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rp-notes's Introduction

Dr. Mike Israetel's RP Bodybuilding Posts

Table of Contents

General Diet

Mass Gain

Some Mass Gain Tips

  1. Leaner individuals gain more muscle when they mass than fatter individuals. If you're male and can't see your abs at all, you're better off losing fat so that you can put on more muscle later, rather than just gaining mass now and getting even fatter.

  2. Eat mostly the right stuff to fuel your training and your health, but have some fun too. Night time junk food consumption can be a part of most massing plans, especially if done only a few nights a week. Get your good food in, train hard, and in the evening have some fun eating junk. This beats not having any junk (psychologically) and beats eating junk early in the day and messing with your training performance (physiologically).

  3. Gain weight slowly each week and in 2-3 month intervals. If you gain much faster than a pound a week, you'll not gain much more muscle than if you went slower, but just more fat you'll have to burn off later. If you try to gain weight continuously for longer than 3 months or so, your body begins to respond more poorly to hypertrophy training and because all gains will be some muscle and some fat, you'll get too fat to gain muscle at best rates if you try to gain for too long. Gain for 2-3 months, maintain for 1-2, cut for 1-2 months, and repeat for best results in the long term. That's more or less how I went from wrestling in the 103 weightclass in high school to weighing a bit more now.

  4. When you choose to start a massing phase, commit to the process. Yes, you'll temporarily get a bit smoother and that's OK. Trying to stay your leanest at all times is a good way to never put on much size. Training and diet are cyclical processes. Just like you can't be peaked to be your strongest at all times, you can't be your leanest at all times. Do what it takes, look 'ok' toward the end of mass and during maintenance, and you'll look GREAT over the long term.

Fat Loss

Having a healthy relationship with food/eating

The MOST important element of success with a fat loss diet is to have a healthy relationship with food. This means among other things that:

  1. Fat loss diets DO NOT strengthen your relationship with food, they strain it. If it starts out weak, it might fail and disordered thoughts and eating patterns may result... some of them long term in nature.

  2. If you don't have the healthiest relationship with food, it's imperative to work on that BEFORE you start a diet.

  3. There's no rush to get healthy and certainly no rush to get lean. If you do it right, you can set up a lifetime of looking your best and being healthy. If you do it wrong and rush the process, you may find yourself fighting diet-created demons that are even tougher than the ones that pushed you in to dieting too fast in the first place.

Some qualities of a 'healthy relationship with food/eating'

  1. Not being overly emotional about food in general. This means mostly that you can eat food for logical reasons only (nutritional programming, for example) and are not often overwhelmed with emotional reactions or attachments to food.

  2. Your life's main sources of happiness are diverse, including friends, career, family, pets, hobbies AND food. Food does not hold a central position in determining your happiness or lack thereof far above and beyond those other features.

  3. Not being overly attached to food. If you have to eat certain foods, bland foods, or less/more food than ideal, you tend to think that's usually ok and not a big deal.

  4. You have fundamentally healthy eating habits, focusing most of your calorically adequate but not excessive intake on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean meats/protein sources and healthy fats.

  5. You don't tend to view food as 'good vs. bad' and understand that long term habits determine health and appearance/performance, not single meals. This usually means that while most of your diet consists of foods from point D above, you enjoy the occasional junk food with no big reservations.

  6. You view bodyweight, appearance, performance and health on a spectrum, not in binary 'good vs. bad' terms. If you weighed 155 today but weighed only 152 yesterday and you don't want to gain weight, you're not upset, or at most 1.5% more upset, not 200% more upset (upset in proportion to the size of the perceived issue, if upset even at all).

  7. You understand your value and worth outside of your purely body-related metrics. Your value in your career, family, friendships, and other facets of life that can't be conveyed in a bathroom selfie (so you know I'm struggling lol!)

All of these are on a spectrum. There is no 'perfectly unhealthy relationship' or 'perfectly healthy relationship,' just a continuum.

Re-establishing your healthy relationship with food/eating

In relation to my last two posts on a.) the need to establish relatively healthy relationships with food and eating before dieting and b.) defining what such a relationship actually entails, here are some thoughts to consider about HOW to work on improving your relationship with food/eating:

The process of re-establishing your healthy relationship with food can involve the following process of 4 phases. Each phase is only begun when the last phase is no longer a struggle and feels completely natural and worry-free. For some this means the phases take weeks, for some, months. Rushing the process is almost never a good idea... you're doing this to HEAL, not to "get it done and move on."

Phase 1: Unattached Eating

You don't count, track, plan, or alter your food intake in any structured way. You eat ONLY what you want, when you want. Keep training hard, don't look at the scale. Sooner or later you'll have had your fill and you will legitimately have addressed every craving so much that you'll likely start to miss some kind of structure. For most people this will be by far the hardest phase.

Phase 2: Nutritious Choices

You don't track or plan any amounts of food, nor do you weigh in on the scale. But you start to focus on getting MOST (not all) of your food from fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein sources and healthy fats. Still eat junk when you feel like it, but keep most of your food healthy. This phase ends when eating like this feels habitual and perfectly natural.

Phase 3: Rough Macros

Keep eating like in Phase 2, but determine your rough maintenance macros and follow them on most days to a decent degree of precision. Eyeballing macros is ok, and formal meal structure or number is not necessary. This phase ends when you're habitually hitting your macros worry-free and with no pressure.

Phase 4: Counting and Measuring

Maintenance diet in which your eat for particular macros every day, you plan meal numbers, macros and food types in accordance with your training and waking/sleep schedule, and you start to weigh yourself again. When this feels natural and habitual, you're likely ready to try another fat loss phase of 2-3 months in duration, maintain, then go from there!

MUCH more detail available on this in the female dieting book we wrote at RP

If you're interested in being guided through this process, Kevin Gatti specializes in working with females in just such situations and may be able to help you out and coach your through just such a process.

DISCLAIMER: this is for those that have taken their dieting to the extreme and suffered psychologically for it and are now in that grey area between diagnosable eating disorder and mildly poor eating relationships. This advice is thus for those folks. If you are not at that extreme, trying a toned-down version of this process might work best. If you're more extreme, seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist to work on your disordered eating patterns is highly recommended.

Ending a Fat Loss Phase

When you finish a fat loss phase, you want the transition to set you up for sustainability. Eating tons of junk right after and blowing up super quick isn't conducive to ANY goal, massing included. As far as junk is concerned, adding it in slowly is the best way to go to minimize fat gain rebound after your fat loss phase.

But how do you pull off the slow reintroduction of junk food from a mental standpoint? Toward the end of a cut, aren't we all just going nuts and ready to eat all the junk in the world? How is the average dieter supposed to realistically pull that off?

There's a way! If long term weight loss is your goal and nasty rebounds are not in your plan, you can give yourself the edge by ending each of your fat loss phases EARLY. How early? While we say around 12 weeks each, there's a clearer guideline from a psych perspective.

The trick is to stop cutting BEFORE you have crazy cravings. You know that point in your fat loss phase during which you've already lost a ton of weight but your cravings are pretty minor? Push just a bit further than that and STOP! Could you have gone even further THAT TIME? Yes. But if you stop before crazy cravings, you nearly ensure that a rebound won't happen. If you get greedy and push too far, your chances of rebound go up, and your chances of your long term success go down.

In long term fat loss, the hard part isn't always pushing yourself at any one time. It's being patient enough to take needed maintenance phases, patient enough to let the whole process take longer, and willful enough to make it happen.

General Training

Starting Out

If you're just starting working out for the first time (or in a long time), you might feel tempted to 'jump in' and begin a program of 5x a week exercise first thing in the morning. And for some people, that works. But for many, it's too much, too soon, and too big of an initial burden on schedules and sleep.

If you're just starting out, try 3 days a week and at regular times that work BEST for your schedule. And if you like it a ton... you can always ease in to doing more!

Just remember, fitness is a long term process... there's almost never a rush to get fit super soon.

Mesocycle Design for Hypertrophy

Volume

When you build your hypertrophy mesocycle, you want to start out with a training volume that gives you an overload so that you can grow, but just gives the bare minimum so that you have room to progress. That’s your MED. With each week, you use more training volume, providing an overload over the last week and thus more growth. When you reach your MRV, further overloads are either impossible due to excessive fatigue or would simply be counterproductive and not cause more growth. At that point you deload and let fatigue fall off before starting another mesocycle, potentially one with some different exercises than the ones you just used. The average volume of this mesocycle is your MAV; the best volume for progress, but due to the overload principle, you don’t AIM for this volume, you work from just below it (MED) to just above it (MRV) for best results in the long term.

Volume

NOTE: Set numbers are examples based on average intermediate lifters with 3-5 years of serious training under their belts. All volume numbers must be tailored to the individual for best outcomes.

