Learn barbell strength training in six months
Six months of three sessions per week, an hour each, on five lifts: squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, row. About 70 hours under the bar. You will not be strong yet, but you will move serious weight with correct form and know exactly how to keep adding plates for the next decade.
6 months · ~70 hours · double-bodyweight deadlift, bodyweight squat, half-bodyweight press
1.Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe
The 360-page bible of barbell technique. Rippetoe spends 50 pages on the squat alone — every cue, every error, every angle illustrated. No video tutorial comes close. Read the squat, deadlift and press chapters before your first session, then re-read each one before its training day for the first month. The book is dense and Rippetoe is opinionated; that is the point. Skip the rows and power cleans for now.
$30 paperback, third edition
Starting Strength →2.StrongLifts 5×5 app
Two alternating workouts, three times a week. Workout A: squat, bench press, barbell row. Workout B: squat, overhead press, deadlift. Five sets of five reps. Add 2.5 kg every session until you can't, then deload 10% and climb back. The free app times your rests, tracks your weights, and tells you exactly what to lift each session. There is nothing to figure out. Film your squat from the side every week and compare it to the diagrams in Rippetoe.
Free app · gym membership $30–60/month or home rack ~$800 one-time
StrongLifts 5×5 →If this doesn't fit you
If you don't want to do power cleans or rows and prefer a less polarising starting point, run the r/Fitness Basic Beginner Routine instead. It's three full-body days, mixes barbell and dumbbell work, and is the most heavily peer-reviewed beginner template online. Same six-month timeline, similar outcomes, slightly more mainstream programming.
Why this path
The novice gains period — when adding 2.5 kg per session actually works — lasts six to nine months and never comes back. Wasting it on machines, split routines or Instagram programming is the single most common beginner mistake. Linear barbell progression is brutal, simple, and adds more strength in six months than three years of anything else. The book teaches the lifts; the app removes every excuse to skip a session. Film yourself. Eat enough. Show up.