The 7 Best Strength Exercises You Don’t Do

Getting stronger requires more than just adding plates to the same three lifts. It requires some actual thought when it comes to exercise selection. Here are the seven most strategic lifts you’re probably not doing. We’ll go over what they target and how they’ll make you stronger on the big three. 1 – Belt Squat Targeted Muscles: Quads How It Helps: If your hips shoot up and your chest falls forward during the squat, this can help prevent that. Strength development occurs primarily as a result of neural adaptations (1). Heavy-load resistance training produces greater strength gains when compared to low-load resistance training (2). Unfortunately, training at high intensities generates significant fatigue which can become an obstacle and even lead to overreaching if left unchecked (3). When we look at primary exercises where the lower body plays a major role, like the deadlift and squat, a significant contributor to fatigue is axial loading (4). Axial loading is where your spine is under a compressive load such as a barbell squat. However, the belt squat allows you to bypass axial loading. This makes it an excellent exercise for developing strength because you can maintain high intensities without generating nearly as much fatigue when compared to a barbell squat. 2 – Floor Press Targeted Muscles: Chest, shoulders, triceps How It Helps: Ever get stuck at the midpoint of the bench press? This’ll help with that. The sticking point on the barbell bench press for most lifters occurs at the midway point (about 6-8 inches off the chest). It’s a common problem. During the typical powerlifting setup, your back is arched and you use leg drive, which generates an impulse force to rapidly develop momentum to initiate the lift. This is great in competition where you need to use every advantage, but in training we can eliminate these benefits strategically to improve bench press performance. The floor press forces you to remain flat and doesn’t allow for leg drive. And since the bottom end of the floor press and the sticking point of your competition bench press are generally the same, you can train your sticking point directly while simultaneously increasing your raw strength. 3 – Reverse Hyper Targeted Muscles: Low back, hamstrings, glutes How It Helps: Guilty of rounding the low back during deadlifts? These have your back. The reverse hyper was introduced by Louie Simmons. It’s gained popularity, but there are still a surprising number of people who are unaware of this exercise. Strength athletes generally train movements to build strength, not muscles. But this can become a limiting factor. For example, if an athlete’s quads can generate 600 pounds of force but his or her low back can only brace 400 pounds, the rate-limiting factor is the low back. This is where adopting more of a bodybuilding approach can be highly beneficial to specific athletes. The reverse hyper directly trains your glutes and hamstrings but primarily targets your low back (5). Training your low back can improve your ability to brace during heavy squats and deadlifts. An additional upside is that the exercise has a low fatigue cost and actually has restorative properties due to the decompression that occurs during the movement (5). 4 – Safety Squat Bar (SSB) Squat Targeted Muscles: Quads and core How It Helps: Hips shooting up during the squat? Chest falling forward? Here’s an exercise that’ll help prevent it. This is an effective variation of the low-bar squat. A common error many lifters make is the chest-fall pattern: their hips shoot up and their chests fall forward as they stand up with the weight. It almost looks like a good morning. This is most often associated with weak quads. But a SSB squat distributes load differently than a traditional low-bar squat which alters the torque requirements. Because of your upright position, the SSB squat requires more torque from the knees compared to a standard low-bar squat (6). So this exercise puts you into a more quad-dominant movement pattern to preferentially train your deficiency. Because you can’t grip the bar as you normally do, your upper back isn’t as tight, so this exercise also increases your upper back and core strength. 5 – Band Pressdown Targeted Muscles: Triceps How It Helps: This is another preventative exercise for those whose bench press gets stuck at the midpoint. Supplementary work for strength development is often written off because it’s not specific. Big mistake. Increasing your muscle fibers’ cross sectional area directly relates to increased force production (7). And since the triceps play an important role in the bench press, they often require additional work. To understand the benefits of the band pressdown over other triceps exercises, we need to understand torque. Torque is a twisting force that tends to cause rotation (8). This diagram shows the action of a triceps pressdown. The linear force (the external load of the cable
Origin: The 7 Best Strength Exercises You Don’t Do

