How I would start a beginner lifter out

Was thinking lately about how I would try and take a beginner lifter and get them onto an intermediate level.  Maybe because it's been interesting to think about, what if I was a personal trainer of some sort?  I'm using the word personal trainer because that's what usually buzzes around when talking about "coaching" at gyms, although my idea of a PT is more like a person who hands housewives their 5 pound dumbbells so they can do some tricep kickbacks 30 times and just get joint pain.  But I'm obviously biased.  Anyways.  But yeah, it's been cool to think about, if an athlete coming to me just wanted to get stronger, what would I have them do?  What would I focus them on?  

Pillars of Training

First off, I'd probably tell them about the pillars of training, just to give them a more clear idea of what everything's going to fall into.  And the name of the game is essentially progressive overload, and the pillars would be 

1. Stress,

2. Recovery, and

3. Adaptation.  

So the main teaching point would be that any sort of training is stress.  To tell the body that this is the sort of stress it needs to withstand.  

Recovery is just recovery, and mainly it's eating and sleeping.  So that's where the talk about diet's going to come up, and obviously sleep.  

And finally there's adaptation, which is basically just the body adapting to the stress you put on it before, and thanks to how you recovered, the body was able to adapt to withstand the same stress better in the future.  

Writing this all down, it sounds pretty simple.  Almost too simple to the point that it almost seems pointless to note.  But I think it's crucial to make this framework that simple.  Because training can be that simple.  For all the information out there about how to get the perfect biceps/triceps/huge ass chest or whatever, this is really what it comes down to.  And when my athlete comes up to me and is all like, help I'm not getting any stronger, it's a good starting point to just say okay, we need to focus on stress and recovery.  Train harder, eat more, sleep more.  

Beginner Phase

In this phase, the athlete's probably not done any barbell work at all.  I think at this point, whatever the athlete's goal is besides getting strong (running faster, jumping higher, etc...), the priority is on getting the lifter used to the main movements.  

Program

I'd probably have them do the Greg Nuckols beginner program.  It's essentially linear progression (as all beginner workouts should be), but unlike say Starting Strength, it's not linear progression on a daily basis, exactly, but rather on a weekly basis.  

It's probably easier to just explain the program's numbers.  So for the squat workout, if you squat 3x a week (which I'd like my athlete to do ideally), your first day is 3 sets of 8, next day 3 sets of 6, final day 3 sets of 4.  Except on the last set, you do as many reps as possible.  And based on how many reps you were able to do on that last set, you determine your working weight for next week's workout.  So for example, if I were working at 135lb for sets of 8, and on the final set I was able to do 10, I think it was something like a 10 lb jump for next week, so you'd be doing sets of 8 at 145lb.  And you'd do that every week.  

I prefer this program over the usual Starting Strength-esque program (3x5, 5x5) for a couple of reasons:

• Variety of rep ranges.  It helps to make the exercises more fun rather than the same 5 rep sets every single day.  But also, I think it's really important for beginner lifters to be exposed to different rep ranges to know the different types of stress.  Like you would feel more winded during the high rep sets, and you'd be able to experience how that makes the squats difficult.  Similarly, going down to 4 rep sets is a real test to see how much force you can actually exert.  It also is a good starting point to be exposed to heavier weights, and to think more about mechanical efficiency.
  
  (I relate heavily to this point on different rep ranges because I feel like that was what made me stuck when I first started lifting.  My program was a lot of high rep things, and it wasn't until later when I did my own program and was doing less reps that I realized things about ways my squats could move more efficiently.  Similarly, when I did higher rep ranges I became more conscious of how I was moving to exert more speed, which I wasn't doing at low rep ranges and wanted to replicate more when I was doing them.  There are different things you realize at different rep ranges)
  
  
• Weekly linear progression.  Even though beginner lifters are probably more than capable of daily linear progression, I liked the idea of sticking to a weekly LP.  Mostly because, well LP ends quickly anyways so there's no real point in rushing it.  Rushing too quickly can result in bigger chance of form breakdown, which can always be fixed later on but isn't too ideal.  Similarly, with Starting Strength I think it was something like add 5 lb's each session, or 10 lb's each session, or something like that, regardless of how well you did with the current weight.  So I think Greg's program is nice in that you can know exactly how much to add next session based exactly on your numbers.  Which is exactly why I like...
  
  
• The last sets for max reps.  It's a great way to get the lifter to push their limits, and really feel like they got a workout going, which is huge motivation wise.  But as I mentioned before, it's also a great way to know exactly how much more weight to add next session.  So it raises motivation and requires less decision making by the user, which makes it a great program for beginners in my mind.  

So I'd probably have them do this program for a while.  As a trainer I'd probably check in with them about stuff like form, maybe some pains (most likely due to poor mobility), stuff like that.  But mostly I'd leave the trainee alone to just do the exercises.  

I would tell them to let me know if they feel the weight is getting way too heavy to do linear progression.  It would probably be intuitive enough for them to know when time's up, but if I had to set a rule I'd say something, if they fail to progress weight for a certain rep range 2 weeks in a row.  

