Grab and go programs
How to read our programs
Click the banner to download the program of your choice below.
This program is broken into three workouts on basic fundamentals, like the squat, hip hinge, push, and pull. At the same time, learning how to brace your core and exercise effectively. Each workout has upper and lower body exercises, preventing a lot of fatigue. The exercises can be made easier or harder depending on your level and progress.
Each exercise should be performed slowly as you get used to it. As you become better at them, try to add range to the movements, going deeper before adding weight.
This program is written to be followed in a linear fashion, completing one exercise before moving on to the next, which makes it easier to focus on your mind-muscle connection and learn the exercises, as you only have to concentrate on one at a time.
And please remember to practice perfect techniques to move forward. Wait to add weight until your body is ready.
This program is broken into three workouts on basic fundamentals like the Squat, hip hinge, push, and pull. At the same time, learning how to brace your core and exercise effectively. Each workout has upper and lower body exercises preventing much fatigue. The exercises can be made easier or harder depending on your level and progress.
Each exercise should be performed slowly as you get used to them. As you become better at them, try to add range to the movements, going deeper before adding weight.
Because this workout routine is broken into supersets, it can be done in pairs where one person does exercise A and another exercises B before swapping.
And please remember to practice perfect techniques to move forward. Don't add weight until your body is ready.
After lifting weights for a while, you should progress to a harder workout routine. This route is a classic 3-day Push, Pull, Legs split. On one day, you do pulling movements. On another day, you will perform your push movements and on another, your legs. This will make sure that each muscle group is worked during your week.
One of the good things about PPL is that you can program them to your goal. This means you can follow the split regardless of whether you're training for strength, hypertrophy, general fitness, or athletic training. You can alter the scheduling and workouts to reflect your specific goals.
If you want serious results with this program, there is only 1 schedule that will fit into a week, option 2.
This program is broken into either an upper body day or a lower body day. This is a good program to choose if you have two or more days to train a week or want to keep your body strong while working on another main goal, like running.
The upper body day includes exercises for the chest, back, shoulders, and arms, while the lower body day includes exercises for the legs and glutes. In general, the workout programs aim to train most of the major muscle groups each week to promote overall strength and development
Because it is only a two-day program, there are so many options for scheduling.
This program is broken into two upper-body days and two lower-body days. This is a good program to choose if you can commit to four days a week in the gym.
The upper body day includes exercises for the chest, back, shoulders, and arms, while the lower body day includes exercises for the legs and glutes. The workout programs aim to train most major muscle groups weekly to promote overall strength and size.
Because it is a four-day program, there are limited options for scheduling, but not too limiting.
This program is broken into a lower-body strength day, an upper-body strength day, a lower-body hypertrophy day and an upper-body hypertrophy day. This is a good program to choose if you have two or more days to train a week and want a mix of strength and size. This program is also good if your goal is general fitness, as it works a number of different types of fitness.
The workout programs aim to train most of the major muscle groups each week to promote overall strength and size.
Because it is a four-day program, there are limited options for scheduling, but not too limiting.
This program is A 2-day, and a 3-day split joined together to make a 5-day split. It is broken into an upper body and lower body day followed by a push day, a pull day and a leg day. This program is designed to provide maximum muscle stimulation by targeting different muscle groups across five training days. However, because it is a 5-day program, there are limited options for scheduling so make sure that you can commit to the time required to follow this program.
The Starting Strength Program
The Starting Strength Novice Program can be broken down into two workout days, Day A and Day B. The entire body is worked in each session. As the trainee progresses through the program, Days A and B are slightly modified to consider the adaptations in the lifter's body.
General Notes
The goal of this program is to add weight each and every time you lift, taking advantage of The Novice Effect that allows you to do so. Perform the program on a 3-day-per-week schedule, on non-consecutive days, i.e. Mon/Wed/Fri, Tues/Thurs/Sat or similar.
Most healthy men between 18 and 35 or 40 can add 4KGs to the squat the first 2-3 times it’s performed, 6-9 KGs to the deadlift the first couple times, and 4 KGs the next several times it’s performed. After that, jumps become 2.5 KGs per workout. For the press, bench press, and power clean, you may get one 4 KG jump, but you may need to start with 2.5 KG jumps. Later on, you’ll move to smaller jumps for these lifts when 2.5 KG becomes too much to add to every workout. The pattern is similar for females and older lifters but with smaller increases.
Once you’re into Phase 3 and doing chin-ups as part of the program, some of you will progress to weighted chin-ups. If you can perform 3 sets of 10 reps at bodyweight, you can do every other chin-up workout as a 3 sets of 5 weighted while continuing to do 3 sets of bodyweight chins to fatigue on your alternate chin-up days.
Phase 1 Notes
In this initial phase, workouts A and B are the same, except that the press and bench press alternate. So if you began the program on Monday and pressed, you’ll bench press Wednesday and press again Friday. The second week, you’ll bench press Monday and Friday and press on Wednesday.
