now, to add my two cents worth to this whole body thing... you said it wasnt too good of an idea for a "clean" person...

well, i am clean, i train my whole body in each workout, and i think ive done pretty good when it comes to physical development. ive bench pressed over 500lbs, squatted over 800lbs, deadlifted over 700lbs, snatched 352 in competition and 375 in training, clean and jerked 419 in competition, and just did 440 two nights ago in training. ive also kurled 235lbs for 8 reps, closed the #2 ironmind gripper for 28 consecutive reps (dont have a number three). ive also push pressed 429lbs, stiff legged deadlifted 700, done RDL's with over 700 for reps, done strict barbell rows with 425lbs, and have done a good morning with over 500lbs down to parrallel.

so... what do you think, jj? do you think that whole body workouts have worked ok for me? the fact is, you need to learn a little more about training before you start to act as if you know so much. most of the worlds top athletes train like i do. thats a fact.

####

i suppose the most important detail is that i have trained steadily from the time i was around 13 or 14 or so to the present, im now 31 by the way.
ive concentrated on several different sports during this time, including wrestling, scottish highland games, powerlifting, and presently olympic lifting.

my training has changed of course as i changed sports and matured as an athlete... but it has always centered around exercises like the squat, deadlift, powerclean, clean, push press, bench press, snatch, bb rowing, good mornings, etc. i havnt done each and every exercise at all times throughout the years, but always did mostly exercises like these, big exercises that use lots of different muscles at once.

ive usually trained with a whole body program... with the exception of a couple of years where i did the westside program.

###

I assume this question of how much mass was gained was directed at me.
well, as a high school freshman, i wrestled at the 112lb class. i lifted all through high school and also grew a lot, and ended up weghing around 185 or so right before wrestling season my senior year... however i lost some weight and wrestled at 171. i really started to grow between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college, i think i was about 200lbs starting college. a bit over 6 feet tall also by the way. i started powerlifting not long after this and worked my way up in bodyweight over the next few years, gaining i suppose 20lbs a year on average for the next 4 or 5 years. i peaked out at about 300lbs during my powerlifting career... then took a break from competition for a couple of years while putting my wife through school. i did still train, but not specifically for any competition. after beginning olympic lifting 3 years ago, i quickly shot up to 330lbs, then in the last two years have increased that to about 360lbs.

as far as measurments go, when i was a starting out in powerliting weighing in the low 200's, i wasnt really that big. but by hte time i was in the 275lb class, i had arms near 20 inches, thighs around 30 inches, and a neck of about 21 inches. at 300lbs i had honest 20 inch arms, 32 inch legs, and a 22 inch neck. right now i have 34 inch thighs, arms a bit over 22 inches, and i am not sure about the neck, but a 23inch neck dress shirt wont button.

so im at my biggest right now, and also at my strongest. im sure if i went back to powerlifting i could signicantly improve on my powerlifting poundages... the 500 bench, 800 squat, and 700 deadlift as well as my best good morning and best barbell row were all done when i weighed under 300lbs and wasnt near as strong as i am now.

i plan to gain more weight. i keep getting stronger as i gain muscle and bodyweight... so as long as i can get bigger without getting a big gut or anything, ill keep gaining. ive got a big frame, and hold the weight better than most people probably could. at 360 im still at least halfway athletic, i can run and jump, and play basketball with the kids when i want to... so im sure i can get bigger.



A relatively inexperienced athlete who wants to train for general strength and size.

GLENN: He should live and die in the squat rack. Most put too much emphasis on the barbell bench press and not enough emphasis on other types of pressing, including not enough on overhead pressing. Bench pressing is great but if you do it to the exclusion of everything else you won’t get as big or strong and you can have some stability and structural problems as the years go by. Also most don’t work the back hard enough or often enough. But if you’re a beginner and want to get strong, squats are the main thing. An alternative to that would be to just go to Mark Rippetoe and get a program and do what he tells you. Its normal for him to take a high school kid and put 30-40lbs of muscle on them in a period of less than 6 months, without drugs and without ever spending more than 3 days a week in the gym. I should say it’s normal IF they listen to him, most won’t listen to anyone.




Glenn Pendlay Program Design


say a person tests at 200lbs for 5 reps on their initial workout. well then monday they might do the following sets for 5 reps, 95, 125, 155, 185, 205. fairly equal jumps, ending with a 5lb personal record. if the last set is successfull, then on friday they will go for 210 on their last set, with adjustments on the other sets to keep the jumps about even as needed.

the average beginner can stay on this exact simple program for anywhere from 4 weeks to 4 months, as long as they continue to improve at least 5lbs a week, most can do this for quite a while.

when they stop improving, the first thing he does is to drop a couple of the "warmup" sets down to one or two reps, to decrease fatigue and allow a few more personal records on the top set... so that 200lb top set of 5 workout at this point would at this point have the 155lb set at maybe 3 reps, and the 185lb set at one or two reps, then try for 5 at 205.

this change usually lets people get new personal records for another 2-3 weeks, sometimes more.

at some point, of course, this doesnt work anymore. so now we change the monday workout to 5 sets of 5, still with heavy front squats or for some lighter back squats on wednesday, and the same pyramid on friday, trying for one top set of 5. the 5 sets on monday with the same weiight will be some amount less than the current personal record for one set of 5.

usually with this raise in volume, the weights are set somewhat lighter than they were, and people are given a few weeks to work back to their personal records, then try to go past them, invariably they will pass them, and invariably eventually they will stall again...

at this point we usually lower the volume of training, raise the intensity, in some form we will go with lower reps, lower amounts of sets, cut out a day of squatting, something to allow a raising of the numbers... again, the numbers will raise for a while, then stall again.

a this point, another raise in volume is needed, and at this point we will go to the program that most usually associate with the "5 by 5"... squatting 5 sets of 5 with the same weight 3 times a week, lighter on wednesday and heavier on mon and fri. you are all familiar with this i think, we raise the volume for 2-4 weeks, then slowly cut the volume aned intensity of most workouts, going for a big workout every 1-2 weeks, might be a single, a single set of 5, or even one big 5 sets of 5 workout. with people cycling down for a big contest at thsi point we might go for lower reps and try for the big singles.... with someone not at a place where a big peak is needed, its just cycling down to less sets but keeping the reps at 5, and trying to make a pr on a set of 5. this can be repeated several times over and over, but at some point you have to have a period of lower intensity training for a while in between cycles.

i will add that often, for the people with higher goals who want to really train hard, i will start right in with the 15 hard sets a week version, but with weights low enough that they can endure it, and when they get in condition and get used to the volume, will then go back and start at the normal place where rip starts right from the beginning. i find that people who have been athletically active, who have been training on other programs, etc, usually do well with an initial 4-8 weeks of high volume lower intensity training to get them mentally and physically used to this sort of training, get their form changed to a good squat, etc.

this post describes as much as a year of training for most people, with some that adapt well it is stretched to two years.... two years from when they start their initial "pyramid" workouts, or their initial month or so of conditioning with 15 moderate sets a week to when they get through their first real cycle with heavy weights and 15 sets a week cycled down to a peak.

it seems simple. it is.




