Basic strength training plan

[hexagonal]

I used to be a big Starting Strength proponent, and it's what I got my start on, but I'd recommend against it these days, and particularly against it for most of the people here for weight loss. It's a program that is focused on a multiple decades old understanding of exercise science and targeted quite specifically at athletes wanting to get stronger for sports purposes - it was developed with high school football players and college hopefuls in mind.

I love compound barbell movements. They're a lot of fun! I think bench presses, squats, and deadlifts should be a part of every program. But overhead presses? They cause a lot of people shoulder issues, and there are dozens of alternatives. Power cleans? Why?

The reality is most of us here are not lifting with powerlifting, olympic lifting, or sports as our primary goal. We want to preserve muscle mass while losing weight, fill in loose skin with muscle to replace the fat, and just generally have more overall health and aesthetic goals. For that, a more hypertrophy/bodybuilding-style workout is more effective, and generally lower injury risk, too.

3-4 sets of 8-12 reps taken 1-3 reps away from failure per exercise per workout. Periodically take some exercises to failure so you have a better understanding of where failure is - without doing this most people usually underestimate how much they have left in the tank. Ideally get up to 20ish fractional sets (e.g. bench press is 1 set for pecs, .5 sets for triceps) per week per muscle group you are focusing on, but even just 5ish sets is enough in most people to get prevent muscle loss and get some growth with adequate protein intake, etc.

Compound lifts are great and efficient, but people grow their muscles at different rates, we have different amounts of loose skin in different places, some muscles are more important for aesthetics than others, so more isolation focused exercises are often going to be more in-line with our aesthetic goals too. Guys usually want bigger arms and shoulders. Girls usually want bigger glutes. Everybody loves having nice abs, and while that's mostly a function of lower bf%, they're like any other muscle in that doing work on them grows them... they just might push the fat out a bit more at higher bf%.

ChatGPT and similar really can make decent programs these days. They're not going to be top tier, but they can do a lot. I have made my own programs historically, but I'm in the middle of swapping to https://myoadapt.com/ since it stays up to date on the latest exercise science. If you don't know the form to an exercise, a personal trainer isn't a bad choice. At the very least, record yourself and get a form check on one of the reddits dedicated to it - lots of helpful people out there.

 

[LeadFitz]

I used to be a big Starting Strength proponent, and it's what I got my start on, but I'd recommend against it these days, and particularly against it for most of the people here for weight loss. It's a program that is focused on a multiple decades old understanding of exercise science and targeted quite specifically at athletes wanting to get stronger for sports purposes - it was developed with high school football players and college hopefuls in mind.

I love compound barbell movements. They're a lot of fun! I think bench presses, squats, and deadlifts should be a part of every program. But overhead presses? They cause a lot of people shoulder issues, and there are dozens of alternatives. Power cleans? Why?

The reality is most of us here are not lifting with powerlifting, olympic lifting, or sports as our primary goal. We want to preserve muscle mass while losing weight, fill in loose skin with muscle to replace the fat, and just generally have more overall health and aesthetic goals. For that, a more hypertrophy/bodybuilding-style workout is more effective, and generally lower injury risk, too.

3-4 sets of 8-12 reps taken 1-3 reps away from failure per exercise per workout. Periodically take some exercises to failure so you have a better understanding of where failure is - without doing this most people usually underestimate how much they have left in the tank. Ideally get up to 20ish fractional sets (e.g. bench press is 1 set for pecs, .5 sets for triceps) per week per muscle group you are focusing on, but even just 5ish sets is enough in most people to get prevent muscle loss and get some growth with adequate protein intake, etc.

Compound lifts are great and efficient, but people grow their muscles at different rates, we have different amounts of loose skin in different places, some muscles are more important for aesthetics than others, so more isolation focused exercises are often going to be more in-line with our aesthetic goals too. Guys usually want bigger arms and shoulders. Girls usually want bigger glutes. Everybody loves having nice abs, and while that's mostly a function of lower bf%, they're like any other muscle in that doing work on them grows them... they just might push the fat out a bit more at higher bf%.

ChatGPT and similar really can make decent programs these days. They're not going to be top tier, but they can do a lot. I have made my own programs historically, but I'm in the middle of swapping to https://myoadapt.com/ since it stays up to date on the latest exercise science. If you don't know the form to an exercise, a personal trainer isn't a bad choice. At the very least, record yourself and get a form check on one of the reddits dedicated to it - lots of helpful people out there.

I use Boostcamp, but being able to select equipment is pretty dope

 

[Monte2024]

Looking for help. I’m a 48 year old male. Been on tirz for a few months and I’m down 30 lbs. Feeling a lot better, but now I want to get back into the gym.

I used to do a lot of cardio, but for the past 3 years I’ve honestly been really lazy. As an adult I have never really done much resistance training. I have a chance to kind of start from scratch now and I want to build my exercise foundation around weight training instead of cardio.

How do I start? Can someone give me the basic lifts, rep counts, set counts, and how to combine it all? I feel really lost right now. Thanks for any input.

I’m sort of late to post and others have provided great information. The advice of working with a trainer is very solid. You don’t have to engage the kind of trainer who puts you through workouts one on one, etc. You can have an assessment and discuss your goals, then the trainer can provide recommendations for a program. Then you take it from there.

AI can get you there as mentioned. Getting started and creating the habit of showing up at the gym is the key. Of course, that is not enough. The follow-on are workouts that are of benefit. You’ll pickup details as you go and will become confident in what you are doing.

