A: They are for you to track your weights each week, so you can focus on strength progression from week 1 to week 8 of each block. Of course, this will only work if you print the program out. The other option would be to keep a notebook and simply pencil in your lifts each week. Keeping up with this habit of tracking is going to be an extremely important part of your success on this program.
What should I replace it with? Still, there are many exercises and techniques that I have carried over directly from those videos because of how effective they are. Please direct all other question to info strcng. Please avoid directing questions about this program to my social media as it is not a reliable means of making contact with me or getting the correct information. Please allow business days for a reply. The main purpose behind warming up is to increase core body temperature, improve performance and reduce risk of injury [6] [7].
Because your circadian rhythm largely determines your core body temperature, when you wake up, it is at its lowest and increases throughout the day. Doing at least minutes of low-moderate intensity cardio is especially prudent if you train early in the morning [8]. Dynamic warmup drills active stretches that take joints through a range of motion can improve performance and increase force output [9]. Light foam rolling for minutes prior to lifting is recommended.
This program assumes from the outset that you have developed a solid fundamental strength base and will no longer be able to maximize your muscular gains with minimalistic, basic programming. This work capacity will equip us with the abilities needed to optimize results in Block 2 of the program, where volume is decreased as intensity effort is increased.
The progressive overload principle should be thought of as not just adding more weight to the bar, but adding more tension onto the muscle itself. Brad Schoenfeld refers to this as the mechanical tension mechanism of hypertrophy [13].
There are two main reasons for this: safety and results. Consistently practicing perfect technique on light work will ensure that you have engrained the proper lifting habits when lifting the really heavy stuff. RESULTS Not only does good technique minimize injury risk, it also loads the targeted muscles more effectively, while decreasing the loading of synergistic and stabilizing muscles [15]. This all begins with good technique. Some trainers take the extreme stance that zero momentum or cheating should be used when lifting, regardless of how well controlled the cheating is.
Others insist that because the goal is to overload, cheating is fine since it allows you to move more weight. I think they are both wrong, because it is always context dependent and in this case, exercise dependent: Primary Exercises: Practice perfect technique on all reps for example, squats, bench presses and deadlifts.
Secondary and Tertiary Exercises: Mild momentum is permitted to get the weight moving, but always control the weight on the eccentric. Still, a helpful practice is to record your lifts and compare your technique. This is an important concern for safety reasons, however some literature suggests that the eccentric negative portion of the lift is the most important for muscle growth. This suggests that you should choose a tempo that is comfortable for you, while maintaining full control of the weight throughout the entire repetition.
My personal recommendation is to aim for a second negative and a second positive on most lifts, with the main criteria being that you are consciously and actively controlling the weight using the target muscles throughout the full range of motion. Using the bench press as an example, you will be able to lift much more weight if only bring the bar half way to your chest than you will by bringing the bar all the way down to touch your chest.
This was highlighted in a study by Bloomquist and colleagues, which found that going through a full range of motion resulted in greater increases in muscle mass than using a partial range of motion [18]. Granted, there is counter-evidence supporting the idea that as long as intensity relative effort is equated, full and partial ranges of motions lead to similar hypertrophy [19, 20] 3. It is common to see people either holding their breath for far too long during a set or having the pace of their breathing totally out of sync with the pace of their reps.
The Valsalva technique is when you forcibly exhale against a closed glottis during the concentric portion of a lift. This is a very commonly used technique amongst powerlifters and other strength athletes to increase the amount of weight being lifted by increasing pressure in the abdomen. In the intermediate-advanced stage of lifting, I would recommend experimenting with the Valsalva maneuver on primary exercises squat, bench press and deadlift to your own comfort levels since it will very likely help increase the weight you are using on these exercises.
However, keep in mind that this breathing technique is associated with a greater increase in blood pressure, so use it at your own discretion and be particularly cautious if you are at risk of hypertension. As usually is the case, I think that the answer is not black and white and depends on context. For these movements, it is better to focus on the movement of your entire body and simply execute the exercise with proper technique and through a full range of motion. For all tertiary exercises isolation exercises and any remaining compound exercises, you can use the mind-muscle connection to increase activation of the target muscle as you feel appropriate.
