The NLP is the “Novice Linear Progression”.
The Novice Linear Progression is the name of a simple strength training program, first created and detailed by Mark Rippetoe in the book Starting Strength. (You can buy it here – all of our coaches are required to know this book inside and out! It also covers in great detail proper form more than any other work written in history, but that’s for another time…)
The NLP is an extremely powerful program for making rapid gains in the gym when you are just starting out OR if you haven’t done it before (regardless of your “experience” in the gym)
It was originally written this way:
Workout A
Back Squat 3×5
Press 3×5
Deadlift 1×5
Workout B
Back Squat 3×5
Bench Press 3×5
Deadlift 1×5
The lifter trains MWF, and adds 5lbs to the bar every time they train. Everyone makes unbelievable gains in strength and muscle mass doing this. Most people aren’t willing to give this a try because it seems to easy, isn’t intense enough, or seems to good to be true. But the truth is, if you haven’t done this before, you can and should. Typical results are adding 300lbs to your squat in 6 months if you’re a male, and 200lbs if you are a female.
This program will continue to work for most people for 4-15 months, depending on age, height, weight, athletic ability, and starting place.
No matter what your goal is, putting on that amount of strength that fast puts you in the best position possible to be the best athlete you can be – no matter what you want to compete in or do – whether that’s CrossFit, Body Building, or something else.
How This Applies to Our Gym
All of our personal training clients, coached access clients, and our competitive lifters do this program until it stops working. When it stops working, it might be time for the lifter to move on to advanced novice, or beginner intermediate programming. The truth is, 90% (+) of people will never stick with a strength program long enough to not be a novice anymore – and that includes many people that have been in the gym consistently for 5+ years.
How This Applies to the Strength and Conditioning Sessions
Whenever you take a Strength and Conditioning session at Spark Fitness, there will be some kind of strength component. It could be pressing, benching, squatting, deadlifting – or numerous other movements. When you approach this, we almost always do the same number of sets and reps, and the variable that we change and just progress by is the weight. Anytime you are going up in weight – usually 10lbs, 5lbs, 2lbs, or 1lb (depending on where you are specifically in your NLP) you are taking one step forward in the Novice Linear Progression.
Difference Between How the NLP is Written and How it Applies to our S&C
The program is originally written as above – if you take our S&C sessions you know we don’t do it exactly how it is written, and it is meant to be done 100% customized to the individual on a set program of MWF or T/Th/S. Many S&C members don’t have that type of schedule, so sometimes certain lifts are missed if they don’t show up on a particular day. To counteract this, we mix the lifts in, making sure all of the lifts are hit the same amount throughout the month, albeit on a mixture of days.
What this means is you need to continue adding weight in a linear fashion (the same weight each time) for as long as possible. Eventually, that won’t work, and a coach will help you with the next steps, and we have several ways of moving you along even after your NLP.
More Info for Current Members:
If you are in your NLP – keep going! If you would like to go through your NLP faster, and become an intermediate lifter, let us know and we can get you on a program that will drastically speed up your progress.
For Perspective Members:
For adults, teens, and anyone else that is interested in maximizing their strength gains (and as a result, bone density, muscle mass, muscle tone, tendon/ligament integrity, and athletic ability), under the watchful eye of a professional programmer and coach, please reach out to us and we are happy to help.
