Increasing blood flow inside the muscle is the best way to do this. To achieve this, you need to do what are called pump sets. That is where the 7 sets comes in. On the last exercise for a body part you perform 7 sets in order to produce as great a pump effect as possible on the working muscle.
Fascia stretching is, though just one element of the FST-7 training system. It also includes going heavy on previous exercises in the rep range. FST-7 is an advanced training technique. It is not suitable for beginners as they will not have reached the limit of their fascia potential. However, if you have been training for at least a couple of years, you should definitely give FST-7 a shot. This training system, like all others, has both its advocates and its naysayers.
Make use of the 5 day split we have provided in this article and be sure to stick with the program at least six weeks. Record your before and after measurements, weight and poundages in a training journal and also take note of how you feel. If you have reached a point where your current workout routine is no longer giving you the results you want, giving FST-7 a try may invigorate your workouts and break past your training plateau. Click here to download the full Hany Rambod guide!
As we have already mentioned FST-7 should come at the end of your normal workout for a body part. That workout should consist of 3 or 4 exercises that are performed in the rep range. You then finish with your FST-7 exercise. You perform 7 sets of between reps with a rest between sets of about 45 seconds.
You want to be able to get to your goal rep number on each set. This may require that you reduce the weight on the ater sets — that is perfectly acceptable. It is best to use isolation exercises on a machine for the FST-7 exercise as this allows you to totally focus on the target muscle. Here are some suggestions that Hany Rambod uses with his athletes for the FST-7 portion of their workouts:.
Hany Rambod advocates training large muscle groups pecs, lats, quadriceps, hamstrings once per week on his system and hitting smaller body parts delts, biceps, triceps, calves twice per week. The system is designed to accommodate 5 workouts per week as follows:. As with any body transformation program nutrition is a vital element of FST-7 success. The first rule in gaining muscle is to make sure that you are taking in enough calories. You cannot gain a significant amount of lean muscle mass by starving yourself.
If you do, your body will break down other tissues, including your muscle, to make up for the lack of dietary calories. Amino acids are not efficiently incorporated into protein without enough energy sources from other foods. This is partly because the incorporation of amino acids into peptides requires a lot of energy which comes from ATP. Any excess of dietary energy over basic needs, therefore, improves the efficiency of dietary nitrogen utilization.
When you are following the FST-7 program, you should increase your protein consumption. While RDA levels of protein may be suitable for couch potatoes, they are not sufficient for bodybuilders. The intense muscle stimulation of protein lifting weights seems especially likely to increase both protein catabolism and its use as an energy use. By providing another energy source for use during exercise, a high protein diet protects the protein to be used for building muscle mass. The body will burn this protein instead of the protein inside the muscle cell.
Lift the weight with your free arm to the top of the stroke, then slowly lower the dumbbell to a count of six. The weight should be heavy enough to allow you to get about six to eight pure negative re p s. Be pre p a red for a dri n k i n g problem the next day—your biceps will be so sore, you may miss your mouth when trying to get a glass to it. Try raising the bench to about 75 degrees for incline flye s, an upper-chest stretch-position exercise. Most people think that a high incline like that will work the front delts more instead of the upper pecs.
When you do an incline flye, notice that your lower back naturally arches, which places your torso at about a 45 degree angle if the bench is set at 75 degrees.
On the other hand, if you have the bench set lower, say, at 45 to 50 degrees, you turn the incline flye into more of a flat flye as you naturally arch your back—which positions your upper torso p a rallel to the floor.
She was Ms. Olympia seven times. What did Arnold do when the set was over? He released the dumbbell, shook his throbbing arm and then continued to flex his biceps as he concentrated on the pump and extending the growth ache. Was that just for the cameras? He especially like to stretch his lats between sets of chins. Larry Scott discovered that tip when he changed gyms and thus changed donkey calf apparatuses.
After some serious observa t i o n p robably mixed with some panic—who wants to see calf muscle disappear? When he lowered his support platform, he got more calf stretch and the searing calf burn returned with a vengeance—as did his hard-earned calf size.
