The Early Days
I've had weights around the house since my early teens and have lifted on and off since that time always with a simple upper body workout performed for two or three sets at a frequency of three times/week (sometimes more, sometimes less).
This routine worked really well for me, but then again I never continued for a long enough period to judge the long term effectiveness, I would quit 12 or 16 weeks into it, just at the peak of those 'beginner gains' that we all experience. I never had written anything down and wasn't about to start. I have no records of my training, but the workout is so simple that I'll never forget it. Form was the least of my concerns and one rep max's ment everything. I generally rushed through the routine -- sometimes as fast as 12 minutes, and never taking more than 30 minutes to complete. My only metric was to average better than one set per minute.

2-3 sets, 8 reps each of:
Monday
  • Row-Bent
  • Curl-Forearm
  • Curl-Bicep
  • Bench Presses
  • Military Presses
Tuesday
  • Ab Work, 4 different moves, 3 sets each, 20-50 rep range
Wednesday
  • Row-Bent
  • Curl-Forearm
  • Curl-Bicep
  • Bench Presses
  • Military Presses
Thursday
  • Ab Work, 4 different moves, 3 sets each, 20-50 rep range
Friday
  • Row-Bent
  • Curl-Forearm
  • Curl-Bicep
  • Bench Presses
  • Military Presses
After several months of this a buddy of mine convinced me to add some leg work, so I started doing squats and leg curls in addition to the upper body work on M-W-F.

Things went well for the first 4 months or so, then progress started to halt, I went for entire month without adding a single pound to any of the bars. So I started looking for a better way and started down the high volume path.