And recent data has suggested that use of a mindmuscle connection can be used to enhance muscle hypertrophy. So while it may not be appropriate for all exercises, practicing and cultivating a strong mind muscle connection is well-advised if your goal is to achieve the best muscular development possible. In summary, our goal with training is to maximize muscular tension with relatively large training volumes and as outlined above, the best way to do that is by honing in on your technique.
The deload week sees a reduction in volume and intensity effort so that recovery can be optimized leading into the upcoming, more challenging phase. Block 2 uses a much more aggressive progression modality and takes advantage of non-linear periodization daily undulating periodization. This can be seen as a more advanced progression from the linear focus of Block 1 to continue driving strength and size progress forward.
When training at a high effort, it is common to see lifters get so excited and aggressive that they lose sight of form. You fail at the point where your muscles can no longer perform a full concentric rep with adequate technique. In this block, training volume slightly decreases as intensity increases. It can been argued that periodic variation is one of the most central tenants of periodization and program design.
For this reason, many new exercises and variations are introduced in Block 2 while still keeping a core of basic movements and a continuation of many of the progression schemes established in Block 1.
The main thing we can conclude from the scientific literature on frequency is that training each muscle twice per week is better than only training each muscle once per week [26]. One potential limitation of training frequency research is that studies are always volume equated so the subjects are actually doing the same amount of total work. In the real world, it is less likely that volumes would be equal when frequencies are different.
Higher frequency training typically allows us to do more volume within a week. To illustrate this point, just imagine doing 4 sets of squats 5 days per week compared to doing 20 sets of squats in 1 session. There is probably no special benefit to training a muscle more than twice per week with the same amount of volume.
Training a muscle more than once per week is more optimal for hypertrophy, even when volume is the same. This program uses a Legs Push Pull split, meaning every muscle will be trained twice per week with roughly 3 days of recovery between sessions. Because of the size principle see below and its implications for hypertrophy, pushing yourself reasonably close to failure becomes more important as training advancement accrues this is emphasized more in Block 2.
On a large scale, increases in tension are achieved through progressive overload while on the cellular level, mechanical tension is closely tied to motor unit recruitment. Motor unit recruitment refers to the way motor units are activated to cause an increase in the contractile force a muscle can produce. This program uses both percentage-based and RPE-based methods for determining what weights you should use, which will ultimately determine your level of effort. This level of precision and structure is good for certain exercises because it allows for complete accountability.
Of course, not everyone will know what their 1RM is at any given time. It may be tempting to simply test your 1RMs — lift as heavy as possible with good form for one repetition. Although this is a seemingly simple solution, testing one rep maxes can be unnecessarily risky, and there are at least 2 better options to give you a ballpark estimate of this number. This program uses RPE to gauge effort for all secondary and tertiary exercises.
The RPE scale is ranked from , with 1 implying nearly no effort was used, and 10 implying maximal effort was achieved training to failure [28]. RIR is a scale which attempts to gauge how many additional reps you would be able to complete after ending the set [29]. While research has shown that RIR is not very accurate for newer lifters [30], I think it is a good tool to understand at this point in your training career.
So, to clarify, an RPE of 9 would mean you had 1 rep left in reserve. An RPE of 8 would mean you had 2 reps in reverse, etc. The idea here is to reflect on your last set and ask yourself how many more reps you think you could have gotten. Properly applied effort is what we are always looking for.
This means that we should reserve training to failure or near failure for when it fits within the context of the program as a whole. As mentioned previously, Block 1 of the program may require some restraint and may prescribe an effort lower than what you are used to. We can think of this as taming the beast before we unleash the beast in Block 2. Total volume can be viewed as both volume per-session and volume per-week. Per-session volume requirements are actually quite low, with the research showing just one single set to be an adequate stimulus for hypertrophy, [31] however, multiple sets sets per muscle group are thought to be required to maximize hypertrophy [32].
A study comparing 5 sets of 10 reps versus 10 sets of 10 reps on the squat actually showed greater strength responses in the 5 sets group, despite using half the volume.
