Transcription
If you're trying to get bigger, stronger, you've probably obsessed over individual exercises, the best way to execute them, what the best split is, how many times a week should I be going, and so on. But, a lot of you sleep on the most important thing, and I've beaten this into the ground, and that is what you are doing from one workout to the next.
We all know that effort is a big driver of growth, but so are a bunch of other things, and if you're tired of just going harder than last time, you're stuck in this purgatory where it's just effort, effort, effort, you might need some direction. These are definitely going to help with that.
And guys, today going to be kind of a low-effort video, all right? We're going to spare the production expense because we're moving in 10 days. Teddy's got hand, foot, and mouth. We've been quarantined for like the last 5 days. We're not getting any sleep. It's It's been a time, okay? We're hanging on by a thread. I apologize, but hey, to those of you that hate my stick figure drawings or the Tik Tok edits, hey, you know, this is a win for you. So, let's get into it.
So, I always start with LPs because it's like the foundation training. Just add a little bit more weight, using weight as the driver of growth. Now, people will get caught in the weeds as to whether or not adding weight does, in fact, drive growth. Those people are not your friends. Don't listen to them because the best case scenario, they're right, but we still use increases in weight as a proxy for whether or not you got stronger, which almost always means you got bigger, and for the signal that your workout is actually more challenging than it was last time. So, even if it's a couple steps removed, adding weight still takes you to the place you need to be to know that you're making strides forward.
Now, most LPs have fives at the heart of it because it's a good intermediate built strength and built size. However, if you're hypertrophy focused or if you're in a block of training where you need to take a step back from weight, doing LPs for high reps absolutely fantastic for growth, and they're more elastic, meaning it's easier to make that weight jump with a more complex compound movement than it's necessarily going to be for a very small movement where the weight increases have to be very, very minuscule. So, compound movements, in fact, variations you might not have considered, close grips, your fronts, your stiff legs, and you'll find that adding that weight, you can do it for quite a while. In fact, adjustments to rep ranges is one of the easiest ways to get out of a rut and start seeing growth. And if you're not used to doing repeating sets for like 10 or 12 on some of these movements, you will be absolutely amazed at how you keep seeing these like second waves of adaptation after the first couple weeks where you start to get used to it.
A good example would be starting out with like a front squat. You do something like three sets of 12. Most of you are not used to doing those repeating sets at the same weight with a compound movement. going to be difficult even if you start with like an RPE 4. And what you do is add the smallest amount of weight you can every time you do it, maybe twice a week, maybe once a week, for as many weeks as possible. You're going to be amazed at how long you can keep that going with that particular lift. So, the cadence is always start out, get your footing, work, work, adapt, in the weeds, getting as much progress you can, you hit the wall, and then you got to move to something that starts that cycle over again. That's exactly how this works, and it can work beautifully well for the sheer acquisition of size. And also, wouldn't recommend it for smaller movements because it's just not practical. I don't want people in the gym with fractionals, that's micromanaging, and you just run out of room to progress way too quick. But, this actually is a killer if you apply it to compound movements as kind of the backbone of your training.
Now, another option that I really like is a step progression. Again, it's often just for strength acquisition, but you can absolutely adapt it to hypertrophy as well. It's basically linear progression with extra steps. Instead of every single workout, it's every second or third workout you're adding weight. So, you're going to see multiple workouts with the exact same weight. And the idea is it's still going to be stimulating even if not optimally stimulating, but that allows you more time to adapt while also the fatigue being a little bit lower because you're used to it now. So, that prevents that quick build-up where fatigue increases as you're pushing, pushing, pushing into the weeds, but your adaptations are slowing down, so now you're upside down in it. This allows you to actually realize adaptations for a longer period of time to keep that weight increase keeping you moving forward for a while. It's a nice psychological break, too, to not have to go into the gym every single time and go harder than last time, knowing you are doing the same weight, the same exercise. It kind of consolidates, it solidifies the gains that you've gotten, and it makes you confident like I got this weight.
So, let's say, for example, you start with a bench press. You might start with three sets of 15. That's pretty high rep. You're going to get a pump even with very light weight, like 50% of your max. It might be a little tricky by the end. And all you're going to do is do that workout, you're going to repeat it again in a few days, and in the following week, you're going to add a little bit of weight. Now, again, I emphasize these high reps here because of that elasticity. Again, you're going to be amazed at how quickly something where, hey, I did 15, and then I did 13, and then I did like nine, and the next week you're like, holy crap, I did 15 on all of them. Muscular endurance increases very, very quickly, which is another asset to this type of progression.
