Today.com reported on the viral 5x5 workout and spoke to Hunter Carter, MA, ACSM-EP, CPT, CES, USATF-1, exercise physiologist at HSS, about the potential benefits and risks of this popular lifting routine.  

Whether you're new to strength training or looking to amp up your heavy lifting, you may find yourself overwhelmed at the sheer number of exercises to help you get there. Throw in all the different equipment to choose from, and it can seem difficult to find the right routine for your goals. Once you do, it may be even harder to plan it out with your schedule. But strength training doesn't have to be complicated or require doing a million different moves to work every muscle.

The 5x5 workout is a simple, approachable strength training plan that can yield serious gains. The workout involves doing five repetitions for five sets of a collection of compound exercises, and is an efficient total-body routine that has benefits for beginners and experienced gym-goers looking to graduate to heavier weightlifting.

"No. 1, it's compound, multi-joint movements, so you're recruiting more muscle mass to be active at one time. Think of it (as a) little more bang for your buck," said Carter. "You’re cutting down on the time that you would need to spend working each individual muscle. If you have a limited amount of time to work out, something like the 5x5 is great. The more muscles that you engage at once, the more your cardiorespiratory system is working, so it’s sort of killing two birds with one stone,” continued Carter.

Read the full article at today.com.