Part II: The Lean It UP 5×5 Workout Plan — The Simple, Beginner’s Guide To Strength And Muscle-Building

Part II: The Lean It UP 5×5 Workout Plan

*The Lean It UP 5 x 5 Workout Plan is part II in our four-part ‘Simple, Beginner’s Guide To Strength And Muscle-Building.’ Before beginning, make sure to read part 1 — Nutrition — so that you can squeeze the most out of your hard work in the gym.

Part I: Introduction & Nutrition

Part II: The Lean It UP 5×5 Workout

Part III: Science-Backed Supplement Recommendations

Part IV: 10 Surefire Tips For Success

If you’re teetering on the edge of the vast, intimidating world that is strength training, but clueless about what to do or how to begin, slow down — we’re here to help you dive in. Below is your simplified, straightforward guide to beginner’s strength training. With everything from major success factors, to our Lean It UP 5 x 5 Workout Plan, to a detailed progression plan, we’ve distilled muscle and strength down to the bare essentials. Use it as a roadmap to help kick-start your muscle-building aspirations and drive your physical transformation forward.

The Lean It UP 5×5 Workout — Success Factors

Success Factor 1: Emphasize Compound Exercises

Compound exercises are big, heavy movements that engage multiple muscle groups — examples include the squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows, and the barbell bench press. In contrast, many movements are known as isolation exercises — such as dumbbell curls — which pinpoint a specific muscle and nothing else. While dumbbell curls might hit the biceps hard, they don’t work any other muscle groups and they don’t burn a lot of calories.

To accelerate results and experience gains as quickly as possible, make compound movements the center of your workout regimen.

For example: to work your quadriceps muscle you could either do machine leg extensions — an isolation movement that hits only the quads — or you could spend your time doing barbell squats. Squats are a far superior exercise because they engage nearly every muscle from your toes to your nose. Not only do they hit the quads, but they also work the hamstrings, butt, calves, core, back, and shoulders at once. Plus they burn a ton of calories, and eventually that translates to body fat.

Compound exercises build the big picture — the foundation, if you will; isolation exercises accentuate the minor details.

Squats are a FULL BODY exercise. Yes, that’s Arnold himself.

Success Factor 2: High Training Frequency

In addition to a focus on big, compound lifts, any effective beginner program must contain a relatively high training frequency. For maximal effectiveness, perform each lift 2-3x per week.

The rationale behind relatively high training frequency has to do with optimizing protein synthesis. Simply put, your muscles are built from protein; your body maximizes the creation of new protein when trained at a higher frequency. Usually within ~ 36 hours after a workout muscle protein synthesis returns to baseline levels — in order to keep these levels elevated, frequency is absolutely key.¹

By performing a full-body workout several times per week you can produce sustained muscle protein synthesis and ultimately keep your body in a permanent state of growth.

Success Factor 3: Progressive Overload

Success Factor 3: Progressive Overload

Any successful strength-building program must incorporate progressive overload, regardless of whether you’re a novice or consummate pro. It sounds fancy, but in practice it’s extremely basic.

Progressive overload is the idea that to grow you need to challenge your body more than you did in the past. Over time the body adapts to the same exercises, weight, and reps. To continuously build muscle mass and strength, it’s imperative to stress your muscles more than in your previous workout. This can be done in a number of ways: performing more reps, increasing the amount of weight lifted, or simply varying the tempo (e.g. lower more slowly, accelerate the weight faster).

If you typically bench press 145 pounds x 12 reps, shoot for a set of 155 lbs x 12 reps, or 145 lbs x 15 reps in the workout — both variations represent an increased workload and provide a new challenge to help spur growth.

The Lean It UP 5 x 5 Workout Plan

The Lean It UP 5 x 5 Workout Plan

The Lean It UP 5 x 5 Workout Plan is a basic program that runs three days/week followed by 2 days off (M,W, F, OFF, OFF or Tu, Th, Sat, OFF, OFF). Simply alternate workout A and workout B each week, with the first week progressing A >B >A and the second week following B >A >B.

Perform each individual exercise using the same weight, with 2-3 warm-up sets prior to the “work” sets listed below. These are REQUIRED. For each warm-up set perform no more reps than your actual “working” sets and use a relatively light weight to avoid muscular fatigue. Please, do not overlook proper warm-ups – that’s how injuries happen.

Before you begin, I highly recommend that you take some time to educate yourself on the proper way to perform these lifts. Although they may appear simple, it is essential to learn proper technique as a beginner. This will do two things: maximize gains and prevent injury.

Please consult our guide to deadlifting and spend an afternoon utilizing Google and YouTube to get a general feel for the exercises in this program (we’ve included a great squatting video below). If you’re feeling extra studious and motivated, I highly recommend that you read Mark Rippeletoe’s Starting Strength. The internet should be enough to get you started, but Starting Strength will help you master the finer points of these complex movements and take your training to the next level.²

Workout A

Workout A

Workout B

Workout Plan B

Check Your Ego

We all have to start somewhere. If you intend to get stronger and put on muscle mass then you have to leave your ego at home when you get into the gym. Improving your fitness, physique and health is a personal journey of self-improvement — be honest with yourself and know your capabilities. When you use a weight that’s too heavy you end up using poor form, limit the range of motion, and thus reduce your potential gains. This also increases the likelihood that you’ll injure yourself.

Now that you’ve been warned, you MUST start with relatively light weights. The first several weeks of this program should be considered “training,” spent mastering the form of each movement and developing a strong foundation that you will use to grow. As such, it is key that you start with a weight that allows you to easily perform the given number of sets and reps. Begin with a weight that allows you to successfully complete an additional 5 reps on top of the required sets. For example, if you can squat 135 pounds for 10 reps and 185 pounds for 5 reps, you should start with all working sets at 135 pounds.

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References, Notes, Links

1. MacDougall, J. Duncan, Martin J. Gibala, Mark A. Tarnopolsky, Jay R. MacDonald, Stephen A. Interisano, and Kevin E. Yarasheski. “The Time Course for Elevated Muscle Protein Synthesis Following Heavy Resistance Exercise.” Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 20.4 (1995): 480-86. Print. [↩]
2. The program is a variation of the 5×5 program, which was developed back in the 1960’s by professional bodybuilder Regi Park. Since then, there have been countless variations of this program, although they all focus on doing full body workouts with compound lifts 3 days per week, performing each exercise for five sets of five repetitions. This specific program is based on the StrongLifts 5×5 plan with various improvements (you can look at the original plan at www.stronglifts.com [↩]

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Joshua Nackenson

Contributing Author at Lean It UP

Joshua Nackenson, CSCS, is a medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine with a passion for all things related to fitness and nutrition.

His primary athletic focus is powerlifting, where he competes in the 165lb and 181lb weight classes. In between powerlifting training and competitions, he stays fit by competing in local 5ks and Tough Mudder events.

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