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r/Fitness Basic Beginner Routine
The Basic Beginner Routine is the program r/Fitness recommends first to anybody who has never picked up a barbell. It is built into Ægir Iron and free to load for individual lifters and for athletes on a coach's roster.
What this program is
The Basic Beginner Routine was written by the r/Fitness moderators as a simplified version of Phrak's Greyskull LP. Two workouts alternate across three training days, and there are only five new movements to learn. Its authors describe it as a training-wheels routine, and they mean it: the goal is to get you into the gym, teach you the barbell lifts, and build the habit that everything else depends on.
The plus sign is the routine's own notation: the last set of every lift is taken for as many reps as you can while the reps stay crisp, stopping one or two short of failure. That is not decoration. It is the second thing the routine sets out to teach, which is that progress comes in more than one dimension, and it changes what happens next.
How the progression works
The weight goes up every time you train a lift: 2.5 lb on the upper-body lifts, 5 lb on the squat and deadlift. Get more than ten reps on your all-out set and the next jump doubles. Fail to get fifteen total reps across the three sets and you take ten percent off that lift and build back up. Because each lift lives in one workout only, it comes round about three times a fortnight rather than three times a week, which is a gentler climb than StrongLifts 5x5.
At a glance
| Discipline | General strength, and the first barbell program to run |
| Experience level | Complete beginner |
| Length | 12 weeks, and its authors say three months is the maximum |
| Training days | 3 per week, alternating A and B, plus two days of cardio |
| Equipment | Barbell, a rack, and somewhere to do chin ups |
| Loading | Percentage of your max, climbing every session, resolved live from your PR page and rounded to the nearest five pounds. |
| Price | Free for individual lifters and rostered athletes |
Free for individual lifters and for athletes on a coach's roster. Coaches pay only for roster tools.
How it works in Ægir Iron
The routine is written in pounds added to the bar, and a template cannot know what is on your bar, so Ægir Iron carries the same climb as a percentage step instead. You pick where to start, with light being the most conservative reading of the routine's own work-up-from-an-empty-bar method, and how fast it climbs. Every set is then priced off your maxes and rounded to the plate, and the climb stops rather than promising you more than any twelve weeks could deliver. The chin up carries no percentage at all, because bodyweight is the load and there is no bar to price; if you cannot do one yet, the routine points you at negatives, a band or a lat pulldown.
The routine also asks for two days of cardio a week, one easy and one hard. Ægir Iron does not write those as sessions, because the routine is explicit that they go on any day including a lifting day, and adding them would make a three-day program read as five. They are named on every session note instead.
What to run after it
Its authors are specific: three months at most, then move to something with more volume and more variety. They name GZCLP and 5/3/1 for Beginners, and both are built into Ægir Iron.
Start the Basic Beginner Routine
Open Ægir Iron, go to Program and choose New Program, then the Program Wizard. On the first screen pick Strength & Muscle, then choose the Basic Beginner Routine from the cards under WHAT DO YOU WANT TO RUN? Its own page shows how the loading runs and which lifts it needs a max for before you commit. It is free on iOS, Android and the web, with your data synced across all three.