At the end of this phase, if you’re in that 18-35 healthy male demographic, your squat should be 40-50 lbs higher than it started, your deadlift should be 50-70 lbs higher than it started, and your press and bench press each 15-20lbs higher than they started.
Most women (and men over 35 or 40) will begin with smaller jumps – perhaps a single 10 lb jump in the squat, two or three 10 lb jumps in the deadlift, and immediate 5 lb jumps in the other exercises – then proceed to 2.5 lb or smaller incremental increases in some movements sooner.
There is no single prescription for everyone, so common sense and paying attention to how your body responds to the increased weight are your best guides here.
Phase 2 Notes
In this phase, we introduce the power clean. Your deadlift is now heavy enough that doing it 3 days per week is difficult to recover from. You’ll do deadlifts on Day A as before, and do 5 sets of 3 reps in the power clean on Day B. The explosive nature of the Power Clean will continue to help drive up your deadlift, without the excessive fatigue associated with high frequency deadlifting.
Phase 2’s length is variable, from several weeks to several months, depending on the individual
Phase 3 Notes
At this point you’ve become strong enough to pull enough weight that we limit deadlift and cleaning frequency. Each is alternated on Day A, while chin-ups are performed on Day B. So if you deadlift on Monday, you’ll do chins on Wednesday, power cleans Friday, chins (or weighted chins, see General Notes above) on Monday, and deadlift again Wednesday. This allows adequate recovery.
Phase 3 is also often where people often need to begin micro-load their pressing movements and cleans, adding weight in 2.5lb or smaller increments to continue linear progress.
Finally, Phase 3 is also often where people reach the “Advanced Novice” stage, and add weight to their squats only twice per week (i.e. Monday and Friday), while using Wednesday as a lighter recovery day for squats.
Introduction to the Wendler 5/3/1 Routine
Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 is all about starting with very light weights while progressing slowly and consistently. This extremely popular strength training program is based off of the rep schemes 5, 3, 1, as the name suggests. Throughout the routine you will work with percentages based off of your max, and strive to hit rep PR’s each workout.
Is Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 for you?
5/3/1 can be used for all experience levels, but is generally recommended for intermediate athletes. If you are looking for short training sessions, and slow but steady progress, then 5/3/1/ might be great for you. Jim believes starting light allows a lifter more room to progress forward.
Brand new lifters are usually able to progress more quickly from a beginner routine due to practicing the lifts more frequently. Advanced lifters can benefit from its long term training focus.
Wendler 5/3/1 Explained
5/3/1 is built around cycles. Each cycle consists of 4 weeks. Each week you will be training either 3 or 4 days per week. Four days per week is ideal. Each day should be focused around one core lift. These lifts are Military Press, Deadlift, Bench Press, and Squat. If you decide to run this program on three days per week, you will still only perform one main lift per day. This means you will not perform the same lifts, on the same day, each week. You must perform all four lifts before repeating.
You will have rep-set goals for all of the major lifts each week.
Week 1: 2 sets of 5 reps 1 sets of 5 reps+
Week 2: 2 sets of 3 reps, 1 sets of 3 reps+
Week 3: 1 set of 5 reps, 1 set of 3 reps, and 1 set of 1 rep+
Week 4: Deloading (3 sets of 5 reps)
Once the cycle (4 weeks) is completed you will start your next cycle using heavier weights.
You may notice the last set shows 5+, 3+, and 1+. During these sets you will be going for as many reps as possible. You do not want to go to failure, but your goal should be a new rep record each workout.
Let’s go over an example. We’ll go ahead and choose the deadlift as our lift.
1RM = 200KG
90% = 180 KG
Assistance Work
You may perform assistance exercises alongside 5/3/1. But remember these are for assistance and should not take away from your main lifts. There are several different ways you can include assistance exercises into your 5/3/1 routine. Examples are as follows:
Boring But Big –
After performing your prescribed working sets and reps follow them up with 5 sets of 10 reps of the same exercise. This is the most popular of the choices.
The Triumvirate –
You want to limit each workout to only 3 exercises, including the main lift. Only 2 lifts will be assistance exercises. You will need to experiment and figure out which exercises are the most beneficial for you.
Dave Tate’s Periodization Bible –
Specific exercises are mentioned in Jim Wendler’s book. This was inspired by an article Dave Tate wrote.
I’m Not Doing Jack Shit –
You do not perform any assistance work. You go to the gym to perform your main lifts, and that’s it. This is not recommended, unless you have limited time.
Bodyweight –
Here you will perform all assistance exercises using your bodyweight. It is recommended that you do a minimum of 75 reps per exercise
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Privicy
THE HEAVY STUFF
CHILDREN
COMPLAINTS PROCESS
© Copyrights by IGNITE YOUR FITNESS. All Rights Reseved 2021.