[StrikeBack]

This thread is about my take on the training of novice lifters. It will be rather different to most articles or posts about novice training you may find while searching the Internet. If you expect to find a routine you can follow, you'll be disappointed. Most of my posts here will be about HOW not WHAT, and the reason will be obvious below.

I'm not a PT nor professional strength coach. I lift weights as a hobby, and compete in powerlifting. I'm also a certified coach, and mostly help out with coaching intermediate to advanced powerlifters. Until recently, we had no real novice lifter in powerlifting, as people who seek out a powerlifting club tend to already have some half decent lifting experience. My exposure to novice lifters started with family and friends, then as Crossfit gained popularity, more and more people are attracted to lifting and our club started to take on novice lifters and I began to train some. Since I do this as a hobby and I have limited time outside of my own training to coach, I tend to let other coaches (usually young guys who want to be PTs / strength coaches) write their programs while I simply observe and give them feedback on techniques and general training. This thread will therefore follow in a similar direction.

The opening post will state a few themes that apply to pretty much everything I'll be writing here. Then I will post up some daily observations and tips as I encounter while coaching other novices at my club.

== TL;DR - why should I learn all this shit? ==

Many years ago, on a similar forum to RVF (a Game one, with a fitness section), I was told to hit the gym, and I started asking people what I should do, and got overwhelmed by the shear amount of things I had to learn. I asked them to just give me a program, I don't want to learn all this junk. One old school bodybuilder bloke told me that it's inevitable if I want to achieve my goals. I didn't listen to him, and got nowhere for a couple of years.

Eventually, I took his advice, learned how to do it properly, achieved all the goals I set then and progressed beyond what I thought was possible.

I'll reiterate that advice again, one which you will most likely ignore for now, but will believe later: Lifting - be it for aesthetics, athleticism or strength - is a set of skills, that you will need to learn properly if you want to achieve your goals. It is not a routine that you can blindly follow.

== What is a novice lifter? ==

When I started lifting seriously, I used to buy programs from this old school coach, who often stated in his newsletters that a novice is someone who has yet to bench/squat/deadlift 2/3/4 plates (or about 100kg/140kg/180kg). If you're a smaller guy, he'd tell you to get bigger. This hurt a lot of butts whenever it's brought up, as people tend to think they're more experienced than they really are.

Personally I follow this chart, which is even harsher:

http://forum.reactivetrainingsystems.com...tion-Chart

A novice is someone below a Class 3. I'm a Class 1, going for CMS by the end of the year.

If you haven't yet competed, add up your best gym 1RM in the 3 powerlifts, then take 10% off. That should roughly get you your first (imaginary) competition total for comparison purpose.

While I wouldn't necessarily call someone below those standards a novice (as not everyone wants to be a powerlifter), if you haven't yet achieved those lifts, it's useful to train like a novice powerlifter. Training like a higher level lifter while possessing lower level strength is bad for your future progression.

== What should a novice train for? ==

While each of you should have your own specific goals, here are the 3 major things you all train for anyway, whether you can articulate them or not:

- Aesthetics: more muscle mass with good symmetry, less fat
- Athleticism: jump higher, run faster, more agile etc.
- Strength (consisting of many types, which I'll get into later)

It's only at the elite / professional end where you'll have people focusing on one while sacrificing others (e.g brutally strong, but fat and unathletic powerlifters). For everyone else, those three are related, and improving one often will involve improving the other two.

I will elaborate on this in a subsequent post.

I'm also going to assume that you are natural and do not want to take drugs. I have nothing personal against them, but I know nothing about their practicalities, have never used any, not even recreational ones, and you may find magic shortcuts through them that I cannot offer here.

== Consistency, sustainable habits and hobby ==

If there is one quality that will help you progress, it is consistency. No surprise there. I have my training logs dating back to August 2010 when I first started powerlifting, and I did not miss a single planned session, ever. Consistency will turn even a suboptimal program into excellent progress, and elevate a genetically average man to levels of strength he never dreamed of.

How do you achieve consistency? Despite what's popular on social media, it is not motivational video montages or memes, nor some inner talk you give yourself everyday to get to the gym. They make for good movie scenes and stories, but are ultimately unsustainable.

What you need to do is to develop a set of lifestyle habits (each taking roughly 3-4 weeks to form) that allow you to train and recover well day in day out, week in week out. Do things right outside of the gym, so that your gym efforts do not go to waste. If you make it easy for yourself to be consistent, you will maintain that consistency forever.

And ultimately, don't forget that this is supposed to be like a hobby i.e something you love and enjoy doing. If you don't enjoy it, don't do it just because someone on the Internet tells you that's how you can achieve your goals. Learn to love the lifts or exercises that you do. Leave something in the tank after each session, so that you leave the gym feeling like you're ready to conquer the world, not collapse in exhaustion. Make yourself crave the barbell so that you can't wait to get to the gym next time to lift more.

[StrikeBack]

== Training for aesthetics, athleticism and strength ==

I always find it funny when, either in powerlifting or on average fitness forums, people argue about whether they should train for size or strength.

Why not both, and then some more?

When I'm asked to comment on the training of a novice lifter, or write a program for one, I'd look at all three:

Aesthetics: muscle mass, symmetry, fat mass

Athleticism: basic bodyweight movements, basic athletic skills, activation of important muscle groups, mobility, agility

Strength: absolute/maximal strength, starting strength (not the program), explosive strength, endurance strength

The three are interrelated and weakness in one would halt the progress in others. Let me elaborate.

=== Aesthetics ===

Bigger muscles improve leverage and produce more force, which benefit both athleticism and strength.

More mass require higher volume (aka more time under more tension) which can't all be done by pure strength movements. Additional bodybuilding movements helps a lot here.

Symmetry improves strength. Try benching with one arm smaller than the other.