Tip: The Weirdest-Looking Hamstring Exercise

This exercise is relatively simple, but deceptively difficult for many. If you’ve got good hamstrings then these shouldn’t be a challenge. If your hamstrings or gastrocnemius (the big meaty part of your calf) are a little out of condition though, cramping is common. Dumbbell Hamstring Walk Keep your feet as narrow as possible on the dumbbell and point your toes. Having your feet close together will stop the dumbbell from steering off in one direction. You can also use a foam roller. By plantar-flexing your ankles (like a ballerina) you’ll create a co-contraction of your calves and hamstrings. This co-contraction increases activation of the hamstrings. The active insufficiency of the gastrocnemius muscle causes your hamstrings to work harder. Don’t believe it? Just try any ham curl machine with a plantar-flexed position and note the difference. Walk the dumbbell up to the point just before you lose hamstring tension. You’ll know when. You can even palpate your hamstrings during to check engagement. Walk it back down as far as you can, getting as long as you can with toes pointed. That’s one rep of probably around 6-10 steps. Go for 3-5 full reps and don’t let off the tension. Add reps over time, or try it with a bar across your hips for some extra
Origin: Tip: The Weirdest-Looking Hamstring Exercise

Tip: How to Test & Improve Overhead Flexibility

Pain and injury from shoulder pressing are generally caused by not having the requisite flexibility to do the movement safely, such as: Limited shoulder flexion. This causes you to press the weight too far forward, or to have an arch in your lower back to compensate. Limited thoracic/upper back mobility. This restricts scapula movement, again causing the barbell to travel forward. One shoulder has more mobility than the other. This can cause anything from a subtle imbalance to a major twist during pressing. Assess and Fix It One of the most effective ways to test the flexibility required for an overhead press is with this lat stretch variation. Not only does it tell us a lot about our overhead mobility, it’s also one of the most effective ways to achieve a better position. We want to see a straight line through the hands, elbows, and shoulders that continues down the spine when the ribs are tucked down and the abs are engaged. This shouldn’t be uncomfortable and there should be no nipping sensation in either shoulder. Video yourself while you do the test and watch your back to assess your mobility. Here are a few things to look out for: The arms not being in line with the spine: This means limited shoulder flexion. It will hinder your ability to do all overhead movements. An arch in the lower back: This is a common compensation and can make your overhead presses look more like an incline bench press. Generally, this will come down to a bad habit or a lack of thoracic mobility. One arm lower than the other: This indicates that one shoulder is too tight or overused, OR one shoulder has been over-stretched and made too mobile. This is very common for people with past injuries that have gone too far with self-massage. You can now use the assessment exercise as a drill to help fix the problem! Using very light fractional plates, go back into the same position with your arms above your head until you feel a stretch, then maintain it (but don’t force it). If you can manage 30 seconds, that’s great. It’s okay if you need to break sooner; the more you practice the drill the easier it’ll get. Aim for 3-5 sets for 30 seconds at a time. Over the 30 seconds, your shoulders will fatigue, relax, and start to give up that extra range. It’s important to do some light barbell presses right after this drill. Once you’ve created new range it’s more likely to “stay” if you then strengthen it. However, if you know you’re really far off from a good overhead position, just stretching for now is fine. If one shoulder happens to be lower or higher than the other, you need to even those up during this exercise or you could make the problem worse. Ideally, have someone with you to tell you when your shoulders are wonky or uneven. If you have one shoulder that’s too high it might take a while to loosen up, but you can try adjusting your shoulder position to see if that helps. If you have one shoulder that’s too loose, you need to actively lift it up to the straight position and try to maintain it to build stability. For the drill, aim for 10 reps for 3-5 sets. If you find this really challenging, then definitely practice and don’t forget to integrate it into your overhead press afterwards. As with any good mobility drill, once you can do this well and not find it challenging, the frequency you need to use it will dramatically decrease. When your arms are even – with no compensations – then a quick run-through once a month is more than enough. Don’t settle for having bad shoulder flexibility. Take the time to fix it, then you can enjoy your training knowing you have the best possible
Origin: Tip: How to Test & Improve Overhead Flexibility

