The Minimum Amount Necessary

The following article was originally published on Cyberpump.com in 1998.

Recently I’ve been receiving a lot of e-mail and phone calls from people with questions regarding their workouts. Often, people are surprised at the brevity of the routines I recommend, and ask, “why so few exercises?” To which I respond, why do any more? Why perform any more exercise than the minimal amount necessary to stimulate growth in all the major muscle groups?

It is unnecessary, and even counterproductive to do any more exercise than is minimally required to stimulate growth in all of the major muscular structures. More exercise than this will not stimulate more growth, but it will use up more energy and metabolic resources, which leaves your body with less to recover from and produce the muscular growth stimulated by the workout. While I do not believe that it is possible to exercise too intensely, or that the majority of people train anywhere near as intensely as they are truly capable of, I know for a fact that it is very easy to perform too much exercise and believe that the majority of people would benefit from a reduction in the volume of their training.

It is unnecessary to perform dozens of exercises during a workout, addressing every possible function of every single muscle group. Instead, one should perform a few basic movements that address all of the major muscular structures, and try to avoid overlapping exercises. With a few exceptions, such as rehabilitation and subjects with certain physical conditions or limitations, a workout consisting of a few basic compound exercises and exercises for the neck and calves will provide all of the exercise a person requires. Not only will briefer workouts waste less of one’s recovery energy, they also encourage more intense training, since a person is less inclined to hold anything back during an exercise like they tend to do when they know they’ve got another 6 or 7 exercises to go.

As examples, I present the following very brief, basic routines, with a list of the primary muscles addressed by each exercise.

Basic, Full-Body Routine:

1. Neck Extension: all of the muscles which extend the neck, too numerous to list
2. Neck Flexion: all of the muscles that flex the neck, specifically the sternocleidomastoid
3. Calf Raise: gastrocnemius, soleus
4. Stiff Legged Deadlift: hamstrings, glutes, lumbar extensors, lats, rhomboids, trapezius, posterior and medial deltoids, wrist flexors
5. Squats or Leg Press: glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps
6. Front Grip Pull Down or Chin-Ups: lats, teres major, posterior deltoids, rhomboids, inferiorly oriented fibers of trapezius, biceps, wrist flexors and abs
7. Chest Press or Dips: chest, serratus anterior, anterior deltoids, triceps, coracobrachialis

If for any reason any of the above exercises are not an option, I recommend the following substitutions:

For Stiff Legged Deadlift – Lower Back Machine and Shrugs: hamstrings, glutes, lumbar extensors (Lower Back), trapezius and wrist flexors (Shrugs)

For Front Grip Pull Down – Compound Row Machine or Bent-over Barbell Rows: lats, teres major, posterior deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius, biceps, and wrist flexors

This routine covers all of the major muscular structures in the body, and should take less than 20 minutes to complete if no rest is allowed between exercises. For someone who is either more advanced and training at a higher level of intensity or has a lower tolerance to intense physical stress and requires an even lower volume of exercise, it may be necessary to divide the exercises up over two routines, such as the following split:

Workout 1:

1. Neck Extension
2. Neck Flexion
3. Stiff Legged Deadlift
4. Chest Press or Dips

Workout 2:

1. Squats or Leg Press
2. Front-Grip Pull Down
3. Calf Raise

There are some people who perform even less exercise than this per workout. I know of one person who performs only ONE exercise per workout, and trains only once every 10 to 14 days. His total workout time for a year is less than the amount of time some people spend in the gym in one week. He’s making phenomenal progress though.

Keep in mind that which and how many exercises any particular person uses in their routine will depend on their individual physical condition and the equipment available to them. All I can recommend is that you keep your workouts brief, and stick to the basics. If you are training intensely enough, not only will you not need to perform dozens of exercises, you will actually experience better results if you don’t. As Arthur Jones once said, “…instead of trying to find how much exercise we can tolerate, we should try to find out how little exercise we actually require.”

Current Thoughts – January 2009

I would recommend beginners starting out with more exercises, then gradually cutting back as the weights used and training intensity increased to avoid overtraining.  While everybody is going to have different requirements based on individual physical condition, goals, and response to exercise, the following would be an example of a possible progression from beginner, to intermediate, to advanced trainee, and is similar to how I would start and progress a typical client:

Sample Beginner Full-Body Workout (Free Weight):

1. Barbell Squat
2. Chin-Up
3. Dip or Barbell Bench Press
4. Barbell Row
5. Barbell Press
6. Stiff-Legged Deadlift
7. Weighted Crunch
8. One-Legged Calf Raise with Dumbbell

Sample Beginner Full-Body Workout (Machine):

1. Leg Press
2. Pulldown
3. Chest Press
4. Compound Row
5. Shoulder Press
6. Back Extension
7. Trunk Flexion
8. Calf Raise

When progress starts to slow down, these could be divided into two, alternating routines, either full-body or split. The number of compound (multi-joint) exercises in each routine would be reduced to three: one for the hips and thighs, one upper body pushing, one upper body pulling, and isolation exercises might be added in depending on the specific goals or needs of the trainee.

