Most weightlifting programs these days have people working out in the gym for long periods of time, anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. They instruct people to do 8 to 15 exercises and to do at least three sets of 8 to 15 repetitions, sometimes more.

Supposedly, these routines are designed to make a person stronger and more muscular. Really, though, they make people big, sore and tired, and they take far too much time out of a person’s day. People with busy schedules don’t even start such programs, because they can’t make the time commitment.

Really, though, if your goal is to increase your strength, you don’t need to spend more than 15 minutes working out each day. With the routine I’m going to share with you in just a minute, you can squeeze in your workout before taking your shower each morning.

That will give you the added benefits of waking you up faster and jump starting your metabolism for the day. The jump start to your metabolism will help you burn more calories all day long and help you reach any fat loss goals you may have—as long as you don’t eat more than you usually do.

Remember to get an OK from your doctor before starting any exercise program, especially if you’re not currently in the habit of exercising or have a family history of health problems. This is an advanced program for experienced athletes/exercisers who want to develop serious strength. Working with heavy weights carries a risk of injury if you don’t take proper precautions or you don’t know what you are doing. The authors/publishers disclaim all liability for anyone interested in pursuing this program.

Strength Training Program

This program does two things to increase your strength. First, it trains your nervous system to signal more muscle fibers to contract. There are a lot of muscle fibers in your body that you don’t even use, because you aren’t in the habit of requiring their power so the nervous system doesn’t signal them to contract.

Secondly, this program exercises your muscles in a way that causes them to grow more myofilaments in each fiber. Myofilaments are microscopic filaments that use a ratchet-like mechanism to produce contractions—they are the real source of strength. Bodybuilding programs, which this is not, typically cause your muscles to grow more of the fluid and non-contracting parts of muscle fibers than the myofilaments that produce strength, so you get big muscles without their full strength potential.

This program achieves the goal of getting stronger by having you lift a lot of weight just a few times and allowing you to get lots of rest in between, similar to Olympic powerlifting routines. This will cause your muscles to grow stronger and adapt to the additional weight load.

Long rests between sets (most bodybuilding programs call for short rest periods in order to exhaust the muscles) allows the nervous system to recuperate between sets, which helps your muscles be equally strong for the next set. You will only do four exercises for two sets of five repetitions each. That’s it.

Though it’s different than most weightlifting programs in the popular exercise magazines, athletes who are after raw strength have been using routines similar to this since the early days of circus strongmen, like Arthur Saxon who was able to press 150 pounds overhead with one hand.

The Routine

Your daily routine will look like this:

• Upper body pull exercise x 5 repetitions
• Lower body exercise x 5 repetitions
• Upper body push exercise x 5 repetitions
• Sit ups x 5 repetitions
• Rest for 3 to 5 minutes
• Same upper body pull exercise x 5 repetitions
• Same lower body exercise x 5 repetitions
• Same upper body push exercise x 5 repetitions
• Sit ups x 5 repetitions

Rest as little as possible between exercises, except where indicated. Ideally, you should not rest at all except for the designated rest period. Make sure you warm up thoroughly before beginning your routine.

You can warm up with bodyweight squats, jumping jacks, windmills, jogging in place, etc. Warm up, but do not exhaust yourself or your strength will be less than it could be.

Selecting Exercises

The exercises you choose must be compound exercises that work many muscles of many joints at a time. No leg extensions, leg curls, arms curls, triceps extensions or deltoid flys. Those exercises work only a few isolated muscles at a time.

Here are some good exercises to choose from:

Lower body:
Front squats, back squats, hack squats, deadlifts, lunges (if you choose lunges, make sure you do both legs for 5 reps in each set)

Upper body pull:
Chin ups, pull ups, bent over rows, upright rows, one-arm dumbbell rows (do a set with each arm), pull-overs

Upper body push:
Bench press, side press, parallel bar dips

A really good combination for folks that workout at home with a barbell and bench is to do front squats, bench press and bent-over rows. Because it takes a lot less weight to get a good workout with front squats than it does with back squats or deadlifts, the weights for each exercise will be pretty similar and you don’t have to spend a lot of time changing weights from one exercise to the next.

And since front squats don’t require you to get your whole body under the bar, you can keep the barbell racked in the bench press and lift it right into position on your chest—no need for a big squat rack.

For sit-ups, do them with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Do not hook your feet under anything, because doing so will reduce the amount of strength that is required from your abdominal muscles. Make sure you do slow, full sit-ups. Don’t do crunches and don’t do them fast so that momentum helps you.

If you get to the point where you can do 5 sit-ups easily, hold a 5-pound barbell plate or other weight on your chest or behind your head. You can do the same for chin-ups and pull-ups when they become easy, just hang the weight from your belt or shoulders, or grip it between your feet. I sometimes throw a couple of barbell plates in a back pack and put the backpack on to do chins—probably works for pushups too.

Start Slow and Work Your Way Up

For the first week, use a weight with which you can do five repetitions fairly easy. Increase the weight by five or ten pounds every couple of days for upper body exercises and by 15 to 20 pounds for lower body exercises. When you reach a weight that is too heavy to lift five times, take a couple days off and start again at a weight that is just a few pounds heavier than you originally started with.

This cycling from light weights to heavy weights and back again, gives your body an opportunity to recover and grow after several days of heavy lifting, while still lifting enough to cause your body to adapt to a rigorous workout.

When I first started lifting in cycles, the most I could lift for 5 repetitions was 265 to 275 pounds. After a couple of months, 265 became my starting weight. Your growth rate will depend on your current fitness level and your weightlifting experience.

Below is an example of how this might work. The actual weight you’ll use is likely to be different than this, depending on your fitness level and weightlifting experience.

As I stated above, start out with a relatively light weight and work your way up to heavier weights to accustom your body to the program. A beginner may want to start with as little as 30 pounds on the bench press, and 50 pounds on the back squat, where an experienced athlete might start with more weight than I’ve listed below.

Also, remember to adjust the exercise weights accordingly based on your size, weight, and body type!

In this example, each cycle comes to an end at the same time. This is unlikely to happen in your workout. You will likely reach the end of your upper body cycle faster than your lower body cycle. In this case, you can do one of three things:

1) Take two days of rest on all exercises and start the cycles again together

2) Take two days of rest on the exercise in which you’ve reach the end of a cycle and keep going with the other two exercises.

3) Take two days of rest on all exercises, but only start a new cycle with the exercise whose cycle has ended and pick up the other two where you left off.

The first five days or so of your workout will not feel like a workout. It will feel too easy. That’s OK, you’re body goes through an adaptation period during that time to get used to the new level of exercise. The end of a cycle will seem difficult, because you are lifting a lot of weight several days in a row. Because you aren’t doing a lot of reps of any exercise, you should never feel really sore or fatigued the next day. If you do, or find you don’t have the strength to complete a workout, take a day off and pick up again where you left off.

About the author - John E. Fike is a professional writer specializing in health and fitness writing and marketing copy. With more than 8 years of professional writing experience, John can provide you with the custom e-books, articles and marketing copy you need to grow your business. Contact him today by emailing john[at]proclaimstudios.com or go online to www.johnefike.com.

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