If you’ve turned to this chapter first, stop. Please turn to the first page of this book, and start at the beginning. You’ll get little out of this chapter until you’ve made the rest of the book an integral part of you—especially the six chapters preceding this one.
The lists of exercises that follow count for nothing unless each is acted upon in the full understanding of everything else written in this book. If your understanding of training has only been in the mainstream of bodybuilding thought, the routines in this chapter may appear too radical. Start at the beginning of the book, and get the full story.
Everything written here has to be put into practice in the best way that suits you. It’s you who will finalize the precise interpretation of intensity cycling, training frequency, and degree of abbreviation of the routine. I can’t fix these factors for you. You have to take what I provide as general recommendations, and fine-tune them to fit your own individual circumstances.
A list of exercises, sets and reps is powerless. You must bring it to life. You must marry the routine—individually tailored—with all the persistence, effort, dedication and intelligence promoted in this book.
The effectiveness of a routine is a result of a package of considerations. The actual list of exercises is but one consideration. What follows in this chapter is but a sample of potentially productive routines. (Chapters 12 and 13 have more routines.) Once you understand what you’re doing, you’ll begin to learn what suits you best. You can then go on to compose your own routines according to the circumstances of the time.
The message coming from this book is that typical bodybuilders must not imitate the training methods of a gifted minority.
Typical bodybuilders have great difficulty when they try to gain on the popular routines. This doesn’t, however, mean that easy gainers won’t respond to training on simple, basic and infrequent routines. Of course they will, and respond dramatically. Some of the most gifted bodybuilders are learning this lesson and have cut back on their volume and frequency of training.
The routines in this chapter have been composed considering that readers have access to a free-loading barbell, lots of plates (including the tiny ones), sturdy squat stands and safety devices (or power rack), a strong bench, parallel bars for dips, and an overhead pulley or pullup (chinning) bar. The emphasis is upon strong, practical equipment. Don’t even think about using shoddy, flimsy gear.
Even with an absolute minimum of a barbell, a bench, stands and safety devices you can transform yourself. This is adequate for meeting the primary needs to pull, push and squat. All the big basic lifts are either pulling, squatting (lower-body pushing), or upper-body pushing movements—the fundamental exercise planes. As long as you’re working hard on these three basic movements, and keeping exercises to the minimum, you’re on the right lines.
More equipment, if properly used, can be very helpful. A set of dumbbells, and Hammer Strength and Nautilus equipment (among some others), can provide quality alternative movements. Feel free to make wise substitutions—not additions—in the following routines. However, never let inviting equipment distract you from the progress you must make with the big basic barbell exercises. Often, the usefulness of a gym is inversely proportional to the variety of equipment it has to titillate members with.
The easier and most common interpretation is to do warmup work followed by the work set(s) for each exercise, one exercise at a time. For example, take the bench press: 135 pounds x 5 reps, two minutes rest, 200x5, three minutes rest, 250x5, three minutes rest, then 250x5 again. (Some multiple-set schemes require more than two work sets.) Take a few minutes rest and then do the warmup set(s) and work sets for the next exercise, and so on.
The length of rest between sets is influenced by the exercise you’re doing. You need more rest after a hard set of squats or deadlifts than you need after a hard set of calf raises.
The “blood and guts” interpretation of these routines (and the quickest way to get through a routine) gets you warmed up for every exercise in one go. (It also produces a demanding cardiorespiratory workout.) Do all your warmup work after your abdominal work. Rest ninety seconds or less between sets and then quickly set up all the poundages for the exercises to follow. Then, do all your top-effort sets one after the other, almost back-to-back.
If each set is taken to the limit, and you don’t rest between exercises any longer than it takes you to move to the next exercise, then little can match this training interpretation for severity.
If sets are extended beyond regular failure, using techniques such as drop sets, forced reps and negatives, this is amongst the absolute hardest of hard training. Being so very hard, it has to be used with prudence or else it will overtrain you very quickly. With the back-to-back style of training, if you do any more than a single set to failure for an exercise, rest a maximum of one minute between those sets, perhaps reducing the poundage for the repeat set.
If you’re new to training your top sets back-to-back, break into it gradually in order to develop the high degree of conditioning that’s needed. Start by resting two minutes between sets, and cut the rest period by ten seconds each week. By the end of a ten-week cycle you’ll be training almost in the back-to-back method. For your following cycle, train in the pure back-to-back style.
Both interpretations can deliver impressive results, with each having its merits and demerits. The longer the rest period between sets and exercises, the bigger the poundages you can use. By training, for example, squats and stiff-legged deadlifts back-to-back the latter will suffer in terms of poundage used. This can still build size though, if you use as much poundage as you can for the reps you’re doing.
Experiment with different ways of rationally interpreting routines, perhaps finally settling on a handful of constructions. Vary which one you use from cycle to cycle, according to the conditions at present.
Suppose you know that over the next few months you’re going to be over-worked at your employment, together with having many family commitments. Knowing that you’re not going to be at your best in the gym, select two or more minutes of rest between sets. This will enable you to maintain high intensity sets although the pace of workout isn’t fast.
If you know the next few months are going to provide good recovery and rest, with no over-work outside of the gym, try the back-to-back interpretation. At other times, perhaps train with just one minute between sets and exercises. If you’re on a strength peaking cycle you’ll rest as much as five minutes between your heavy sets, and even longer sometimes.
Another way to perform a routine is using super slow protocol. This is described in Chapter 13.
