Bill Starr’s 5×5 Strength & Power Workout!
Bill Starr is a legend in the Iron Game. He is a former Olympic lifter and powerlifting competitor and was the coach of numerous national, international, and Olympic teams. Bill Starr was one of the very first full-time strength coaches at the collegiate and professional level.
In addition to that he is one of the most prolific writers in the Iron Game, with books and articles published over the past 5 decades. He was the editor of Hoffman’s “Strength and Health” magazine. Joe Weider’s “Muscle” magazine. MILO and Iron Man magazines, and many more.
This particular program is designed for the intermediate lifter. Someone who has experience with the power lifts and some decent training history should do quite well.
The program is based on weekly linear progress. You take your current 5 rep maxes (5RM) and work up to them systematically by increasing weights in steady increments over 3-4 weeks.
You then hit your current 5RM on lifts and continue these incremental increases week to week which pushes you further and further out making new personal records (PRs) every week until you stall on the majority of your lifts.
If you miss reps, keep the weight constant the next week and don’t move it up until you get all 5×5. When you eventually stall on the majority of lifts, and you will, meaning something like a few weeks of no progress in that you can’t add reps or weight than it will be time to move on to a different style of training.
With this program the rep speed is normal and the rest time between sets is approximately 3 minutes or what ever you need to fully recover and mentally prepare for your next set.
Before beginning you need to know your current 5 rep max for each lift. If you don’t know what this is you can test it or do a conservative estimate. It is better to start off on the lighter side to allow flexibility and room to grow with the program, rather than starting off too heavy, burning out quickly, and risk getting injured.
The whole key is the weekly progression and keeping workload low enough as to avoid overtraining. The goal is to use momentum and get out in front and set records for as many weeks as possible. The key to making progress and maximizing muscle stimulus comes from getting under the bar frequently and systematically increasing the weight from week to week while lifting within your means.
Click The Link Below To Download Bill Starr’s 5×5 Workout Schedule:
–>> Bill Starr’s 5×5 Workout Program – PDF
–>> Printable 5×5 Workout Gym Schedule – PDF
If you have any questions or comments about this workout program,
please post them in the forum and we’ll chat there 🙂