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Bench Press 1 Day per Week

Below you'll find powerlifting and strength programs that include bench pressing 1 day per training week.

Some of these are bench press specialty programs, while others program for all lifts.

Search the Lift Vault Program Library for more program ideas.

Bill Starr 5×5 Workout Routine Spreadsheet

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The Bill Starr 5×5 is a three-day-a-week barbell program built on weekly linear progression. You train Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the days run heavy, light and medium in that order, and each session is squats plus one press plus one pull. Every 5×5 is a ramp, not five sets across, so only the last set is a genuinely hard set.

The progression is the whole program. You work up to your current five-rep maxes over three or four weeks, hit them, then keep adding the same small increment every week and set a personal record each Monday until you stall.

There’s no percentage chart and no deload schedule. You go up until you can’t, then you reset a few weeks back and climb again.

This suits an intermediate lifter who has run out of road on a beginner program that adds weight every session. It’s a poor fit if you want variety, if you can only train twice a week, or if you need to peak for a meet on a fixed date. The version on this page is the linear one, and the spreadsheet below does the weekly maths for you.

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StrongLifts 5×5 Workout Program Spreadsheet

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Recommended by Lift Vault:
Experience level:
Weeks:
Periodization:
Meet prep program:
Program goal:
Uses RPE:
Uses 1RM Percentage(%):

As an affiliate of various sites, including Amazon Associates, I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases via links in this post at no extra cost to you. See Full Disclosure

StrongLifts 5×5 is a 3-day-per-week beginner strength program built around two alternating workouts. Workout A is squat, bench press, and barbell row. Workout B is squat, overhead press, and deadlift. You train each one 3 times every two weeks, always squatting, adding 5 lb to the bar each session. Mehdi at stronglifts.com based it on Bill Starr’s 5×5 from the 1970s.

The idea is pure linear progression: no percentages, no wave loading, no periodization. You just add weight every single session until you can’t anymore. That simplicity is the whole point. Every session you squat, which is what drives the strength base. It’s the easiest possible novice program to follow, by design.

StrongLifts is for true beginners or people coming back after a long layoff. If you’ve been lifting consistently for more than 6 months, you’ll probably stall faster than the program expects, and something like Starting Strength or GZCLP may serve you better. Both the lb and kg versions of the spreadsheet are below.

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