Make your plans, and stick to them. If you settle on one minute rests for the next cycle, or training back-to-back, stick to it. If you decide to use heavier poundages, fixing say three minutes between sets, be sure your rest periods are exactly that. If you decide to try super slow, resolve to master the procedure and then give it a fair try.
Being orderly like this will enable you to do justice to your plans and enable you to evaluate, after the cycle is completed, the success or otherwise of whatever you did. Give a single interpretation of training an adequate period before passing judgement. Don’t flit from one interpretation to another, never doing justice to a single one of them.
You determine exactly what to do. As a general recommendation, for your top effort sets, do 1-3 sets of 6-9 reps for each exercise for the upper-body, and higher reps, 10-20, for each exercise for the lower-body. These ranges aren’t written in stone, although high reps for lower-body work—especially the squat—belong to the great tradition of programs for stimulating overall growth.
If you want to do sets of 5-7 reps in a cycle for the upper body, or even for the lower body, go ahead. If you want to try sets of 12-14 for the upper body, go ahead. All of this manoeuvre is part of the business of experimentation, and trial and error. Find what suits you, at least for the moment. Using the same rep range, for cycle after cycle, will encourage staleness in most bodybuilders. Some variety, from one cycle to the next, is a good idea.
If you’re really training flat out, I fail to see how you can do more than three (non-warmup) sets per exercise, with often only one or two of such sets being all you can do. However, if you’re not doing all your work sets full-bore, you could do as many as five or six (non-warmup) sets for some exercises so long as you’re doing very few exercises. There are times when you may respond to more sets than usual, but doing most of them in not quite full-bore style.
To do the 5x5 format, do five sets of five reps with the same poundage (following warmup sets). When you can make all five sets of five (25 reps total), increase the poundage by five pounds at the next workout. Once the initial weeks of the cycle are behind you, although the first and second sets won’t be very demanding, the final sets will be. Following a weight increase, you probably won’t be able to get all five sets of five reps. Perhaps you make 5-5-4-3-3. Next workout you may get 5-5-5-4-4, then 5-5-5-5-4, and then all 5x5. Another poundage increase follows at the next workout. Progressively work up to the 5x5 goal again. Always remember, bodybuilding is progressive resistance training. When you’re really working hard to get out the 5x5, get your tiny discs out and just add one or two pounds to the bar each increment.
As the intensity increases further—following a few more poundage increments—you may find it impossible to build up to doing five reps in all five sets, so drop the last set. After a few more increments, drop another set. Continue until you’re down to one set of five reps and one set of three reps. This marks the end of the cycle. Take your time, start with comfortable poundages, and add weight in small increments. On this program you can take up to four minutes between sets of squats and deadlifts once they become very hard to get out.
Another interpretation of the 5x5 format is to include the warmup sets in the 5x5 scheme. This reduces the number of work sets. This is less severe and less time-consuming, so it may be the best introduction to 5x5 training.
These schemes involve many sets, and will only work for typical bodybuilders if very abbreviated routines are used. If you’re doing more than three or four exercises a workout, the schemes are unlikely to work. Another proviso is that you’re already getting close to the goals of Chapter 3. Unless you wait until this stage of development, you’ll be using an advanced method before you’ve earned the right to.
In Chapter 13 the subject of sets and reps is delved into further, as are other matters to be considered, including super slow training. The latter has its own requirements as far as sets and reps go, different to the guidelines given above for training with a traditional rep speed. Of course, as with all styles of training, once you’re familiar with procedures, and how your body responds, you can modify things to see if you can find a more productive formula.
While this training is not written into all the routines, you’re urged to include it.
Calf and grip work can be done at full-bore intensity for longer periods than can the bigger structures of the body that need the big basic exercises. Calf and grip work isn’t systemically demanding like work on the main structures of the body is, and doesn’t have to fit tightly into the cycling approach needed for the big exercises. Instead, take it easy the first couple of workouts of a new cycle, pick up the intensity, and then get training full-bore in the third or fourth week of each cycle.
Neck work shouldn’t be done full-bore, but can be done hard for long periods.
Calf, grip and neck work can—and perhaps should be—dropped from in the final stage of the cycle, when new poundage territory is being gone into in the big exercises. At this most severe stage of the cycle you need to pour everything into the big, most systemically demanding exercises. Also, you need to spare your recovery machinery from having to cope with demands outside of the core exercises.
Total focus upon these few main movements will ensure that, for just a few weeks, there’s no siphoning off of training energy and recovery ability. This application of focus can mean the difference between just reaching your previous best poundages, or forging ahead into new ground. Pour everything into the big movements only. (Maintain your stretching routine, though, but drop everything else outside of the key big exercises.)
For extreme hard gainers, anything outside of two to four big basic movements may be counterproductive. No calf, grip, neck or cardiorespiratory work, at least not for a few months or even a year or two. This is the sort of focus needed for very abbreviated routines to deliver gains for those people who can progress on nothing else.
A well-developed neck is physically impressive and helps prevent neck injuries from accidents. Neck work can be done in the gym after your regular workout, or at home if you prefer. Traditional bridging exercises, as explained by Dr. Ken Leistner, may cause problems in the vertebrae of the neck later in life. (Bridging used to give me problems with my neck in the days following doing the exercise.) The neck can be developed and strengthened by safer exercises.
If you have access to a four-way neck machine (Nautilus and Hammer make quality units), make use of it. Head straps can be effective if they are used safely and resistance is applied very slowly. Avoid low reps here.
