Five-Year Plan

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.

For beginners who want to lift more in the squat, press and pull and are ready to train in the gym. 3 workouts a week, 4 exercises each, 12 sets a week for legs and 10 each for chest and back. Rest between sets is 150 seconds on the heavy lifts and 120 on accessory exercises. Two 4-week stages: in Base the load rises week by week, and 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 “The Platform”.

Every workout has two heavy barbell lifts for 5 sets: squat and bench press, Romanian deadlift and overhead press, bent-over barbell row and incline bench press. They are done for 5 reps in Base and 4 in Build. Two accessory exercises follow at 2–3 sets each; the weighted ones are done for 10 reps in both stages. Legs work in every workout, in the third one through the leg press. Every weighted set ends at least 2 reps short of failure.

Method: Five sets on the heavy lifts.
The core is two heavy barbell lifts in every workout, 5 sets of 4–5 reps. Legs are loaded three times a week, chest twice and back three times. Every weighted set ends at least 2 reps short of failure.

What studies found:

• 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.