My Favorite Methods: A Breakdown Q: What are your absolute favorite training methods? A: I’ve given seminars where I presented 37 different training methods, not including loading schemes. My favorite method? The one that gets you to your goal. The “best” method will vary depending on what you want to achieve. Want strength? Want size? There are different methods for those. Your level of experience will influence which ones will be a good fit. But if you forced me to choose two methods – one for strength and one for growth – I’d choose these: 1. Favorite Strength-Building Method: Clusters Cluster training is my go-to method for rapidly increasing strength. It never fails. Clusters consist of rest periods between all the reps in your set. One set becomes a series of single reps with very short rest periods in between. While you can do clusters with any type of loading and rest intervals, the traditional cluster requires you to use a load of around 90 percent of your 1RM (which is normally your 3RM load) and do four to six reps with that weight. You’d do so by resting anywhere between 10 to 20 seconds between reps depending on the exercise. A set could look like this: Unrack the bar and do rep one Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep two Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep three Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep four Rack the bar and rest 15 seconds Unrack the bar and do rep five Rack the bar – end of set Why is it so effective? There are several factors that can influence strength gains: You recruit and fatigue the fast-twitch muscle fibers. You develop the capacity to make the fast-twitch fibers “twitch” as fast as possible. This is called a high firing rate. You build muscle mass. You desensitize the Golgi tendon organs (GTO). You become more psychologically comfortable with the lift. Clusters improve all of those! You achieve maximum fast-twitch fiber recruitment when the load on the bar is around 80-82 percent of your maximum at that moment. Sure, you can get there by using lighter weights and using fatigue to increase the relative load of the bar. But by using clusters with 88-90 percent of your max, you’re recruiting all those fast-twitch fibers from the get-go. As a result, you won’t have any reps that simply drain energy. But it’s not enough to recruit the fast-twitch fibers. The real strength gains will come from improving your capacity to use a high firing rate. This is a motor skill. And motor skill acquisition depends not only on the number of reps done with the skill emphasized, but on the ratio of “good” and “bad ” reps. The closer you are to your maximum strength, the higher the firing rate. Firing rate increases the most when you need even more force and you can no longer recruit more fibers. At 90 percent you have a very high firing rate from the start. If you do five cluster reps with 90 percent you’ll get five reps with a very high firing rate and no reps with a low firing rate. From a motor learning standpoint, that’s golden. Now compare that to doing 10 reps with 70 percent. Because of fatigue you’ll still end up with five to six reps where the fast-twitch fibers are maximally recruited and probably three reps with a high firing rate. But you also get five reps with a lower firing rate. From a motor-learning perspective, this is vastly inferior. It’s like trying to play golf and doing 30 great swings, 20 suboptimal ones, and 50 shitty ones. Chances are you won’t improve rapidly. Clusters are also very good at building muscle. Hypertrophy has a lot to do with the number of maximally-effective reps. A maximally-effective rep is a rep where you’re recruiting as many fast-twitch fibers as you can. Since these have the greatest growth potential, it’s all about stimulating them as much as possible. As we just saw, when the load represents 80 percent of the max weight you can lift at that moment, you’ll be recruiting the max number of fast-twitch fibers you can recruit. You can get there by using less weight because each rep fatigues you. As you’re fatiguing, your strength will go down (two to four percent per rep) so the weight on the bar is relatively heavier compared to what you can lift. Here’s an example: Rep Weight on Bar Fatigue Level Relative Weight 1 70% 0% 70% 2 70% 3% 73% 3 70% 6% 76% 4 70% 9% 79% 5 70% 12% 82% 6 70% 15% 85% 7 70% 18% 88% 8 70% 21% 91% 9 70% 24% 94% 10 70% 27% 97% As you can see, by rep five you’d have maximally-effective reps. That gives you six of them in the set. Now let’s look at a cluster set. Because of the rest period you’ll have some recovery, so fatigue is a bit slower. Rep Weight on Bar Fatigue Level Relative Weight 1 90% 0% 90% 2 90% 1.5% 91.5% 3 90% 3% 93% 4 90% 4.5% 94.5% 5 90% 6% 96% 6 90% 7.5% 97.5% Clusters allow you to get as many growth-producing reps as you normally would in a higher-rep set, without having to waste energy doing
Origin: Question of Strength 60

