Per from Sweden asks…
“I hope this e-mail finds you in good health. Recently, I bought your old strength course of the Saxon´s brothers. It´s a great course and I´m very grateful that you have recording the videos of the lifts they did. Since I have no one to ask how to do the old school lifts your videos are the only source I have. Besides the lifting I would be interested in you have any tips how a training routine/template may look like for a beginner like me? The Saxon´s book do not really show any example of how routine may look like I wonder if you have any book or similar resource where I might find more information how to create a simple routine including the old school lifts? I would appreciate any tips or ideas you might have.”
Glad you are finding the course helpful.
Do you have my book Master Keys to Strength and Fitness? That goes into a good amount of detail regarding building a training plan.
In short:
In general, it’s good to cover the main basics. Some sort of upper body press and pull. Some sort of squat and hinge. Many of the oldtime lifts cover these main four.
Then some of the lifts are a lot more practice-based. Like the bent press. It’s sort of a press, but not really. These lifts can be done more frequently, though I did make good progress focusing on that just once per week.
It can be overdone on how many different lifts you do. This really depends on your goals as well, any sort of other training you might be engaged in.
Just as an example:
Monday
Bent press
One or two arm Clean and jerks
One or two arm Military press
Deadlifts
Wednesday
One or two arm Snatch
One or two arm Rows
Squats (or deep knee bends as they used to be called)
Friday
Bent press
Various kettlebell lifts such as Holding at Arms Length
Kettlbell juggling
Of course, that is a plan that fits our more modern schedules.
If you want to train like Arthur and his brothers you’d do it quite differently. (Fun note that some of the people involved in the strongman act of the Saxon brothers over the years were his biological brothers and some were not.)
They would train for several hours each day! A wide variety of lifts and exercises. Again, this goes back to the like of practicing rather than a workout.
Here’s a useful article on that subject discussing the differences between practicing, training and testing.
There are many possible ways to train. The most important thing to keep in mind is to make sure you’re progressing.