Metalwork

A metalworker raises a pattern in sheet metal with hundreds of light, precise strikes. “Metalwork” is built the same way: light dumbbells, long sets and the whole body in every workout. Set up your bench, pick up your dumbbells and start with the intro week.

For those starting out at home who want to get in shape. You’ll need dumbbells and a bench. 3 workouts a week, 5 exercises each: weighted exercises for 20 reps in Base and 16 in Build, bodyweight abs for 20, 90 seconds of rest. Two 4-week stages: in Base the load rises week by week, in Build it moves in a wave with a step back in week 3. The exercises stay the same in both stages. The next step after this program is “Blast Furnace”.

Each of the three workouts trains the whole body, from legs to abs. The dumbbells are light, so the load comes from long sets: they end with reps still in reserve, with 90 seconds of rest between them. The app calculates the weight for each set from your max, and the first week is an intro week.

Method: Long sets, stopping short of failure.
Weighted exercises are done for 20 reps in Base and 16 in Build, and sets end at least 2.5 reps short of failure. Rest is 90 seconds, the exercises are the same in both stages, and your maxes carry over from stage to stage.

What studies found:

• In a calorie deficit, muscle gain slows down while strength holds (Murphy et al., 2022)
• Light and heavy weights produce the same muscle growth; heavy weights build more strength (Schoenfeld et al., 2017)
• Muscle growth does not depend on the weight used; max strength improves more with heavy weights (Lopez et al., 2021)
• Muscle growth does not require taking sets to failure (Refalo et al., 2023)

The studies tested the principles; the program itself has not been tested in this form.

Body fat is set by your diet; the program sets the training load.