To work inner biceps for size and full development, work out, or with a wide grip. To work outer quads for sweep, use an in, or close, foot stance— but still point your toes out [by the way, Bob has incredible. For inner quads work out, or with a wide stance. And contrary to popular opinion, I think wide-grip p u l l d owns and chins build the inner back and close-gri p pulldowns and chins build a wide back.
After six to eight weeks of hard training, back off on the intensity for a week or two or take four to seven days off from the gym. That will allow your nervous system to heal and your recovery ability to regroup so you can ratchet up the intensity again without overtraining. In other words, you can take three more growth steps forward instead of having your feet stuck in no-grow quicksand.
No, this has nothing to do with Da rth Va d e r but, ra t h e r, forc e d reps, especially the slo-mo variety. That intensity technique can overstress your n e rvous system, give you the all-over shakes and cause cortisol to erupt into your system like Old Faithful. X Reps are a better choice than forced reps because the partial pulses are less traumatic to the nervous system and hit the muscle at the precise point for max fiber recruitment—no wasted effort.
Many expert s suggest doing aerobics the first thing in the morning on an empty stomach to enhance fat burning. A whey- p ro t e i n drink will do the trick, but that many calories can defeat your fast. Instead, you may want to take a few amino acid capsules. You should breathe in on the negative stroke, then exhale at the hardest point on the positive stroke as you drive through each rep.
Proper breathing is especially important during ab work. You need to have all the air out of your lungs when you reach the contracted position because your abs can only contract completely when your diaphragm is empty.
For example, if you still have air in your lungs at the top of a crunch, hold the position and blow out the rest of it as you contract your abs. Standard on-the- floor crunches are only half an ab exercise. That important stretch position, which helps you activate more fibers for better development, is impossible to reach when you do crunches on a flat surface, and you limit full-range strength and muscle development.
Now crunch up. You can also do cable crunches, kneeling, facing away from. Or you can do cable c runches sitting on a p reacher bench. Set the a rm - s u p p o rt part of the bench low so you can use it for lower-back support, allowing your upper torso to arch back slightly on each re p. Many bodybuilders do warmup sets for a specific exercise with 50 to 60 percent of their work-set weight.
You may want to try eating mints during your workout—or at least chewing peppermint gum. The refreshing smell might give you an edge for more strength and muscle—and your partner will stop suggesting that you floss, brush and gargle before training.
Ac c o rding to MRI studies, ove rhead dumbbell extensions stretch position put maximum heat on all three triceps heads when you use two dumbbells simultaneously. The same movement done with a bar instead of dumbbells ignites only the lateral and medial heads, leaving the long head lagging behind. The reason the dumbbell version may be more effective is that your palms are facing each other. More proof that varying your grip can have a substantial effect on target- muscle stimulation. Improvisation can be a great motivator, so you may just have one of your best workouts ever—unless you pinch a vital bodypart between two dumbbells be extremely cautious training in the buff!
Another tactic is to work your smaller bodyparts, such as arms and delts, at home, every week and save the big stuff for the commercial gym. A change of scenery can give you more motivation and greater gains.
Studies have shown that the eccentric, or negative, part of a repetition is the most important for stimulating growth. Unfortunately, when you use machines that have a weight stack, the negative stroke is lighter than if you we re using free we i g h t s.
Even worse, the friction makes the positive harder than if you were using free weights, so you get a harder positive and an easier negative. The bodypart that suffers most often from negative neglect is calves because most people use a calf machine or leg press that has a weight stack. Your calves are already good at minimizing loads and cheating weights up, thanks to all the walking you do, so to make them grow, you have to maximize the stress you put on them in the gym, especially the negative.
Giving your calves a heavier negative and a controlled stroke may be just the growth jolt they need for a new size surge. A lot of trainees feel bench presses and incline presses more in their front delts and triceps than in their chest muscles. The reason is that they. As you grip the bar, pull your shoulders down and back by pinching your scapulae together and push your chest out. Do yo u r p resse s with that scapulae re t raction for better pec contraction.