Lower fat mass means better pound to pound strength, which is very beneficial if you're in a weight class that is not super heavyweight. Getting leaner means you can either move down to a lower weight class and thus gain a higher ranking, or give yourself more room in the current weight class for gaining muscle mass. It obviously would improve your athleticism (agility, mobility, higher power output) and in certain lifts like the deadlift, it improves your leverage too (can get hip closer to the bar).

Having a better physique often improves your confidence in daily life, which has a nice feedback to strength training.

=== Athleticism ===

If you can't feel and activate your muscles, you won't build them very well.

If you're fit, you have a higher work capacity which means you can do higher lifting volume and frequency. Both will improve your muscle building and strength practice.

If you're competent at basic athletic movements, you will learn lifting techniques very easily compared to people who don't know how to correctly squat bodyweight, pushup, pullup, jump, lunge, run, swim etc. i.e nearly every adult who googles for a routine from the Internet like Starting Strength. The latter make it worse for themselves by doing a routine that addresses nothing of their major weaknesses (lack of athleticism).

If you have at least just more than enough mobility than required for a lift, you will be able to get into a better position and produce stronger force for the lift. If you don't have the mobility for it, you will waste a lot of energy fighting your own body, probably wrecking a muscle, tendon or joint in the process.

If you can't squat your own bodyweight competently, putting a heavy bar on your back will not make you stronger or more muscular. If you can't do a correct pushup, benching with weights will not help you. If you can't activate your abs in a basic plank or hollow body position, or your glutes in a glute bridge, or know how to do a basic hip hinge in, say, a kettlebell swing, deadlifting will destroy your back.

=== Strength ===

When you're stronger, everything is easier.

If you're building muscles for aesthetics, and wonder why your chest won't grow when you're barely benching 5x5 at 70kg.... the answer is to get stronger (i.e build maximal strength) so that you can do your volume work at 10x10x70kg or more, after all the strength work. Same if you're wondering why squatting 3x8x100kg isn't making you a quadzilla.

You don't have to focus on strength as a #1 priority if you just want a better physique, but muscles do not grow with light weights. Remember the golden bodybuilding rule: time under tension i.e more volume with heavier weights.

Strength is a skill, and the nervous system plays a large role in recruiting muscle fibers for the lift. When you train strength as a skill, you learn and teach your body to recruit more muscle fibers. The more muscle fibers are recruited, the more adapted they will become to reach their genetic potentials. If you're not recruiting more muscle fibers, you can't build more muscle mass.

If you squat 2xBW on the bar, then doing air squats for conditioning will be a lot easier, and also your vertical and sprint time will improve as well.

=== So.... what program should I do? ===

Look at the above three categories and see which areas you're lacking. Then add exercises to address that weakness. Don't be a slave to your current program, but don't go around copying other people's programs minus the context either.

If you have small arms, do direct arm work, even if some Rippetoe disciple says you shouldn't.

If you want your chest to grow, but the program only tells you to do 3x5 bench (15 reps total), maybe you should be adding 3-5x10 DB bench afterwards.

If you have weak abs, do ab work, even if Strong Lift dudes tell you that compound movements already work your core plenty.

If you're gassed after a couple of hours of weight training, you need better conditioning. If you need to take 10+ minutes rest after a set of squat because your heart beats too fast, you probably need to do some cardio.

If you regularly wake up the next morning after squat/deadlift day feeling like you got run over by a truck, it's not you being hardcore like Facebook memes say, it's a sign that you train harder than you recover.

If you can't do a bodyweight squat to nice depth and a straight back, stop adding more weights to the squat bar every session because Starting Strength says so.

If you can't do a single pull-up, or can't do basic ab exercises competently, perhaps deadlift shouldn't be in your program yet.

You get the idea. Slowly, learn how your body works, what weaknesses you have and simply address them. The goal is to eventually know how to train yourself. That's how I coach people too, so they can be self-sufficient and figure things out for themselves.

If a program you're doing doesn't address all 3 categories for you, find a program that does, or add things you need to the existing program. Typically for novices to intermediates, I'd write a 3-days a week strength program, and tell them to pick another 2 days to do GPP which essentially are basic bodyweight exercises, athletic movements, cardio, conditioning, mobility, etc.

[Hades]

Lot of neat gems in these posts. I liked these in particular.

StrikeBack Wrote:

If you can't do a bodyweight squat to nice depth and a straight back, stop adding more weights to the squat bar every session because Starting Strength says so.

Most definitely. I like this one since I spent some time doing regular bodyweight squats, because why not? I would further this point saying that nobody should bother with barbell squats until they can do regular bodyweight squats for 5 sets of 15 with enough rest in between for maybe six or seven breaths.

Quote:

If you have small arms, do direct arm work, even if some Rippetoe disciple says you shouldn't.

Rippetoe himself calls them vanity lifts and says that he occasionally indulges in barbell curls but only after his regular lifting is done. I consider barbell curls to be basically mandatory, you have to stabilize the elbow joint for any kind of heavy pressing and you're just playing with fire if you're trying to do advanced shit (like jerks) if you don't even bother to curl. There's a big difference between rehab and prehab, and it often involves surgery. Tlr - 100 rep curls.

Quote:

Many years ago, on a similar forum to RVF (a Game one, with a fitness section), I was told to hit the gym, and I started asking people what I should do, and got overwhelmed by the shear amount of things I had to learn. I asked them to just give me a program, I don't want to learn all this junk. One old school bodybuilder bloke told me that it's inevitable if I want to achieve my goals. I didn't listen to him, and got nowhere for a couple of years.

Bodybuilders know their shit, and you call often tell a shitty lifter from a good one based on their opinions of bodybuilding. The Rippetoe and Pavel literate lifters stress specificity above all, since they're terrified they'll lose their gains if they sit in a machine for twenty minutes and hammer out death sets of whatever.

