Eat More, Get Ripped
Is calorie balance less important than calorie turnover? Here's what you need to know.
You probably know someone who's lean and muscular and has maintained that impressive body for years. Hopefully, you are that person. But if not, what can you guess about this perpetually fit individual?



Well, some might say that person must follow a specific diet plan, track every calorie, and count every macro. (In fact, many diet gurus would say that's the only way to not be fat.) If you're a real Negative Nancy, you might say that while that guy or gal looks good, they must be miserable because they're always dieting.



Well, here's the twist: They might be eating as much as they want and not dieting at all. So what's their secret? Well, according to some research, those folks have a high rate of energy flux.



What's Energy Flux?
Energy flux is the balance between energy intake (through food) and energy expenditure (through movement or metabolic processes). Think energy turnover. Dr. John Berardi originally defined it as, "The amount of energy you ingest through your diet and the amount you burn through the sum total of your metabolic activity."



By "energy" we are talking about calories, but energy flux goes beyond calories-in, calories-out (or a deficit vs. a surplus). That's called energy balance – a static measure focusing on the balance between intake and expenditure.



Energy flux instead focuses on the rate energy moves through the system, not just the balance. It describes the overall flow of energy, in and out, over time. Essentially, energy flux focuses on how much energy is being processed.



Within the flux system, people fall into different categories:



Low Energy Flux: Both intake and expenditure are low. A person doesn't exercise/move much but also doesn't eat much.
Mid Energy Flux: This individual consumes moderate calories and matches this with moderate exercise/movement (maintenance).
High Energy Flux: High intake and high expenditure. This person's body is processing or turning over a lot of energy/calories. He or she eats a lot but also expends a lot.
Out of Balance Energy Flux: This individual is on a strict low-calorie diet, in a bulking phase, or just overeating. Researchers like Dr. Bill Campbell define this as a person having an energy intake value that's 33% greater than or less than their energy expenditure value.
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What's the Best Flux?
According to studies and weight-lifting researchers like Campbell and Berardi, you want to mostly be in a high energy flux state – eat a lot and move a lot.



People in this state are lean and muscular (without dieting) and tend to stay that way, even as they age. Berardi notes, "A boost in energy flux would most likely lead to an increase in lean mass, a decrease in fat mass, and an increase in metabolic rate. Physiologically, it's better to exercise as much as you can while eating as much as possible – as long as you're gaining muscle and losing fat – than the reverse."



The "move a lot" portion improves insulin sensitivity and nutrient partitioning – your body shuttles calories toward muscle instead of storing them as fat. The "eat a lot" portion fuels activity and muscle growth if you're lifting.



The Surprising Study
In one energy flux study, researchers tracked 162 young men and women for three years. In the beginning, they established their energy balance and tested their body fat percentage. The participants were labeled with one of the flux categories listed above, but the "out of balance" participants were tossed out. Then they just lived their lives as they always had.



The goal was to see how energy flux predicted body fat levels a few years into the future. Here's what they found:



Low Energy Flux: On average, these participants had an energy intake of 1800 calories and an energy expenditure of 2225 calories. In three years, they went from about 18% body fat to 21% body fat.
Mid Energy Flux: These men and women had an energy intake of 2500 calories and an expenditure of 2475 calories (energy balance). They went from about 18% body fat to just over 21% body fat.
High Energy Flux: These participants had an energy intake of 3275 calories and an expenditure of 2825 calories. They went from about 18% body fat to just under 16% body fat.
Yes, those eating a lot (a 450-calorie positive energy balance) and moving a lot got leaner over time. The low and mid groups should've lost body fat according to most dieticians, but they didn't. Instead, they gained fat. So, energy balance does not predict future body fat levels, but energy flux does.



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How to Use This Info
Paraphrasing part of Dr. Campbell's review of this research in his Body by Science newsletter:



If you want to be lean in the future, have high levels of energy intake and high levels of energy expenditure – a high flux rate.
If you want a future body composition that's lower in body fat than it is today, the worst thing you can do, according to Dr. Campbell, is reduce your calories and be sedentary. This, of course, is exactly how most non-lifters try to lose fat. It works in the short term because a negative energy balance always works for a while, but in the long term, they gain it back because they're not resistance training.
High energy flux, however, rules the day, and lifting should always be part of that. A muscle-heavy person should be able to go through periods of low intake and low expenditure and be just fine. Life sometimes gets in the way, but extra muscle makes it okay.
Regarding body-fat setpoints and homeostasis, if you want to force your body to adopt a new, leaner body composition, eat more and move more, not the other way around.
How to Enhance Energy Flux
While "eat a lot and move a lot" works, it’s not always practical. The great equalizers are lifting weights and protein intake.



Eat more and move more? Sure, but also make sure a lot of that food is protein-based. Remember, it's almost impossible to store "excess" protein as body fat. It's quite easy, however, to store carbs and dietary fats.



A protein first strategy autoregulates the rest of your dietary choices and makes the whole energy flux thing work more efficiently, even if you're not in a high flux state all the time. Remember, part of the energy expenditure equation involves metabolic processes, and processing protein requires the most energy.

How Your Life Will Change When You Start Working Out
If you knew these seven things about lifting or bodybuilding beforehand, would you even bother walking into a gym? Take a look.
All of us who lift weights or bodybuild know things, painful things, about lifting that we normally don't share with beginners because, frankly, no one ever filled us in on these secrets beforehand and we're all still pretty chafed about it.

But I'm feeling uncharacteristically nice today, so if any of you out there are thinking about taking up lifting, here are a few of the distressing truths you'll soon come to realize.

1. You'll only really look good for a month or two a year... Probably in summer.
No one ever bothers to tell you that the guys pictured on bodybuilding websites don't normally look all ripped. Most of the time, they look like Fat Thor, or that their high school nickname was Billy Bob and Coach Kilmer wanted them to play in the big game for West Canaan, even though Billy Bob has a concussion.

It's only when they get ready for a contest or, if they're amateurs, when they get ready for summer that they start to get the body of pre-Thanos Thor.

That'll probably be you too, because walking around all year-round with body fat in the single digits is about as easy as running a marathon every day while wearing one of those goofy T-Rex suits and carrying a serving set of tea cups.

But hey, two months of looking good is better than zero months of looking good.

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2. You'll get to know what being old feels like, years before it actually happens.
Let me clarify this a bit. You'll feel fine, even great, once you've been lifting weights for a while... as long as you're sitting perfectly still.

If you are moving, well hello old guy who does commercials for those walk-in bathtubs! You won't just "get up" in the morning. You'll be so achy from lifting that you'll actually have to unfurl yourself out of bed, once piece at a time like some cheap piece of mass-produced furniture from IKEA.

Some parts will wake up faster than others, but until all your decrepit joints are in sync, you'll do a kind of an answering-the-phone-with-your-pants-around-your-ankles walk that would cause an Elementary school administrator to pull over and offer you the custodial job recently vacated by the passing of Dale, the funny-in-the-head janitor who died last Tuesday.

But it's all worth it, of course.

3. People will assume you're stupid.
Once you start filling out your T-shirt with muscle, people will assume your brain is inversely proportional to your degree of muscle. You'll be regarded much the same way as Fran, the squeaky voiced, large-breasted but dim-witted hooker in that 80's movie, The Man With Two Brains:

Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin): I can't.
Fran: Can't what?
Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: I can't inject you with window cleaner.
Fran: I don't mind. Hey, what does it do anyway?
Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: It causes your brain to die.
Fran: I don't mind.
No one will take you seriously about anything, unless it has to do with the bench press or protein requirements.

And if you do say something smart, people will be thunderstruck. They'll regard you the same they would if they met a chimp who learned how to use the toilet, or some four-year old who learned the lyrics to Itsy-Bitsy Spider. It'll all feel pretty demeaning.

4. You'll start looking for any excuse to take off your shirt.
There'll come a time – probably a few months after you start training – that you'll start feeling a little cocky about your new body. You'll be like some fool who learned a few words of Spanish and then looks for any excuse to go to a Mexican restaurant to proudly exclaim "Muy bueno!" when the doesn't-give-a-shit waitress comes to clear his plate away.

But instead of showing off your linguistic aptitude, you'll start showing off your torso by taking off your shirt in front of an audience whenever there's any excuse to do so, whether the thermometer inched up to a sweltering 71 degrees or you just need to push the trash dumpster out to the street.

It'll take all your restraint not to strip off your suit jacket and shirt at a funeral because carrying that casket would really make your delts pop. Likewise, you'll never again pass a mirror, window, or back of a shiny spoon without catching an admiring glimpse of your wonderfulness.

It's pretty sad, but like I said, it's all worth it.

Bodybuilder-Diet
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5. You'll never again eat anything that tastes good.
You poor bastard. You're now going to eat for both muscular size AND fat loss, a Houdini-like nutritional trick that, while not impossible, is kind of like going camping and trying to start a campfire underwater on the bottom of Lake Winnibigoshish.

Besides that, your diet isn't going to have a lot of variety. Let's put it this way:

You know how you've been feeding the family dog the same kibble every day for his whole life?

Well, next to your new, bodybuilding diet, the dog's diet is a wild, gastro-fusional delight that does the cha-cha on the tongue. Everything you eat from now on until you set down your last dumbbell is going to be from a painfully short list of standard high protein, low-carb, low-fat, low-taste, bodybuilding foods.

And you'll never taste sugar again. Instead, you'll swallow so much artificial sweetener that every year you have to send your liver to Switzerland to have it Martinized with non-flammable solvents, pressed, and sent back.

6. You'll find that your newfound strength isn't really much good for anything.
You may really be a superhero in training, but most of the time, you're either Superman with a piece of Kryptonite lodged in his shorts or Tony Stark with a shorted-out arc reactor in the middle of his chest. In other words, you're usually too sore or too tight from the previous day's workout to actually do anything of use.

Let's put it this way: You won't even be able to pick up a kitten without warming up and doing a few pick-up-the-kitten ramp-up sets (where you start by picking up a light kitten and progressively working up with heavier kittens until you can pick up the work-set kitten).

But it's all worth it, of course. (Isn't it?)

7. Girls don't really go for muscular guys.
It's the ultimate cosmic joke. You started bodybuilding so you could be more appealing to women, but most women don't like the overly muscular look.

It's the real-life equivalent of that O. Henry short story where the guy sells his watch so he can buy his luxuriously long-haired wife a set of combs, completely unaware that she had cut off her hair and sold it so she could buy him a chain for his gold watch, so they get hugely bummed out and end up dead in a tragic murder/suicide.

Okay, that last part didn't happen in the story, but it might as well have. By the way, do you hear that noise in the background? It's the goddam' universe laughing at you.

Oh sure, a lot of women will mock-fawn over the idea of muscular lifters, the way they do with Chippendale's dancers, but a lot of that's for show, the way a group of guys hoot and holler when Billy Bob shoots a can of Lone Star. The women wouldn't dare date one of those washboard-ab guys... or, for that matter, you.

Instead, they go for guys with cute little-boy butts and "toned" arms who are dead ringers for pre-Batman Robert Pattinson, complete with the glittery, bedazzled skin. Or maybe guys who look a little like Miley Cyrus. Scratch that. Exactly like Miley Cyrus.

But maybe, just maybe, you'll ironically find someone who doesn't care for such superficialities as physical attractiveness and she won't mind your muscles and will love you for yourself.

Sure, keep telling yourself that. But it's all, of course, worth it.

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Okay, It Really Is Worth It
I may have painted a depressing picture of lifting weights and bodybuilding, but I'm kidding. Mostly. Kind of. While our pursuit has its definite drawbacks, there are also plenty of reasons why we love it and continue to do it.

Lifting is, if it's done sanely, healthy. It teaches us things about a whole host of "ologies," from basic biology and physiology to endocrinology. It fosters friendship and camaraderie. For those in need, it's therapy. If you try hard enough, it can even be meaningful or spiritual.

And it really is useful, as strength always makes life easier, whether you're carrying groceries, digging ditches, or fighting the aliens when they come.

Oh, and plenty of women do like it, particularly if they work out, too. So I'm told, anyhow.

Keep Making Gains Like When You Were Younger
Everything most young coaches tell you about over-40 training is wrong. Here's why and what to do instead.
Pretend for a second that you're an aging professional athlete. Your joints are a little achier than those of your younger teammates and your reflexes aren't as spectacular, but you've still got most of your game.

Now tell me, should you, as an aging athlete who wants to continue to play at a high level, or an even higher level, start training harder or easier?

