Very true, and this comes from experience that newbies just aren’t willing to listen to. As Jim Wendler says “If you add something, you must take something out”. But for newbies, a training plan is just a long list of exercises. We’ve seen on these boards, more times than I can count, a new trainee asking “Is this a good workout plan?” and just listing a long list unrelated of exercises (most of them machine and isolation work). Then, argue to death when experienced people provide some wisdom.
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I do think this is a big factor. It’s just much less the norm now that folks have grown up with relatively long/ diverse organized sports backgrounds, and I think it sets a different baseline for learning to physically push oneself.
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I decided to catch up and I was 22 posts behind so it took a minute. I love the topic and discussion. There’s been ton of great stuff shared already, and I’ll just pile on because, why not?
I agree with this point. I don’t think I could grow by going into the gym and hitting the big three or four for 3 sets of 5 at 75% three times a week and calling it a day. On the flip side, I think that’d be a solid “holding on” maintenance approach if life was crammed with other responsibilities for a bit.
Another great point that I’ve realized in my own training lately. I don’t want to spend hours at the gym after work, so I use “bodybuilding” stuff inspired by DC and Paul Carter. Hammer the muscle with something like rest/pause or drop sets and move on. I guarantee you that I got more out of my rest/pause set of 25 reps on the leg press than people who sit there and do 3 x 10.
But I didn’t start here. I started with a ‘bodybuilding’ split. Chest/Triceps, Back/Bi’s/Shoulders, Legs, repeat for six sessions a week. Each muscle group was typically trained with three exercises and the compound movements used the good ol’ 10/8/6/4/2 rep scheme with an increasing load. If I hit 4 reps on that set of 2, then the weights went up for every set for the next session.
I later moved on to a variety of methods that pushed me mentally and physically. Simple Guaranteed Size & Strength made me do 5x8 on squats, deads, lunges, and RDLs all in one session. It was brutal. The Complete Power Look started with 5 x 3 @ 80% and pushed you to 5 x 6 at 80% (that sucked) and then you used 4 x 8 for assistance work. So a leg day was front squat, paused front squat, split squat or lunge, and then another exercise such as leg press or an isolation movement. If you push yourself, those sessions are not pleasant.
I’ve drifted through Best Damn, several variations of 5/3/1, and countless other training programs over the years. And now I think I’m to a point where I can push hard where I want, and then leave. I’ve built this body and I’ll say it seems much easier to maintain it than it did to create it. Perhaps minimalistic training is something earned.
One difference is that my body is requiring me to stop neglecting mobility/flexibility. I’m still at the gym for an hour most days, but the lifting portion is only about half of that. The other half is conditioning and exercises/stretches that will hopefully alleviate my back pain.
I’ll leave you all with this. Coach @Lee_Boyce sharing his wisdom on the gram. Some of these really stood out to me - leave feeling energized and pain free to be exact.
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Yep exactly…you can only stretch yourself so thin before you run out of resources . Be it recovery or the ability to go into a session and kick ass on a handful of exercises. To maintain some form of progression for the long haul.
Yep… that always been the trend. I have notice most cant even tell you how certain exercises will benefit them or what they will accomplish at their present developmental stage.
On the same note , It always tweaks a never with me with some of those routine is the amount of redundancy you see.
Sometimes its ego … because they have read every article or watched every video produced by whom ever they have decided to latch onto. Without the experience to wade through the swamp of info.
Thats just my take on it.
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There are some good cases for minimalism and getting strong. The ones I’ve researched came from the DC (Maryland and Borderline PA). Around the very early 80s and into the start of 1990s.
Hint- world record deadlift in the 1980s and maybe the greatest squatting. This is more than 1-lifter but basically 1-top set in the big 3 and not much or none other assistant stuff and other exercises.
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To me minimalist training is doing the least to still make progress towards a goal, be it strength or hypertrophy.
So technically it works, if you’re progressing.
Routines and programs I’ve seen marketed as minimalist generally do not seem ideal, however. If you want to take a year to get where six months could put you it’s your prerogative.
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Minimalism means different things to different people.
- “I am a busy guy and want to spend as little time in the gym as possible.”
