Starting Strength Training 5

Now you know what you need to achieve, you have started doing some varied movement patterns, you might be ready to do some of the actual meat and potatoes. I would start off with coaching medicine ball, dumbbell and other implement training before going into barbell work.
Barbells are great for putting load on and developing maximum strength and power, but they are relatively limited in the directions that you can move them. I would start coaching with just the bar quite early on, but only to get the athlete working on basic squatting, pulling and pressing movements. The work would be done before and after this.

Once the athlete has developed (weeks, months or years depending on age and training status) you can start to load this more. For beginners I look at sets of 10 repetitions for two reasons:

1. The load can’t be too heavy so it is safer
2. You are doing more repetitions so the learning effect is greater.

I wouldn’t do more than two barbell lifts in any one session for beginners- it is too much work and too much to take in mentally. The variety is done with other implements. For those two lifts I would select from the following:

Squat: Back, front and overhead

Deadlift

Press: Military, Push

Pull: Upright and bent over rows.

Depending on access to the athlete I would vary which two I did over time, that may be every session, every week or every month. The important thing is not to be fixated on one lift alone at this stage. Getting technical competence and safety is more important.