Sample Intermediate Full-Body A,B Routine (Free Weight):

Full-Body Workout A:

1. Barbell Squat
2. Chin-Up
3. Barbell Press
4. Dumbbell Pullover
5. Dumbbell Chest Fly
6. Weighted Crunch

Full-Body Workout B:

1. Deadlift or Stiff-Legged Deadlift with either a Barbell or a Shrug Bar
2. Dip or Bench Press
3. Barbell or Dumbbell Row (I recommend a supported dumbbell row if back fatigue from the deadlift limits the weight that can be handled with strict form in a barbell row)
4. Barbell or Dumbbell Tricep Extension
5. Barbell Curl
6. One-Legged Calf Raise with Dumbbell

Sample Intermediate Full-Body A,B Routine (Machine):

Full-Body Workout A:

1. Leg Press
2. Pulldown
3. Shoulder Press
4. Pullover
5. Chest Fly
6. Trunk Flexion
7. Calf Raise

Full-Body Workout B:

1. Leg Curl
2. Leg Extension
3. Chest Press
4. Compound Row
5. Tricep Extension
6. Arm Curl
7. Back Extension

Sample Intermediate Split Routine (Free Weight):

Upper Body:

1. Chin-Up or Barbell Row (alternate)
2. Dip or Bench Press or Barbell Press (alternate)
3. Dumbbell Pullover
4. Dumbbell Chest Fly
5. Barbell or Dumbbell Tricep Extension
6. Barbell Curl

Lower Body and Trunk:

1. Barbell Squat
2. Stiff-Legged Deadlift with either a Barbell or a Shrug Bar
3. Weighted Crunch
4. One-Legged Calf Raise with Dumbbell

Sample Intermediate Split Routine (Machine):

Upper Body:

1. Pulldown or Compound Row (alternate)
2. Chest Press or Shoulder Press (alternate)
3. Pullover
4. Chest Fly
5. Tricep Extension
6. Arm Curl

Lower Body and Trunk:

1. Leg Curl
2. Leg Extension
3. Leg Press
4. Back Extension
5. Trunk Flexion
6. Calf Raise

Keep in mind the above are just examples. The specific number and selection of exercises will vary from person to person. For more advanced trainees working at a much higher level of intensity, these routines can either be further reduced or divided. This can be done be done several ways, depending on how the trainee is progressing on the different exercises:

• dropping the isolation exercises
• reducing the number of compound exercises or dividing them between more routines
• splitting the routines into upper and lower body, or upper body pushing, upper body pulling, and lower body, etc.

In most cases, direct adbominal work should be one of the first things dropped. While the current trend is to make a big deal out of “core” training, if you are squatting, deadlifting, pressing, chinning, etc. with heavy weights, your abs are already getting plenty of work. Whether you drop or substitute isolation exercises for compound exercises or divide them between more routines depends on your specific goals and progress on those exercises. Don’t be afraid to cut back if your progress is starting to slow down, though. The biggest mistakes people make with their training are doing too much, too often. While there are other factors involved, often when progress starts to slow down it is an indication that either workout volume or frequency needs to be cut back to allow the body to fully recover from and adapt to the training stimulus.

Eventually, some trainees may progress to what Mike Mentzer referred to as a “consolidation routine”, like those in the original article above, consisting of only two or three exercises. While this may sound incredibly short, especially to those used to reading about the ridiculous high-volume programs recommended by many mainstream bodybuilding magazines and web sites, many people have had very good results on such programs.

As another example, I am currently rotating between the following two workouts, performed roughly once every 5 days:

Workout A:

1. Barbell Squat
2. Weighted Chin-Ups
3. Barbell Press
4. Barbell Wrist Curl
5. Barbell Wrist Extension

Workout B:

1. Shrug Bar Deadlift
2. Weighted Parallel Bar Dips
3. One-Armed Dumbbell Rows
4. One-Legged Calf Raise w/ Dumbbell

I occasionally add direct arm work to these, including barbell curls or dumbbell hammer curls, and either barbell or dumbbell tricep extensions. Once I finish refurbishing my 2nd gen Nautilus 4-Way Neck machine I will be adding neck extension and flexion back to the start of workout B.

My upcoming book on high intensity training includes an entire chapter on routines, covering exercise selection, number, order, and other factors in more detail.