The Starting Strength Novice Linear Progression

A few years ago I stumbled across the book The Barbell Prescription and it has changed my life.

It was co-authored by Starting Strength coach, Dr. Jonathon Sullivan and barbell coach Andy Baker.

The book is aimed at people over 40, but it is based upon the Starting Strength method for helping regular people increase their strength.

With this post I explain the Starting Strength Novice Linear Progression (NLP).

I am not going to discuss why you should do it, but you can read some of my thoughts in that regard here and here.

The NLP is a method for taking a novice lifter who has no experience with lifting weights, or who hasn’t trained in years, to intermediate lifter.

An intermediate level lifter is someone who requires more complex training in order to continue to achieve new gains in strength.

Let’s assume you are a complete newbie to strength training.

What you don’t do is go to the gym and lift the heaviest weight you can possibly manage or perform the most reps you can possibly do.

And you don’t perform 6, 8, 12 or 20 different exercises.

The goal here is to build strength, and the best way to do that is by training basic barbell exercises that mimic natural human movement patterns.

These exercises include the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press.  Eventually, we add in a couple other exercises during the NLP, such as chin ups and barbell rows.

At the very beginning of the NLP we start with

two basic workouts as follows:

Workout A                            Workout B

Barbell Squat                       Barbell Squat

Bench Press                         Overhead Press

Deadlift                                 Deadlift

The recommended type of barbell squat is what we refer to as the low bar squat.

The low bar squat has the bar sitting just below the upper trap muscles, rather than on top of the shoulders.

This forces the trainee to bend at the waist a bit to keep the bar over the center of the feet.

As a result, this engages more of the posterior chain, and thus more muscle mass than the more common high bar squat.

Sets and Reps

For the squat, bench press and overhead press, we want to perform three working sets of five reps.

For the deadlift, we will only want to do one working set of five reps.

Before we do any working sets, we want to warm up first.

I recommend getting the body warm by jogging in place and doing some jumping jacks for a couple minutes, followed by some light stretching.

With each of the lifting exercises, we then want to perform a few warm up sets with a focus on our form, before getting to the working sets.

Sample Workout – Bench Press

Set 1 – Empty Bar – 10 reps with focus on form

Set 2 –  100 pounds – 5 reps

Set 3 –  115 pounds – 3 reps

Set 4 – 135 pounds – 1 rep

Set 5 –  145 pounds – 1 rep

Set 6 – 155 pounds – 1 rep

Sets 7-9 – 175 pounds – 5 reps

For the warm up sets, you only rest for the time it takes to change the weight on the bar.  For the three working sets, you will rest for about 2 to 3 minutes.

If you start out very conservatively with your weights, then 2 minutes is all you should need.

Sample Workout – Deadlift

Set 1 – 135 pounds – 5 reps

Set 2 –  155 pounds – 3 reps

Set 3 – 175 pounds – 1 rep

Set 4 –  195 pounds – 1 rep

Set 5 – 205 pounds – 1 rep

Set 6 – 225 pounds – 5 reps

To determine your initial starting weight for each of these lifts, check out this other post.

For the first couple of weeks, you should be able to easily complete 5 reps for 3 sets for each exercise, adding weight to the bar with each workout.

 Adding Weight to the bar

For a couple of months, you should be able to add weight to the bar for each exercise for each workout, IF you start conservatively AND you don’t get too greedy and try to add weight too quickly.

Nothing will stall out your progress more quickly than adding too much weight too quickly.

Just keep this in mind… this is a marathon and not a sprint.  Just stick to the program and you will get much stronger much more quickly than you thought.

With that said, in order to continue adding weight to the bar when the weight is getting heavy, you MUST eat and get enough sleep.

If you are trying not to gain too much weight, then you will need to pay close attention to your diet and your macros.

Protein consumption is an absolute must, so if you don’t want to gain unwanted fat, you’ll need to pay attention to total calorie consumption.

Off Days

Active rest is the recommendation for your off days.  What we want to avoid when going through the NLP is doing too much cardio exercise, as it can eventually interfere with your progress in building strength.

If you do need to lose some weight as you start your fitness journey, then it is recommended you walk… get in your 10,000 steps (you can do that on your training days as well).

I’ll discuss some cardio options in a future post.

Now, let’s have a look at how adjustments are typically made during the Novice Linear Progression.

NLP Phase 2

Because the deadlift can get quite heavy very quickly, it really starts to cause stress for the body.

Therefore, after about 2 to 4 weeks (if you stay conservative with adding weight, you may not need this adjustment for two months… this is at your discretion) the first adjustment to the programming is to alternate the deadlift with another pulling exercise.

For our purposes, that exercise is the chin up or lat pulldown with palms facing in.

If you are unable to perform at least five chin ups, then you will want to employ the lat pulldown.

The program now looks like this over a two week period:

Week 1

Monday                    Wednesday                          Friday

Squat                         Squat                                     Squat

Bench                         Press                                      Bench

Deadlift                     Chins/Pulldown                   Deadlift

Week 2

Monday                    Wednesday                          Friday

Squat                         Squat                                     Squat

Press                          Bench                                     Press

Chins/Pulldown       Deadlift                                 Chins/Pulldown

If you will do chin ups with these workouts, you do 3 sets, as many reps as possible, while resting 3 minutes between sets.

If you will do lat pulldowns, you will do 3 sets of ten reps, starting at a weight where this is easy and you need no more than 2 minutes rest between sets.  You’ll then want to try and add weight each workout (remember to start with a conservative weight).