Boost Testosterone, Control Estrogen – Naturally

Polyphenol Power The World Health Organization (WHO) figures that in any given year, around 50% of the premature deaths that occur are because of non-communicable diseases, with about 75% of those deaths directly attributable to cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and respiratory illness. Any way you look at it, that’s a whole lot of premature death, especially when the WHO (and just about anybody else with an IQ that has a fightin’ chance of hitting 3 digits) says we could take a large chunk out of that percentage by just eating more fruits and vegetables. If you’re like most people, your assumption is that these life-extending benefits of fruits and vegetables could be directly attributable to all the vitamins and minerals they contain. You’d be right… kind of. The thing is, these vitamins and minerals are generally pretty “easy” to get in modern societies, at least in the wealthier ones. They’re in all kinds of foods – not just fruits and vegetables – and a lot of our processed foods are fortified with those workhorse nutrients. What isn’t as easy to get, and what’s completely lacking in 90% of processed foods, fortified or not, is the class of substances known as polyphenols, which are a large subclass of phytochemicals present in fruits and vegetables that confer all kinds of health benefits to us. So if eating more fruits and vegetables is going to reduce the percentage of unnecessary deaths in the world by non-communicable diseases, it’ll be largely because of these polyphenols, the nutritional depths of which we’re only just beginning to explore. While the science of polyphenols in general is still in its infancy, there are a few individual polyphenols that have bushels of research on them, perhaps none more than resveratrol, a polyphenol found chiefly in the skin of grapes, red wine, and berries. In addition to having several health-enhancing attributes, resveratrol also has several physique-enhancing abilities, including the ability to lower estrogen levels while increasing testosterone levels. A Really Versatile Substance Here are a few of the things science has discovered about resveratrol: 1. Resveratrol increases testosterone levels. A Korean study found that the polyphenol increases levels of testosterone, along with improving sperm quality and motility. 2. Resveratrol acts as a potent estrogen antagonist (while also acting as an agonist in some tissues, similar to the drugs clomiphene and tamoxifen). In higher concentrations, resveratrol even acts as an aromatase inhibitor. That means it stops the male body from whittling away at testosterone levels. By parking its molecular body in estrogen’s receptor sites, the substance blocks estrogen and even environmental estrogens (xenoestrogens) from initiating certain types of transcription, an example of which would be the growth of male breasts. 3. Resveratrol improves blood vessel flow. It probably does this by modulating levels of NO (nitric oxide), which causes blood vessels to relax (which is also how many erectile dysfunction drugs work). 4. Resveratrol mimics calorie-restriction diets. You’ve no doubt read about how reducing your calorie intake to that of a squirrel on Weight Watchers has been theorized to delay aging. Well, the mechanism behind that aging-delay has to do with a protein called Sirtuin-1, whose job it is to promote efficient energy utilization. Cut calories and Sirtuin-1 levels go up and you live longer. Resveratrol has this same effect on Sirtuin-1 without cutting calories and has been shown in laboratory studies to extend the lifespan of several different species. 5. Resveratrol grows bigger muscles. One study has shown that resveratrol makes muscle fibers grow longer and thicker. The researchers, in their conclusions, wrote that “…resveratrol could control proliferation, start the myogenic process, and induce hypertrophy.” 6. Resveratrol improves insulin sensitivity and glucose disposal. Resveratrol lowers blood sugar in both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics, increases glucose transport, improves insulin sensitivity, and protects pancreatic cells against inflammation. 7. Resveratrol puts the kibosh on cardiovascular disease. A number of studies have shown resveratrol to be anti-atherosclerotic, anti-hypertensive, anti-myocardial ischemia, anti-stroke, and anti-heart failure in general. It does all these things by increasing the bioavailability of nitric oxide (NO), positively affecting cholesterol and lipid profiles, reducing C-reactive protein, and acting as a powerful anti-inflammatory. 8. Resveratrol stymies Alzheimer’s. One of the things that contributes to Alzheimer’s is an excessive production of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), and resveratrol has been shown to weaken the damage from ROS, in addition to having anti-amyloidogenic properties (i.e., helping prevent the plaques that are a hallmark of the disease). 9. Resveratrol hates cancer. Resveratrol has been shown to inhibit cancer cell growth and
Origin: Boost Testosterone, Control Estrogen – Naturally

