The MIKE5 Training Concept

Yes. And the reduction is not a compromise, but the prerequisite for it to work.

Effective strength training begins where you challenge the muscle beyond its performance level. This requires a mental readiness that hardly anyone maintains for a whole hour - you pace yourself, save up, and the effective muscle stimulus does not take place at all. For 5 minutes, you can muster it.

Of course you are, anytime. You just don't plan it. Your plan sticks to one basic exercise and the given interval. You decide after the basic exercise whether to do more – depending on whether you have the time and desire. Further exercises are only worthwhile when you are sure that you can do the basic exercises throughout the year with high intensity.

For athletes with very high fitness levels, it becomes increasingly difficult to create an effective stimulus at all – one way to do this is more volume. Professionals have also learned to constantly push to the limit even in long training sessions. A recreational athlete is far from this level. For you, it remains at 5 minutes – more exercises are only worthwhile if you are sure that you can perform the 5 basic exercises throughout the year with high intensity.

Absolutely! The MIKE5 training concept and its beginner workout give you the perfect start to efficient strength training. Through the beginner sessions, your body gets used to the load and lays the foundation for sustainable muscle building. This allows you to properly focus on efficient training from the start and learn the movement sequences. After a few weeks, you'll switch to the MIKE5 Big 5 Workout and benefit from intelligent interval training.

Very many, in fact. Competitive athletes have phases of several weeks or months where they build with significantly higher volume. In the rest of the year – especially during the competition phase, when time and energy belong to their own sport – the strength training is reduced to the basic exercises. That is when they train according to the same principle: few movements, high intensity, short sessions.

No, the assignment to the days of the week remains, but the exercises change every 5 weeks. For each basic exercise, there are several variations – sometimes the leg press instead of the squat, sometimes shoulder press with a narrower or wider grip. Each variant challenges the same muscle chain from a different angle. The process remains familiar, but the stimulus is always new.

In training theory, intensity refers to the chosen weight relative to the maximum you could lift once. On this page, we mean the term as it is colloquially used: how hard a training session feels to you.

A short warm-up set is always recommended. To do this, use the same exercise with less weight and perform it slowly and with control for 30–60 seconds. This gets your blood flowing. Your mindset is just as important. During these seconds, you get yourself in the right frame of mind for what’s coming next—and this mental preparation determines the effectiveness of your workout.

No, that happens on its own: really pushing yourself to the limit takes practice, and most need several weeks for this. During this time, your sense of movement develops, the execution becomes cleaner – and at the same rate, the intensity level you can achieve increases. Ability and intensity grow together.

Yes, but it should remain the exception. Two training days in a row hardly give your body time to raise the level between stimuli – spread across the week, each session hits this window.

More importantly: The high intensity requires full mental readiness every time. For a basic exercise you can muster it, but hardly for four in a row – then you pace yourself, and the effective muscle stimulus is lacking. This is exactly what spreading them over 5 days protects against.

Yes, it is intentionally structured this way. Two press movements are as far apart as possible – bench press on Monday, shoulder press on Thursday, with a pulling movement in between using the lat pulldown. Likewise, squats and deadlifts, the two heaviest exercises. This way, every muscle chain gets its recovery despite training 5 consecutive days.

You still don't have to take it too strictly. If you're not ready for squats on Tuesday after a hard weekend tour in the mountains, do the lat pulldown first and do the squats on Wednesday. So there's some flexibility in it.

For the vast majority, no. Even top athletes base their plans on the same basic exercises – a personal plan primarily changes the volume and timing, rarely the exercises themselves.

In addition, the plan is largely independent of your goal: Whether you want to reduce body fat, build muscle, or strengthen your back – the 5 basic exercises cover that. A personal plan is worthwhile where there is a special requirement, such as preparing for a competition.

Basic exercises are exercises that involve multiple joints and entire muscle chains simultaneously – unlike isolation exercises, which target a single muscle. Technically, they are called multi-joint exercises, commonly known as the Big 5: bench press, squats, pull-up, shoulder press and deadlift.

Yes, all major muscle groups – as main or auxiliary muscles. The lower back works during deadlifts, the abdominal muscles stabilize so strongly during deadlifts, squats and shoulder presses that isolated abdominal training is not necessary. The biceps pulls during lat pulldowns and holds during deadlifts, the triceps pushes during bench presses and shoulder presses.

