As the editor-in-chief of Iron Man magazine, I had the opportunity to talk to many scientists and experts in the strength-training field as well as bodybuilders, including Arnold, Mentzer, Boyer Coe, Tom Platz (below), Cory Everson, and more.
It was a unique position to be in, and I gained lots of knowledge by talking to and interviewing those people; however, the biggest discoveries came in the Iron Man Training & Research Center, our well-equipped warehouse gym at the Iron Man offices…
My new training partner Jonathan Lawson and I were both believers in the basic exercises as well as full-range Positions-of-Flexion, so we usually did around five sets per muscle twice a week; however…
Forced reps and negatives were few and far between due to slightly more volume with POF. I had realized the drain on recovery that training beyond failure too often can create. We did tend to hit failure on most work sets, so it was still considered high intensity, but not the draining, overtraining Mentzer version.
Gains were much better; however, we varied our training a lot, even using a six-days-a-week schedule at one point, still adhering to POF with more sets tempered by less intensity.
Those more volume-oriented stints did produce growth, but once again, just as in my youth, it wasn’t sustainable. Burnout occurred within a month or so. Gains stopped and we’d lose the desire to train after about week 5. We’d eventually go back to more abbreviated workouts or take a layoff…
That was in my 30s and made me realize that a simple periodized approach is a big piece of the mass-building puzzle. You can gain with volume training using less intensity or high-intensity abbreviated training, but backing off every four to six weeks was mandatory for the drug-free bodybuilder….
I called it Phase Training, which was explained in the Size Surge ebook along with two different workout styles—high-intensity basics, then a slightly more-volume-oriented POF workout—each lasting four to five weeks with a back-off week between.
That mass-building program got rave reviews from trainees all over the world, some saying they gained 15 pounds of muscle with the 10-week program. It was an Iron Man best-seller and solidified the Phase Training approach…
Jonathan was the guinea pig for the program, and he gained 20 pounds of muscle in 10 weeks. To be fair, he was regaining some of that mass because he started it after a fairly long layoff. Still, more than 10 pounds of what he packed on was NEW muscle…
The seven-to-10-day downshift phase was a big step in repairing recovery ability and allowing muscle growth to accumulate after four weeks of hard training. It repairs cumulative overtraining—and new research is confirming the necessity of that “detraining” phase…
More on that tomorrow as well as a quote from respected hypertrophy researcher Chris Beardsley on new findings that apply to this discussion. It’s a jaw-dropper that explains a lot and can help speed your muscle growth significantly. Stay tuned.
Your Efficient Mass-Building Handbook: For complete mass workouts that include Speed Sets, the ideal exercise for each muscle, and the best stretch and contracted add-on moves, get your copy of Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com