To really answer that question would take writing a book. My methodology, and i don't want to speak for Mark too much but I think it's safe to say his too, is based on things like training heavy, focusing on breaking personal records, sticking with the basics, training movements and not muscles, and really concentrating on the squat and squatting often.

I'm sure you've heard all that before, I suppose sometimes the devil is in the details. A few that i think are important are... Most of the athletes i train squat 3 times a week. Most focus heavily on multiple sets of 5 in the squat. We pull from the floor hard and often, doing some form of pulling (cleans, snatches, deadlifts, clean or snatch pulls, romanian deadlifts) almost every training day, usually 3-5 days a week. My guys know how to clean correctly, and use big numbers on the clean and snatch, with many of them cleaning above 80% of their best back squats. We train when tired, we train when sore.

We maintain a competitive atmosphere in the weightroom. Record boards with all-time best lifts, another board wiped clean every monday morning which lists as the week goes by the "good" performances that week, athletes of the same peformance levels training together and trying to drive each other into the ground, these are all part of the motivation to kick butt and improve every time you step into the weight room.

I don't think there are any gimmicks that work, and i don't think there are any secrets other than learning to do lifts correctly and working very, very hard.

I know I didnt post much about specifics of manipulating volume or intensity. Within the basic framework given above, there are so many different things we do, and it would be really hard, even dishonest, to sit down and say "this is what we do" because it is always changing, adapting, and hopefully improving.




as an alternative viwpoint, complete tissue remodeling after a bout of resistance training takes around 6 weeks. so regardless of soreness or lack of it, we all train when incompletely recovered. we also know that further training stimulus before a muscle is fully recovered does not impede tissue remodeling from the first exercise bout. almost all elite athletes train when sore, from westside guys to olympic weightlifters, to football players and gymnasts, it seems it might be impossible to reach elite status without training through soreness and training in an environment of incomplete recovery.

weightlifters generally look at "soreness" or recovery as week or month long events. for instance, instead of having a particularly hard workout, they may have a particularly hard week or month of training... they normally train the back/legs everyday anyway, but during a high stress period they may do more sets, heavier weight, etc... and may be "sore" and unrecovered for as long as 3 or 4 weeks, then may have a week or two of lighter training to recover. this is a simple example that doesnt represent the many ways to load and unload, but its representative.

one of my lifters is training at the olympic training center now and has paul fleschler writing his programs and overseeing his training... he just got off of a 5 week loading cycle, and is about to enter a 3 week deloading and peaking cycle to peak for the 23U worlds in puerto rico next month. i am leaving for santiago chile tomorrow for the junior pan-american championships, along with two of my athletes, who will compete on tuesday and wednesday of next week. for this meet they did 2 months of loading, the first moderate and the second very hard, and they are in their 4th week now of peaking, basically much less volume but still high intensity. both these athletes were sore and tired for about a month straight, but are now recovered and havnt had any muscle soreness in a week or two, even though they are still squatting and clean and jerking and snatching 3 times a week with fairly heavy weights.

most people who are looking for increased PERFORMANCE would do well to take the weekly volume they can handle, and instead of putting it in one big session, split into many smaller sessions... the benefits of this type of loading were first introduced to the scientific literature by hakkinen a number of years ago (i think the article was in the european journal of applied physiology, but i could be wrong), and it is how virtually all elite athletes train from weightlifters to sprinters. really only in bodybuilding do we see the method of killing a muscle group in one big workout and then waiting for several days to recover. if you are going to do the type of workouts that casue disability for an extended time, im sure its smart to rest till your ready to train again. but i dont think thats the best way to go about things, and its just not done much outside of bodybuilders.

and to Dr. Lowery, no disrespect meant by my comments on this thread. i do disagree with the premise of your "tip", but there are a lot of ways to skin a cat, and a lot of different needs out there. i come from a particular background, the people i caoch are either high level weightlifters or are trying to get to that level, and even the research i have done at midwestern state university has been done on high level weightlifters, so i suppose i have a somewhat limited perspective. i wont pretend that it makes me an expert on everything.




the athletes at the wichita falls regional olympic development center have had a lot of success with squatting 3 times a week, we squat only 3 times a week because we do a lot of volume, lots of sets of 5 for much of the year. lifters who squat 4-6 times a week generally squat with 3 or less reps, these are usually advanced athletes who want to maintain or gain strength without gaining any weight.

we generally do a pretty heavy squat workout, 5 sets of 5 or something similar, on monday and again on friday... while wednesday is heavy front squats for fewer reps or lighter back squats.

we work in cycles, trying to set personal records every 4-5 weeks, and generally doing it on a monday, with friday being just a bit lighter than monday. we always start each cycle with weights a little lighter than we can do, to try to build a little momentum leading up to the record setting week.

another option is to squat with high volume on monday, for instance 5 sets of 5, go lighter on wednesday, then on friday work up to one max set of 5... again, we do this in cycles, with the first week of the cycle being lighter both on monday and friday than what we are capable of, but working towards a record in one or both of these workouts on week 4-5 of the cycle.

if you are interested in squatting more than two times a week, you might try one of these programs. this type of training has produced good results here in wichita falls.




"Most athletes do too many exercises. Many times they look over other peoples programs like they are at a buffet. They pick a little of this and a little of that from a variety of programs, and end up with something useless. People think you have to train each muscle with a different specific exercise. Many guys in college athletics would do better if they would just randomly slash off half of what they are doing, and then work twice as hard on the half that is left."

