Overview

‘Iron Giant’ is a program designed for beginners to intermediates on a time crunch.

This will work if you can train for 45-60 minutes twice a week, ideally on 2 separate days with a rest day in between, but a Saturday + Sunday training session can still suffice.

First we have to accept that we aren’t going to see maximal results on a minimalist program – that’s simply not a reality. However, we can certainly maintain muscle mass and and build up small improvements over time. The earlier we are in our training age, the easier it will be to inch up this progress.

As with any reasonable program, this will follow the fundamental training concept of:

• including all compound movement patterns or muscle groups (these describe the same thing just with a different lens)
• with a high level of execution (clean technique, relatively full range of motion)
• with a high degree of effort (pushing sets hard to near failure or actual failure)
• for moderate and reasonable rep and set ranges (generally 5-15 reps, 2-4 sets)

We will be utilising two key concepts for time effiency:

• Giant sets – hitting 3 different movements with minimal rest times
• Exercise selection – prioritising dumbbells or pin-loaded machines over barbells for time savings
• Cardio – maintain a slightly elevated heart rate and along with conditioning work at the end as built in cardio

Movement slots

As always, there are no magic exercises. Instead, it’s probably more useful to think of a variety of movement patterns, or ‘movement slots’, that we need to go through. For each movement slot, there’s a variety of exercises that would work equally well.

For 2x a week minimalist training, these movement slots should be considered the base. 18 different movements may sound like a lot, but as we’ll be giant setting each movement with minimal rest, this will be quite doable.

These have been grouped below by muscle groups, followed by movement slots.

• Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
  • A horizontal push – any flat or slight incline presses
  • A vertical push – any high incline or vertical presses
  • A chest isolation movement – any chest fly
  • A side delt movement – any lateral raise
  • A rear delt movement – any rear delt raise
  • An elbow extension – any tricep pushdown or extension
• Back/Core/Biceps
  • A horizontal pull – any number of of rows
  • A vertical pull – a variety of pullups or pulldowns
  • A pullover movement
  • An ab flexion, aka a variety of leg raises
  • An erector flexion, aka a back extension
  • An elbow flexion, aka bicep curl
• Quads/Hams/Glutes/Calves
  • A squat – any quad dominant, upright squat
  • A hinge – any hamstring dominant, Romanian Deadlift variation
  • A lunge, ideally a glute biased lunge pattern, aka a variety of split squats
  • A knee extension, aka a machine leg extension
  • A knee flexion, aka a machine seated or lying leg curl
  • An ankle, aka calf raise

Session Design

2 days x 9 exercises

In other words, two full body days, each with 3 giant sets for a total of 9 exercises per session.

With just 2 days of training, the microcycle (what typically constitutes a week of training) is extremely straightforward.

• Day 1 – Full body A
• Day 2 – Full body B

The session structure will look like this:

• Giant set 1 (2 rounds)
  • Exercise A (rest 30 secs)
  • Exercise B (rest 30 secs)
  • Exercise C (rest 90 secs)
• Giant set 2 (2 rounds)
  • Exercise D (rest 30 secs)
  • Exercise E (rest 30 secs)
  • Exercise F (rest 90 secs)
• Giant set 3 (2 rounds)
  • Exercise G (rest 30 secs)
  • Exercise H (rest 30 secs)
  • Exercise I (rest 90 secs)
• Movement
  • Loaded carry or locomotion (5 minutes)

Three typical sample sessions are laid out below.

That will end up looking like this:

• Week

Full body A

Full body B

Carry

Exercises

For a complete list of exercise options, check out this list of exercises.

Although there is no singular best exercise, I have provided some default suggested exercises. These can be considered as an excellent starting point, but certainly not the be all and end all.

• DB 15 Degree Incline Bench
• Pec Deck
• DB Overhead Press
• Dumbbell Lateral Raise
• Reverse Pec Deck
• Cable Standing Overhead Extension
• Pull-up
• Seated Chest supported Row
• DB Pullover
• 45 degree Back Extension
• Supported Leg Raise
• Cable EZ Bar Curl
• Leg Press
• Leg Extension
• Romanian Deadlift
• Seated Leg Curl
• DB FFE Lunge (glute biased)
• Leg Press Calf Raise

And the carry / conditioning / locomotion.

• KB overhead carry
• KB rack carry
• KB suitcase carry
• Prowler pull
• Prowler push
• KB Lunge
• Bear
• Monkey
• Frogger
• Crab

In such a condensed format, exercise sequencing is rather important as well. This is how we would structure it.

Day 2

• Giant set 1
  • Leg Extension
  • DB Standing Overhead Press
  • Romanian Deadlift
• Giant set 2
  • Lat Pulldown
  • Pec Deck
  • Reverse Pec Deck
• Giant set 3
  • Back Extension (glute biased)
  • Back Extension (lower back biased)
  • Supported Leg Raise
• Carry
  • 60m distance, any movement of your choice

Day 1

• Giant set 1
  • Leg Curl
  • Leg Press Calf Raise
  • Leg Press
• Giant set 2
  • DB Chest Supported Row
  • DB Bench
  • DB Lateral Raise
• Giant set 3
  • Cable Pullover
  • Cable Curl
  • Cable Extension
• Carry
  • 60m distance, any movement of your choice