Try it on flyes and crossovers as well to remove some front-delt stress. Also, stretching after you finish w o rking a bodypart can increase strength. Instead, hold the stretch position of each rep for five seconds. Do five or six reps. That keeps constant tension on the pecs and enhances the most important part of the stroke.
When doing cable cro s s ove r s, m any bodybuilders cave in their chest cavity, which brings in too much front delt. You need to keep your chest high and forced out during crossovers to get the most pectoral involvement. This exercise was a Vince Gironda favorite for shaping great pecs. Keeping a training journal, with your sets, reps and weights for every exercise, seems like a no-brainer, but how many bodybuilders do you see at the gym just winging it? In fact, too many, which may be one reason so many guys look the same year after year.
Seeing your weights and reps on paper before a set motivates you to try to better your last workout. Bottom line: A training journal is essential if you want to make the fastest gains possible. Workouts can get complicated. You add an isolation exercise here, you start doing supersets there, and then you say, What the hell, and you t ry to incorp orate eve ry technique in this chapter into your ro u t i n e. He y, chill out.
A better strategy may be to tr y s t reamlining your workout. Do one compound exercise for each b o d y p a rt for three sets or so of eight to 12 reps—the Ba s i c Ultim ate Wo rkout 1 or 2 in Chapter 11, for example.
Rest one to two minutes between sets, depending on the exercise, and. Incidentally, basics-only workouts are great for size and strength building during the winter months. Some claim gains of 20 to 30 pounds in six weeks. One reason the combo works so well is something called hypoxia, or oxygen debt.
That can increase red blood cells to make the metabolism more efficient—as in sending growth nutrients and anabolic compounds to the muscles. To flip on the anabolic switch, do 20 reps on your squats, taking a few deep breaths between reps—after every one. You get a better nerve response from the w o rking muscle. That means yo u should do a unilateral exercise for each bodypart, or at least your weak b o d y p a rt s, to stimulate more muscle growth.
Some examples are one-leg leg extensions, one-arm dumbbell rows, one-arm preacher curls, one-leg calf raises and triceps kickbacks. If you train in a bare-bones home gym with only barbells and dumbbells, it can be hard to w o rk your chest in the contra c t e d position.
You maximally contract yo u r pecs when your upper arms are out in front of your torso with your arms straight and your hands together, and most bodybuilders finish off their pecs in that position with cable cro s s ove r s.
You can use them regular style or do them with your feet elevated on a bench to get more upper-chest involvement. To get coveted diamond- shape calves, you have to hit the inside of the gastrocnemius muscle. To hit the inside fibers so the muscle juts out like the side of a finely cut stone, you have to do calf raises by pushing more with the big-toe side of your foot. Lots of bodybuilders have trouble doing that; they tend to roll the foot out as they come up and end in the contracted position with more pressure on the little-toe side.
That should force you to come up on the big- toe side of your feet every time. Well, forearm strength can ehnace your power on other exercises, such as curls, which in turn will help you build bigger biceps.
Do some direct forearm work, for gosh sakes! To do them, stand holding a dumbbell in each hand with your arms hanging down and the dumbbells next to your thighs, pointing forward. Contract your forearm f l e xo r s, curling the dumbbells toward your body as high as possible. Then reverse the movement, taking them up away from your body as high as possible to contract your forearm extensors.
Pick a weight that has you screaming after about 45 seconds—and stay close to the rack. After a few weeks do a drop set to trigger new adaptation. X Reps can work on rockers as well, but you may have to reduce the weight to do them for the outward portion. A recent study in the Journal of Applied Ph y s i o l o gy re p o rted that while a placebo gro u p showed a 76 percent increase in muscle protein synthesis 24 hours after an ecce ntric workout, the ibuprofen and acetaminophen group had completely blocked muscle- protein-synthesis rates.
Vitamin C can help your joints as well. Smoking pot does nothing for joints, but it can help you bulk up. Got any Dorritos, dude?
