That may sound like a good idea (lift what you can for that day), but I'll demonstrate why it's not a good idea. The reason I stuck on a program (I rotated through many different ones) when I had started lifting is that I heard many warnings from veteran lifters, strength trainers, and bodybuilders that when you show up to the gym without a plan, you're setting yourself up for failure, and a term that can go along with that methodology is fuck-around-itis - which won't get you anywhere - you might maintain but you won't progress.
In the world of fitness and exercise, the mind will give out before the body. That's why you don't want the mind to be the arbiter of how much weight and how many reps or sets, and how often you show up at the gym. Humans work well with structure and patterns, whereas an open slate with no paved roads has less chance of producing fruitful results regardless of how liberating it may feel.
The weight lifting routine I recommend is GZCL. I've mentioned it on this blog before, but I don't think I described it well enough. Firstly, its author (not me) prefers it to be known as a Method and not a Routine. This means that there's leeway to be had here-and-there to better suit the individual.
I want to lay this out simply in case whoever's reading doesn't have experience with routines. I will establish what you need to do in order to generate your own GZCL method lifting program for yourself with appropriate amounts of weight, reps, sets, and frequency. Volume, Frequency, and Intensity are the three governors of any lifting program. In order to prioritize any of those 3, you must deprioritize one of the other 3. For example, High Intensity necessitates Low Volume and Low Frequency. Or for example, High Volume necessitates Low Intensity with Frequency being about Medium. So to do High Volume, High Intensity, and High Frequency is not an option.
Lifting programs firstly begin starting with a person's PR numbers (personal records). The closer you dial in your PR number, the more efficient the program will be, and the less time you'll waste finding your actual PRs or your actual strength.
For example, say a lifter named John has these for the following PRs - Squat - 300lb, Bench Press - 200lb, Deadlift - 400lb. Lifting routines will have you take out a calculator and find out for example 65% of your PR. I'll even point out how this is done on a calculator to be thorough - to find out the 300lb squat's 65%, do the following, type in calculator 300, hit multiply button, .65 (note the decimal place), hit enter and the answer is 195, so if the program called for doing 65% of your Squat, and you Squat 300lb, you would squat 195lb for x amount of reps and sets.
You can see now that all that makes a weight lifting program is the percentages, which are designed to allow for your body to experience periodization. This term is important. It means that you cannot simply lift +5-10lb on every lift every time you go to the gym. This type of progression works for beginners, but eventually drops off, you'll no longer gain strength or size. Periodization is the acknowledgement of this linear drop-off, and instead of being linear, instead it uses a pattern which will span weeks to months depending on when you want your body to peak. Weight lifters don't try to break records on any given day - instead they chart out a program, and hit their peak on competition week. This is also what fighters do in fight preparation, and many other sports athletes.
The GZCL Method that I use which is suited to me is what I'll share here now. The author of this Method can be found here. Spanning 4 weeks, I have GZCL programmed for the Bench Press, Squat, and Deadlift. I do all three lifts on the same day with only 1 workout per week (you can do additional training for secondary lifts).
| 250lb | 185lb | 440 | lb |
| SQUAT | BENCHPRESS | DEADLIFT | training max |
| WK1 | 85% | 3 sets of 5 reps | 15 total reps | ||
| WK2 | 90% | 4 sets of 3 reps | 12 total reps | ||
| WK3 | 87.5, 92.5., 97.5% | 1 set of 3 | 2 sets of 2 | 3 sets of 1 | |
| WK4 | 90, 95, 100% | 1 set of 3 | 1 set of 2 | 1 set of 1+ | |
| Workout A | |
| 5/18/2017 | Squat 210lb WK 1, 3 sets of 5 |
| Bench 155lb WK 1, 3 sets of 5 | |
| Dead 375lb WK1, 7 sets of 2, plus 1 | |
| Workout B | |
| 5/25/2017 | Squat 225lb WK 2, 4 sets of 3 |
| Bench 165lb WK 2, 4 sets of 3 | |
| Dead 395lb WK 2, 6 sets of 2 | |
| Workout C | |
| 6/1/2017 | Squat 220lb WK 3, 1 set of 3, 230*2*2, 245*1*3 |
| Bench 160lb WK 3, 1 set of 3, 170*2*2,180*1*3 | |
| Dead 385lb WK 3, 1 set of 3, 405*2*2, 430*1*3 | |
| Workout D | |
| 6/8/2017 | Squat 225lb WK 4, 1 set of 3, 235*2, 250*1+ |
| Bench 165lb WK 4, 1 set of 3, 175*2, 185*1+ | |
| Dead 395lb WK 4, 1 set of 3, 420*2, 440*1+ |
| Progression Guide for WK4 - | 0= repeat | ||
| 1= repeat | |||
| 2= +5lb | |||
| 3= +10lb | |||
| 4= +15lb | |||
| 5 =+15lb | |||
You can see that it's a 4 week cycle. If you wanted, you could modify it into an 8 week cycle or 12 week cycle. Although extending it very far might require additional tweaks to the program/pattern. It's important to keep track of your progress. For example, if you overestimate your PRs, you could end up injured for weeks by being too destructive on your body. Likewise, if you underestimate your PR, you'll at least have consistency of exercise, but you would be spinning your wheels a bit, and leaving the uncharted waters of higher strength and more muscle mass until you get closer to your actual PRs.
On the 4th week, the intensity is ramped up to 100%, and for as many reps as possible. If you do 2 reps of your 100%, you add +5lb to your PR - so if you had a 300lb Squat, and did 2 reps on Week 4, you'd up it to 305lb for the cycle.
Speaking of being destructive to the body, if you commit fully to a weight lifting program/routine, which you should be, and start experiencing joint pains, shoulders aching, knees aching, etc. or heavy muscle soreness that's not going away, you may be experiencing 'overreaching'. This is the subtle more minor version of being overtrained. It's a common misnomer to assume you're overtrained when the going gets tough, but being truly overtrained is a state where you're already suffering from the consequences, and have lost strength. Lifting weights is basically about overreaching consistently. By introducing a high workload to your body, the body must become stronger to handle the new more demanding workload.
And so, when you're feeling beat up, don't assume you're overtrained, and instead attempt to do what I would call 'rehabbing'. This is where the multitude of devices and techniques come into play to help the body recover faster - this includes foam rolling, yoga, stretching, the six Tibetan Rites, and/or whatever else you do to recover, which can also include consuming more calories, acquiring more sleep, and drinking more water.
You can run this weight lifting routine or method on any lift, but I advise against doing it with too low of a weight because the percentages will be too close to each other (things like 85%-90% could be the same weight number). So in that instance, I would modify the percentages to have more variation. And lastly I advise against doing this method with too many lifts at the same time. For example, I've attempted doing this with bench press and an overhead press, and found the two to be too conflicting, and my shoulders couldn't recover fast enough. Good luck, and stay on a program.
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