Q: I’m excited! I was looking for a 3-days-per-week program to use over the winter, and I think I’ve devised a great one. I’ll use the split-positions Phase 1 workout you outline in The Ultimate Super-Size Crash Course [Chapter 6], but I’ll start each workout with either squats or deadlifts. I remember you saying how that can increase overall mass gains. What do you think?
A: That sounds like a great winter size-building program to put to the test. For the uninitiated, the program split is simple:
Monday: Chest, Back, Abs
Wednesday: Legs
Friday: Delts, Arms
So you’ll be working each muscle group directly ONCE a week—except legs, which you will now be training three times a week—at the beginning of each workout.
We suggest you start your workouts with deadlifts on Monday’s Workout 1, before chest. Simply keep the leg routine as is on Wednesday…
Then Friday, if you did squats on Wednesday, use front squats before delts. If you used front squats on Wednesday, use back squats here.
In other words, start your workouts with a different lower-body exercise on Friday than you did at Wednesday’s leg workout. You could even use dumbbell squats. That exercise is like a deadlift-squat mix, similar to Trap Bar deadlifts (which you could also work into the rotation).
And because you’re now training lower body three times a week, we suggest you use STANDARD 4X on the leg exercises you do on Monday and Friday. Leave the Downward-Progression 4X and Progressive-Speed 4X for Wednesday’s more extensive leg workout….
For standard 4X, use your 15-rep-max weight, but only do 10. Rest 40 seconds, then do 10 more—and so on for 4 sets. Go all out on your last set; if you get 10 reps, use more weight next time.
That should be an awesome anabolic primer at each workout, improving the results you get from the exercises that follow—like more growth in our arms…
We’ve discussed how if you start your workouts with squats or deadlifts up front it can help boost anabolism for the rest of the workout—and in your body overall. Here is what Ph.D. researchers Gabriel and Jacob Wilson found in an experiment training legs before arms…
Arms trained with legs achieved an increase in the part of the biceps with the largest cross-sectional area—the biceps peak—while no changes occurred in the arms trained alone. The arms trained with legs also had greater relative improvement in biceps curl strength than the arms trained alone as well as other favorable muscle adaptations…. Studies suggest that training large bodyparts before smaller ones increases the smaller bodyparts’ growth.
Let us know how it goes—and how you grow.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
Protein farts = no muscle gains—here’s your FREE-trial fix
Here’s a new probiotic product to re-tool your gut bacteria so you assimilate anabolic nutrients for better gains.
In other words, it will help your good gut bacteria dominate for optimum anabolic uptake so you get off-the-chain muscle-size gains. You can see for yourself, just like we have—with a free trial. This is great get-huge news…
To celebrate selling nearly 2 million bottles of their premium probiotic formula Pro-X10®, the founders of BioTrust Nutrition want to reward anyone who visits the link below today with a FREE 30-count bottle of this revolutionary gut-health yielding, muscle-building probiotic supplement… with ZERO strings attached!
It’s truly FREE (no autoship, no future charges – nothing; you pay only a small shipping fee). The premium and patented ingredients in Pro-X10 have been shown through research to:
**Significantly decrease the “bad” pathogenic, health-derailing, muscle-stifling bacteria in your gut
**Dramatically improve overall digestive health, gut-lining strength, AND immune health (your immunity needs to be optimal if you want to add muscle fast because your body’s first priority is health, not muscle size)
**Begin working ULTRA fast, with positive results seen in lab tests in as little as 5 short hours (while other traditional probiotics take weeks or months to improve your gut flora ratio, if ever)
Talk about research-backed results, not to mention off-the-chart muscle gains with renewed nutrient assimilation! Stop wasting workouts due to a “bad” gut. You’ve got nothing to lose, and plenty of new muscle to gain. Go to…