The goal is to eventually switch over to chin ups rather than lat pulldowns.

If you are able to do three sets of ten chin ups, then you’ll want to start adding weight.

That is the only exercise change for Phase 2.

NLP Phase 3

In phase 3, it is likely you will notice that the overhead press becomes quite a bit more difficult.  This is the exercise where progress stalls the soonest, and it will be the exercise where you ultimately lift the least amount of weight.

The goal is to continue to add weight to the bar.

If in your last workout, you found it difficult to complete the 5^th rep in the third set, then you will want to only add 2.5 pounds to the bar.

If you fail to get 5 reps on a set, give yourself a minute rest, then try to get that last rep.

If you started conservatively enough with your weights in your first week of training, you should be able to get through about two or three months of training before you start to hit the wall on this lift.

If this does happen, just be sure that you get a total of 15 reps, even if it takes you four or five sets to achieve that.

However, if you get to a point when you can’t manage more than three reps in your first set, then it is time to make a change.  We’ll address this in the next Phase.

Squat adjustment

Another change you MAY want to make for Phase 3 is to give yourself a break in regard to the squats.

This is dependent upon your ability to recover between workouts up to this point.  If you are finding it difficult to grind threw three sets of five reps while adding weight to the bar each workout, then this a change you will want to make.  If not yet, then wait a couple or few more weeks.

Here is the adjustment…  on Wednesday each week, you will do three sets of five reps at 80% of Monday’s weight.

Therefore, if you squatted 250 pounds for three sets of five reps on Monday, you will drop the weight to 200 pounds.

Since the weight on the bar for the squat has gone up rapidly, it becomes a bit more difficult both physically and mentally to grind out three sets of five reps every workout.

By taking a bit of a break from the intensity on Wednesdays, we leave ourselves a bit more fresh going into Friday’s workout.

You’ll want to make this adjustment when the bar speed has slowed a bit, and you may be close to failing a rep.

NLP Phase 4

By now you are at least three to four months or more into your training, depending on how conservatively you started out with your weights, and how consistently you’ve trained.

In phase 4, we want to make two initial changes to the programming.

First, we are now only going to deadlift on Wednesdays.  If the weight on the bar has stayed well ahead of the squat, as it should, then the intensity provided by only deadlifting for one set of five each week is enough to suit our purposes.

Note: If you are squatting more weight than you deadlift, or, there is little difference in weight, it is likely that you are not squatting to full depth.  Full depth means that your thigh must angle slightly downward from the knee to the hip at the bottom.  If your thigh is angled downward toward the knee at the bottom, you are not squatting low enough. 

Secondly, we are going to add more pressing to the program as it is likely that you are now stalling out on both the bench press and overhead press.

By doing this, we need to take off some intensity and add some volume to the program.

It will now look like this…

Monday                                Wednesday                          Friday

Squat 5×3                             Squat (80%) 5×3                 Squat 5×3

Bench 5×4                            Press 5×4                              Bench 5×1

Chins/Pulldown 10×3        Deadlift 5×1                         Rows 8×3*

Press 1×7 reps

*Bent over rows, or Seated rows with a V-handle – Similar process for adding weight to the Lat Pulldown

For the Bench Press and Overhead Press on Monday and Wednesday, you will lift a weight equal to 90% of your previous 5 rep PR for the Bench Press and 90% of the 1 rep PR for the Press.

Therefore, if your 5 rep PR for the Bench Press was 200, you will do four sets of five reps at 180, with no more than 3 minutes rest between sets.  You will do the same for the Press on Wednesday.

Moving on…

On Friday then, you are looking to hit new PRs for a set of five on the Bench and for singles on the Press.  For the Press, keep your rest limited to two minutes between sets.

At this point, you may only be add a pound to the Press on Fridays and 2.5 pounds to the Bench Press.

Last Phase of Novice Linear Progression

At this point, you’ve added substantial weight to the bar for each of the exercises, and it has now become a grind to complete all of your reps.

Progress may have completely stalled in one or more of the lifts.  This is due mainly from accumulated fatigue.

In this scenario, you’ve become legitimately stuck after sticking with the program.

Even if you’ve been getting enough rest and you’ve been eating well, you’ve hit the proverbial wall.

The bottom line is that you are VERY close to the end of the NLP.

With that in mind, to eke out minor gains before moving on to more complex strength programming, you want to back off the weight on each exercise by no more than 10% and go for 3 sets of 5 reps for each of the exercises, except of course the deadlift.

Then just resume adding weight to the bar for each session at your most recent pace.

After a few weeks, you should be able to get to new record weights for five reps on each of the lifts before stalling out again.

And that effectively takes you to the end of the novice linear progression.

Final Thoughts

Most people won’t ever get through the entirety of the NLP.

I am one of those people as I have to modify my training from time to time to deal with old ailments, mainly a back issue I’ve had for twenty years.

However, I’ve still been able to make substantial progress, just not so much in a linear fashion.

The fact is the training gets really hard after about three months.

This is about when many people decide to switch to a different training program, but at least they’ve made significant gains in strength.

If you can get through the entirety of the NLP, you will virtually set yourself up with a massive new strength foundation for the rest of your life.

Even if you aren’t able to train consistently going forward, you can still retain the majority of this newfound strength, and this will pay huge dividends later in life.

If you are new to training, I encourage you to check out my recommended equipment.

If you will be training at a gym away from home, you will at least want to grab yourself a pair of lifting shoes and a lifting belt, so be sure to check out my recommendations.

Now, get to work!