Many studies, including one published in the International Journal of Sp o rts Me d i c i n e. That means you can train harder. If you want to increase yo u r testosterone levels outside the gym, you might try calming d own. A study re p o rted by the American Journal of Epidemiology said that aggressive type-A behavior can lower t e s t o s t e ro n e.
Re s e a rch from the Un i versity of Pittsburg h indicates that impatience and being extremely competitive have a significant impact on lowering testosterone as men age.
The researchers suggest that the reason for the decrease may be an increase in cortisol, which suppresses testosterone. Yet another reason to take a phosphatidylserine supplement to keep cortisol in check. It means to keep your gym temperature warm, not cold. In other words, crank down the AC.
Vince Gironda was notorious for keeping his gym sweltering during the summer because he believed it helped promote muscle gains or maybe he was just rationalizing his ch eapness. He was right. In a study re p o rted in the International Journal of Sp o rts Me d i c i n e ; , researchers found that hot-weather training not only helps p re vent injuries but also increases the force of muscular contraction.
Warmer internal muscle temperatures increase oxygen delive ry to muscle as well, and that in turn spark s e n e rgy reactions in muscle that results in increased forc e coupled with decreased fatigue.
Training in heat is kind of like getting a built-in warmup. Training in heat, X Reps, pumping—with all that innuendo, your testosterone should be soaring. Now hit the gym to make the best of it. The following are some tips to help you keep your get-big nutrition on the right track. Use meal replacements in a thermos, carry a bag of nuts, stop at the 7-Eleven for some yogurt or cottage cheese, scrape the bugs off your windshield— whatever it takes.
Hunger pang? Eat immediately! When your stomach is churning, muscle is burning. Go for about 60 grams of carbs and 40 grams of whey. Right after you train, your muscles are ready to absorb nutrients like brand-new sponges. Get a fast-absorbing protein in your gut, and shoot up your insulin to intensify the drive. For more informaton visit www.
Did you know that sleep can be extremely catabolic? And you thought nighttime was grow time. Well, it can be if you drink a micellar casein-and- whey-protein drink before bed, which can help prevent the stress hormone cortisol from ravaging your muscles while you snooze.
The casein is slow absorbing, so it will help trickle amino acids into your bloodstream as you saw those logs. Keep in mind that whey is okay, but it will be in and out of your system in a matter of hours. For best re s u l t s, make your nig htcap wi th micellar casein and whey for that all- important trickle-feed muscle-building effect. Carbs feed your body glycogen, which is stored in your muscles and liver as an energy source.
That means when your glycogen stores are full, you feel strong, have better workouts and get better pumps. Glycogen also forces your muscles to hold more water, which translates to bigger, fuller bodyparts the ones you train in the gym, not that other one. The amount of carbohydrates you should eat each day depends on how much you burn. Me a l replacements are great, but you need real food, too, if you want to grow as fast as possible—specifically meat.
And grass-fed beef is low in saturated fat and high in the essential fatty acids, which add to the testosterone-building effect. Eat beef twice a week—more often if you can get your hands on grass-fed beef and bison. You read that right. Studies show that diets.
Those are the building blocks of testosterone, and as the late steroid guru Dan Duchaine said, the omega fats are the most anabolic legal supplement available. By the way, testosterone is a governor of sex drive, so be sure your gal is getting plenty of omega fats too. Take about two grams after you train. Arginine has also been shown to help the muscles store more glyc o g e n , which means more cell vo l u m e. This has nothing to do with punching out war protesters at the federal building although that might relieve some stress.
It has everything to do with assassinating elements in your body that can damage your health. Free radicals cause eve ry t h i n g f rom skin wrinkles to card i ova s c u l a r disease to cancer—and they can put a big damper on your muscle gains as they slow your re c ove r y and get your immune system in a stranglehold.
Excellent health means optimal muscle gains, so take antioxidants to battle free radicals. A good start is milligrams of vitamin C, i n t e rnational units of vitamin E and 20, units of beta-carotene. The results sh owed that the men taking the E had less extensive muscular damage.
