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June 27, 2005
Wave the weights for power
Question: My training partner took your seminar and told me that you recommend waving the weight up and down from set to set. Why?
First of all, you will get stronger faster. Eastern Europeans' weightlifting sessions are variable. When Russians hit heavy doubles or triples, they often alternate them with singles or doubles with a weight reduced by 5-10%. Another set and rep scheme popular in the former Soviet Union, by Robert Roman, calls for three sets of three reps with a 70% weight and 3x3 @ 75% 1RM. The weights are alternated from set to set.
Your strength depends on your skill to contract your muscles hard – even more than on their size. Since World War II, motor learning, the fine discipline about shortcuts to skill mastery, has made many breakthroughs that are waiting to be recruited in your quest for strength. One such breakthrough is variable practice, the powerful alternative to conventional constant practice.
Constant practice refers to doing the same thing in every consecutive trial. Multiple sets with the same weight, 455x5x5 or 200x10x3, are examples of constant practice. This method works but it can be improved on. Variable practice, or waving the load up and down every set, is a superior alternative. Many motor learning studies (e.g., Kerr & Booth, 1978) show that subjects practicing under variable conditions perform at least as well as the constant practice group – and frequently do better!
For more information on this topic order Pavel’s Beyond Bodybuilding today.
Posted by james at 5:53 AM | Comments (0)
June 20, 2005
A Power to the People!/ladder hybrid to jumpstart your bench press
Question: My bench press has stalled. Do you have any cool routines to get it going?
Try the following program by Jason Brice of Johnson City, Tennessee. Jason combined one of the power cycles from my book Power to the People! with ‘ladders’, a technique popular in the Russian military for improving pull-ups.
On June 30th, 2001 Brice started out with one set of five reps with 225 pounds, or 67% of his 335-pound max bench (naturally, you will need to plug in your own numbers). Jason did only one set of five reps per workout, adding five pounds each time. What will surprise you is that he benched five days a week, Monday through Friday. The reasoning behind such an unorthodox schedule is outside the scope of this piece; it is explained in Power to the People!
Since you cannot keep on adding five pounds a workout forever, even if you started the cycle with a light weight, eventually you will reach your five-rep max. When Jason reached his he switched from powerlifting style cycling to ladders. ‘A ladder’ means doing one rep, resting briefly, doing two reps, etc., then starting all over when you cannot top the reps of the last set. Brice did sets of 1-2-3-1-2... with his 5RM until his form started to get sloppy. He did this every other day for two weeks.
Then Jason backed off ten pounds from his 5RM established two weeks earlier and resumed a linear cycle: one set of five Monday through Friday adding five pounds a day. When he had a tough time completing his fiver Jason took two days off and tested his one-rep max, something he did every two months. Here is what he accomplished:
| June 30th | August 30th | October 31st | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bench press 1 RM | 335 | 385 | 420 |
| Bench press 5 RM | 285 | 325 | 360 |
Said Jason: “…My lifts were witnessed by my co-workers as well as a few powerlifters who compete with me. If I lied about my results they would call my bluff.”
For more information on this topic order Pavel’s Beyond Bodybuilding today.
Posted by james at 5:50 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2005
Build might and muscle with the classic 'countdown to power'
John McKean sent me an article he wrote about the 54321 routine back in the sixties. It details how to make great gains by doing consecutive sets of 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 repetitions.
"The countdown provides the lifter with several advantages." writes McKean who has won many titles in powerlifting and all-around lifting and started his writing career in Strength & Health under legendary John Grimek. “First of all, he is relieved of the boredom of doing set after set with the same weight or for the same number of counts. Secondly, he looks forward to each coming set because, in his mind, the decreased repetitions make it easier to perform. Of course there is more weight to contend with but those detestable reps are diminished! It can also be seen that the body acquires a gradual adjustment to an ever-increasing weight. When one can force his mind and body to accept heavier workloads, he begins to improve.”
McKean gives you the freedom to decide what poundage jumps you are going to make between sets. Most experienced lifters jump ten to twenty pounds, John McKean added thirty five pounds per set to his squats, and some big dudes add as much as a hundred pounds between sets! Simple math tells that you should be putting up at least five wheels to make such jumps. Ten pound increases should be about right for the average bodybuilder, e.g. 200x5, 210x4, 220x3, 230x2, 240x1. Note that not all sets will be equally difficult; that is fine and even purposeful, ‘cycling’ within a workout.
John advises that your first workout should start out with the top single twenty pounds below your best. Practice the 54321 system three times a week and add five pounds to each set every workout. In two weeks you will overshoot your old max. If you keep working hard, you may end up with a forty-pound gain on your lift in one month, a typical experience for the 1960s powerlifters and bodybuilders who took on this program.
For more information on this topic order Pavel’s Beyond Bodybuilding today.
Posted by james at 5:21 AM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2005
Is Traditional Power Cycling Obsolete?
No. Progressive overload cycling is the most reliable muscle and strength building method, period. It has produced great champions like Marty Gallagher's star pupil Kirk Karwoski. 'Captain Kirk' squatted a grand and his legs have been compared to a T-rex’s for their Jurassic muscularity. Take on the following squat cycle and see for yourself how ‘obsolete’ it is.
The cycle lasts sixteen weeks, one squat workout a week. For the first eight weeks you will be doing two sets of five with the same weight. Then take fifty pounds off the bar and perform two more sets. This time pause in the ‘hole’ where your thighs are parallel to the floor for three painful seconds. Add ten pounds per week. For the second eight cut your reps to triples.
Make a realistic estimate of how much you can improve in sixteen workouts and work back to establish the starting poundage. If you are new to power cycling, just take your current 1RM, tested or estimated, as the goal for two sets of three in the end of four months. If your max is 355, subtract 160 pounds – ten pounds multiplied by sixteen workouts – and you will get 195. This is your starting poundage. Your first workout will be 195x5x2 and 145x5x2 pause squats. It may not sound like much but this easy start is one of the secrets to the success of powerlifting cycles.
In workout number eight you should confidently put up 275x5x2 and 225x5x2 paused. Your ninth workout will be 285x3x2, 235x3x2 paused. In workout number sixteen you will squat your old max for two triples, 355x3x2 and 305x3x2 paused. You are closing in on four wheels!
For more information on this topic order Pavel’s Beyond Bodybuilding today.
Posted by james at 6:20 AM | Comments (0)