Once this intensity threshold has been met, volume becomes the dominant contributor to gains in muscle size.

If you can do some kind of Hurdle Walkover or hip mobility work during a training session that has a squat and deadlift or clean variation, I strongly recommend it.

Ideally you should try to add both, but it all depends on the context of the program and situation. Rather than letting reps 60-100 dictate the load, we play with this rep scheme: 2-3-5-10.

Now, you don’t have to do 100 reps. Oddly, I have found that doing three clusters (2-3-5-10-2-3-5-10-2-3-5-10) seems to be enough for any athlete. Tip: Stretch This Muscle and Feel Awesome, Tip: The Key to Strong and Healthy Shoulders, Tip: One Exercise For Big Delts and a Strong Grip, Death to Foam Rollers and Boring Rehab Stuff, Tip: Eat One a Day to Lose Fat and Prevent Cancer, The Best Damn Workout Plan For Natural Lifters.

It is so simple of an adjustment, many will dismiss it and note that “I’ve been there, done that.” Well, good for you. Should I do more reps for those or more sets? Here are three better ways to keep yourself in the game.

Unfortunately, Bob is fixated on chasing weight on the bar. Programs built around the following progression scheme are common: This style of progression is stupid. Make your body more resistant to gaining fat.

Let's just say I do Bicep Curls with 10kg for the first set, 12kg second set and 14 for the third. Maybe it sounds okay at first, but let's look a little closer at those numbers. 5x5 for most people will have you using a higher % of your 1RM than you can on 3x8 despite the extra sets. Follow these two steps and you'll not only build strong delts, you'll keep them healthy. level 2. We tend to let accumulated fatigue, which is good in the case of high rep squats, to limit the load. Of course, you know that, but with this rep scheme of 2-3-5-2-3-5-2-3, you can handle far more load than the traditional five sets of five.

These workout finishers do more than build work capacity; they build muscle too. Many lifters, especially those who mainly want to build muscle, fail to adhere to these principles. Reverse periodization allows you to continue to progressively overload the key driver of hypertrophy – volume. This is not a fancy workout, but the load really impacts the athletes.

The same odd rest issue shows up: for whatever reason, and I am sure the science guys know the biology behind this, it is a quick recovery to get that double in after the heavy set of five. For example, I have shared an interesting way to do the German Volume Training, the ten sets of ten, workouts. You've done tons of lateral raises, but you've never done them like this. Since writing that article, I am even more confused about the dozens of variations of what I used to consider the simplest workout for bulk and power.

Biceps are primarily a mixture of slow and fast twitch so training them from 8-12 is actually optimal.

He continues to throw another 5 pounds on the bar in the misguided belief it'll lead to more progress. Warning: This workout is gonna hurt. And, once again, since you have nothing better to do, that triple often happens out of breath.

By breaking apart the sets just a little bit, you can add more weight to the bar.. Training volume has been found to have a strong dose-response relationship with hypertrophy, where more volume equals more growth – until you exceed your ability to recover. Here's an exercise to fix that.

If size is the name of the game, put a little time and effort into planning your training in a reverse periodized fashion. Add more weight.


Copyright © 2020 DAN JOHN

Low reps using heavy weights will build strength for sure, but can it build muscle? Here's what to do instead.

Have you tried adding weight to those exercises? First Cluster: 2-3-5 You'll consistently overload the key variable of hypertrophy and just as progress begins to slow due to diminishing returns, you switch to a strength-focused phase.

Without realizing it, lifters all over the world are violating the principle of progressive overload as it pertains to training volume. But it can work well for hypertrophy, just like almost every other rep scheme when applied in the right context. Bob knows about progressive overload and does the only logical thing: He adds weight to the bar.

So, between those hellacious tens, you nail ten more reps with surprising little rest.

Challenge Cluster

They work for newbies and drug-aided pros, but for the rest of us, body-part splits rob us of growth. Over the course of 12 weeks, Bob went from a training volume of: That's almost a 40% reduction in training volume! Instead, he's just created the illusion of progress. On the face of it, this is perfectly logical.

I also like to finish this workout with a Farmer Walk, but keep it within reason. 8-12 is a good balance between heavy weight and high volume though which is why its so good for hypertrophy. Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level, 3x8 at 225 pounds (total volume = 5,400 pounds), 3x7 at 230 pounds (total volume = 4,830 pounds), 3x6 at 235 pounds (total volume = 4,230 pounds), 3x8 at 230 pounds (total volume = 5,520 pounds). That's better! Given that hypertrophy is the overreaching goal of the discussion here, that means each phase should set the scene for increased training volume.

It might hurt to breathe the day after you do this, but you'll like the results.

