Ranking 30 Popular Novice Lifting Programs (Tier List)

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 CUSB
1:19 What Makes a Good Novice Program?
5:21 Tiers Explained
8:15 5/3/1 for Beginners
11:59 Alpha Destiny
15:11 Arnold Golden 6
16:47 Athlean X Full Body
21:27 Athlean X PPL
21:47 A Workout Routine
23:12 Barbell Medicine
25:21 Candito Strength/Control
28:06 Candito Strength/Hypertrophy
29:38 Fierce 5
31:48 GZCLP
34:49 Ice Cream Fitness 1.0
37:22 Ice Cream Fitness 2.0
38:49 Jeff Nippard Full Body
42:36 Jeff Nippard Upper/Lower
44:49 Jeremy Ethier
48:10 Kinobody Full Body
50:41 MadCow
53:20 M&S Start From Scratch
54:40 NH Atreus
57:56 NH Original
1:01:02 nSuns 5/3/1
1:01:35 Phrak GreySkull LP
1:02:43 StrongLifts / Starting Strength
1:03:17 PHUL
1:05:03 Reg Park
1:06:52 r/Fitness
1:07:49 Ripped Body
1:09:58 Sean Nalewaynj
1:11:59 Recap / Novice Purgatory

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Chest up, shoulders back. Your home for gains and brains.
—REVIVAL Fitness— 

#NoviceProgram #GymProgress #REVIVALFitness

[corenko]

The absolute BEST Novice Lifting Program:

Day 1 - Nasty Chest Pump
Day 2 - 8 Hour ARM DAY
Day 3 - Legs (Rest Day)
Repeat and enjoy your gains

[orkunakman]

How did the GZCLP progresion confuse you?

Tier 1- 5 set for 3 reps (15 reps +). Progress.
When you can't do 3 reps with that weight, do 2 reps. To make up for the lost volume increase set count to 6 (12 reps+) Continue progressing.
When you can't do 2 reps with that weight, do 1 rep. To make up for the lost volume increase set count to 10. (10 reps+) Continue progressing.
When you can't do 1 rep with that weight, that means you have to start over.

Tier 2- 3 set for 10 reps (30 reps). Progress.
Can't lift it? Go 3 set for 8 reps (24 reps) Progress.
Can't lift it? Go 3 set for 6 reps (18 reps) Progress.
When you can't do 6 rep, that means you have to start over.

It's really not hard and it gives beginners a way to work with differing rep counts.

[redhawkmillenium]

I've been training with Jeff Nippard's fundamentals program for the past year, switching between the 3x full body and the 4x upper/lower. I've gotten great results, and I also feel like I learned a lot about principles of training from the rest of the PDF.

[elidonohue]

GZCLP is actually a pretty simple system. You’re missing the point of the progression part. You don’t do the stages in certain length waves. It’s a standard linear progression model and the idea is when you fail at one stage you then switch to the next stage. So I’d add 5 pounds to my bench every week for 5x3+ and whenever I finally fail to get 3 reps on all 5 sets, next week I do 6x2+ and so on. It’s a simple way to keep from stalling quickly for novices with too frequent deloads and plateaus. You should check out the infographic instead of that article because it makes it really easy to see.

[dapperduckie]

As a novice that just hit 1 year at the gym recently I decided to do a max out test on the big 3 lifts to see how far my strength has progressed in that time and I'm curious to know if I'm on the right track. These were my results:
BW: 139lbs - 158lbs
Squat: 110lbs - 264lbs
Bench: 88lb - 182lbs
Deadlift - 198lbs - 320lbs

[oualidbro.c]

There was a 16 year old named MTG (made to grow) who got a 135 ohp, 205 close grip bench and a 345 squat on the alphadestiny novice program.

[John_vs_Wild]

As always the best novice program is the one you start today, stick to consistently and don't swap until you're intermediate. Being optimal doesn't matter because everything works for novices, except Athlean-X.

[Randm_Usr_]

I've been doing NH's original program for 7 months

As for the heavy compounds, I believe when it says to do 1-3 sets, you start off with 1 set, then 2 the next week, then 3, and then keep doing 3 sets until you hit the upper end of the rep range. Then you increase weight and go back to 1 set. So most weeks you're doing 3 sets - at least that's how I do it.

For the abs/pushups AMRAP at the end, I used to just do 1 set, but as I got used to the volume, I upped it to 4 sets. I like that there is some freedom there to decide how much volume you want to do, since I was really tired at that point in the workout when I just started and wouldn't have wanted to do more than 1 set.

I've also added to the program since NH encourages you to experiment with the program to reach your goals. Specifically, I've added movements like shrugs, lateral raises, rear delt flies, neck isolation, face pulls, calf raises, etc. I've also played around with the supersets to see what movements work well together and what I can easily superset in my university gym.

