Good morning! A reminder that after next week, I’ll be taking two weeks off from writing new editions of Move to Improve. Think of it like a little summer break. I’ll be fully off basking in the greatest feats of athleticism I’ve ever seen in Paris!

Maybe if I’m feeling like that professor who loved to assign summer reading, I’ll schedule some reruns of old posts for you A+ students out there. 🧑‍🎓

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💪Strength Training 101: How to get started

So you’ve seen enough evidence. You know that better muscle health can improve virtually every aspect of your health: metabolic, cardiovascular, cognitive, mental, skeletal, functional, and basically any other facet of your wellbeing you can name. Now it’s time to get started.

Let me preface this with: even if you’re a seasoned vet and have a number of years of weight training under your belt, it can never hurt to return to the basics and remember the fundamental principles and baselines to strive for. Maybe in your years of habitual training, you’ve neglected some areas that could use revisiting.

It’s important to also remember that you see the biggest improvements in health, as well as reductions in mortality and disease risk, just by going from doing nothing to doing anything. By simply taking the first step from 0 strength training to any amount at all, you’re pretty quickly going to see great gains—and there will be tons of benefits you can’t see!

This could probably be a whole book or 5-hour podcast, so we’re going to keep everything high level. To go in greater depth, email me or refer to trustworthy online sources! 

So, to get your foot in the door, without further ado, the strength training basics:

Exercise/movement type:

Let’s start by discussing types of exercise. It’s helpful to either think in terms of body parts (chest, back, arms, legs, core, etc.) or movement patterns (upper body push, upper body pull, squat, hinge, lunge, rotation/anti-rotation, etc.). If you can think about planning your workouts to cover all those body parts or movement patterns, at least once per week or so, you’ll be in good shape (pun intended).

Exercise choice:

This segues nicely into the next area of consideration—your choice of exercises. There is an endless variety of options out there, but either remember your core body parts or movement patterns, and it won’t be so overwhelming. 

Typically for beginners, it’s most beneficial to start with exercises that provide you with the most external stability (i.e. machines). This will allow you to focus on the movement pattern itself and start creating your mind-muscle connection without much risk of injury due to range of motion or instability. I suggest starting with stable machines for whatever period makes sense for you—from a few weeks to months or even longer. Listen to your body and move on when you feel ready.

Beyond that, feel free to transition to other types of resistance, including resistance bands, barbells, cables, dumbbells, kettlebells, and any other external weight. Just remember, as the external stability decreases, your own stability and range of motion become more important. Form is king. Make sure to take your time with weights you can safely and comfortably complete full range-of-motion reps with proper form before you progress further. Refer to other sources for proper technique.

I wanted to start with those principles, but now let’s get to the rest of the FITT Principle, which stands for Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type (which we just covered) of exercises.

Frequency: 

Just starting out, I’d probably suggest something chill. You could do twice per week, or even less frequently. You’re not trying to go too hard too soon. If you do, and you don’t have much experience, you may get very sore very quickly and lose motivation. We want to start small. Like learning a new language, you want to ease into the basics before drowning in full conversations. 

Doing one exercise to hit each body part or movement pattern can fully comprise your workouts in the first weeks. One set of each. You don’t need high volume right off the bat.

After a few weeks or couple months of adjusting, you can slowly increase the frequency. Maybe you hit a full body session every third day, then three times per week, then eventually every other day. That’d be more than enough. Or maybe you start trying a split such as lower body workouts twice per week and upper body workouts twice per week.

As you gain experience, just know the basements and ceilings: You can continue to make gains training a body part or movement just once a week, but it may not be ideal, and that workout might need high volume. Two to three times per muscle group per week seems to be a pretty sweet spot. Usually wouldn’t recommend strength training any one muscle or movement over four times per week, as fatigue could get high and impair recovery.