Tip: Realistic Gains After 40

Progress After 40 for Advanced Lifters How much muscle can a natural, advanced lifter build in his 40s? Well, I’d love to tell you that an advanced lifter in his 40s can keep building tons of muscle… in part because I’m over 40 too. But it’d be a lie. It’s not even an age thing (although that plays a role), but a matter of training experience and adaptation. To me, “advanced lifter” means at least 15 years of hard training. That means you’ve gained quite a few pounds of muscle already. The human body has a limited capacity to build and keep muscle naturally. This is largely dependent on our genetics. The ACTN3 genotype, myostatin levels, body structure, and many more factors come into play. We don’t fully understand all the factors yet, but the fact is that the average human male can add 30-40 pounds of muscle above what his normal adult weight would be over the course of his training career. Of course, using anabolics will bypass many of the limiting factors that prevent a natural from growing to Mr. Olympia size. I’m also talking about pure muscle weight. With those 30-40 pounds you’d likely add some extra pounds in the form of glycogen, water, and collagen. Not to mention that you could add some fat and still look great. You might add 50-60 pounds of scale weight over your career, but only 30-40 pounds of that weight would be muscle. The closer you are to reaching those 30-40 pounds, the slower and harder your gains will be. So let’s take a 40-year old man who’s at a normal adult weight who would be around 175 pounds without lifting. And let’s say, after 15 years of training, he’s now 210 pounds with a similar or better body fat percentage. By lifting for all those years, he added around 30-35 pounds of muscle to his frame. Realistically, he can now hope to add 5-10 pounds of muscle at most. If a second 40-year-old man gained only 10 pounds over the course of his training career (because he hasn’t been training hard and smart consistently), he has the potential to gain more muscle than the first guy if he trains the right way. Why is the more dedicated and experienced lifter going to have a harder time building a lot of new muscle? First because of adaptation. His body is well adapted to lifting. It’s very hard at that point for training to represent a stress. If the training is no longer a stress, the body won’t change because extra muscle isn’t needed to do the work. If you want to increase the training stress you need to: Lift more weight or… Do more volume or… Push your sets harder But there’s the catch-22. All three of these things can jack up cortisol and might stop progression. Furthermore, you can’t always push them up. There will be a point where it’s hard to add 5 pounds per 6-8 weeks on a lift. And if you already train to failure or close to it, there isn’t much room to increase there either. And adding volume – especially in older lifters – is one of the best ways to halt progress. It’s also not very practical for the real world. A normal human being with a job and family can’t spend 2-3 hours in the gym every day. An advanced lifter needs an extremely high training stress to keep progressing, but doing just that might actually do more harm than good. Also, as you get older your physiology changes, and not for the best when it comes to building muscle: Testosterone levels tend to decrease. Growth hormone and IGF-1 can decrease. Stem cells decrease due to a lower IGF-1 level. Stem cells are required to repair muscle damage. Fewer stem cells means that you don’t repair and build muscle as easily. Your body likely has more chronic systemic inflammation. This can significantly decrease your capacity to build muscle (among other things) in part because it reduces insulin sensitivity. You lose nerve cells and have atrophy in others. This will decrease strength. And if strength goes down, it can be harder to maintain, much less add, more muscle tissue. The muscle tissue is adapted to a certain level of loading. If your nerves no longer allow you to produce as much force, the lower level of muscle tension produced when training might not be enough to fully stimulate growth. Finally, as you’re getting older, life tends to take over. If you have a full-time job and a family, you have a lot more stress. That can also impact your capacity to progress. Now The Good News Don’t stop trying to improve because it’s possible to surprise yourself and achieve more than you thought. I got into my best shape at 41 and I’m still able to improve a bit. Here are a few guidelines that tend to help older lifters keep making progress: 1. Don’t always train hard. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but periods of maintenance training can help re-sensitize your body to training. Call it “strategic deconditioning” if you want. For 3-5 weeks, do the minimum necessary to avoid losing muscle. If you’re a dedicated lifter, that’s going to be much less than you think. Do less volume, don’t push your sets
Origin: Tip: Realistic Gains After 40