- “You never need to do more than one set of hyperbolic Bosu Ball squat thrusts, or anything else (but must approach failure).”
- “I am a lazy guy and want to use as little effort as possible.”
- “Just focus on the three main lifts.”
- “Jazz is all about the notes you don’t play.”
Asking “is minimalism better for maintenance” implies it is not best for beginners, because you need to have achieved something to maintain it. And this is correct.
Beginners are going to gain weight and strength despite their mistakes. But without volume they might not develop the work ethic needed to fuel effort and push intensity (perhaps more if they did not play organized sports as a kid, as mentioned). I think minimalism poor for beginners unless this means one hard set of 6-12 exercises. But people’s goals vary. An athlete concentrates on their sport, and does enough training to gain selective strength without compromising their sport skills. That’s a different salamander.
Most people start gradually losing muscle in their 40s and find when they are in their 70s carrying something up the stairs is now too difficult for them. Minimalism maintains muscle, maybe. But whether it maintains strength and power depends on the specifics.
Lifters, occasionally already on the obsessive or dysmorphia spectra, always talk about optima. The minimal amount of protein. The very best way to Bosu Ball squat thrust squat. The One Routine To Rule Them All (And in The Darkness Bind Them). Life is much less prescriptive and people differ quite a lot more than most think .
I think minimalism a poor choice for beginners. I think it reasonable for busy people , who lifted more when younger, using the Pareto Principle (80% of gains from 20% of effort) and this reasonable for maintaining muscle and maybe strength. If you only lift once a week, you are way better off than those who never strength train from a health perspective, and it isn’t even close; regardless of how close you are to your full potential if you spent much more time.
If minimalism means doing one set on thirty different nautilus machines, this will make you crazy strong. If it means “don’t try hard” you are wasting your time in the gym (but have possibly acquired some righteous selfies). If it means “the notes you don’t play” you are probably pretentious but it remains true you can only do so many exercises for so much time.
But this leads to the Iron Law Of Iron: Things only work for so long with respect to gaining strength, and then you are better off trying something different. It is easy to change from high volume to less. It is harder to change from doing the minimal to doing more, since you must improve the constitution as well as change the routine.
Lifters learn what works for them, for a while, then try different experiments. Occasionally, I go to the gym and do one warmup lift which feels unexpectedly hard but should be easy. That’s enough to forget my planned workout and do another part or cardio since I know I need more recovery. Minimalism works for a while if you have been training high volume. As a strategy, if you need to focus on 3 lifts do that as long as it works and you maintain joint balance. But everyone plateaus. The older you get, the more you must do to get stronger. But for maintenance, you can do much less work, but not with much less thought.
With all that, Thibs, a lifting genius, found a way to make one set work extremely well. Of course few do this. But it worked for me.
[Summary, remember “5-5-10-15”:
5 reps with 5 second negative, 5 regular reps, 1 rep 10 second negative, 1 hold for 15-30+ seconds.]
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Back in the '90s I went on a Heavy Duty II approach for quite sometime. I read Heavy Duty II a couple of times, and reread Atlas Shrugged. Though I do not have my notebooks, I did get stronger. And I am not sure there is anything more minimalist than Heavy Duty II. I have mentioned this, I got fat. So, at one time in my life, being minimalist (I guess…) I became stronger in certain areas. Workouts were, if I remember: a) dips and squats, b) Dead lift and pull ups. Once a week, rotating “workouts”. That is my experience. I would not do it again though.
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Many start Atlas Shrugged. But few finish.
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I feel like you as much as you have to earn low volume, you have to earn high volume. I’ve certainly taken time to work up to where I’m at now and it took time to feel like I could recover from it. You have to learn to survive before you can thrive. It may not be for everyone. But is it worth it? To quote Tommy Lee Jones, “Hell yes it is! If you’re strong enough!”
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Oh I finished that bitch, cover to cover. And I even read Galt’s speech.
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I mean, you kinda HAVE to if you read it cover-to-cover, haha.
During COVID, I basically had to just show up to my job and occupy my desk until my shift was over. I read Atlas Shrugged for 2 solid weeks during that time.
I was working swings, so I’d go straight home and go to sleep after work. I had the WILDEST dreams.
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