A compound you may want to add to you r postworkout dri nk is L- carnitine—about two grams oughta do it. Jose Antonio, Ph. After the three weeks they p e rf o rmed an exercise bout. The re s e a rchers took blood samples before and after the subjects did squats—five sets of 15 to 20 reps. Various indices of skeletal muscle damage, such as creatine kinase, were lower in the LCLT group than in the placebo gro u p. There was also much less fre e - ra d i c a l formation, which suggests less oxidative damage, in the LCLT group.
But even more directly, muscle disruption, or damage, was much less, and muscle soreness was less in the LCLT group than in the placebo group for up to four days after exercise. But in a study done in Hungary, scientists gave chickens four experimental diets that differed only in the amount of carnitine 50, or milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. After two weeks on the carnitine-supplemented diet, the chickens were on average 9 percent heavier.
Bodyfat l e vels we re also lower by 18 percent. A dose of 50 to milligrams of carnitine per kilogram of bodyweight daily made for superchickens. Glutamine is the most. Unfortunately, a lot of what you take orally is absorbed by cells in the intestines and never makes it to the muscles.
Supplement heavily with L-glutamine—some Muscle Meals is glutamine- bodybuilders take as much as 20 peptide fortified. A study at Louisiana State University in showed that subjects who took only two grams of glutamine increased their growth horm o n e output fourfold. The best type to supplement with is glutamine peptides, which allow much of the glutamine to make it through the gut and into the bloodstream.
Studies suggest the peptide-bonded version is up to 10 times more absorbable than standard L-glutamine. Look for glutamine peptides in your meal replacement and protein powder for that extra mass-building kick. Studies suggest that fasting makes muscles more receptive to amino acid uptake. When are you in a fasted state? To take advantage of that state, have a whey protein drink as soon as you wake up.
Whey is a fast protein that gets into your bloodstream almost immediately after you take it. You may also want to enhance the anabolic surge of the whey by combining it with an insulin spike. Drink a glass of juice with your whey protein, or get both fast carbs and fast protein in one powder with a postworkout drink like RecoverX.
Use a half serving as soon as you wake up, and then 20 minutes later have breakfast. Their objective was to see if calcium supplements increase bone density. Re s e a rch had already shown that intense physical activity can increase bone density, especially during the growth period of adolescence. On the other hand, athletic activity also increases calcium losses, particularly thro u g h perspiration. It can, therefore, create a calcium deficiency just when the body most needs the mineral.
Yet the researchers noted that two grams of calcium a day increased not only bone density but also muscle mass. In other words, physical exercise plus calcium su pplementation increases muscle mass significantly more than does exercise alone.
Many meal re p l a c e m e n t s, especially those with micellar casein, contain ample amounts of calcium. According to Ronald Elin, M. Magnesium is involved in protein synthesis and muscle contraction, which may be why, in a seven-week study, a group taking magnesium gained 20 percent more quadriceps strength than a gro u p taking a placebo. The supplemented group took milligrams of magnesium oxide per day. Sipping a high-carb drink as you train can help preserve muscle wasting by blunting cortisol release.
Carbs keep the muscles full, which is why extreme low- carb diets can flatten out even the biggest bodybuilders. As a re s u l t , insulin secretion is repressed while the secretions of cortisol and glucagon are enhanced.
Studies have shown that carb drinks boost glutamine output at the end of a workout by cleaning out many of the waste products that accumulate in the muscles during e x e rc i s e. You could take Kool-Aid or sugar-spiked H2O in a water bottle to keep you hydrated and cortisol free during your training. Defizzed Coke can work too, plus you get a caffeine kick. Most bodybuilders know to eat often—five to six times a day—and to get protein at all of those feedings. You need an excess of energy, a.
Excess muscle is a luxury, and your body. A good rule of thumb is to take your bodyweight and multiply it by 15 to get the daily calorie level you need to gain muscle. Extreme hardgainers may need to add to 1, calories to that number. Check out the diet on the next page. It provides about 3, calories, with 30 percent protein, 25 percent fat and 45 percent carbs. If you need more calories, use protein supplements as stand-alone meals or to fortify real-food meals.
