This is the first article where I explain my 5/5/8/12 system in detail. Enjoy!
by Dave Chesser
Getting strong should be the main thing you work on at the gym. It’s what the gym used to be about back in the golden days of weight training. All the old-time strongmen (notice the name we use to describe them) were famous for their feats of strength. Sure they might have looked good, but the look was the result of their hard strength training. They trained for strength and aesthetics followed, a distinction that was lost on later generations. Now people that go to the gym look like Tarzan but perform like Jane.
Why do people go to the gym and immediately get on the treadmill and stay there? Because they aren’t being told the importance of strength training and because endurance training is over-hyped. You could obviously jog down the street in front of your house but do you have a power rack at home? I doubt it. So the cardio/endurance work can be down outside and nearly anywhere. But only a well-equipped gym can allow you to train for consistent strength gains. So warmup on the treadmill if you must use it for anything and then after 5:00, get started with this strength program.
Getting started with strength training will involve a time commitment of at least twice a week, with three times a week being ideal. The reasons are that you need to hit the weights consistently in order to drive the weight gains, otherwise you’ll constantly be reviewing the lifting techniques without making any significant progress. That’s why I tell people who only want to train once a week that they are mostly wasting their time and mine. If you’re going to train for something then put effort into it!
Three times a week is ideal because your body needs time to recover from the training and this normally takes about 48 hours for most people. Protein synthesis is the breakdown of protein that you eat and then using those amino acids to rebuild the muscle tissue that you’re broken down through training. Protein synthesis normally stops after about 48 hours, meaning you need to hit the major muscle groups about every three days to drive the fastest adaptations. You could still make progress on twice a week training but I’m writing this program based on the idea that you want to strong as fast as possible.
One last word on why you want to get strong first – no matter what your fitness goal is, strength will drive it. Want fat loss? Strength training will allow you swing a heavier kettlebell, lunge with heavier dumbbells, and allow you to burn many more calories in the same amount of time than simple endurance training. Many fat loss clients miss this point and get stuck in their fat loss plans because they aren’t getting stronger. Want bigger muscles? Like top bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman says in a famous video,”Everyone want to be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody want to lift these heavy a__ weights.” He’s talking about the fact that to get bigger, you eventually need to get stronger even if people don’t want to do that. Doing light pump sets with light dumbbells doesn’t work for very long. Look at the people in your gym that have been doing that for years. How big are they? I rest my case.
So now that you’ve been given the reasons why you should strength train, let’s look at one way to do it.
Day 1 and 3
warmup
pullups 25 any way you want to do them
barbell back or front squat 5, 5, 8, 12
barbell bench 5, 5, 8, 12
back/hip extensions 5×10
chinup 25 any way you want to do them
Day 2
warmup
pullups 25 any way you want to do them
barbell deadlift 5, 5, 8, 12
barbell overhead press 5, 5, 8, 12
heavy kettlebell or dumbbell swings 5×20
chinups 25 any way you want to do them
We start with pullups since this is one of the most neglected movements in modern fitness. Done correctly, pullups will undo the upper back roundedness nearly everyone these days suffers from. Without adequate upper back strength, nearly all the strength lifts like squats, deadlifts, and bench will fail eventually. I’ve seen upper back weakness hamper so many lifters development that I started making everyone does pullups first. They’re that important.
The big four movements of barbell squat, bench, deadlift, and over head press form the core of the program because the barbell allows for consistent, progressive overload in the way that dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags, etc. do not. At gyms like Formosa Fitness, we have plates as small as 0.5kg that allow for small jumps in weight that will allow you to make continuous progress. Kettlebells normally jump in 4kg increments and dumbbells often jump in 2.5kg increments – both are too large for pure strength gains beyond a certain point. Barbell training remains king for strength gains and you should use each tool for what it does best.
Barbell squats, deadlifts, etc. work the whole body systematically instead of isolating body parts the way that most bodybuilding exercises do. When we talk about getting strong, you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Therefore, exercising the whole body through whole body lifts will allow you strengthen weak areas and train the entire movement at one time. This type of training takes much less time, as well.
Start the major lifts like this for the first time you try the program – using bench as an example, got on the bench and press the bar for five reps. Then add 5kg and repeat for five more reps. Continue this process until you find a weight that is heavy enough that you can complete 5 reps but you can’t successfully go up in weight using 5kg increments and complete another set of five reps. This is your 5RM (rep max) for now.