[StrikeBack]

I'm actually a very Pavel literate lifter. I've read many of his books, watched plenty of DVDs and seminars, and incorporated most of his tips in training myself and others. I don't recall him recommending specificity above all, unless people take him out of context. His book Beyond Bodybuilding is pretty awesome for bodybuilding.

I also own and have read pretty much everything Rippetoe has written as well, but I don't agree with his training methods.

Specificity is important if you compete in a sport e.g powerlifting. A training cycle is broken down to multiple blocks, which slowly increase in specificity towards the end (near competition day). But being too specific all the time is bad especially for beginners and intermediates.

[Jetlagged]

Good ego check here.
I fall under a less than class III lifter according to the Russian scale, by about 40kg.

Going to look harder at my program and rep scheme and reconsider it when I return home. Especially learning to stop doing so many 1RM tests. I test 1RM like once every two weeks, because I enjoy it.

Maybe added some bodybuilding movements would help. I do a bit of dips and pull ups but maybe it's time to add more in the way of assistance moves. I'm not totally sold on isolation movements still but things like close grip bench seem more effective to me than tricep kickbacks. It could be time te reconsider adding isolations again, effective ones.

Once again strikeback, solid post A+ information. Valuable asset to the forum.

[Hades]

(05-17-2015 04:39 AM)StrikeBack Wrote:  

I'm actually a very Pavel literate lifter. I've read many of his books, watched plenty of DVDs and seminars, and incorporated most of his tips in training myself and others. I don't recall him recommending specificity above all, unless people take him out of context. His book Beyond Bodybuilding is pretty awesome for bodybuilding.

Yeah same here. I read all of Pavel's stuff and overall it's great, PTTP was pretty awesome in particular, but like you said some guys read it and take it too far, basically to the point where they espouse a minimalist routine and believe that hitting accessory lifts like calves and forearms is time wasted in the gym.

I suppose it may be because Pavel makes no mention whatsoever of accessory lifts in most of his books (haven't really gone through Beyond Bodybuilding but it's on my kindle). For instance in The Naked Warrior it's a program of just pistols and one armed pushups. Not a bad program by any means but nobody will know you actually lift unless you hit forearms, shoulders, and traps somehow.

StrikeBack Wrote:

I also own and have read pretty much everything Rippetoe has written as well, but I don't agree with his training methods.

Specificity is important if you compete in a sport e.g powerlifting. A training cycle is broken down to multiple blocks, which slowly increase in specificity towards the end (near competition day). But being too specific all the time is bad especially for beginners and intermediates.

To a point you have to question why Rippetoe and Pavel are so popular. While Rippetoe had pretty good numbers he was by no means an elite powerlifter, guys sixty pounds lighter than him in his prime have matched his lifts raw (and this was in 2008 when I bothered to fact check that statistic, who knows where the records are now), and there are detrained guys walking around McDonald's with Pavel's physique.

I think new jacks appreciate Rippetoe's direct approach to a lifting program (DTFP) but that kind of thing really shits on the creative aspect of lifting.

That's mostly why I like reading Chaos and Pain. Jamie Lewis has no set routine or program at all, just basic guidelines, and his approach is basically thrash the weights and go all out, fuck overtraining, and get motivated.

He says that new lifters should spend more time working on their motivation since being consistent to the gym and attacking practically any routine with enough intensity is going to get you gains, which is a pretty great deconstruction of programs like Starting Strength.

[The Beast1]

Excellent advice.

I was helping a musician friend off mine get into weight lifting. He had similar quips about information overload, not to mention he failed to heed my advice starting out.

I ended up saying to him, " what you're trying to do is saying you want to be a baroque string player playing some of the most difficult vivaldi violin pieces without developing any technique first."

I wish there was a good beginners compound routine that a freshie can start to max out the newbie gains. Then transition into more physique or strength training goals.

[Hades]

(05-17-2015 08:00 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

I wish there was a good beginners compound routine that a freshie can start to max out the newbie gains. Then transition into more physique or strength training goals.

Hey man, that's exactly what Starting Strength or the Powerlifting to Win newbie routine is for. It's practically right in the title.

[Kieran]

I think SS is so popular because it's kind of counter to the whole bodybuilding thing, like those doing it get to feel a sense of superiority over the 3 x 10 upper body crew, but still get the gains because squats and deadlifts build the arms (apparently lol). He also seems very sure of himself, even though he's wrong about lots of things, and that can suck those that don't know any better in.

[kbell]

If benching one day should you do multiple types of benching (incline, flat on the bench, and dumbbells) or just one time will do? I'm curious on when is too much. I've recently added dumbbells to straight benching day. So I will let you know if I notice any strength increases.

Squats and deadlifts the same day? If so, what do you do so you can walk when the soreness hits? For me its 2 days later. Squats always hit me harder for some reason in terms of walking ,probably due to sore quads and hamstrings. A really nice squat session will leave my ass sore but still not as much as those other muscles.

[philosophical_recovery]

I'm interested in kbell's question on bench, I.e. working barbell the same day and then hitting dumbbell at higher reps (like 12-10-8). I've been cautious to try that while on the madcow program. I added other lifts, like dips, curls, and flies, but I've been reluctant to go from heavy barbell 5x5 to dumbbell flat bench on the same day.

Also, kbell, I squat 3 days a week on madcow, except the day I deadlift, I do squats first, at low weight and low volume before hitting heavy deadlifts in ascending sets. It took a while to get used to.

[WanderingSoul]

StrikeBack, can you put up a sample program of what you'd have a general novice lifter do who is wanting to put on size and strength?

Great info. Thanks for the thread.

[StrikeBack]

(05-17-2015 06:36 AM)Jetlagged Wrote:  

Good ego check here.
I fall under a less than class III lifter according to the Russian scale, by about 40kg.

