I’m not one for making New Year resolutions, but I do like to reflect on things like my workout and vow to implement tactics that have worked well in the past…
I usually slam my palm into my forehead: “Dammit, why didn’t I keep doing that?” Hence the term “re-solutions”—a rebirth of forgotten past successes that is both enlightening and embarrassing…
The most recent example is scheduling an off week. That’s either a low-intensity workout week or taking off completely after every five weeks of hard training.
It makes so much sense, but is hard to do—at least for me. One of the most popular and results-producing programs created was the 10-week Size Surge…
It broke up two different phases of intense workouts with a detraining week—much less intensity at all workouts to allow the body to regroup, completely recover, and grow…
My guinea pig for that 10-week mass crash course back in the ‘90s was Jonathan Lawson, who had just started working at Iron Man magazine at the time…
He was around 20 and had gotten frustrated with bodybuilding. He had slacked off and let his muscle dwindle. He told me that he didn’t think he could get any bigger than he had been the year before without taking drugs. He refused to compromise his health (natural for life)…
I decided to use him to test the Size Surge program, and here are his 10-week results…
No drugs and no Photoshop—but keep in mind that he had been bigger before, so he was re-gaining some of that muscle.…
Even so, his new size after that 10 weeks had surpassed anything he had accomplished prior. He was ecstatic—so much so that he trained with me for 20 years after that “experiment,” following any workout I created from the research that continuously poured into Iron Man…
In case you’re wondering, Size Surge was a compound-exercise “basic” routine for five weeks, a one-week detraining phase, and then four weeks of multi-angle Positions-of-Flexion workouts—midrange, stretch, and contracted moves for each muscle…
The downshift week was key to Jonathan packing on 20 pounds of muscle in 10 weeks. I remember that he grew a lot during that week, and even his abs began to show—in the right light. A detraining week always worked wonders for me too…
Now that I’m pushing 65, taking off completely from the gym appears to work even better. This most recent break had my muscles filling out—and I swear I looked bigger after the week off than I did before. And it wasn’t just from all the candy and the bottle of tequila Santa left in my stocking….
If you just can’t stand to stay out of the gym, at least go in and do fewer exercises—no training to failure allowed. Stop your sets well short, have fun, and focus on feeling the target muscles.
The bottom line is to SCHEDULE those detraining weeks. Mark them on your calendar, make them happen, and watch as you grow with the ebb and flow.
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.