Harder, of course. Or at least a lot smarter. Otherwise, your skills will diminish. You no longer have some of the luxuries of youth, so you can't take your abilities for granted. There's no time to slack off.

If that's the case with older athletes in football, baseball, hockey, MMA, or just about any other sport, why are physique athletes told by almost everyone to take it easier when they get older?

It's as if 40 is an expiration date tattooed on your fanny when you come tumbling out of the womb and once that date is up, you better give up squats or deadlifts or lifting anything that weighs more than a box of Depends, which contains exactly what you'll soil if you ignore that advice.

They tell you that you should likewise pay more attention to recovery – maybe once a week do a couple of sets, between which you go to the park and feed the ducks.

I say bollocks to all that. I realize there are some differences between 25 and 40, and probably a lot of differences between 25 and 50, but not as many as you might think, especially if you have at least 10 years' worth of training experience by the time you hit your "expiration date."

In most cases, you shouldn't start to take it easier when you near 40 or 50 or even beyond. In fact, that's the time you need to kick your training up a notch if you want to stay in the game. There are, however, some hard truths that you'll need to swallow.

Work-Capacity
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1. Build Up Your Work Capacity
You can't train hard if merely pulling your pants on makes you wheeze. You need to do cardio or metabolic conditioning or whatever term you feel comfortable with. How do you expect to work hard if your lungs don't have the sass to carry on?

Moreover, your cellular batteries – the mitochondria – start to wear out, get lazy, take extended vacations in Cabo, or die as you get older. They need a kick in the pants so they get to multiplying, and that's what intense exercise provides.

Fear not, though, because you don't have to devote hours and hours to all that tedious, conventional aerobic training stuff where you sit on a stationary bike for an hour as your panini-ed prostate swells up to the size of one of those sand-filled Bulgarian bags.

Instead, at least three times a week, get on the treadmill, rower, or yes, stationary bike for a measly 10 minutes for some HIIT-style training. Focus on all-out efforts of 20 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of "active recovery."

On a treadmill, that might mean setting the speed at a leisurely 3 miles per hour and then cranking it up as fast as your little stubby legs allow for about 20 seconds, after which you'd drop the level back down to 3 again for a minute or two before you do another round.

You could do the same thing on a stationary bike or rower, or you might prefer short sprints followed by walking-recovery periods.

Alternately, you can crank up the incline on the treadmill to the Himalaya setting, or as high as it goes, and trudge uphill, Sherpa like, for 30 to 60 seconds before zeroing out again.

This type of training has been shown to increase mitochondria. That, coupled with the increase in endurance you'll experience, will allow you to lift as hard as you need to.

2. Do More Work. Lots More Work
Doing 3 sets of 8 and going home is no longer going to suffice. It may have worked when you were younger and had testosteroned-up tiger blood flowing through your veins, but not so much when you've got a 50/50 blend of tiger blood and prune juice squirting through your plaque-riddled vessels.

That's why damn near every workout should contain an extended set, drop set, or finisher of some kind and if you're not making an ugly, just-got-burned-by-dragon-fire face at the end of it, you didn't work hard enough.

Do strip sets on leg press or Smith machine squats. Rep out. Pull a plate. Rep out. Pull a plate. Rep out. Pull a plate. Rep out. Collapse into a fetal position.

Try Paul Carter's 10-6-10 method on an exercise or two. That's a 10-second isometric followed immediately (using the same weight) by 6 full-range-of-motion reps done with a 3-5 second eccentric, followed immediately (again with the same weight) by 10 partial range, little grunt reps. Here's what it looks like:



Or pick a weight that you can do about 10 reps with. Look at the wall clock and note the time. Give yourself 5 minutes to do 50 reps with the same weight, taking little bitty chunks of rest in-between sets to failure. If you actually hit 50, the weight was too light.

Mechanical advantage barbell curls like this work well too:

A1. Reverse barbell curls for 6 to 8 reps.
A2. Drag curls for as many reps as you can.
A3. Standing barbell curls for as many reps as you can.
You get the idea. It sounds counter-intuitive and it smacks of weightlifting heresy, but you've got to train harder than when you were younger if you want to stay in the game.

3. Screw Your Achy Joints
Having achy joints is no excuse to let up. Everyone who's been doing any serious lifting for at least 10 years wakes up in the morning feeling like they spent the previous day trying to ride the back of Bodacious the bucking bull, and was flung clean over the stands into the deep-fried Twinkie concession stand.

Get over it. Sure, you can do your stretching, that hot Yoga where they treat you like a pork dumpling, or whatever rehab exercises fit the situation, but for the most part, you're always going to hurt.

Your recourse is to simply get smart about it – do exercises that don't hurt the particular joint; use grips or foot positions that allow you to train with no pain; do a reduced range of motion, or lower the weights with a slower tempo. A good 4-second descent should take the strain off any angried-up tendon.

4. Say Goodbye to Sets Under 5 Reps
This is your one, big, lifting concession to Father Time. You should forget about doing sets for fewer than 5 reps. There's just no need to use such heavy weight, and the risk of suffering an injury that you can't work around, like tearing tendons or ligaments that just aren't as spry as they used to be, is just too great.

No worries, though. You can stay plenty strong by devoting some time to sets of 6 to 8.

5. Lots of Days Off Are a Luxury You Can't Afford
The conventional thinking is that old bastards need to take more time off sitting at home in an easy chair eating protein-laced porridge until the poor old coots can gather the strength to get up and shuffle-walk to the gym.

It's true in one way, but false in another. Sure, older guys need to focus on recovery more than younger guys, but they often convince themselves to take off more time than necessary. They end up taking off because the mass of sweaty, training humanity says they're supposed to, rather than taking time off because they need to. The incessant recovery drumbeat messes with their heads.

But older guys can't afford to take too much time off, unlike younger guys. If you're young and you miss a few days, it's no big deal. Your body is perpetually in the orderly throes of negenthropy, which is the opposite of entropy. The young body grows no matter what, while older guys' bodies have the propensity to deteriorate.

The old guy must continually fight against that dying of the light, and he can't fight it by taking off too many days from the gym. Don't trust how you feel, either. Your mind wants you to take a day off. It wants you to get a nice mani/pedi because anybody whose opinion of you matters at all is already at the gym so they won't see you getting one.

There's one thing that should tell you when to legitimately take a day off, and that's your training log. If it tells you that on Tuesday you failed to exceed, or at the very least, meet the previous workout's numbers, it's time to take a day off.

If not, get thee to the gym, just as you have since time immemorial.

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6. No More Stupid Bro Splits
You're not 15 anymore. The traditional bro split where you train one body part each workout (usually 5 workouts a week) isn't efficient or effective, especially for an adult with a job who actually communicates with real-live women in their non-pixilated form.

Your muscles recover in about two days, so why let them go fallow for a whole week? Besides, what happens if life intervenes and you miss a day or two one week? That mucks up the whole schedule and you might not train the same body part for another 8 to 10 days instead of 7.

You're much better off doing an upper body/lower body split where you work out 4 days (or even 6 days) a week:

Monday: Lower Body
Tuesday: Upper Body
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Lower Body
Friday: Upper Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
As Charles Staley pointed out in his The Single Most Effective Workout Split, this upper/lower split does a couple of things:

It makes the best use of time. Since muscles recover in about two days, muscles trained on Monday should be trained again on Wednesday. If you don't, you're losing ground.
You get to train muscles more often with fewer workouts. With a bro split, you work out 5 times a week and each muscle gets hit once. With an upper/lower split, you work out 4 times a week and each muscle gets worked twice.
7. Bend the Knee to Volume
Earlier I suggested giving up on sets of less than 5. That doesn't mean falling forever into the sticky 8 to 10 reps mire.

Everybody's been stuck on doing 8 reps forever, mostly because ancient, cave-man lifters began a tradition of doing 8. Doing 6 or 7 didn't feel like it was hard enough and doing 9 to 10 or more was talking-to-an-insurance-salesman tedious. But I say to you, Horatio, there are more beneficial rep schemes in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your weightlifting philosophy.

You can build plenty of size – perhaps even more size than you thought possible – by doing sets of 12, 15, or even 20 reps, especially since you've probably ignored higher rep ranges your entire lifting career.

You might incorporate these higher rep schemes into your workout by devoting the first training day (say, for upper body) of the week to sets of 6 to 8, devoting the next training session to sets of 8 to 10, and then the subsequent session to sets of 12 to 15 or more before starting the whole merry-go-round over again.

Are you skeptical of high reps? Try this protocol out a couple of times before you judge:

Pick a weight for just about any exercise that you can do for 20 reps using a one-second concentric (lifting part of the rep) and a two-second eccentric (lowering part of the rep):

Do the first set of 20 reps.
Rest just 30 seconds.
Do the second set of 20 (or as close as you can get to 20).
Rest 30 seconds.
Do a third set of 20 (or as close as you can get).
Stick worked body part in ice to cool the fire.
Researchers Fink, Kikuchi, and Nakazato (2018) found this method worked twice as well in building muscle in yes, experienced lifters, than the usual 8-rep sets. Case in point, higher reps work just fine, thanks, and they're much more forgiving on the joints.

8. Deload That Spine When You Can
Granted, you need more rest than someone who's 25, and taking a daily nap might be impractical or a little too old-fogeyish for you, so consider spinal deloading. Doing this for just 20 minutes a day gives your spine a ton of relief, in addition to being restorative in general.

Just find some floor space and lie on your back with your lower legs and calves on an ottoman or chair so that your hips and knees are at a right angle. This takes the load off the discs in your spine and allows it to relax without having to contend with gravity.

Deload Spine
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Plus, if you do fall asleep and someone catches you, you can just claim that you were doing a sophisticated spinal rehabilitation/restoration technique that's beyond their comprehension.

Don't Be a Smurf
Being young is kind of like a pro sports franchise in Denver – they've got an incredible built-in advantage by being a mile above sea level. Visiting players just can't hang as well. They start to turn blue like Smurfs from lack of oxygen.

To fix that, they have to train harder, work smarter, and dole out their energy and efforts into the right things. That's exactly what the gray or graying lifter has to do too.

13 Exercises You Need
Can't spend a ton of time in the gym? Build a physique that looks like you do. Make these exercises a priority.
Some people love to spend hours in the gym. Others want to earn a built physique without putting in any extra time doing it. Luckily, it's possible to do fast and effective workouts when you prioritize the right exercises.

To maximize your time in the gym, just choose the best exercise for each body part and assign them to your workouts as needed. Here are thirteen resistance training exercises. No matter how abbreviated your routine is, these should stay a priority.

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Chest – The Dumbbell Bench Press
I almost chose the push-up as the best chest exercise because of how it forces other muscles to work, particularly around the scapulae. However, it's tough to beat the dumbbell chest press in terms of its ability to develop the pecs.

Why it's the best: It works the chest through a nice, full range of motion. This, along with the ability to bring the dumbbells toward one another (in horizontal adduction), are largely what make the dumbbell version far superior to the barbell version.

As for flat versus incline or decline, I'd choose flat or shallow-incline dumbbell presses. However, occasionally substituting incline or decline presses is the best option.

Pull-Up
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Back (Vertical Pulling) – The Pull-Up
Granted, the main drawback to the pull-up is that most people aren't strong enough to do more than a couple good reps. Although you could just do machine pulldowns, ideally opt for a method of making pull-ups easier, like band pull-ups and feet-supported pull-ups. There are also some pretty good machines out there that assist you while doing a pull-up.

Why it's the best: Choosing the pull-up as the best vertical-pulling exercise is a no-brainer. Not only is the pull-up functional (it requires body control and relative strength), but it also works a lot of muscles including the lats, middle and lower traps, rhomboids, posterior delts, and even the elbow flexors like the biceps and brachioradialis.

Form tip: Make sure to arch/extend your back as you're pulling yourself up. Try to touch the lower half of your chest to the bar. This will help you use the scapular retractors in your upper back. For grip-width, go just a tad wider than shoulder width. However, some variety is always a good idea.

One-Arm-Row
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Back (Horizontal Pulling) – The One-Arm Dumbbell Row
Barbell rows are great, but when you get pretty strong they can become taxing on your lower back. That's not an issue with the dumbbell row since the non-working arm is supporting you, taking the stress off your back.

Why it's the best: When it comes to building a wide, thick back along with some serious pulling power, it's hard to beat the efficiency of the one-arm dumbbell row. Plus, it's quite safe even when going really heavy.