"im so sick and tired of hearing people who just started training who say they cant gain weight. jeez ive heard this crap so often. every day it seems i have some stupid kid ask me about how to gain weight... in resturants, at the grocery store, yo uname it. for some reason there seems to be a sign on my back or something. usually i know its worthless to talk to them, sometimes i actually waste my time. talked to a kid at the golden corral a couple of days ago. took almost an hour when i should have been enjoying my all you can eat steak night... 3 days later i see him in the gym when i just happened to go in to talk to a friend who i knew was there... kid was there doing preacher kurls. said hi to me, then said well i talked to my friend about what you said and he said he tried it once and overtrained so i decided to do this thing i read about... on the other hand about 6 months ago i talked to this 6' tall, 150lb kid who wanted to know about getting stronger. kid had done well in judo, won some titles, also after that had done cycling, turned pro then quit a year later, quite a good road racer. he actually did what i told him i guess, about 3 months after i saw him the first time i saw hiim again, he weighed about 185... he wanted to try olympic weightlifting so i let him train with the team i caoch. now hes weighing 204 and clean and jerking about 300lbs, 54lbs gained in 6 months. no drugs. olympic squat from 175lbs to 385lbs, front squat from 150lbs to 330lbs. hell be a good lifter, has a good work ethic. needs to be 240 and fairly lean, will compete eventually in the 231 pound class. will take about another 12-15 months i suppose. why is a kid like this the exception and not the rule? why will kids do the same old thing for years in the abscense of results, and not try anything new? what the hell is wrong with people. there is a gym in town, i know the owner so i go and talk to him sometimes, there are all these kids in there, skinny little fucks, doing kurls. they never progress, you see the same faces one year to the next, same bodies too."

A good gym has nothing to do with how nice the machines are or if they have a pool or tanning beds or even if it’s air conditioned. A good gym smells like a mix of body odor and liniment and supplies their members with a big box of chalk.

your post is correct in the fact that all types of training overlap somewhat... however, when you equate long term strength gain to hypertrophy, i think your wrong. chakarov back squats 700+ lbs, ass to the floor (and i mean WAY below what would be considered powerlifting legal) with a close stance, no knee wraps, no belt, and no spotters. he doesnt even get psyched up, he just steps under the bar and does it. ive seen him carrying on a convesation while deep in the hole with over 600lbs on his back. he weighs about 200lbs, stands about 5' 10" tall, and has thin legs... the kind of legs where regular levis 501 jeans would be loose. this is a long term adaptation to strength and power training if there ever was one. there is no bodybuilder, no matter how big their legs, who can squat with him. training for neural adaptation, and SELECTIVE hypertrophy is indeed different in its effects than general hypertrophy training, in both the short and long term.




Pendlay's 5X5:

---5X5---
Monday: Squats, Benching, Rows
Weds: Squats, Military Presses, Deadlifts, Chins
Friday: Squats, Benching, Rows

Courtesy of bill starr bill starr, the greatest strength caoch who ever lived, popularized this in the 70's with his great book, The Strongest Shall Survive, which was aimed at strength training for football. I believe he had essentually two different programs which both are 5 sets of 5. The first, which is more suitable for beginners, is to simply do 5 sets of 5 with similar weight jumps between each set so that your last set is your top weight. When you get all 5 on the last set, bump all your weights up 5 or 10lbs. Example for squat... 185 for 5, 225 for 5, 275 for 5, 315 for 5, 365 for 5. If you get 365 for 5, move all weights up. This is especially good for someone who is just learning a particular exercise like the squat, because the amount of practice with light but increasing weights is a good way to practice form.

For more advanced lifters, he advocated a warmup, then 5 sets of 5 with a set weight. For example, the same athlete used in the other example may do 135 for 5, 185 for 5, 225 for 3, 275 for 2, 315 for 1, then 350 for 5 sets of 5. When successfull with all 25 reps at 350lbs, bump the weight up the next workout by 5 or 10lbs.

This is not outdated, and is a good program for gaining strength. Many elite athletes still use it during at least part of the year. I in fact do 5 sets of 5 on squatting for 4 weeks as part of an 8 or 10 week training cycle. Personally, i do it 3 times a week, but most people will probably make better progress doing it 2 times per week, or even doing version 1 once a week, and version 2 once a week.

In any event i described a system in a post a while back that goes something like this:
Monday use the heaviest weight you can for all 5 sets (same weight each set)---- in other words when you get all 5 sets of 5 reps up the weight (most workouts you will get 3 or 4 sets of 5- and maybe your last one will be for 3 or 4 reps)

Wednesday use 10-20% less weight- in other words if you used 200lbs on monday use 160-180lbs on wednesday- actual amount depending on your recovery

Friday work up to a max set of 5-

In other words lets say that your best ever set of 5 is 215lbs and you used 200lbs on monday for 5 sets and 170lbs on wednesday. On friday your workout might be like this 95 for 5 135 for 5 175 for 5 200 for 5 then attempt 220 for your last set of 5.

This tends to work better as a long term program than doing the same thing 3 times a week. On exercises where you only do them once a week like deadlift you can just do the 5 sets of 5 like i described. On monday on exercises that you are only doing twice (rows) you could do both exercises like the monday workout or lighten one of them depending on your recovery ability. Be conservative with the weight when you start- that is important.

Also i have used this program VERY often with athletes and it IS result producing. However many of your gains will show up after you use it for 4-6 weeks and you switch to training a bit less frequently and lower the reps and volume. However this is one program i have had a LOT of success with. In fact i rarely if ever use it with athletes who are at the top of their weight class because it causes too much weight gain unless you severely restrict your food.




