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Inspired by the legendary Starting Strength novice program, Strong is a linear progression barbell training program ideal for beginners seeking to develop strength in the basic barbell lifts.

Focus

The goal here is increasing strength in the squat, strict press, bench press and the deadlift, while building a solid muscular foundation.

Structure

Three days a week. Try having at least one non-training day between sessions for optimal recovery. An ideal week would look as follows:

• Mon: training
• Tue: rest
• Wed: training
• Thu: rest
• Fri: training
• Sat: rest
• Sun: rest

Rest days can contain GPP work like conditioning, mobility work, additional isolation work. Just make sure you're recovering properly.

Progression

Simple linear progression model. After finding your approximate ceiling in each of the basic lifts, every session you perform the lift, aim at adding the recommended weight increment each session.

Once your progress halts, increment by a smaller weight. If you cannot increment from session to session, increment every two sessions, and so on.

When you reach a point where you cannot progress on the main lifts, it is time to move onto a more advanced plan.

Next steps

Once you finish this program, you can choose to:

• run it again if you saw good progress
• move onto Stronger if you feel the training volume is holding you back
• try one of our muscle-building programs if muscle mass is your bottleneck
• experiment with some of our other programs for different goals!