Be very careful when you start doing neck work. The neck is a delicate structure, and is easily strained. Don’t work it to failure. Stick to hard sets (once you’re conditioned for them, that is). The neck can’t, safely, be trained as intensively as other body parts usually can. And don’t do any extremes of neck movement, especially to the sides.
Manual resistance is the recommended equipment-free method of training the neck. By yourself, with a short towel or your hands alone, apply resistance against each side of the head, and fore and aft. Once you’re conditioned to neck work, apply enough resistance to all but the opening few reps of each work set. If you have a competent training partner you can have the resistance applied by the partner. You must work in synchrony to ensure that the resistance is in the right direction and of the right degree. Get it wrong and you could injure yourself.
Calf development makes a big impression on overall development, and calf development receives less knock-on or indirect work from the big exercises than do other small muscles such as the biceps, triceps and forearms. See the next chapter for exercise selection.
Grip work can be done out of the gym. Get yourself a heavy duty gripper and work on it two or three times a week. Over time you’ll be able to close the gripper more, and sustain more reps and time with the same extent of closure. This, with the regular work you do in the gym, will—in time—greatly add to your gripping strength. Ending each workout with grip work is a great way to finish.
If you’re wiped out before getting to the forearm work at the end of the workout, take a breather until you feel ready. Hold plates by their edges or by their hubs (if prominent enough). Pinch-grip smooth plates keeping your fingers as far down the plates as you can. Do partial deadlifts without straps, taking the bar from a power rack or sturdy boxes so you only have to pull it up an inch. Use a thick bar if possible. Hold the bar until it drops, timing yourself to monitor progress. Hold a barbell in your fingers ,or hang from an overhead bar by your fingers. Spend a few minutes working on one or two grip exercises. If available, use purpose-built devices for training the grip.
Don’t forget what’s perhaps King of grip exercises—one-hand deadlifting, either with a regular bar cambered bar or a thick bar/handle. If you could do only one grip exercise, do this one. Absolutely no use of straps though—don’t even think about them.
Do this exercise on your deadlift day at the end of your workout. Do full, from-the-floor one-hand deadlifts. Straddle the bar and grip it so you have perfect balance when lifting. Find, and then mark with tape, the center of the bar, and note which of your fingers must be on top of the tape to have the grip centered. Your free hand can balance the bar if it tips a little. You’ll need some time to perfect the exercise for your body structure. Add weight whenever you can. On another day each week, do partial one-hand deadlifts from a rack or stands set up so you have only to lift the bar an inch off the supports—exercise your grip while sparing your back. Set a time target for holding the bar—15, 20 or whatever seconds—before upping the poundage next workout.
Make your own thick bar by sliding plumbers’ pipe over a barbell, using it like a sleeve. Have it cut the length between the inside of the collars, and keep that bar just for thick bar work. Experiment with different widths of pipe. (Thick bars, as Dr. Ken Leistner has pointed out, can be used with good effect for exercises other than direct grip work, exercises such as the overhead press, close-grip bench press, and barbell curl. Experiment.)
Put together a gripping program—perhaps several of them—and rotate them. Include some finger-tip pushups. Transform your grip after a month or two. After a year or two, few people will be able to touch you, grip-wise. Also, you’ll add size to your forearms and greatly add to your presence when wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
If you compete in powerlifting, or plan to, you need to train yourself to hold as much weight as possible without any gripping aid. Not much point using straps to be able to hang onto a double with 450 pounds in the deadlift if your grip can only hold one rep with 400.
If you’ve no intention of lifting competitively, you can use lifting straps without being worried that your thigh, hip and back strength is getting ahead of your grip. However, if this strength imbalance bothers you, even you should be wary of using straps.
For many people the trouble with not using straps is that the grip packs up many reps short of what the body can pull. So, the back isn’t going to improve any. Not using straps for medium to high rep deadlifts means your attention may be focused on whether or not the bar is going to fall out of your grip, rather than on getting the reps out.
Be careful when using wrist straps during deadlifts and shrugs. If you’re using a reverse or mixed grip—palms facing in opposite directions—you may cause torque that could injure you. (See Gripping the bar, in Chapter 11, for a possible solution.)
If you intend to compete competitively, or you simply want to deadlift your top poundages without straps, start your next deadlift cycle with a moderate poundage and slowly add poundage, and don’t use straps even once. If the poundage is added s-l-o-w-l-y, your gripping strength may be able to improve sufficiently to be able to keep pace. Jump the poundage too much and you’ll be forced to use straps again and your grip will continue to lag.
Old-time bodybuilders and strength men didn’t neglect their grip. They built extraordinary gripping power and forearm development. They didn’t do it with wrist curls, but with heavy grip work. This tradition needs to be revived. Although you probably won’t have inherited long muscle bellies, and lots of muscle cells in your forearms, that doesn’t mean you can’t develop a very strong grip.
There’s a great deal of satisfaction to be gotten from working on and developing an outstanding grip.
While an abdominal exercise isn’t included in each routine, always do one for a couple of hard sets say twice a week. Opening your routine with one—as part of getting you ready for the more demanding work to follow—is a good idea. If you prefer to do it at home, fine. See the next chapter for detail on abdominal work.
