Easy Strength: The 40 Day Strength Training Program

Let me paint you a picture.

You walk into the gym. You hit some heavy sets, maybe break a light sweat, finish in less than an hour, and leave feeling better than when you walked in.

Not destroyed. Not crawling to your car like you survived a train wreck. Actually feeling good.

Sound like a scam? That is what I thought the first time I heard about Easy Strength, the 40-day program born out of a collaboration between two of the sharpest minds in strength training: Dan John and Pavel Tsatsouline.

And yet, this deceptively simple approach has been quietly building serious strength in athletes, coaches, and busy professionals for years. The science behind it is solid. The results speak for themselves.

The only thing working against it is that this easy strength training program doesn’t look impressive enough for people to take seriously.

Don’t be too quick to dismiss this…it’s simple, brilliant, and effective.

What Is Easy Strength?

Easy Strength, also called the 40-Day Workout Challenge, was first introduced to Dan John by Pavel Tsatsouline (founder of StrongFirst), and has since become one of the most refined minimalist strength training programs available.

The premise is almost offensively simple.

Pavel’s original instructions, as Dan John shared them, went something like this: for the next 40 workouts, pick five lifts. Do them every workout. Never miss a rep. Never even get close to struggling. Keep volume around ten total reps per lift per session. When the weights feel light, add more weight.

That’s it. No periodization spreadsheets. No AMRAP sets. No lying on the floor at the end wondering if you have a future.

The five movement categories Dan John recommends are:

Press movement
Pull movement
Hinge movement
Squat movement
Loaded Carry

You’ll perform these 5 movements 5 days per week.

Dan John himself noted that most people hit their strength goals by day 20 or 22. The weights that once felt like work begin to feel like warm-up sets.

Why It Works (Even Though It Does Not Feel Hard)

Here is the part that trips people up: Easy Strength is not easy because the weights are light. The weights are actually pretty heavy. It’s easy because you stop well short of failure, every single time.

You’re purposely leaving something in the tank. This goes against the thought process behind American-based strength training programs.

This matters more than most people realize. Every time you grind out a set to failure, you are not just fatiguing your muscles. You are lighting up your nervous system, spiking cortisol, and extending your recovery timeline. For a busy professional who is already managing stress from work, family, and whatever else life is throwing at you, that cost adds up fast.

Easy Strength sidesteps all of that. You get frequent exposure to heavy loads without the neurological tax.

The body adapts. Strength goes up. You walk out of the gym feeling fresher than when you arrived.

This aligns perfectly with our core philosophy at No Limits Fitness: it’s not about how much exercise you can do. It’s about how much you can recover from.

The Easy Strength Training Program

You’ll train each of your 5 chosen exercises every day using the set and rep schemes below:

Week 1

Monday – 2 Sets of 5 Reps per exercise
Tuesday – 2 Sets of 5 Reps per exercise
Wednesday – 5/3/2
Friday – 2 Sets of 5 Reps per exercise
Saturday – 2 Sets of 5 Reps per exercise

Week 2

Monday – 2 Sets of 5 Reps per exercise
Tuesday – 6 Singles
Wednesday – 1 set of 10 Reps per exercise
Friday – 2 Sets of 5 Reps per exercise
Saturday – 5/3/2

In a perfect world, you would have one day of rest in the middle of your week. However, you can run this program Monday through Friday (taking Saturday and Sunday off) without concern for accumulating fatigue.

On the days with 2 sets of 5 reps, if the effort feels easy and light, slightly increase the load. The goal of this program is to gently raise your load on the easy days so that heavier loads begin to feel light.

The days with the 5/3/2 begin with the weight used for the 2 sets of 5 reps. Then you’ll add weight for the set of 3 reps and add weight again for the set of 2 reps. Do NOT miss the 2 rep set. This is where you can test yourself but remember that this is a long-term approach to increasing strength so don’t feel the need to push the envelope every week.