Tip: The 6-12-25 Protocol for Biceps

Back in 2005, Charles Poliquin popularized something called “lactic acid training” with his German Body Composition programs. The basic idea was to train in a way that produced lactate, which in turn increased growth hormone to boost fat loss and protect muscle mass. The more advanced rep scheme involved doing 6, 12, and 25 reps with short rest periods between exercises. Yeah, it burned. Lactate is commonly associated with that local burning sensation in the muscles, but “lactate burn” is a misnomer. In reality, lactate actually consumes those H+ ions associated with the burn. All that aside, we can use some of the same set and rep scheme in German Body Composition to attack a weak or underdeveloped muscle group. Try this for lagging biceps: A. Neutral-Grip Pull-Up x 6 B. T-Bar Row (Pronated Grip) x 12 C. Dumbbell Hammer Curl x 25 Important: Take no rest periods between movements! Your “rest” is just the amount of time it takes to move between exercises. After the hammer curls, rest two to three minutes and repeat this giant set three to four more times. Can I Do It With Other Body Parts? Yep, just follow these guidelines for exercise selection: 1st Exercise:Multi-Joint Movement, 6 reps 2nd Exercise:Multi-Joint Movement, 12 reps 3rd Exercise:Single-Joint Movement, 25
Origin: Tip: The 6-12-25 Protocol for Biceps

Tip: Another Jaw-Dropping Benefit of Creatine

We’ve already established that creatine isn’t just a bodybuilding supplement and that nearly everyone from young to old could potentially benefit from its regular use. It’s been shown to strengthen heart function, possibly deter Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, lower blood sugar, aid in the repair of bone, prevent arthritis, reduce fat accumulation in the liver, help people with fibromyalgia, lower blood sugar, and yes, grow muscle in athletes. The way its list of effects is growing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to cure dogs of mange, take stains out of corduroy, and ward off vampires. Speculative benefits aside, it’s recently been found to have a new, hugely exciting super power. Researchers from UCLA have found that creatine can act as a “molecular battery” for immune cells by storing and distributing energy to fuel their fight against cancer. Creatine and Killer T Cells Dr. Lili Yang, head of the research team that made the discovery, found that creatine uptake is crucial to the anti-tumor activities of CD8T cells, which are also known by the decidedly much cooler name, killer T cells. When these killer T cells are called into action to fight a tumor, they have to compete with fast-growing tumor cells for metabolic resources like glucose, amino acids, and lipids. Without an adequate supply of these resources, these killer T cells are literally marching off to war without breakfast… and a hungry army can only go so far. Creatine, however, supplies these T cells with critical levels of ATP (the energy currency of the cell), thus enabling them to fight with continued fury. What the Researchers Did Yang and her researchers engineered mice so that their killer T cells were deficient in the gene that’s responsible for creating creatine transporter molecules. That means that their T cells couldn’t take creatine in and were consequently far less capable of fighting tumors. However, when they received creatine supplementation (either oral or IV), their T cells found new life and regained their cancer-fighting mojo. They then tried giving creatine to non-engineered mice with normal transporter molecules and found that they too became more efficient at fighting colon cancer and melanoma tumors. “…these findings suggest that killer T cells really do need creatine to fight cancer,” said Yang, in a press release. “Without it, they simply can’t do their jobs effectively.” There’s more good news, too. The beneficial effects didn’t require the use of creatine doses that would bloat a buffalo. The amount they gave to the mice was comparable to the doses recommended for athletes and bodybuilders. The Broader Implications While Yang and her colleagues found that creatine was effective in fighting colon cancer tumors and melanoma, she speculated that the treatment could be of use in fighting many different types of cancer. Furthermore, she thought that creatine could be combined with many other current cancer therapeutic modalities, as well as traditional chemotherapies and radiation therapies. How Best to Use Creatine If you’re already using creatine to increase athletic performance or grow more muscle, great. You can take some satisfaction in knowing that it’s also doing your body a whole lot of good. However, if you’re not an athlete and you’ve never dreamed of taking creatine, you should give strong consideration to adding it to your list of mandatory daily health supplements, right up there with your vitamins, fish oil, and fiber. There’s just too much good research out there to ignore. Creatine’s a little different than most supplements, though, in that you have to “load up,” which is just a way of saying that it takes several days for your cells to reach maximum storage capacity. A lot of bodybuilders choose to load up on creatine by taking 5 grams four times a day for 5 to 7 days and then continuing at a dosage of 3 to 5 grams, but there’s a much easier way to do it. Just take about 5 grams a day, every day. By the time 30 days have passed, you’ll most likely have reached maximum cellular storage capacity, at which point you can just continue with taking 3 to 5 grams a day. Make sure you use a micronized version where the grains are absorbed better than brands sold by the big box stores or your local drugstore.
Origin: Tip: Another Jaw-Dropping Benefit of Creatine