This activity helps to reduce injury potential in the workout that follows. Physiologically, it increases muscle temperature, and increases blood temperature and flow rate. It also reduces the chance of insufficient blood supply to the heart (cardiac ischemia), and makes the transition to strenuous exercise a gradual one. All this is especially needed when you’re cold before starting your workout. In the summer, supposing you live where it gets hot, you don’t have to be quite as particular. Avoid training during the hottest part of the day though.
While the physiological basis for a general warmup is convincing, tons of muscle have been built without it. It makes special sense for middle-aged and older bodybuilders to be strict about a general warmup, but younger bodybuilders will manage all right with just specific warmup work for each exercise.
Spend ten minutes doing some easy, general activity such as peddling a stationary bike, or doing some calisthenics. Your bodybuilding workout’s abdominal exercise could be included towards the end of this ten-minute preliminary activity. Some gentle stretching could end the general warmup. You could do your usual sequence of stretches here, but don’t push anything. After your workout, when your body has been “oiled,” you’ll be much more able to get into your full stretches. You’ll need less time, and experience less discomfort, relative to stretching cold. (See Chapter 11 for detail on flexibility work.)
Another possible time to stretch is during the rest periods between sets, if you’re not training back-to-back. Some people argue that stretching between sets (stretching the muscles being trained) can help in the muscle-building process, but some people argue the opposite.
Be sure that you’re adequately warmed up before doing an exercise. Either do all the warmup sets at the start of the workout, or do the warmup set(s) for each exercise followed by the top set(s) for that same exercise. The lower the reps (and higher the poundages) you’re using for your top effort sets, the more attention you need to give to specific warmup work.
For example, suppose you’re doing very heavy (for you) low-rep squats for a few weeks, in preparation for a maximum single. Your warmup work could run like this: 135x8, 235x5, and 285x3 as a prelude to 335x5. Suppose you’re doing 20-rep squats with as heavy a poundage as possible—say 250, at present. Your warmup work wouldn’t be extensive, say just 135x8 and 200x5.
Generally, the squat, deadlift and bench press need the most care when warming up. The other exercises are adequately provided for with one or at most two progressive warmup sets. Avoid warming up so much—too many sets and too many reps—that you tire yourself out. If in doubt, do the extra set of warmup work, but keep the reps low, as low as just one perfectly done rep.
Although specific performance instructions for all exercises aren’t provided in this book, instructions are given for many of the key exercises. (See Chapter 9 and Chapter 11.)
For the full story on exercise technique, in extensive detail and with hundreds of photographs, see one of BRAWN’s companion books: BUILD MUSCLE, LOSE FAT, LOOK GREAT, where over 200 pages are devoted to correct exercise technique.
Techniques such as forced reps, negatives, drop/breakdown sets, rest pause work, one-and-a-half reps, one-and-a-half rest pause reps, and other methods, take intensity of effort beyond the regular to-failure level. Training to failure either means performing reps until another rep can’t be performed under your own steam or, in the old (pure) school of training to failure, keep training until you can’t budge the bar.
Training isn’t done like this during the initial stages of a cycle, but only when you’re training full-bore. Training beyond regular failure can be result producing only if it’s used prudently. Don’t pile on this degree of intensity every workout, or even more than once every week for a given exercise, or else you’ll overtrain.
Be especially watchful that you don’t use these techniques to try to fix sets that haven’t been done properly. You can’t make a poor set into a good one by adding a few pseudo forced reps or negatives. Get the basic to-regular-failure sets perfect first.
As described in Chapter 9, use variations of the squat as you think best fit your circumstances and training motivation.
These movements haven’t been included in the following routines. If you don’t feel you’re doing too much already, and are already gaining on your program, then add one shrug movement once or twice a week. There are some fine shrug movements, not just for the trapezius as in the popular understanding of shrugs. There are even shrugs for the latissimus dorsi and pectorals.
A parallel-grip bar—trap bar, or shrug bar—is best for many shrugs. Dumbbells work well, too, because they permit a parallel grip. There are some basic shrugs you can use for the trapezius area. There’s the wide- or snatch-grip shrug done upright, or bent forward or lying facedown on an inclined bench. For the latter, pull the bar up vertically, and simultaneously pull your scapula in. The shrug can also be done with a shoulder-width grip. In either case, do not rotate or roll your shoulders as you move the bar up. Just up and down is fine.
Between shrugs—when the arms and shoulders are being pulled down—avoid relaxing, especially at the end of a set. If you relax, the resistance you’re using will wrench your arms and shoulders down, possibly causing damage. Keep yourself tight between reps. If you want a long rest pause between reps, set the barbell down on stands.
For comprehensive tuition on the variety of shrugs, consult the writings of Paul Kelso.
For the easy gainer, fitting in aerobic work without impeding the ability to recover from the bodybuilding workouts is no problem. For the hard gainer, with less recovery ability to play with, fitting in aerobic work is less easy. For the teenager, or extreme hard-gaining bodybuilder in his early twenties, forget about aerobics. Once you’re older than 30, it’s time to fit in aerobic work, but in a way that doesn’t mar your bodybuilding progress by eating too much into recovery reserve.
Your body adapts best to a stimulus when it only has to adapt to a single stimulus. Give it two or more stimuli and its adaptive ability is spread more thinly and so adaptation suffers. Better to focus attention on achieving a single objective. If you want to lift as big poundages as possible, you should focus on that single objective. If you want to get an extraordinarily conditioned cardiorespiratory system, then focus on that. The black and white opinion here says that you either become a Master of one thing, or a Jack of multiple things.