Going to look harder at my program and rep scheme and reconsider it when I return home. Especially learning to stop doing so many 1RM tests. I test 1RM like once every two weeks, because I enjoy it.

You simply need to understand the difference between training for strength and demonstrating strength. If you really like the latter, try doing a powerlifting meet. Testing 1RM is demonstrating strength, but too much of that will interfere with actual training. If you don't want to compete yet, test once every 3 months.

Gym (including youtube) lifts don't really count in strength sports, it's all about the platform. While it's nice to have training PBs, ultimate it's the competition lifts that count. Last cycle, I squatted 2.5kg less and deadlifted almost the exact same weights in training compared to the cycle before that, for the top sets and reps, but in competition I squatted a 7.5kg PB and deadlifted a 12.5kg PB.

[Jetlagged]

Strikeback, if you lived in northeast USA, I would pay you handsomely to coach me.

I'm just saying. It's nice to have a legit strength coach on board. I learned a ton from the deadlift thread already.

[StrikeBack]

Thanks guys

(05-17-2015 08:13 AM)Hades Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 08:00 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

I wish there was a good beginners compound routine that a freshie can start to max out the newbie gains. Then transition into more physique or strength training goals.

Hey man, that's exactly what Starting Strength or the Powerlifting to Win newbie routine is for. It's practically right in the title.

(05-17-2015 08:09 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  

StrikeBack, can you put up a sample program of what you'd have a general novice lifter do who is wanting to put on size and strength?

Great info. Thanks for the thread.

Let me try to address this overhyped novice gains and linear progression at all cost mentality. I understand its appeal to the want-it-now want-it-fast attitude we're all affected by these days, but it is harmful to long term progression.

As stated at the top, building strength and muscles is a set of skills aka an actual sport. I believe people should approach it as such: take it slow, learn the basics, get competent at general movements then slowly work hard and build more muscles and strength.

Novice gains, while being real, are not something you will simply lose forever if you do not get on a 5 reps program asap and add X lbs every session to the bar. I have seen enough real examples in lifting, myself included, that you can make huge gains in muscles and strength way after the first few months of training. In one case, the lifter has had 20 years experience and already been a national champion, yet he still put on more kilos on the bar, lost many kgs of fat and gained plenty of muscles, than every novice on Starting Strength I've seen.

Think about a novice after 3-6 months of linear progression. How many of them have achieved their desired physique and strength? Zero. However, in the rush to max out novice gains, fearing they will lose that forever, they have learned all kinds of incorrect movements and potentially damaged their bodies that will seriously affect their future progress. If you have done any sport, you will realise that unlearning bad movements is many times harder than learning correct ones.

Let me give you an example of someone like this. Tonight at the gym, this guy asked me how to grow quads, because he has skinny legs. He said he's been doing Strong Lifts or whatever 5 reps program, and has maxed out linear progression at 5x5x80kg. I told him to get stronger so he could do heavier weights at more reps, but he said he's stalling, and can't improve. I asked him to show me a bodyweight squat. He can't even do one without falling over. I told him there's his problem, fix that bodyweight squat, get stronger and with strength, he can do more volume, more time under tension, and make his muscles grow more. But this guy won't, because he's already ego-invested too much in trying to squat 5x5x80kg, which doesn't actually impress anyone nor help him reach his goals.

That example is so common among people rushing into 5 reps linear progression programs that I can immediately tell they will fail at basic mobility and bodyweight movements, and have shit techniques. They make some gains at first, then hit a wall, and their physique and strength get stuck in mediocrity forever. That was me many years ago too!

I don't generally write programs for novices except for family and close friends who have zero experience. The other novices that find me are newbie powerlifters who have some athletic background and/or have done a 5 reps linear progression program. I coach them differently.

For the ones with no experience, they will not be touching any barbell for at least the 4-6 weeks. They will do mostly bodyweight exercises, plus some DB or KB ones. I advise training every day, like learning a new skill, but not working out to any kind of exhaustion or failure. Sets, reps etc. are high, but I don't really write hard numbers down. They will start with at most 2 exercises (usually bodyweight squat and pushups) then slowly add exercises like plank, KB swings, goblet squats, lunges etc.

Once they're competent enough, I will introduce some barbell exercises, or more challenging bodyweight ones like dips, pullups or ab wheel rollouts. Barbell ones often are squats and bench (the latter optional). Usually there is no deadlift in the program. For them, strength is built with a great variety of exercises. If they want to deadlift, they use it as a demonstration of strength. Often they surprise themselves with how strong they actually are in the deadlift, without deadlifting.

About 3-6 months later, their program starts to resemble a kind of bodybuilding split 3 days a week, with extra physical activities on other days. They kind of have a linear progression on their big lifts, as I advise them to slowly add weights if they are lifting fast and smooth on every rep, but drop the reps if they need to, and reset back to a lighter weight every 3 months.

The routine would then look like this (in fact that's how I write it, with no reps or sets or weights)

Every session:

- squat (very much like a high bar variation)
- push (bench, DB, dips, press)
- pull (chins, rows - cable, db, bb)
- explosive movement (kb swings, burpees)
- arms (curls, triceps)
- abs (plank, superman, ab wheel, hollow body position)

I leave it to them to pick the exercises (after teaching them a bunch in each category). 3 days a week, one heavy, one light, one medium. 2 more days for other activities like jogging, swimming, dancing, rope skipping or whatever they enjoy doing.

I don't even write reps and sets, as they aren't that important. I just tell them to try to do more weights, more reps and more sets (in that order) every week, if the previous one was too easy. For the big lifts, do 10-8 reps in the first 6 weeks, then do 5-3 reps in the next 6 weeks, leaving 1-2 reps in the tank. For other lifts, do as much as you can on the day.

If they like deadlift, they can do it from time to time, whenever they feel fresh.