Above all, three.

The complex movement sequences improve the interaction of several muscles in a movement – intermuscular coordination. Your body awareness improves, execution becomes cleaner – and your risk of injury in sports and everyday life decreases.

High loads also train the activation of the individual muscle – the intramuscular coordination. It is the reason why you become noticeably stronger in the first few weeks.

And these are exactly the movements you need in everyday life: standing up, pushing, pulling, lifting something heavy from the ground.

You can, but you don't have to. Most of the change comes from the 5 basic exercises.

Decide anew every day. If it's dark and rainy outside and you have the time and desire, you add a few exercises. On another day, you skip it and miss nothing. Much more important than any additional exercise is to perform the 5 basic exercises with high intensity year-round.

The pull-up was originally part of the Big 5. But you're hanging on your own body weight – and few manage to do an interval over several sets with it.

On the lat pulldown you set the weight to suit the given interval. The same muscle chain, the same movement – but with the weight that sets the optimal muscle stimulus.

Through periodization. The muscle adjusts to a certain load after a few weeks – you train as intensely as before, but the effect becomes smaller. A good sign of this is the absence of muscle soreness.

This also explains why beginners progress so quickly: Their muscles are not used to the load and react correspondingly strongly. This is precisely what periodization targets. With each new interval, the load hits your muscle again unexpectedly – you essentially keep making yourself a beginner again.

You don't have to worry about it. You will receive an email for each new block, and in the training program, intervals and exercise variations are automatically adjusted.

On two proven elements.

The 5 basic exercises have existed as long as strength training has. They became widely known in the 1970s, partly due to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who trained according to the Big-5 scheme.

Equally proven is the way to distribute them: one training day, one focus – known as the bro-split. Research supports this. With the same weekly volume, one load per muscle group per week is as effective as several. The quality of the muscle stimulus is crucial, not the frequency.

MIKE5 condenses both: Each training day follows one movement, and one movement always challenges an entire muscle chain. We invented nothing – but left out a lot.

Schoenfeld, Grgic & Krieger (2019): Meta-analysis of 25 studies on training frequency. Grgic et al. (2018): 22 studies on maximum strength, subgroup with matched volume.

A planned year: ten blocks of 5 weeks each, each with its own interval and its own exercise variations.

For each day, you get the basic exercise with the specified interval, along with appropriate assistance and core exercises that you can add. How to perform each exercise is shown in exercise videos and the instructions in the exercise database.

Simply register now for the MIKE5 training plan. The first six months are free and give you enough time to try MIKE5 without obligation. In conjunction with your EISENHORN strength station, MIKE5 enables you to have an extremely effective full body workout – plan just 5 minutes a day and strengthen your entire body.

Yes, you can test MIKE5 for free for 6 months. Simply register with MIKE5 as a member and you can test our most efficient training program for free for 6 months. During these 6 months, you have enough time to test MIKE5 extensively. If you are not convinced, you can easily cancel your membership at the end of any month.

One membership per household is completely sufficient. When purchasing a fitness station EISENHORN S or DS, you get the first 6 months free. This gives you ample time to comprehensively test our time-saving and efficient MIKE5 training program.

The installation of the MIKE5 Web App is very easy and straightforward.

If you are using an iPhone, proceed as follows:

1. Open the MIKE5 training program and tap on the "Share" icon in the menu bar.

2. Scroll down and select "Add to Home Screen."

3. Tap "Add" to save the app.

If you are using an Android device, proceed as follows:

1. Open the MIKE5 training program and tap on the three dots in the menu bar.

2. Select "Add to Home Screen."

3. Confirm with "Add."

We are currently working on the development of a native MIKE5 app for training with your EISENHORN fitness station. Until then, our web-based MIKE5 training concept is available, which you can easily use through your browser. For even quicker access to your training plan, you can save the MIKE5 app as a desktop shortcut. You can find out how to do this here.

MIKE5 is specifically tailored to your strength station EISENHORN S or DS and offers you an extremely effective workout - plan just 5 minutes daily for it. If you want to pause or cancel your MIKE5 subscription, simply follow these steps:

1. Open your account.

2. Navigate to "MIKE5" to view details of your subscription.

3. Select the option "Cancel" to pause or terminate your subscription.

If you would like to use MIKE5 again at a later time, you can easily reactivate the training program.