Meal 3 Roasted chicken, 6 ounces Lima beans or other green vegetable, 6 ounces Rice, 1 cup Sherbet, 3 scoops. Meal 4 Cottage cheese, 6 ounces Pears canned in own juice , 4 halves. Meal 6 right after training Postworkout anabolic booster, such as RecoverX Optional specialty supplements: P.
Cort-Bloc, a cortisol control compound , buffered creatine, such as CreaSol. Meal 7 Tuna sandwich on whole-wheat bread tuna packed in water Apple Peanuts handful. Before bed Supplements: antioxidants C, milligrams; E, international units; and beta-carotene, 20, international units Optional specialty supplements: P.
It takes time but not as much as it takes most trainees. In other words, you gotta do what it takes to keep yourself hitting the gym on a regular basis. Your training will have to be more precise, but that can be part of the fun. For example, you can make incredible gains with one of the Ultimate Ba s i c Workouts in Chapter Two to three days a week in the gym using X Reps can provide all the muscle-building stimulation you need to develop an impressive physique.
You can also try negative s, which can lay waste to a muscle with one slow, heavy, controlled set see 21 in Chapter Variations like that make the workout more effective and keep them interesting and fun. Always remember that yo u must enjoy the journey, or you may get a flat tire on the road to more mass. Keep those tires pumped up and your body tuned up like a Fo rm u l a - On e ra c e r, and life will be much more enjoyable, not to mention X-hilarating.
One-arm Presses, Midrange: Deltoids. Sissy Squats, Stretch: Quadriceps. Standing Calf Raises, Contracted: Gastrocnemius. Or you can do crunches on a bench press bench with your upper back hanging off one end to provide ab stretch. See page Lying Triceps Extensions, Midrange: Triceps. Note: Close-grip bench presses can substitute for lying extensions as a midrange triceps exercise.
Note: For best triceps contraction do these one arm at a time, and make sure you keep your upper arm slightly behind your torso. This movement works the forearm flexors on the underside of the lower arm. The regular deadlift can be classified as a midrange midback exercise or a midrange quad exercise. Open navigation menu. Close suggestions Search Search. User Settings. Skip carousel. Carousel Previous. Carousel Next. What is Scribd? Explore Ebooks. Bestsellers Editors' Picks All Ebooks.
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If you have trained with cluster sets before then you may want to perform as many as total cluster sets per exercise.
Whichever option you choose it is important to select the correct weight for your sets. You want to pick a weight that lets you complete all cluster sets per exercise with the same weight.
For example, if you used pounds for your first cluster set on an exercise then you want to make sure that you can use this same weight for your follow-up sets. If you cannot do this then the weight was too heavy and you should either reduce the load or keep it the same at your next workout. Once you can complete all sets with the same load then you should make a small weight jump at the following workout.
Remember, it is the high volume of high quality work that makes cluster sets so effective! Charles Poliquin is widely regarded as the man who popularized German Volume Training in the strength training world. Charles believes it is one of the fastest and easiest ways for an athlete to build muscle mass. You are going to perform ten sets of ten reps on 2 key exercises using your rep max.
The basic idea behind German Volume Training is to complete ten sets of ten reps for an exercise. If you are a bodybuilder or if your primary goal is to build muscle then you will LOVE this training program! Of course there is far more to German Volume Training than simply performing 10 sets of 10 reps on any given exercise. One of the unique twists that Charles uses to make this routine more effective is he has his athletes superset antagonistic body parts together.
Antagonistic body parts are simply body parts that are on opposite sides of the body and have opposing functions. For example the biceps and triceps are one example of antagonistic body parts. On this training program Charles recommends you perform a set for the triceps, rest 90 seconds, perform a set for the biceps, rest 90 seconds, and then perform another set for the triceps etc. Alternating back-and-forth between antagonistic exercises has many advantages:. Charles believed so strongly in antagonistic body part supersets that he designed the vast majority of his hypertrophy and strength routines to include them.