For people who come from an athletic background and can competently perform basic movements, I put them straight onto something very much like a Johnny Candito or Powerlifting To Win program for 6 weeks, then reassess, and work towards a competition. Often reps on the powerlifts are 6 in the first 4-6 weeks block, then down to lower, like 2-3, near competition. The below program is for someone who's a college athlete (who trains another 2 days a week in their sport), hasn't done any serious lifting but has excellent body movements. This person immediately got Class II equivalent grading in the very first competition.

I tell them to start at a particular weight for each main lift, and add a little bit every session. Something like this:

Quote:

Add between 0-5kg each week for all exercises.
If exercise is hard, don't add weight next week
Add more weights on squat and deadlift, less on bench
All reps done explosively
Pause first rep on all bench press, touch n go the rest

Prep block (6 weeks)
Day 1 (control)
Pause Squat 6x4
Bench 3x8
Pause Deadlift 3x4
Incline DB Bench 3x8
Lat Pulldown 3x10

Day 2 (heavy)
Squat 3x6
Bench 3x6
Deadlift 2x6
Press 3x6
Seated Cable Rows 3x10

Day 3 (light)

Light Day (up to you)
Light Squat 6x3
DB Bench 3x10
Seated DB Press 3x8
DB Rows 3x20

Every session:

Warmups
BW Squat 3x20
Hip Thrusts 3x20 hold 5s
Cosack 3x10
Pushups 3 sets

Warmdowns
Hollow Body 3 sets ALAP
Arch Body 3 sets ALAP
Hip Thrusts 3x20 hold 5s
(done as a circuit)

Comp block (3 weeks)

Training Week 1-2

Day 1

Squat 5x3 (start at X kg)
Bench 3x5 - pause 1st reps - start at X kg
Deadlift 3x2 - start at X kg
Lat Pulldown 1x10

Day 2

Squat 3x2
Bench 5x3 - pause all reps
Deadlift 2x5
Seated Cable Rows 1x10

Day 3

Light Squat 3x3
DB Bench 3x5
DB Rows 3x10
(similar weights, just fewer reps)

Competition Week

Day 1

Squat: up to opener
Bench: up to opener
Deadlift: up to opener

Day 2

Squat: light 3x5
Bench: light 3x5

For people who have done some lifting but have shit forms, it's a combination of the two approaches. I take the weights on the bar down to something very light, and get them to do all the other stuff first for about 4 weeks, then I'd start them on a hypertrophy kind of program for 6 weeks, e.g:

Day 1

Squat 3x6
Bench 3x6
Dips 3xAMRAP
DB Flies 3x10 (stretch)
Ab Wheels 3xAMRAP
Hanging Leg Raises 3xAMRAP

Day 2

Front Squat 3x6
Deadlift 2x6
Incline DB Bench 3x10
Chinups 5 sets AMRAP
Seated Cable Rows 3x10
KB Swings 3x20

Day 3

Paused Squat 2x5
BB Hip Thrusts 5x10 (hold 3s at top)
DB Bench 3x10
Lat pulldown 3x10
DB Curls 3x10

Same warmup and warmdown as above.

The above is for someone with particular weaknesses, not necessarily for you. I can write a custom program like that for someone in about 15-30 mins at most. At the core, it's just this: practice the powerlifts, attack weaknesses (through hypertrophy, mobility, conditioning, activation or all of them)

I'm kinda in the Chaos and Pain school of thought, that I don't do set routine or program. There's a certain structure aka block periodization where you do: general fitness block, hypertrophy block, strength prep block and competition (specialisation) block (over say 12-16 weeks, then reset). But there's a certain randomness in the actual session that I want people to learn for themselves. For example, one session I might be unhappy with my squat form, and decide to do 8 sets of doubles at a medium weight for form practice, after I've already done my main sets. Did I write that in my routine? No, but I do it because I want more practice. Or I'd write doing 10 reps of bench at the end for chest gains, but one day I might do 5x10, the other I might do 10x10 because I can. As long as overall, in the long term view, I'm doing more weights, more reps and more sets, it's all good.

I'll explain why training this way is much better in a future post.

[StrikeBack]

(05-17-2015 12:04 PM)kbell Wrote:  

If benching one day should you do multiple types of benching (incline, flat on the bench, and dumbbells) or just one time will do? I'm curious on when is too much. I've recently added dumbbells to straight benching day. So I will let you know if I notice any strength increases.

Squats and deadlifts the same day? If so, what do you do so you can walk when the soreness hits? For me its 2 days later. Squats always hit me harder for some reason in terms of walking ,probably due to sore quads and hamstrings. A really nice squat session will leave my ass sore but still not as much as those other muscles.

(05-17-2015 02:09 PM)philosophical_recovery Wrote:  

I'm interested in kbell's question on bench, I.e. working barbell the same day and then hitting dumbbell at higher reps (like 12-10-8). I've been cautious to try that while on the madcow program. I added other lifts, like dips, curls, and flies, but I've been reluctant to go from heavy barbell 5x5 to dumbbell flat bench on the same day.

Also, kbell, I squat 3 days a week on madcow, except the day I deadlift, I do squats first, at low weight and low volume before hitting heavy deadlifts in ascending sets. It took a while to get used to.

The answer to your questions is Work Capacity. How much work you can do vs how fast you can recover. If you have a higher Work Capacity and know how to listen to your body, you can do anything you like.

How much volume you should pack in one session depends on how fast you recover and what you want to do the next day. It means you need to understand how much you fatigue, and manage that.

If you want to add extra volume, say more DB after BB bench, leave something in the tank after you finish BB bench, don't blow your load there. Take a little bit of weights off the bar, or reduce the number of sets. Keep track of your total volume i.e for each exercise, it's Number of Sets * Number of Reps * Weights. Increase it slowly e.g adding 2x10 DB or even lighter BB bench after the big sets for the first couple of weeks, then upping that to 3x10 or more later.