Cardiorespiratory fitness is very important for health reasons, especially once you’re older than 30, and increasingly important as you age beyond there. Cardiorespiratory work needs to have its place.
So, a Jack of all trades is more balanced than the Master of one trade. For the competitive athlete, becoming a Master is the goal. For the typical person who wants to have all-round size, strength, endurance, flexibility and cardiorespiratory efficiency, the Jack of all trades is the position to take.
Also on this side of the argument, good cardiorespiratory conditioning can help you to progress with the weights because your body is fitter. If the aerobic work is done shortly after your workout, in addition to stretching, it may aid recovery from the weights.
The problem is getting your cardiorespiratory system in good order without it hindering your progress elsewhere. By good cardiorespiratory fitness I don’t mean the conditioning of a middle or long distance runner.
If you work up to 20–30 minutes two or three times a week at about 75% of your age-adjusted heart rate, you’ll be well conditioned. The fitter you get, the more resistance you can handle (load on a bike, speed on a treadmill) to elicit the necessary heart rate.
Suppose you’re 30 years old. Deduct your age from 220 and you’ll get 190, and then 75% of 190 is 143—that means 143 heart beats per minute during exercise. Monitor your heart rate during exercise, without stopping if possible. If you don’t have an automatic device, count your pulse over 15 seconds and then multiply by four.
Don’t jump immediately into 75% work. Start with 60% and gradually work up to 75%. But get your physician’s approval first. Be conservative to begin with, and progress slowly. Start with no more than 10 minutes. Take a few weeks to work up to over 20 minutes at the 60% heart rate, and only then increase your effort level gradually, over another few weeks, to take your working heart rate to the 75% mark.
If you train your cardiorespiratory system progressively, and without overly pushing it when training hard with the weights, your body should be able to adjust without slowing or halting your progress with the weights. If you’re impatient and try to improve your cardiorespiratory fitness too rapidly, your progress with the weights may suffer, and you may become overtrained. You may then lose interest and motivation in both types of training.
As a bodybuilding or strength cycle gets into the full-bore stage, and if you start to feel tired, consider doing less aerobic work until the cycle is finished. Do the aerobic work twice a week, and for 15–20 minutes rather than 30, and at the 70% mark. Then return to the 20–30 minutes at the 75% level once the current full-bore stage of your weight training has been completed.
By doing your aerobic work after your gym workouts, your non-gym days can be devoted to recovery. If you do your aerobic work on the days you don’t train with the weights, you may be demanding too much of your recovery ability, always keeping you somewhat drained.
Low-intensity aerobic training specifically aimed at aiding loss of body fat is a different matter to the more demanding aerobic work just described. For the use of low-intensity aerobic work, see Chapter 14.
| 1. | Crunch style abdominal exercise |
| 2. | 20-rep squat followed by the breathing pullover, or Rader chest pull |
| 3. | Single-leg calf raise holding a dumbbell |
| 4. | Partial stiff-legged deadlift (once a week only) |
| 5. | Bench press |
| 6. | Parallel grip pulldown |
| 7. | Seated press |
| 1. | Crunch style abdominal exercise |
| 2. | 20-rep squat followed by the breathing pullover, or Rader chest pull |
| 3. | Donkey calf raise |
| 4. | Partial stiff-legged deadlift (once a week only) |
| 5. | Parallel bar dip, a dumbbell around your hips |
| 6. | One-arm dumbbell row |
| 7. | Seated press |
| 1. | Crunch style abdominal exercise |
| 2. | 20-rep bent-legged deadlift (once a week only) followed by the Rader chest pull |
| 3. | Machine standing calf raise |
| 4. | 10-rep squat |
| 5. | Slight-incline bench press |
| 6. | Parallel-grip pulldown or pullup (chin) |
| 7. | Seated press in front |
A modification of the 20-rep deadlift routine is to use an 11–20 rep range. Start with 11 reps and aim to add three reps each weekly workout. After three weeks you’ll strike the 20-rep target. Then add 20 pounds, drop back to 11 reps and work up in the same manner as before. Start comfortably, say 40 pounds under your 11-rep best. It will take you a few weeks before you’re training really hard, after which you try your utmost to keep the progression going for three months, reducing the poundage increment when necessary. This scheme can be used in the squat too, but make the initial poundage jumps less, say 10–15 pounds.
If you find gains extremely hard to make, and are wanting to experiment with focusing on the deadlift, don’t go flat-out in the squat. Save your big effort for the deadlift. Vice versa in the 20-rep squat workout if you find gains extremely difficult to make—work hard on the squat but keep something back in the deadlift.
For some of you, even these routines are too much and you’ll need abbreviated versions. Here’s an example:
| 1. | Crunch style abdominal exercise |
| 2. | Alternate these two exercises—one at one workout, the other the next, and so on: |
| a. | 20-rep squat followed by the pullover or Rader chest pull |
| b. | 15-rep partial stiff-legged deadlift followed by the pullover or Rader chest pull |
| 3. | Donkey calf raise |
| 4. | Bench press, or parallel bar dip |
| 5. | One-arm dumbbell row, or pulldown |
Some of you won’t be able to gain any substantial amount of muscle unless you use abbreviated routines and ultra-abbreviated routines, and keep using them for years. Some hard gainers complain that even two hard sets of each of five exercises is too much work for them. If so, cut back. Abbreviated routines can pack on muscle for even the most extreme of hard gainers. However, they are less likely to wield their magic now than in years gone by—gyms are now so crammed with non-essentials that all but those who know about real training are confused and misled.
