Simple, balanced workouts

Lately I have been re-engaging with the writings of US coach Dan John.

There is a lot of wisdom in his movement pattern based approach to programming resistance training workouts for strength, hypertrophy and general wellbeing.

Approaching it from this point of view means that, at the very least, all the fundamental human movement patterns are present in your workout. In theory, although it is probably not going to be specific enough to address weak points or develop either advanced strength or a really top-class physique, it should "do no harm" and represent a pretty accessible and generally sound way to program workouts on an ongoing basis. Dan also makes the point that even if this way of training is only 70% optimal, for the sake of argument, then if you were to do it over 20+ years then no one could argue that you are not going to reap such a general dividend in terms of health and strength, whether it's optimal or not is beside the point.

While he has written multiple articles, books and programs for sale on the topic, my distillation of it is as follows:

1. Train 3-5 times per week, for no more than 1 hour
2. Warm-up however you like to raise internal temperature, whether that's a circuit, row, skip etc.
3. Each workout should contain a pushing movement, a pulling movement, a squatting movement, a hinging movement and a loaded carry*.
4. Volume should be approximately 2-3 work sets per movement. Warm-up sets preceding the work sets are up to you.
5. Intensity on barbell compound movements, if you select them for one or more of the movement patterns, should have you leaving one or more reps in the tank, and focus on weight and rep progression without training in such a way that you are picking up niggling injuries or feeling ground down. Keep bar speed smooth and fast, no grinding reps. When you stall on a compound lift for a given movement pattern, switch to something else.
6. Avoid the temptation to include too much isolation work on top of the above.**
7. Train whole body for simplicity's sake***

*Movement patterns and exercise selection examples

Pushing movement: Bench press, floor press, military press, incline bench, decline bench, DB and KB variations of same.

Pulling movement: Conventional barbell row, Pendlay row, inverted row, DB and KB variations of same. Inverted row, ring row, TRX row, pull-up, chin-up, band-assisted pull-ups and chin-ups, rack chins, pull-downs (various grips).

Squat movement: Back squat, front squat, safety bar squat, goblet squat, belt squat, quad-dominant leg press, hack squat, any unilateral squat variation like split squat, Bulgarian split squat, lunges. A trap bar deadlift could be used here IF you can perform it in a quad-dominant manner, perhaps with heels elevated.

Hinge movement: Deadlift, trap bar deadlift, good morning, Romanian deadlift, single leg deadlift, rack pull, back extension, KB swing, KB snatch, hip thrust, hip bridge.

Loaded carries: Suitcase carry, waiter carry, sandbag carry, any kind of carry really, and potentially sled drags or pushes could be here.

**Isolation work

If you want to include additional isolation work, such as direct arm training for the biceps and triceps, or something targeting a specific area like shoulders, traps or neck, train it intensively but keep it to 2 sets, and don't let it interfere with the main exercises.

***Whole body

When training whole body then you can either repeat the same workout until you stop progressing on main lifts, or set up alternating A and B days. If setting up alternating A and B days then have a vertical push and horizontal pull on A day, and horizontal push and vertical pull on B day. If you just want to repeat the same workout then when you eventually do stall on something like a horizontal pushing movement like bench, replace it with a vertical push like military press next time around.

I'm editing out any discussion of upper / lower as judging by a PM I received it was just complicating matters. Let's just focus on this as a whole body approach, Dan's preference also.