Additionally, the 10 x 10 group lost muscle on average in their legs [33], so there appears to be a volume limit past which more volume is not helpful for hypertrophy. When it comes to per-week volume, James Krieger recommends an absolute minimum of 10 sets per week per muscle group [34], with sets per bodypart per week being a good ballpark estimate for intermediate-advanced trainees. Because of the large degree of overlap between bodyparts on compound exercises, tracking set volume per bodypart has its complications and limitations.
For this reason, we will be measuring total sets per workout. For example, in Week 1 of the program, you will see that there are 20 total sets for the lower body on Day 1 and 21 total sets for the lower body on Day 2. Similarly, we will lump all of the pushing and pulling muscles together and calculate total per-session volume, which I think is a more practical way to keep track of volume on this routine.
How much muscle can I expect to gain? How you respond to training will be largely determined by genetic factors and your specific training history i.
As a rough ballpark estimate for early intermediates with about one to two years of lifting experience, you can expect to gain roughly 0. For intermediate-advanced trainees, 0. For practical purposes, women can divide muscle gain estimates in half. What gym training gear should I use? Gym gear is optional as there are no required pieces of equipment to gain muscle and increase strength. With that being said, investing in a 10mm prong or lever belt, knee sleeves, squat shoes, and straps can be beneficial in allowing you to lift more weight for certain exercises.
I have a belt. When should I wear it? Optionally use a lifting belt for working sets on exercises like squats, deadlifts and overhead military presses. I am not getting sore from my workouts. Is the program not working? Muscle soreness is largely attributed to eccentric contractions [3] and long muscle length contractions [4].
With that said, the main goal of this program is to build muscle and strength, not to get you feeling sore. In fact, reduced soreness over time indicates that your body is adapting and recovering, which is actually a good thing for continued progress.
Should I eat in a caloric deficit, maintenance, or surplus while running this program? Eating in a slight caloric surplus will yield the best results and best recovery.
However, if your main goal is fat loss, eating in a caloric deficit will be necessary. As an intermediate- advanced level trainee, body recomposition may require more fine-tuning. I would recommend checking out my new Nutrition Guide on body recomposition for more details there. In all, a caloric surplus is recommended for optimal progress, but some progress can certainly still occur at caloric maintenance and even in a caloric deficit.
Can I add to it? Changing exercises from week to week is more likely to flatten out the strength progression curve. This is to ensure both progression by adding volume incrementally to these specific movements and mastery of these movements in terms of form and technique.
There is large variation in exercise selection between Blocks 1 and 2 to avoid monotony and create a novel training stimulus to finish the program strong. What are the blank boxes in the middle of each program for? They are for you to track your weights each week, so you can focus on strength progression from week 1 to week 8 of each block. Of course, this will only work if you print the program out.
The other option would be to keep a notebook and pencil in your lifts each week or use a tracking app. Keeping up with this habit of tracking is going to be an extremely important part of your success with this program. What is best to do once I complete the program? Another option would be to use the principles laid out in this program to design your own routine, tailored to your specific goals and weak points. Please direct all other questions to info strcng. Please avoid directing questions about this program to my social media as it is not a reliable means of making contact with me or getting the correct information.
The main purpose behind warming up is to increase core body temperature, which improves performance and reduces risk of injury[6] [7]. Your circadian rhythm will largely determine your core body temperature, meaning it varies throughout the day. When you wake up, your core temperature is at its lowest and it increases throughout the day. Doing at least minutes of low- moderate intensity cardio is especially prudent if you train early in the morning [8]. Warmups may also serve as a way to increase muscle activation.
Light foam rolling for two to three minutes prior to lifting is recommended. Before the first exercise for each bodypart perform a basic loading pyramid: Pyramid up in weight with three to four light sets, getting progressively heavier. For this program, we are not counting indirect bicep and tricep work such as vertical pulls and presses toward volume metrics for these muscles.
We will only count working sets and not warmup sets toward weekly volumes per bodypart. Ask an average gym-goer and he or she will probably say some kind of body part split.