Remember, some powerlifters with more favorable genetics than have typical bodybuilders, do nothing other than the three lifts—pure abbreviated training. They develop lots of strength and muscle. You can do the same.
Abbreviated training will do wonders for you so long as you pour in the effort, don’t get in the gym too often, and eat and rest plenty. Especially if you’re an extreme hard gainer, don’t waste years of your life trying to prove to the contrary.
Try this experiment if you’re in doubt as to the value of the abbreviated routine. Whatever is your usual routine, push yourself to your maximum and record the top set for each exercise—poundage and reps for each. Take a week off and get back into the gym. This time, using the same routine as a week before, do the routine in reverse order. Use the same inter-set rest periods as in the previous week, and the exact same poundages. Record the reps for the top set of each exercise. Full-bore effort, of course.
Compare your records. You’ll almost certainly find that the second workout’s initial exercises were done for more reps than when those exercises were done at the end of the first workout. The final exercises of the second workout would have been done for fewer reps than when they were done first in the first workout.
The lesson? To do maximum justice to each exercise you do, don’t do many exercises at each workout. This is especially so if your employment and family obligations are taking a lot out of you.
| 1. | Squat or deadlift (alternating at successive workouts) |
| 2. | Bench press |
| 3. | Parallel-grip pulldown |
| 4. | Standing calf raise on the calf machine |
| 1. | Squat or deadlift (alternating at successive workouts) |
| 2. | One-arm dumbbell row |
| 3. | Parallel bar dip with resistance |
| 4. | Donkey calf raise |
| 1. | Bench press |
| 2. | Squat (20-rep style) |
| 3. | Rader chest pull |
| 4. | Bent-over row |
This combination was promoted by Peary Rader for those bodybuilders who couldn’t gain from more exercises.
For another abbreviated program, alternate these two routines:
Routine A
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Bench press |
| 3. | Pullup |
| 1. | Seated press |
| 2. | Stiff-legged or regular deadlift |
| 3. | Parallel bar dip |
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | One-arm dumbbell row |
| 1. | Bent-legged deadlift |
| 2. | Parallel bar dip |
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Pullup |
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Parallel bar dip |
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Nothing else |
| 1. | Trap bar/parallel-grip deadlift |
| 2. | Nothing else |
| 1. | Trap bar/parallel-grip deadlift |
| 2. | Pullup |
| 1. | Trap bar/parallel-grip deadlift |
| 2. | Parallel bar dip |
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Press from stands |
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Stiff-legged deadlift |
| 1. | Bent-legged deadlift |
| 2. | Bench press |
| 1. | Bent-legged deadlift |
| 2. | Press from stands |
The following routines (A and B) are to be alternated while training every third or fourth day. They are very demanding routines that use beyond failure training, but only one all-out set per exercise. This maximum intensity interpretation shouldn’t be done every workout. Do it when you feel ready for it, maybe once every two, three or four weeks. With the other workouts you (just!) train to regular failure, one or two all-out sets per exercise.
Be warned, these routines are massively demanding, and too demanding for many of you, even within the context of cycling intensity. As soon as you feel you’re close to becoming overtrained, back off. For some of you, they will be very productive so long as you get the full package of training and training-related considerations in sound order.
Routine A
| 1. | Full range leg press immediately followed by the squat |
| 2. | Dumbbell calf raise—1-1/3 reps, followed immediately by breakdowns |
| 3. | Bench press—to failure, forced reps, then floor pushups |
| 4. | Pulldown—to failure and immediately followed by negative pullups |
| 5. | Seated press—to failure and then continue with the incline press with the same poundage |
| 6. | Barbell curl—breakdowns |
| 7. | Shoulder-width bench press to failure followed by regular-grip bench press with forced reps |
Routine B
| 1. | Squat—maximum reps with a fixed poundage, increasing reps every time you use this routine |
| 2. | Donkey calf raise—to failure and then rest pause style |
| 3. | Partial stiff-legged deadlift—regular reps and sets |
| 4. | Parallel bar dips—breakdowns and negatives |
| 5. | Pullups—failure and negatives |
| 6. | Standing press—to failure and then either rest pause or forced reps |
| 7. | Barbell curl—to failure and then rest pause reps |
Putting the stiff-legged deadlift immediately after the squat takes training to the outer limits of severity. This is a personal favorite combination of Dr. Ken Leistner, one that has delivered extremely impressive results for himself and his charges.
Imagine, a set of squats done to absolute failure immediately followed by a set of stiff-legged deadlifts to one rep short of failure. You’ll have already done your warmup work for both exercises before starting on your full-bore set of squats. The bar for the stiff-legged deadlift will be already loaded and ready so that after the squat all you have to do is move over to it and get going.
Little or nothing can beat this twosome for wiping you out so quickly, and stimulating a lot of growth. You’ll never know how hard it is unless you’ve been pushed by a training partner or supervisor to ensure that you really go ail-out. Try this combination once a week:
| 1. | Squat—use a weight that makes you fail at no less than 12 reps; then immediately get to the next exercise. |
| 2. | Stiff-legged deadlift, with a weight that lets you get at least 12 reps. |
| Enjoy a rest for 10 minutes and then finish off the rest of the routine. | |
| 3. | Calf raise |
| 4. | Bench press |
| 5. | Pullup |
This routine is short since the first two exercises will wipe you out. At your alternate workout—where you don’t deadlift—you can do two more exercises if you wish.