 

[Threesixes]

Check out exrx.net. Also look up Starting Strength. It has five lifts that are really all you need unless you’re bodybuilding or doing something sport specific. Stronglifts is basically Starting Strength with one exercise swapped out. Maybe a different program for increases and setbacks, I can’t remember right now.

If you go the trainer route make sure they’re qualified. There’s a lot of dipshittery and bro science out there, and you don’t want to be stuck with someone who just parrots whatever they read on their favorite forum that week. I knew a couple of DPTs and DPT students who did training on the side. I’d trust them. I wouldn’t trust, for example, the guy I used to work with who drank olive oil until he shit himself in the office (he was trying to increase his testosterone production). He did personal training on the side.

A lot of good info here. I'm just starting as well. Thank you for sharing.

 

[desinr-gal]

For women, especially over 45 things are different. Almost all training studies have been done on men. I have been watching and listening to DR Stacy Sims interviews. She states that due to our hormones and body structure, women at a more senior age need to lift heavier, for less reps, and avoid long cardio zone 2 sessions, in order to build muscle, and to avoid cortisol excretion which just creates more fat.

So the old "more cardio, low weights, and higher reps, causes catabolism of muscle, cortisol surges, etc which discourage women from continuing.

I would love a great program designed for my age, that doesn't cost $$$

 

[ContainHer]

I used to be a big Starting Strength proponent, and it's what I got my start on, but I'd recommend against it these days, and particularly against it for most of the people here for weight loss. It's a program that is focused on a multiple decades old understanding of exercise science and targeted quite specifically at athletes wanting to get stronger for sports purposes - it was developed with high school football players and college hopefuls in mind.

I love compound barbell movements. They're a lot of fun! I think bench presses, squats, and deadlifts should be a part of every program. But overhead presses? They cause a lot of people shoulder issues, and there are dozens of alternatives. Power cleans? Why?

The reality is most of us here are not lifting with powerlifting, olympic lifting, or sports as our primary goal. We want to preserve muscle mass while losing weight, fill in loose skin with muscle to replace the fat, and just generally have more overall health and aesthetic goals. For that, a more hypertrophy/bodybuilding-style workout is more effective, and generally lower injury risk, too.

3-4 sets of 8-12 reps taken 1-3 reps away from failure per exercise per workout. Periodically take some exercises to failure so you have a better understanding of where failure is - without doing this most people usually underestimate how much they have left in the tank. Ideally get up to 20ish fractional sets (e.g. bench press is 1 set for pecs, .5 sets for triceps) per week per muscle group you are focusing on, but even just 5ish sets is enough in most people to get prevent muscle loss and get some growth with adequate protein intake, etc.

Compound lifts are great and efficient, but people grow their muscles at different rates, we have different amounts of loose skin in different places, some muscles are more important for aesthetics than others, so more isolation focused exercises are often going to be more in-line with our aesthetic goals too. Guys usually want bigger arms and shoulders. Girls usually want bigger glutes. Everybody loves having nice abs, and while that's mostly a function of lower bf%, they're like any other muscle in that doing work on them grows them... they just might push the fat out a bit more at higher bf%.

ChatGPT and similar really can make decent programs these days. They're not going to be top tier, but they can do a lot. I have made my own programs historically, but I'm in the middle of swapping to https://myoadapt.com/ since it stays up to date on the latest exercise science. If you don't know the form to an exercise, a personal trainer isn't a bad choice. At the very least, record yourself and get a form check on one of the reddits dedicated to it - lots of helpful people out there.

This is an interesting take, not that you asked my opinion. It's strange to me that you'd recommend against starting strength to a beginner. I love isolated lifts as well, don't get me wrong - they're essential, especially if you're targeting specific weak links effecting form and functionality.

I do understand what you're getting at, and respect your take. While I agree aesthetics are important, I don't think the benefits of isolated movements for the sake of vanity outweigh the benefit of functional compound lifts for a newbie. Football players need to jump, hinge, push and pull - so do the average Joe's. Hypertrophy and isolated lifts are not mutually exclusive.

One of the biggest benefits of compound movements is that you can only increase the weight to the max of your weakest muscle participating in that set, at the same time you have other options to hit hypertrophy for stronger muscles. If done properly, leaving ego behind, this prevents injury - I've seen too many folks focus on their pretty muscle groups ignoring others and ultimately injuring themselves because supportive muscle groups aren't being developed in unison with the larger pretty muscle groups. It's up there with folks who bodybuild and spend zero time to train mobility or fibers.

If you're just starting out, compound movements keep it simple and are the foundation to good form. Start adding in unecessary complexities right away and it gets overwhelming, even with a step by step program on an app. Going from zero gym time to 1.5- 2 hours a day trying to complete all your sets can feel defeating. Compound movements directly relate to everyday functionality - power cleans, because I want to be able to pick my 100lb kid up from the floor to my chest without struggling or decimating my posterior chain or hip flexors. Overhead presses, because I need the ability to put a heavy tote back up on the garage shelf without hurting myself. Training full range of motion and power with concentric and eccentric movement under load within a functional movement is the foundation to your body aging well. You can have a real pretty muscles, but they're worthless if they can't perform when you need them to.

That being said if you're a newbie with ambition, or have a good starting foundation and want more I'd recommend Marcus Fillys Functional Bodybuilding. Its functional movements, meets isolated pump, meets explosiveness and mobility. I really appreciate what he's done here - more training for complete health over just aesthetics though.