Now, the next progression is linear periodization. It's a very vague terms, a lot of ways to do it. Broadly, it means you start high rep, over time you go to low rep. So, the easiest way to conceptualize it would be like a 12-week block of training where you're starting with 10s, you do a couple weeks of 10s, then eights, then sixes. So, it's basically a long pyramid all the way down. So, powerlifters like it because it's directional, it takes you all the way to meet day, but it's stupidly simple. It's the kitty table version of like complex Soviet periodization. But, you can also rationalize that the different phases of training do different things, and that break from the other stress allows you to kind of clear out while you're focusing on something else, so you can concentrate on one thing. The high rep ranges tend to be more hypertrophic for powerlifters. You don't really live and die by that, and the lower reps are obviously more strength specific. So, the idea is you get big, and then you take that, you kind of transfer it to strength by making better use of that muscle.
Now, for hypertrophy, basically, you just need to not concern yourself with those lower rep ranges. So, you could do a linear periodization run 12 or 16 weeks where you're saying, "Hey, I'm going to do two or three weeks of 15s, then 12s, then 10s, then eights, maybe down to sixes." And that'll last you a very, very long time, and you also do not need to complicate it. Do not pull out percentage-based charts. You should be able to kind of intuitively wing what it is that you're doing. Now, the precedent for doing this, Ed Coan did this for his main lifts to set these world record numbers, but he also did it for his accessory. He would do it for his behind-the-neck presses and bent rows, and so on. And when you know you're just going to be in the same rep range for a couple of weeks, you can attack it a bit more. You know you want to leave that last day of 15s on a high note, so you're actually going to get into the weeds, and you're going to be excited to go into the 12s and see what you can do now. So, each block kind of builds on top of the one before it. And when you get to the sixes, if you're hitting this massively big number that you couldn't hit at the start, what are the odds that you are not going to have more meat on your frame? I'm going to say not very good. But, as long as you're clocking hard work, and as long as you are seeing those numbers go up through the entire duration, you can be sure that you're getting bigger and stronger.
Now, this is one of my favorites, is volumizing. We are adding sets here. Of course, the big question is, well, why don't you just keep adding sets to 100 sets? Because training is cyclical. I hope you've gotten that. Doesn't matter what program you're on, eventually, you stop growing, you got to change something, or you're switching things around to make it more sustainable. All training is cyclical. You cannot do the same thing indefinitely and continue to grow. I've used this so much not just in my training, I've used it for all my athletes. I had it as a staple in my gym programming. When I owned Empire Barbell, we had a lot of members that absolutely loved it and kept cycling through. We saw some crazy gains in it. When you're not used to doing repeating sets of 10 with a compound lift, and then you acclimate to doing five sets of 10 over multiple compound exercises, and it is doable, kids, you're going to see growth that you've just never seen before. What I usually have in my books, my programming, starting with three sets of 10 or 12 reps, going to four sets, going to five sets. And every time you reset, you might move to a different rep range, and the weight's going to be a little bit higher now, and you're going to get better at hitting the gas on those big workouts where it's like, [ __ ] I have three exercises, that's 15 sets. I got to lock in, and I got to hit my weight. And it's a different type of difficult, but you'll notice it's hard, but it gets easier. And as it gets easier, that's like, oh [ __ ] my body's adapting to handle this work. It's just so tried and true. This is what makes 70's powerlifter such a killer program. It's in my book Base Strength, it's in Base Strength AI. We've had a ton of success with it, but you have to be willing to clock the work. This is not a, oh, I only got 30 minutes 3 days a week, what can I do?
Double progressions include two things that hypertrophy heads absolutely love, training to failure and being told when to add weight. It's essentially a linear progression, but instead of just adding weight on a fixed timeline, you are adding weight as long as you have the ability to hit the sets and reps for that workout. So, let's say three sets of 12. You're doing three sets of 12 at 135, next session's 140, next session's 145, and holy crap, I got 12, 12, and nine. Well, you're going to stay there each session until you come away with three sets of 12. So, every workout is you go into the limit trying to hit that goal. So, it has a direct reward system built into it. Psychologically, you're trying to reach to that next PR. That is so underrated when it comes to growth, is having that goal in front of you and grinding towards it. It's not just blind effort, but blind effort in service of some specific thing you're trying to get. It's so good.
Now, I think this is fine for most of your typical bodybuilding type movements. When you are talking about compounds, though, recovery does become an issue. So, the question is, when I get stuck on a double progression, how long do I spend just in purgatory bashing my head against the wall trying to get through? That can work for a lot of people, but you also get burnt out. You also might come up against overuse issues, whatever. So, that becomes a problem. That's where people want direction. Okay, what do I do now? What I recommend anybody do is if they're at more than three sessions really without seeing any improvement forward, it's time to transition to something else. And I would also hesitate to tell anybody to do this with something that is pretty difficult to recover from. I don't think any intermediate lifter or beyond is going to have a good time with deadlifts, probably not squats. Pressing, rows probably going to be okay here, but I would just issue a word of caution. That being said, half of you are going to go try it for squats and deads because I said that, so godspeed.