Peaking for Powerlifting Q: I’m a competitive powerlifter and have a meet in six weeks. Tell me about peaking. What should I do with carbs and deloading? A: A lot of the information we read about peaking for a competition revolves around “supercompensation.” You dramatically increase training volume and intensity for 7-14 days then, one week out from the competition, you bring training stress way down and increase carbs to supercompensate. This leads to an increase in performance. Sounds sciency and smart. But does it really work? Well, it depends. If you’re an endurance athlete, it might. It seems to work pretty well for swimmers. But if you’re a strength athlete, it won’t do anything. It’ll give the illusion of working, but it really doesn’t. Here’s why. First, when we talk about supercompensation we’re really talking about increasing glycogen storage in the muscles. The theory? By dramatically increasing training volume and reducing carb intake, the body will upregulate the enzymes responsible for storing glucose. When you flood your body with tons of carbs and reduce volume for 3-7 days before an event, the body will store more glycogen than it normally would if you had not done things to “deplete” it. In theory, by storing more glycogen (supercompensation) you have more fuel available for your event and you’ll perform better. This can work if your sport is dependent on the amount of stored glycogen you have. Endurance sports might benefit from higher glycogen storages, and glycolytic sports certainly would. But strength sports like powerlifting and weightlifting are not at all dependant on glycogen stores for performance since the main fuel in these sports is ATP-CP. While glycogen supercompensation might help the bench press and possibly the squat by providing an increase in passive joint stability – as noted in https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-58″ target=”_blank”>Question of Strength – it’s certainly not the main driver of performance. Does that mean you shouldn’t deload? No, you should. But you must understand what the deload will do so you can plan it properly. It also means you shouldn’t do a stress week or two (7-14 days) prior to the deload to create a supercompensation effect. You can’t supercompensate the nervous system. You can’t supercompensate the endocrine system or your muscle mass. Just because you’re trashing those systems by training too much for a short period of time, it doesn’t mean that these will rebound even higher. The nervous and endocrine systems don’t function like your glycogen storage. Here’s what happens during a deload and why it can give the illusion of supercompensation of neurological resources. First, You Need to Understand Two Things 1. The connection between cortisol and adrenaline Cortisol increases the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline. The more cortisol you produce, the more adrenaline will increase. Four main training variables can lead to an increase in cortisol (thus adrenaline) during training. Those are… Volume: The more energy you need, the more cortisol you release. Intensiveness: The closer to the limit you’re pushing your sets, the more cortisol you produce. Psychological stress: Mostly related to the amount you’re lifting. Neurological demands: Learning new exercises, using more complex movements, or doing a complicated workout structure. 2. Beta-adrenergic downregulation When you overstimulate the beta-adrenergic receptors, they downregulate. In layman’s terms, this means when you’re producing a boatload of adrenaline that connects to the beta-adrenergic receptors, these receptors can downregulate. As a result, you respond less and less to adrenaline. Since adrenaline increases strength, speed of contraction, and motivation (among other things), if you respond less to it, strength and power will go down. On the other hand, the more sensitive your receptors are, the more strongly you respond to adrenaline and the more force your muscles will be able to produce. Now Let’s Connect the Dots If you dramatically increase training intensity and volume (stress week), you produce more cortisol. This leads to a very high level of adrenaline. This high level of adrenaline can downregulate the beta-adrenergic receptors, decreasing strength potential. After that stress week, you feel like crap and your performance drops. Then you deload, reduce volume, intensity, and maybe even frequency. You drop assistance exercises, which decreases neurological demands too. This all leads to a decrease in cortisol levels, and in return, a much lower level of adrenaline. The beta-adrenergic receptors now become much less stimulated and they recover their original reactivity. Now you respond to your adrenaline again. You regain your strength and motivation. You think, “My deload worked, I supercompensated!” No, you didn’t. You just recovered the responsiveness to adrenaline that you lost by doing too much! A study by Fry et al.