8 WEEK SQUAT PROGRAM

ok here it is, i had a hard time finding it, my dorm room is a mess (i printed it) i think this is the one your looking for, "i do squats only. however i also do alot of other pulling motions off the floor, and these also work the legs. as far as squats monday 5 sets of five with a set weight wendsday, 5 sets of five with a weight that is 10-15% less than monday friday, work up with sets of five, going for your best set of five heres an example of how we do this...


lets say a person has a previous best of 5 sets of five weight with 300lbs, and has done one set of five with 325lbs for this person i may start with mondays weight of 285lbs, wendsdays weight of 255lbs, and on friday work up to a set of five with 310lbs, however if this person never trained this way before i would be much more conservative, more on that later then make small jumps each week, maybe week 2 use 295, 260, and 320 for the three workouts, week three use maybe 305, 265, and 330...and so on.

however keep this in mind, if on monday you cannot do all five sets of five keep the weight the same the next week, and on friday if you fail on a weight you choose keep the weight the same the next week

now, heres a few more hints, if you are not use to this sort of training and know you are gonna be sore as hell the first couple weeks, simply start more conservatively with the weight. if you are use to this sort of training, you can be a bit more agrressive from the start.

also as the weeks go by, dont increase wensdays workout as much as the other two. also some people are able to handle a heavier wensday workout than others. i have had athletes who have reacted best if wensdays workout was only 5% less than mondays weight. i have seen others who needed 25% reduction, however the average seems to be 10-15%, maybe if your new to this training start with 25% reduction then next time try 10-15% reduction.

with people new to this program i usually use it for 6-7 weeks, because we start more conservatively and it takes longer to get the benefits. with people who have done it before i generally go with 4 weeks at a time and go with setting records on monday and friday of week 3, week 4 is to try even more weight if week 3 was succesful, if it wasnt, then try record weights again. after this routine is over, we drop the frequency to about two workouts a week or even a bit less , and drop volume usually to 3 sets of 3.

the first week, we use the same weight as on the last monday of the 5 sets of five workout. this helps with recuperation. then, as in before we add weight each workout, this time aiming to break records on the fourth or fifth 3 sets of 3 workout.

sometimes we cycle on down to 1 set of three for two or three workouts, other times we have an offloading week then start with the five sets of five again.

i proably left some things out, i always seem to. however, although there are other programs that i am sure are effective, i have used alot of leg training programs and this one i know works, i have used this routine on probably over 100 athletes with success all around. it is not unusual for an athlete to increase their leg strength 100lbs in the full squat in the first six months i work with them.

now i know of other people who have tried this program on my recomendation in the track and field world, and not have the success i have had. however they always make the same mistakes, either starting on week one with max weights and not taking a week or two or even three to work up to max weights, OR, they start in on the 3 sets of 3 with too heavy a weight... you have to adjust the volume. dont be in too much of a hurry.

be content to set records on week 3, not week 1. well thats about it, but if your patient and do it right, it will be effective."....wow that was a mouthful ok, that is what i was talking about, although in that post i didnt explain a couple of things that i would like to now.





as you see from reading that, were talking about 4-6 weeks basically of a prep phase, and 3-5 weeks of a peaking phase, so its not really an 8 week program all the time. every time i write this program out, its a bit different, thats because its not a set in stone thing, but an example of a training philosophy... and it can and is altered in the details for individuals. however, there is one important point concerning what can be altered and still get the desired effects.

during the initial phase where 5 sets of 5 are used, you must stick to the written workout frequency and volume. no matter what, do the required sets 3 times a week. if you feel like your really dieing, then cut the weight back. but in the initial portion, the volume and frequency shouldnt be messed with. now, when you go to the sets of 3, you need to begin with the weight specified, and go up each workout, and you should be fairly rested each workout.

that means that you MAY be able to squat 2 times a week at this point, however you may need to squat once every 4 or 5 days, depends on the individual. also, 3 sets of 3 is a good volume for the first week of this phase, but often people react better to 2 or even one top set per workout during the second, third, or 4th weeks of this phase. during this phase, its the opposite of the first phase, he weight increases are the important thing.

take enough rest between workouts and cut the workout volume enough to assure that you are recovered enough to raise the weight. hope this clarifies a bit. the 3 day a week program i wrote was an example of a basic 3 day a week program for a relative beginner. i meant it to be done without any other assistance work except maybe abs. of course, an advanced lifter would probably not do that workout exactly as written.

as far as the "peaking" part of the squat program, i usually use this with shot-putters and athletes like that, and dont neccessarily do it with a program like the 3 day a week program, although if you were doing that and wanted to "peak" a particular exercise, it would work.

basically, if you are not going to try to peak strength, you need to be more carefull when doing the 5 sets of 5 three days a weeek, and not get the weights up so heavy that you start to overtrain... a more gradual increase in weighs is called for, and you must use a little common sense and not push so hard you need rest... when trying to peak you just push and keep pushing on the last couple of weeks of the 5 by 5... you push right to the brink ov overtraining basically, then back the volume and frequency off with the sets of 3.




DUAL FACTOR THEORY

Two Factor Theory hate to butt in here, but let me explain what i think are the important things about these theories... given the one factor theory, which looks at physical ability as, or course, one factor, you are left with the problem of timing workouts to correspond to the supercompensation wave... anything sooner or later will lead to a useless workout.

Given the two factor theory, which seperates physical fitness or prepardness and fatigue, you see that the timing of individual workouts it is unimportant to long term gains... in other words regardless of whether or not fatigue is or is not present, fitness can still be increased...

what is important to note is that there is almost universal agreement amoung scientists and athletes and caoches in all sports EXCEPT bodybuilding that the two factor theory is correct and the single factor theory is not correct and is in fact suitable only for beginners to follow when planning training.

it is also important to note that most athletes in most sports are experiencing some level of constant fatigue ALWAYS, except for maybe a couple of weekends a year, when they are peaking. training takes place daily against a backdrop of fatigue... animal, concerning the single and dual factor training theories you asked about earlier... i dont think the bodybuilding community has altogether ignored the latter... in fact i think that the HST that ******* has talked about seems to be taking advantage of this principle.

basically the most real-world and practical advice i can give you concerning the dual factor theory is this. instead of thinking of each workout as one seperate "fatigueing" session, followed by a seperate "recovery" session of a day or two of rest... begin thinking in terms of weeks. in other words, you have one, or two or even three weeks which are "fatigueing" in other words you think of this time period just the same way as some people think of one workout.

you accumulate fatigue the whole time, you never completely recover. then you have another time period of recovery. this is another one, two or three weeks in which you train with reduced frequency, volume, or intensity and allow recovery to take place.

personally i favor keeping intensity high, drastically lowering volume, and slightly lowering frequency.

