The Bittersweet Push, Pull and Squat

In strength training, there are three basic lifts known as the golden trio of strength work.

They are the bench press, the deadlift and the squat.

These three exercises are ones everyone who works out has to deal with. Each is the signature lift of one of the three basic movement types: push, pull and squat.

In the month since I started doing these three lifts properly, I've really gotten to know them in the flesh.

Why are these three lifts treasures?

Because they're very simple to learn, they can be trained often, and they've done a lot for my muscles.

That makes them three exercises with an extremely high return on effort.

I still remember my first time at the gym. I lay down on the bench, looked at the empty bar with no plates, and thought I could easily push it up. After two reps, I was humbled.

I'm 1.8 m (about 5'11") and I look like a strong guy, but my upper-body strength is actually very weak, because I've gone years without training my upper body.

I can only do a few standard push-ups. I can't do a single pull-up. Even when I flex my biceps, I can hardly see it.

A little over a month into training, my bench has gone from the empty 20 kg bar to being able to do sets at 35 kg. That weight might look funny to people with a solid base, but for me it's huge progress.

And the progress has been very clear. I clearly remember a few days after I started, I put two 2.5 kg plates on the empty bar, pushed it up once, and could never push it up again.

That feeling is truly powerless. It doesn't bend to your will. Even if my head held ten thousand kilograms of force trying to lift it, my arms could no longer produce the strength to push 25 kg.

Then I got pinned. Luckily the guy next to me helped. Otherwise I might not even have been able to sit up.

Compared with the bench, squats and deadlifts feel a bit more comfortable, because squats and deadlifts mainly test the legs and glutes, and my past cycling left a decent base for both.

Right now I can do a set of 5 barbell pause squats, and I think there's still room to go heavier.

I rarely train deadlifts. The last time I deadlifted, sets at 50 kg were no problem.

Why do I say these three lifts are treasures and disasters at the same time?

Because they cut both ways. Train them well, and you grow fast. Train them badly, and you can end up at the other extreme.

What's training them well, and what's training them badly?

Put simply, it's the "progressive overload principle." Follow it well, and it's good. Follow it badly, and you're ignoring the basic law of how things develop, and it backfires.

To follow this principle, we have to keep trying heavier weights, more volume, higher frequency and so on. In the process, though, some people lack an objective sense of their own strength, or are impatient for results and want to prove themselves fast, and so they lift something their body simply can't handle.

That kind of behavior doesn't prove anything, and it can backfire, hurting your body in ways that often take a lot of time to heal.

To follow "progressive overload," we need an objective grasp of our own strength level. I've always thought the point of working out is to build strength step by step, not to blindly chase bigger and heavier.

True, failing in training is unavoidable. But failure is closely tied to growth. A weight you can't lift this time, you'll lift naturally after failing at it a few more times.

So there's no need to care too much about success or failure on one attempt. After all, things develop along a winding road, and our bodies need time to adapt.

On this road, every failure is a chance to grow, and every success is a new starting point.

Whether the golden trio is a "treasure" or a "disaster" depends entirely on how you treat it.