A starting-point strength training workout (with or without cats!)

Welcome back to Workout of the Week! If you’re one of my many subscribers interested in strength training — working through a set of exercises consistently for a multi-week cycle and gradually adding weight, so we can build muscle mass and bone density — I’ve got great news. Thanks to a genius suggestion from my wonderful reader

Katy O.

(author of

The Mindful Librarian

!), I’m going to start offering a monthly workout specifically designed to be used with a progressive overload approach. (I hope you’re glad to know I filmed this one at home, so there’s a feline special guest.)

If you are interested in strength training, here’s the idea:

• Do this workout and record the weights you used, if you’re comfortable (if recording body-related numbers is not good for you, skip this part). You should be trying to use a weight that gets you very fatigued and almost close to failure (i.e. you can’t do another rep) by the end of the minute-long set.

• Repeat the workout at least once or twice more within the week.

• Do this for four weeks, adding weight to the extent possible for each exercise that uses weight. Keep recording your weights (again, if this feels like a wise move for you) so you can see your progress!

• You can do the other WOWs that come through over the next three weeks as a way to mix things up and supplement your training, if you have time.

• Then you’ll get another strength-training–focused workout next month, and the cycle begins anew. (You’re welcome to stick with this one for longer, but because it’s a relatively short workout we aren’t hitting a quite-complete range of movement patterns, so I’d suggest switching things up when the time comes.)

• I’m typically a big fan of offering up the option to skip the warmup or cooldown, or one or two rounds of the circuit. However, if you’re doing this in a progressive overload setup, I’d like to encourage you to keep the warmup and cooldown to make sure you’re taking good care of your body. If you can only do one or two circuits the first week, see if you’re able to add a second or third circuit in subsequent weeks.

• For your first workout or two, take it a little easy. Don’t immediately jump to the heaviest weight you can stand to move. Ease your way in to hopefully avoid destroying yourself with soreness and feeling the need to take a super-long break before you go back for another workout (or even feeling discouraged entirely). THEN start to push. Nudge just slightly out of your comfort zone each time. Grunting, cursing, and heavy breathing all very welcome.

• A note on weights: If you’re going to go for true strength training, you need some heavy weights. This can be hard for home exercisers! I hate sending you out to buy weights — they’re expensive, heavy (heh), and hard to store. But you may get to a point where you just have to go for it, or find a gym facility you can use that has heavier dumbbell options. Apologies that there isn’t a perfect, easy, super-accessible answer to this. If you have tips or suggestions, please leave them in the comments. (The dumbbell brand I use is Power Systems, but not saying they’re necessarily the best — I do like them, though.)

• One more thing: I’d love for this to be a barbell-focused program, but I think that’s going to leave out too many people who simply don’t have access or are hoping to get this done quickly at home. If you’re interested in slamming bars (I love this for you), I’d suggest checking out Casey Johnston’s program LIFTOFF: Couch to Barbell.

If you aren’t interested in progressive overload–focused strength training (or not yet), you are very welcome to just follow this video like a regular one-off workout! And you can do the whole thing, or if you have less time or energy than that, you can trim things down by:

• Skipping the warmup

• Skipping the cooldown

• Skipping one or two of the three rounds of the resistance-training circuit

Make it work for you. If you’d like to repeat this workout a time or two throughout the week, great.

This week, grab a variety of weights so you have options, a mat, and some water.

Here we go!