The dumbbell also provides freedom to move in all three planes, making it possible to really alter the path of the dumbbell and the particular back muscles you're targeting.

For example, you can row with your humerus close to your side to target the lats, or you can abduct your humerus and row with your elbow pointing more out to the side to hit your scapular retractors and posterior delts more, much like a Kroc row. I tend to use the lat-dominant version.

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Shoulders – The Dumbbell Overhead Press
Like the best chest exercise, dumbbells do the best job for developing shoulders.

Why it's the best: Not only do you get a nice, full range of motion, but you also have the option to finely tune the path of movement and find a comfortable position for the highly mobile (often unstable and finicky) shoulder joint.

If you want to simultaneously stimulate your core stabilizers, do the standing version. If you want to focus solely on the pressing motion, opt for the seated version.

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Triceps – The V-Bar Pushdown
It's easy to find movements that hit the triceps, but are they easy on the elbows? I really like the skull crusher (triceps extension) and may have chosen it as the best tricep exercise if it wasn't prone to causing elbow pain over time. Sure, add them into your routine on occasion, but avoid doing skull crushers week in and week out. Your distal triceps tendon will thank you.

Why it's the best: This V-bar pushdown hits the three heads of the triceps quite well, especially the visible medial and lateral heads. Pushdowns also tend to be easy on the elbows, which is a major plus.

Alternating-Dumbbell-Curl
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Biceps – The Alternating Dumbbell Curl and EZ-Bar Curl (Tie)
Why they're both the best: The alternating dumbbell curl allows you to focus on one side at a time, putting more mental (and physiological) effort into each rep. Plus you can supinate (twist) your wrist as you curl the weight up, which is one of the functions of the biceps. This leads to a really complete contraction.

One slight drawback to this exercise is that one arm is resting a bit while the other side is working. And that's where the EZ-bar curl comes in.

Like straight-bar curls, you can simply grab the bar – slightly narrower than shoulder width, by the way – and curl your way to big bi's. The slight camber of the EZ bar will take undue pressure off of your wrists and elbows, which is important for training longevity.

Yes, you can do dumbbell curls bilaterally, thus avoiding resting the non-working limb. While that's a great exercise, I simply don't rank it as highly as the EZ-bar curl.

Hanging-Leg-Raises
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Abs – The Hanging Leg Raise
While I recommend the hanging version – partially due to the stimulation of the gripping muscles, etc. – it's still a good exercise if you do leg/knee raises on a Roman chair.

Why it's the best: This exercise hits the rectus abdominis very well, especially if you can achieve a more complete contraction by bringing the front of your pelvis up toward your lower rib cage.

Form tip: If you're doing the hanging version from an overhead bar, try to bring your toes up so high that they touch the bar you're hanging from. Yes, this is very hard. Yes, the exercise will still be effective if you can't go that high. Simply bring your legs up as high as possible.

Bicycle-Crunch
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Second-place ab exercise: Bicycle crunches are also worth mentioning.

For starters, this exercise not only brings the lower rib cage closer to the front of the pelvis, which is the primary function of the rectus abdominis, but it also involves some spinal rotation. This rotational component really brings the obliques into play, which is definitely an added bonus.

The bicycle crunch is also relatively safe on the lower back. Given that your low back stays flat on the ground, there's not much stress being placed on the intervertebral disk as compared to ab exercises involving full flexion of the lumbar spine (i.e. traditional sit-ups).

There is one drawback to the bicycle crunch: lack of significant resistance. After doing these for a while you may find that in order to challenge your abs you have to do an inordinate number of reps.

In an ideal world, implement both of these ab exercises into your training routine on a regular basis.

Squat
Squat
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Quads – The Squat
I'm specifically referring to the barbell squat which allows you to you use as much weight as you need to provide maximum stimulation.

Why it's the best: Squats are also a good glute exercise, if you do them nice and deep like a good physique athlete should. This exercise is also good at stimulating the low back, which not many people think about.

Lunge
Lunge
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Second place quad exercise: Speaking of exercises that hit both quads and glutes, walking lunges are about as good as squats.

Not only do they stimulate these muscle groups well, they also provide a nice stretch of the hip flexors on the side of the trailing leg. And because you're spending some time on one leg, walking lunges also hit the lateral glute muscles like the glute medius.

It's best to include both squats and walking lunges in your routine on a regular basis. Consider other quad exercises ancillary to these two.

RDL
RDL
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Hamstrings – The Stiff-Legged Deadlift and Seated Leg Curl (Tie)
Different exercises emphasize different portions of the hamstrings to different degrees, so I had to call it a tie. If I were to choose just one hamstring exercise I'd be doing you an injustice.

Why they're the best: Whether done with a barbell or dumbbells, the stiff-legged deadlift is a great hamstring exercise that also works your spinal erectors very well. Heck, it evens hits the upper back isometrically as you hold the weight.

Since your knee joint isn't flexing, the stiff-legged deadlift doesn't allow for a complete contraction of the hamstrings. However, this exercise makes up for that by tremendously taxing the hammies during the eccentric (negative) portion of the rep and in their lengthened position. This is why stiff-legged deadlifts tend to cause more delayed-onset muscle soreness than other hamstring exercises.

Additionally, the stiff-legged deadlift also hits all four heads of the hamstring musculature, which knee-flexion exercises do not.

Seated-Leg-Curl
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When in the starting position on a seated leg curl machine, your hamstrings are put in a pre-stretched position, which forces them to work harder, stimulating more muscle fibers.

Not only that, but this exercise allows you to get a complete contraction at the bottom portion of the rep – you're training your hams through a lengthy, full range-of-motion with a particularly good peak contraction.

One-Leg-Calf-Raise
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Calves – The Unilateral Dumbbell Calf Raise
This is simply a calf raise done one leg at a time while holding a dumbbell for added resistance.

Why it's the best: This version of the calf raise allows you to put all your focus and effort into one side at a time. You also have the ancillary benefits of stimulating the gripping muscles of your hand and forearm, as well as your upper traps.

by Stuart McRobert
How to Know If You're Sabotaging Yourself
To gain serious size, stop standing in your own way. Take this bodybuilding test to see if you're on the right path.
The Ultimate Bodybuilding Checklist
Can you check everything off this list? Think of it like an assessment. It’ll help you whether you’re drug-free and genetically typical or drug-enhanced and genetically gifted. You don’t even have to be a competitor, just a lifter who wants to gain muscle.

You may think these questions are basic, but if you’re getting the basics wrong, that’s most likely the cause of your stagnation. Use these questions to identify the roadblocks that are wrecking your bodybuilding progress, then take corrective action.

1. Do You Use Exercises That Work Well For You?
Do you persist with the barbell press when a seated high-incline pressing machine (that mimics a dumbbell press) may be safer and provide more involvement of your side delts? Or how about the conventional barbell squat when you may be better off with the safety-bar squat, the trap bar squat, a good squat machine, the belt-squat apparatus, or even a good leg press machine?

We could go on with common exercises that people continue doing even when there are alternatives that’d give them better results. So are you continuing to do what’s trendy or what actually works to build your body?

If You’re Not…
Start picking the exercises that challenge your muscles without taxing your joints. Stop feeling pressured to do what’s trendy instead of what you know works best for your goals and body.

2. Do You Use Good Form?
As a bodybuilder, your aim is to train your muscles, not move the heaviest weights possible. Lower the resistance under control and lift it under control – no dropping, bouncing, yanking, heaving, throwing, or jerking. Do you catch yourself doing those things? Are you using so much weight that you can’t pause for a dead stop at the bottom and top of every rep of every exercise, or use as full a range of motion as is safe for you?

Good form also includes the correct set-up position for each exercise – be it grip, stance, seat positioning, or other matters – and the correct bar pathways during the reps. Become an expert on lifting technique!

If You’re Not…
Start now. Make changes so that from now on, you always use good form. A pause of just one second for each dead stop makes a world of difference to improving your form and the stimulation your muscles receive, provided you also train hard enough. The pausing will probably require you to reduce your poundages initially, but they’ll recover as you adapt and build muscle.

For exercises where you shouldn’t (for safety) perform as full a range of motion as is physically possible – including free weight dips, presses, and squats – the brief pause at the bottom of each rep must be done with particular care. Use a depth barrier for certain exercises like the bench press. Set the pins in a rack at your safe bottom position, let the barrier take the load for a count of “one thousand and one” at the bottom of each rep, and then drive the bar up immediately.

3. Do You Train Hard?
Most bodybuilders don’t train hard enough. A few overdo training intensity, but they’re very rare. Most bodybuilders need to up their effort! So are you actually going hard enough that your training is uncomfortable?

If Not…
If your training is comfortable, you’re not training hard enough. In all your work sets, perform every rep you can grind out in good form. If you quit on the discomfort, you’ll also quit on stimulating muscle growth.

The exception is when you’re starting a new training program and/or introducing a new exercise or employing one you haven’t used for a while. Then, take it easy for a few workouts as you gradually build up your training intensity.

But you can’t train hard if you’re using a lot of volume. So reduce your work sets as you up your effort.

Using exercises that really suit you, in consistently good form, and while training hard, is muscularly very uncomfortable. But that’s what’s needed to stimulate growth.

Fat-Burning-Workout
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4. Do You Follow A Sound Set-Rep Scheme?
There isn’t just one sound set-rep scheme. There are several. All of them can be effective, but all of them can be ineffective, depending on how they are applied and how well (or otherwise) the components of recovery are satisfied.

If Not…
To see clear results, stick to one sound set-rep scheme, properly applied, for at least 10 weeks. Chopping and changing your set-rep scheme is training death for most bodybuilders, especially the drug-free, genetically typical ones.

Here’s one such set-rep scheme. Forget all the others for the time being:

Other than for calves, do 6-8 reps for the first work set. While you rest, reduce the weight sufficiently so that you can do 10-12 reps on the second work set. For calves, use 10-12 and 18-20 as your rep targets for the two sets.

Select your poundages so that you make your target rep range on each set. It will require trial-and-error experimentation at first. For the weight reduction between the first and second sets, try 25% to begin with. If you got it wrong, adjust the reduction next time. The reduction will vary for different exercises and among individuals.

That’s just two work sets per exercise. “Not enough!” you may shriek. But it is enough if you’re truly using exercises that really suit you, in consistently good form, and while training hard.

5. Are You Consistent With Rest Intervals Between Sets?
Do you use a timer on your phone or wear a watch so that you can keep an eye on your inter-set rest periods?

If Not…
Rest three minutes between sets of your compound exercises and two minutes on your isolation exercises. Longer rest intervals can also be effective, but your workouts will take longer. Shorter rest intervals can also be effective but will necessitate a greater poundage reduction for the second sets to get your target reps.

Consistency with those rest intervals from workout to workout and month to month is essential so that you can track your workouts accurately.

6. Do You Keep A Training Log?
Do you make a written note of each of your work sets – poundage and reps – in a training diary or log?

If Not…
Consult it before every work set. Don’t try to rely on your memory. Before each work set, remind yourself of what you did the previous time, so you know what you need to do to register a tad of progress in good form. After each work set, note whether it was a real grinder or it left room to add a little iron next time.

Simple notations can work. For example, you could add “G” if the set was a grinder or “+” when you owned the weight sufficiently to earn a small increase at the next session.

For the grinders, stick with the same weight for a few workouts until you own it and the sets are no longer grinders. Then you’ve earned the small poundage increase next time.

7. Do You Strive To Make Small Poundage Increments?
If you’re a beginner or intermediate bodybuilder, you’re a long way from topping out. So are you adding a little weight to each exercise when you can without compromising your form?

If Not…
Use small weight plates: not just the 1.25 kilo or 2.5 pound ones, but also micro-plates or large washers so that you can nudge up your weights by just a pound at a time, especially on the lower-poundage exercises.

Excellent training and excellent recovery mean you’ll be able to build strength slowly but steadily unless you’re advanced. Advanced trainees should still strive to build additional strength, though, even if the increased strength doesn’t actually happen.

Work-Capacity
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8. Do You Follow A Training Routine That’s Appropriate For You?
Genetically gifted or drug-enhanced bodybuilders can make progress with much more volume and frequency than natural bodybuilders, but the former will usually make even better progress if they increase the quality of their training but reduce its volume and/or frequency. So are you using a plan that’s for you and not someone who’s enhanced?

If Not…
Keep the volume and frequency of training much lower than what most bodybuilders do. That’s what most natural trainees need to do if they’re to make good progress. I’ve given specific advice to natural bodybuilders before.

