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Five-Year Plan

Gym Workout for Strength, for Beginners, 3 Days a Week

A five-year plan was measured against its targets: every stage counted, and each one built on the last. In “Five-Year Plan” the count goes in fives: five sets on every heavy lift, two such lifts per workout, three workouts a week. Set aside three days and start with the intro week.

  • GoalGain Strength
  • LevelBeginner
  • WhereGym
  • Workouts24
  • One workout~47 min
  • ForEveryone
Start it in the appThe app calculates the weight of every set from your 1RM

Who it’s for

  • You are starting to train in the gym with a barbell
  • You want to lift more in the squat, press and pull
  • You can train three times a week

How it works

  1. 013 workouts a week, 4 exercises each; 12 sets a week for legs and 10 each for chest and back
  2. 02Heavy lifts: two barbell lifts in every workout, squat and bench press, Romanian deadlift and overhead press, bent-over barbell row and incline bench press; 5 sets of 5 reps in Base and of 4 in Build, 150 seconds of rest
  3. 03Accessory exercises: 2 per workout at 2–3 sets each, the weighted ones for 10 reps, 120 seconds of rest
  4. 04Two 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
Method

Five sets on the heavy lifts

The heavy lifts come at the start of the workout, before fatigue from the accessory exercises sets in. Every weighted set ends at least 2 reps short of failure, which leaves room for technique while barbell lifts are still new. The squat, bench press, Romanian deadlift and bent-over row continue in “The Platform”, and your maxes on them carry over.

Weekly volume

Counts sets where the muscle is the main target of the exercise

  • Chest10 sets2 workouts
  • Back10 sets3 workouts
  • Quads7 sets2 workouts
  • Shoulders5 sets1 workout
  • Hamstrings & glutes5 sets1 workout
  • Abs5 sets2 workouts
  • Arms3 sets1 workout

Weighted sets end at least 2 reps short of failure

What the research shows

4

  • In untrained lifters, the largest strength gains came from about 60% of max, three times a week per muscle

    Rhea et al., 2003

  • Strength grows more with more sets per week

    Ralston et al., 2017

  • Muscle growth does not depend on the weight used; max strength improves more with heavy weights

    Lopez et al., 2021

  • The recommendation is to add weight once the target reps can be done with 1–2 reps to spare

    ACSM, 2009
The studies tested the principles; the program itself has not been tested in this form.

Workout A

4 exercises · ~47 min

The whole first workout. Tap an exercise to open its technique with photos and video.

  1. 01Barbell Full SquatQuads5 × 5weight from 1RM
  2. 02Barbell Bench Press — Medium GripChest5 × 5weight from 1RM
  3. 03Seated Cable RowsMiddle Back3 × 10weight from 1RM
  4. 04CrunchesAbs2 × 12bodyweight

All workouts in the program

24 sessions over ~7.5 weeks, 3–4 per week. Workouts A, B and C repeat in a loop, 8 times each. The other workouts and the weight for every set are in the app.

Workout intensity

The load of each session: higher means harder. average per round A–C

hardereasierWorkout 1 (A)Workout 2 (B)Workout 3 (C)Workout 4 (A)Workout 5 (B)Workout 6 (C)Workout 7 (A)Workout 8 (B)Workout 9 (C)Workout 10 (A)Workout 11 (B)Workout 12 (C)Workout 13 (A)Workout 14 (B)Workout 15 (C)Workout 16 (A)Workout 17 (B)Workout 18 (C)Workout 19 (A)Workout 20 (B)Workout 21 (C)Workout 22 (A)Workout 23 (B)Workout 24 (C)Round 1: averageRound 2: averageRound 3: averageRound 4: averageRound 5: averageRound 6: averageRound 7: averageRound 8: average

Workout number

AtletIQ app

Program weights — from your 1RM

1RM is the weight you can lift once. Enter it for the base exercises and AtletIQ will calculate working weights for all 24 workouts of “Five-Year Plan”.

  • The weight of every set comes from your 1RM
  • All workouts of the program in order, with rest between sets
  • Progress for every exercise
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