This page is an edited presentation of the Hepburn routine as taught by Bill Starr in his Iron Man magazine articles. It is not newly written material by Bill Starr.
Few training templates from the 1950s survive intact today. The Hepburn routine is one of them — five heavy singles followed by five sets of five, governed by a progression rule so strict it borders on ceremonial. Bill Starr learned the method while coaching in Vancouver and later wrote it up for Iron Man, calling his version simply “Hepburns.” This page lays out that version exactly: the session structure, the numbers, and the rule that makes it work.
Who Doug Hepburn Was
The routine carries the name of Douglas Hepburn, the Canadian strongman and weightlifter from Vancouver whose story reads like fiction. Born with a club foot and a vision impairment that required childhood surgeries, he took up weight training at the Vancouver YMCA as a teenager. In November 1950 he became the first man to bench press 400 pounds; he pressed 450 in 1951 and reached 500 in December 1953. Between those milestones he won the heavyweight title at the 1953 World Weightlifting Championships in Stockholm with a 1,030-pound total — still the only Canadian man to win a world heavyweight lifting crown — then added gold at the 1954 British Empire Games in his hometown, setting a Games record of 1,040 pounds. He received the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s outstanding athlete of 1953. Hepburn died in Vancouver on November 22, 2000, at age 74.
His training ideas spread through articles and word of mouth rather than a published book, which is why versions differ. The one below is the version Bill Starr taught.
What Kind of Program This Is
Starr was blunt about the audience: in his words, the routine “only helps those who have established a rock-solid foundation,” and beginners or intermediates are better served by less demanding work. If you are still building that foundation, start with something simpler such as the Sid Henry beginner program.
The method suits static, heavy lifts — the squat, the deadlift, the flat bench press, and the incline press — far better than quick, technical movements. Lifters who cannot or prefer not to flat bench have a proven path around it in Starr’s no-bench upper-body program. Budget time honestly: one lift done properly takes at least an hour, and a full session runs closer to ninety minutes.
The Core Session, Step by Step
Say your best bench press is currently 335 pounds. Your first Hepburn session for that lift looks like this:
| Phase | Work |
|---|---|
| Warm-up | 135×5, 225×5, 275×3, 295×2 |
| Singles | 325 lb – five singles (about ten pounds under your best single) |
| Back-off fives | 275 lb – five sets of five (about fifty pounds under the single weight) |
Pace matters more than it looks. Move briskly through the early warm-ups and the first single or two, then deliberately slow down for the last few singles and the sets of five — those money sets decide whether the day counts.
The Progression Rule
One sentence governs the entire system: make every required repetition before any poundage moves.
| Situation at the end of the session | Next session for that lift |
|---|---|
| Every prescribed single and every set of five completed | Singles go up 5 lb AND the fives go up 5 lb |
| Even one required rep missed | Identical weights repeat — no partial credit |
| Clean sessions string together | The ladder keeps climbing (illustrative: singles 325 → 330 → 335 while fives move 275 → 280 → 285) |
The increments look trivially small. They are not. Five pounds added to both blocks compounds quickly across a six-week run, and the modest jumps keep trainees successful — the same conservative-jump logic that runs through all of Starr’s programming, from his overload principle to the original Big Three 5×5.
Frequency, Scheduling, and Cycle Length
Apply the routine to each lift once per week, spreading different lifts across the week — for example, pressing on Monday, squatting on Wednesday, pulling on Friday. Expect the work to feel heavier than the numbers suggest: repeated heavy singles tax the nervous system and the connective tissue in a way volume training does not.
Run Hepburns for roughly six weeks at a time. Starr recommended then stepping away for months of regular training — an intermediate setup such as heavy-light-medium programming fits that gap well — before returning to the template for another focused run.
The Modified Version
Lifters who find the full dose too much, or who want a controlled entry, have Starr’s own scaled option: three sets of singles with the same working weight, then drop about fifty pounds and take three sets of five. As recovery allows, add one set of singles and one set of fives over subsequent cycles until you reach the full five-and-five structure.
Hepburn’s Own Training vs. Starr’s Teaching Version
Accounts of Hepburn’s personal method describe something broader: working up to a weight he could handle for several singles, expanding repetitions session by session, and adding poundage only after reaching the top of that rep scheme. Late in life he reportedly separated the two ideas entirely — stretches of singles-focused power work alternating with higher-repetition pump blocks — instead of stacking both in one session. These accounts come from later write-ups compiling his advice rather than a book he published himself, and most routines circulating online under his name descend from them as interpretations.
The singles-plus-fives session documented above is the specific version Bill Starr taught, and it is what most lifters mean by “the Hepburn routine.” The same heavy-pulling logic behind it shows up throughout his upper-back teaching in his guide to high pulls and shrugs.
Who Should Think Twice
- Lifters without honest, recent training maxes. The singles weight depends on knowing your real best effort — guess high and every set becomes a grinder that breaks the progression rule on day one.
- Anyone whose elbows, knees, or shoulders complain under repeated heavy singles. Revert to the modified version or extend the break between cycles instead of grinding through joint complaints.
- Short-on-time trainees. Ninety minutes for one lift is the honest price of admission.
Lifters applying it to squatting should already own solid technique on the core movements — our overview of Starr-approved squat variations covers the base pattern, and part one of the deadlift guide covers pulling mechanics.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Hepburn routine safe?
For advanced lifters using honest numbers, sound technique, and the once-weekly-per-lift schedule, Starr considered it safe and highly productive — the design deliberately gives each lift one heavy session weekly. It remains demanding on connective tissue, so treat persistent joint complaints as a signal to drop back to the modified version, not to grind harder.
How often should I do Hepburns?
Once per week for each lift you apply it to, inside roughly six-week cycles, followed by months of regular training before the next cycle.
What is the modified Hepburn version?
Three singles at the same working weight plus three back-off sets of five about fifty pounds lighter, adding one set of each over time until the full five singles and five sets of five return.
Why singles before the sets of five?
In Starr’s explanation, the singles strengthen tendons and ligaments while the fives expand your total workload — connective-tissue strength first, then volume layered on top of it.
Sources
Program descriptions: Bill Starr, “The Hepburn Routine,” Iron Man (August 16, 2014); “Only the Strong Shall Survive: The Hepburn Routine,” Iron Man (October 1, 2003); “Low-Rep Lowdown,” Iron Man (2010) — authorship confirmed by Iron Man’s editorial notes. Biography: The Canadian Encyclopedia; Olympic.ca (Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame); BC Sports Hall of Fame; Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. Hepburn’s own training methods as reported in later compilations (myosynthesis.com); modern derivatives such as T-Nation’s “Hepburn Solution” cited only as lineage.
Last updated: August 2026 · Edited presentation of the Hepburn routine as taught by Bill Starr — not newly written by Bill Starr.
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