If you’re reading this then you want to find a great 5 day strength training program for your specific goals. Don’t worry I’ve got you covered. At this point I’ve written dozens of free fitness programs on this website, and I have several popular strength programs for all types of athletes. In this article I will cover my best pure strength program, as well as a some specialized strength programs for functional fitness athletes, bodybuilders, and more. Keep reading to find your best program.
I know how the internet works. Most of you are going to skim this article and find the first flashy looking workout program that catches your interest. However, I highly encourage you to actually read each section, where I describe the purpose of each program.
When you find a program that interests you make sure you follow the link to the page for that specific routine. It should answer all your questions about rest periods, exercises, and more.
While the vast majority of my programs are great for folks that have experience in the gym, and good technique, that doesn’t mean that every program in this article is appropriate for you. Some of these programs are suitable for advanced athletes and would be dangerous for newbies.
Similarly, many of my most popular programs are built for functional fitness athletes, like Tactical Athletes, or Crossfitters. These programs will have plenty of heavy lifting, as well as functional fitness workouts, and metcons. Let’s take a quick overview of my best 5 day strength training programs.
5 Day Strength Training Programs Overview
- Each program is designed for 5 days per week with 2 rest days
- These programs are flexible and don’t have to be 5 consecutive days in a row
- All programs were created based off of dozens of scientific studies
- Compound exercises are primary and isolation movements are secondary
- All major muscle groups are trained 2-3 times per week
- Each training session is 60-90 minutes in length
Before we get into the specifics of each program, I want to point you towards one of my favorite tools for my athletes. This is my natural strength and muscular limit calculator. This tool will help you figure out just where your genetic limit might be for strength and muscle growth.
It’s based off of a lot of field research on natural bodybuilders, and lifters. While it isn’t a crystal ball, I bet you’ll be surprised just how much strength and muscle you can gain, even if you’ve already spent years in the gym. All you need is a tape measure, and a scale.
Now, let’s quickly review the mechanisms behind building strength. This is important as most athletes don’t really understand the two key components of a quality strength program.
Mechanisms for Building Strength
I’m constantly surprised how many folks don’t actually understand that there are only two ways to increase your strength levels. The first, is neural efficiency with the movement. This is primarily created by practicing the movement. It’s also the reason why novice athletes jump in weight so quickly, when they first start lifting.
If you check out this study, you’ll see that the first few weeks of lifting is almost all neural adaptation, with very little muscle gain. This changes rather quickly as the human body is very good at adapting to new tasks. This leads us to the second mechanism for gaining strength, building muscle mass.
After a few weeks of consistent work, your body realizes it has to change to continue to adapt to the new stimulus of lifting. It does this by gaining muscle mass. You don’t need research to see the close relationship between muscle mass and and strength level.
If you look at any strength sport, with weight classes, you’ll find that most often the strongest athletes are those that are at the upper limit of their weight category, and carry the most muscle.
This doesn’t mean that muscle mass alone is sufficient to gain strength, otherwise bodybuilders would be the strongest athletes. It simply means there is a positive correlation between increases in strength, and increases in muscle mass.
Program Styles to Increase Strength
We know that we need to gain muscle mass and practice the lifts, but that isn’t enough. Research confirms that periodization is a crucial aspect of programming to increase overall strength. Periodization is simply a plan for progressive overload.
In fact, if you dig into that article on periodization, you’ll find that any form of periodized program increased strength about 22% across multiple studies. Non-periodized programs led to a 19% increase in strength. This shows that periodization is superior, but getting in the gym and lifting heavy, with no plan, still promotes strength gains.
All of this means that if you want the best results in a 5 day strength training program, then you need a routine that increases your lean muscle mass, and allows you to practice the lifts frequently, to gain neural efficiency. Moreover, you need some type of periodization for the best gains. Wouldn’t you know it, I’ve got several of those programs ready to go!
If you like this kind of information then be sure to sign up for our email list below.
Join the Email List
The 7 Week Free Strength Training Program [PDF]
The 7 Week Free Strength Training Program is one of my most popular 5-day split programs. This program is a pure strength program. You won’t find a WOD, or Metcon in sight. As the name implies, it also comes with a PDF download with all the workout sessions in one convenient document. Here is a sample week of programing
This program is ideal for intermediate and advanced strength athletes whose fitness goals including building pure strength and muscle mass. Remember there is no conditioning work in this program. Make sure to check the programs out a little further on if you want to build strength and conditioning.
This workout plan targets all body parts with a mixture of compound movements, using free weights, and isolation work. Moreover, you can see that each day has a specific muscle group focus, such as lower body or upper body.
You should also note that I often include a little extra work for a body part that isn’t the primary target of the workout. This is one of my favorite methods for increasing the amount of practice you get with each movement.
As a coach, I would rather you get 60 hard reps split over several sessions, rather than 60 sort of hard reps in one session. Strength is a skill, and it demands you practice with heavy weights often to show improvement.
