Thursday, July 30, 2009
Aside from genetic predispositions, there are many factors that contribute to your gains in the gym.
1.) Intensity of training. Are you working our hard and fatiguing the muscle fibers or are you barely breaking a sweat while telling jokes every 5 minutes?
2.) Volume. Too much volume will quickly deplete your glycogen stores and fry your CNS. Too little volume and you haven't induced anything despite what Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer might tell you! So where does this leave us? We have found that 4-6 intense sets per muscle group works best, split up among 1-2 exercises. Obviously not every body part is the focus in a given training session. Cut the fluff sets and get to the point after intelligently conducted warmup sets.
3.) Frequency. Are you training once a week? While in season this can help maintain your gains, don’t expect to get much stronger on this training split. Conversely, are you hitting it 6 days a week? Spinning your wheels? It is probably because you are doing TOO much. If you train hard, 2-4 days a week is your best bet.
4.) Exercise Selection. We are talking about “bang for your buck” exercises that force multiple muscle groups to engage and fire, providing an excellent stimulus for growth and strength throughout your body. Squats, Bench Presses, Chinups, Deadlifts, etc are great selections. Leg Extensions, Flies, Curls, and Leg Curls have their place, but we (IF we do them) throw them at the end of a workout after we have hit the big stuff.
AND Finally…The King of the Hill …
5.) Progressive Overload. Let’s say last year you could bench press 185 pounds 9 times. You spend a year scouring the pages of every bodybuilding magazine, and read every internet article there is to read on “the secret” of making gains that none of us strength coaches know about. You perform pre-exhaustion, post-exhaustion, drop sets, strip sets, 3 Way Splits, blah, blah, blah..one year later, you lay back on the bench, and perform 185 pounds…9 times.
Disappointed, you look into the mirror and break into a cold sweat (you know, the kind that you get when you are receiving a bad haircut). You have not added ANY size to your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Those muscle mags lied to you! What you failed to account for in your training is the MOST important of all in determining your progress: Progressive Overload.
Not only do you need to work with the right amount of intensity, volume, frequency, and with the proper exercises, but you need to SLOWLY increase the resistance in all of these exercises in order to make strength gains. I don’t care what the “experts” say, strength (in the hypertrophy rep range of 6-20 reps) and size are related. Go to any commercial gym and you will see this phenomenon play out, the big guys are pushing big weights! Sure, there are freaks out there, skinny guys that can move weight, but this stuff is all relative people! Those skinny guys who are rowing the 110’s for 7 for reps are bigger than they were when they rowed the 85’s for 7 reps.
Do finishers have their place? Sure they do, 21’s for biceps or widow set squats are great growth stimulators, but intensity is just one piece of the pie. Progressive Overload is HALF of the pie, if not more.
The best weapon in your gym bag is not the latest Nitric Oxide product (please throw that crap away)…it is your workout log. Record EVERYTHING you do, try to break records, deload and back off a bit every fourth week, eat well, sleep at least 8 hours a night, and watch your body grow as you get stronger!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
It is a major contradiction when many strength coaches dismiss “bodybuilding” work for their athletes, but then praise LeBron James, Adrian Peterson, and Albert Pujois for their bodies and athletic abilities. These men are F-ing huge! Yes, they are freaks, and yes, they were, for the most part, born this way, but it doesn’t change that fact that 90% of the time, in most sports, the addition of lean muscle tissue will aid in athletic performance. Hmm, let’s think about it, why else would 99% of baseball turn to the “dark side”? It wasn’t for the recovery! I am not at all condoning anabolic steroid use, just merely pointing out that added size and strength lead to huge paychecks for these athletes.
Call it what you want to call it, but a lot of high school/college athletes need to add size, I am up front about this issue, and call it what it is, bodybuilding. Now, these athletes also need to be strong, fast, mobile, flexible, and explosive, but who says they can’t add muscle and improve these athletic qualities at the same time? Why the hell are high school baseball and hockey players who weigh 140 pounds performing bullshit cable/external rotations while balancing on a Bosu ball when they have no mass whatsoever?
I am tired of overweight, donut swallowing, hang clean obsessed strength coaches saying there is no place for “bodybuilding” in an athlete’s program. This is ludicrous, and there is MOST definitely a place for bodybuilding in our gym. Although we perform max effort and dynamic work, we try and improve muscular strength (in the 8-20 rep range) and size in our accessory work.
Try the following training split (in the off season) in order to get stronger, recover, and improve upon your weaknesses! We still have our basic powerlifting template here, but many of our auxilary movements are geared at making size gains! This is a great split thatcan work any muscle group 2-3 times/week, and allowes for tremendous flexibility. If you don't have weekend off you can simply slide the training up to M, T, Th, F.
Sunday- OFF
Monday- Max Effort Lower Body (Address Mobility, Core, Neck in Fillers)
Tuesday- Agility/Conditioning
Wednesday- Max Effort Upper Body (Address Mobility, Core, Neck in Fillers)
Thursday- Speed/Conditioning
Friday- Dynamic Effort Full Body
Saturday- OPTIONAL FREE HOUR! (Work on Weaknesses)
1.) MUST INCLUDE CORE WORK.
2.) MUST INCLUDE A “STRONGMAN” EXERCISE.
3.) NO SQUATS, DEADLIFTS.
4.) BE MINDFUL THAT WE HAVE A MAX EFFORT LOWER BODY DAY IN 48 HOURS!
5.) NO MORE THAN 60 MINUTES TO LIFT!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
When it comes to diet, as boring as it sounds, whether or not your goal is weight gain or weight loss, I recommend becoming relatively “routine” in your daily meal selection. The reason for this is so that you will have a very good idea about what is working and what isn’t without racking your brain about counting calories every time you sit down to a meal. If you want to incorporate a new food or meal, that is fine, just make sure it fits in accordingly to your caloric needs. I can’t tell you how many times an athlete who “can’t gain weight” doesn’t eat breakfast, or that client who “can’t drop 10 pounds” doesn’t remember what she ate yesterday. This is unacceptable!
If we all become more aware about our food selections, and their caloric value, then we all will reach our goals that much faster! If you are eating the same foods at the same time each day, and you still aren’t reaching your goals, then you know exactly what the problem is. Effective adjustments can be made to your diet, and goals can be reached. Eat this way 6/7 days of the week, and enjoy a “free day” on the weekend where you aren’t at all concerned with calories and have a chance to enjoy the foods you love.
Matt
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