If you use pounds for 10 reps on your first set of an exercise then your goal is to use the same pounds for 10 reps on your last set. Here is what your first German Volume Training workout might look like:. This is an acceptable outcome. At the next workout you could either stick with the same weight and try to perform all 10 sets for 10 reps or you could take a small weight jump.
If for example you are losing reps starting on the 4th set then the weight you chose was simply too heavy! In order to do this you want to select a weight that represents your estimated rep max for each of the main exercises. You can select a more normal load for the accessory work for each body part.
One of the benefits of this split is that it lets you specialize on your upper body whilst still training body parts once every 5 days. Here is the full German Volume Training program:. On this routine it is extremely important to use the correct tempos and rest periods. This routine was specifically designed by Charles Poliquin himself to be as effective as possible.
Of course if you may want to make minor changes to the exercise selection if you know for a fact that one of the above exercises does not work for your specific body type. Charles Poliquin is a big fan of the original German Volume Training program. He believes that performing 10 sets per exercise is a great way to train for size and strength. Charles invented the Advanced German Volume Training program to help his more advanced or fast-twitch athletes blast through training plateaus.
On the Advanced German Volume Training program you perform 10 sets of reps on 2 key exercises per workout. The number of reps decreases from one workout to the next so you are training with heavier and heavier loads throughout the training program.
Most people have a hard time performing 10 sets of 5 reps on their first workout. Your muscular endurance will improve over the course of the program. By the end of the program performing 10 sets on the same exercise will be a piece of cake! Advanced German Volume Training is a very difficult program to recover from.
This will help you recover from your workouts. And so on. The main difference is you are going to use slightly different exercises like front squats vs back squats. On Advanced German Volume Training the number of reps you perform will vary from one workout to the next in a zig-zag pattern.
Here is your sets and reps look like throughout the entire program:. As you can see the entire Advanced German Volume Training program consists of 12 workouts per body part.
Charles wants you train each body part once every 5 days so this entire program will take 60 days or about 2 months to complete. Here are some conservative estimates for which percentages you should use on each training day:. Of course these are all percentages of your 1-rep max.
Talk about incredible! Here is one possible Poliquin-style training split that you could use for the Advanced German Volume Training program:. Here are the sample workout routines:. Here are the training videos for this workout: exercise A1 , exercise A2 , exercise B1. This is definitely one of the more challenging routines listed in this routine.
Some of you may be bored just thinking about performing the same training routine for 2 months straight. The varying rep ranges and significant weight jumps from workout to workout definitely help to keep the training interesting. After all, not everyone finds building strength and muscle at an extremely rapid pace to be an exciting endeavor!
Charles believes this program is one of the ultimate ways to train for relative and absolute strength. Doug Hepburn was widely regarded as the strongest man alive during the mids. Doug was born with a club foot and severe learning disabilities. His doctors and teachers never thought he would amount to anything in life.
Doug ignored all the naysayers around him and developed a great Vision for his life. Doug wanted to be one of the strongest men in history and nothing was going to stop him! Doug eventually won the Olympic Gold in Weightlifting and became the first man to bench press pounds.
First Doug performed lots of singles or doubles on 1 or 2 major exercises. Then he took some weight off the bar and performed multiple sets of reps on the same exercises. For this program you will perform 8 sets of singles followed by 5 sets of 5 reps. For the sets of 5 you are going to slightly change the nature of the exercise. For example, you may want to change the width of your grip on bench presses and chin ups or the elevation of your heels on squats. This slight variation in the exercises will allow you to tap into a similar but slightly different motor unit pool for the functional hypertrophy work.
The important thing to know is that this slight variation will dramatically increase the effectiveness of the routine. Modified Hepburn Method Arm Workout. Modified Hepburn Method Leg Workout. The Modified Hepburn Method can be an extremely demanding method. One of the keys to making this program work is to select the correct weights for each set.
From there you can slowly work the weight up over the course of the 8 singles. All of these sets would be recorded in your training logbook you do have a logbook, right!?