If this program looks good, but you don’t want to give up your WODs and functional fitness workouts, then you should check out my next program. You’ll love it!
9 Week Functional Strength Program
The 9 Week Functional Strength Program, has hundreds of thousands of views at this point, and has been my most popular strength program for several years. I believe this is because it combines some solid functional fitness WODs with a tried and true strength program, 5×5. Take a look at a sample week.
This program requires you to download a spreadsheet from StrongLifts. The spreadsheet provides your percentages on the 5×5 work you see listed. Each workout session has you doing your heavy lifts first, taking a small break, and then hitting a WOD.
Each WOD is designed to complement the lifting work. For example, if you have a chest day with the bench press, I almost always pair that with some shoulder work in the WOD. This allows you to build some more muscle mass with the triceps and shoulders, which also contribute to a strong bench.
Because this program is so popular, I’ve created a premium version of it, where I’ve modified the strength program to one of my proprietary loading schemes. I’ve also included things like coaches notes on each piece, and specific warm ups for each session. Check it out below.
I know some of you are a little strange, and you actually want more of a challenge. While I question your sanity, I do have a program for that. Be warned, it’s not for the faint hearted!
9 Week Advanced Strength Program for Functional Fitness
The 9 Week Advanced Strength Program for Functional Fitness relies heavily on variable resistance training (VRT). VRT style training relies on elastic bands / chains to increase resistance as you move through the rep. Research shows that this is one of the best ways to increase strength for advanced lifters. Here’s a sample week.
If you’ve been lifting for a while, but aren’t confident with this style of training, I recommend checking out the link to the full-body routine above. I’ve included videos that explain how to set up each lift with your bands or chains. I’ve also included some guides on how much straight weight you should use for each lift as well.
It’s important to note this program has a lot of training volume, both in lifts, and in each WOD. This is the first cycle and it increases in difficult each and every week.
Because this program can be complicated, I’ve created a premium version of this with extensive coaches notes for each session. They include specific percentages, rest periods, and techniques for each section. Check it out below.
So far we’ve covered a pure strength program and my intermediate and advanced functional strength programs. Each of these programs is designed to build strength primarily, and muscle mass secondarily. However, if you want to build more muscle mass than strength, then check this next program out.
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program
The 8 Week Functional Bodybuilding Hybrid Program is actually a three part series, lasting 24 weeks in length. This program can build serious muscle muscle mass, provided you’re willing to put in the work. It actually starts out as a four-day split and increases to a 5-day workout split by the last portion of the program. Here’s a sample of the program.
This program is a clear upper body, lower body split, with the WODs sticking to entire body workouts. Most research shows that lower rep ranges are better at building strength, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t build strength with lower weight as well.
If you read my article on reaching your genetic potential you’ll recall that the researchers examined the effects of low, medium, and high volume programs on muscle mass and strength. They found that athletes who completed up to 32 sets per muscle group, per week, actually built the most strength.
These athlete were lifting in the 60-75% rep range with only 1 min of rest between sets. That’s barely enough time to catch your breath! Never the less, these athletes build serious strength with bodybuilding style weight training. Lucky for you, I don’t have any 32 set weeks in this program!
I’ve also included a premium version of this program, with all the same details I’ve included in the other premium versions. Check it out below.
Now let’s talk about my final program for those of you that want to run fast and lift heavy!
The 15 Week Lift Heavy Run Fast Program for Functional Fitness (Part 1)
The 15 Week Lift Heavy Run Fast Program isn’t technically a 5 day split program. It’s written as a 6 day split program; however, I’ll let you in on a little secret. You can drop the Saturday session if you want, and you won’t be sacrificing much. For some athletes, those extra rest days can be crucial for recovery. Here’s a sample week.
For those of you who’ve followed the website for a while, you’ll recall that this style of program, combining lifting and running, is called concurrent training. It’s one of the best methods to gain strength, and fitness, provided it’s written correctly.
If you combine the wrong style of workout, in the wrong order, it can have a negative impact on your strength and muscle gains. The important thing is that I’ve separated the conditioning work, from the heavier weights, so that you can have the best of both worlds.
I can tell you from experience that this program will require a lot of calories, and attention to your recovery plan. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s what we’re going to talk about next.
Nutrition for Strength Athletes
I can’t tell you how often I get an email from an athlete asking how they can gain strength, increase fat loss, and improve their conditioning, all at the same time. I’m left in the unenviable position of telling them that these things generally aren’t possible.
If you want to build strength, and associated muscle muscle mass, then you need to eat in a caloric surplus. I don’t recommend you eat thousands of calories more than you need each day, as that’s just going to make you fat and strong.
I highly recommend checking out this nutrition calculator where I give you some great recommendations for overall caloric intake, and macro splits. Check it out.