in any event the overall training stress is lower. so you have say two 3 week periods which you approach like you would have approached two days, one a workout day and one a rest day.






now, of course in programming for elite athletes it gets much more complicated than thsi. you may also have a 6 month "overload" period, during which you have a series of 5 week periods each consisting of 3 weeks of hard work and 2 weeks of lower stress training. then you may have another 3 or 4 month period of "recovery" consisting of 1 week of "loading" or hard work, then 1 or 2 weeks of reduced training.

all this may be superimposed upon 3 years of slightly harder overall work, in other words slightly higher volume overall... then 1 year of slightly lower volume.

this fits into the fact that the olympics are every 4 years and athletes want to hit their highest performance at the olympics. the greeks do 3 loading weeks followed by 1 unloading week (approx 12 workouts a week during loading, and 9 workouts a week during unloading, also all weights are lowered by about 10kilos during the unloading week)... these are "loading" months, then every 4th month is an "unloading" month consisting of only 1 loading week and 3 unloading weeks. close to a big competition like the olympics... they switch to alternating weeks, 1 loading week followed by 1 unloading week.

however, to actually program sets and reps... this is very individual. what is unloading to me may be highly stressfull to you. but this is how training is programmed for the majority of athlets in sports other than BB and powerlifting. fatigue is gradually accumulated and then gradually disipated... i would encourage you or anyone else to take a look at the HST training protocol... as it is the first BB specific program i have ever seen that seems to be set up on these principles. people doing it seem to be making gains, so i assume it is the correct volume for a majority of bbers... of course individual adjustment is usually required with programs like this.

personally... when adjusting volume for individuals i am lucky in that i can use testosterone/cortisol ratios from weekly blood draws and also glutamine/glutamate ratios to assist in determining the stress level of the training for an individual athlete. this allows me to be pretty precise in loading an athlete to his limit without crossing the line into real overtraining... then determining the correct volume of training for the unloading period so that recovry takes place without any detraining.

unfortunately i doubt any of you have the rescources to do this or the expertise to interpret the data correctly if you did have access to it. HOWEVER... i do have some "rule of thumb" guidlines... during loading, if you are capable of setting personal records... your not loading hard enough. on the other hand, if performance falls below 85% for more than one or two workouts in a row... then you need to lighten the load.

the length of the loading period is also individual. start with one week to 10 days... after youve gone through a couple of cycles experiment with 2 and 3 week loading periods. very few people can handle a 3 week loading period. i know i cant. howeer the bulgarians and greeks do, so i know some great athletes can do it, and maybe some of you can.

as far as unloading... you should be approaching peak performance after 7-10 days of unloading... you should have peak performance somewhere between 14 and 21 days of unloading.

you dont always want to allow peak performance. you may want to follow 2 or 3 consecutive loading cycles without every allowing complete recover during unloading, if you are really advanced... however i dont recomend this for beginners to this type of training... load then unload long enough to set new personal records... allow another week or two to get good and rested then load again.

hope this helps explain how this is used in the real world... sorry but its just impossible to get into sets and reps on a specific basis... but if you copied the 8 week squat program i posted several times a while back this is an example of this type of training, and its a proven and result producing program.




INCREASING YOUR VERTICAL

Jump, Run, especially Jump not quite all correct info, hardcharger. the fact is, how much AAS will help your vertical is in large part determined by your strength deficit during a vertical jump, by this i mean the difference between the maximal force possible for you to exert isometrically in a jumping position, and the maximum amount of force you can exert at the speed of movement neccessary to actually execute a jump. steroids exert more influence on the muscular system than the neural system... so if your strength deficit is large, then the added weight of extra muscle will likely give you little or no extra jumping ability!!! now, having said that, no matter what your strength deficit in a jump is, drugs can help you jump higher, but it is even more important to train correctly for athletic events when useing drugs than when not using drugs. this is because when speed of movement is the property desired, you need to be specific because extra muscle added in areas where it is not needed will not help, it will slow you down and we all know that drugs help add muscle fast. now the first thing you must analyze when training to jump, is whether you need more maximal strength or not. if you can squat 500lbs and have a 20inch vertical, i would suggest you do not. you have plenty of strength, you are just unable to use it when jumping. if you have a 200lb squat and skinny legs and can jump 30 inches, you are probably able to use a high percentage of your available strength during a jump. and therefore, more maximal strength will be of use to you. now, no matter which catagory you fall into, you want to use the training enhancement effects of AAS to build as much jumping power as possible. this means training more for maximal strength if needed, and more for explosive power if needed. but in either case, you need to be specific. train with movements that allow quick conraction, dont heavily involve the anaerobic energy systems, and mimik the jumping motion. squats are the cornerstone of most programs... of course you want to use heavier weight if you need to build maximal strength and lighter weight done more explosively if you dont. but either way, squat. plyos... these DO NOT burn a lot of calories done correctly. they are hard on the system... they primarily work by enhancing the stretch reflex, and dont need to be done all the time. two weeks every couple of months is sufficient. bounding and agility drills... these should be done every day. all types of hopping, one leg hopping, bounding, etc. these are like low intensity plyos,a nd exert a positive influence on both the muscular and neural system.