Intermediate Phase (and probably onward)

So when the lifter stalls on LP, they'll move onto this stage.  Here's what I would most likely focus on in this phase:

• Technique/ consciousness of the movements.  The thing about moving weights that may be too heavy is that technique probably suffers.  Pushing harder and harder every week starts to not become the solution to lifting bigger; instead it becomes more important to be conscious of each part of each movement.  Do I bend over too forward when doing a squat, because I don't feel confident in using my quads?  Am I bouncing the bar off my chest in the bench press and pressing my shoulders towards the bar, instead of keeping the shoulders locked in place with the scapula held tightly back?  Things like that.  So it sometimes means the lifter has to use less weight as their working weights.  It sucks and it hurts the ego.  But the more the lifter can use this time to really focus on great form, the better their progress will be after this bump.  
• More sets.  So when you think about it, training is a pretty simple equation.  It's just multiplying number of sets, number of reps per set, and the working weights of each set.  (Of course there's other things like rest time in the equation but just trying to keep it simple).  So, how do we get the lifter to experience adequate stress to get the progressive overload they need to get stronger, if they can't increase their working weights as frequently as they did before?  The answer is to increase sets or reps.  But if you want to keep lifting heavy, the reps have to stay low.  Ergo, the sets have to increase for the lifter to get a better stimulus from working with heavy weights at low reps.  

So in terms of what program to use, I'd recommend the Bridge Program.  In terms of Intermediate programs I've actually really only done two: Greg Nuckols' program, and the Bridge.  So I'm probably biased, and I'm not saying you have to do the Bridge to get results, of course not.  But here's what I liked about the Bridge that I'd like to see in a intermediate program:

• RPE based.  I like RPE because it's a good way for the lifter to know just how hard each set is supposed to be.  It's also a good way for the lifter to figure out that they don't have to feel absolutely dead after every workout to see results (this is a concept I struggled with early on in my lifting "career").  It's also a good excuse for the lifter to experiment with dropping weight sometimes.  If they were used to grinding under the bar every set before, it's a good excuse to step back, move lighter weights and feel the movements again.  Because these compound lifts are a series of many different parts moving together, it helps to become conscious of each of these parts moving.  Then you can start asking yourself what you can do to make each of these parts stronger and move better in the whole lift, which makes accessory lift choices more intuitive.  
  
  
• High reps/sets.  So I have to say the Bridge isn't necessarily the most high-rep focused program out there, but I like that they include a lot of sets.  And that's for the reasons I mentioned above.  
  
  
• Accessory movements/ lift variations.  I like the Bridge because it throws a lot of different accessory movements at you.  Whether they'll work exactly for you is hard to say.  But it does make the movements more fresh and interesting (which is low key crucial for good motivation), and it makes you more aware of what's really going on in the movement.  So I think the way to go is to try all the accessories and variations that they explain in the program, and if you want to do another one or you want to do more of one, you can always change the program to work on that.  For example I don't do beltless squats and tempo squats like the Bridge tells me to do currently; I switched them with front squats because they were more specific to the Oly lifting that I was interested in, and because I felt it trained what I really needed to train, which was my core and quads.  So it's a good reason to be more conscious of what your weaknesses are in each lift, what you feel you need to work more on, and trying to figure out the variations that would help you.  And as long as you follow a set-rep range and weight that meets something like an RPE8 for 3 sets, I think you'll get a solid workout.  
  
  
• There's some sort of peaking cycle going on at a multi-week basis.  The idea of linear progression was that progressive overload could happen consistently between every workout or every week, allowing the lifter to constantly get stronger and stronger.  Since that is probably a little bit more unrealistic at this level, the focus should be on ramping up stress levels slowly, having some sort of peak stress in the middle of a cycle, and then ramping down the stress at the end of a cycle so that the lifter can recover from weeks of hard work, ultimately making them stronger.  So instead of
  
  workout > recover > lift more the next day/week
  
  it'll be more like,
  
  increase stress levels over a few weeks > recover from lower levels of stress for a few weeks > lift more the next month (or something like that)

So yeah, I think that's basically how I'd walk through an intermediate lifter.  At the advanced level, I think it'd just be about more reps/sets, and focusing on more specific parts of the body or the lifts, most likely through variations of the lifts or accessory lifts.  

And to really wrap it up, I think the one crucial thing at this point is consciousness.  Consciousness of each movement, what's working hard and what's not.  What you can focus on to prime yourself better for the next workout.  And the thing is that the weights and rep ranges can't be too heavy and high if you want to build consciousness.  There's a fine line between being able to consciously push a weight, and just giving it everything you have and pushing till your eyes feel like they're going to pop out.  So I think that's what I'd try to focus on.  

Concluding Thoughts

It was fun writing this up, thinking about what I might say to a beginning lifter about how to progress.  But I think I realized that there's a lot I also don't exactly know the answers to that I would like to explore further.  Mainly, why people do high rep squat work (like 10 reps Cal Strength style), and if they do how often they do it.  Maybe because I've seen other people at my gym do high rep stuff, but I usually stick to 5 reps or less.  It's interesting to think about.  Maybe I could benefit from it.  And also things like common injuries and plateauing symptoms.  To which my current decision would most likely be do lower reps and lower weight.  

Also I probably should've written about recovery more, I ended up focusing on the training.  But I believe recovery's about eating, sleeping and stretching.  Working on mobility.  Eating enough protein.  Not being afraid of getting a little fat when you start off, in the name of getting enough nutrients.  Sleep 8 hours a day, or at least aim for it.  And I've written about stretching somewhere already so maybe I'll just refer them to that.  The plan can be as simple as you want it to be.  

But yeah, obviously I have a lot more learning to do myself.  And I'm excited about that.  Learning more every day.  Can't wait to see what more I know a month from now, a year from now.