I think these two splits are more effective because they have you hitting every muscle at least twice per week — a criterion outlined in the scientific literature as being superior for optimizing growth [12]. With that said, I think there are several potential advantages to the full body split that I will outline below. Assuming you eat a reasonable amount of protein within a reasonable time frame after training on the scale of hours-days, not minutes-hours , your muscles begin to synthesize new muscle tissue through elevated MPS.
If we hit the chest on Monday morning, MPS will be elevated in the chest for all of Monday and then will return back to near baseline levels sometime on Tuesday. So rather than leaving MPS at baseline levels for the entire week, we can in theory maximize new muscle synthesis by hitting the chest again on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This line of reasoning lead many pioneers to experiment with high frequency training about a decade ago, but more recent evidence has started to call the practical significance of the MPS theory into question.
For example, even though acute increases in muscle protein synthesis do seem to correlate with hypertrophy under some circumstances, [15, 16] MPS fails to take into account the other side of the muscle growth equation: muscle protein breakdown MPB.
To determine whether or not these frequent MPS spikes do, in fact, translate to more muscle growth over time, several long-term training studies have been pooled together via meta-analysis. Volume the number of tough, working sets per week has been described as having a dose-response relationship with hypertrophy in the scientific literature [20], meaning, more weekly volume causes more growth up to a point. So if a higher training frequency can allow you to perform more weekly volume, all else equal, that should lead to more growth again, up to a point.
And this does seem to be the way it works out. After all, if you only hit your shoulders once a week, you have to cram ALL your weekly volume into a single workout. This program starts with 22 sets of shoulder work. Imagine trying to cram all that volume into one or even two workouts per week! Now tell me: how much effort are you really going to be putting into those extensions?
Even if you have the mental fortitude of a champion, there is no question that your quads will be highly fatigued, which might hurt your performance. Like any skill, the more you practice it, the better you tend to get at it. This will make you a more effective lifter, leading to better returns on your time investment in the gym. Most trainees are not accustomed to hitting their chest on Monday and then hitting it again on Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Although it is oversimplified, a helpful way to think of high frequency training is as follows: Rather than doing this for your chest…. And, of course, we can do something similar with the other muscles.
Another modification that must be made is that sets should not be taken too close to failure, especially within the first few weeks. Because there is only about 24 hours of recovery between sessions, consistently training to failure will be much more likely to result in an overlap of soreness, excessive metabolite build-up and potential for reduced performance as the week goes on.
To avoid these problems, it is absolutely crucial that most sets are taken to an RPE no higher than in the first few weeks, with RPEs of being used more sparingly. This may sound counterintuitive as it can be tempting to push yourself as hard as possible when starting a new program. However, intensity is something that must be gradually increased on this program for optimal progress over the long term.
A combination of high intensity and high frequency can result in an unproductive program if pushed too high, too early. To emphasize recovery and progress, it simply makes more sense to leave those few reps in the tank, especially when running a high frequency plan and even more so in the first few weeks as your body adapts to the new protocol. As your body grows accustomed to the new training style, a phenomenon known as the repeated bout effect will kick in sometime around the two to three week mark.
This is a good thing, as soreness is simply an impediment to performance. To quickly recap: in order for high frequency training to be as effective as it can be, you must reduce training volume per-muscle per-session and avoid failure on most sets, especially at the beginning. If you feel debilitatingly sore on Day 2, that may be an indication that you are not truly an intermediate-advanced trainee and may be better off running through a more basic program first. As a general rule, it is okay to train the same muscle while it is still sore as long as it does not impede your ability to use a full range of motion safely and comfortably.
Because lingering soreness is a potential concern on this program, it is even more imperative than usual that you complete a FULL warm up see page The more soreness you have, the more merit tools like foam rolling and dynamic stretching can have before training. As mentioned earlier, after one to three weeks on this program, soreness should be drastically lessened as your body adapts to the frequency — so this is mostly something to be aware of for the first few weeks on the program. If persistent soreness continues to be an issue past the first few weeks, that is an indication that you are either pushing sets too close to failure i.
The best way to avoid this problem is by choosing exercises that will not load the joints in the same way on consecutive days. For example, rather than doing a deadlift and a Romanian deadlift on back to back days, it would be much smarter to space those exercises out by at least one day. Granted, while joint overuse may pose a concern on some high frequency programs, this program selects and organizes exercises in such a way that joint overuse is of very minimal concern.