Just my 2 pennies.

 

[YoYoFat]

Consider using the Ladder app. Can’t remember where I got the recommendation, but it’s really great. You pick a “team” based on your preferred workouts, style, and available equipment, and you’re given workout plans for each week.

 

[hexagonal]

This is an interesting take, not that you asked my opinion. It's strange to me that you'd recommend against starting strength to a beginner. I love isolated lifts as well, don't get me wrong - they're essential, especially if you're targeting specific weak links effecting form and functionality.

Basically no professional who isn't already indoctrinated into the SS ecosystem recommends starting strength to anyone anymore - even if you want to focus on compound movements, it's just not a well put together program. Elite high school programs moved on, people training adults moved on, etc. It's just not good:

Very low volume per muscle for most muscles. It's just not anywhere near enough to grow at an efficient rate, and if we're talking about day to day functionality, you do not need to be lifting close to your 1RM max for CNS adaptations. Muscle growth + CNS adaptations is how you increase strength, and even powerlifters and olympic weightlifters have long since changed to having hypertrophy blocks in their periodization.

Huge frequency imbalance. You hammer squats, squats, squats, and more squats. Triceps is all incidental work. What bicep work? This plays into the volume - and volume near failure is king for muscle growth.

Fixed linear progression, no autoregulation. We know now that linear progression, reset on stall is just not the best way to progress in either strength or hypertrophy. RPE/RIR is king for everyone these days for a reason, as is progressive overload on multiple axis. Increase reps, increase weight, more rarely increase sets. Fixed rep ranges are just outright bad for both strength and hypertrophy. Even powerlifters who compete on 1RM spend a significant portion of their time in different rep ranges.

Stops well short of failure. Strength and muscle grow best when you work close to failure. It's not just a matter of "training hard" - your muscle receives most of the growth stimulus and your get most of your CNS adaptation when in that 0-3 RIR range.

And this is before you get into things you are likely to run into when being involved in SS that aren't program specific, but are Ripp specific - like his absurd hatred for trap bars for deadlifts. If we're talking functional strength, trap bar deadlifts are about as "functional" as it gets - who carries in their groceries with a barbell deadlift grip? When you carry heavy boxes, do you pick them up with an inward facing grip on opposite sides, or put both your hands under it on one side? Most people doing everyday things can save themselves tearing the shit out of their shins and get as much or more out of a trap bar deadlift.

Starting Strength and Ripp himself were gigantic boons to the world decades ago when all orts of people were afraid of picking up a barbell. Now, they're both stuck on a decades old understanding of how we build muscle and strength.

I do understand what you're getting at, and respect your take. While I agree aesthetics are important, I don't think the benefits of isolated movements for the sake of vanity outweigh the benefit of functional compound lifts for a newbie. Football players need to jump, hinge, push and pull - so do the average Joe's. Hypertrophy and isolated lifts are not mutually exclusive.

Acting like it's just aesthetics is an inaccurate representation of the position.

More hypertrophy, more muscle mass, better metabolic health. I'm not going to play up the whole "muscle burns more calories than fat" bit because the BMR difference is not huge unless you have literally years of training, but muscle mass is huge in preventing insulin resistance and diabetes.

I also never said don't do compound movements - I said a program that has more isolation movements in it than starting strength is going to be beneficial. I explicitly stated that bench, squat, and deadlift should be in every program, even!

One of the biggest benefits of compound movements is that you can only increase the weight to the max of your weakest muscle participating in that set, at the same time you have other options to hit hypertrophy for stronger muscles. If done properly, leaving ego behind, this prevents injury - I've seen too many folks focus on their pretty muscle groups ignoring others and ultimately injuring themselves because supportive muscle groups aren't being developed in unison with the larger pretty muscle groups. It's up there with folks who bodybuild and spend zero time to train mobility or fibers.

This is one of those things that gets repeated all of the time yet there is actually zero real evidence out there that this is a thing. You'd see more injuries from people doing bodybuilding style lifting than others, and you just don't. Body-builders have plenty of compound lifts they perform that also have muscles that are strengthened by additional isolation work they do

- they all have leg extensions and leg curls in their rotation, and despite having "overdeveloped" their quads and hamstrings, they don't go rip their body in half when they squat or deadlift. Meta-analysis frequently show basically entirely similar injury rates between the two (Or, actually, higher for free weights - but because people drop the weights on themselves, lol)

Effect of free-weight vs. machine-based strength training on maximal strength, hypertrophy and jump performance – a systematic review and meta-analysis - BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation

Background The effectiveness of strength training with free-weight vs. machine equipment is heavily debated. Thus, the purpose of this meta-analysis was to summarize the data on the effect of free-weight versus machine-based strength training on maximal strength, jump height and hypertrophy...

bmcsportsscimedrehabil.biomedcentral.com

Like, your fundamental argument just isn't logical on all of this - compound lifts limit your injury risk because doing that lift is limited by the weakest muscle (This actually varies from untrue to gross oversimplification - the actual cap on any lift is joint torque in the toughest region of the lift for you. There's also A LOT of momentum in compound lifts), yet people doing the equivalent of compound lift in day-to-day life aren't limited by the weakest muscle and instead just injure themselves.

And we should look at what the most common type of lifting related injury is, in everyday life or otherwise, and what sort of training prevents it.

Myotendinous junction injuries are the most common - where the muscle and tendon meet. How do we strengthen this? Slow heavy reps with eccentric emphasis. You know what sort of movement is the exact opposite of this? The power clean.