when i train volleyball players to jump higher, i use a 8-10 week cycle, where basic strength is emphasised first... since most young female volleybell players dont have a surplus of it, and we use a couple of weeks of sets of 5 in the squat done 3 times a week with light weight just for conditioning... during this time we also do a lot of low intensity drills such as two legg jumps over hurdles... basically the first two weeks we are conditioning the body for wha twill come. weeks 3 through 5 are the primary strength weeks, squats 3 times a week for multiple sets of 2 or 3 reps. during this time we increase the intensity of the drills, going from two leg jumps and hops to one leg jumps and hops, and adding in frog jumps, but i keep the volume really low on this to allow for strength gain from the squats. weeks 6 and 7 are the high intensity plyo weeks, we do depth jumps primarily, jumping off a box onto the floor with an immediete rebound and jump. we do quite a bit of this and all other training is reduced to minimal levels. we squat once each week for low intensity, just to maintain conditioning. weeks 8 and 9 and 10 are taper weeks, the plyos are real hard and requir rest to recover from. we include a few sessions of low intensity squatting, and some low intensity drills of two legged hopping. we do just enough squats and drills to maintain strength and conditioning, were not really pushing very hard at all these weeks. at the end of week 10 we test for improvements and then do it all again, as long as there is time in the off season. as you can see, increasing vertical is more complicated than upping your squat, at least if you are already at a high level or if you want the biggest bang for your buck. you need to increase strength, teach your body to apply it at high speed, increase the strength of the stretch reflex, and then allow your body to rest from the difficult training needed to accomplish all these things. throughout all this, you need to maintain strength and conditioning even while concentrating on only one specific quality, or while resting. if you dont do this you will NOT be as successfull in subsequent cycles. through coaching many camps for several different types of athletes, at all levels, i have maintained an average increase in vertical of a bit ofver 6 inches the first time through my program, which is usually 10 weeks. i do not think this is equalled by any others in my field. i think even vermiel who is the strength caoch for the chicago bulls only gets a 3 or 4 inch increase on average in the camps he runs, so i know my approach works. i wont take the credit for it, as i largely copied it from mr verkoshansky, who used it with much success in the 70's and 80's in eastern europe. the main difference between the method i use and the method others use today is that i work harder on each individual quality needed for jumping, but i seperate them into blocks, making the work on each specific quality short and intense. most others work each quality concurently for the whole program, working everything less intensly but for a longer time.




DIFFERENT KINDS OF HYPERTROPHY

Hypertrophy: guys, i wrote this in responce to a question on the think muscle board... i thought it might be of interest to some of you here. if not, well no harm done i guess. there are basically 3 trainable factors involved in size and strength. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy... does not directly increase strength but can effect it by increasing tendon angle at the attachment. but of course increases size. sarcomere hypertrophy... increases contractile proteins in muscle thereby increasing strength directly and also size. neural effeciency... increase in the percentage of motor units that can be activated at any given time. no effect on size but increases strength. the training for each quality exists on sort of a continuim. training for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is high volume and low intensity... like 10 sets of 10 for a muscle. training for sarcomere hypertrophy is med intensity and med volume... like 5 sets of 5 for a muscle. training for increased neural effeciency is high intensity and low volume... like 5 max effort singles for a given muscle. now, each style of training effects each muscle quality, but in different quantities. for example, 10 sets of 10 will result in a high degree of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, some sarcomere hypertrophy, and little or no increase in neural effeciency. 5 sets of 5 will increase all 3 qualities, but will effect sarcomere hypertrophy the most. max effort singles will increase neural effeciency a great deal, but will have only a small effect on hypertrophy of the sarcomere, and little or no effect on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. so no matter how you train, you are likely to get both bigger and stronger... but the degree to which each quality is increased depends on the training. as you get more advanced, the picture changes somewhat. for example, if a highly trained explosive athlete, like a shot-putter, did only workouts of 10 sets of 10 for a month, he would get hypertrophy of the sarcoplasm... but likely NO hypertrophy of the sarcomere and would likely LOSE neural effeciency, simply because he was so highly trainind in this quality beforehand that 10 sets of 10 would not be sufficient stimulus to even keep what neural effeciency he had. also... for a beginner, doing multiple singles would likely lead to some size increases. but for an advanced bodybuilder it would not be sufficient stimulus to keep the sarcoplamic hypertrophy already present. now, as far as whether training for one quality helps subsequent training for another quality, the answer is yes. for instance, an athlete who is only concerned with explosive strength will still train at times with higher reps and experience some sarcoplamic hypertrophy... this "supports" later gains in sarcomere hypertrophy and neural effeciency by building work capacity (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy adds the neccessary ingredients such as cappillaries to the muscle to support high work capacity later in the training cycle, so the athlete can do a higher volume of work). also, a bodybuilder who is only concerned with size will do most of his work with volumes and intensities of training which favor hypertrophy of both the sarcomere and the sarcoplasm. but heavy work done to increase neural effeciency will also help... the ability to activate more motor units during an all out effort will make the rest of his training more result producing and effecient. as far as how to "cycle" these different types of work during a training cycle... well at almost all times during a training cycle you should do at least SOME work on each quality... if you totally neglect some portion of the muscle you will lose performance in that quality. however, you should shift your concentration of work from the least important quality for your sport over time to the most important. in other words... a bodybuilder might begin training for a contest 6 months away with more high intensity work, and gradually shift the emphasis over the months to more med. and low intensity work. a strength athlete would do the opposite. hope this helped in some way.



Pendlay ROWS

Rows: Well, the best way to do them is to start with the bar on the floor every single rep. Your middle back will have slight bend to it. You pull the bar off the floor quickly with the arms, and by a powerful arch of your middle back. You finish by touching the bar to your upper stomach or middle stomach. At no time is there any movement of the hips or knees, no hip extension at all, all that bends is the middle back and the shoulders and elbows.

This is hard to do and you have to have good muscular control to do it, or you'll end up straightening up at the hips along with the arching of the back. But if you can master doing them this way you will get a big back. This works because the lats actually extend (arch) the middle back in addition to other functions, just like with glute-ham extensions compared to leg kurls…you always get a stronger contraction when you move both the origin and insertion of a muscle, flexing it from both ends so to speak.

The bar returns to the floor after each rep. The bent row is actually best done as an explosive movement and the bar is moved fast. I have trained many people who could do this exercise with 350 or more lbs. I myself have done reps with 425, Ed Coan, who also knows how to do them properly, has done reps with over 500lbs without his back ever coming above parallel with the ground. That is stronger than Dorian Yates or Ronnie Coleman, by the way.

I did rows with Coleman once, actually, and I was far stronger than he was. He could not do more than 350lbs strictly although he could do over 500lbs by standing almost all the way up at the completion of each rep. Ed Coan is probably the strongest person on these, although one power-lifter I trained did manage 525 for a double done strictly.

Rows look at an anatomy chart. if the scapula and upper arms are held in a constant position, shortening of the lats WILL result in arching of the middle and upper back. i AM NOT saying that the lats are primarily responsible for upper back flexion... what i am saying is that they can assist in this.

i also HAVE done EMG work on various different rowing techniques... and there is not doubt that rows performed as i describe them will activate the lats more completely than done any other way i have ever seen. i have done EMG work on a large quantity of people for rows... and ive always found that these kind of rows activate the lats most completely. and besides, even if you dont buy the fact that they activate the lats better, hell, you can always be content with the fact that your getting an erector workout.