Now let me say this set should feel heavy towards the end of the set on rep 4 and 5 but you should be able to complete the set with no assistance from a lifting partner. I’ve seen too many people have their gym friends helping them by basically doing a barbell row while saying “it’s all you buddy!” when it clearly is not. And if you’re struggling so much on that last rep that your form is way off, then you’re going too heavy. You’ll need to back off by 10% to get your 5RM.
Once you have your 5RM, this is what you’ll use to determine your lifts. As part of the warmup after pullups, take 50% of your 5RM and do 5 reps as your first warmup set. If you’re just using the bar with no weights on it, that’s fine. Then take 75% of your 5RM and do a second set of 5 as your second warmup set and you should be ready to go if you’re not lifting anywhere near body weight on the lift. If you are, then a third set of perhaps three at 85% of your 5RM will usually complete your warmup. Not your ready for your work sets.
Work sets of five are ideal for strength training so we start with those. Do your initial 5RM for one set and rest for 1-2:00 but no more. At the beginning of your weight training journey, you aren’t using a high enough amount of weight to really fatigue the body that much so you will bounce back and be ready for the next set before you know it. The longer rests of 3:00 or more you hear about in the magazines are for more advanced lifters that are lifting heavier weights, meaning they need more time to recover.
After you rest, do another work set with the same weight and see how you feel after your second rest period. Are you feeling strong? If so, you’ll do a third set at the same weight to see how many you can get. As a beginner, that third set might feel very heavy and this is normal. If you get seven or less, you will repeat the next workout with the same weight you have on the bar right now for your first three sets. If you got eight on that third set, congratulations! You’re ready to move up 2.5kg on an upper body lift or 5kg on a lower body lift the next time you work out.
However, if you’re not feeling strong on that third set, drop the weight by 10% and go for a set of eight. This allows you to build strength in the first two sets and some in the third set without grinding out a weight that might feel too heavy for you today. This can happen due to lack of sleep, not eating enough, or just from a bad day. Rather than grinding through a bad third set, I’d rather you drop weight and have a hard, but doable set.
Regardless of the number of reps you got on the third set, on the fourth set you will drop the weight used on the third set by 10-15% and give me a set of 12 or so. The exact number isn’t that important. What you want is to end that fourth set feeling that you’ve given the lift everything you’ve got. This set also allows you to build some functional muscle that will assist with the lift later. Twelve is inside what we call the hypertrophy range and a little muscle size doesn’t hurt when trying to get strong. I also added this set to give beginners some practice with the lift. Using the 5, 5, 8, 12 plan gives 30 total reps with the bar, improving your technique faster than some other weight training schemes that use three sets of five, for example.
Use the 5, 5, 8, 12 rep scheme for the major lifts of barbell squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead press.
The back/hip extensions and heavy kettlebell swings give folks the extra hamstring and glute work that nearly everyone needs. The back/hip extension chair is a piece of equipment that everyone that goes to the gym should attempt to master. Hip and low back strength are so neglected that most people can not do enough work on this area. Heavy kettlebell swings build the hamstrings and glutes through explosive work making this exercise a great alternative to the harder to learn power clean exercise.
Finally, I added chinups at the end because: a. they are easier to do than pullups and you’re at the end of the workout, b. 50 reps of total pulling (25 pullups and 25 chinups) are ideal for developing the back since we should be doing nearly twice as much pulling as pushing, and c. they allow for excellent bicep building, something nearly every guy wants. Doing chins three times a week will build the biceps to assist with lifts like the deadlift and bench press much better than any curls you could do. Leave the hundred variations of curling to the guys that cover themselves in orange and go on stage in their underwear. Beginners will do better with chinups.
Make sure you use strict form on all these exercises! Don’t use half reps – go all the way down and all the way up. Don’t use momentum by bouncing out of the hole at the bottom of the squat or by bouncing the barbell off your chest on the bench. Control the bar 100% of the time to get everything you can out of the lift. The idea is to use this program to get strong, not to see how much weight you can lift by cheating.
Followed correctly, this program will probably work well for at least six months and then you’ll need to change up what you’re doing. That’s assuming you’re working hard three times a week and moving up in weight fairly often.
Enjoy the program and go get strong!