Tip: The Evil Butt Workout of Doom

I’m a fan of big supersets, especially for people who can only train a few days a week. If you’re getting plenty of recovery time then it’s okay to push harder in your sessions. When it comes to leg training, there are a few aspects we can play with: Strength (Heavy, low rep) Endurance (Light, high rep) Explosiveness (Plyometric, fast movements) Normally you’d train each of these separately, either on different days or in different sets. For example, working on a heavy squat set, moving to some higher-rep work, then possibly finishing up with something more explosive. But what if you combine all three into one amazing giant set? Well, you’re in for a whole world of gains! On your next leg day, try this combination. I apologize in advance if you need to use any stairs the day after. Complete 5 sets of: 5 x Back Squats:At 70% of 1RM 20 x Step Back Lunges:Moderate weight (unbroken reps) 20 x Jumping Lunges:Unbroken reps Take a three-minute break after set one and two, then a four-minute break after set three, and a five-minute break after set four. Trust me, you’ll need it! The rest allows you to keep the intensity high during each set. (You can also attempt this workout with lighter weights and less rest. You’ll get a totally different kind of stimulus.) If it’s your first time doing this workout, err on the side of caution and go a bit lighter. Later, use weights that are challenging. Add this workout to your training once a week for 8-12 weeks. Progressively load the back squat and lunge each time and you’ll really get the benefits of strength, muscle growth, endurance, and mental fortitude. This is a character-building workout, and not everyone can get through the full five rounds. The butt DOMS after this can be laughable, so make sure you don’t have to be at an important, formal event the next
Origin: Tip: The Evil Butt Workout of Doom

You Can’t Prove That!

The Question In-the-trenches experience often beats research to the punch. What training or nutrition theories do you have that haven’t been proven yet? Nick Tumminello – Strength Coach and Author I have two: 1. People who train two to three times per week don’t need to ever take a regularly scheduled “deload” or “rest week” every few months if they prefer not to. Even if they’re training hard they’re resting more than half of the week. Even if they’re doing less intense recreational activity on “off days” they’re still getting plenty of recovery time as it is. The only hindrance to their recovery would be poor nutrition or sleep habits. But taking a regularly scheduled deload or rest week is unlikely to change that. 2. Female figure competitors and male bodybuilders respond well to high-volume power-endurance complexes that are usually used to condition athletes to go the distance. You can’t spot reduce with exercise, but you can spot enhance. And every figure or fitness competitor I’ve trained has said the high-volume phase where we did leg complexes like these “brought out” their legs better than any other training protocol. For the male bodybuilding competitors, it’s was the high-volume upper-body complexes, mainly the push-up complexes like the one at the end of this article that they said brought out their chest and shoulders better than any training protocol. We know that high-volume training works for hypertrophy. However, these complexes are unique since they’re not only very high volume, they also involve explosive exercises like a plyo push-up or a squat jump. How high is the volume? Like 70-80 reps per set of a few different exercises done back-to-back for the same muscle group. But think about it: Explosive training using momentum is usually not what’s recommend for physique purposes because it doesn’t keep constant mechanical tension on the working muscles. Maybe it’s just the new challenge to the body, and the fact that they tend to perform the reps fast since the complexes use light loads that gives them a crazy pump. All I know is that these types of complexes were the most requested by both male and female competitors to use in the final 4-8 week training phase leading up to them getting on stage. – Nick Tumminello Chris Shugart – T Nation CCO Eat a little more on your off days… or just as much as you do on training days. “Eat for what you’re about to do,” the old nutrition adage goes. Here’s a related one: “Eat fewer carbs on your days off from the gym because you’re not spending as much energy and you don’t need that extra fuel for training.” Well, I suspect this isn’t true for hard-lifting athletes and bodybuilders. I began to suspect this by simply being what I call “body aware.” That just means being really tuned in to your body and the messages it’s sending you. The message my body sends me on my first off day after four straight days of training is, “Hey, you could really use a big-ass, carby bowl of oatmeal.” That goes against the rules we’ve always gone by… but does it really? Eat for what you’re about to do? Well, if you’re consistently training hard, then what you’re “about to do” on off days is recover and grow. And your body needs fuel for that. Yes, even carbs. So while it hasn’t been proven yet, I think the idea of eating less on off days will go the way of Swiss ball squats in the future. A couple of caveats: If you’re in a fat loss stage, then yeah, you’re going to be a little hungry. But don’t lower your calories even further on off days just because you’re not training. Don’t use this as an excuse to eat like a fat kid at grandma’s house. Eating more (or just as much) on off days doesn’t mean to bathe in soft serve ice cream. It just means to listen to your body and give it what it needs to recover. – Chris Shugart Christian Thibaudeau – Strength Coach and Performance Expert For intermediate and advanced lifters, changing the loading from set to set works better for getting stronger than doing all of your work sets with the same weight and reps. I’ll give you three examples: Waves A wave normally has three sets and most of the time you do two waves in a workout. The first wave is more conservative, around an 8/10 on the RPE scale (leaving 1-2 reps in the tank) and the second wave is all-out or close to it. Within a wave, the reps and load also change. From set to set the reps decrease and the load increases. For example: Wave 1 Work Set 1:3 reps at 200 pounds Work Set 2:2 reps at 210 pounds Work Set 3:1 rep at 220 pounds Wave 2 Work Set 4:3 reps at 210 pounds Work Set 5:2 reps at 220 pounds Work Set 6:1 rep at 230 pounds My three favorite wave loading schemes are 3/2/1 waves, 5/3/1 waves, and 6/4/2 waves. Low Rep Pyramid For strength, this is one of my favorites. It’s the cornerstone of my Built for Bad and Built for Battle programs. You perform 4-6 work sets. With each set you decrease the reps and increase the load. For example: Work Set 1:5
Origin: You Can’t Prove That!