If you're just starting out, compound movements keep it simple and are the foundation to good form. Start adding in unecessary complexities right away and it gets overwhelming, even with a step by step program on an app. Going from zero gym time to 1.5- 2 hours a day trying to complete all your sets can feel defeating.

Who said anything about 1.5 to 2 hours a day? I have a very overkill program that takes 20 to 24ish sets per workout across 7-8 different exercises each day and I still am in and out in roughly an hour. Most people will make great progression with far less.

Compound movements directly relate to everyday functionality - power cleans, because I want to be able to pick my 100lb kid up from the floor to my chest without struggling or decimating my posterior chain or hip flexors. Overhead presses, because I need the ability to put a heavy tote back up on the garage shelf without hurting myself. Training full range of motion and power with concentric and eccentric movement under load within a functional movement is the foundation to your body aging well. You can have a real pretty muscles, but they're worthless if they can't perform when you need them to.

I can guarantee you bodybuilders can pick up their 100lb kid from the floor to their chest without issue despite never doing a power clean. You sit here and talk about needing eccentric movement under load and are advocating for an exercise that has literally no eccentric.

There are specific issues with overhead presses that make them extremely injury prone. Many people cannot do them at heavy loads safely/without pain/etc. because of their anatomy. I sometimes have them in my rotation, particularly with dumbbells going to a very deep stretch, but I would never recommend a barbell OHP to anyone.

That being said if you're a newbie with ambition, or have a good starting foundation and want more I'd recommend Marcus Fillys Functional Bodybuilding. Its functional movements, meets isolated pump, meets explosiveness and mobility. I really appreciate what he's done here - more training for complete health over just aesthetics though.

Just my 2 pennies.

I'm impressed you managed to entirely misconstrue a post that is explicit about still keeping compound movements in but adding on additional isolation exercises that reach the aesthetic goals into somehow being just about aesthetics. My argument is SS is an outdated program with poor ideas underpinning it and that basically every program should have additional isolation exercises built in, particularly since it will increase overall muscle mass (health benefit) and physiques (aesthetic benefit). A significant portion of the post that you didn't even touch on also dealt entirely with training adaptations regardless of the lift involved.

 

[hexagonal]

For women, especially over 45 things are different. Almost all training studies have been done on men. I have been watching and listening to DR Stacy Sims interviews. She states that due to our hormones and body structure, women at a more senior age need to lift heavier, for less reps, and avoid long cardio zone 2 sessions, in order to build muscle, and to avoid cortisol excretion which just creates more fat.

So the old "more cardio, low weights, and higher reps, causes catabolism of muscle, cortisol surges, etc which discourage women from continuing.

I would love a great program designed for my age, that doesn't cost $$$

We have good studies comparing men vs. women and they are pretty conclusive that women and men respond the same to training. Men make larger gains in absolute terms, but the relative improvement from baseline to finish is very similar.

Sex differences in absolute and relative changes in muscle size following resistance training in healthy adults: a systematic review with Bayesian meta-analysis - PMC

Muscle hypertrophy may be influenced by biological differences between males and females. This meta-analysis investigated absolute and relative changes in muscle size following resistance training (RT) between males and females and whether measures ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Sex Differences in Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PubMed

Roberts, BM, Nuckols, G, and Krieger, JW. Sex differences in resistance training: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res 34(5): 1448-1460, 2020-The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are different responses to resistance training for strength or hypertrophy...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I suspect a lot of this is that fitness and lifting in particular for women has been focused on very light weights for a nonsense number of reps where you are exercising but never really taxing your muscles. If you are getting 10-20 hard sets in a week at a weight that you take close to failure (muscle failure! Not your overall fatigue, cardio, nervous system fatigue, etc.) you will grow. I personally really like the 8-12 rep range. Some people go a bit lower. Some people go a bit higher.

The issue with high rep ranges is that it gets very difficult for people to tell when they're getting close to failure. People doing 30 to 50 rep sets just get their reps in reserve at way higher rates than people working at lower rep ranges. You just get tired, bored, uncomfortable from the repetitive motion, etc.

So moving to a lower rep range with heavier weights just makes it way likelier that you're going to end up working closer to failure than you were at high rep ranges.

HIIT in general just provides benefits that zone 2 cardio doesn't. Once you have built up a base of aerobic fitness that lets you start focusing more on HIIT, everyone should. But HIIT is also harder on the body and can interfere with other workouts - I perform worse on lifting days if I do HIIT, so when I'm being good about my cardio it's zone 2 on lifting days and HIIT on "rest" days. My understanding is the general science these days is very supportive of the idea that HIIT should be a tentpole portion of your aerobic exercise, and then ideally you fill in additional zone 2 so that you are getting more aerobic exercise in general.

 

[mlke6]

Basically no professional who isn't already indoctrinated into the SS ecosystem recommends starting strength to anyone anymore - even if you want to focus on compound movements, it's just not a well put together program. Elite high school programs moved on, people training adults moved on, etc. It's just not good:

Very low volume per muscle for most muscles. It's just not anywhere near enough to grow at an efficient rate, and if we're talking about day to day functionality, you do not need to be lifting close to your 1RM max for CNS adaptations. Muscle growth + CNS adaptations is how you increase strength, and even powerlifters and olympic weightlifters have long since changed to having hypertrophy blocks in their periodization.

Huge frequency imbalance. You hammer squats, squats, squats, and more squats. Triceps is all incidental work. What bicep work? This plays into the volume - and volume near failure is king for muscle growth.

