The Genesis Program: {Part 1} The creation of a training program: Compound Lifts

The Genesis Program is set to be a three-piece series going into the making-of a basic training program for *intermediate level training people to develop overall body strength, size, conditioning and composition change. *Intermediate level lifters are those that have at least a year of basic weight training in the gym under their belt but now need a plan in order to carry them forward now that the 'newbie gains' are starting to diminish and their strength/muscular levels are starting to plateau. Ideally its about giving them direction as just going to the gym for a workout is not enough to progress anymore towards their goals.

 In the beginning there was light

The compound lifts are the bread and butter of weight training and from there, sadly any other fitness fad that has been pumped into the mass market and suckered in a generation. Olympic weight lifting, powerlifting, strongman and even crossfit where the strongest and most highly conditioned athletes compete, all use compound lifts. Why? Because they get you the most bang for your buck, plain and simple.

 Free weights allow for natural movement patterns based on your current mobility and flexibility while doing the exercise. They also more importantly help build limit strength which is the maximum amount of force that your muscles can produce. The higher one's limit strength, the more amount reps one can produce with lesser weight, which increases overall muscular endurance, hypertrophy and work capacity. Also by recruiting more muscle mass through a challenging motor pattern, such as a compound lift, leads to a bigger metabolic stress on the body.  

Now I’m not saying isolation exercises are the devil and you have to scorn them like medieval witch burnings, but priority of any successful training program is the use of compound lifts as the mainstay of progress. The use of isolation exercises should be used as a tool to increase hypertrophy of weaknesses in lagging muscle groups to increase performance in the compound lifts.

 Choosing your tools to build 

Now that you know that compound lifts are the base to building this change in your body, the next question is which lifts are the most important to use and why do they have such a great carry over? The following lifts will be built into the Genesis Program and are the keystone to successful progress. They are the tried and tested building blocks of great physiques and developing strength and power. There are many variations to these lifts that one can use later on when the basic lift motor pattern has been drilled into your central nervous system, but as for basic programming, hammering away at these will build the necessary changes in your body:

 
The deadlift


This exercise tests full body strength to its maximum. It utilizes the entire body in a single movement tp lift a weigh off the floor. It builds a powerful posterior chain and develops tremendous lower body strength through the use of the hip hinge, as well as utilizes the upper body to stabilize and thus work in a isometric fashion.
 




The squat

The squat is said to be the king of all exercise, like the deadlift it utilizes the entire body to move the weight. The movement is similar to the deadlift except that the weight is not out in front of you but on your back. The upper body plays a role in stabilizing the weight, stopping the body from collapsing in on itself as well as keeping the body in moving in an efficient motor pattern. The lower body gets loaded then rebounds at the bottom to drive the weight back up.
 




The bench press


The bench press, if done correctly, utilizes the entire body to drive the weight from the bottom to the lockout. Correct use of the legs to drive kinetic energy from the heels, into the glutes straight into the lats and up the triceps to explode the weight into lockout.

 



The front squat

The front squat puts pressure on the quads, hamstrings and glutes and forces the upper body upright through activation of the core, lats and triceps. The front squat is a complete full body exercise when done in an Olympic fashion.



 


The overhead press


The overhead press was once the king of upper body development. The entire body is engaged in exploding the weight from the upper body to overhead. The glutes are utilized to stop the back from hyper-extending and the upper back and lats are used to stabilize and keep the weight moving in the correct path.
 


The chin up

The chin up performed through the entire range of motion develops tremendous back strength. The body must move in unison to bring the chest up to the body through pulling through the elbows and retracting the shoulder blades. With so much time the average person spends hunched over a desk now days, the chin up is one of the best counteracts to poor posture and developing strong base of strength in the back. 

 
 
 

Isolation work not left out 

Now to compliment the compound lifts is the use of isolation exercises to help build your weaknesses into strengths to aid in getting stronger. These lagging muscle groups need to be addressed in terms of direct work to make sure the whole body is well balanced and developed via hypertrophy. These exercises will be listed later on in a few sample programs and reasoned as to why they are used.


The next installment in this series will go into how to incorporate conditioning into the training program.