Which lifting program is the best for you?

LOVE Les Mills Body Pump. Kicks my *kitten* every. Single. Day.

As a beginner who hasn’t done weights for a while thought I would start again from scratch and had used an old routine last week but decided to give M&S full body dumbbell routine a go instead. Wow the difference is incredible can feel that so many more places were worked on. Looking forward to next set Sunday now!

Greatest thread I've ever come across.

Leg press is ok, but personally I think a better substitute is the hack squat machine. It simulates the same movement for the legs, but relieves pressure on the back.

mideon_696 wrote: »

This is a good thread....but some of the programs are probably not a good idea for almost anyone on here, lol. German volume training is a great example of what NOT to do to yourself haha. For any level, its quite unnecessary.

My picks, and this is only one guys opinion, would be anything from GZCL, Greg Nuckols and co, Layne Norton, The Bridge, Candito, Sheiko or Kaizen. 531 also good.

Which one you pick to use depends entirely on where you are at, what you have been doing for that previous couple months, and what you want to acheive. To pick random, and to chop and change, will not serve you well at all.

Agreed. On the high volume side, something that might be interesting for intermediates is Smolov Jr.

For Later

After not lifting for almost a year, I started Stephanie Buttermore's full body beginner program yesterday and my god are my legs & glutes weak af. My arms & back are pretty strong because I pole dance, and pole develops strong arms and backs because you are constantly lifting yourself onto the pole. I was there forever because those rest breaks are real and definitely needed. But I did it and I really enjoyed myself.

I randomly came across Stephanie because of her recap of her "all-in" year, and I'm really happy I did because she's wicked smart and it shows in her program. Luckily, I came across her when all of her programs were on sale, so I grabbed the beginner and intermediate programs.

Thank you @sardelsa! Pole is hard, but it is a lot of fun. It's my one true love. That's why I had to stop lifting. I didn't have enough money to pole and lift, so lifting went. But now, I've tweaked some things and I can afford both again.

I hope she does another sale as well because I'd like to get her Optimization course, but I'm nowhere near ready for that so I passed on it.

psuLemon wrote: »

jdhcm2006 wrote: »

After not lifting for almost a year, I started Stephanie Buttermore's full body beginner program yesterday and my god are my legs & glutes weak af. My arms & back are pretty strong because I pole dance, and pole develops strong arms and backs because you are constantly lifting yourself onto the pole. I was there forever because those rest breaks are real and definitely needed. But I did it and I really enjoyed myself.

I randomly came across Stephanie because of her recap of her "all-in" year, and I'm really happy I did because she's wicked smart and it shows in her program. Luckily, I came across her when all of her programs were on sale, so I grabbed the beginner and intermediate programs.

Nice. Would be great to have feedback once you get thru the workout.

Will do. @sardelsa asked for this but I got distracted by pole 😂.

Full disclosure: I’ve never fully followed a program. Just did what a trainer told me to do or would go and do certain moves at the gym with no real direction. So what she includes could be typical.

She breaks down terminology. Includes links to her YouTube page to see her doing the movement (con: she doesn’t explain it, just shows her doing it - if I had no previous knowledge, I’d need more direction. Pro: it reminds me what the move is and my previous knowledge can fill in the blanks). She talks a tiny bit about nutrition but makes it clear that she isn’t a RD. She basically says to get enough protein and to eat at a slight surplus if you can, but she’s does say that folks trying to lose/eat at a deficit can still see gains bc they’re new to lifting. Has a chart of anatomy and breaks down where the muscles are connected and info life that.

It’s an 8 week program that is broken into 2 4-week blocks. The beginner offers 3 programs, a 3 day (full body), 4 day (upper/lower), and 5 day option (body part split). She incorporates doing 1-3 sets of a warm up lifts prior to doing the real lift (depending on the lift, for example back squats were 3 sets of warm up and 3 sets of real but hip thrust were 1 set of warm up and 3 sets of actual), which for a noob was nice to see warm up lifts written down as something you’re meant to do.

She even tells you what the RPE should be and the duration in which you should rest, as well as which muscles you’re working and the joint actions involved, which I find nice because it kind of gives an idea of what that move is focusing on and where you should be feeling it. I find the RPE to be confusing because I don’t understand why you shouldn’t work to fatigue but I’m sure as I make my way along I’ll figure it out through further research.

Each is supposed to be started with a warm up that includes light cardio for 10-20 minutes, and different movements to warm up the body (wall sits, leg swings, shrugs, etc.) I did find that my body was sufficiently warm prior to starting the workout.

It’s very in-depth which is nice and a but overwhelming at first.

I will try to include photos of her table of contents, but I won’t include the entire program. I am on my phone so it might not work.

Great! Thanks @jdhcm2006 for all that info