I've made good gains and have enjoyed the program so far.

[nattyfatty]

Even the "best" novice programs are overcomplicated. You can do like 3 lifts be done in 45 minutes and get more gains faster than even with Starting Strenght

[HAL-dmeh]

After having been in Novice Purgatory for a long time I ran up on Starting Strength and it changed my life. I had no idea I could get that strong, that fast. Once I was at the end of the program (about 3 months) I was intermediate level strength and went on to my hypertrophy focused goals.

I learned A LOT from Rip and also from Andy Baker who helped him write the "blue book" you pretty much have to read if you want to fool proof his program. As straight forward as all of these programs might seem, barbell movements DO have a learning curve no matter how high or low depending on the individual.

Couple of criticisms are that he is extremely dogmatic about the low bar back squat which has a learning curve all on its own, on top of just learning the back squat. Quite a few of the people who can learn to do this properly have issues with shoulder flexibility and it hurting their elbows. DO NOT IGNORE THAT PAIN, or you could very well wind up with permanent injuries like I did. I mean, it's just some nagging golfer's elbow that creeps up on me if I do something too hard or wrong at this point, but it's always there waiting to rear its ugly head if I'm not careful.

Despite what he and his minions said on his forum you CAN do the regular back squat and get just as much gains, you'll just lift about 15% less weight due to leverage differences. In fact, most people watching this probably want to do that anyway as it will hit your quads more than low bar.

Another criticism is his book is quite long and involved for a beginner. Then again, he does explain everything well and as I said, doing barbell movements correctly (if for no other reasons than safety) is more involved than people might think.

If I had all this to do over again, I'd still do Starting Strength and I'd do regular squats from the beginning. I wouldn't waste time milking it to the last drop, which is why I was done in 3 month's time instead of maybe 2. I'd just do it for a couple months and then automatically go into my hypertrophy program, which if you do SS correctly, you will jump right into intermediate level on that, too.

[nicfpvnicolas]

Waiting for NH's 1 hour and 38 minutes response video

[shengshaoyi]

I think the fitness community uses the term "beginner" too broadly. It's a category that includes a ton of different kinds of people at different fitness levels.

Firstly, imagine you have a 20 year old that has been playing soccer and running since they were 10, they're generally in great shape but have never focused seriously on weight lifting. Imagine you have another 20 year old who is slightly overweight, and has never done any exercise their entire lives. These two people I would likely recommend totally different training plans. The first person would benefit from a super focused gym plan, while the second person can probably make a TON of gains by focusing first on bodyweight stuff and losing some weight, and general lifestyle changes.

Second, imagine you have a total beginner who has never set foot in the gym, versus someone who has been working out for 6 months consistently. The first person just needs to go consistently. It literally doesn't matter what they do. They can go and sit in the gym for an hour. The thing that matters for them is making existing in the gym a part of their weekly routine. For that person, I would prescribe the most barebones, easy thing possible, so they can just focus on physically being present. For the second person, diet and exercise selection becomes much more important.

[GastropodGaming]

Jeff nippard is pretty good with training; Dude reads the papers, is somewhat clever, and is very experienced in the field.

[LafeJames]

Dude thank you so much for all of the effort you put into your vids. This unit of a presentation took some serious time 💯 *Train sound effect*

[neversate]

My respect for Jeff nippard has gone way up since he exposed doucette's turkesterone hype.

[MichaelJJFox]

GZCLP is amazing. It's hard to understand at first how to run it but it's really worth it. The main thing is that tier1/stage1 you lift 5x3 and incease the weight every training until you fail the lift. When you fail, go to 6x2 and when you fail again do 10x1.

Example:
225 bench 5x3 success and next workout I do 230 and I fail to do a full 5x3 and I only do 3x3 and then on the next set I only lift 230 once or twice. This counts as a fail and next workout you do with 230 bench 6x2. You increase the weight again every workout doing 6x2 and when you fail to do a full working set, you start doing 10x1. After you cannot lift the weight not even once, you test your max and return to 5x3.

Stage 2 is similar except you do 3x10, 3x8 and 3x6. When you fail the 3x6 you return to 3x10 with a little more weight than when you failed the very first time.

Stage 3 you increase the weight once you do 25 reps on the third set.

[s.o.k.]

Monday: Chest
Tuesday: Pull (and chest)
Wednesday: Chest (and biceps)
Thursday: Arms
Friday: Chest and arms
Saturday: Pull
Sunday: Arms

[GyroZeppeli]

I love that your channel is growing last time I was here you were at 30k now your almost 40k don't stop making content.

[GreyRock]

"and Arnold is here for some reason."

I don't know why, but I died laughing at that.

[ci]

I’ve grown more and more to admire your comedy style . Love it .