Still, the potential for joint stress further highlights the importance of a proper warm up and carefully monitoring effort in the gym adhering to the target RPEs. It is also advised that you pay attention to your own biofeedback on any program. It is better to play it safe, especially at first, by switching to a lower impact exercise if you anticipate a specific exercise giving you issues or if you feel achy.
For example, you have the option of swapping barbell squats for hack squats if your lower back is feeling particularly cranky. Of course, I encourage you to follow the program as it is written if you can, but sometimes a judgement call will need to be made and I encourage you to exercise caution when there is risk of pain or injury.
In these instances, the Exercise Substitutions section may be helpful. Week 2 sees a moderate increase in rep volume on primary exercises, which will increase the overall difficulty of that training week. In Week 3, intensity effort increases as the target RPE for each movement bumps up to the range. As you will see, the amount of weight, reps and sets vary from week to week for these movements.
This means we are using weekly undulating periodization to progress on these movements i. For the secondary and tertiary movements, we are using a simple linear progression, where your goal will be to add some weight to the movement from week to week.
On certain exercises where lighter weights must be used, such as lateral raises, or bodyweight exercises like hanging leg raises, it may be more realistic to progress through the use of better control such as by slowing the negative marginally more from week to week or development of a stronger mind-muscle connection.
At this point, you have fully adjusted to the high training frequency and the repeated bout effect is in full swing. You should no longer be feeling sore after training sessions and you should be handling heavier weights than what you were using in Week 1 and with better form too! As you will see, while the core exercises remain the same, many exercises have been switched out for new variations. Try to put all of your animalistic energy into the heavy top set to kick off the workout, and then tame the beast for the rest of the workout while practicing focus and control.
Week 9 primarily sees a decrease in intensity, as volumes are still quite high. Be careful to pull back on your exertion this week, as it will actually improve your performance for the max testing in Week The idea is to have you feeling fresh and recovered leading into the final week of the program, so you can assess the gains that have been made!
Brad Schoenfeld refers to this as the mechanical tension mechanism of hypertrophy [23]. There are two main reasons for this: safety and results. A questionnaire of Swedish sub-elite powerlifters found that 87 percent of the participants had experienced an injury within the past year [24] — primarily in the lumbopelvic, shoulder, and anterior hip regions.
Consistently practicing perfect technique on light work will ensure that you have ingrained the proper lifting habits when lifting the really heavy stuff. RESULTS Not only does good technique minimize injury risk, it also loads the targeted muscles more effectively, while decreasing the loading of synergistic and stabilizing muscles [25].
This all begins with good technique. Some trainers take the extreme stance that zero momentum or cheating should not be used when lifting, regardless of how well controlled the cheating is.
After all, there is some overlap in muscles used when it comes to exercises like the deadlift. The separation day between pull and legs helps you to keep your muscles fresh each workout.
You can do six straight days in the gym legs, push, pull, repeat followed by a rest day. Or, you can add a rest day whenever you feel especially fatigued post-workout. Block 1 lasts 8 weeks and is meant to slowly introduce you to this style of training.
The goal is to push your muscles to near-failure, but a rep or two shy most times. The program starts off by literally explaining every important muscle in the body, what types of movements it does, and the exercises you can use to target each. His reasoning for it is as clear cut as it gets.
He uses research and studies to prove that bad form can cause injury in even the most skilled lifters and, sometimes, lessens gains. Well, it goes to show that this program was designed around legit exercise science principles. Nippard wants to help you with gains, but not at a point where you get hurt and sidelined.
And, to help you out, this program has tips with every exercise. Doing the same exercises, sets, and reps for too long basically guarantees a plateau. Well, luckily this routine switches those up a little each week to keep your gains coming. All serious lifters head to the gym and crank out heavy squats, deadlifts, and bench presses.
But, you want to build some mass on those biceps, calves, and triceps too. If you work a hour week, good luck finding the time to do anything but work and workout.
But, we do know that the right diet can make or break your gains.
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