How our strength training should progress over years, from beginners to intermediate, to advanced and beyond.

Our training should look different at years 1-2, 2-5, and 5+

Weightlifting tends to follow an amusing, yet understandable arc of ‘progress’. The eras tend to look a little something like the following, and I say this with compassion because I’m not immune, I have lived all of these lives at one point and time. Men: spending 3 hours in the gym doing 27 different exercises lifting far too much weight > blow out shoulder or lower back > get discouraged > stop for 3 months > get back on the horse > get injured again. Women: hours of cardio in search of illusory ‘skinny goals’ > pilates, yoga, more pilates > eventually some weightlifting in circuit training classes > using the same 5lb weights for 2 years > abandoning the weights for cardio. Rinse and repeat. For context, I am a cis-gendered man and love pilates, love yoga, love cardio, and love weightlifting. I have enormous respect for the benefits each modality provides. I am also a professional fitness coach, personal trainer, and student physical therapist. My job is to help advise clients on the most effective balance of these modalities to help them achieve their specific goals, anchored by a foundation in health and longevity. Part of that guidance involves advising them on the best use of their time between each approach toward the shortest path to achieve those goals. Most have toiled for years on their own until finding me. While there’s a lot to be said in favor of doing your own thing and finding your groove by trying a medley of different exercises to figure out what you enjoy and what works; injuries, frustration, and time wasted don’t necessarily have to be the prerequisites to getting in shape and staying in shape. Once we finally iron out a consistent schedule to place weightlifting as the centerpiece of our weekly movement, we’d do well to understand what our training should look like in 3 distinct chunks of lifetimes. Most highly motivated gym goers can figure out a program that will provide moderate results within their first 6 months. What’s far murkier from then on out? How their training should advance towards their goals in the shortest amount of time without plateauing, with the longest prospects for injury-free training for life.

Jesse Kanda, ‘Tunga’, 2017

Years 1-2