Intensity

When selecting training intensities, the overload principle guides us to use heavier and heavier weights with each microcycle, but it also guides us to get closer and closer to failure on each working set, as relative intensity (measured in Repetitions In Reserve) does have an effect on growth. When choosing absolute intensities, we must stay above the minimum hypertrophy threshold for intensity (around 60% 1RM) but not get so high as to limit our MRV too much (since high intensities cause disproportionately more fatigue). Most people will find that they can get their best growth with average intensities between 65% and 75% 1RM, but going above and below those ranges on certain occasions can very much be a part of an intelligent training plan. On relative intensity, we want to start with a low enough value to give us room to overload, as hitting failure too early in the mesocycle can cause disproportionately high fatigue and prevent further ability to overload or adapt. But, that relative intensity should be pushed close to the maximum in the last hard week of training to elicit an overreaching effect and cause the most growth possible.

Intensity

Please use this information as a starting guide and/or food for thought. None of it is meant to be dogmatic. Always use your best judgment and track your own body’s responses for best results.

Bringing Up a Lagging Lift

If you want to bring up a lift, is the automatic answer to train the lagging muscle group of that lift. Like if you have weak triceps, will training them MORE bring up your bench? If only it were so simple. A couple of considerations need to be made before we can be assured that this is the likely best course of action, including:

  1. Does the lift have clear limiting factors?

    For example, if your lower back isn't strong enough for your glutes, hams, upper back and grip, your deadlift will round you over and positioning will be compromised, leading to limited performances. By bringing up your lower back, you can very much boost your deadlift in this scenario. You can make your glutes or hams as strong as ever, but because your lower back is the limiting factor, this will almost certainly have no effect on your deadlift going up.

    On the other hand, in the bench press, if your triceps are weak, making them strong should help you bench more. But making your chest strong will help you bench more as well, even if your triceps don't get any stronger. Because of the mechanics of the lift, the chest isn't ever limited by the triceps and vice-versa, and can contribute to the lift all the way through. If you triceps are super unresponsive but your chest grows great, lockout problems on bench may actually be solved with more chest training. Same goes for all lifts (shoulder press is another example) in which there is no clear limiting factor in the kinetic chain.

  2. Is the muscle you suspect as the limiting factor ACTUALLY the limiting factor in your case?

    Sometimes it might seem that way, but it turns out to be another muscle altogether. When lower backs round in the deadlift, it MIGHT be the erectors at fault. But it might also be the scapular retractors of the upper back that are weak, and their weakness leads to the chest falling over, putting the lower back in a poor position no matter how (realistically) strong it is.

    It can also be a technique issue. If you're not hitting the right positions at the start and through the lift, your back might round no matter how strong you are, and all the erector training in the world won't fix that. But working with a coach to improve your technique might reveal to you that your erectors were strong enough to not limit you all along, you just needed to improve your movement patterns.

  3. If you do find a limiting factor muscle, is MORE work the answer?

    It depends! You have to figure out if the muscle in question is:

    • under its MRV

    • around its MRV

    • over it's MRV

    If it's under its MRV, it can do better with more training, so go to town. If it's around its MRV, you'll have to work on technique or something else because more training will only be a net negative. If it's over its MRV, then the surest path to gains is to train it LESS and let it progress faster due to improved recovery.

  4. Choose your work wisely.

    If you finally find the limiting muscle in question and more work is the answer, make sure it's the kind of work that transfers well and is phase-appropriate. For example, if you're doing tricep extensions on a cable to help your bench press, but you're doing this with sets of 10 at 3 weeks out of a meet, you're causing some muscle growth, but the neural characteristics of the triceps are becoming less explosive and will probably make no change to your strength for that meet, or those neural changes and extra fatigue from the work may temporarily make you a tad weaker! If you're months out of your meet and eating enough to support size gains, you can use isolation moves like cable extensions. But as the meet gets closer and the training heavier, you need to transition to the right exercises that match the characteristics of the phase of training you're in, going perhaps from extensions with a cable to skull crushers, to close grip benches, and finally to board work or slingshot work right before the meet.

TD;LR: If you complain of poor lockout ability and someone tells you "just add some triceps work after your heavy lifts," they MIGHT very well be correct... but they might also be way off.

Knowing When to Back Off

When people say 'I've tried everything to grow (insert stubborn muscle or movement), they often have tried most everything -- except for backing off and training that area LESS. If you're chronically over your MRV, every new intensity technique can leave you no better off and even worse off. Sometimes cutting your volume by 1/3 or more for 1-3 months can be the best thing for your growth. MORE is not necessarily better, and it's actually worse if you're already doing too much.

And lastly, it might seem that, based on how much other people train a muscle or lift, and based on how much you train your other muscles and lifts that 'there is no way my local MRV for this muscle/lift is THAT LOW.' But it just might be and finding out by dropping volume is the only sure way to go. Worst case is that you'll get much stronger and drop a bunch of fatigue, re-sensitizing that area for massive growth and improvement when you do hit it hard again!

And just as an example: my own hamstring MRV is around 10 sets per week. Yep. Give that some thought if you're pushing into the 25+ per week set range on a bodypart and are frustrated with progress.

Training Focus

Some very good reasons to focus on several bodyparts at a time during your bodybuilding training, instead of trying to grow EVERYTHING all at once:

  1. Adaptive Resistance

    Every muscle group develops resistance to adaptation over time. Throwing the kitchen sink at your biceps, for example, will work great for a while, but after several months, your biceps have seen pretty much everything you've got. They won't grow much even if you keep training them super hard unless you take a break for a month or so and just train them enough to hold their current size. When you come back, they'll respond very well again for several months, upon which you'll have to repeat the process. In essence, the idea that you can and should always try to get every muscle on your frame to grow is flawed for at least this reason.

    An interesting fact of physiology helps buttress this idea. The fact is, the human body is VERY resistant to making adaptations and will only do so at fastest rates if high overloads and lots of variation are present. Just "meh" training will likely get the intermediate/advanced not "meh" results, but actually no results at all. On the other hand, the body is VERY good at KEEPING gains with quite a low level of training (esp if that training is still heavy but low volume). You don't need to hammer every bodypart to the max for it to stick on you... you can actually hold your gains with as little as half the volume it takes to make the best ones. With this reality being as it is, training super hard for some time and really backing off for some time becomes almost essential for best gains.

  2. Psychological Monotony

    A minor concern for the extra-motivated, but a concern nonetheless. If you push EVERYTHING all at the same time, your training starts to look quite similar month to month. Not only is this physiologically limiting to growth, it can get super stale psychologically. Changing the focus can not only keep you excited for training because it's regularly different, but it also gets you excited for the next training phase when you start "missing" going hard on a body part you haven't focused on in a while. Nothing gets you wanting to smash quads like taking a month to focus mostly on glutes and hams.

  3. Recovery Limitations

    Fact: Your whole-body MRV is LOWER than the sum of the MRVs of your individual muscles.

    What this means is that if you tried to actually train ALL of your body parts at their MRVs (see my posts from this whole month about individual muscle MRVs), your training volume would be completely insane and you'd almost certainly not recover from the systemic fatigue. Every time you train, your local muscle physiology is disrupted, but so is your central physiology. Brain, spinal cord, hormones, and GI tract are taxed with recovery, and if you try to train every individual muscle hard, you'll likely break into two pieces very soon. So how do you get around this? Certainly it's not by training every muscle "sort of hard," because that wouldn't lead to the best gains. The idea is to pick maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of your muscles and train them all-out at their MRVs, and train the rest at 1/2 to 2/3 of their MRVs, so that they don't lose size during this de-emphasis period. Then after 1-2 mesocyles, you rotate out the prioritized groups and rotate in the de-prioritized groups. This way you get to grow all of your body's muscles over time without going too far overboard.

Oh and drugs don't change these relationships. Drugs like anabolics allow your MRV to go up both locally and systemically to about the same extent, so they let you train and recover from MORE, but you can now also handle more. Yes, even folks taking drugs need to go through this pattern of emphasis/de-emphasis to get best results.

Applying Specificity

In exercise selection, specificity says you have to do the competition movements coming up close to your meet. It doesn't say you have to do them ALL THE TIME.

Example: while standing presses transfer best to strongman, seated presses or even incline presses can train most of the same muscles while perhaps not being as taxing on the lower back (and whole-body recovery as well) as standing presses.

Is this an conundrum of specificity vs. fatigue management? Absolutely not! Just do the seated and incline moves in the months before your next meet and switch to standing presses in the weeks before the meet itself.

This way you get the best of variation, fatigue management, AND specificity. And what's this logically phased structure called, you ask? Why, periodization, of course.

Fatigue Accumulation

The effect of relative intensity on fatigue accumulation (given volume and absolute intensity are held constant) is likely exponential in nature.

Thus, if you have to do 60 total reps in the squat with your approximate 10RM, doing all the sets as 3's vs. 5's won't make a huge difference on the fatigue you generate from that session.

