Steve Reeves Silver Era Bodybuilding Program

Program Description

Reeves scheduled his full-body sessions, which consisted of 35 to 40 sets, for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We’re going to modernize his “non-split” a little and divide the body into three distinct routines. In the opinion of Hercules, cheating was not a virtue. Sets consisted of flawless reps with a cadence of two seconds up and three seconds down. Most sets were kept in the ideal growth range of eight to 12 reps. Sometimes he went higher, but he almost never went lower. The 1950 Mr. Universe didn’t push his sets beyond failure with various techniques (most of which weren’t even named yet), but he was fixated on racking up more reps in the eight-to-12 range. When he could get 13, he upped the weight the next time. “When you work your whole body in each workout, it forces you to think about symmetry. Your focus is always on the whole and not the parts,” -Reeves

Program Overview