Fixed linear progression, no autoregulation. We know now that linear progression, reset on stall is just not the best way to progress in either strength or hypertrophy. RPE/RIR is king for everyone these days for a reason, as is progressive overload on multiple axis. Increase reps, increase weight, more rarely increase sets. Fixed rep ranges are just outright bad for both strength and hypertrophy. Even powerlifters who compete on 1RM spend a significant portion of their time in different rep ranges.

Stops well short of failure. Strength and muscle grow best when you work close to failure. It's not just a matter of "training hard" - your muscle receives most of the growth stimulus and your get most of your CNS adaptation when in that 0-3 RIR range.

And this is before you get into things you are likely to run into when being involved in SS that aren't program specific, but are Ripp specific - like his absurd hatred for trap bars for deadlifts. If we're talking functional strength, trap bar deadlifts are about as "functional" as it gets - who carries in their groceries with a barbell deadlift grip? When you carry heavy boxes, do you pick them up with an inward facing grip on opposite sides, or put both your hands under it on one side? Most people doing everyday things can save themselves tearing the shit out of their shins and get as much or more out of a trap bar deadlift.

Starting Strength and Ripp himself were gigantic boons to the world decades ago when all orts of people were afraid of picking up a barbell. Now, they're both stuck on a decades old understanding of how we build muscle and strength.

Acting like it's just aesthetics is an inaccurate representation of the position.

More hypertrophy, more muscle mass, better metabolic health. I'm not going to play up the whole "muscle burns more calories than fat" bit because the BMR difference is not huge unless you have literally years of training, but muscle mass is huge in preventing insulin resistance and diabetes.

Basically every muscle

I also never said don't do compound movements - I said a program that has more isolation movements in it than starting strength is going to be beneficial. I explicitly stated that bench, squat, and deadlift should be in every program, even!

This is one of those things that gets repeated all of the time yet there is actually zero real evidence out there that this is a thing. You'd see more injuries from people doing bodybuilding style lifting than others, and you just don't. Body-builders have plenty of compound lifts they perform that also have muscles that are strengthened by additional isolation work they do

- they all have leg extensions and leg curls in their rotation, and despite having "overdeveloped" their quads and hamstrings, they don't go rip their body in half when they squat or deadlift. Meta-analysis frequently show basically entirely similar injury rates between the two (Or, actually, higher for free weights - but because people drop the weights on themselves, lol)

Effect of free-weight vs. machine-based strength training on maximal strength, hypertrophy and jump performance – a systematic review and meta-analysis - BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation

Background The effectiveness of strength training with free-weight vs. machine equipment is heavily debated. Thus, the purpose of this meta-analysis was to summarize the data on the effect of free-weight versus machine-based strength training on maximal strength, jump height and hypertrophy...

bmcsportsscimedrehabil.biomedcentral.com

Like, your fundamental argument just isn't logical on all of this - compound lifts limit your injury risk because doing that lift is limited by the weakest muscle (This actually varies from untrue to gross oversimplification - the actual cap on any lift is joint torque in the toughest region of the lift for you. There's also A LOT of momentum in compound lifts), yet people doing the equivalent of compound lift in day-to-day life aren't limited by the weakest muscle and instead just injure themselves.

And we should look at what the most common type of lifting related injury is, in everyday life or otherwise, and what sort of training prevents it.

Myotendinous junction injuries are the most common - where the muscle and tendon meet. How do we strengthen this? Slow heavy reps with eccentric emphasis. You know what sort of movement is the exact opposite of this? The power clean.

Who said anything about 1.5 to 2 hours a day? I have a very overkill program that takes 20 to 24ish sets per workout across 7-8 different exercises each day and I still am in and out in roughly an hour. Most people will make great progression with far less.

I can guarantee you bodybuilders can pick up their 100lb kid from the floor to their chest without issue despite never doing a power clean. You sit here and talk about needing eccentric movement under load and are advocating for an exercise that has literally no eccentric.

There are specific issues with overhead presses that make them extremely injury prone. Many people cannot do them at heavy loads safely/without pain/etc. because of their anatomy. I sometimes have them in my rotation, particularly with dumbbells going to a very deep stretch, but I would never recommend a barbell OHP to anyone.

I'm impressed you managed to entirely misconstrue a post that is explicit about still keeping compound movements in but adding on additional isolation exercises that reach the aesthetic goals into somehow being just about aesthetics. My argument is SS is an outdated program with poor ideas underpinning it and that basically every program should have additional isolation exercises built in, particularly since it will increase overall muscle mass (health benefit) and physiques (aesthetic benefit). A significant portion of the post that you didn't even touch on also dealt entirely with training adaptations regardless of the lift involved.

I wish I was smart enough to understand any of that. It seemed pretty useful.

 

[desinr-gal]

We have good studies comparing men vs. women and they are pretty conclusive that women and men respond the same to training. Men make larger gains in absolute terms, but the relative improvement from baseline to finish is very similar.

Sex differences in absolute and relative changes in muscle size following resistance training in healthy adults: a systematic review with Bayesian meta-analysis - PMC

Muscle hypertrophy may be influenced by biological differences between males and females. This meta-analysis investigated absolute and relative changes in muscle size following resistance training (RT) between males and females and whether measures ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Sex Differences in Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PubMed

Roberts, BM, Nuckols, G, and Krieger, JW. Sex differences in resistance training: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res 34(5): 1448-1460, 2020-The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are different responses to resistance training for strength or hypertrophy...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I suspect a lot of this is that fitness and lifting in particular for women has been focused on very light weights for a nonsense number of reps where you are exercising but never really taxing your muscles. If you are getting 10-20 hard sets in a week at a weight that you take close to failure (muscle failure! Not your overall fatigue, cardio, nervous system fatigue, etc.) you will grow. I personally really like the 8-12 rep range. Some people go a bit lower. Some people go a bit higher.