Doing all the sets as 6's vs. 8's will have a meaningful effect, and the 8's will fatigue you more, being that they are closer to failure.

Doing all the sets as 9's (let's just say 1 rep shy of failure for each set) vs. taking each set to concentric failure will have have a BIG difference on effect on the cumulative fatigue of that training session, with the "to fail" approach causing much more fatigue for the same volume and absolute intensity.

Because it's unlikely that stopping one or two reps shy of failure produces MUCH less stimulus than going to failure but that going to failure produces MUCH more fatigue than stopping just short, it's probably a good idea to use failure training very judiciously in a program, especially for intermediate and advanced lifters.

Because it's not just about asking "how much more growth did training to failure give me?" It's also about asking "how much more sub-maximal training could I have fit into the same amount of fatigue and would that have grown me even more?"

Soreness and MRV

For the muscles that get sore from training (not all get regularly sore), can you use soreness as a proxy for approximating how close you are to your MRV and thus if you should consider adding or removing volume? To some extent, yes.

Best muscle growth requires plenty of muscle damage, but there's certainly such a thing as too much. A good start for each of your accumulation weeks of your mesocycle except the last would be to aim for a midrange soreness. A level that lets you know you hit it hard but nothing that lasts for a week and seriously hinders daily movement. To catch the potential benefits of overreaching, the last week of your accumulation phase (pre-deload) should get you very sore. Still not insanity, but much more sore than usual.

Best strength training occurs with high volumes, but the volumes must be low enough to keep fatigue lower than during size training. Why? Because while those training for size can be pretty beat up and still grind the reps to present an overload, those training for strength need to be much more fresh to present the high forces with good techniques that produce the best strength adaptations. Those training for strength might aim to train with just enough volume so that they don't get sore on a weekly basis or just get minimally sore, but with no more volume than that. For the final pre-deload week of the meso, strength trainers will benefit from doing more volume; enough to get them moderately sore but not much more than that.

Is this way of informing your training perfect? Not even close. But it might be a good start. Let's put it this way: if you're training for size and you never get sore and if you're training for strength and are always radically sore, you might be using to little or too much volume for your goals.

Constant Tension is BULLSHIT

People will defend all sorts of training practices (mostly the failure to execute a full ROM) by citing the concept of "keeping tension on the muscle." Many of these SAME PEOPLE will then say "I do myoreps, and other rest-pause techniques... they are great!" This may come off as one hell of an impressive contradiction! There may be several reasons for not locking out during an exercise or not taking several seconds here and there to do more reps (variation, working around joint pain), but enhanced growth stimulus is simply not one of those reasons.

Some common arguments in favor of constant tension and their rebuttals:

  1. "Constant tension allows you to tax the muscle more because you don't give it a break."

    Then why do you do multiple sets at all? Aren't those really big ass breaks? What determines growth in large part is how much total mechanical work you do... range of motion being equal, how many total reps you do in your workout. It doesn't much matter if you do 20 reps on one set by taking a couple breaths here and there at the lockout or if you do 2 sets of 10 reps by avoiding lockout by just a hair every time.

  2. "You feel the burn more during constant tension, and that means more of a metabolite stimulus."

    Yep, but you get fewer reps each set. In fact, you might get less metabolites that way. Let's say you do 100 total reps of leg presses, doing 10 sets of 10 reps each with constant tension. The last 2 reps of every set has you feeling the burn, so we can say there were 10 distinct pulses of metabolite accumulation. Another method would be to use rest-pause and stop for a couple of seconds at the top of every few reps after 10 reps on each set to let the metabolites die down just enough to crank out another 2 reps or so. That's 5 20 rep sets, but each set has 6 pulses of metabolites in it (one at 8-10 reps, one at 10-12, etc.) ... so that's 30 total metabolite pulses... that's much more total metabolite exposure, making constant tension actually WORSE at metabolite summation if you really push the logic.

  3. "Constant tension allows me to feel the muscle work better."

    Maybe, and there is something to a mind-muscle connection, but I'd say that stopping on occasion, locking out, re-setting your position and going for more reps can help with feeling the muscles more as well, so I'd say constant tension is neutral at best here.

Overloading Over Time

As muscles get bigger and stronger, overloading them becomes more disruptive to homeostasis and this can greatly tax recovery. Thus as you progress over the years, while you can still train with high frequencies (3+ times per week for the same muscle groups), you might need to make some of those workouts less overloading than others so that you can adequately recover. Just a couple of months ago I had to reduce my back training to one big session and a second smaller session per week. I'd trained it twice a week with two overloading sessions for years, but my back finally got so big this became unsustainable. This process might give some insight as to why giant pro bodybuilders train so infrequently, why smaller folks just starting out can benefit from more frequency, and why everyone in between needs to make adjustments to their own needs instead of blindly following someone else's programs.

Adding Cardio to Weight Training

Weights burn as much fat as cardio (if not more) and build/spare muscle better by a long shot. So why do bodybuilders do weights PLUS cardio and swear that it's the best way to lose fat and keep muscle?

The fundamental reason why weights plus cardio is the choice for bodybuilders is that weights generate more fatigue PER CALORIE BURNED than cardio. Put another way, cardio is a really good way to burn lots of calories at the lowest cost to the bodybuilder's total maximal recoverable volume (MRV).

Especially when dieting down, your MRV is very constraining on how much work you can put into the gym. Do too much and exceed your MRV, and muscle loss, stalled fat loss and injury are not far behind. But when you're dieting, you've got a certain amount of calories to burn per week, and unlike during massing, that's gotta fit into your MRV as well as weights. So the right choice is to do as much weight training as possible THAT STILL LEAVES ENOUGH MRV ROOM FOR CARDIO to burn the needed calories. If you try to get to that calorie amount with weights alone, you'll overreach your MRV long before you reach the needed calorie burn. If you try cardio alone, calories won't be a problem but muscle mass won't either when you lose it all!

We can also see here why the biggest and hardest-training (most MRV-constrained) bodybuilders usually choose lower intensity cardio; it has the highest calorie/fatigue ratio. You can do more of it without draining your MRV as much and leaving more of it for weights. Does that mean everyone should do this? No way. If you've only got a couple hours a week to train to be leaner, it should all be weights cause you're nowhere near pushing recovery limits. If you're training lots but not close to your limits, HIIT is good to add in to burn a ton of calories and save tons of time, esp. if getting lean is more important to you than sparing max muscle.

But if you're pushing your training and cutting diet to the max and wanna save the most muscle, low intensity cardio is the way to go.

When you are cutting: reducing food intake vs. adding cardio

I think that any approach the eschews either completely is probably not the best one.

  • If you do no cardio at all (and you are just trying to get lean; some strength sports get an exemption from this), you have to drop your food intake so low that your metabolism will slow down a ton and your cravings will skyrocket.

  • If you do minimal food lowering and add more cardio (some endurance athletes can use this approach effectively), pretty soon you risk doing so much cardio that muscle loss, wear and tear, and sheer time loss are big concerns.

For best cutting results for the physique-oriented, a combo of calorie cuts and cardio additions is probably best.

Role of Maxes in Training

If you take training maxes (heavy singles in training), make sure it's for at least one of the following two reasons:

  1. You're using them to inform and alter future training.

  2. You're using the maxes for direct stimulus as part of a logical program structure.

Make sure you're NOT just taking heavy singles "to see where I'm at." You should be able to see where you're at (in a general sense, not discounting point 1 above) by just tracking your performance in any rep range, including the one you're doing now. Keep that ego in check!

Chest

Chest Training Tips

  1. Flat and Incline Barbell Presses are still king for chest development. Most chest growth programs should be built around them.

  2. If you want your biggest chest, learn to arch and retract during pressing like a powerlifter. A small arch and big retraction exposes your chest to more of the stress of the work, prevents your shoulders from taking over the movement too much and keeps your shoulder joints safer.

  3. A big stretch and full lockout on each rep are important for full development. I pause every rep at the bottom for more stretch and safety. If you're into ego lifting, you'll be giving up gains and getting hurt more often.

  4. Strict dumbbell and cable flyes are great for direct pec work, but the weight used is very far behind in priority to strict technique and full ROM. If you use too much weight and your flies look like presses, you have a problem.

  5. Machines can be great for variation and for occasional intensity techniques like drop sets.

  6. Chest can be trained 2-4x per week with a total of 15-25 sets per week of 6-20 reps at various times. Just like with all other moves, getting stronger slowly over time with strict technique is the ticket to size.

Tips for Cable Flyes

  1. Unless your training is very advanced or you're hurt, it's best to do these after your heavy compound chest pressing of that session is done. Flyes are great for added volume, but won't be able to supply the very high forces also important for growth. Doing heavy pressing first ensures that you get the best of both worlds and don't just use flyes to tire out your ability to press.