At the next workout your goal would be to start the same progression a little higher and end a little higher. For example, you may start at lbs and aim to finish around lbs.
On the 5 sets of 5 reps I recommend you stick with the same weight for all five sets. Because you did not complete all five sets of five reps you will keep the weight the same at lbs at the next workout.
You are only allowed to increase the weight on the 5 sets of 5 reps once you have completed 5 reps on all 5 sets. Of course you may have noticed that pound weight jumps were used in our sample scenario. Making these small weight jumps is extremely useful for getting the most out of every set.
They are easily one of the best training investments I have personally made. All three of these exercises performed in a row constitute one tri-set. On most tri-set routines you will perform between total tri-sets per body part. Of course the training method is a special type of tri-set.
You are going to perform 6 reps on the first exercise, 12 reps on the second exercise, and 25 reps on the third exercise. The 6-rep set does a fantastic job of recruiting the higher-threshold motor units while the and rep sets further damage the lower-threshold motor units and cause an overwhelming amount of metabolic fatigue.
The awesome thing about the training method is that it does a great job of maximizing all three of these factors! The extremely high amount of metabolic fatigue is also quite useful for increasing the rate at which you lose body fat.
It is no wonder that the method was such a go-to training program for Charles! I should warn you that the training method is not for everyone. If you have a dopamine-dominant neurotransmitter profile or have a lot of fast-twitch muscle fibers then the training method is definitely not for you!
The reps are too high for you to make progress. However, for most trainees this program works like magic for burning body fat and building muscle mass. Here are the training videos for this workout: exercise A1 , exercise A2 , exercise A3 , exercise B1 , exercise B2 , exercise B3.
These routines are extremely difficult to complete at first. You may find yourself ready to vomit at the end of your first workout due to the enormous lactic acid production! By your second or third workout per body part your muscular endurance should have increased dramatically and you should have less difficulty making it through the entire workout. I recommend you complete only 3 total rounds of the tri-sets for each body part on your first couple of workouts.
By your 3rd workout for a given body part you should easily be able to handle the full 4 tri-sets per body part. This is a very difficult but rewarding training system. If you have the guts to complete it then you will be rewarded with a leaner physique and slabs of new muscle tissue all over your body! The 5 to 8 method is a modified version of rest-pause sets as popularized by Dante Trudel and his DC Training program. Here is the experienced DC trainee Dusty Hanshaw giving a perfect demonstration of a rest-pause set:.
As you can see Dusty Hanshaw trains to failure three times in a row with seconds in between each attempt. Rest-pause sets work awesome for bodybuilders who want to build size and strength at the same time. They cause a ton of damage to your fast-twitch muscle fibers and stimulate powerful adaptations within your central nervous system.
The biggest changes are the lower rep ranges and the fact that you are NOT training to failure! Charles likes his athletes to perform multiple sets per exercise and it is impossible to do this if you are training to failure.
Of course you still have to push yourself on your sets! Your 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th reps should all be very difficult. Charles starts talking about the 5 to 8 method at the time mark. Basically the first upper body workout in the week involves the 5 to 8 method while the second upper body workout features straight sets of 5 reps.
This is on purpose! The 5 to 8 method is an extremely demanding training system, and I do mean extremely. The extra single repetitions performed with this training method create deep inroads into your recovery ability.
Many of my online coaching clients have mentioned how much this extra rest makes in terms of their ability to progress workout to workout. If you are looking for a great blend of strength and functional hypertrophy gains then I highly recommend you give the 5 to 8 method a shot.
The contrast set method is a very powerful training program. I personally have many fond memories of this routine as I hit my fist pound deep front squat using this exact training protocol!
This lift was performed in my mids and I have sense far surpassed it. However, I can still remember the exact workout where I hit this lift like it was yesterday…. The contrast set method is another awesome way to train for absolute strength and functional hypertrophy. The 1-rep max sets potentiate your central nervous system so you can lift more weight on your 6-rep max sets.
The contrast set method is a lot like wave loading. You would do the same thing on each subsequent set of six reps.
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