Intensity:

Again, this is where beginners differ from intermediate and advanced lifters. Starting off, you really don’t need to go that intense. Don’t get me wrong, I want you there eventually. But spending some amount of time just learning movement patterns and getting your muscles used to moving against resistance will be enough for the first number of weeks. And like I mentioned, it will prevent intense soreness that could scare you from returning.

• Honestly, just lift in the 5 to 15 repetition range through a full range of motion at a decent pace. It should feel challenging, but not strenuous yet.

• Do this on one exercise per muscle/movement for several weeks until you feel comfortable to add more volume.

Now. Intensity is one of the most beneficial things to progress. After you’ve got your movement patterns down and can perform full range of motion exercises, it’s time to push.

Because once you’ve trained awhile, you’re mostly only going to see gains from the last five reps closest to actual failure. Let’s define failure, depending on the machine/weights you’re using, as either when your form breaks, or when you literally physically can’t force the weight to move one more repetition. Studies have shown that those five reps within proximity to failure are the most stimulating for muscle growth and strength gains.

• Do you have to train to failure every set of exercise? No, that’d probably wear you out and maybe increase injury risk.

• BUT, training within just 1–2 reps to failure (1–2 reps in reserve aka RIR) can be plenty enough to continue seeing gains.

• It doesn’t have to be every exercise, but you eventually need to push close to failure to continue improving. 

Time:

Starting off with one set of one exercise per movement/muscle group can get you through a workout pretty quickly. Ideally, you eventually want to build up to multiple sets per exercise (usually 2–5). 

I’ll loop the variable of “volume” in here as well. Defining a “set” as a set pushed within a few repetitions of failure, muscle and strength seem to be able to be maintained at a volume of around 5 sets per week.If you want hypertrophy (muscle size growth) (which you should want), however, that requires a bit more volume: 10–20 sets per muscle group per week seem most efficacious at promoting those gains. Less than that might not be quite enough, and more is probably overkill. 

Let’s also discuss rest periods while we’re on the topic of time. For strength training (heavier weights, fewer reps), it’s probably beneficial to get 2 or 3 to 5+ minutes of rest between sets. The key there is just to lift heavy. When training for muscle growth, you can utilize a wider range of rest, from 30 seconds also up to about 5 minutes. The main key here is pushing to near failure and accumulating enough volume (total # of sets and reps) to stimulate growth.

Lastly on timing, we’ll talk macro-level periodization. In order to keep improving, you must progressively overload. That means increasing at least some variables over time. That can include increasing weight, range of motion, instability, # of reps, # of sets, weekly volume, or a number of other variables.

You also can’t just progressively overload forever. You’ll plateau and even decrease performance at some point. That’s why it’s best to build a 6- to 12-week program that you can progress from week to week, but then take a reset after it’s over. Taking a week or two to “deload” by resting/decreasing your volume can help your body recover and set a foundation for a new phase of training, perhaps with slightly tweaked goals.

Starting can be intimidating! Just know that you’re your own biggest competitor. Let other people worry about their workouts, and you worry about your own.

And remember: it never gets easy. You just get better! stronger! faster! Exercise should always be a challenge, but as your strength and health progress, so will the degree of exercise you’re able to do!

How does all that land with you? Did I cover all the basics, or do you still have burning questions? Please hit reply and let me know what I left out, because there’s likely to be something!

✅Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Get started! One exercise per body part. Once per week. That will put you in healthier shape than everyoneee else out there doing nothing.

Level 2: Let’s pick a variable to increase—whether it’s frequency, intensity, volume, or whatever else, start to progress after you’ve got some basic habits.

Level 3: Already a pro? Consider a reset. Switch up the exercises you do for certain movement patterns or muscle groups. Do a deload week and start over like a beginner with a focus on form. Experiment on yourself!

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Feast: What the athletes will be eating at the 2024 Paris Olympics. (You won’t BELIEVE what they’re doing with the coffee grounds!!!) clickbait hehe 🤪

I’ll see y’all next week before taking the subsequent two weeks off to go hopefully eat some croissants with the very athletes referenced above! 🥐🇫🇷

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).