  2. As always, technique is paramount. The cables allow tension through the whole ROM like even dumbbells cannot give, so take advantage by not only stretching at the bottom, but by holding the peak contraction at the top. Especially for stronger lifters, I recommend pausing at the bottom to keep the lift safe. Elbows should be barely unlocked to reduce stress on them, but any sharper an angle and the movement starts to look more like a press than the flye it's supposed to be.

  3. This video was an actual work set. Yes, I'm using very little weight. That's on purpose because it keeps this isolation move safe and keeps the reps higher to get the volume I'm using this move for. Wanna go heavy? Great! They make barbell benches and inclines for that. If you use cable flyes to feed your ego, you also probably borrow your mom's car to hang out with your friends cause you're 16 years old.

Machine Flyes

Machine Flyes can be a great chest isolater, but done wrong they can be an ego-powered straight shot to injury. Some tips on the movement:

  1. Don't use anything heavier than your 10RM.

  2. Use the FULLEST range of motion you can as the stretch under load helps grow muscle, and the full ROM has the biggest guarantee of activating the most motor units, furthering muscle growth.

  3. Pause at both the bottom and top of the movement for safety and peak contraction.

Upper Chest Tips

  1. It's not rocket science. Focus on incline movements. You'll see some emg studies on various other moves (reverse grip pressing, for example) being great for upper pec stimulus, but take those with a big grain of salt, as just a few studies don't mean all that much in the grand scheme. Especially when almost all athletes don't do any of these funky moves. Now, feel free to try them, but don't just think the cutting edge stuff is all you're gonna be doing.

  2. Balance specificity with overload. Yes, isolation moves like incline flyes and cable flyes are great, but they are best done in conjunction with the heavy incline compound pressing of barbells and high volumes of pressing of dumbbells. Don't get carried away with isolation moves and make sure to get your big pressing done.

  3. To adapt AND recover, have some weekly chest workouts that DON'T focus on the upper chest so that those fibers can heal and resensitize to further growth. So if you have 3 chest training sessions per week, make 2 of them upper pec oriented but keep one that avoids direct upper pec stimulus.

  4. Use great, consistent technique and track your progress to make sure there's no question mark about your long term gains. How much can you incline barbell and dumbbell press for a max set of 10? Make sure to occasionally (every couple of months) test your limits with good technique so that you can SEE these numbers going up and don't have to just try to eyeball gains from your bathroom mirror. If you used to do 185 for 10 in the incline but you can now do 205 for 10... your upper pecs are probably getting bigger!

Avoiding Common Mistakes on the Incline Dumbbell Press

  1. Don't go too heavy.

    Dumbbells are inherently unstable. This instability is detected by your nervous system and your top-end force production is capped. Like trying to jump high when standing on ice or trying to squat a lot from a bosu ball. The whole purpose of heavy weights is to generate high forces, and since dumbbells can't do that, why use them for it? Use them for volume. In addition, because of instability, heavy dumbbells can more easily misgroove and can get you hurt, never mind how annoying it is to get them into position. If you want heavy (which is great), they make barbells for that!

  2. Don't cut your ROM

    Very related to using dumbbells that are too heavy is the mistake of using dumbbells in a shortened range of motion. A bunch of folks neither go up nor down all the way, robbing themselves of full muscle activation and stretch-based hypertrophy as well. Most do this for the same reason they go too heavy: ego. It's pretty simple... do you want to get jacked or do you want to fool yourself into thinking you're strong? Dumbbell pressing can be very humbling. I have incline pressed 335lbs for 10 with pauses and I only use at most 100lbs on these; usually 80 or even 70 on down sets. Do the right thing. You show up to the gym to grow, not to show off.

  3. Don't touch the dumbbells to your mid chest

    Some folks confuse incline presses for flat presses and try to push the dumbbells forward during the motion. That makes the move awkward and actually reduces upper pec involvement. Push the dumbbells up in a vertical line with respect to gravity and touch the outsides of your front delts at the bottom for that full stretch. To those used to flat pressing, this will in fact feel like you're pressing almost up and back, but you quickly get used to it.

  4. Don't bounce out of the bottom

    More ego problems, and a great way to get hurt. Try full pauses at the deepest stretch (touching the weights to the outsides of your shoulders) to mitigate this temptation.

Shoulders

Front Delt Training Tips

  1. Compound Pushing movements for chest work will take care of almost all front delt stimulation. This means that for folks training chest regularly, MRV for specific front delt work is as low as 6-10 working sets per week.

  2. Almost all lifters will get more than enough front delt work from compound pushing alone and won't have to do any specific work most times. From a bodybuilding perspective, front delts that are too small for the physique are incredibly rare, and it's the rear and side delts that need the work.

  3. Because front delts get hit so much during chest training, most specific front delt work (if you're even doing it) should usually be done after chest work, in that same session or later in the day. Spreading your front delt work out too much over the week can leave your front delts too fatigued for your chest work and interfere with that chest work.

  4. Best exercises for front delts are all the pushing moves, and among them strict overhead pressing is king. Barbells are key, but seated, standing, smith, dumbbell, and machine work is all good for variation. You can use front raises sparingly, and when you do, I recommend a supinated (palms up) grip with a full ROM and low weight, focusing on sets of 10-15 and on slow eccentrics. Remember, heavy presses already took care of the heavy work, so the lighter stuff is reserved for isolation.

Side Delt Training Tips

  1. Exercise Selection

    The best exercises for side delts are usually a variation on upright rows and/or lateral raises. Barbell, dumbbell, smith machine, and cable upright rows, and dumbbell lateral raises. Cable and machine laterals can be ok, but in my experience are usually inferior to the aforementioned exercises. In the end you have to do what you feel hits them most, but be honest. Don't just do moves you like or are good at... do what hits the muscle.

  2. Exercise Technique

    As with most muscles but ESPECIALLY side delts, making sure to use strict technique allows you to get the actual target muscle to do the work, reduces injury risk, and lets you know if you're actually getting stronger vs. using crappier technique to get the reps. Use the biggest ROM you can use without pain, which for most means lateral raises and upright rows find the upper arm at or above parallel to the ground at the top, and for many, another 10-15 degrees higher than that. Oh and if you're swinging much, you're doing the exercises wrong.

  3. Rep Ranges

    For upright rows, as few as 6-8 reps can be done on occasions. But for most times, and pretty much all times for lateral raises, reps of 8-20 keep the exercises safe on he shoulders and provide the volume and metabolites needed for growth.

  4. MRV

    For most lifters, side delt maximal recoverable volumes are some of the highest of all muscle groups. The small, fatigue resistant and quickly recovering side delts can handle around 25 working sets per week, with almost everyone capable of 20 a week and many able to handle 30 or more.

  5. Frequencies

    Side delts recover fast for most lifters. Training them 2x a week is the bare minimum for anything resembling best results, and for most lifters, 3-4 times a week should be even better. One or two of those sessions can be easier than the others to promote recovery-adaptation.

More on Facebook! Check me out there, where I also answer way more questions on all these kinds of posts! 'Just search 'Mike Israetel.'

Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press Tips

  1. Use high reps and low weights

    Save the big weights for seated and standing barbell presses. Dumbbell pressing is inherently unstable and thus not the best exercise with which to generate high forces. Instead of high forces, aim for reps of 10-20 and lots of sets to put in high total volumes.

  2. Go through a full ROM

    If you're gonna use dumbbells, take the big advantage they can give you and use the potential for enhanced range of motion to its fullest. I like to touch outside of my lateral delts for each rep.

  3. Use down sets

    Shoulder presses fatigue easily, so feel free to do some down sets with lighter weight once your working sets with heavier weight drop off.

Lateral Raise Tips

  1. The use of weights too heavy for proper technique is a huge problem for many people doing lateral raises. The cool thing is, there ARE exercises for these muscles in which bigger weights can be used (upright rows, shoulder presses, barbell face pulls), but lateral raises are not one of them. I can strict upright row 135 for sets of 10, can overhead press 245 for sets of 10, but only use around 40lbs for laterals, just to give some perspective. Anything much under 8 reps per set is probably too heavy a job for laterals.

  2. Going higher usually activates the delts more. So long as it doesn't bother you, go above parallel each time.

  3. Arm bend can be anything you want, but the more you bend them, the more weight you have to use and the more your grip becomes a limiting factor. I prefer elbows just slightly bent to keep that joint safe but keep the weights low.

  4. Milking out the eccentric can be a great way to get more out of this exercise. Don't just let the dumbbells drop down each rep.

  5. It's ok to swing a little to keep your balance and accommodate for the change in center of mass through the motion. But that's different than swinging to get the weight up. You KNOW the difference when you're doing it, so don't BS yourself!

Tips for Rear Delt Development

  1. Heavy compound rowing and vertical pulling moves are the biggest factor to rear delt development. It's from these that you're getting most of your rear delt stimulation and because you do them as part of your back training anyway, you're almost all the way to full rear delt development just by training your back! This means that you won't ever have to do a TON of specific work for rear delts.

