Learn to powerlift the squat, bench and deadlift
Powerlifting is three lifts: the back squat, the bench press, the deadlift. Read one book, get under a real barbell, and run a linear novice program three days a week for six to nine months — about 70 hours of work. You will not win a meet. You will pull a double-bodyweight deadlift with a back that's safer than the day you started, and you'll know exactly how to keep loading the bar.
6–9 months · ~70 hours · a competent squat, bench and double-bodyweight deadlift
1.Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe
The definitive 360-page manual of barbell technique. Rippetoe gives the squat roughly 50 pages alone — every cue, every joint angle, every common error, illustrated. No video comes close. Read the squat, bench and deadlift chapters before your first session, then re-read each one the night before you train it for the first month. The book is dense and Rippetoe is famously opinionated; that is exactly why it works. Buy it from the publisher, not a knockoff.
$30 paperback, third edition, from the publisher (Aasgaard)
Starting Strength →2.A power rack, a barbell and plates
You need a squat-height rack with safety arms, a 20 kg Olympic barbell, and enough plates to load it — plus a flat bench. The cheapest route is a commercial gym with a real power rack and a platform; check it has these before you join. If you'd rather train at home, a starter setup (rack, bar, ~150 kg of plates, bench) runs around $1,000 and pays for itself inside two years. Do not try to powerlift with dumbbells or a Smith machine. The free barbell is the whole point.
Gym membership $30–60/month, or a home setup ~$1,000 one-time
Power racks at REP Fitness →3.Run the Starting Strength novice linear progression
Two alternating full-body workouts, three times a week, built on squat, press and deadlift. Add a small amount of weight every single session — 2.5 kg on upper-body lifts, 5 kg on squat and deadlift — for as long as your body allows. When you stall, deload 10% and climb back. This is the most productive training a beginner will ever do, and it only happens once. Track every set in the free Stronger app or a notebook. Film your squat from the side weekly and compare it to the diagrams in Rippetoe. Eat enough to recover.
Free · program is in the book; logging app free
Starting Strength programs →If this doesn't fit you
If you're already past the true novice stage — your squat and deadlift haven't moved in months on linear progression — stop adding weight every session and switch to Jim Wendler's 5/3/1, the standard intermediate template. It cycles your training maxes up monthly instead of daily, builds in submaximal volume, and is sustainable for years. Buy the second edition direct from Wendler and run the Boring But Big variant.
Why this path
The novice window — when adding weight every session actually works — lasts six to nine months and never returns. Squandering it on machines, bro-splits or random Instagram programming is the single most expensive beginner mistake. Linear progression on the three competition lifts is brutally simple and adds more strength in half a year than years of anything else. Build the base here, then graduate to general barbell strength for the full five-lift picture, or learn the explosive snatch and clean over at olympic weightlifting. The book teaches the lifts; the program removes every excuse. Show up, add the plate, eat.