The difference in hypertrophy and strength between 5x5x200lb and 5x5x195lb is minimal, but doing the latter instead of blowing your brain to finish the former might mean that you can add 3x10x70lb DB bench, or 3x10x145lb BB bench at the end, which will actually make a significant difference in gains due to volume increase (hypertrophy) and more practice reps (strength).

Squat and deadlift on the same day is fine. Guess what, powerlifters compete both on the same day! I do it all the time in training, although I tend to pair up a lighter variety of squats with deadlift, like pause squats, speed squats or front squats, often at lower reps. e.g

Paused squats for 5x3
... do some benching here...
Deadlift for blahxblah

or

Deadlift for AxB
.. bench ...
Front Squats 2x5

or

Speed squat for 6x2
Deadlift for AxB

or

Heavy Squats on Day A
Heavy Deadlifts + Front Squats on Day (A+1)

Just don't do anything to failure and you'll recover just fine.

Remember, train to success, not to failure. Leave the gym feeling like you can conquer the world (so you have energy to live your life outside of it) not like you should crawl into bed and pass out. If you listen to your body and stay within that limit, you can slowly build up some impressive training volume and recover like a boss, making everyone else think you're on drugs!

[H1N1]

Awesome stuff as always mate. Learn something that helps me every time you post.

[philosophical_recovery]

Wow, thank you for all of that, StrikeBack.

[PhDre]

(05-18-2015 09:59 AM)StrikeBack Wrote:  

Think about a novice after 3-6 months of linear progression. How many of them have achieved their desired physique and strength? Zero. However, in the rush to max out novice gains, fearing they will lose that forever, they have learned all kinds of incorrect movements and potentially damaged their bodies that will seriously affect their future progress. If you have done any sport, you will realise that unlearning bad movements is many times harder than learning correct ones.

Let me give you an example of someone like this. Tonight at the gym, this guy asked me how to grow quads, because he has skinny legs. He said he's been doing Strong Lifts or whatever 5 reps program, and has maxed out linear progression at 5x5x80kg. I told him to get stronger so he could do heavier weights at more reps, but he said he's stalling, and can't improve. I asked him to show me a bodyweight squat. He can't even do one without falling over. I told him there's his problem, fix that bodyweight squat, get stronger and with strength, he can do more volume, more time under tension, and make his muscles grow more. But this guy won't, because he's already ego-invested too much in trying to squat 5x5x80kg, which doesn't actually impress anyone nor help him reach his goals.

StrikeBack, thanks a lot for the knowledge you are sharing in this thread. I was this linear progression ego-invested guy for a very long time. All I got out of it was zero progress and chronic shoulder, knee and elbow pain.

I have the feeling that newbies should spend a couple of weeks or even months learning to use the correct muscles during the movements, e.g.:
- using their glutes during the squat and deadlift instead of only their spinal erectors
- using their pectorals and lats during the bench press instead of only front delts and triceps
- using their lats during pull ups

Rippetoe says that, as long as the movement looks technically correct, you are using the right muscles. I disagree with that point of view. I think that it is perfectly possible to perform two squats that look exactly the same with completely different degrees of glute activation. The same goes for the bench press, the pull-up or any big compound movement.

I also think that newbies should find out which movements work for them and which don't. I think that the right exercise, or rather the correct technique to execute an exercise, is strongly dependent on the levers someone has. For instance, in a close grip pull-up or chin-up I can only feel the long head of my triceps and my rear delts - not my biceps, and certainly not my lats. In a wide grip pull-up I can only feel my teres major, lower traps and smaller upper back muscles, even though everyone on the internet says that these are best for the lats. Of course I do not make progress on those exercises. But when I switch to a shoulder width neutral grip all of a sudden I can feel my lats doing the work, I can make progress and I can put size on my back.

[StrikeBack]

I generally don't write programs for people I train for a few reasons:

- I don't have time, I only do this as a hobby
- I'd rather teach people to come up with their own programs that suit their personal goals and limits
- I don't even write a detailed program for myself

When I coach people at the lifting club, often they already have a program written by someone else. Usually it works well enough for them, which is why they're on it in the first place. What I do is to teach them how to get the most out of that program.

This is what I'm aiming for here: showing you guys how to train, not what to train.

Here's one of the very first things I teach newbies about programming.

Don't be a slave to the numbers: weights, sets or reps, or weight increments in linear progression in any given session. As long as in the long run, you are increasing the weights, reps and sets in your lifts, you are heading in the right direction.

Whether it's from an Internet program or a custom written one for you, do not stick to them religiously. You need to understand the intention behind the Set X Rep X Weight: they are simply proxies to your actual goals, not your goals themselves.

With compound lifts

When you see something like 3x5x120kg squat in your program, it is not written in stone that you have to do exactly 3 sets of 5 reps with 120kg on the squat, or else you will fail in achieving your goals. What you should read from that are:

- You are training mostly for strength in the squat (because it's 3x5)
- You are doing 5 reps for about 3 sets (you may do more)
- You want to be doing, ideally, at least 15 quality working reps in the squat (most important)
- The weight you're using is about 120kg, or approximately X% of your squat 1RM (if you had one)
- You are a sportsman practicing a skill, in this case, the squat.

If you don't feel too confident of starting the first working set at 120kg x5, you may start it at 115kgx5 or even 110kg x5, then jump to 120kg x5 if it feels good. Or you may go 2x5x120kg then feel too tired and decide to take 7.5kg off the bar and do 112.5kg x5. Or you're having a fantastic day and decide to bump to 125kg x5 for the second set and smoke it. Sometimes you end up with 3 sets like this: 115kg x5, 122.5kgx5, 120kg x5.