  2. When training your medial delts (future post to come), there is a considerable amount of rear delt involvement. This coupled with back training greatly lowers your rear delt MRV. However, your MRV for rear delts will still be between 12-18 sets per week on average even with these factors taken into account. Why still so high? Because for most lifters, the rear delts recover incredibly quickly and can handle a ton of work.

  3. Because they recover quickly, rear delts can be isolated 3-6 times per week, and I'd venture to say that for this muscle, even 2x a week might be missing out just a bit of growth gained by going up to at least 3 sessions. If rear delt development is a big goal for you, this means that you might train rear delts during most if not all of your training sessions for the week. And what about having a "rear delt day" in your split? Leave that to the bros.

  4. Going along with point 1, we can see that back training has largely taken care of stimulating the big, fast twitch fibers of the rear delts. This is the beginning of the argument that when you isolate the rear delts, you should use lighter weights (10-30 reps) and more metabolite techniques (supersets, drop sets, etc.) because the heavy conventional training is already taken care of with back. The other part of the argument for training rear delts lighter is technique-based. ONLY with lighter weights can you execute the NEAR-PERFECT techniques needed to actually isolate the rear delts. As soon as you start moving heavier weight, there is a huge temptation to use other muscles and that basically turns into more back or medial delt/trap training really quick. When you train rear delts, focus on technique FIRST and the feel/burn/pump second.

Dumbbell Upright Row

This is one of my favorite medial and rear delt exercises, the dumbbell upright row. A couple technique rules I use:

  1. I go as high up as I can without pain. If you can go higher, do it, but if not, just keep your ROM to whatever is pain free.

  2. Always lead with the elbows up.

  3. Hold at the top for a split second.

  4. I like to pull up and back to make sure medial and rear delts are hit, not front delts.

  5. Always go down under control and all the way.

  6. Anything heavier than your 10RM on these will just be an unstable attempt at max effort and yield little results. Sets of about 15 reps work best for me on this exercise.

  7. Pull the dumbbells slightly out to the sides as you go up instead of keeping them closer together in front of your body. This makes it more of a delt and less of a biceps exercise.

Dumbbell Face Pulls

  1. Best done on a bench to really limit momentum, but can be done bent over without one.

  2. Great for rear/side delts, especially when lighter weights are used and peak contraction is emphasized.

  3. Not very fatiguing, so can be done for lots of sets or in addition to other rear/side salt moves.

Hybrid upright row/face pull with cable

Great for rear/lateral delts. I find this movement and many like it nearly useless if going heavy, so I use high reps (20 or so on first set), pause at the top, and control on the way down. Make sure to give your big compound moves (squats, benches, deads, rows, presses, etc.) big forces and bar velocities on the concentric for max development, but at the same time be a little more reserved, focused, and 'mentally connected' with your target muscles on the smaller more isolation moves. Don't make the mistake of 'using muscles not weight' for the deadlift while heaving the stack for cable work.

Arms

What I've been doing to bring up my arms

  1. Higher frequency

    I used to train my biceps twice a week and my triceps every 5 days. Now I train my biceps 4x a week and my triceps 2x a week. The weekly total volume is a much higher for biceps but only a bit higher for triceps, but the higher frequency alone seems to make a difference in growth.

  2. Moderate and high reps

    Because biceps get plenty of heavy work from back training and because isolation moves are not very safe to do heavy, I train my biceps with reps between 8 and 16 on most occasions.

  3. Strict technique

    I never cheat curl. Some people have come up with all sorts of justifications for loose technique, and all of them are ego-feeding bullshit. Also, every bicep move is full ROM. Yeah, I'm not the guy at the gym curling the most, but I often have the biggest arms.

  4. Planned progression

    I keep track of the weights, reps, and sets I use. I'll design my training to periodically exceed those old values and establish higher ones. If you just 'train hard' and don't plan on pushing yourself further, it's easier to get complacent and not overload enough.

  5. Exercise Variation

    I use two bicep moves 2x a week every mesocycle. Every meso (month), I pick two new bicep moves and use them the whole month. This allows for a reduction in adaptive resistance and a growth of all parts of the muscle.

  6. Emphasis, De-Emphasis

    Every other mesocycle I either focus on bicep training or rear/medial delt training. I do this by training the focus bodypart earlier in each session (more energy for overload) and using volume close to MRV. The deemphasized bodypart is trained later in the session with about 2/3 MRV. This strategy allows both bodyparts to grow long term without stalling out.

  7. Take pics in front of strange objects like garden hoses.

Things that haven't worked, backfired, or gotten me hurt

  • Partial ROM

  • Weights heavier than 8RM

  • Once a week arm days

  • Cheating on technique

Triceps Training Tips

  1. The triceps are a big, strong muscle. Such a muscle can benefit greatly from heavy loading and compound or semi-compound moves. The best tricep builders in my experience are:

    • Skull Crushers

    • Overhead Barbell or EZ Extensions

    • Dips

    • Close Grip Bench and Incline Presses

    You can do all kinds of other work and should for full development, but most (maybe 2/3 on average) of your triceps work should come from those moves.

  2. As is the case with all muscles, stretch under load is important. And especially in the case of the triceps, peak contraction is important too because that's often when the triceps take over the most in pressing. In addition, more motor units are recruited during full ROM lifts. If we all got paid a dollar for every tricep extension done without full stretch or lockout, we'd all be very rich, which is not a great state of affairs. Yes, full ROM and peak contraction mean less weight used. But guess what? Heavy triceps training is already taken care of during presses! Isolation work should be kept higher in reps and of course high in quality. Wanna big a big man? Incline close grip 225 for sets of 12 instead of trying to be a one-arm cable extension quarter-rep hero.

  3. The MRV range for direct triceps work tends to be between 15 and 20 sets per week. Rarely over 20 because triceps are so heavily involved in pressing moves for the chest and shoulders (and the long head in pulling moves, too). So the muscle's volume tolerance is quite high, but direct work doesn't reflect nearly all the volume the triceps can handle.

  4. Triceps can take a lot of damage and can take a while to heal. 2-4 weekly sessions for them are best, with very advanced lifters possibly only having one or two big triceps sessions and a second or third much easier triceps session to promote recovery/adaptation.

  5. Splitting up triceps training can take many forms, but a very productive split involves alternating overhead work (oh extensions) with horizontal work (skulls) or with downward work (pushdowns, dips). This develops the whole muscle without overreaching any parts of it and works to reduce chronic injuries.

Overhead Triceps Extension

The overhead triceps extension is my favorite triceps move... tied with barbell skull crushers. If you're looking to get bigger triceps, this move is a good start. I'd keep the reps between 8 and 20 and really make sure the elbows stay pointed as forward as possible through the movement. Full ROM as well of course.

Biceps Training Tips

  1. Barbell, EZ bar and dumbbell curls seem best, but cables can be useful at times especially for drop sets and variations.

  2. Vary grips once a mesocycle (straight, EZ, hammer, etc.) but don't do any grip that hurts your wrists, shoulders or elbows even when you've played around with hand spacing.

  3. You're not in high school and the other sex doesn't give a shit how much you curl, so cut out the partial reps and swinging. Curls should be done with full range of motion and as little swing as possible if you want bigger arms.

  4. Most people's biceps don't take on much damage and heal very quickly, which means they should be trained more often, probably 3-6 days a week for most. Training my biceps more frequently was one of the best decisions I ever made for arm size. There should not be a 'biceps day' in your program.

  5. 15-30 sets is the typical MRV for biceps, so you'll have to spread that out over 3-6 sessions. On some days you can train them earlier in the workout with more volume and intensity, on others you can train them with less volume and intensity towards the end of a workout. Using different exercises for those different days can provide excellent variation and promote recovery/adaptation while minimizing overuse injury potential.

  6. You can build impressive arms by compound pulling only, but to get maximal development you should isolate the biceps with curls. Chest flies done right can also provide some eccentric loading to the biceps.

  7. Many people will respond well to intensity techniques such as drop sets, ultra high rep sets and occlusion training for a metabolite stimulus. Just make sure not to overuse them and keep conventional straight sets with progressing weight in the 8-16 range for around 2/3 of your bicep training.

  8. When taking pics of your biceps, make sure to do it in a bathroom no-pic zone and include folks just walking by to use the john in your pictures.

Hammer Curl Tips

  1. You already use very heavy weights in a hammer grip for most rows and pull-ups, so that's taken care of. For an isolation move like this, lighter weights will usually be the focus. This is also a bonus as it reduces injury risk and lets you really focus on quality technique.

  2. A lot of people LOVE to show off on hammer curls by swinging a lot of weight around. Somehow by the grace of god I managed to get decent arms by only ever using about half the weight of all the gym heroes. My weird tricks? Using a full ROM and not swinging of course! I also like to squeeze the peak contraction, but that's mostly a personal choice I may or may not recommend to others.