If you add sets, exercises, or workouts to the week, you’ll wreck the potential of those routines to build muscle.

Unless you have excellent recovery ability, you could do a great job in the gym but still make little or no progress. For excellent recovery, you need to sleep well, rest well in general, and eat well. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid all activity on your off days. Some moderate general activity, including walking, may help your recovery.

But avoid hard cardio between workouts. Otherwise, you’ll risk undermining your overall recovery. If you do hard cardio, do it at the end of your weights workouts, but keep it brief.

9. Do You Sleep Adequately?
Sleep needs can vary, but if you’re training hard, you’ll likely need at least eight hours of sleep each night to keep you alert and energetic without any caffeine after midday.

Without post-midday caffeine, are you really alert and energetic until around an hour before your bedtime? That means no drowsiness whatsoever, even when you’re watching TV or reading for a sustained period, or a passenger in a car, train, or plane. If you do get drowsy, you’re definitely not sleeping adequately in terms of quantity and/or quality.

If Not…
For five consecutive days, stop all caffeine consumption after midday. Although you may feel fine over the short term if you use caffeine to give an illusion of alertness, your insufficient sleeping will take an inexorable toll on your recovery ability (and health).

Improved sleep won’t just improve your health and recovery ability, it’ll also improve the quality of your workouts, which could mean greater muscle growth stimulation. Learn from experts how to improve your sleep and then apply it consistently.

You’ll need to spend more time asleep, which means going to bed earlier and/or sleeping later. That extra sack time means you’ll have less time for other activities. Don’t resent giving up some activities for your extra kip. The extra slumber is essential if you want to have the excellent recovery required for turning growth stimulation into actual muscle tissue.

10. Do You Control The Stress In Your Life?
Stress comes in degrees of severity and from many sources – including financial difficulties, work-related problems, serious injury or illness, parenting difficulties, relationship struggles, and toxic people. Do you have it under control?

If Not…
If you’re under severe stress, it will be nigh-on impossible to make good bodybuilding progress. Your recovery ability will be wrecked. And your workouts may also be wrecked. You won’t be rested and raring to go at each workout, and your mind will be on your problems rather than your training.

Get help on stress management and coping strategies. Trying to cope alone isn’t a good strategy. And find practical solutions to problems rather than simply battling on with them.

Bulking-Diet
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11. Do You Eat Adequately?
Do you really eat three to six nutritious, protein-rich meals every day?

If Not…
Eat a slight caloric surplus. Consume around a gram of protein per pound of body weight and divide the rest of your caloric intake roughly 50-50 between carbs and fats. (For natural bodybuilders, a low-fat eating regimen will probably prevent muscle growth.)

12. Are You Patient?
For natural bodybuilders, even good progress is usually slow. So applying a good routine properly for just a few weeks isn’t going to deliver visible progress. Are you willing to make slow, sustained progress?

If Not…
A few weeks isn’t quite long enough to discover that you’re on the right track. But you need to take your time and make sure you’re raring to go at each workout, training hard, not getting hurt, not overtraining, and that you’ve got your eating and sleeping sorted out, and you’re nudging up your exercise poundages.

Stick with it for at least several back-to-back months and then you’ll notice bigger muscles.

One Last Thing
Even if you checked off all 12 points, did you really buy in mentally?

The training advice I give is fundamentally different from high-volume split routines. So it’s only natural for you to be skeptical. But give what I recommend a fair try.

That means implementing the whole package of sound training and sound recovery. Cutting corners in just one component, or even one detail of a component, could wreck the whole program. Then once you start to harvest your crop of new muscles, you’ll never return to conventional bodybuilding routines.

Three to five back-to-back years of applying my recommendations can produce progress that most bodybuilders may think is impossible for someone who’s drug-free and genetically typical.

It can make hardgainers (normal-gainers, actually) into easy gainers, relatively speaking. But to do that requires savvy training, discipline, dedication, and patience.

How to Train Smarter and Rest Harder
Gains stalled? Not progressing like you should be? It may not be your workout. It may be your rest days... or lack thereof. Here's why.
Build More Muscle on Off Days
The way you handle your off days can greatly affect your ability to build muscle and get stronger. For the dedicated lifter, the problem isn't that you take an occasional rest day. The problem is that you don't take ENOUGH rest days, and you don't time them wisely in your training week.



Off days can be torture for iron addicts. For many, a rest day makes them feel like they're slacking off, so they train six or even seven days per week. Yet when you look at the most successful strength athletes and bodybuilders, four training days a week, sometimes five, seems to be the most common frequency. (An every-other-day split may even be better.)



Those training six or seven days a week tend to progress at a slower pace than those hitting the gym four to five days a week. There are exceptions, but unless you're genetically gifted, you should base your training decisions on the most widely successful approach, not on the exception.



It's a Growth Day, Not an Off Day
Change your thinking like this:



Think "stimulation days" instead of training days.
Think "growth days" instead of rest days.
When you take a rest/growth day, you build more muscle, replenish glycogen stores more easily, and let the nervous system get back to its optimal working state. This will help you grow faster, but it'll also improve your performance on the day you get back to the gym.



During your off days, crucial things happen that make it easier to grow and get stronger. Your body has limited resources. And if you invest more resources in a workout instead of resting, you'll have fewer available to fuel adaptation and growth.



During rest days, you devote more of your resources to growth and repair. Your nervous, immune, and hormonal systems also get back to a situation conducive to growth and performance. If you're well rested, you'll be able to perform at a higher level and do more volume, both of which will make the session more effective.



"Growth days" make you grow directly by allowing you to recover. They make you grow indirectly by allowing you to put a greater stimulation on your body during your workouts.



Bodybuilding Diet
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A Big Nutrition Mistake
Ask people what they do for nutrition during their off days and most will tell you they lower calorie or carb intake. (Heck, I've even recommended it in the past.) It's a common recommendation, but it's wrong.



People think that since they won't be training and burning as much fuel, they shouldn't consume the same amount of carbs, or else they risk gaining fat. If your goal is STRICTLY fat loss, there may be some value to this. But if you're looking to build as much muscle and strength as possible, see your off days as days where you're trying to do everything you can to maximize growth and performance, not days where you don't do anything. Think of your time off as an investment.



With this in mind, what should you do nutrition-wise? Cut carbs and calories, leaving you with muscles that aren't fully replenished with muscle glycogen and leaving you unable to take advantage of the anabolic properties of insulin? No! Do the opposite.



How to Accelerate Growth Day Gains
Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body. It shuts down catabolism (protein breakdown or muscle wasting) and ramps up anabolism – protein synthesis or building muscle. It also activates mTor, which triggers muscle growth and increases glucose storage inside the muscles. Muscles being full of glycogen is itself anabolic. As a bonus, a fuller muscle is a stronger muscle.



If your goal is maximum muscle growth and strength gains, it's important to consume plenty of quality carbs and protein during those off/growth days. See each growth day as the only day in the week where the body is allowed to build muscle. If that were the case, what would you do on that day to make sure that you get every possible ounce of muscle growth? Certainly not lower your calorie or carb intake!



How Many Growth Days Per Week?
Most people should train four days per week. For a normal person, four HARD sessions per week are about all that can be done. Sure, training more often is possible, but it would require the careful and precise use of training days with a much lower stress level. I don't like these because I always feel like I have to restrain myself and "train with the brakes on."



If you like to go balls-out, four training days a week is the best option to start with. That leaves us with three rest/growth days per week. Occasionally doing five sessions per week is fine, which would leave us with two rest/growth days. But this isn't the ideal long-term solution.



Where Do You Place Growth Days?
One rule: Avoid taking two days off in a row. Performance tends to be flat after two days of rest and the quality of the workout always suffers. So here's the best option for three growth days and four training days in a week without having two days off in a row:



Monday: Training Day 1
Tuesday: Training Day 2
Wednesday: Growth Day 1
Thursday: Training Day 3
Friday: Growth Day 2
Saturday: Training Day 4
Sunday: Growth Day 3
How Do You Structure Training Days?
Make the heaviest days Thursday and Saturday. These are the days when performance should be at its highest. On Monday, in theory, you could also go super heavy, but since you have a second training day in a row, we don't want lingering neural fatigue. Make Monday a challenging session but not as heavy as Thursday and Saturday. It can have a bit more volume, however.



Tuesday is the training day that should be the lightest – understanding that light is relative – with the highest volume. Another option is to train your lagging muscle group(s) with higher volume on Tuesday.



Regardless of the split you're using, here's my recommendation:



Monday: Moderate Loading and Volume
Tuesday: Highest Training Volume
Wednesday: Growth Day 1
Thursday: Heavy Training
Friday: Growth Day 2
Saturday: Heavy Training
Sunday: Growth Day 3
Don't Focus On The Wrong Things
The only thing that matters with training is getting results. Period. That's how you evaluate how good a job you're doing. Sadly, I see more and more people taking pride in other things – the amount of work done being at the top of the list.



It goes like this: Joe is passionate about training. He reads everything he can find and desperately want to earn the respect of other gym rats. But Joe isn't really muscular, nor is he strong. And his training doesn't seem to be giving him the gains he'd like.



So Joe begins to train more and more. At first, it's in the hope of getting more results, but eventually, doing more work becomes his new goal. Joe isn't getting more results, but he prides himself on training harder and more often than any other person.



That's a vicious circle because he's killing his gains by training too much. But by now his only source of pride is how much work he can do... and then he gets hurt.



Listen, if you want maximum growth and progress, you need those rest/growth days. Becoming a stimulus addict, refusing to take days off, and piling on volume will just leave you frustrated and likely injured.



Build-Muscle
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Invest in the Next Workout
Let's pretend that Friday you have a competition or a physical test. You have to have a great performance – either lifting heavy or being able to do a ton of high-quality work. You know you'll be judged on your performance that day. What will you do the day before?



Will you go running on Thursday? Will you do hill sprints? Will you pump up your shoulders? Of course not. You wouldn't put your body through any fatigue that might interfere with your performance on Friday.



THAT'S how you need to see your rest/growth days and workouts. At each workout, you need to perform at the highest possible level. On your rest/growth days, you need to do everything you can to put your body in the best possible situation to perform at the highest level. That holds true for your nutrition, supplementation, and training.



Growth days make the magic happen: building more muscle and preparing your body to perform the next day.





Trigger, Recover, Grow
Training really is that simple: the workout is there to trigger the biochemical responses that tell your body to adapt and grow. Once that's been triggered, doing more will simply deplete resources.



When you've triggered the right response, just allow the changes to occur without disturbing the processes. Yes, changes can still occur on days that you train, but for a maximal response you need to train super hard and then do everything you can to speed up recovery on the growth days.



While suboptimal workouts might occur due to unplanned life events, they should never happen because you were under-recovered from your previous workouts. Remember, the big problem with under-recovery is that it builds up. You might only cause a small deficit in recovery at each workout, but it'll accumulate quickly. When it does, you can kiss your gains goodbye!



Train smarter. Rest harder.

by Christian Thibaudeau
A Complete 12-Week Plan
This advanced program will build rapid strength and add mass to your entire body. Here's how to do it.
Clusters are my favorite method to increase strength as fast as possible. They're powerful, but because they're so neurologically demanding you can easily miss out on the benefits if the rest of your lifting contains a lot of hypertrophy work.

To get the most rapid strength gains from clusters, it's best to design a program centered around them. This is the program you should be doing if you want to unlock to power of clusters.

What Are Clusters?
I recently wrote an article on the best cluster variations which includes everything you need to know about them. Here's a recap:

A cluster is a series of singles (one-rep efforts) done with a short rest interval in between. For example, a cluster set could be a series of 5 singles with 20 seconds of rest in between them. You would then rest three to four minutes before doing the next set.
It focuses on heavy weight. Normally ranging from 87.5 percent up to 97.5 percent of 1RM depending on the type of cluster you're doing.
It works by improving the fast twitch fibers' firing rate. And also by inhibiting the Golgi tendon organs, improving intramuscular coordination, and getting you more comfortable with heavy lifting.
There are a few cluster variations you could use. There's the Poliquin cluster (5 reps in a set with 15-20 seconds of rest), the Miller extensive cluster (5-6 reps with 30-45 seconds of rest), the Miller intensive cluster (2-4 reps with 45-60 seconds of rest) and the Mentzer cluster (5-6 reps, 3 with around 95% and 2-3 with around 85%, with 30-45 seconds of rest).
What You Can Expect
Strength
Clusters are extremely effective at increasing strength. The higher rep variations (Poliquin, Milller extensive and Mentzer clusters) are also effective for building muscle mass, especially in advanced lifters.