The difference in strength/hypertrophy between that and doing a regular 3x5x120kg, provided all reps are of quality? Practically nothing. However, if you are grinding out 120kg with poor form, and end up with 5 good reps, 5 ok reps and 5 poor reps, then it is worse for you than doing something like the above.

If next week you're meant to add 2.5kg to your 3x5 squat, but you show up on the night not feeling too great for whatever reason, stick to the same weight as last week, don't add just because the program says so.

Failing reps or grinding out poor reps is actively harmful to your progression, especially if they become a habit. It will teach you bad movements which take way more effort to unlearn, tire out your nervous system, deplete will power, and slowly destroy your confidence and momentum.

I highlight the above because I see it over and over again with newbie lifters especially the ones on the popular 5 reps linear progression programs.

On the flip side, don't hold yourself back when you feel really good on the night, but the weight on the program feels too easy, and you think you could've done a bit more. It helps build confidence and momentum.

You can manipulate the weights as long as overall in a long term view, your average weight is going up, and you're not simply using this as an excuse to chicken out. The manipulation part is there so you can get the most out of any training session, regardless of what happens in your life.

Here's a more advanced scenario. You've already done 3x5x120kg, but didn't feel too great about your form. You didn't quite get some of the tips from a squat clinic thread that you read. Well, let's take the bar down to 100kg and do, say, 5 sets of 2 to practice those tips some more. Is that in the program? No, but some athletes in other sports would stay behind and do some extra work after they've done the main program by the head coach, and those athletes are often way ahead of their peers.

I'd occasionally do this in my training, and I'd go up to a huge number of x2 sets, to the point I'd lose count. Why x2 with a medium weight? Because you can practice almost forever with that sort of weight without burning out, while getting plenty of training effects including many more times the setup which is hugely important.

With small lifts

This is simpler. Let's say you see DB Curls 3x10. What does that mean?

- You're meant to work on hypertrophy for biceps, with DBs for muscular and strength symmetry
- You're working in the 10 reps range, and do about 30 reps total

What it doesn't mean:

- you have to do the same weights for all 3 sets
- you have to do exactly 30 reps total and no more
- you have to do exactly 10 reps per set

What you should think:

- you're aiming to, after a few months time on this program, lift 3x10 on DB curls at X kg
- Right now you're on 3x10 DB curls at Y kg, and it's very hard to add weights regularly to DB curls
- You can add more sets to a point, then drop back down to 3: week 1 - 3x10xY, week 2 - 4x10xY, week 3 - 5x10xY, week 4 - 3x10x(Y+1)
- You can add more reps to a point, then drop back down: week 1 - 3x10xY, week 2 - 3x12xY, week 3 - 3x14xY, week 4 - 3x15xY, week 5 - 3x8x(Y+1), week 6 - 3x10x(Y+1)

What you're achieving: both strength and hypertrophy (due to extra volume) progression.

There are a lot more ways you can lightly manipulate the Set X Rep X Weight part of the program, to make them work more effectively for your goals, as long as you remember that they're there to help you, not dictate what you must do in a session. What I write above is just some examples off the top of my head. I can slowly introduce some other ways, or you can use your creativity and experiment to see which works best for you.

[StrikeBack]

PhDre, you're welcome, and you have good instincts, mate.

Yes definitely, newbies need to learn plenty of body awareness and basic movements before lifting anything seriously. It's no different to any sport. I took up boxing recently and spent the first month simply standing still in the boxing stance and doing the basic punches slowly. If I were told to go hit the heavy bags, do mitt works and spar straight away, you guys would immediately say that's bad training.

You can do two squats that look identical to the naked eyes yet they can feel very different to the same lifter. You can also have a squat that is technically correct at light-medium weight, but falls apart with heavier weights. In some cases, like say the sumo deadlift, you can only perform technically correct lifts (both visual and feel) if the weight is sufficiently heavy.

Funnily enough I felt my lats properly first time doing neutral grip chins as well. Now I can feel my lats doing pretty much anything. Once you've established that mind-lat connection (same with abs and glutes) you can do it in many different lifts or variations of the same lift.

Personally at the moment I reckon lat pulldowns and seated cable rows are way superior to pullups or barbell rows in building lats. I like pullups but I do it to get stronger at pullups and climbing over things. And then there are people who swear by barbell rows and pullups (my training partner is one and he has massive wide lats, but mine are thicker and stronger!). Use the ones that work for you, that's why there are so many variations in the first place.

[H1N1]

(05-19-2015 06:22 AM)StrikeBack Wrote:  

I generally don't write programs for people I train for a few reasons:

- I don't have time, I only do this as a hobby
- I'd rather teach people to come up with their own programs that suit their personal goals and limits
- I don't even write a detailed program for myself

When I coach people at the lifting club, often they already have a program written by someone else. Usually it works well enough for them, which is why they're on it in the first place. What I do is to teach them how to get the most out of that program.

This is what I'm aiming for here: showing you guys how to train, not what to train.

Here's one of the very first things I teach newbies about programming.

Don't be a slave to the numbers: weights, sets or reps, or weight increments in linear progression in any given session. As long as in the long run, you are increasing the weights, reps and sets in your lifts, you are heading in the right direction.

Whether it's from an Internet program or a custom written one for you, do not stick to them religiously. You need to understand the intention behind the Set X Rep X Weight: they are simply proxies to your actual goals, not your goals themselves.

With compound lifts

When you see something like 3x5x120kg squat in your program, it is not written in stone that you have to do exactly 3 sets of 5 reps with 120kg on the squat, or else you will fail in achieving your goals. What you should read from that are:

- You are training mostly for strength in the squat (because it's 3x5)
- You are doing 5 reps for about 3 sets (you may do more)
- You want to be doing, ideally, at least 15 quality working reps in the squat (most important)
- The weight you're using is about 120kg, or approximately X% of your squat 1RM (if you had one)
- You are a sportsman practicing a skill, in this case, the squat.