  3. You CAN do one arm at a time, but I like bilateral moves more in general. Your call there, just don't use it as an excuse to loosen up technique.

  4. I use these as one of my two bicep moves per mesocycle pretty regularly. They are in the rotation with cable curls, barbell curls, regular dumbbell curls and EZ bar curls. I train biceps after every upper body workout, which is 4x per week, with 3-6 sets each time.

Dumbbell Twist Curls

  1. Hold dumbbells on the outer edges and begin in hammer curl position (so that your grip is around the uppermost part of the dumbbell handle).

  2. As you curl, supinate your palm and let it face up (or as your flexibility allows) at the top.

  3. This engages the biceps in all 3 of their main functions: forearm flexion, shoulder flexion, and supination.

  4. Use weights you can control for at least 8 reps on the first set.

Forearm Training Tips

  1. The VAST majority of your forearm training will be in front of your computer, at home, by yourself. JUST KIDDING!!! (I hope). Ok seriously, the vast majority of your forearm training will come as secondary work from gripping weights during your normal heavy training, especially in pulling movements.

  2. For your normal pulling training to transfer best to forearm growth, make sure you only use straps WHEN YOU NEED THEM. I see guys strapping into pulldowns, for example, and that just tells me your forearms need serious work. For heavy bent rows and deadlift variants, strap up for sure (cause you don't want to limit your back via your forearms), but for the rest, use just chalk and let your grip get some work.

  3. If you choose to do direct forearm training, your MRV here will be between 10-15 sets per week in most cases. I recommend using barbell and dumbbell wrist curls (where you let the weight roll all the way down to your finger tips, then curl all the way back up to squeeze and repeat slowly) as well as grippers (Ironmind, for example) for most forearm training. Use 8-20 reps per set and do QUALITY contractions, getting a full ROM and holding peak contractions for a second or two. You don't isolate this muscle to just heave weight around... your pulling already does that.

  4. Isometric holds are ok, but a.) Isometric contractions don't cause as much muscle growth as dynamic ones and b.) your pulling training already accomplishes this effect.

  5. If you choose, train your forearms either the day after back training or at the end of a back session. Don't train back before your forearms have healed, or you'll interfere with the growth of both muscle groups.

  6. Don't expect overnight results. Forearm growth takes a long time, and the surefire way to get big forearms is to gain weight over time and get your back stronger... the direct work is icing on the cake.

Legs

Quad Training Tips

  1. The typical MRV for quads is between 15 and 25 sets per week. Some very big and strong lifters will fall under 15 per week, some smaller lifters esp females might tolerate just over 25 sets per week.

  2. Most will benefit from between 2 and 4 quad training sessions per week. Because quad training is so disruptive and fatiguing, it's usually best to have half the sessions very overloading and half as easier sessions. A good way to do this is by having one session type be very quad focused (heavier weights, higher set numbers, more proximity to failure), then the next session train quads easier (lighter weights and/or lower set numbers and less failure proximity). A great setup example of this is to focus on quads on the quad session and train hams and glutes easy, then go hard on hams and glutes the next session while backing off on quads.

  3. In any quad exercise you employ, full range of motion is a must for full development and the independent hypertrophic stimulus of stretch under load. There's NO pump and soreness like that of full rom quad moves. In addition, less weight on the bar has to be used, which means less fatigue and less wear and tear. And always use good technique, staying tight and in stable position.

  4. The most effective exercises for quads are movements that heavily tax the quads, but are compound and allow for heavy loading (not leg extensions!). Some of these moves include olympic-style high bar squats, deep leg presses and hack squats. You can totally use other moves (lunges, belt squats, etc) but there's not much you can't do with just those big 3, mostly focusing on squats themselves.

  5. Typical rep ranges for growth can be between 6 and 20 reps, with higher reps (30+), occlusion training and drop sets being used on occasion. For fatigue and sustainability reasons, I'd only do this once every couple months but a total of 100 reps in the leg press with 1 minute rests between mini-sets with a weight you can do for 30 reps on the first set is WILD. Do 2-3 sets of squats for 10's after and your quads will BLOW UP.

This is how I leg press

Some things I do that you might wanna try out:

  1. I usually tilt the pad far back and place my feet low and close on the platform. This allows me maximum range of motion, quad emphasis and minimum rounding of the lower back at the bottom of the press.

  2. I use a controlled cadence, taking the eccentrics a bit slow. Combined with point 1, this limits my weights used and keeps the exercise very safe yet effective. I'm only using 445lbs here... that's VERY low for leg presses compared to others with quads my size. I go heavy on squats... not isolation moves.

  3. When I leg press during a mesocycle, I stick to volume and metabolites, not high forces. Sets of 10-20 reps, and lots of them... 4-8 sets per workout.

  4. While I have phases and sessions where I squat first in the session, I often like to squat after leg presses... this makes the quads a limiting factor due to pre-damage and fatigue and really stimulates them while saving your lower back and glutes for other sessions later in the week.

Let me know what you think!

Special Quad Training Techniques

In an earlier post I already went over quad training basics. Just a few special technique tips here, mostly for the metabolite training phase or those who have some trouble getting their quads to grow.

  1. 30RM Leg Press Fun

    Not a typo, yes, 30. Get within 2 reps of failure each time for a total of 4-6 sets with 1 min rest ONLY. Full ROM a must. Just 2-3 sets of 12 in light squats after and say goodbye to proper walking for the next few days.

  2. Occlusion Hack Squats

    Tie off your quads as high as possible at the hips with a tight tourniquet. Put your 20RM on the hack squat and get to work, only taking the tourniquets off every 2 sets, and only taking a minute break between sets. Full ROM reps for 4-6 sets, 2 shy of failure each set. Finish the workout off with 2-3 sets of 12 in the high bar squat. Again, forget walking for a few days.

  3. Leg Extension HELL.

    After 3-6 sets of squats for 8-12 reps, put your 30rm on the leg extension machine (if it doesn't bother your knees). Each rep should move up quick, take a FULL SECOND to hold at the top, and the eccentric should take 3 whole seconds. Reach 1 rep from failure, then drop the weight by 10lbs, rest only 30 seconds, and repeat. 5-8 sets total. Now, at the end of the last set, put your hands behind your head, take your high bar squat stance with only bodyweight (no bar), and begin squatting. Take 3 full seconds on the way down, stop just short of lockout on the way up, and NEVER pause to rest. Do as many squats as you can. Once you can't get up, you're done for the day!

PS: If you do one of these workouts, the other quad workouts in that week should be much easier to allow for recovery. PPS: If you do one of these and get it on video, I'd love to see it and laugh at/with you!

Common Mistakes in Quad Training

  1. Avoiding squats

    Squats are painful and uncomfortable. There are dozens of other quad exercises to choose from, so why do squats? Because they work best, and pretty close to every set of the best legs ever has been built with a foundation of squats. If you're having trouble feeling them in your quads or they tend to get you hurt, your first priority should be to work on your squat technique, not abandon squats.

  2. Not squatting for best quad stimulus:

    If you're not feeling squats in your quads, make sure you try the following:

    • Stay as upright as you're able.

    • Keep your stance as close as you can to shoulder width. Narrower is ok but no big bonus. Much wider is no longer as quad-taxing.

    • Squat as low as you can with good technique.

    • Buy and use weightlifting shoes. For many they make a night and day difference.

    • Use sets of 6 reps or more most times. The only place you feel heavier than that is in your connective tissue.

  3. Partial ranges of motion:

    Full range of motion gives you that combination of tension while stretching that yields the most growth, and by going through full ROM, you stimulate all parts of the muscle. Check the ego at the door and use full ROM on all quad moves.

  4. Low frequency training:

    Your quads don't grow for a whole week after a single training session, so why would you only train them once a week? Try 2-3x a week for best results, spreading out your usual weekly volume over those sessions.

  5. Using too many exercises per session:

    You can spur new growth by doing exercises you're not accustomed to. But if every quad session you do squats, hack squats, leg presses, extensions and lunges, what do you use for variation later? Try sticking to only 2-3 quad moves per week for 4-6 weeks at a time and then rotating out the old moves and rotating in the new moves. If you need more volume in any session, just do more sets or drop sets! 3x10 is no magic formula, and there's nothing wrong with 5x10 or 6x10.

  6. More on Facebook!

Hamstring Training Tips

  1. Because of the complex nature of the muscle, hamstrings are hit best by both doing hip-extension movements (such as stiff legged deads, good mornings and glute/ham raises) and leg curls. Splitting these two types of exercises up into different weekly workouts can be a good approach. For example, Monday you can do lots of stiff legged deads, Wednesday you can do lots of curls, and Friday you can do lots of glute-ham raises.

  2. Attention to proper technique can make a world of difference in hip-hinge hamstring movements. If you let your back round too much or your knees bend too much, tension is taken off of the hams and transferred to the spinal muscles and glutes respectively. Keep your chest up, back arched, and knees just slightly bent on all stiff legged deads, good mornings, and glute/ham extensions.