For the day of 6 singles, you’ll simply perform 6 sets of 1 rep, adding weight for each rep. This should NOT be a max effort on the last set…it’s just the 6th single. Judging by how you feel and add weight accordingly. This can be confusing for someone used to destroying yourself with every workout.

The One Set of 10 Reps day is what Dan John refers to as a “tonic day”. You’ll likely decrease the weight from the day with 2 Sets of 5 Reps and it can be as light as 40% of your max. You’re using this day to recover from the heavy attempts you may have attempted on the previous session.

Week 3 and Beyond

Option 1 is to simply repeat Week 1 and Week 2 three additional times. If this is your first attempt with Easy Strength, this is the recommended option. This is the option where Dan John improved his personal bests on several lifts.

Option 2 allows you to incorporate specialized variety for the movement patterns. This is Pavel’s “same, but different” approach to strength training. Note that changing your lifts might not yield the same progress as Option 1. You could switch from a bench press to an incline bench press (barbell) or single arm military press to double (kettlebell).

The Kettlebell Version

The kettlebell variation of Easy Strength is a natural fit. Kettlebells reward technique, punish sloppiness, and deliver serious results in a compact footprint. Here is how to run it:

Hinge/Explosive: Kettlebell Swing, 2 x 20 (hardstyle, not cardio pace) or Double Kettlebell Deadlift 2 x 5

Push: Kettlebell Military Press (single arm or double)

Pull: Pull-Ups, Chin-Ups or a Gorilla Row

Squat: Double Kettlebell Front Squat or Goblet Squat

Carry/Core: Farmers Carry or Racked Carry (30 seconds or 40 yards)

Start conservatively on weight. If you finish a session feeling like you could do more, you got it right. When 2 x 5 starts to feel like your second warm-up set, move up in weight.

The swings are the one exception to the low-rep rule. Dan John often programmed 25 to 100 swings per session as the conditioning and posterior chain element, kept at a pace where breathing stays under control.

The Barbell Version

For those with access to a barbell, the original Easy Strength template maps out beautifully. Same structure, same philosophy, different tools.

Hinge: Conventional or Sumo Deadlift

Push: Barbell Bench Press or Barbell Military Press

Pull: Pendlay Row or Weighted Pull-Up

Squat: Barbell Back Squat or Zercher Squat

Core/Carry: Ab Wheel or Hanging Knee Raises

Dan John ran this exact framework and added 15 pounds to his lifetime incline bench press personal record on day 21, without a single grinding session.

Who This Is For

Easy Strength is not a beginner strength training program in the sense that it requires zero coaching.

You need to know how to perform these movements safely before you load them. But the structure itself is ideal for busy professionals who want consistent progress without the recovery debt.

It works especially well if you’re coming off a period of overtraining, returning after a break, or if you have been spinning your wheels with programs that ask more of you than your life can currently support.

This program can also be a great seasonal block. Run it for the full 8 weeks (40 workouts), build your baseline, then graduate to something with more volume when you have the capacity to recover from it.

The Hardest Part

I’ll be honest with you. The hardest part of this program is not the training. It’s your ego.

You’ll finish sessions and feel like you didn’t do enough. That nagging voice will tell you to do one more set. You’ll look at the clock and think you must be missing something because it didn’t take very long.

Resist. The whole point is to accumulate quality reps at heavy weights without hammering your recovery. Trust the process, check your ego at the door, and let the adaptation happen.

Dan John put it best when he described looking at the bar and genuinely wondering if he had misloaded it because the weight felt so unreasonably light.

That’s not weakness. That’s the program working.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’re a busy professional looking for a smarter approach to strength training, one that fits your schedule and respects your recovery, this is worth your attention. Easy Strength isn’t the sexiest program. It sounds well…too easy. But it delivers, quietly and consistently, exactly as advertised.

At No Limits Fitness, our Small Group Personal Training program is built on the same core principles: train heavy, recover fully, and show up consistently. If you want coaching, accountability, and programming tailored to your life, we would love to help.