This program should allow you to significantly increase your strength over 12 weeks. I've seen progress as high as a 40 kilogram gain on squats in an advanced athlete (world class track cyclist), going from 180 kg up to 220 kg. His bench also went from 100 kg to 140 kg.

Editor's note: One kilogram is 2.2 pounds.

Not everybody will gain as much strength, of course. But an increase of 10-20 percent on the big lifts is pretty huge.

Muscle Growth
While it's not a bodybuilding program, it will still allow you to build mass in the process of getting strong. A pro football player I work with gained six pounds of muscle in a couple months on a cluster program. That might not seem huge, but that was without any increase in fat, and it was on the frame of someone who's been lifting hard for a decade.

If you're lean enough, it'll also make you look hard. This type of training increases myogenic tone (tonus) more than any other approach. Myogenic tone is nothing more than a partial state of muscle activation. And the more efficient your nervous system is, the higher your muscle tone becomes. Clustering is the best method for improving neurological efficiency.

Another benefit? It gets you really comfortable and efficient at handling near-maximal and maximal weights. This will not only help make you stronger on 1RM lifts, but it'll decrease the stress response that comes from future heavy lifting sessions, allowing you to do them more often or recover faster.

Controlling Cortisol and Adrenaline
There are five main variables that can increase cortisol and the resulting adrenaline output during a workout. And while both (cortisol and adrenaline) are necessary to perform optimally, too much can lead to a decrease in performance and gains.

We easily understand how excessive cortisol can lead to decreased muscle growth: it increases muscle breakdown, reduces protein and glucose uptake by the muscles, can increase myostatin, and – in the long term – lead to lowered testosterone levels.

But why is too much adrenaline a bad thing? Well, if you produce too much it will linger in your body for a longer time, staying attached to the beta-adrenergic receptors. These receptors are prone to downregulation/desensitization.

A study by Fry and colleagues showed that two weeks of very intense lifting (maxing out five days a week) can decrease receptor sensitivity by close to 40 percent.

When that happens, your body has a much lower response to your own adrenaline. This leads to lowered force and power production, less focus and motivation, lower energy levels, etc. It'll also lead to higher cortisol levels for the same stress levels: the body has to produce more cortisol to get the job done.

Why is that important and relevant to this program? Let's look at the five main training variables that can have an impact on cortisol and adrenaline production:

Volume: One of the main functions of cortisol is energy mobilization. The more energy you need, the more cortisol you produce. A higher volume approach will therefore lead to a higher cortisol level.
Intensiveness: This is how hard you're pushing your sets. The closer you go to failure, the more the body perceives that set as an intense stress. The response is to increase cortisol, which will increase adrenaline. This boosts your strength, mental awareness, and motivation to survive.
Psychological Stress: If a weight (or task) is intimidating and even scares you a little, the body will release more cortisol, which increases adrenaline so that you'll have the physical and mental resource to fend off any potential danger. In weight training, this is often associated with maximal or near-maximal weights, especially on exercises where the spine is under load.
Neurological Demands: This refers to how hard your nervous system must work during the session. Some training-related factors that will increase neurological demands are: using more complex exercises, using exercises you haven't mastered yet, having lots of exercises in a workout, going heavy, doing explosive work, alternating two exercises (A1/A2), doing circuits, using several completely different methods and intensity zones in a workout.
Density: The higher your work-to-rest ratio is, the more adrenaline will stay elevated. This means both higher cortisol and adrenaline production.
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Cluster Program Overview
In the cluster program, the intensiveness is high, the psychological stress is very high, and the neurological demands are fairly high because of the exercise selection (big compound movements) and the heavy loads used.

The last thing you want is to increase neurological demands even more by adding a lot of assistance work. So you'll now have three cortisol/adrenaline producing factors very high. Not sustainable for more than three weeks for most.

It's also why the overall volume needs to stay low, which is another reason to avoid adding a lot of assistance work. Because of the minimal nature of the program, the density is low, so that's not an issue.

There are four workouts per week. Each workout focuses on a big lift: a squat variation, a horizontal press variation, a deadlift/hip hinge variation, and an overhead/incline press variation.

One multi-joint assistance exercise is added after the main lift and one or two minor movements are done after that. Both the main and the primary assistance exercises use a cluster approach, for two or three work sets.

The minor exercises are done using an intensification technique like rest/pause or mechanical drop sets for one to two work sets to failure.

As you can see, the volume is fairly low: seven to nine work sets per workout, allowing you a higher intensity and intensiveness.

Because there will be 20-60 seconds of rest between reps in the main exercises, and up to four minutes between sets, the density is very low too. This, and the lower volume, are super important to be able to tolerate the high intensity for the duration of the program.

The program is segmented into three-week blocks and there are four of them total. Each block uses a different cluster approach, gradually increasing in intensity.

The Exercises
Each workout will include three to four exercises. The first two multi-joint exercises of each session are done as clusters. The primary movement is your main lift of the day, the one you want to increase the most. It stays the same for the duration of the program.

The main assistance lift is a movement aimed at strengthening the primary lift. It can be a variation of the primary lift, a partial movement, or a different exercise hitting key muscles in the primary lift. The main assistance movement can change every block.

The last two exercises are less demanding neurologically. They'll be either isolation lifts or multi-joint lifts done on machines or pulleys. These are not done as a cluster. You'll use either a drop set, myo-reps, or rest/pause, depending on the block.

Now let's look at the template for exercise selection, so that you can easily design the program yourself.

Primary Exercises
You can use whatever primary exercises you want, as long as you respect the logic of the program. Pick from:

Day 1 – Squat Variation
Back squat
Front squat
Low-bar squat
Safety bar squat
Box squat
Zercher squat
Day 2 – Horizontal Press Variation
Bench press
Decline bench press
Floor press
Football-bar bench press
Duffalo/buffalo bar bench press
Day 3 – Deadlift/Hip Hinge Variation
Conventional deadlift
Sumo deadlift
Trap-bar deadlift
Power clean variations
Power snatch variations
Day 4 – Vertical/Incline Press Variation
Military press
Push press
Incline bench press (30 degrees)
High-incline bench press (60 degrees)
Front-Squats
Front-Squats
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Main Assistance Exercises
Now select the exercises you'll do after the main lifts:

Day 1 – Squat
Block 1
Heels-elevated front squat
Heels-elevated back squat
Narrow-stance squat
Hack squat machine
Block 2
Different squat variation than primary lift from the same list. For example, if your primary lift is the back squat you can do front squat, Zercher squat, or box squat.

Block 3
Choose an overload squat exercise:

High-box squat
Squat or front squat from pins knees starting at 90 degrees
Squat or front squat with chains (80% on the bar and a top weight of 100-110%)
Squat or front squat with weight releasers lowered slowly (75-80% bar weight and an extra 25-30% on the releasers)
Block 4
No main assistance lift (to allow more work on the primary)

Day 2 – Bench Press
Block 1
Close-grip bench press
Close-grip decline bench press
Close-grip floor press
Close-grip football bar bench press
Block 2
Different bench press variation than primary lift from the same list.

Block 3
Choose an overload bench exercise:

Bench press from pins from mid-range
3-4 board press
Half-range bench press
Bench press with chains
Bench press with weight releasers lowered slowly
Block 4
No main assistance lift.

Day 3 – Deadlift/Hip Hinge
Block 1
Deficit deadlift
Deficit sumo deadlift
Snatch-grip deadlift
Deadlift with heels elevated
Double overhand no-straps deadlift
Good morning
Zercher good morning
Block 2
Different deadlift/hip hinge variation than primary lift from the same list.

Block 3
Choose an overload hip hinge movement:

Pin pull from below the knees
Deadlift with chains (80% on the bar and a top weight of 100-110%)
Sumo pin pull from below the knees
Block 4
No main assistance lift.

Day 4 – Vertical/Incline Press
Block 1
Very high incline press (75 degrees)
Close-grip incline press (30 degrees)
Close-grip high incline press (60 degrees)
Behind the neck press
Block 2
Different vertical/incline press variation than primary lift from the same list.

Block 3
Choose an overload vertical/incline press movement:

Push press (if it wasn't your primary)
Military press from pins starting at forehead
Incline bench press (30 degrees) from pins starting at mid-range
High incline bench press from pins starting at mid-range (60 degrees)
Block 4
No main assistance lift.

Lying-Leg-Curl
Lying-Leg-Curl
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Secondary Assistance Exercises
The role of these exercises is mostly to hit what's neglected by the two main lifts. For instance, the back and hamstrings would be the most important to work on. You could use two upper back exercises on each upper-body session and two hamstring exercises for the lower-body sessions. That's what I recommend.

What about arms? This program is aimed at maximizing strength while also giving you an overall thicker, denser, and bigger physique. You can spend more time on your arms after the program is done. But during this program, you'll be doing a lot of heavy pressing work. I guarantee your triceps will grow even without direct stimulation.

Day 1 – Squat
Pick one exercise from each category in the list for each workout. You can also use your own preferred movements.

Posterior Chain:
Glute-ham raise
Reverse hyper
Rope pull-through
Lying leg curl
Standing leg curl
Inverted leg curl
Nordic hamstring curl
Back extension
Hip thrust
Quads:
Hack squat
Leg press
Leg extension
Sled backward walk (1 rep is 10 meters)
Day 2 – Bench Press
Rhomboids/Rear Delts:
Seated row (various grips)
T-bar row
Landmine row
Chest-supported row
Seal row
Face-pull
Rear delt raise
Reverse pec deck
Band pull-apart
Lats:
Pull-up (various grips)
Lat pulldown (various grips)
Pullover
Straight-arm pulldown
Pullover machine
Day 3 – Deadlift/Hip Hinge
Posterior Chain:
Glute-ham raise
Reverse hyper
Rope pull-through
Lying leg curl
Standing leg curl
Inverted leg curl
Nordic hamstring curl
Back extension
Hip thrust
Traps:
Barbell shrug
Dumbbell shrug
Zercher shrug
Rope upright row
Kirk shrug
Single-arm barbell shrug
Band pull-apart to forehead level
Day 4 – Overhead/Incline Press
Rhomboids/Rear Delts:
Seated row (various grips)
T-bar row
Landmine row
Chest-supported row
Seal row, face-pull
Rear delt raise
Reverse pec deck
Lats:
Pull-up (various grips)
Lat pulldown (various grips)
Pullover
Straight-arm pulldown
Pullover machine
Squat-Prep
Squat-Prep
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The Loading Schemes
The program has four blocks lasting three weeks each. The methods/loading scheme changes at every block.

Block 1 – First 3 Weeks
A. Main Lift – Modified Poliquin Clusters
Sets: 3 work sets (2-3 gradually heavier preparation sets of 3-5 reps, not as clusters)
Reps: 5-6 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 20 seconds
Load: 87.5% (starting point)
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
B. Primary Assistance Exercise – Modified Poliquin Clusters
Sets: 2 work sets (2-3 gradually heavier warm-up sets of 3-5 reps, not as clusters)
Reps: 5-6 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 20 seconds
Load: 87.5% (starting point)
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
C. & D. Secondary Assistance Exercises – Drop Set
Sets: 1-2 work sets (1-2 warm-ups, not as drop sets)
Reps: 8-10, then drop by 20% and get as many quality reps as possible
Load: Around 70% then 50%
Rest between sets: 3 minutes
Block 2 – Second 3 Weeks
A. Main Lift – Miller Extended Clusters
Sets: 3 work sets after preparation sets
Reps: 5-7 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 30-45 seconds (30 on the first set, 40 on the second, 45 on the third)
Load: 90% (starting point)
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
B. Primary Assistance Exercise – Miller Extended Clusters
Sets: 2 work sets after preparation sets
Reps: 5-7 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 35-45 seconds (35 on the first set, 45 on the second)
Load: 90% (starting point)
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
C. & D. Secondary Assistance Exercises – Modified Myo Reps
Sets: 1-2 work sets (1-2 warm-ups, not as myo rep sets)
Reps: 6-8 initial reps, then perform as many micro-sets of 3 reps as possible with 5 deep breaths in between
Load: Around 70-75%
Rest between sets: 3 minutes
Block 3 – Third 3 Weeks
A. Main Lift – Modified Mentzer Clusters
Sets: 3 work sets after heavier preparation sets
Reps: 5-6 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 30-45 seconds (30 on the first set, 40 on the second, 45 on the third)
Load: 95% for the first three reps, then drop down to 85% for 2-3 more reps
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
B. Primary Assistance Exercise – Modified Mentzer Clusters
Sets: 2 work sets (after gradually heavier preparation sets of 3-5 reps, not as clusters)
Reps: 5-6 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 30-45 seconds (35 on the first set, 45 on the second)
Load: 92.5-95% for the first three reps, then drop down to 85% for 2-3 more reps
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
C. & D. Secondary Assistance Exercises – Heavy Rest/Pause
Sets: 1-2 work sets (1-2 warm-ups, not as myo reps sets)
Reps: 4-6 initial reps, rest 15 seconds and get as many extra reps as possible with the same weight
Load: Around 85%
Rest between sets: 3 minutes
Block 4 – Final 3 Weeks
A. Main Lift – Miller Intensive Clusters
Sets: 4-5 work sets (after gradually heavier preparation sets of 3 reps, not as clusters)
Reps: 2-4 cluster reps
Rest between reps: 45-60 seconds (45 on the first set, 50 on the second, 60 on the third)
Load: 95-97.5% (starting point)
Rest between sets: 4 minutes
B. Primary Assistance Exercise – None
C. & D. Secondary Assistance Exercises – Normal reps (to allow the greater workload on the main lift)
Sets: 2-3 work sets (1-2 warm-ups)
Reps: 8-10 reps (1-2 reps left in the tank)
Load: Around 70-75%
Rest between sets: 3 minutes
CT
CT
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Program Notes and Common Questions
The percentages are just to give you an idea of a starting point.
In reality you want to use a load that represents an effort of around 9/10, where maybe you could've gotten one more cluster rep.