Protein Requirements for Strength Training
It’s important to note that while overall caloric intake is important, your individual macronutrient requirements are just as important. In terms of protein, recent research indicates that figuring your protein requirement from your lean body mass is a better method than using your overall bodyweight.
Most athletes think that more protein equals more gains. This isn’t true, as it seems like 0.9-1.15 g/lb of lean body mass is best. For a 200 pound man with 165 pounds of lean muscle mass, that’s only 150 – 190 grams of protein.
The Meathead obsession with protein is mainly due to the high protein requirements when on a diet. If you’re trying to lose body fat, then higher protein will help retain muscle tissue. However, if you’re just gaining strength and mass, then you don’t need sky high protein!
Carbohydrate Requirements for Strength Training
Carbs are very important for performance in the gym. They are often unfairly demonized, but they are a must for those that want to hit the weights hard. In my experience 2-3 grams of carb per pound of lean mass is a good place to start.
Using our example guy above, that would be 330 – 495g of carbs. This figure is going to be highly dependent on the program difficulty. Obviously, the lift heavy run fast program will require more carbs than the 7 Week Free Strength Training Program. More volume requires more energy.
Dietary Fat for Strength Athletes
You do need a baseline amount of dietary fat, as it provides the building blocks for your hormones, like testosterone. If you go too low, you’ll quickly find your hormones go to hell and you feel terrible. All those bodybuilders on chicken and rice diets know the feeling!
Most athletes need around 0.5 – 0.9 grams per pound of lean mass for dietary fat. Using our 200 pound male example that puts us at 83 – 150 grams. This is one area where there is a wide margin depending on your individual desires. Now let’s discuss some science based recovery techniques for hard training lifters.
Recovery for Strength Athletes
Get ready because I’m about to recommend some really expensive, very complicated recovery techniques. They use glass bottles, electricity, and crystals. Just kidding, most muscle recovery things that are sold to you are actually a massive waste of money. Read this article on scientific based recovery methods, and you’ll see there are only a few things that truly work
The best way to recover is to sit on an exercise bike for 10 minutes after your session in the gym. It doesn’t have to be an exercise bike, as any light movement will work, hello walking! The important thing is to cool down at a very easy pace for at least 10 minutes.
This increases circulation throughout your body. Circulation is needed to begin the recovery process, allowing your body to begin to repair damaged muscle tissue sooner. As a nice bonus, you’ll find you actually feel better leaving the gym.
There’s also some evidence that wearing exercise tights can decrease the amount of soreness you feel, and increase your muscle mass when worn during, or after training. Check out this article where I reviewed the research on that topic.
Performance Enhancement for Strength Training
One of my favorite methods for increasing the amount of reps you can do is very simple. All you need to do is some light hyperventilation prior to your set. The research on that topic was quite interesting, and resulted in athletes lifting 35% more reps just by breathing heavily prior to their work sets.
This technique is best for sets that use full body movements and full-body workouts. It’s not going to work on your triceps extension and rear delt work! Moreover, it’s best for sets that are going near to failure. If you’re just doing a heavy double or single, you probably aren’t accruing enough metabolic byproducts for this technique to be effective.
Check out the article, and take a look at the research. I bet you’ll be surprised how well this technique works. I’ve found it to work very well on different muscle groups in my own training.
Final Thoughts
I’ve given you several different options for a 5-day workout routine to choose from. However, I know I will be asked what order you should do them in to continue to gain strength. Because these programs are fairly diverse, I don’t think they would be good to strung together. Instead, I’ll give you a template for putting programs together.
If you’re primarily looking for strength, then I recommend a 2:1 ratio of strength programs to hypertrophy programs. You should be spending twice as long working with heavy weights in a program designed to build strength as a primary goal.
You can’t stick to only building strength all the time. Every now and a gain you need to work on gaining muscle mass. This break will also help your joints and tendons recover a bit from truly heavy weights. Most strength programs average around 85% of 1RM, where as most bodybuilding programs average 75% of 1RM.
There is no doubt that you’re doing more overall work when bodybuilding, but it’s generally less injurious than heavy weights are. Don’t believe me, Google injury rates for strength athletes. You’ll find bodybuilding is one of the safer sports to engage in.
As always, your consistency in the gym, and outside of the gym is what matters. Don’t worry if you have to scale a workout, or if you need to rearrange a workout to fit with your schedule. The important thing is consistent work over weeks, and months, not day to day fluctuations.
If you have any questions about programming, or your individual goals, put them in the comments section below and I’ll get you an answer. Now get out there and get training!
The opinions and information expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not affiliated with any corporation, group, public or private entity. This web site is not endorsed by, directly affiliated with, maintained, authorized, or sponsored by Crossfit Inc. All product and company names are the registered trademarks of their original owners. The use of any trade name or trademark is for identification and reference purposes only and does not imply any association with the trademark holder of their product brand.