Why does everyone day 'the abs are just like every other muscle, why would you train them any differently?' In any case though, its not optimal to only stick to one rep scheme forever for any muscle.

But doing 3 sets of 12 push ups doesn't have that feeling at all. To illustrate the point, let's look at an example of how many guys train: Bob wants to pack on some size. A powerlifter, for example, would sequence hypertrophy, strength, and peaking blocks back to back (a linear model) to produce the best performance on the platform.

Lifters spend too much time on the floor rolling around and rubbing on themselves. As I noted in a previous article about “five sets of five, the big issue is, of course, what do “you” mean by 5 x 5? Look better in a T-shirt... or without a T-shirt. In most cases, phase potentiation has been applied to sporting performance. Depending on the muscle group's composition (fast switch vs slow twitch), there is an optimal way to train them. To quote hypertrophy scientist Brad Schoenfeld, "...higher training volumes are clearly and positively associated with greater muscular gains.". Try these exercises and make some new, pain-free gains. Get ready to use time under tension, multiple angles of attack, and a whole bunch of lactate. This provides an opportunity to recover from these high volumes, remove the "staleness" of high volume training, and increase strength levels. Here's how many sets and reps to do. So, try to find a weight that forces you to give it all (obvious note: get a good spotter on the Bench and Squat) on that second set of five.

Volume is calculated as weight x reps x sets = volume.

Exactly, you don't just do 8-12 reps and stop. Agreed, but regarding changing up the reps and sets, do you have any other experience with it except for after the usual 1,5-2 months? © 2020 T Nation LLC. You need a strong butt. If intensity goes up, then volume needs to come down. Another concern with adding sets to boost volume is that Bob would need to do this throughout his whole workout routine.

I'll bet you're not curling dumbbells you could do for 30+, but the same might not be true for unloaded situps. Now, ADD weight! Got some dumbbells? Third Cluster: 2-3-5 We ask our experts for their very best tips for capped delts. The ultimate combination of the most powerful kettlebell exercise and hardcore strength work. An effective training program must follow two key principles to have any chance of success. For instance; doing 3 sets of 12 dumbbell curls really makes me feel the burn. What started out as a high quality, focused 45-minute workout could morph into a 90-minute slog.

This is a mistake when it comes to building muscle. Sit a lot at work?

If conventional barbell pressing hurts your shoulders, there's a solution for that. There are two very innovative changes that seem to really work well in the ‘big lifts,’ the Bench Press, the Military Press, the Squat (all its variations) and the Deadlift. Bonus: The same inexpensive food helps you fight off two forms of cancer. If you bring volume down then you're providing a progressively weaker stimulus for growth. Your body will adapt and once you hit the top of your range easily (12 in this case); add more weight. If I can do 12x14kg then I increase the weight to 16kg right?

Then you'll never miss a workout. Tags: Tips; Low Reps, Lots of Sets. Do this full-body plan every other day. Bob can't indefinitely add weight for the same sets and reps. While research indicates you can build muscle using heavy weights (like doing multiple sets of 3 reps), it's so fatiguing that you'll likely end up injured and de-motivated. Certainly, some of the options, like the Wave, that I offered in my first article have value, but this has been an issue for many of us for years. Almost everyone emphasizes load on the bar as the key method of progressive overload. Nothing changes the look of your physique more than well-developed shoulders. I have been training my athletes with the second variation (40 total reps, three plate changes) with the Front Squat, Bench Press and Power Clean (or Power Curl, a curl grip clean using the legs) mixed with some Hurdle Walkovers and some Farmer Bar Walks. Get ready to be better... at everything! Push it for as long as possible before you exceed the ability to recover, which will be indicated by a drop-off in performance. And basically for maximum hypertrophy you want maximum effective volume. But what about the first and second set?

What did these old-school guys do to get them? Of course it can. 3x8 @ 75% is probably going to be a grinder on that last set. This is solid advice.

Do I continue with 10 and 12kg or do I increase the weight for all sets? You'll also be primed for another block of productive, high-volume, hypertrophy-based training.
As intensity increases, either volume has to come down or performance will stall and the chances of overtraining or injury increase. Glute-specific training isn't just for the girls.

Let’s review the second option.

The reason your push ups are easy is because it is probably a sub maximal amount of resistance for you. 4-6 reps for heavy compounds, 8-12 reps for isolation exercises. Originally, he thought that 70-100 reps were the key but later discovered: “Further experience has shown this figure (the number of sets in a workout) to be too high.” The number of sets was reduced from 7-10 to a much more realistic three sets.

Since then, he has added over 40 pounds to his frame and helped hundreds of clients build muscle and burn fat.

What percentage of your exercises are compound?