Select the weight based on your performance.
It's perfectly fine to start conservatively on the first set and add weight if you can reach the top of the zone. It's also fine to go down in weight if you overestimated your capabilities.

Progress the same way.
For example, if you finished week 1 with 300 pounds for 5 reps on your heaviest cluster and it was a 9/10, maybe you can start your first set of the next week there. Then adjust the weight for your other sets based on how that set went. I'd like to give you a precise mathematical formula to select the weekly weight, but clusters are different than normal sets. Predicting progress is almost impossible to do.

Can you add conditioning work?
It's possible to do it, in small amounts. Ideally, the conditioning work would be done separately, either as a second workout in the day or on one of the days off. You can also add 10-15 minutes of low intensity cardio pre and post-workout without problems.

Can you add abdominal work?
Yes, no problem. It causes very little systemic and neurological fatigue. I'd add it at the end of the lower-body sessions.

Can you add forearm and calf exercises?
These also can be added. However, I don't want you to shotgun additional work. Adding ab work is fine, adding one bicep exercise is fine, adding forearm work is fine. But adding two of them in a session isn't recommended.

Can you do this while dieting down?
It's possible. The volume is low and most of the stress is neurological, so you should be able to recover. No program will yield maximum gains when you're in a caloric deficit though.

by Christian Thibaudeau
This single exercise will make you look more powerful and scary-looking in just a short amount of time. Here’s how to do it.
One Lift to Rule Them All
I’ve devoted my life to building muscle – on myself and on others – for 17 years. And in all those years I’ve only encountered one exercise that can make a visual difference in a physique within two workouts. That’s right, you’ll start to look more brutal and more powerful in as few as two sessions.

That movement is the snatch-grip high pull, and I believe it can give anyone a “3D” look and make them stretch out a T-shirt.

Power-Look Muscles
The high pull hits your mid-back, rhomboids, and rear delts. And nothing will build boulder traps like high pulls! As a bonus, the high pull will hit the whole posterior chain: hamstrings, glutes, and lower back.

I’m telling you, my delts and traps have always been my best body parts, but snatch-grip high pulls have given them a totally different look. They’ve widened my delts and added thickness to my traps.

Snatch-Grip High Pull Technique
Using a wide snatch grip on the bar, yank the bar up and keep it close to your body. Your elbows should be higher than the bar and aimed 45 degrees back.

I can’t emphasize strongly enough that this movement should be done explosively. Pretend you have just walked into the room and the weight is on top of your puppy dog. Pull with violence! Blast it off!

Let the bar fall quickly back to the starting position, too. Don’t try to lower it slowly. Again, remember that this is an explosive Olympic lift variation.

Christian Thibaudeau Snatch High Pulls 397 Lbs!
Christian Thibaudeau Snatch High Pulls 397 Lbs!

Keep in mind, though, that this is not just an upright row done with body English! Pay particular attention to the arm angle in the video.

Important Notes
Even though it’s an explosive movement, the most important portion of the high pull is the starting position. A proper starting position can actually make as much as a 40-pound difference in your lift. It’s crucial that you pull the shoulder blades together and then “roll” the chest up as high as possible. That will turn the whole upper back into a solid base from which to explode. And while the upper back is tight as can be, the arms should remain as loose as possible: Tight back + loose arms = highest power transfer possible.
Lift the bar toward your neck. To do so, use a powerful posterior chain pull to create a lot of momentum at the start of the movement. Once the lower back is approaching full extension, aggressively pull the bar toward your neck – up and towards you – keeping the elbows higher than the bar.
I only make reference to the neck to help you understand that you need to keep the bar close to your body. Don’t pay attention to the actual height. While a lift must reach at least nipple line to qualify as a high pull, focusing on the end position instead of the powerful launch will undoubtedly lead to using your arms to pull instead of using the lower body power to drive the weight up.

How Many Reps?
I’ve used higher-rep sets of O-lifts and their variations in the past with female clients, but with men I don’t go above 6 reps. Most of the time, “high reps” with the Olympic lifts equals 4 or 5.

Why higher reps with women and not men? In my experience, women can maintain the same level of intensity and quality for a greater number of reps. Men simply suffer technique breakdown when they exceed 6 reps.

From the Hang or From Blocks?
Both methods have their advantages. I prefer the hang strictly for muscle-building purposes and body composition changes, especially if you can get into a rhythm and refrain from stopping between reps. That way, the muscles stay under load for the duration of the set.

Pulls from blocks build explosiveness a bit better and allow you to set up properly for each rep, which is a benefit if you’re just learning the movement.

Stick to the variation that’s easiest for you. The less you have to worry about technique, the more you can focus on proper muscle loading. No matter which method you choose, lifts from the hang or blocks above the knees are much simpler than lifts from the floor.

When to Do the High Pull?
High pulls can actually fit into any training day since they not only hit the traps, rhomboids, rear delts, and mid-back, but also the posterior chain. I personally use pulls from the hang on back day and pulls from blocks on lower body days.

The important thing, however, is just that you do them!

Want to build pure brute strength? How about unadulterated muscular size? Maybe both? Here are the best set/rep schemes for your goal.
People always want a cut and dry answer to this question, but it’s not that simple. There’s no one “best” set/rep scheme, regardless of your goal.



But there are several great ones. Here are 22 of the most effective set/rep schemes that have been proven in the field. You can’t go wrong with any of them if you respect the guidelines and train hard.



Seems simple enough. “Do a lot of progressively heavier singles, eventually getting to a near-max.” The basic principle of ramping can be that easy to understand.



You start with a moderate load and gradually build your way up to the heaviest weight you can lift for the chosen rep number.



Ramping works optimally with low reps, which is why it’s best suited for straight-forward strength work. “Ramping” to a 10 or 12-rep max is inefficient and ineffective because of the relatively-lighter weights, cumulative fatigue, and other factors.



Ramping is based on the fact that, every time you perform a set, two things happen in the body.



First, you activate the nervous system and increase potentiation, which can increase your performance on subsequent sets. Second, you create both neural and muscular fatigue, which decreases performance potential.



It’s a fine balance, and the key to effective ramping is creating more activation with as little fatigue as possible. Because activation is linked to force production, you can either amp up the nervous system by lifting heavy weights or by accelerating the weight as much as possible.



There are four key guidelines to follow when ramping, regardless of whether it’s up to a 1, 2, or 3RM:



Only do the chosen rep number on all your sets, even the lighter ones. Because you’re using lighter weights, you’re able to accelerate them and increase activation without building up fatigue.
Treat every set as if it were a max effort set. “Warm-ups” don’t exist with ramping. Each set is a practice set leading to the max effort and should be done with 100% focus while trying to push or pull on the bar as hard as possible.
Don’t use too many sets to work up to your RM because you want to avoid excessive fatigue. It’s often best to start with 60% of your 1RM when ramping. I used to take up to 12 sets to reach my top weight, but later found better results using only 5 or 6 sets to get there. Don’t go too with too few sets either, otherwise the jumps in weight will be too large and you’ll create an inhibitory effect instead of a stimulating one.
Rest long enough to prevent fatigue from hurting your performance, but not so long that you lose the neural potentiation effect. Two minutes between ramping sets works best for most lifters.
In the past, ramping to a 1RM was my preferred way of ramping, but I eventually found it to be at least two to three times harder to recover from than ramping to a 2 or 3RM.



While ramping to a 1RM is a very effective way to peak strength, it shouldn’t be used for more than three weeks in a row.



This is nearly the same as ramping to a 1RM.



Ramping with sets of 2, instead of singles, is something that I often use to learn to demonstrate strength without having the huge toll that a 1RM can take on my body and nervous system.



Ramping to a 3RM builds strength with much less negative impact on the nervous system.



When ramping to a 3RM, you’ll normally reach a point that’s approximately 90% of your max, so make jumps of about 7-10% per set. It might look something like this:



165 lbs x 3
185 lbs x 3
205 lbs x 3
225 lbs x 3
245 lbs x 3
275 lbs x 3
Ten sets of singles will allow you to gain strength as well as the skill to be able to demonstrate that strength.



You can certainly build strength using weights around 80%, but it’s the lifts at 90%+ that make you good at demonstrating maximum strength and actually straining to successfully complete a near-max lift.



You can build just as much strength using weights that are 90% 1RM as you can using weights that are 95-100% 1RM.



And while you may be able to get three or four sets in the 95-100% range (more than that and you risk neural fatigue and reduced progress), you can double that volume by simply going down to 90%!



Five “hard doubles” is easier psychologically, even if you’re using the same percentage and do the same total reps as the 10 singles. It can be difficult to maintain focus and intensity over 10 sets, even if each set is very short.



You also recruit more motor units doing hard doubles than singles at the same intensity level because you create some fatigue with the first rep and are forced to recruit more motor units to be able to perform the second rep.



Ten singles can be very effective for advanced lifters with lots of heavy lifting experience because they’re generally able to recruit more motor-units in that one rep.



Intermediate lifters will get better results from the doubles because they can’t recruit as many fibers in the first rep and need the second to get complete stimulation.



“Hard triples” are a good way to train for strength if you have little experience in maximal lifting.



The benefits are similar to the hard doubles in that you use fatigue from the first reps to increase motor unit recruitment as the set progresses.



Intermediates will make great gains too, but it might be a bit too demanding for advanced lifters because they’re often more efficient at recruiting muscle fibers and because their max will be higher.



90% of 500 pounds is more demanding on the body than 90% of 200 pounds, even if, relatively speaking, the intensity is the same. Advanced lifters can still use it, but doing five doubles would work better in most situations.



The type of advanced lifter who would benefit the most from hard triples is someone who’s strong but not explosive. Naturally-explosive lifters are the best at recruiting fast-twitch fibers and will quickly lose strength from rep to rep.



It’s not rare to have an explosive lifter fail to get 3 reps at 90% while a strong but slower lifter can bang out 5 reps with that weight.



This is quite possibly the most powerful loading scheme you can use to build strength.



Some experts may have spoken out against it, but I’ve seen it work too many times to listen to “theory” and disregard reality. Heck, even Ilya Illyin, arguably the best Olympic lifter at the moment, uses this scheme in his training.



It has a profoundly-stimulating effect on the nervous system, but it can also be draining because of the high neural output.



You perform “waves” of three sets, increasing the weight and decreasing the reps in each set, and resting your normal length of time between sets (and between waves).



If you successfully complete all three sets of a wave without missing a rep, you proceed to another wave of three sets with more weight than the preceding wave. I recommend starting the next wave with the load you used for the second set of the preceding wave.



If you can complete all the reps in that second wave, you start a third wave. Stop the exercise when you can no longer complete a wave.



Note that the first wave is generally conservative while the second one is more challenging but a notch below your true maximum. The third wave, ideally, leads to a 1RM. Being able to complete four waves would lead to a PR.



