by rep 5. 70-75% intensity is generally a pretty good place to start. Focus on technique and developing great form and movement patterns. Form is paramount over everything else. Each workout you can try and add 5-10lbs to each lift as long as your form is solid. Do this until you reach a plateau.

When you start to hit a plateau and find it difficult to make any further progress, simply drop the intensity from your workout by about 15% for a week and the next week start from there and work back up in intensity over a few weeks to see if you can break your previous personal records.

Other things that you can add to this program

This is only the lifting portion of the workout. Of course if you want things to be well rounded (and you should want that!), you are going to need to have a good warm up and, in my opinion, some foam rolling to work on your soft tissue and some flexibility work. In addition, you will want to work cardio into your program (intervals work pretty well for that and they are time effective).

Other “newbie questions” that you will probably have.

Below are some answers to typical questions I get when I give someone a program that is simple like this:

a) NO, you can not do this workout 4 or 5 times a week.
b) YES, you must leave a day of rest inbetween each training session. I don’t care if you feel like you can do more.
c) NO, you can not go in on saturdays and train biceps.
d) NO, you can not go in on saturdays and train chest and arms

patrick

patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com