The issue with high rep ranges is that it gets very difficult for people to tell when they're getting close to failure. People doing 30 to 50 rep sets just get their reps in reserve at way higher rates than people working at lower rep ranges. You just get tired, bored, uncomfortable from the repetitive motion, etc.

So moving to a lower rep range with heavier weights just makes it way likelier that you're going to end up working closer to failure than you were at high rep ranges.

HIIT in general just provides benefits that zone 2 cardio doesn't. Once you have built up a base of aerobic fitness that lets you start focusing more on HIIT, everyone should. But HIIT is also harder on the body and can interfere with other workouts - I perform worse on lifting days if I do HIIT, so when I'm being good about my cardio it's zone 2 on lifting days and HIIT on "rest" days. My understanding is the general science these days is very supportive of the idea that HIIT should be a tentpole portion of your aerobic exercise, and then ideally you fill in additional zone 2 so that you are getting more aerobic exercise in general.

What I said, was about older women specifically which I doubt are referenced in these studies? I havent read them yet. I assume That dr Sims who has spent her life studying it would know..

 

[andreigl]

Looking for help. I’m a 48 year old male. Been on tirz for a few months and I’m down 30 lbs. Feeling a lot better, but now I want to get back into the gym.

I used to do a lot of cardio, but for the past 3 years I’ve honestly been really lazy. As an adult I have never really done much resistance training. I have a chance to kind of start from scratch now and I want to build my exercise foundation around weight training instead of cardio.

How do I start? Can someone give me the basic lifts, rep counts, set counts, and how to combine it all? I feel really lost right now. Thanks for any input.

So, I'm 52. What you need is old guy weekly training plan. Forget the young guy hours in the gym every day plan.

And for old guys like us that only need the exercise for health reasons, 30 - 60 minutes per session is plenty. First you decide if you want 3x or 4x.

If 3x, that's MWF with rest days in between. And then you will probably need to exercise all your muscle groups. Use the heaviest weight you can complete a set.

Start with calf exercises - 1 set of 20, 30, 40 reps calf raises

thighs - 1 set of 20 reps squats

abdomen - 1 set of 30 reps crunches

chest - 1 or 2 sets of either 10 reps bench press or inclined bench press or dumbbell chest fly

back - 1 or 2 sets of either 10 reps rowing machine or lateral pull down

deltoids - 1 or 2 sets of military press or dumbbell shoulder press

trapezius - shrugs

biceps

triceps

done go home

If 4x a week, that's Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri. Just divide into two groups, the muscle groups above and add more sets. Usually I pair chest and legs and then back with upper body exercises the next day. If you feel getting strong, just increase the weight that you were using.

No need to spend too much time in the gym, avoid injuring yourself, you're old. Wolverine stack is also phenomenal.

 

[hexagonal]

What I said, was about older women specifically which I doubt are referenced in these studies? I havent read them yet. I assume That dr Sims who has spent her life studying it would know..

What biological mechanism do you believe happens with older women that causes them to stop responding to muscle growth stimulus the same way everyone else does at all stages of their life? We don't see other significant hormone changes resulting in different muscle growth stimulus being required - we just see it have less absolute effect vs. when they are more optimal.

Plenty of older women compete in natural bodybuilding and follow these same training methodologies and get results that put them at competition level. Enhanced, too, but we'll ignore them since the hypothesis seems to be some vague hormone related shift and they're using exogenous hormones.

You shouldn't trust me, but you also shouldn't trust social media influencers or people with a bunch of book deals just because they have a Dr. before their name, be it MD or PhD. Questioning scientific consensus is fine, and a key part of science in general, but that involves doing more science to find out the answer, not just stating other opinions. Is she doing studies for these claims? What do they say? How do they stack up to peer review? (For the record, she is a listed author on quite a few studies, and lead author on several.) She has direct financial incentive to promote an idea that stands out from the crowd - it's how she sells books, gets social media engagement, gets media spots, etc. Taking a quick perusal through ROAR, it looks like she provides no references for her claims - why doesn't she reference her studies?

But in regards to the studies, yes, one of the meta-analysis does cover older women in 31 separate studies.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/strength-training-women/ he breaks down a lot of the details in this blog post.

There is one study included that relates to the 'high load' vs 'low load' training in men vs. women, but it is one study, which is more a signal of 'more research needed' - single study results often fail to replicate. And, as noted in the article / a linked article off of that, there's really no reason anyone, men included, should be training at the rep ranges that are considered low load. 6-15 is the range most people live around for general muscle building, often a bit narrow like the 8-12 I tend to like. People with more strength/powerlifting focus often stay in 3-8.

Edit: For a bit of a additional context, other things that impact women's hormones including monthly cycles and birth control do not seem to significantly impact exercise performance in other meta-analysis either - any differences found were trivial.