Alternate the following two routines at successive workouts:
Routine A
| 1. | Partial stiff-legged deadlift—1x15, rest and then 1x10 with the same poundage |
| 2. | Overhead press—1x10, 1x6 |
| 3. | Pullup—1x12, 1x8 |
| 4. | Parallel bar dip—1x10, 1x6 |
| 5. | Calf raise—1x25, 1x20 |
Routine B
Whether you use the same poundage for each exercise’s work sets, or whether you increase the weight a little for the repeat sets, depends on how long you rest between sets.
Alternate the next two routines, using a 5x5 scheme, training at the frequency to suit you. Perhaps you start training three times a week—each routine being done three times every two weeks. Later, when the intensity is high, you can reduce to training each routine once a week.
Routine A
| 1. | Squat |
| 2. | Bench press |
| 3. | Pullup |
Routine B
| 1. | Stiff-legged deadlift |
| 2. | Calf raise (sets of 10–15 reps here) |
| 3. | Press (from stands) |
Not only are popular split routines unnecessary for gains, but they prohibit gains among typical bodybuilders. However, with a fundamental overhaul, a split routine may be helpful.
Such split routines don’t spread a high volume of work over the week, but stagger a low to medium volume of work over more workouts. Each multi-joint exercise may only be worked once a week. This further reduces the length of each workout, thus heightening intensity while keeping inroads into recovery capacity on the low side. Here are some suggestions. Although there are more workouts per week, note carefully the frequency of training each lift. You determine the sets and reps following a thorough reading of the earlier chapters.
Split routine #1
Sunday
Regular grip bench press
Seated press
Barbell curl
Close-grip (15-inch grip) bench press
Deadlift (regular style or partial stiff-legged)
Pulldown
Thursday—optional
Light bench press
Seated press
Barbell curl
Saturday
Squat
Split routine #2
Monday
Squat
Parallel bar dip
Thursday
Partial stiff-legged deadlift
Press
Saturday
Bench press
One-arm dumbbell row
A hard gainer’s powerlifting routine
This routine trains each powerlift once a week, with a little supplementary work each session. Each powerlift will be done on a different day. Include calf, neck and grip work once a week each.
Monday
Bent-legged deadlift
Barbell curl
Crunch situps
Wednesday
Bench press
Close-grip (15 inches between thumbs) bench press
Pulldown, row or pullup
Squat
Press from stands
Crunch situps
Always remember, there’s no one way to train. There’s a multitude of practical and effective routines that can be composed according to the principles expounded in this book. Different interpretations will be needed according to individual circumstances, experience, level of development, and the needs of the moment.
If you pour commitment and resolve into the routines in this chapter, while getting the volume of work and exercise frequency right for you, together with an adequate diet and plenty of rest and sleep, you will grow. You’ll grow easier than you ever thought you would while trapped in the mire of frustration that goes hand-in-hand with following popular routines.
The sequence depends on your immediate needs, long-term needs, time available, season, needs for body part specialization, quantity and quality of sleep, and motivation. These factors can vary over the year and influence both how you can train, and your response to training.
I suggest, after you’ve thoroughly studied all of this book, you work out a year of routines. Put them together thoughtfully, bearing in mind events to happen outside the gym during the year.
For example, don’t plan to hit the final month of a 20-rep squat routine during a hot summer when you intend having an extra job in the evening and will be short on sleep and energy. Or, don’t plan to peak out for singles in the powerlifts during a month when you’re going to be out of town on vacation for two weeks.
When drawing up your plans for the year, consider the compatibility of successive routines. After a cycle of single or double set to-failure workouts, your body and mind need a change, perhaps a big change. After an abbreviated, pure power cycle, you’ll probably need a contrast. A cycle of more sets, and a few more exercises, done at a slightly reduced intensity may be just what you need to let your mass catch up with your strength.
Set your goals, make your plans, and keep flexible while keeping to the blueprint. Allow for vacations and any periods when you can’t get to the gym or can’t train properly. Then put the plan into action. When you know where you’re going, and know how to get there, you’re already well on the way to getting there. Get organized for success.
To keep the faith of the training philosophy, be watchful of being seduced by the irrational, stay dear of negative people, reread this book, and read HARDGAINER and other sources of practical information.
This piece of equipment is so versatile and productive that it deserves a book devoted to it. With this apparatus you break the basic lifts into their component parts: start, middle and finish—and other parts of—and train these specific parts.
Used properly, acclimatized to before packing on the poundages, not overused and abused, it is one of the great tools of the trade. Partial lifts enable you to use poundages way above what your body is used to using for full-range movements. These big poundages must be worked up to gradually, in weekly increments and in perfect form without holding your breath. If you jump into your maximum power rack poundages, using more than you’re used to, albeit in partial movements, you’re asking for trouble—perhaps a lot of trouble.
I know of a very experienced and knowledgeable powerlifter who was in a hurry to return to former poundages. He gave himself a hernia while doing partial deadlifts, and heard a loud crack as the tear occurred. Be patient. It’s always better to make progress slowly and surely rather than be hasty and expose yourself to injury. This is so in all types of physical training.
If you’ve never used the power rack as a mainstay in your training, you’re unlikely to have realized your strength potential. It may help to take you well beyond the strength goals given in Chapter 3.