Origin: Question of Strength 59

Realistic Gains After 40 Q: How much muscle can a natural, advanced lifter build in his 40s? A: 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 hard (stop 2-3
Origin: Question Of Strength 58

How Limb Length Affects Training Q: You’ve said before that the front squat is a better lower-body lift than the back squat for people with long legs. How else can limb length play a role in exercise selection? A: Exercise selection is the most important training variable. Imagine if you’re a patient at the doctor’s office and the conversation went like this… Doctor:I’m going to prescribe you 200mg twice a day. Patient:200mg of what, Doc? Doctor:What do you prefer? Which medication do you feel like taking? It doesn’t make sense, right? Well it’s the same thing with training. Think of sets, reps, and training methods as the dosage and exercises as the medicine. While everybody will improve their body and performance by gradually becoming stronger on the big basics, simply doing those and nothing else will emphasize certain muscles over others, and might not end up giving you the result you’re looking for. Some people will get great pec development from the bench press while others will only grow their triceps and delts. Some will build tremendous quads from back squatting and others will build bigger glutes. Limb length relative to torso length is one of the main factors that determines which muscles receive the most stimulation. Here’s a general overview: Body Type 1 – Long Limbs/Short Torso Tend to progress more easily on pulling movements than on pressing ones Have an easier time getting stronger on the hip hinge/deadlift than on the squat Upper Body Pressing Pecs are the easiest to develop Delts are second Triceps are the hardest to develop Upper Body Pulling Lats are the easiest to develop Rhomboids, rear delts are second Biceps are third Upper traps are the hardest to develop Lower Body Training Glutes are the easiest to develop Hamstrings are second Quads are third Calves are the hardest to develop Body Type 2 – Short Limbs/Long Torso Tend to progress more easily on pressing movements than on pulling ones Have an easier time getting stronger on the squat than on hinging/deadlifting Upper Body Pressing Triceps are the easiest to develop Delts are second Pecs are the hardest to develop Upper Body Pulling Upper traps are the easiest to develop Biceps are second Rhomboid, rear delts are third Lats are the hardest to develop Lower Body Training Quads are the easiest to develop Calves are second Hamstrings are third Glutes are the hardest to develop All of this is true most of the time, but there will be some exceptions. (Arnold, for example, is long limbed and had huge biceps.) That info allows you to better select the assistance work you’re doing in a program by telling you which muscles will need added direct work. For example, I have short legs, so I don’t need any direct assistance work for the quads. They grow just fine by doing squats exclusively and I prefer to invest my training time on exercises that are actually needed to fix a weakness. However, I do need direct glute and hamstring work. You don’t need as much (if any) direct work for the muscles that are the easiest to develop, but you’ll need a lot more for those that are the hardest. Knowing this also helps us better select the big lift variations for our workouts. If I have long legs, the front squat will be better than the back squat for overall development. Why? Because with the back squat I’ll get mostly glutes and some hamstrings while with the front squat I’d stimulate the quads. A heels-elevated back squats would also do the trick. While there’s nothing wrong with good, smart programs you find on the internet, you should still give yourself some leeway in exercise selection: you can respect the spirit of a program while choosing better movements. Delt-Building Lateral Raises Q: When I do lateral raises I feel it mostly in my traps. How can I make them more effective at hitting my delts? A: Welcome to the club! I have naturally narrow shoulders and short arms which tends to favor the development of the traps over delts. But I do have a few tricks when it comes to lateral raises. Before I get into the three exercises, I must emphasize one point: to make the lateral raise effective at recruiting the delts you must focus on pushing the dumbbells AWAY, not on lifting them up. Try to bring the dumbbells as far to your sides as possible. They should only go up as a result of you pushing sideways. This tip alone should minimize trap recruitment. 1. The Backpack Raise No, you won’t be doing lateral raises while wearing a backpack (although that would likely work too) but with resistance bands looped around your shoulders to keep them down. The traps get involved when the shoulders raise up instead of just rotate. The bands, by keeping the shoulders down, help you focus on the delts better. To set up, you step on the inside of the band and hook the other end around the shoulder. Then do that on the other side with a second band. The bands’ position on the shoulder is important. You want to place it on
