YOUR FIRST WORKOUT

So you decided to give Starting Strength a shot.

You saw the Novice Linear Progression template, put your Converse shoes in your bag along with your hand towel and head to the gym. You hop on the bike for a few minutes, warm-up, and walk over to the rack. You quickly realize you have no idea how much weight to lift, how long to rest or how to even check if your form is correct. You remember something about bending over in the squat, shrugging in the press and being 1 inch from the bar in the deadlift, or was it 2 inches?

You also realize that having a coach would be pretty useful right now, but since you don’t, let me guide you through your first workout.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

Clothing and gear:

• lifting shoes or hard sole shoes

• cotton t-shirt

• loose sweatpants, shorts, leggings

• chalk (optional)

Gym equipment:

• Barbell (20kg-15kg-10kg)

• Power rack, standing squat rack, cage rack

• Flat bench, preferably movable around the gym so it can be put in the rack

• Bumper plates (5kg-10kg-15kg) for the Deadlift and microplates (0.5kg-1kg-2kg) for the Press and Bench Press (for detrained individuals and most women)

• A flat surface (I know, sounds intuitive, but for many gyms it’s not)

• No mirrors if possible

HOW MUCH WEIGHT?

Every lift has a different learning progression.

The Squat is learned with no weights at first, to understand depth and hip drive.

The Press is learned in a strict fashion first and with an added hip rebound later.

The Bench Press is learned from the bench setup first.

The Deadlift is learned in 5 progressive steps.

All of these lifts are gonna be practiced and repeated with incremental warm up sets of 5, with short rests in between (1-2’) starting from the lightest weight possible, until the bar speed visibly slows down, technique is hard to maintain, and fatigue starts to set in. It is always a good rule to be more conservative than one desires on the first workout; the weight on the bar will increase on each time from now on, and we want to keep it that way. Going too heavy on the first workout can cause a lifter to have to bring the weight down soon thereafter, which can be demotivating.

FILM YOURSELF

If you are being coached online you are gonna have to film your worksets for your coach to review and correct, but even if you are completely on your own, you should film yourself (link to how to film your form check article) as you learn the movement and check for a few landmarks for each lift

EXAMPLE FOR THE SQUAT

Learning hip drive and depth with no weight, repeat movement for a few reps, watch videos to check improvement

Add empty bar (20kg if you’re a man, 15kg if you’re a woman), do 1 set of 5 reps, check video to see if landmarks are hit (depth, eye gaze, back angle, stance)

Do another set of 5 with the empty bar, check video to see improvement

Add 5-10kg on each side (men), 2.5-5kg (women, untrained) and do another set of 5

Feels really easy? Add the same amount, take a minute, and do another set.

Repeat until it feels slower and harder to focus, take off some weight if in doubt.

Ideally you wanna do a maximum of 4-5 incremental sets, including the empty bar, before deciding your workset weight, which you will repeat for 3 sets of 5 reps.

Here is a written example:

Bodyweight 2x5

20kg (empty bar) 2x5

40kg 1x5

60kg 1x5

70kg 1x5 (feels too hard)

62,5kg 3x5

The same progression will be applied for the other lifts

Starting Strength already has plenty of tutorials of the lifts so I won’t take up space here to go through each one.

The idea is you try to nail 2-3 landmarks of each lift, with a weight that feels challenging but safe, incrementally warming up for it, for the prescribed number of sets and reps in the program (3 sets of 5 for squat, press and bench; 1 set of 5 for the deadlift), and you film yourself to be able to check your form during or after the workout.