Four lifts, three days

If you only ever learned four movements, these are the four.

Mark Rippetoe is a strength coach in Wichita Falls, Texas, who in 2005 wrote Starting Strength, a book that stripped the gym back to what matters. Four barbell lifts: the squat, the press, the deadlift and the bench press. Three sessions a week. Add weight every session. That's the program, and for a beginner it works better than anything with more moving parts, because the body of someone who has never lifted can get stronger every single workout for months before it slows down.

His reasoning is plain. These four lifts use the most muscle through the longest range of motion with the most weight. The squat trains the whole lower body and the back that holds it up. The deadlift is picking something heavy off the floor, which is the most useful thing a body does. The press puts weight overhead, which asks everything from the feet to the hands to hold still. The bench press pushes. Everything else in a gym is a smaller version of one of those.

Here's what belongs in the month of Breathing. Rippetoe teaches the breath as part of the lift. Big breath in, hold it, brace the trunk like you're about to be punched, lift, exhale at the top. That brace is what protects the spine. It's also the first time most people feel what their breath can do for their body under load. The lungs become a weight belt.

Now the honest part. Nobody should learn these four from a letter. The reason the program works is the form, and the reason the form works is a coach watching your first sessions. Vault Human points you to one. The key is the simplicity: four movements, three days, a little more each time. Everything else is noise.