Tip: Bulletproof Your Biceps

Biceps tears are common in powerlifting. Using an alternate grip when deadlifting? That underhand arm is at risk. Tears are even more common in strongman. Tire flips and stone lifting are the usual culprits. Happens in bodybuilding too. And if you’re a fan of ring dips or muscle-ups, then you too are at risk. Tears happen when the biceps are loaded and then suddenly lengthened. In a deadlift, they generally happen if the arm isn’t 100-percent straight at the start but then straightens during the pull. In strongman, tears occur when a stone or tire slips. As the object drops, the athlete tries to stop it, rapidly loading the biceps as they lengthen. To some extent, it’s a problem you can’t always prevent, but you can definitely lower your risk. Lessons From the Biceps Femoris Soccer players have hamstring tear problems. A huge amount of money and time has gone into trying to prevent them. What people have found is that the risk factor involves the way the hamstring is loaded (and overloaded) as it lengthens – the same mechanism of injury as biceps tears in strength sports! Research has also found that strengthening the hamstrings as they lengthen helps reduce the injury risk. The most famously researched exercise has been the Nordic curl. How can we use this for our biceps? We use a Nordic curl for biceps, otherwise known as the biceps glide. This exercise loads the biceps as they lengthen. The Biceps Glide Loading and conditioning the biceps this way will, over time, reduce the risk of tearing when mixed-grip deadlifting, stone or tire lifting, and in life in general. Notes When you first do this exercise, you’re fatiguing the biceps through the risky range of movement and loading pattern. Initially, you might slightly increase risk. So go gently at first, progress carefully, and for 72 hours stay away from other movements that may also put your biceps at risk. As you improve at this exercise, you could use them as a warm-up to activate the biceps before a high-risk movement. This needs to be done lightly and for low volume without fatiguing the biceps. Once you’re proficient with glides, you can load them up heavier to condition the biceps, but in sessions 72 hours away from full-body, high-risk movements like deadlifts and strongman events. The movement itself will always have a risk. It has to in order to have a positive conditioning effect. It’s very low and controlled risk relative to the movements where biceps tend to pop, but you should still treat it with respect. Ease into it and be progressive.
Origin: Tip: Bulletproof Your Biceps