Strength training is often viewed as a “program.” Is my program perfect? If not, then why even bother – right? Wrong. At first, it’s simple: show up and do the program. Walk into the weight room, follow the Starting Strength linear progression (SSLP) three days a week, and add 5lb a workout. Life is good. Becoming strong, however – really strong – is not a program, or a template, it’s a process.

The reality is far more nuanced than any template could ever be. Training is not a simple A-to-B journey from weak to strong. I wish it were that straightforward. A template, at best, is a starting point, a way to get the ball rolling. But we’re talking about training human beings here, so believe it or not, shit does happen. An experienced coach knows this, and is aware that it’s every bit about the individual, as well as their commitment to the details. We have enough evidence and experience to know that Starting Strength is a great place to start – hence the name – but the traditional SSLP is precisely that: a start.

Programming, at its core, is the delicate dance of three main factors: stress, recovery and adaptation. While a basic template may initially suffice, as one progresses the dance becomes more intricate. The amount of stress and time needed to achieve the adaptation increases. So, naturally, the program’s complexity does too. Starting out simple, basic, and general, it morphs into something more complex, individual, and specific.

One's personality and environment play significant roles in success, as mentioned in a previous article. The desire to excel and push beyond one's limits cannot be programmed. It rather comes from within. Being around ambitious lifters who demand greatness is a different experience from training in a cold garage gym while your cat coughs up a fur ball mid-set. A lifter’s character, culture, and environment cannot be manufactured.

A template doesn’t take into account individual differences, such as skill level, body type, and genetic predispositions. For example, achieving a big squat may require a focus on gaining body weight and increasing overall size, while a big deadlift's success may rely on factors like leverage and technique. Similarly, building muscle mass is crucial for a big bench, while a press may balance quite literally on the lifter’s ability to be proficient in the double layback. Progressive overload applies to all lifters. Simply put, we need to add more heavy circles of iron to the barbell over time. The exact dose changes from lifter to lifter, and that’s the art of programming.

Ultimately, the key to programming lies in the tinkering. Like working on a vintage car. It’s about experimentation, and knowing what not to do. That’s where an experienced coach’s skill pays off, and can take years off your training age, as you will probably encounter far fewer mistakes and training plateaus than when you’re doing it alone, learning through trial and error, groping around in the dark. No pre-made template can account for all the challenges or specific hurdles you may face.

Success leaves clues. If habits were on the stock market and training was a currency, I’d put my entire savings into consistency, sleep, protein, and creatine monohydrate, in that order. As we know, great habits breathe success into any strength quest. How you manage your life to stay successful is the real training.

Training humans is messy, and is not an exact science. We are not robots, and no one can predict lifting outcomes with total accuracy (unless maybe you’re training the Soviets). So unless you want to be locked up as part of a government program, forced to take a bunch of steroids and not see the outside world beyond the four walls of your residence and gym, then life will inevitably get in the way of your best-laid strength plans. It’s about how you adapt and work to find solutions to keep you consistent, eating and sleeping enough, and doing what we’ve been telling you to do ad nauseam on this site. That’s the key to progress.

Creating a situation that sets you up for success and also meets you where you are right now is the best thing you can do. Ideally you keep adding momentum to that. Getting your ducks in a row and having your eyes firmly fixed on the future – that is what creates long-term progress. It’s a life skill that I find highly rewarding. Once you have had success, you reverse-engineer the magic spark that got you there so that you can repeat it again and teach others. It usually comes down to habits and mentality. You can’t teach talent, but you can teach yourself habits.

If I had to list off the basics of successful programming in the weight room, I’d say it’s a combination of form, programming, and recovery – what I call “The Triangle.” Pick any lift you want and the progress you achieve will ultimately boil down to these three variables flowing in the right direction. It’s not overly complicated, I know, but from my anecdotal coaching and lifting experience the Triangle is the key.

Is your technique legit? Yes or no – work on that. Are you program-hopping, missing workouts or doing straight-up dumb shit? Yes or no – fix that. And, of course, the age-old favorite: are you eating and sleeping enough? Yes or no, do better on that. I know you’re probably bored of hearing that, but it’s true. Especially the recovery piece. We all know about sleep, but we simply ignore it or are quick to downplay its importance; enough caffeine to function does not replace sleep. As for protein, it has to have had a soul and a pair of eyeballs – that’s the only form worth ingesting. Vegetables, you ask? Ha. That’s what my protein eats.

Let me briefly leave form and recovery aside and focus the third element in the Triangle: programming. Regardless of ability or training advancement, programming boils down to two things: intensity, and a minimalist approach to exercise selection. This is something I have repeatedly rediscovered during my own training and programming. Stripping away the fluff and focusing consistently on the core lifts – squat, press, deadlift, bench, and power clean – yields the best results in strength for the majority of people I see.

To be clear, I’m not talking about powerlifters, just normal Average Joes who want to be strong. If you’re in that category, then you don’t need distractions like curls, advanced squat protocols, contrast showers, or the conviction that you’re a special snowflake who needs more volume.

It’s so obvious to me now as I discuss the problem that I find myself wondering whether, maybe, people don’t really want to be strong. Putting 600lb on your back or doing a 315lb press is hard, so perhaps when people say they need volume it’s really more that they don’t want intensity. Intensity is hard, and they know what’s lurking in the shadows, waiting to be conquered. Unfortunately, if you want to progress to the intermediate stage, sooner or later you do have to face your intensity demons and find out how much you really want to be strong. A heavy barbell needs to get incrementally heavier, and that’s scary. This mentality is the reason many people remain weak. As usual, Rip is proven right. Simple, but not easy – and harder always works better.

So what’s the takeaway here? Strength training is a dynamic, living and breathing process that demands a personalized touch and constant refinement. Hence, I don’t sell programs on my website. While templates can provide a starting point, and are useful for that specific purpose, true progress is achieved through critical thinking, experimentation, conquering your fears, and – most importantly – an unquenchable thirst for strength. There is no template for that. These are simply the intangible factors that turn good results into great results. So if you’re just starting out, SSLP will do the trick. But cracking the code to turn a three-plate deadlift into a six-plate will be individual to you. That’s programming. Staying focused, keeping the goal the goal and building lifestyle strength habits – now that’s a template I can get behind.

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