HEAVY VS. LIGHT

Heavy vs. Light this is a common observation... but the intensity you use while training doesnt change the muscle "shape", however, people who do heavy, multijoint exercises like deadlifts, squats, rows, etc, build the muscles that make you seem thick, like the abdominal muscles, the spinal erectors and the middle and upper back, the glutes, hamstrings, etc. people who do mostly isolation exercises and dont go heavy enough to really challenge the bodies core or the stabilizer muscles usually have bigger arms, chest, quads, but lack the development in the other muscles in the body.

in my mind, the way to tell if a guy has trained hard is to look at their spinal erectors. its impossible to do the "big" exercises for years without developing big, strong erectors. i know this may be a little different than most people, but i think guys who have big pecs and arms, but have NO spinal erectors, no abdominal hypertrophy, big quads but flat hamstrings, wide shoulders but no tarps, etc, just look stupid. i just plain dont like that look. a big pair of legs ought to have a lot of adductor mass, big hamstrings, etc. a wide back ought to have big tarps and big erectors. it just doesnt look right if you dont have complete development.

i hate to shamelessly plug the owner of this board, but there is a pic of him. now im not a BBer and ill admit i would not train for that look. and i will also say that he s not a really, really massive guy. however, i think that he looks like what a BBer ought to look like, at least from what i could see from the front. unlike a lot of "recreational" bodybuilders you see, his thighs arent all quads, hes got a lot of adductor mass, and i bet hes got hamstrings to since i doubt he got those adductors without squatting and deadlifting correctly.

if you look at his upper body, he doesnt just have big "pecs" out of proportion to everything else like a lot of guys who do more benching than everything else put together, the guys got tarps, shoulders, etc, all his muscles are proportional to each other. i dont know what he looks like from the back, but i bet hes got good erectors and back thickness since i doubt he got tarps like that without doing deadlifts and rows. overall, the guy looks really good and proportional, like i would envision what a BBer ought to look like.

of course, i will admit, that when i see a guy like *******, who obviously has done a few squats, has strong legs, has obvioulsy done a lot of pulling like deadlifts and rowing etc., looks pretty athletic, is that its just such a damn shame that hes into BBing, cause i bet hed make a great olympic lifter or discus thrower or something like that! if i ever meet *******, i guarantee you ill try to teach him to snatch! oh well, just another potential champion lifter lost to the dark side!




1. heard all the ruckus about IP stuff and infection... heard it before about mexican gear. ive used all the mexican gear, recently used some IP cyp and prop/suspension blend. no infection ever, no horror stories. recent IP use was just as it came to me, no heating or filtering, just opened the package, rubbed the top with alchohol, and shot it. minimal pain, minimal lump in my ass, no problems. the prop did sting a little, but hell it hurt less than some lifts do in the gym, so who gives a rats ass?

2. know a "buddy" thats been doing the HST thing, big strength gains and about 15lbs of weight gain after a 6 week cycle. no drugs. all you guys who havnt tried this ought to at least read about it and consider the fact that it does seem to work for a lot of people.

3. im so sick and tired of hearing people who just started training who say they cant gain weight. jeez ive heard this crap so often. every day it seems i have some stupid kid ask me about how to gain weight... in resturants, at the grocery store, yo uname it. for some reason there seems to be a sign on my back or something. usually i know its worthless to talk to them, sometimes i actually waste my time. talked to a kid at the golden corral a couple of days ago. took almost an hour when i should have been enjoying my all you can eat steak night... 3 days later i see him in the gym when i just happened to go in to talk to a friend who i knew was there... kid was there doing preacher kurls. said hi to me, then said well i talked to my friend about what you said and he said he tried it once and overtrained so i decided to do this thing i read about... on the other hand about 6 months ago i talked to this 6' tall, 150lb kid who wanted to know about getting stronger. kid had done well in judo, won some titles, also after that had done cycling, turned pro then quit a year later, quite a good road racer. he actually did what i told him i guess, about 3 months after i saw him the first time i saw hiim again, he weighed about 185... he wanted to try olympic weightlifting so i let him train with the team i caoch. now hes weighing 204 and clean and jerking about 300lbs, 54lbs gained in 6 months. no drugs. olympic squat from 175lbs to 385lbs, front squat from 150lbs to 330lbs. hell be a good lifter, has a good work ethic. needs to be 240 and fairly lean, will compete eventually in the 231 pound class. will take about another 12-15 months i suppose. why is a kid like this the exception and not the rule? why will kids do the same old thing for years in the abscense of results, and not try anything new? what the hell is wrong with people. there is a gym in town, i know the owner so i go and talk to him sometimes, there are all these kids in there, skinny little fucks, doing kurls. they never progress, you see the same faces one year to the next, same bodies too. my biggest problem has always been keeping the weight of my lifters down. i usually know what weight class they should be in based on height and build... we get them there then they are always dieting to keep weight down! i have a 77kilo kid (169) who will be on the pan-american team this year if he can keep his weight under control. when he started he was 145lbs. now hes a real solid 180, abs like crazy at 180lbs. he cuts weight like crazy to get to 169... thatys always the problem, keeping weight under control. oh well, guess im done ranting about that. stupid people. who needs them.

4. i constantly hear about people crashing after a cycle. i often cant use clomid after cycle, because of drug testing. ive been off for i guess about 12 weeks... actually just started new cycle yesterday. anyway, at end of last cycle i finally got to 370lbs, now im 355. after 12 years of HARD training i was 330, so id guess im definately over my natural limit. but i really dont "crash"... i feel good coming off even with no clomid, maintain strength, and after the initial loss of about 10lbs of water, i maintain weight pretty well. i think this is because of training style. i really do. ive disussed this with many of you privately. the more people i talk to who use drugs, both who train similarly to me and who dont, the more i see a trend.