Now, here's the last hidden one that a lot of people don't talk about. It kind of slides under the radar. There have been some gimmicky programs in the past that never went anywhere, and probably rightfully so. But, that's not to say it's not useful, and there actually are plenty of examples of this actually leading to people getting beastly if you know how to use it right, and that is density training. So, let's say I'm doing stiff-legged deadlifts, and I have a set weight, and I need to clip off 50 total reps across multiple sets as fast as I can. Last week, I did it in 7 minutes. This week, I did it in 5 minutes and 30 seconds. That's greater density. Now, the workload is the same, but stress is going to be higher because I did it in a shorter period of time. So, that stresses a lot of the metabolic pathways. Your endurance climbs up from that. Your ability to handle and recover from work, and that's huge for all like bodybuilding or hypertrophy training anyways. That's what the type of training is. So, it focuses on that is the thing that improves the thing you need to improve to get better. Also, it does show you got better because you're not going to be able to do that unless you did make some tangible adaptation to it. So, it's very useful.
Now, the problem is the methods of density that were used in the past, most people don't follow. They're a little more complicated, and there isn't reason to do that or to think that it's better. It would be something like that. Set 10 minutes on the clock, and now you're just going and resting, going and resting, and then you try to beat that. And it's a fun challenge. It's kind of crossfitty. Strong men do it a lot. I've done it a lot for things like carries, or if I have to get good at a a static event. You have 90 seconds on the clock. I need to deadlift as much as possible. I'm not going to do that in one set. I need to be able to break it up, and that strategy means I fit more work in that 90 seconds than if I was just doing a straight set to failure. And your body responds to that hugely, hugely so. So, instead of doing like the 10-minute thing, have a big set where you're going to get double-digit reps, but with something that's kind of heavy, kind of challenging, and you're forced to break it up. So, maybe start with 75% on something. Should be around a 10-rep max. You have 90 seconds. See if you can break it up to get more than 10 reps. And you're going to repeat that until you've added a couple of reps onto that set, and then you're going to add weight and repeat.
Now, another way is intervals with decreasing rest periods. Now, here's the important thing to understand about this. You're not going to be able to do like a normal ass set where you're going up to failure because your sets are going to be very unpredictable. You're going to fatigue just super quick. Your goal is to sustain a certain level of effort, and hypertrophy guys have a real hard time conceptualizing this because the only thing they think of is no heart. I need effort. I got to go to failure. So, an example of interval with decreasing rest period, take five reps. Maybe something you can do 10 reps total. And you're going to do that. You're going to rest a minute, and then you're going to do it again, and you're going to rack up a lot of sets. So, in a set period of time, as long as you're watching the clock, you will have accrued more total work than if you were doing a set to failure and then resting normally because that would have taken you longer, and you would have gotten less total reps. The total tonnage here, the the total volume load is going to be higher. There's going to be people coming into "Oh, that doesn't correlate with hypertrophy." Go yourselves. If you get to the point where you adapt to this, where you can consistently have higher weights at higher efforts more densely packed in to a shorter period of time, your body is absolutely going to grow from it.
And a lot of you probably get anxiety over whether or not you're doing the quote-unquote optimal thing. Optimal doesn't exist. There's weights, and there's you getting better at weights. Get better at weights, you're going to get bigger. That's the long and short of it. You're going to recognize a lot of these as strength-based routines, and they are. But, anytime you get a program to push your abilities forward in a particular range that is associated with hypertrophy, you're going to get more hypertrophy. This is the way it is. But, I already [ __ ] you guys up by giving you too many options because now you're going to be weighing these and trying to make hybrid programs where you do a little bit of all of it. Just pick one that looks interesting, plug it into something in your training, run it for 6 weeks, see how it goes, see what you learned, and get back to me. And if you guys have more questions, a lot of this is in base strength. I mean, people call this type of programming powerbuilding. I just call it training. Maybe there's some people that really fetishize the idea of getting strong and not gaining an ounce of muscle. I will never understand that, but to each their own. I like to use a muscle growth as a means of potentiating your strength, and it's worked out wonders for me and everybody I've trained in my 20 years of doing this. So, you can get that at the link below. Check out base strength AI as well. Thanks so much for watching, guys. Till next time. This is Bromley. I'll see you.