That said i'm very sad by the abscence of likes. What dopamine rush can i hope to get by contributing to your database :( ?
Or at least comments.
Total time investment? 30 minutes, 3 times per week.
My entire physique has changed, including greatly increased muscle mass, energy levels, and stamina to do whatever physical activity. I've also dropped 30 pounds and have completely eliminated back problems.
If you're willing to monitor your diet a bit and stick to the program, then you'll truly see amazing gains in a year.
One thing to note as with all lifting especially squats, depending on age, DOMS may be severe. The program starts as light as possible but even that may be too much. If starting from a very sedentary lifestyle it's probably best to start with a couple of weeks of cardio and light movement before lifting.
The short answer is that each movement is a whole body movement, using kettle bells, slam balls, or barbells.
Almost every workout is a "super set" which means I either go back and forth between the 2 several times, or go down a line doing 3-4 movements.
I almost never rest more than 2 minutes between sets (big timer on the wall). Sometimes after a very hard set I might rest 3 but that's rare.
I can see this will be too much for a comment so I'm going to write this up. Thanks for the interest!
don't like the idea, use the idea!
Granted, if you're a beginner, there are much quicker programs (since noob gains are a very real thing), but 5/3/1 is a very simple program to follow, can be repeated for an extremely long time, and isn't very intense stress on the body. I increased my lifts pretty drastically over 2 years, but it felt incredibly slow/gradual - until I looked back over my increases from 2 years prior.
What is a core lift? Parallel squat? Standing shoulder press? Do I need equipment for this stuff? If I do require gear what do I need to get, how do I choose, what’s minimal? What is a safe way to find my “max lift”?
Etc.
I would find it useful if these kinds of workouts were prefaced with their end-goal in mind: general wellness? To bulk specific areas? To maximize real strength? To have trim and endurance strength? To increase resting metabolic burn?
Personally, I want to lose body fat, decrease body aches/pains, and make my brain sharper with minimal investment of time. I know strength training is a key component of this goal. But that’s about it. When I look into strength training, it often seems the advice is focused on strength enthusiasts, which is not me.
Older newbie dripping my toe into the water, I’ll listen!
In terms of barbell-oriented strength programs, 5/3/1 is a good program to do after you've mastered the basics and started to plateau with something like Starting Strength [0] or Stronglifts 5x5 [1]. Those two programs take advantage of the linear gains that are possible for people in their first year of training, and 5/3/1 is a methodical approach to continuing to improve strength when simply adding 5lbs to the bar every workout stops working.
Starting Strength is a great book for understanding the principles and benefits of barbell lifting (and the videos from the old DVD are very good). The introductory essay is considered to be one of the best summations of strength training and its benefits. A lot of people believe that they aren't interested in strength training because they don't feel attracted to the extreme manifestations of the sport, but then discover that it delivers mental health and brain sharpening benefits in ways that they didn't expect.
All of the programs I mentioned are built around the core barbell lifts, which are squat, deadlift, shoulder press, bench press, cleans, and rows.
Core lifts: Bench press, Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press. Some people choose a different set of lifts.
The 531 thing means week one you do 3 sets of 5 on the core lift, week two you do 3 sets of 3, week three you do a set of 5, a set of 3, and a set of 1. Week four is deload, you do lighter weight for three sets of five. In all cases (except deload) the last set is actually for "AMRAP" i.e. as many reps as possible.
Ultimately weightlifting is not a modern science, it is an ancient practice akin to meditation or running or martial arts. There is ongoing research to optimize it but nobody here is going to the league and for us the most important thing is to show up consistently and track progress. The most impactful thing I ever did for my lifting was to create a spreadsheet I could update from my phone and write down how much I lifted and how many reps every time I went to the gym. I do something like this:
|Bench
-----------------------------
1/22/2021 |135, 135, 145
|5, 5, 5
Oh and stay away from planet fitness, that's not a gym[2]. Their business model is based on appealing to people who don't work out. You want to work out, go somewhere else.
[1]: http://www.anasci.org/ebooks/531%20by%20Jim%20Wendler.pdf [2]: https://www.facebook.com/planetfitness/videos/were-not-a-gym...
That said, while I'm able to generally sprint things quite well, my strength was always suffering as it's not a primary focus, so I do 5/3/1 alongside it and it works very well. I've definitely seen steady gains coming from it, and because of the low volume it's really sustainable.