How I set up Strength Programs
Right. Let’s get into it. You’ve spun your wheels around for a while, trying seemingly endless workouts splits. High volume, low volume, 5 day bro splits, Arnold split, Push/pull/legs or some variant of it, 5 x 5, german volume training (god forbid), P90x (if you’re old enough, you know this), Crossfit (christ alive!), and everything else under the sun.
Somehow, the only thing that has felt worked out is your patience, willpower, and self criticism when you look in the mirror. And perhaps your strength isn’t even that stellar after all this work, and you’ve struggled with your leanness and proportion trying to juggle endlessly between bulks and cuts and never consistently looking chiseled and defined year round. You need a system, something minimalistic, efficient, that has a clear mechanism, and does not need constant modification every 12 weeks to “confuse the muscle” and all that nonsense.
For strength, hypertrophy, mobility, leanness, harmony and proportion: we need to progressively overload certain movements over time and hit certain standards before we can achieve our desired level of fitness.
These must be compound movements, because those have the highest rate of progress possible over time, and tend to show us where the weaknesses lie in the movement pattern. For example, using a weighted chin-up as a direct proxy for upper body pulling strength: struggling during the top half and getting the chin fully over the bar typically tells one that the biceps are the limiting factor, and hence need more work. But tracking the weighted chin-up itself over weeks can give us an idea of how much strength and progress is being made for upper body pulling strength.
Enter the “desert island” list.
Something I used to casually ask my friends a the gym, stirring up a lot of laughs and hot takes.
“If you only had 6 exercises to pick (and were stranded on a desert island, as one is…), which ones would make the cut?”
Now anyone reasonable would pick at least a few upper and a few lower body exercises, ideally multi-joint compound exercises to hit the whole body properly, while incorporating balance, symmetry, strength, mobility, and the ability to progress over time.
My non-negotiable list goes as follows:
- Weighted chin-ups: The ability to pull your own body up from a dead hang being pretty cool notwithstanding, we’re getting grip strength, shoulder and scapular mobility, most upper body muscles, core engagement, co-ordination, etc.
- Weighted dips: The pushing equivalent of the weighted chin-up, including grip, a lot of mobility, control, balance and co-ordination, and the ability to transfer this strength quite well to a lot of other pushing movements, or athletic movements in general.
- Overhead presses: Nothing says “muscular and strong” like a good pair of broad, defined shoulders and a narrow waist. The shoulders are arguably the most important body part to develop in men, creating a more sexually dimorphic look, and signalling strength, virility and health. This movement also challenges the lower back and core vastly, and even the legs in terms of stability and balance. I especially love the standing overhead barbell press to assess where individual weaknesses lie, based on where the lift fails, or has sticking points.
- Bulgarian split squats: Ah yes, the one and only….enough said, eh? Balance, core stability, mobility, ability to avoid as much axial loading, ability to adapt it to various biomechanic concerns, etc., the list goes on. Even the cardiovascular system gets challenged once the weights reach a solid level. A true beast of an exercise.
- Deadlifts: Everything. Just everything. The one exercise to rule them all. Great for bodily control, awareness and stability. Also forces one to address fatigue management in the programming, something most simply overlook. Bone density, grip, hip strength: all tremendous markers of longevity and resilience. Great carry over to everyday athletic endeavours. The full monty. I like sumo for the higher quad, adductor and glute demand over the lower back, making it easier to load steadily over time, especially for long-femured lifters.
- ATG split squat: Popularized by Ben Patrick (kneesovertoes guy), I was doing these years before they were popularized, just because of the stretch I enjoyed from them before running or martial arts training. Intuitively, felt amazing for my knees, and have helped countless people that I’ve coached over the years with their own knees. Takes the quads and hip flexors through a massive range of motion, which is excellent for mobility, especially given how tight those areas can get after sitting for long periods of time. Plus the balance aspect is fantastic.
So there it is! The base, or framework of the program that can stay constant over the years as you accrue strength and muscle mass, minimizing decision fatigue and faffing around with trends that do nothing for true strength and mobility. Now obviously, these aren’t set in stone: they can be swapped out for similar movements, such as a back squat for the ATG split squat, a conventional or stiff-legged deadlift for the sumo deadlift depending on individual biomechanics, meso goals, and injuries. Later on, I shall talk about exercise rotation, that becomes more of a concern and tool to leverage as one attains intermediate status. But this is the meat and potatoes of training.
Bam.
Simple.
Easy.
Sorted.
Now for the accessory work, as I can hear you lot already asking “B…b..b…but coach! Where are all the fun accessory lifts? And isn’t this too little volume?!”
Calm down. This is just the base of the pyramid. There will definitely be some extra accessory work, as the appendages and smaller muscle groups do respond better to some direct work. But how does one pick accessory lifts or isolation exercises? Not random exercises that one sees on instagram, surely?
Nope. I always like to consider where the failure point in the compound movements is: usually, it’s the top half of the chin-up, the lockout for the weighted dip or overhead press, and the start of a deadlift (slack pull). Not always, but let us assume a lifter presents with these limitations after the first training block. Based on this, I’d add in a full range of motion bicep movement like a barbell curl, a skullcrusher, and some paused pistol squats (pausing at a similar knee flexion angle to the one at the slack pull stage of the sumo deadlift). I do find that the leg exercises tend to be less prone to plateaus using the big 3 leg moves that I program. So most people can get away with sticking with those and some calf raises for a good while before plateaus arise.
Furthermore, use exercises that are fun and that you “feel” better with. There are always certain moves that just don’t feel great for some people, and other folks LOVE them. So there’s an element of trial and error here as well.
I also tend to use full range of motion exercises like zanetti presses for the biceps and behind the neck single arm tricep extensions to enhance mobility at the same time. Keeping in mind that training at long lengths is more fatiguing, so that must be considered as well. But I’m getting sidetracked now….. that will be a topic for another article.
That’s the mindset behind building a good strength program in my opinion, and it has always produced excellent results. Try it out for yourself!
Much love,
Tiger