  3. Hamstrings take on a lot of damage, so they can take a while to recover. 2-3 sessions per week will be best for most.

  4. Always go through a full range of motion. Get a deep, painful stretch at the bottom (make sure you feel it in your hams) of all hip extension movements and get a full contraction at the top of all leg curls. For safety and to make sure the hams are being targeted, I recommend doing the eccentric over 2-4 seconds and pausing all hip extension reps at the bottom for a split second before going back up. Leg curls should also be squeezed at the top for a split second and lowered slowly.

  5. Reps should be between 5 and 15 most of the time, since hams tend to be a bit more fast twitch. But, match your exercise to the rep range. Save sets of 10+ for leg curls (so that your back doesn't fatigue too early like it will with hip extension moves) and save sets of 5-10 for the hip extension moves (since low reps on isolation moves are a bit riskier and possibly not as effective).

  6. Every mesocycle, choose new variations of exercises and progress through weights and volumes. Try high and low bar good mornings, regular and sumo sldls, glute/ham and back raises of all kinds, and lying, seated, and one-leg curls.

  7. Stiff legged deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts are the same exercise in bodybuilding.

Stiff legged deadlifts

  1. My favorite hamstring hypertrophy exercise.

  2. Must be done with an arched lower back (anterior pelvic tilt), slightly bent knees and deep stretch to best target hams.

  3. Staying several reps shy of failure even on peak weeks is important for technique conservation.

  4. Way under 6 reps or way over 10 reps is either gonna be too heavy to target the hams or too limited by lower back fatigue.

  5. The RDL is a nickname people use for this exercise. It's NOT another exercise. It's the same thing. If you think the difference between stiff legged deadlifts and 'RDLs' is some different knee or back position (back not arched or knees fully locked out, for example), you're probably doing stiff legged deadlifts wrong.

Calf Training for Muscle Size/Bodybuilding

  1. Exercise Selection

    Because the calves are composed of two distinct muscles, we can consider the best type of exercises for each. The gastrocnemius is the superficial, upper 'diamond shaped' part of the calf. The soleus is the deep, longer part of the calf, and its muscle belly is more uniform down the length of the shank. Gastroc training will use a variety of calf raises with a straight knee, while the soleus can best be targeted with a bent knee. Any raises work, but they have to conform to the technique rules below to be most effective.

  2. Exercise Technique

    Because of the design of the calves, they take a ton of damage from being put in a stretched position under load, additionally, they are well designed to generate a peak contraction, as they don't really run into any other muscles (like your hams do when your glutes stop you from leg curling further up). Exercises that accentuate the stretch and contraction are thus very prized, and should be preferred over ones that don't. For example, calf raises with dumbbells should be done off of a ledge or step and stretched deep, not just done standing on a flat surface. Because of the design of the muscles and their attachments, bent-leg calf work does not target the gastrocs, so it should only be done if soleus work is desired.

  3. Rep Ranges

    On average, gastrocs tend to me much more fast twitch than the soleus muscles, which are mostly slow twitch. Soleus muscles thus grow much less than gastrocs, which is usually a good thing because small gastrocs and large soleus muscles tend to give the calves a 'kankle-like' appearance. However, some individuals have very large soleus muscles and small gastrocs ('long calves'), so they are better off doing a lot of soleus work because all the gastroc work in the world won't help them much. For soleus-dominant or otherwise slower-twitch folks, higher reps and shorter rests are best, with reps as high as 30 and rests as short as 15s. For faster twitch folks, heavy sets of 8 reps or so can be best, with up to a minute rest between sets. For most of us, a mix between those two is best, biased slightly to the heavy side.

  4. MRV

    Highly variable and depends a TON on average fiber type. Slower twitch folks can get up to 30 sets a week no problem. Faster twitch folks might cap out at 10 sets. Ironically, this means that people with the biggest calves usually need to train them the least.

  5. Frequencies

    Very fiber-type dependent, just like MRV. Slow twitch can train once every day or other day, fast twitch sometimes just 2x per week. Generally, if your calves aren't sore, train them.

  6. Progression

    As with all other lifts, add weight over time! But don't sacrifice technique to do so.

  7. Periodization

    The usual high volume, metabolite, low volume sequence likely applies, but with variation in length. Faster twitch folks will spend more time in the high volume phase and have very short (maybe 2 week) metabolite phases. Slower twitch calf owners will spend some time with conventional high volumes, but might spend much longer in the metabolite blocks.

Back

The 'Secrets' To a Big Back

  1. Stick mostly to compound basics like bent rows and pull-ups.

  2. Use strict, full ROM.

  3. Use between 5 and 20 rep sets depending on the training phase.

  4. Train back between 2 and 4 times per week.

  5. Do between 15 and 30 working sets per week depending on your MRV.

  6. Progress in weights used slowly and steadily; regular 10lb PRs are the ticket to size, not 50lb PRs once in a blue moon.

  7. Eat for size and give it YEARS. Big backs don't grow overnight.

Tips for training traps

  1. Most of your trap growth will come from movements you already do for other bodyparts. Full range of motion bent rows, upright rows, deadlifts of all kinds, squats (traps used to keep a good frame) and overhead presses will all give a great start to your traps without any dedicated work.

  2. Because of #1, the MRV for direct trap work will only be between 10 and 15 sets per week for most experienced trainers. Still pretty high because traps tend to recover very rapidly and be very fatigue resistant.

  3. When training traps, your focus should be on FULL range of motion for max development of the muscle and to make sure you're actually using your traps. Putting 6 plates on each side of the bar and doing 'the funky chicken' dance where you bob your head down to pretend your traps actually moved the weight mostly just pisses away good training time. Each rep should start from full scapular depression and end in a 1-second hold at the top of full scapular elevation.

  4. #3 implies that the weights used for shrugs will not be high, and that's correct. You wanna be a big man and lift heavy, grow a pair and deadlift. Trap training isn't ego training if you actually want big traps.

  5. Reps between 6 and 20 depending on weight, and make sure to vary exercises every mesocycle or so from barbell shrugs to cable shrugs to dumbbell shrugs to bench shrugs (where you lie face down on a 60 degree incline bench and shrug from that position).

  6. Traps don't need a ton of direct work, maybe just 10 sets per week. That's because they are so involved in so many other movements, such as rows, deadlifts, presses, and most shoulder work.

Row to Chest Tips

  1. It targets the upper back (traps, rhomboids) a bit more than the lats.

  2. I've been holding the peak contraction at the top of each rep for a second. Holy CRAP does that make this hard. I've bent-rowed 315 for 4x10 and 140 for 10 reps like this is tough!

  3. I use this in my meso-meso (once a month) rotation of free weight rowing moves, along with conventional barbell rows, underhand EZ rows, and cambered bar rows (amazing exercise) when I get the chance

  4. If you cheat on this exercise, the low weight used makes it pretty much pointless

Assisted Pull-Ups

I LOVE assisted pull-ups for back development. Once you're too fatigued to do regular pull-ups, these can help you add volume and thus more growth. Full ROM a must for best results, and the best machines let you come up nice and high to get that squeeze at the top. Highly recommended to keep your chest up as well. Today I did these after 6 sets of bent rows. Even on low carbs, the lat pump was the truth. Give these a shot!

Extra tip: stick to reps higher than your pull-up range. So if you can do sets of 5-10 in pull-ups, these are best done in sets of 10-15 or so. That way you get a better diversity of stimuli instead of the valuable yet slightly limited 'more of the same.'

Pulldowns

Three big mistakes I see on pulldowns:

  1. Not getting a full stretch at the top of the movement, missing out on the growth effects of stretch under load.

  2. Not getting a full contraction at the bottom, missing out on activating all motor units and thus full muscular development.

  3. Swinging around too much to get the reps, building needless fatigue in other muscles and missing out on the mind-muscle connection with the targeted muscles.

Most of these come from either using too much weight, not being meticulous enough about technique, or both. If you want the most out of lat pulldowns, lower the weight and go for QUALITY. Save the heavy weights for weighted pull-ups and rows instead!

I'm tired of lat pulldowns being butchered.

While most exercises can be utilized for any number of goals depending on volume, load, and other such variables being altered, some exercises are not optimally suited for some training goals.

The bent row, pull-up, and their variations are great for heavy resistance and high forces. But if being done for very high reps (15+ range), technical breakdowns via fatiguing supporting musculature can lead to lowered effectiveness and increased injury probabilities. On the other hand, exercises like the lat pulldown offer a more isolated stimulus to the upper back, and can be safely done with higher reps.

So when doing lat pulldowns, take the opportunity to go through a range of motion not possibly for most in pull-ups (all the way to the chest) and get those quality reps in instead of heaving weight. Cause if you wanna heave weight (with good technique, of course), pull-ups and bent rows are there waiting! The video here is of a working set of mine... it's not just a demo with light weight... this is how I do them in actual training (full stretch, touching the chest at the bottom, keeping the chest up to get more contraction from the upper back). Give this technique a shot and you might like the results!

