Basic strength building workout routine

This article lists 13 exercises in a basic strength building workout routine that you can perform 3 times a week with high intensity to increase strength in the muscles of your entire body.

Building strength is all about doing the least amount of sets and reps, but with the highest possible intensity and going all out so that the muscles are completely tired and you cannot perform another rep. If you can perform another rep after doing a set, you have not given it your all.

A good example of progression in building strength is given in Using a pull chin-up bar and progressive overload training to increase lats strength where I went from not being able to do a single chin-up to performing several reps unassisted.

When performing high-intensity training and fatiguing muscles to the max, you need to pay special attention to:

• Exercise form – perform each exercise with the best possible form; do not jerk the weights up or use muscles that you should not be using to do a particular exercise.
• Exercise execution speed – perform each rep slow enough to really tax the muscles you’re working.
• Weight – the weight you use for an exercise should be heavy enough to fatigue the muscle before you do 6 reps, which is the ideal amount of reps for building strength.

Once you’re aware of those 3 basic things, you can move onto putting together a basic strength building workout routine.

Below I’ve listed a strength building workout routine that you can perform 3 times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If that is too much for your body to handle and/or your body is not recuperating before the next workout, you can switch to training twice a week on Monday and Thursday.

The strength building workout routine below is a whole body workout. The amount of reps should be kept between 1 and 6, you should perform only 1 set of each exercise, and do not forget to warm up and cool down properly.

Basic strength building workout routine:

1. Lying leg curls – isolation exercise; trains your hamstrings; good for warming-up; do not go too heavy on this exercise
2. Leg extensions – isolation exercise; trains your quadriceps; good for warming-up; do not go too heavy on this exercise
3. Barbell squats – basic, compound exercise; trains your quads, glutes, and lower back
4. Dumbbell pullovers – basic, compound exercise; trains your serratus, lats, chest, and triceps
5. Behind-the-neck presses – basic, compound exercise; trains your deltoids and triceps
6. Bent-over barbell rows – basic, compound exercise; trains your back, rear deltoids, and biceps
7. Barbell bench presses – basic, compound exercise; trains your chest, frontal deltoids, and triceps
8. Seated pulley rows – isolation exercise; trains your back and rear deltoids
9. Parallel bar dips – basic, compound exercise; trains your lower chest, deltoids, and triceps
10. Chin-ups – basic, compound exercise; trains your lats and biceps
11. One-arm triceps extensions – isolation exercise; trains your triceps
12. Barbell curls – basic, compound exercise; trains your biceps and forearms
13. Stiff-legged deadlifts – basic, compound exercise; trains your hamstrings and glutes