split positions Archives

Start Your Workouts With This

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: [Read more…]

Cut Back to Grow Muscle

Q: Before the start of my spring/summer job a month ago, my muscle development was progressing nicely. I was using your Positions of Flexion and X-Rep techniques on my three-days-a-week split: chest/bi’s, legs, and back/tri’s. My strength-and-size gains were steadily increasing. Then I started my summer job, and I was a lot sorer after my workouts, I take longer to recover, and I’m losing the size I had in my arms. The job is 40 hours a week of outdoor physical labor. I thought that by eating frequently with adequate protein and eight hours of sleep each night, I’d be fine, but that’s not working. Do you have any suggestions to help get me back on the muscle-building track, especially in the arm department?

A: A demanding physical-labor job can make it more difficult to grow, but not impossible. Even a high-pressure office job presents a similar problem: too much stress. It’s similar to being a hardgainer with low recovery ability and high cortisol output: You have to find the right balance and workload so you don’t overtrain, which means you sometimes have to cut back to grow. [Read more…]

The Most Important Muscle-Building Exercises

Q: I know the big midrange exercises, like squats and presses, are most important for mass, but after that, do you think the stretch-position exercise or the contracted-position exercise is the best followup for extra muscle growth? The reason I ask is that I don’t have a lot of time to train, so I’m going to do the Ultimate Exercise for each bodypart [identified in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book] and one more, either stretch or contracted, whichever you say will give me the most growth.

A: Interesting dilemma, but both the stretch- and contracted-position exercises are important for different reasons. Each triggers growth along different pathways (but there is an easy solution to your problem, as you’ll see)… [Read more…]