Origin: Question of Strength 57

Diagnosing Your Bench Press Problems Q: In a previous column you gave us a table explaining the problems and solutions for each sticking point in the military press. Can you do that for the bench press? A: Sure! Now, this table only lists the most probable issue causing each sticking point. There could be something more complex going on, or a technical issue that’s more unique to you. But eight times out of ten, I’ve found that strengthening the sticking point area will solve the problem. So take a look at this table, determine where your sticking point is, take note of the causes, and use the appropriate assistance exercises to strengthen that area. Bench Press Sticking Point Causes Assistance Exercises Breaking off from chest 1. Lats weak or not properly engaged 2. External shoulder rotators 3. Upper traps more dominant than lower traps and rear delts 1. Straight-arms pulldown, Pendlay row, seal row 2. Cuban press, seated dumbbell snatch, external shoulder rotations 3. Trap-3 raise, rear delt machine, Powell raise, victory raise Lower third Pecs Wide-grip bench press, Spotto press, decline bench press, floor press, dumbbell bench press, bench press with Duffalo bar Mid third 1. Anterior delts 2. Rear delts and rhomboids (Shoulder lifts up from bench) 1. Incline bench press, slight incline bench press, lying front raise 2. Bench press with resistance band around wrists, rear delt machine, face pulls Upper third (lockout) Triceps, especially long head Close-grip pin press, lockout bench press, close-grip floor press, close-grip decline bench, overhead triceps extensions If you’re unfamiliar with some of these exercises, use this list: Seal Row A seal row is a chest-supported row (using dumbbells or a bar) using a bench. Elevate the bench on blocks or plates. If you don’t have that setup, a regular chest-supported row will do. Cuban Press Trap-3 Raise Powell Raise Victory Raise Spotto Press Bench Press With Resistance Band Around Wrists Bench Press With Duffalo Bar Once you fix a muscle weakness, it’ll take some time to transfer those strength gains to the bench press. Your body will need to change the intermuscular coordination pattern. Don’t panic if your strength gains in pressing lag a few weeks behind your strength gains in the assistance lifts. CNS Stress and Trap Bar Deadlifts Q: Are trap bar deadlifts any less demanding on the central nervous system than barbell deadlifts? A: That’s a good question. Let’s look at what’s likely to increase the stress on the CNS when lifting. The Weight Lifted:The more weight imposed on your body (tendons, skeletal system, muscles), the greater the demand will be on the CNS. The Work Performed:I’m not talking strictly about volume here, but more about the amount of work you perform when doing a movement. Work is equal to force X distance. That’s why a partial lift is often less demanding on the CNS even if you’re using more weight. The Amount of Muscle Involved:If more muscles are involved at the same time, the CNS will be challenged more. This happens in part because normally more muscles involved means heavier weight, but also because the system needs to work harder to coordinate all of those muscles. The Complexity and Coordination Required:The more difficult the technique is, the harder the CNS will work. Technical Efficiency:The less efficient your technique, the harder your nervous system will work to properly execute the movement. A better engrained motor pattern, and a more efficient movement, is more economical on neurological resources. That’s one of the reasons why elite Olympic lifters with superb technique can snatch and clean Both speed (more precisely, accelerating the bar) and mass moved will increase the demands for force production. Force equals mass x acceleration. So the more force you need to produce, the greater the demands on the CNS. The Perceived Stress:When the body sees a lift as potentially dangerous, either voluntarily or subconsciously, it’ll produce more cortisol which leads to an increase in adrenaline production. More adrenaline production can lead to what we wrongfully refer to as “CNS fatigue” either by depleting dopamine (adrenaline is made from dopamine) or a desensitization of the adrenergic receptors due to overstimulation. Now, using this info, let’s compare the two. Traditional Deadlift vs. Trap Bar Deadlift The Weight Lifted:Pretty much everybody will lift more on a trap bar deadlift, especially if using the high-handle position. So if we’re talking strictly about using a certain percentage of your max, let’s say 85% of your max on that lift, the trap bar “wins” this one. The Work Performed:If you’re using the lower setting of a trap bar, the linear distance travelled will be the same as a conventional deadlift. However, the bar path is much straighter on a trap bar deadlift. So while the distance from point A to point B is the same, the path is “longer” on the
Origin: Question of Strength 56