The Effects of Menstrual Cycle Phase on Exercise Performance in Eumenorrheic Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PubMed

The results from this systematic review and meta-analysis indicate that exercise performance might be trivially reduced during the early follicular phase of the MC, compared to all other phases. Due to the trivial effect size, the large between-study variation and the number of poor-quality...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The Effects of Oral Contraceptives on Exercise Performance in Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis - PubMed

OCP use might result in slightly inferior exercise performance on average when compared to naturally menstruating women, although any group-level effect is most likely to be trivial. Practically, as effects tended to be trivial and variable across studies, the current evidence does not warrant...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Edit2: Another social media influencer PhD with stuff to sell you, and is also a PhD that actively works in research in this specific area https://www.instagram.com/drlaurencs1/

She seems to pretty actively take aim at a bunch of the claims Simms makes. Here's one with a bunch of referenced studies around rep range in peri/post-menopausal women:

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[desinr-gal]

What biological mechanism do you believe happens with older women that causes them to stop responding to muscle growth stimulus the same way everyone else does at all stages of their life? We don't see other significant hormone changes resulting in different muscle growth stimulus being required - we just see it have less absolute effect vs. when they are more optimal.

Plenty of older women compete in natural bodybuilding and follow these same training methodologies and get results that put them at competition level. Enhanced, too, but we'll ignore them since the hypothesis seems to be some vague hormone related shift and they're using exogenous hormones.

You shouldn't trust me, but you also shouldn't trust social media influencers or people with a bunch of book deals just because they have a Dr. before their name, but it MD or PhD. What studies is she basing her recommendations on - if they don't exist, how does anyone know that what she is saying is anything more than anecdotes? She has direct financial incentive to promote an idea that stands out from the crowd - it's how she sells books, gets social media engagement, gets media spots, etc. Taking a quick perusal through ROAR, it looks like she provides no references for her claims.

But in regards to the studies, yes, one of the meta-analysis does cover older women in 31 separate studies.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/strength-training-women/ he breaks down a lot of the details in this blog post.

There is one study included that relates to the 'high load' vs 'low load' training in men vs. women, but it is one study, which is more a signal of 'more research needed' - single study results often fail to replicate. And, as noted in the article / a linked article off of that, there's really no reason anyone, men included, should be training at the rep ranges that are considered low load. 6-15 is the range most people live around for general muscle building, often a bit narrow like the 8-12 I tend to like. People with more strength/powerlifting focus often stay in 3-8.

Watch a Stacy Sims Ted talk or video, there is a good one with Andrew Huberman.

I cant be trusted to remember everything she goes into in detail correctly. Basically The decline in estrogen and other hormone disruptions leads to an over excretion of cortisol. A lack of *adequate protein consumption, combined with longer cardio sessions or too many reps while strength training leads to a catabolism of muscles. So when pre, meno, and post meno women follow established norms in workouts i.e. long zone 2 cardio, and lots of weight reps, they trigger cortisol and catabolism, so these women lose muscle mass, gain more fat and are more fatigued.

She says only short light cardio, and very short bursts or sprints at 90-100% max will drive fat loss, If combined with well timed and adeqaute protein consumption, as well as strength training with heavy weight. Heavy being fatigue at 3-7 reps. She also recommends Plyo exercises with jumps, to strengthen bones.

*adequate is a Lot. like 40g per meal starting within 1/2 hour of waking to stave off am cortisol surge.

 

[hexagonal]

Watch a Stacy Sims Ted talk or video, there is a good one with Andrew Huberman.

I cant be trusted to remember everything she goes into in detail correctly. Basically The decline in estrogen and other hormone disruptions leads to an over excretion of cortisol. A lack of *adequate protein consumption, combined with longer cardio sessions or too many reps while strength training leads to a catabolism of muscles. So when pre, meno, and post meno women follow established norms in workouts i.e. long zone 2 cardio, and lots of weight reps, they trigger cortisol and catabolism, so these women lose muscle mass, gain more fat and are more fatigued.

She says only short light cardio, and very short bursts or sprints at 90-100% max will drive fat loss, If combined with well timed and adeqaute protein consumption, as well as strength training with heavy weight. Heavy being fatigue at 3-7 reps. She also recommends Plyo exercises with jumps, to strengthen bones.

*adequate is a Lot. like 40g per meal starting within 1/2 hour of waking to stave off am cortisol surge.

None of us should be interested in podcast appearances and similar for anything more than entertainment value and to potentially point us towards things to learn about - we want actual science. People go on Huberman and say all sorts of nonsense all the time, same thing with Attia, etc.

Random controlled trials on humans are how we figure out what actually happens, with large scale observational studies helping us shore things up when an RCT isn't appropriate.

We also need to define terms - what are "long" zone 2 cardio sessions? HIIT itself is a significant spike in cortisol - is the claim that 30 minutes of zone 2 is going to cause more cortisol than that? 60? 90? Cortisol increases for weight lifting are transient in much the same way that they are for HIIT - why is it fine there and not for lifting?

I'll confess I'm skeptical of this idea that cortisol is such a bugbear to begin with - it's important to quite a few bodily functions and these spikes and dips serve a purpose. It's not like men don't also have cortisol spikes in the morning - that's the natural rhythm here. And between-person spread differences in cortisol levels dwarf the differences at an individual level going through menopause.

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Standard deviation for participants was larger than the between late reproductive to postmenopausal level differences.

https://midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/1562.pdf

Here, across nearly 20k participants, they found that after early childhood women actually have higher cortisol levels than men, equalizing in the 30s, and men pulling ahead in the 40s and beyond. If older men are at a higher baseline cortisol level, and cortisol is one of the primary drivers here, wouldn't it be even more important for them to manage cortisol? But again, individual variability is larger than these factors.