Posterior Chain

Glute Training for Muscle Size/Bodybuilding

  1. Exercise Selection

    There are 7 classes of exercise I'd say target glutes in a pretty significant way. Before that list, it's critical to mention that A TON of your glute stimulus will come from deep squatting, RDLs, bent rows, and the many other exercises you do for back and legs. But for more specific glute work, the following movement categories are very effective:

    • Glute Bridges

    • Lunges

    • Glute-Ham or 45 degree back raises

    • Sumo squats

    • Sumo deadlifts (especially deficit)

    • Pull-throughs

    • Glute machine kickbacks

  2. Exercise Technique

    Squatting and deadlifting activate glutes maximally at the bottom of the movement, the lower the better. For the specific glute moves, there is likely benefit to exaggerating the peak contraction as well. So with glute training technique, always do full rom and don't just heave the weight around; squeeze the glutes hard at the top for a split second.

  3. Rep Ranges

    Anything heavier than 5 reps and you won't be able to guarantee that glutes don't get lost in the noise, especially if you're not very in touch with yours. 5-15 rep sets are best for glutes.

  4. MRV

    For growth purposes, glute-specific weekly MRV tends to be between 10 and 15 sets per week. TOTAL MRV for the glutes is much higher for most, but leg and back training swallow up a bunch of that.

  5. Frequencies

    Glutes are a huge muscle and need their recovery. Also, because they are used all the time in other bodypart training, they get plenty of extra work and basically a ton of 'light sessions' for recovery just by being used as supporting muscles. 2-3x a week direct training is a good range for most who wish to bring up their glutes.

  6. Progression

    Seek to add weights to the bar (5-20lbs) every week while adding or maintaining set numbers and keeping reps constant. You get big glutes not by doing 1 million reps but by getting strong in the 5-15 rep range on the glute movements.

  7. Periodization

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Using Deadlifts for Muscle Size/Bodybuilding

  1. Exercise Selection When using deadlifts for muscle size, numerous effective variations can be employed. This allows both for exercise staleness to be minimized and for certain muscle groups to benefit from more direct focus (directed variation). Good choices include:

    • Conventional Deadlifts (all around back development)

    • Deficit Deadlifts (back and glute development)

    • Sumo Deadlifts (glute and adductor development)

    • Deficit Sumo (glute and adductor development)

    • Stiff-legged deadlifts (same as RDLs) (hamstring development)

    • Partial deadlifts (for when you want to save leg MRV)

  2. Exercise Technique

    You can only grow long term if you stay mostly injury free. By far the worst kind of injuries to have to suffer through are the preventable ones. I recommend ALWAYS having a neutral or lordotic spine (never rounding) and stopping and starting all reps). Always keep your arms straight. Always keep the bar close to your body. Fuck around with bad technique if you wanna get hurt and grow less; it's as simple as that.

  3. Rep Ranges

    Spinal erectors and hams tend to grow well even from reps as low as 5s. Anywhere from 5 to 15 reps is a good range for deads, with anything much over 15 becoming either a technique/fatigue limitation or a grip limitation, not much of a stimulus.

  4. MRV

    For growth purposes, deadlift weekly MRV tends to be between 5 and 10 sets per week. Yep, not much, as deads are VERY fatiguing.

  5. Frequencies

    Once a week seems plenty for deads. Of course you hit the muscles involved with other exercises on other sessions during the week, so once a week is not all the muscles get in total. I'd place deads as far away from your heaviest squat and bent row days as possible to make sure there is minimal interference.

  6. Progression

    Seek to add weights to the bar (5-20lbs) every week while adding or maintaining set numbers and keeping reps constant. You do deads because they are heavy, so make them heavier over time. Want a big back? Add 50lbs to your 10s deadlift ability over a year or so and you'll have one.

  7. Periodization

More on my Facebook where I also answer questions!!!!

Key Points

NOTE: Credit to IrrationallyPathetic over on reddit. -Ed.

  1. It's easier to gain muscle when you're lean.

  2. Don't be too restrictive in your diet - it won't work. Allow yourself some freedoms so you can stick to it.

  3. Have a healthy relationship with food - don't rush your goals at this expense. He goes as far to say that, "If you don't have the healthiest relationship with food, it's imperative to wor1. on that BEFORE you start a diet."

  4. Muscles have different 'MRV's, or Maximum Recoverable Volume. This is the recommended number of sets you should do for each muscle each week. Knowing how they vary can help you plan you1. training. For example, in the article, Dr. Israetel says side delts can handle around 25 working sets per week. (I don't do nearly that much, do you?)

  5. He recommends starting with the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) for growth, progressing up to the MRV, then once progression is no longer sustainable without excessive fatigue, deloading.

  6. The minimum hypertrophy threshold is around 60% of your 1RM. Increasing too far above this level of intensity will cause a disproportionate amount of fatigue (bad, if your only goal i1. muscle).

  7. Some lifts have limiting factors that need to be brought up for them to improve, such as the Deadlift. Other lifts may have limiting factors, but do not require you to specialize on 1. specific weak muscle (Bench Press).

  8. Varying your training is important for muscle growth, as your body gets used to the stimulus it's given. This isn't on the scale of weeks, but rather several months.

  9. You cannot train all of your muscles to their MRV at once due to the limitations of your body's overall recovery. He recommends focusing on several muscle groups at once while maintainin1. others to deal with this.

  10. Going to failure will produce slightly more stimulus, but MUCH more fatigue. Use failure sparingly.

  11. As you progress, you will likely have to reduce your volume / frequency to allow adequate recovery. Just one reason to not blindly follow someone else's program.

  12. Cardio burns more calories for an equal amount of stress - if weight loss is your only goal, don't wreck yourself lifting or you won't be able to recover from cardio. His opinion is tha1. anyone who ignores either cardio or reducing food intake is doing themselves a disservice.

  13. Flat and Incline Barbell Bench are the best for chest hypertrophy. Learn to arch! He recommends 15-25 sets per week, for chest.

  14. Because dumbbells require more stability, they should be used for volume, not intensity.

  15. Compound movements for chest take care of most of your front delt training. Additional work should be only 6-10 sets per week, after your chest training.

  16. Side delts should be hit with variations of upright rows and lateral raises (not for your lats). Your technique is especially critical for your side delts to make sure you hit the muscl1. directly and reduce injury risk. They recover quickly, so MRV of 20-30 sets per week.

  17. Rear delts are hit mostly through rowing, but if improving your rear delts is a big goal, train them very frequently (like every workout).

  18. Arms -> High frequency. Especially your triceps.

  19. Dr. Israetel says he never does cheat curls, but rather sticks to strict technique. Make sure you're not just feeding your ego. Do you want to look like you're lifting a lot, or do you wan1. to look like you lift?

  20. For biceps, somewhere around 15-30 sets is your MRV, bets spread out over many sessions (remember, high frequency).

  21. For triceps, Overhead Triceps Extensions, Skull Crushers, Dips, and Close Grip Bench. MRV of 15-20 sets.

  22. Most of your grip training will be done through your other movements, like pulling. If you choose to train your forearms, though, your MRV is around 10-15 sets a week.

  23. Quads can take 15-25 sets a week. The stronger you are, the lower this will be. He recommends having heavy days and light days, due to how fatiguing quad training can be. Oh and heavy le1. extensions suck.

  24. Proper technique and form are crucial. He mentions how he does 445lbs for leg press despite having huge quads. Heavy is for compound movements, not isolation moves. We've all heard goin1. lighter and focusing on working the muscle, but how many of us actually do it?

  25. Compounds > Isolation, but isolation moves have their place.

  26. Squat.

  27. Hit hamstrings with both hip extension movements and knee flexion movements. (he says Leg Curls specifically, but those aren't the only knee flexion movements that will suffice). Hamstring1. can take longer to recover than other muscles.

  28. Calf exercises should include a deep stretch to maximize muscle damage. If your calves don't feel sore, you should train them.

  29. For back exercises, stick to 15 to 30 sets per week, depending on your MRV. Stick to strict form, full ROM, and the basic exercises, like rows and pull ups. Also, be patient. If you want 1. big back, you gotta train for years.

  30. Most trap training comes from other bodypart training, so MRV for direct trap work is around 10-15 sets. Start from full scapular depression and hold at the top.

  31. For glutes, do glute bridges, lunges, glute-ham raise, sumo squats, sumo deadlifts, glute pull-throughs, and glute machine kickbacks. For compound movements like squats, the lower th1. better, but for isolation exercises, squeeze at the peak contraction.

  32. Different forms of deadlifting have different effects on your muscle growth. If you aren't sure what they are, then seriously, read the article. Also, keep frequency low.

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