I’m new to lifting. I’m using Dan Alexander’s peaking program. It has exercises listed as A1,A2,B1,B2. Am I suppose to do all 4 exercises on one day? I’m assuming so. And I’m assuming I alternate back and forth between the As until all reps are complete and then move on to the Bs??? Also how many days a week do I do these exercises?
Thanks
David
Hi David,
May I ask why you’re running a peaking program if you’re new to lifting? Are you peaking for a particular event/competition?
If not, you’d probably make better use of your valuable training time by running a novice program - nothing progresses more quickly than those.
I have not run the program, but taking a look at it, it looks like your day’s training is divided into A-1, B-1, A-2, B-2, where each of those is one day.
Day 1 = A-1
Day 2 = B-1
Day 3 = A-2
Day 4 = B-2
I’d imagine it doesn’t matter much how you space out the days as long as you can fit them into one 7 day week. For example you could do something like Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri.
Ok. Well I found it online and I’m now 3 weeks into the program. The reason why I started to question it is it seems like a small workout each day. It doesn’t seem like enough work each day to actually gain any muscle. 8 sets of an exercise each day seems like nothing. Not sure how this could set anyone up to peak for any competition?
Well, it’s a peaking program, so it’s not really for building muscle. It’s for maximizing the one rep max in each of the movements. 
If you look at the tonnage in each week, you’re still in what is more or less the introductory phase. Intensity is low, around 60%, which will bump up to 65% for week 4 and go up from there while rep count will decrease. It’s a fairly straightforward linear periodization program.
You’ll get stronger on it, because as a beginner you’ll get stronger doing just about anything. I encourage you to finish it, even if it’s suboptimal, because you’ll learn something from it and that’s the only way to get better as a lifter - keep learning.
When you’re done, I’d recommend getting on something like GreySkull LP. You’ll progress faster. After that, nSuns is usually a good program to run for increasing volume after the (lower volume) GSLP.
Also, generally speaking, 8 working sets for a given movement is actually a lot.
If you haven’t already, I’d recommend reading about progressive overload: https://rippedbody.com/principle-progressive-overload/
For other beginner programs, check out: https://liftvault.com/programs/powerlifting/beginner-powerlifting-programs/
Thanks a lot. I will for sure look into those programs.