5. i know ill start a can of worms with this, but i recently did testing for a collegiate basketball team, including vertical testing. two highest verticals on the team were 33" and 32". yet everyone on the internet can jump 40". why is that? 6. ill brag here a little. one of the cyclists i train is quickly approaching the worlds best. hes about #5 in the world right now in one event... he squats 300lbs for 50 reps to a depth that can best be described as ending with the knees in the armpits. hes not that big a guy, either. there were some workouts where he was on the platform squatting, with 5 or 6 weightlifters around him. hed get maybe 25 reps, dump the bar. two guys would pick it up and put it back on his back in about 5 seconds. hed want to quit. but hed have 5 guys screaming in his face, calling him a puss, challenging him. hed get maybe two more reps, dump the bar again. again we would pick it up, put it back on him. this would go on and on. he puke. we would all step back to avoid stepping in it and slipping. we would put the bar back on him. hed get one more. this went on and on. now he says he envisions that when at the end of a race. hes got a contract with a big pro team and is making good money. guess it shows that hard work pays off.

6. i hear a bit about drinking beer on cycle. i drink about 2 beers every night. all relevent values normal. i do normally use dbol on about every other cycle, others are test only. even with dbol and 2 beers a day, no abnormal values on blood tests. draw your own conclusions... not everyones the same but i think if you keep it under control, have a beer or two. if your trying to build muscle, you shouldnt be drinking a 12 pack anyway.

7. everyone always has stories about fights, which leaves me feeling left out, cause im a boring guy. but a week ago i did go and get drunk at a bar, first time in years. didnt get into a fight, but i did break one up. i guess im still boring. bouncers didnt want them to fight, but in my drunken state i figured if they wanted to have at it, then it was their right to do so... so i took them outside, let them fight till one was on the ground, then made them both go home. quite funny now that i think about it. my friends think i should be a bouncer for extra money, but who needs the headaches? well, talk to you all later.




FOOD

ive got no superior knowledge on the subject, but i noticed in the original post somewhere he said he took in 300g of protein, not many carbs, and only 10% fat. and ate 3500 or 4500 cals. not possible. 300grams of protein is 1200 calories. hes either eating way more carbs or fat than he thinks.

what i have my athletes who are in strength-power sports eat is milk, meat, some other protein sources if wanted, and lots of vegatables... some fruit but not a lot and breads/pastas kept to a bare minimum. add in more starches when you want to gain weight, cut them back when you want to lose.

a good meal is this... go to walmart and buy the big economy bag of chopped mixed vegatbles. then buy some chicken breasts and lean cuts of beef or lamb or other meats you like. cut one or two different kinds of meat into little chunks. cook in olive oil till just about done... if using chicken put it in first so its well done first and everything else is lightly cooked.steam the vegatables, use some spices, ginger actually is nice. stir it all together and cook it a bit in the olive oil (just briefly, just a bit of olive oil). now you can fix this in about 15 or so minutes. you can fix enough for 4 or 5 meals at one time if you have the right size equipmenmt in your kitchen. this is what i recomend for those wanting to gain strength without gaining a bunch of fat.

i dont like eating out of a blender. eat meat, enough for the protein you need. fill up on vegatebles. save the starches for special occasions, eat apples or something like that for snacks. eat about 4 meals a day with meat and vegatebles. eat a couple of snacks, a piece of cheese and an apple is a good snack, a glass of milk and an orange is a good snack.

by the way, my wife is a registered dietician, and also a national record holder in powerlifting, and shes a good enough discuss thrower that still at age 32 she could walk on to just about any college program in the US and get a scholarship. and she hasnt thrown seriously in years. even when not training hard, she can squat ass to ankles double bodyweight for 10 reps without a belt. so she knows about nutrition, and how it relates to athletic performance. and if you could talk to her she would also tell you that the ideal diet for most athletes is meat and vegatbles mainly, with enough starches thrown in to maintain weight or gain weight if needed.

i know that most of you eat out of a blender half the time, but damn it food is good. i look forward to eating if its good food... and i dont care how engineered anything is, its not the same as real food, yes the protein is there, the calories are there, but you dont get as complete nutrition from a can or box as you do from real food. eating good food, nutrition rich food is healthy. and healthy people do better in the weight room. and if you ever have the chance try mongolian food, do it. geez that stuff is good.



INTENSITY

intensity one thing i have noticed over the years is that some lifters need much more emotional arousal to lift top weights than others. i have also noticed that it is the emotional arousal itself, not the lifts, that brings on fatigue, and possibly overtraining. consider this. in lifters who can lift 95-100% weights without getting "psyched up", there is usually the ability to lift these top weights very often, sometimes daily, without undue fatigue. however, with lifters who need considerable emotional arousal to lift these weights, they CANNOT be lifted often, certainly not more than once a week. this obviously leads one to the conclusion that the emotional arousal itself, not the weights lifted, is the mechanism leading to fatigue. before anyone flys off the handle, ill admit that one can overtrain without getting psyched up if they try, and the physical stress of lifting obviously plays a part, i am only saying that the EMOTIONAL arousal plays a bigger part than most would consider. now, i consider it a truism that it is not sensible to let your ability to lift with or without emotional arousal determine your lifting frequency or volume. in other words, psyching yourself out of your mind every time you squat to get your best possible poundage, then simply accepting the fact that you can only squat once every 10 days is not sensible. personally, i limit pssyching up in training. true, i support a businesslike atmosphere, and yell and scream at liftes daily. but i DO NOT let lifters pace for 3 minutes working themselves into a frenzy before a lift. just go up to the bar and lift it is in my opinion the best training strategy. what does this have to do with all of you? well i know that some of you feel unable to train very often. i know that "overtraining", loss of motivation, etc, are subjects discussed somewhat regularly on this board and by lifters everywhere. my suggestion if you have experienced this or are experiencing it, is to not only look at your workouts, but look at your attitudes and arousal during your workouts. try to do 2 or 3 weeks of training where you DO NOT psych yourself up prior to sets. you may find several things. you might find that you just plain feel better out of the gym, not so "drained" and tired as usuall. you might find that you are able to handle more training volume. and finally, you will almost surely find that in time you will increase your ability to lift heavy weithts without psyching yourself up, it is in fact a learned ability. and when this happens, youll find you have the best of both worlds, youll be lifting as heavy as possible, without draining yourself emoutionally. youll feel better, youll lift better and be albe to lift more and more often... and youll find that your mental state in everyday life is just plain better. and finally, PLAN your all out, crazy, psyche up and frothing at the mouth workouts. itll be a pleasant change of pace every couple of weeks! itll be something to look forward to, not just the daily grind