If you don't feel too confident of starting the first working set at 120kg x5, you may start it at 115kgx5 or even 110kg x5, then jump to 120kg x5 if it feels good. Or you may go 2x5x120kg then feel too tired and decide to take 7.5kg off the bar and do 112.5kg x5. Or you're having a fantastic day and decide to bump to 125kg x5 for the second set and smoke it. Sometimes you end up with 3 sets like this: 115kg x5, 122.5kgx5, 120kg x5.

The difference in strength/hypertrophy between that and doing a regular 3x5x120kg, provided all reps are of quality? Practically nothing. However, if you are grinding out 120kg with poor form, and end up with 5 good reps, 5 ok reps and 5 poor reps, then it is worse for you than doing something like the above.

If next week you're meant to add 2.5kg to your 3x5 squat, but you show up on the night not feeling too great for whatever reason, stick to the same weight as last week, don't add just because the program says so.

Failing reps or grinding out poor reps is actively harmful to your progression, especially if they become a habit. It will teach you bad movements which take way more effort to unlearn, tire out your nervous system, deplete will power, and slowly destroy your confidence and momentum.

I highlight the above because I see it over and over again with newbie lifters especially the ones on the popular 5 reps linear progression programs.

On the flip side, don't hold yourself back when you feel really good on the night, but the weight on the program feels too easy, and you think you could've done a bit more. It helps build confidence and momentum.

You can manipulate the weights as long as overall in a long term view, your average weight is going up, and you're not simply using this as an excuse to chicken out. The manipulation part is there so you can get the most out of any training session, regardless of what happens in your life.

Here's a more advanced scenario. You've already done 3x5x120kg, but didn't feel too great about your form. You didn't quite get some of the tips from a squat clinic thread that you read. Well, let's take the bar down to 100kg and do, say, 5 sets of 2 to practice those tips some more. Is that in the program? No, but some athletes in other sports would stay behind and do some extra work after they've done the main program by the head coach, and those athletes are often way ahead of their peers.

I'd occasionally do this in my training, and I'd go up to a huge number of x2 sets, to the point I'd lose count. Why x2 with a medium weight? Because you can practice almost forever with that sort of weight without burning out, while getting plenty of training effects including many more times the setup which is hugely important.

With small lifts

This is simpler. Let's say you see DB Curls 3x10. What does that mean?

- You're meant to work on hypertrophy for biceps, with DBs for muscular and strength symmetry
- You're working in the 10 reps range, and do about 30 reps total

What it doesn't mean:

- you have to do the same weights for all 3 sets
- you have to do exactly 30 reps total and no more
- you have to do exactly 10 reps per set

What you should think:

- you're aiming to, after a few months time on this program, lift 3x10 on DB curls at X kg
- Right now you're on 3x10 DB curls at Y kg, and it's very hard to add weights regularly to DB curls
- You can add more sets to a point, then drop back down to 3: week 1 - 3x10xY, week 2 - 4x10xY, week 3 - 5x10xY, week 4 - 3x10x(Y+1)
- You can add more reps to a point, then drop back down: week 1 - 3x10xY, week 2 - 3x12xY, week 3 - 3x14xY, week 4 - 3x15xY, week 5 - 3x8x(Y+1), week 6 - 3x10x(Y+1)

What you're achieving: both strength and hypertrophy (due to extra volume) progression.

There are a lot more ways you can lightly manipulate the Set X Rep X Weight part of the program, to make them work more effectively for your goals, as long as you remember that they're there to help you, not dictate what you must do in a session. What I write above is just some examples off the top of my head. I can slowly introduce some other ways, or you can use your creativity and experiment to see which works best for you.

Great post. This is one of the biggest things that happened for me with my own training, was focusing more on the quality of work, and the intention behind it, than the actual number of sets and reps. I spent years stopping at X reps because that's what the program said, rather than figuring out how to work hard and do what was required to get the right training effect for what I was trying to achieve.

I think once you realise that, you appreciate that there is not really any wrong way to train, so long as the movements you choose and the overall stimulus you illicit from each lift is in line with your goals. It's one of the things I've been trying to convey in the thread where I'm trying to help HD get closer to his goals.

[kbell]

What are hollow body, arch body, cosacks and unweighted hip thrusts?

And I take it you do use a different body part split at all? I guess taking it easy one day but same style of exercises with some variations does a similar effect? I have been doing heavy 3 times a week but that probably isn't sustainable long term I assume.

By the way thanks for doing this.

[WanderingSoul]

Great stuff StrikeBack. Thanks a lot. Definitely a different style of training than I am used to.

[StrikeBack]

Cheers, ultimately every style of training kinda comes down to figuring out what works best for your body and your lifestyle, which is why I want to introduce these concepts early on. Else everyone would be doing the same program and making the same gains!

Quote:

What are hollow body, arch body, cosacks and unweighted hip thrusts?

You can easily find them on Youtube or Google. They're just basic bodyweight exercises.

Quote:

And I take it you do use a different body part split at all? I guess taking it easy one day but same style of exercises with some variations does a similar effect? I have been doing heavy 3 times a week but that probably isn't sustainable long term I assume.

For novices, you can either do body part split or full body 3 times a week, but using the Heavy Light Medium principle. Heavy Heavy Heavy is fine for more experienced lifters BUT also requires certain changes in your lifestyle that might not be sustainable for you.

I did Heavy x6 and Light x1 (i.e 6 heavy sessions and 1 light session a week) for 6 months uninterrupted at one stage, but it was a period when I could simply focus on lifting and not much else.

What happen outside of the gym affect your gym performance and training program far more than you think. If the external factors are flexible and adaptable enough, you can do damn near any program you like.