If your 1RM on a lift is 355 pounds, your waves on a perfect day might look like this:



Wave 1:
315 lbs x 3
325 lbs x 2
335 lbs x 1

Wave 2:
325 lbs x 3
335 lbs x 2
345 lbs x 1

Wave 3:
335 lbs x 3
345 lbs x 2
355 lbs x 1

Wave 4:
345 lbs x 3
355 lbs x 2
365 lbs x 1
On any given day, you should be able to complete two waves. Completing three waves is a very good session. Completing four waves is an amazing workout. Completing five waves means that you underestimated the weights to use!



Ratchet loading is a variation of wave loading, using “waves” of two sets. The difference is that the same weight is used for both sets in a wave, but the reps increase from one set to the next.



The first set is designed to potentiate the nervous system and get used to the new weight; the second set is a more demanding effort. Rest approximately 90 seconds after the first set and two minutes after the second set of each pair.



Normally we use three “waves”/ratchets for a total of 6 sets but, as with 3/2/1 waves, you may be able to do four “waves” on a particularly good day.



It’s is a good way to build strength as you practice performing a lift with heavy loads while not being as hard on the nervous system as 3/2/1 waves.



A sample ratchet loading workout could be:



Ratchet 1:
80% x 1
80% x 3

Ratchet 2:
85% x 1
85% x 3

Ratchet 3:
90% x 1
90% x 3

Ratchet 4:
92-95% x 1
92-95% x 3




Upper-Body-Muscle
Upper-Body-Muscle1000×409 57.5 KB
The 5x5 method is probably responsible for building more muscle and strength than any other approach because it has been one of the longest-standing training methods.



Tons of respected strength coaches, weightlifters, and bodybuilders have been using it for over five decades and it still thrives today.



There are many variations of this approach.



All five sets with the same weight.
Gradually working up to 2-3 max sets of 5, with the first two sets being 10-20% lighter.
Doing all five sets with the same weight, but alternating heavier days with 80-85% and lighter days with 75%.
They all work as long as you keep the reps at 5 per set and the load between 75 and 85%.



This is one of my favorite schemes because it’s based on a psychological trick that gets you more mentally involved as the workout goes on. It’s the scheme to use on days you’re not feeling “into it.”



You remove one rep while adding weight on every set. The decreasing rep pattern lets you believe that each set is “easier” than the one before, while the added weight makes it harder.



While you can sometimes end the 5/4/3/2/1 with a true 1RM, being a bit more conservative will stimulate gains just as much while having less of a negative impact on the nervous system.



A typical workout would be:



80% x 5
82% x 4
85% x 3
87-90% x 2
92-95% x 1
This is an advanced version of the 5/4/3/2/1. Perform the first five sets as described above, but after the first single, continue doing sets of 1 until you hit a max for the day.



Example:
80% x 5
82% x 4
85% x 3
90% x 2
95% x 1
100% x 1
102-105% x 1
(Attempt at a PR if you’re feeling strong that day)
It’s tempting to always go for that extra PR since the 5/4/3/2/1 countdown makes you feel super strong, but going for a new max too often will drain the nervous system and you’ll quickly hit a wall and stop progressing.



Only push it when you’re honestly sure you’ll hit something big.



This is the opposite of 5/4/3/2/1, but it can be just as effective. You start with the lowest reps and heavier weights, and work your way up in reps while decreasing the load.



The benefit is that you amp up the nervous system prior to doing the higher reps sets, which will allow you to recruit more fast-twitch fibers on the volume set, stimulating more growth.



Note that we skip the sets of 3 and 5 reps because we want to potentiate the nervous system early on and reach the last set without accumulating too much fatigue.



The progression might look like:



90-92% x 1
88-90% x 2
85% x 4
80% x 6+
(The objective is 6 reps, but if you can get 7 or 8, go for it, even if it means hitting failure.)
Cluster 5s are an advanced method of training, where you perform 5 reps with a load you’d normally use for 3 reps (generally using 88-92%) by taking pauses between every rep.



Rack the bar after each rep as if you were doing singles, don’t hold it in the locked out (or stretched) position, and pause as short as 5 seconds or as long as 20 seconds.



The goal is to get all 5 reps in, so you might start with shorter breaks early in the set and then extend the mini-rest as the set (and fatigue) progresses.



The short break is enough to replenish some ATP in the muscles, slightly recharge the nervous system, and get rid of some metabolite accumulation, but it’s not long enough to get rid of all the fatigue from the previous reps.



This results in you being able to use a bit more weight than you normally would for 5 “normal” reps while still being forced to recruit more motor units from rep to rep due to some fatigue accumulation.



The 6/4/2 wave loading approach represents one of the best compromises between strength and size gains.



The 6/4/2 scheme uses more volume, so you hit your limit in three waves. With 6/4/2 waves, the first wave is conservative, the second wave would lead to your 2RM, and a third wave would lead to a personal record for 2 reps.



This is the strength/hypertrophy variation of 1/3 ratchet loading.



You still use “waves” of two sets with same weight for both sets, and you rest 90 seconds after the first set and two minutes after the second, but you’re working with different loads to accommodate the slightly higher rep ranges.



Ratchet 1:
75% x 3
75% x 5

Ratchet 2:
80% x 3
80% x 5

Ratchet 3:
85% x 3
85% x 5
Similar to the 6/4/2 waves, you only do three “ratchets” because of the higher overall volume.



This loading scheme uses contrasts between sets of 1 rep with 90-95% of your maximum and sets of 6 reps with 70-80% of your 1RM. Perform a total of 6 sets, or 3 contrast pairings.



Each pairing is gradually heavier, so it would look like this:



90% x 1
70% x 6
92.5% x 1
75% x 6
95% x 1
80% x 6+
On the very last set, keep going up to failure, however many reps it takes. There’s a good chance you’ll often get more than 6 because of the neural activation from the preceding sets.



This approach takes advantage of the fact that near-maximal heavy lifting increases neural activation and improves the capacity to recruit fast twitch fibers in lighter sets that are performed soon afterwards, technically known as " post-tetanic potentiation."



Doing the sets in the reverse order, with the lighter/higher rep set just before the heavy work, wouldn’t have the same effect.







Christian-Deadsquat-Heavy
Christian-Deadsquat-Heavy1000×409 139 KB
Boring, bland, but effective!



The straight-forward 4x8 is another training protocol that bodybuilders have relied on for over 40 years. If it’s stuck around for that long, there’s good reason. It’s not flashy, but the basics never let you down.



Doing 4 sets of 8, with each set getting you close to failure, is a decent way to stimulate growth, especially for beginners.



The first three sets are done with gradually heavier weights and progressively fewer reps, and you finish off with a high-rep pump set. This approach is very effective for pure muscle growth since it attacks all the zones that have the greatest impact on hypertrophy.



Example:
60% x 10
70% x 8
75% x 6
50% x 15-20 reps


Vince Gironda called this loading scheme “a Mr. Olympia routine,” most likely because it was one he relied on when training Larry Scott, the first Mr. Olympia.



It’s based on a high training density, not on load. Perform 6 sets of 6 with a moderate weight that you could do for 10 reps, or roughly 70% 1RM instead of an actual 6-rep max, and you must complete all six sets in as little time as possible.



Gironda’srecommendations were normally to shoot for rest periods of 30 seconds at most, with more advanced clients being allowed no more than 15 seconds, if that long.



Remember, the key factor with this loading scheme is density, not load. If you can’t do all 6 sets with a strict 30 seconds rest, reduce the load until you adapt to the short rest periods.



Vince Gironda called this one “the honest workout” because of the simple, honest muscle it could build.



It’s basically the same thing as 6 x 6, but with more sets and more reps. Because of the higher total volume, the weights are slightly less, around 60% 1RM or a weight you could handle for about 12 reps.



This is obviously more demanding and the goal is still to create the biggest pump possible in the shortest time possible. That means strictly-timed rest periods of no more than 30 seconds, and not being afraid to reduce the weight when needed.



Rest pause is one of the most effective, high intensity techniques to stimulate growth.



It’s somewhat similar to clusters because you end up doing more reps than you “should” be able to do with a given load by including a rest period within the set itself.



The version that works best for size is using 75-80%, generally a weight you can get 6 or 7 reps with. Do 6 reps with that weight, then rack the bar and rest for 15-20 seconds, and then try to complete 4 more reps with the same weight.



This is a very demanding technique, so don’t do more than one or two sets of this technique per exercise. You could perform one or two “regular” sets of 6, then end with one or two of these rest pause sets.



HDL is an even more difficult form of rest pause training that works amazingly well, but is very draining on the body. You shouldn’t perform it for more than 3 workouts in a row.



Using the same weight throughout the set (around 70% or a weight you could do for 10 good reps), you do 5 reps, rack the bar and rest 15 seconds, do 4 reps, rest 15 seconds, do 3 more reps, rest 15 seconds, get 2 more reps, rest 15 seconds, and then finish one final rep.



Perform no more than three of these monster sets per workout.



Each set ends up letting you complete 15 total reps with a load you could’ve done for only 8-10 “regular” reps, so it’s clear why this is among the best size-builders.

by John Berardi, PhD
Remembering the Forgotten Ingredients
Losing fat and building muscle takes more than just training and dieting. Here’s what you need to know.
Nowadays, when a guy gets interested in bodybuilding, body transformation, or building size and strength, all he has to do is pop open his internet browser and type in a few select keywords. Within seconds he’s transported to a world of training programs, diet programs, and more.

However, it’s a huge mistake to think that finding an awesome training program and diet plan online is all it takes to build the ultimate body. In this article Dr. Berardi shares two intangibles that go beyond sets and reps, calories and proteins; two intangibles that will absolutely make or break your progress.

Pumping Iron
In 1975, George Culp and Wes Brown, aspiring bodybuilders in their mid-20s, decided to take a road trip. You see, George and Wes lived in New London, North Carolina and, well, New London isn’t exactly a body-transformation haven. In fact, in the mid-1970s, New London didn’t even have a gym. Yet that wasn’t going to stop them; George and Wes built their own modest gyms and trained at home.

So one day, toward the end of harvest season, Wes, a tobacco farmer at the time, called up his buddy George and told him to pack his bags.

“Hey buddy, we just got all the tobacco in the barns, let’s go to Gold’s.”
Now, for those of you who don’t know anything about “Gold’s”, Wes was referring to Gold’s Gym, at the time the most well-known gym in perhaps all the world. Gold’s Gym, located in Venice Beach, California, was owned and operated by Joe Gold and had become the place to train.

In fact, some of the top competitors of the time had moved to Venice just to train in what seemed to be the ultimate bodybuilding environment. Guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbo, Robbie Robinson, Ed Corny, and many other bodybuilding greats could all be found training at Gold’s, eating at one of the local restaurants, or lounging on Venice Beach. Talk about creating the right environment for success!

So, although George and Wes trained regularly, had developed pretty impressive physiques, and actually had both competed at the Mr. North Carolina bodybuilding contest, they both knew that if they really wanted to take their physiques to the next level, they would need to learn from and train with guys better and more experienced than themselves. So, at the end of the 1975 harvest, they traveled the 2500+ miles from New London to Venice Beach. They were determined to enlist the best in the world to take them to the next level.

Interestingly, although they only planned to stay in California for about 2 weeks, not only did they get to train with the best in the world, they ended up walking into Gold’s Gym at the same time that George Butler and his crew were filming the classic bodybuilding flick Pumping Iron.

According to George Culp,

“Until we got out there, we had no idea that Pumping Iron was being filmed. George Butler couldn’t believe that two country boys from North Carolina came all the way across the country to train with Arnold. So they included us in a lot of scenes. Of course, many of our shots ended up on the cutting room floor. However, we did end up in two scenes. You may remember the one in which Arnold was teaching a smaller blonde guy how to pose.”
Well, that blonde guy was Wes. And the guy with the moustache in the scene was George, standing along side and learning from the master.

Wes and George in a Pumping Iron Interview


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Also, according to George;

“Arnold and Ed Corny took us to lunch one day. It was so cool; it was myself, Wes, Arnold, Ed Corny, Robby Robinson, and Ken Waller. We all ate steak and eggs and Arnold told us he was going to retire from bodybuilding that year. It’s funny; Arnold still calls us ‘the stars of Pumping Iron’.”
Now, 31 years later, George is 56 years old and is still Pumping Iron. And he’s still training with the best. (Said with tongue in cheek; George worked with me and my Science Link team last year and still follows our principles today.)