You’re urged to get a power rack if you train at home, or to attend a gym that has one. The only condition is that you’re already strong and physically impressive—at or close to the goals given in the Chapter 3. Unless you’re at this level of development I don’t feel you’ve got enough from the other training methods. Milk these methods a lot more before applying yourself to the power rack. Then you’ll have the strength, development of tissue, and tolerance to exercise that you need to get the most from the rack.
When you’re already big and strong you need other tools to take you to new levels of strength and development. The power rack is one of these tools.
The injection of a new piece of equipment, after years of training, will open training options that will bolster your training zeal. You need this to fire you onto levels of strength and size.
Of course, you can use the power rack before you’re already big and strong, and probably benefit from it. However, you would be using an advanced tool before you’ve made the most of the other tools. There’s no need to jump to an advanced technique until you need that technique. Don’t start to condition yourself to the power rack before you really need to use it. Save the rack till later. Once you’re big and strong, use the rack as one of the tools to use to make you very big and very strong.
Using the power rack purely as a safety device, rather than as an advanced strength- and mass-building tool, is another matter. As a safety tool, it can be used by novices. Even if you’re not advanced, still use a power rack, but keep its use appropriate to your development—safety initially, safety and an advanced training tool later on.
For the advanced bodybuilder who has built considerable size—at least to the goals given in Chapter 3—are there other ways to train? Yes. Are other training options realistic? Yes. Once you’re at the levels of Chapter 3, the options open to you include:
| a. | More of what has already worked, together with trying other interpretations of the same approach. |
| b. | Experimentation with advanced mass- and strength-building programs. Once the body has considerable muscle mass, there’s the opportunity to try higher volume and more frequent training routines, for some of the time. Routines will still be exclusively or predominantly the big basic exercises, but there will be more sets, with some exercises perhaps being worked more frequently. Very low rep work can be done for long periods without overtraining. The power rack can become a mainstay in training programs. Basic roots won’t be forgotten, though—20-rep squatting, for example, will be returned to regularly. If you feel you’ve exhausted the other training methods, and still want to get bigger and stronger, you may need to explore adaptation to long-term, hard and heavy training. The change-over will be gradual and progressive, and eventually involve more time commitment in the gym. |
There’s no shortage of instruction devoted to option (c), although most of it advises volume and frequency of training that are excessive for typical drug-free bodybuilders. There’s very little devoted to options (a) and (b) as applied to drug-free and genetically typical bodybuilders. This book deals comprehensively with option (a), and touches upon option (b).
Whichever single approach you take, or mixture of approaches, don’t think that once you’ve become big and strong (by drug-free, genetically typical standards) you can rewrite all that has been written in this book. Far from it. While your capacity for work will have increased in some areas, and the interpretations of training open to you will have been widened, you can still overtrain easily. All that’s been written in this book must still be considered when putting together your routines. Otherwise you’ll stagnate indefinitely.
Another consideration for very advanced trainees is that focus may need to be almost totally on a single exercise, in order to get that exercise to progress. When at just about the limits of your development and strength, you need this focus. At this stage, if you try simultaneously to bring up the squat, bench press, deadlift and overhead press, you may be onto a loser. Focus on one at a time, bringing each up. After having brought all of them up, spend a cycle aimed at getting all the exercises up to your best levels when you were applying yourself to each lift with focus. This compilation cycle is not aimed at going into new poundage territory.
To get much bigger and stronger, you really have to want it. Thinking you want it isn’t good enough. Wanting it next year when some issues in your life have settled down, isn’t good enough. Wanting it once you start to attend a better gym, isn’t good enough. Wanting it when you have more money, isn’t good enough.
You have to want it so much that you’re willing to do anything within the boundaries of reason and safety.
If you want it badly enough, you’re going to make good progress. You may, however, have to waste years of your life training on useless routines before learning the lessons contained in this book. So long as you’re motivated enough, you’ll still be training even after extensive frustration and failure.
Program your mind for achieving your (realistic) goals, visualize daily where you’re going, think positively, maintain your resolve, and don’t let negative people have a detrimental influence upon you. Train your mind as well as your body. Get in control, and stay in control.
While muscular might is built over the long-term, you have to get the short-term in good order first. To get the short-term in order, you have to get each day in order.
Your attitude matters a heck of a lot. Explore texts on how to program your mind for success and positive thought. Then unleash it on sound training programs.
The best motivation is success. Once you’re training productively, your motivation and ability to train hard should increase. And your discipline when out of the gym should intensify, too. But the more failure you have, the more your motivation can get worn away.
Don’t exhaust your motivation by ignoring this book and trying to prove you’re an exception to the rules for typical bodybuilders. Of course, you may be an exception, but the chances are that you aren’t.
Knuckle down in the gym to darned hard work on the big exercises. Knuckle down at home to substantial, nutritious eating. Knuckle down at home to getting lots of sleep.
There’s still no other drug-free combination that will help you. The basic requirements for getting big and strong are simple enough. It’s marrying productive interpretations with application, effort and discipline that’s tough to do. Make the commitment!
Keep your motivation up by progressing in the gym. Keep rereading this book, and similar material, for reinforcement. Keep on the training straight and narrow.
It’s time to put aside the arguments, reasoning, whys and wherefores.
It’s time to put the routines into practice.
It’s time to adhere to the need for progressive poundages, no matter how gradual and slow the increments may be.
It’s time to be patient and persistent.
It’s time to grow!
Confirm with your own example what legions of others have already proven. Do this now, and put an end to the wasted years!