Jumping does not seem to have robust science supporting it for older women increasing bone density. Another PhD researcher with her own incentives for you to listen to her, so trust as you will:

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All of these people have stuff they want to sell you, but some specific counterpoints to Sims from another PhD researcher in this area:

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Studies in women over 40 seem to strongly suggest women grow the same regardless of low rep vs high rep when proximity to failure equated:

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In more disparate cohorts, no age detected difference either:

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Mechanistic studies are great to point us in directions of things and help us build a hypothesis, or as a potential explanation for results in an RCT or observational study. But when those mechanistic studies in animals just do not match the reality in human RCTs, personally, I worry a lot more about the RCT results than I do looking at what happened in rodents.

I'm just some asshole on an internet forum with google scholar and an inflated opinion of my own intelligence and ability to comprehend studies - but Sims seems like a grifter to me.

 

[desinr-gal]

Dr. Stacy Sims holds the following credentials:

PhD in Environmental Exercise Physiology: University of Otago, New Zealand

MS in Exercise Physiology and Metabolism: Springfield College

BA in Movement and Sport Sciences: Purdue University

Just curious; what are yours?

 

[Morbius]

Very interesting stuff, thanks @hexagonal.

The biggest lesson for me was the concept of working up to a few Reps In Reserve (I had to look up RIR). In the past I had always been taught that "to failure" was the standard.

The discussion about what kind of exercises, weights vs machines etc. is interesting but also not very relevant to me -- I have a machine and either I use that machine, or I don't lift at all. I've done free weights in the past and I just don't like it, and even if I did I don't want to carve out the extra time to go to a gym. Using a machine is the right compromise for me at this point.

 

[hexagonal]

Very interesting stuff, thanks @hexagonal .

The biggest lesson for me was the concept of working up to a few Reps In Reserve (I had to look up RIR). In the past I had always been taught that "to failure" was the standard.

The discussion about what kind of exercises, weights vs machines etc. is interesting but also not very relevant to me -- I have a machine and either I use that machine, or I don't lift at all. I've done free weights in the past and I just don't like it, and even if I did I don't want to carve out the extra time to go to a gym. Using a machine is the right compromise for me at this point.

The good news is, you're probably not missing out on anything, re: Machines!

Effect of free-weight vs. machine-based strength training on maximal strength, hypertrophy and jump performance - a systematic review and meta-analysis - PubMed

No differences were detected in the direct comparison of strength, jump performance and muscle hypertrophy. Current body of evidence indicates that strength changes are specific to the training modality, and the choice between free-weights and machines are down to individual preferences and goals.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Going to failure is still beneficial in that some studies have looked at how good we are at estimating how close to failure we are, and while the answer is "better than you would probably expect," we still do better when we calibrate periodically, particularly outside of controlled settings. There's some exercises I take to failure regularly just because they're very safe to do so, others I only take to failure once every few weeks to re-calibrate my RIR, and some that I just don't feel safe taking to failure without a spotter and thus don't get taken to failure regularly. I lift with friends most days, but we're all trying to get in and out of the workout and I don't want to regularly impose.

Dr. Stacy Sims holds the following credentials:

PhD in Environmental Exercise Physiology: University of Otago, New Zealand

MS in Exercise Physiology and Metabolism: Springfield College

BA in Movement and Sport Sciences: Purdue University

Just curious; what are yours?

As I explicitly stated: I'm just an asshole on an internet forum.

But the people I've referenced have PhD's as well!

Tony Boutagy, PhD in Exercise and Sports Science from Charles Darwin University, Australia

Lauren Colenso-Semply, PhD in Muscle Physiology & Endocrinology, McMaster University, Canada

Eric Trexler, PhD in Human Movement Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

If we're in an argument from authority standoff, it seems that Sims has quite a few PhDs that specialize in this area that disagree with her so I can name a bunch more.

www.flippingfifty.com/truth-about-muscle-and-menopause

Stuart Phillips, PhD in Physiology, University of Waterloo, Canada

Boutagy in specific seems to have made it a bit of a crusade to gather up experts in this area to fight back on Sims' claims. Some of the previously mentioned PhDs here, some ones:

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Tommy Lundberg, PhD in Sports and Exercise, Mid Sweden University, Sweden is another interesting one - he's a full time researcher and professor at the Karolinska Institutet, which you might know as the institution that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He also spoke with Boutagy about this specific subject:

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During the interview he speaks about research the Karolinska Institutet studying both men and women from age 16 to 68.

Sims whole thing seems to be suggesting that exercise science just isn't done on peri and post menopausal women, and while it is certainly smaller in volume, this claim just doesn't seem to be true. I referenced multiple dozens of studies already via meta-analysis, multiple large RCTs and observational studies, etc. that all directly contradict her claims. I linked quite a few references with interpretations from PhDs in the prior post - but no engagement on them from you besides asking for my qualifications. If I need qualifications to reference experts and studies, what about you? Should we both just stop posting until we have PhDs ourselves?

 

[LeadFitz]

I dont know about you all but I learned a heck a lot reading this thread! Well done @hexagonal and @desinr-gal for the civil debate. Refreshing to see and read.

 

[Airborne Daddy]

I wish I was smart enough to understand any of that. It seemed pretty useful.

Same. I just lift bruh. Doesn't hafta be fancy. Sometimes I only get 20 minutes in. Sometimes I make it 3 or 4 times a week and sometimes once.