George Culp (age 56) With A Powerful Build and A Wicked Farmer’s Tan


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Back in the 70’s they got most of their training advice from word of mouth and from reading the old Iron Man magazine. The rest, they figured out themselves. Of course, after they got back from Venice Beach, they had a lot of great new information to try out.

“It was like a dream come true. Everyone was very nice to us and offered lots of help if we asked… Wes and I were both already ‘committed’ to training… Yet training along side Arnold impacted us in the long run, specifically the focus that he had for training. He would joke around quite a bit; but when he trained, the intensity of focus on what he was doing was extremely impacting, almost paralyzing.”
Back in 1975, George and Wes sought out mentorship from their legends, their heroes and in doing so, they not only learned how to build muscle, they also learned intangible lessons, lessons about commitment, intensity, mentorship, and social support.

Oh yea, and they also became “the stars of Pumping Iron” along the way. Not a bad road trip, eh?

My Journey
My own body transformation journey began when I graduated high school. Tipping the scales at a fairly unimpressive 135lbs (at 5’8"), I was fed up of being one of the scrawniest guys around. So I committed myself to learning how to get big.

I bought all the muscle magazines (just like George, I read Ironman too, about 15 years later). I regularly visited supplement shops. I joined 2 gyms. And I exercised daily, doing bench presses and biceps curls until I couldn’t lift my arms any longer.

Needless to say, I REALLY wanted to change.

Of course, with my new found commitment, although my program wasn’t optimal, I did start to get some results. My first year of training produced a 15lb weight gain. And while some folks started to notice my new development, I realized that at the pace I was going, I’d never have the physique I was after (or so I thought). As some of the guys at the gym were my height and around 200lbs, I knew that it would take nearly 4 more years the break the 200lb barrier. I needed a faster way!

I considered steroids. But, to be honest, I was 18 and much too scared of them to actually go through with it. Fortunately for me, my salvation didn’t come in a bottle; it came in the form of a mentor.

The 6 AM Test
I still remember the fateful day. I was at the gym, struggling away on the leg press machine. There wasn’t much weight on the machine but it sure felt like a heavy load. With a few reps to go and my strength diminishing, one of the gym owners, Craig, came over to offer a spot.

Now, let me just say this. Craig wasn’t just a “gym owner”. At my height and over 230 impressive pounds, he was also the guy that every guy in town wanted to look like. We had never spoken before but after I racked the weight and got up, he offered me a few tips on improving my body.

For a few minutes, we discussed our goals, talked about our training programs, and he shared some valuable wisdom. I was determined to give his advice a try – after all, it worked pretty well for him.

About a week later, Craig approached me again during one of my leg workouts. He told me that he noticed I was taking his suggestions and putting them to good use. Then, surprise of all surprises, he actually invited me to work out with him the next day!

“What time?” was my only question.

At this point, he busted out with what I affectionately call, the “6 AM test.”

Craig said he’d be training legs at 6:00 AM the next morning and I should meet him at the gym around 5:50 AM for warm-up.

Uh, oh. My head was swimming with excuses. I had just finished a leg day. And besides, I hadn’t been up before 9 AM in a long, long time! There was no way I would be feeling ready to train with this guy.

But I pushed the excuses outta my head and I told him I’d be there.

The next morning we trained legs. It was harder than I had imagined it would be. Yet I did it. Limping out of the gym, Craig mentioned that I could work out with him the next day if I liked. However, we wouldn’t be training at 6 AM; that was just a little test. And I had passed.

Mentorship and Commitment
I truly believe that the right people are placed in our paths when we need them most. Yet only if we remain open-minded and willing to learn can these mentors help us reach new levels of development.

Now, I’m not just talking physique development. This works in business, relationships, and any other endeavor.

Seriously, if a great mentor comes along, shut the ego down and listen – you might just learn something important!

Craig turned out to be an important mentor in my life. Heck, in that first workout alone I learned something very important. Lots of people say they want certain things from life, they say that they’re interested in specific goals, yet they’re unwilling to make the commitment to really go after those things, to really accomplish those goals.

In the case of Craig’s 6 AM test, he had posed it lots of times. And lots of people failed the test. I wasn’t going to be one of them. From that day on, I realized that there’s a difference between interest and accomplishment. People say they’re interested, but that’s often all talk. Those who are chasing accomplishment get up at 5:30 so that they can be squatting by 6:00.

Step By Step
Of course, Craig taught me a hell of a lot more than how to squat. But, like any great coach, he taught these lessons as I was ready to learn them. In the beginning I learned how to make the commitment to training. After that was solidified, I learned how to do the movements properly. Once I had that down, we experimented with loading parameters and set/rep schemes. It was a step-wise process in which Craig navigated me swiftly toward the stuff that worked, while away from the stuff that didn’t.

And I loved the step-wise approach. You see, I’m a relatively impatient person. I like action. So, if I had spent months reading, researching, etc I would have gone nuts. I didn’t want, nor did I need, to be a master of exercise programming to walk the path toward “bigness.” I didn’t need to read 5 books from the exercise masters to know how to drive my lazy butt to the gym and bust it once I was there.

I just needed to get to the gym and learn how to work out. Then, once I knew how to work out, I needed to learn how to work out hard. Then, once I knew how to work out hard, I needed to learn how to work out smart. I didn’t need to be a 2 year process either. It just needed to be step-wise; each lesson coming at the time I needed it most. And that’s what a good coach or mentor is best at – delivering lessons when they’re needed most.

Of course, there was a lot more to my instruction than training.

I learned all about nutrition and supplements, too. After a few months of training together, Craig noticed that I wasn’t able to recover like he was. I was getting run-down. So he did a dietary analysis on me. Turns out my diet needed some work too! So instead of making me read 8 books on nutrition or launching into the science of nutrient timing, glycemic indices, biological values of protein, he simply told me what to eat for the next 4 weeks.

There were no compromises, no excuses, no whining about which foods I like and which I didn’t. He simply took the hard-line approach. The relationship and the process were simple. He told me what to eat, I ate it, and I got results. No whining, no why this or why that, no excuses. I just did it. I knew I’d figure out why later.

Now, this is a good time for a bit of a tangent. I know that some of you reading this won’t like the “do this” approach. You’ll say that you need to know “why” before you’ll do something.

Well, I argue that you’re the person who will have the hardest time with physique change because physique change starts with doing, not analyzing. Although I wanted to know why, Craig told me to shut up and do. In fact, I remember one day he sat me down and told me this:

“You’re not entering a classroom to learn nuclear biophysics here; you’re trying to build muscle at the gym. Your body doesn’t care why something’s working. So shut up, do what I tell you and you can learn why later.”
So, to be honest, I just shut up and did. After all, the guy was 230lbs and I was 150. And later on, once my adherence was set, he began to teach me how to create my own meal plans and how to find good nutrition resources.

Funny how that works – I had to learn to crawl before learning to walk.

Beyond Exercise and Nutrition
Of course, for many of you, this might be the point where you’re ready to check out. Great, I learned how to train and what to eat. Isn’t that enough?

Hell no!

The lessons I learned beyond the food and workout stuff were infinitely more valuable. During Craig’s mentorship, he took me to the grocery store and to supplement shops. He showed me how to set up my kitchen for optimal results. We went out to eat and he showed me how to cleverly find the right muscle building foods at restaurants, ensuring that I was making the best choices for my goals.

You see, through this process I quickly learned that a written or typed meal plan stuck to the fridge is useless unless you have the right environment surrounding you, an environment designed for success.

What happens to that meal plan if you go out to eat at restaurants and you don’t know how to order? What happens if you buy the foods at the grocery store and your kitchen is stocked up with garbage? What happens if you’re pressed for time and don’t know how to quickly and efficiently prepare your muscle-building meals?

You fail.

Craig had seen lots of people fail and wanted to be sure that I wasn’t going to be one of them. So he went beyond the food and the workouts and he showed me how to create the right environment for success. This makes all the difference!

The Power of Social Support
Ok, at this point it should be clear that I owe a debt of gratitude to this guy for taking me under his wing and helping me avoid the pitfalls all around me, for ushering me into a world in which my scrawny butt could build muscle! So don’t think for a minute that I don’t still owe this guy big-time – I do.

After all, Craig and I ended up sticking together as training partners for 3 straight years. At an average of 5 workouts a week, that means we worked out at least 750 times together, spending more than 1,000 hours together over those 3 years – and that was just in the gym.

Beyond the gym, I also learned a ton. Craig and I started to hang out all the time and he introduced me to his circle of friends. His girlfriend (now wife) would make us muscle-friendly meals. She also happened to be into working out, go figure. And although he did have a diverse group of friends, a lot of them were also into working out. Most of my friends at the time weren’t, so it was really cool to have a new social group that I could talk shop with, learn from, and share successes with.

After talking with quite a few people over the years, one thing that has become very clear is that social support matters. According to one reader of T-nation:

“Having a training partner keeps me motivated. Many times I’ve not wanted to get out of bed come training time. But knowing that my partner was there getting stronger made me get out of bed and get to the gym.”
TC likes training around others too:

“If I’m at the gym, I can’t dog it! People can say, ‘Isn’t that TC over there? Man, he’s not training very hard, is he? God, he’s a pansy!’ Next thing I know, it’s reported on a rival website or in the gossip section of MuscleMag. Call me shallow, but I sometimes need the fear of ridicule to motivate me.”
Further, in a recent study of over 1000 respondents, Gary Homann of the University of Wyoming found that those who end up exercising for life tend to be involved in what he calls an “exercise community.” According to Gary’s definition, exercise community involvement means that people become involved with other people, activities, contests and events tied to their regular exercise activities. From Gary’s work, it’s clear that to those who exercise is more than just a passing fling, exercise communities are critical.

Chris Shugart, assistant editor of T-nation, wrote this:

"It reminds me of a study conducted by a group of psychologists a few years back. They decided to figure out what factors contribute most to a person’s success or failure. In other words, person ‘A’ turns out happy with a satisfying job and a strong family. Person ‘B’ ends up a crackhead in the clink where he’s forced to be some guy’s ‘catcher’ in exchange for cigarettes. The question is, why? What factor in their lives played the biggest role in how they turned out?

"The psychologists assumed that where a person ends up in life is determined largely by socioeconomic level or perhaps intelligence. What they found surprised them. It turns out that while the above factors do play a role, they’re not all that important. The real determining factor to your potential success or failure is "the people that surround you."

"Let’s face the facts, if you hang out with a bunch of drunks, you’ll most likely drink more. If you surround yourself with people who don’t train and don’t care about what they eat, then they will influence you. You may not quit entirely, but you’ll likely alter your behavior and make a few bad choices.

“So, what kind of people do you surround yourself with? Are they rubbing off on you? If so, is that a good or bad thing?”
And yet another well-know coach, strength coach Charles Poliquin, stated it this way:

“You’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”
Take these comments to heart, folks. They’re powerful statements that I also corroborate. During my time training with Craig, I went from a scrawny 18 year old, to a pretty big guy – weighing in at 230 and 12% body fat. And, after hitting my maximum weight, I dieted down to compete in and win the Mr. Jr. USA title. Amazingly, my Mr. Jr. USA victory happened almost 3 years to the day after Craig approached me during that one fateful leg workout.

And I harbor no illusions that I could have ever made the progress I did without Craig’s mentorship and the social support network we surrounded ourselves with. There’s just no way. When my commitment failed, Craig picked up the slack. And vice versa.

Every day we challenged each other, competed against each other, and pushed each other to new lifting heights. I still remember the day we squatted 405lbs for 20 reps each. No one in our gym had ever seen such a thing.

And it wasn’t only the two of us supporting each other. We had a whole group of friends creating the right environment for success. Just like Arnold, Franco, Robby, Ed and friends had. Just like George and Wes were looking for.

Your Social Support
In the end, as you can see, there’s so much more to building a great body than just the exercise and food. There are those intangibles you can’t record in a food log - commitment and hard work, creating a lifestyle that supports your goals, creating the right environment for good training and good eating, measuring results and appropriately interpreting those measurements, mentorship and social support.

You can buy books, read the web, pick up a few tips, try new programs, and follow different diets. But if you want to really progress, if you really want to learn how to transform your body, you’ve gotta find the right mentors and enlist a group of individuals who you can feed off of, and who can feed off of you.

Very few individuals can lone-ranger their way to a tremendous body. And even those who can don’t enjoy the journey as much. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be, find the right group of people to learn from and learn with.

And if you need the occasional dose of inspiration, pick up a copy of Pumping Iron.