Old Man, Young Muscle was written to help you achieve a
muscular physique with sensible bodybuilding strategies. Weight
training and dieting can be demanding activities, however, so
it is highly recommended that you consult your physician and
have a physical examination prior to beginning. Proceed with the
suggested exercises and routines at your own risk.
Studio and cover photography by Michael Neveux
Other photography by Steve Holman, Becky Holman &
Jonathan Lawson
Start/finish exercise photos by Becky Holman
Writing consultant: Bill McKnight
Cover design and layout: Ben Mall
Copyright © 2022 by Homebody Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved.
The material in this document may not be reproduced in whole
or in part in any manner or form without prior written consent
from the publisher/copyright holder.
Homebody Productions, Inc.
P.O. Box 2800, Ventura, CA 93002
www.X-Rep.com
Homepage
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Contents
Introduction............................................................4
About the Author....................................................7
Chapter 1—Mr. America Mass Moves................11
Chapter 2—One-Limb Work and
Range of Motion..............................16
Chapter 3—Resistance-Curve
Fiber Activation................................19
Chapter 4—Direct Action and
Solo Contraction..............................22
Chapter 5—Anabolic-Acceleration Factors......27
Chapter 6—Positions of Flexion Reloaded........32
Chapter 7—The Ultmate Bare-Bones
Home-Gym Mass Workout..............44
Chapter 8—Volumize to Pack On
Muscle Size?....................................63
Chapter 9—Pre-Exhaustion-Inspired
Mass Workout..................................68
Chapter 10—Details for Fast Mass....................74
Epilogue................................................................82
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Introduction
The first book I wrote was Iron Man’s Home Gym Handbook
in 1990, and it kicked off like this…
”Efficiency of Effort. These three words form the essence of
this book. In a nutshell, efficiency of effort means producing
maximum gains with minimal time expenditure; it should be the
bodybuilder’s bottom line.”
The importance of training efficiency really hit home for me—
literally—30 years after that book in early 2020. The pandemic
began, gyms closed, and I was forced to figure out how to
do a decent workout in my bare-bones home gym. I only had
an adjustable bench, 50-pound PowerBlock selectorized
dumbbells and a doorway chinning bar—no machines, not
even a barbell. How could I possibly build any muscle?
Luckily, I had more than 40 years of training experience to
draw from along with many science-based principles of
hypertrophy—plus, my re-aquaintance with a friend and
author, who wrote for Iron Man magazine while I was the editor
in chief, Doug Brignole. He’s my age, 62, and a former Mr.
America and Mr. Universe winner. His recent book, The Physics
of Resistance Exercise, is an analysis of muscle-buildingexercise efficiency from a biomechanics standpoint, and it’s
ground-breaking to say the least—turning the muscle-building
world upside-down.
Getting back in touch with Doug improved my workouts and
gains immensely, and his eye-opening discoveries that I’ll
touch on in the first few chapters will blow your mind and blow
up your muscles.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
By merging many of his “ideal” exercises with my own training
discoveries over the years, like slow-twitch exhaustion, I figured
out how to build muscle on my over-60 body with 35-minute
workouts three times a week. Newfound efficiency, to say the
least.
The real beauty of this style of training is that no heavy jointcrushing poundages are necessary—remember, the most I have
to work with in my home gym is 50 pounds in each hand.
It’s been 1 1/2 years since I started training this way, and the
results have been outstanding, far better than I ever imagined
considering my limited equipment and
my age. People who see my physique
are shocked when they learn how
short and infrequent my workouts are.
And there’s no chalking up my results
to genetics. My mother weighed
under 100 pounds and my dad 125
when they were married. I recently
mailed my DNA to Ancestery.com,
and they sent me back a photo of a
twig and a skeleton.
One hard truth seldom acknowledged
is that genetics play a significant
factor, and that big muscles don’t
always equate to good ideas or sound
training. A few lucky individuals pile on
muscle regardless of what routine they
follow, while many others struggle to
build their bodies or lose fat no matter
what they do.
As a fitness author/editor, I believe one
Age 15, 120 pounds:
1974 after about six
months of workouts.
Coaches at school
said I was perfect
for distance running.
My response: "Okay,
bodybuilding it is."
5
Old Man, Young Muscle
of my goals is to be a curator of the best information available
and distill it in a way that is both understandable and useful for
the everyman or -woman bodybuilder. That is what I’ve tried to
do with my books and articles over the years—passing on the
soundest principles supported by scientific research as well as
hands-on experience.
Throughout my training career, I’ve always believed there was
a better way to build muscle than the haphazard shotgun
approach used by so many. My workouts evolved with that
in mind, and, thanks to an unusual turn of events, I think I’ve
arrived at one of the most efficient ways to build an eyepopping physique as quickly as possible without injury.
Whether you train at home or in a commercial gym, the
efficiency-of-effort methods and exercises you’re about to
learn can make your workouts shorter, safer and much more
enjoyable. And your muscle gains will be faster, no matter what
your age.
Age 62: This photo was
taken the summer of
2021 in my backyard
in Southern California.
Keep in mind that I have
detail-blurring body
hair, there is no studio
lighting and there’s no
tanning solution or oil on
my drug-free physique.
It’s how I look at the
lake, pool or beach. I
achieved these results
with 35-minute workouts
three days a week.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
About the Author
The bodybuilding bug bit me at
the age of 14 way back in the
early 1970s (see photo on page
5). Exploring in my grandmother’s
attic, I unearthed a treasure that
would change my life: my uncle’s
weight set along with a few of his
Strength & Health magazines. I
was hooked.
So it all started, as it did for most
wannabe muscle men back then,
in a home gym. That was 45
years ago. In those days there
were no commercial gyms in
our small South Texas town. No
problem. My high school buddy
I still have my uncle's
Bill and I made do with secondbodybuilding magazines
hand rusted weights, a rickety
bench and a perilous free-standing that I found at age 14. This
is one of them, Frank Zane
squat rack. With that primitive
on the cover, 1967.
setup on my backyard patio, we
were determined to sculpt our
emaciated teen physiques into Arnold and Franco.
We spent hours devouring bodybuilding publications and
mimicking whatever new method or exercise promised to meet our
goal of inspiring lust in the girls and fear in the guys. That led us to
all kinds of questionable tangents from two-a-day workouts in the
intense heat of summer to numerous dangerous exercises.
Still, the fact that we were getting consistent exercise helped us
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Old Man, Young Muscle
make progress. After three years of excruciatingly hard work
and adolescent growth spurts, we had each put on 40 pounds,
and people stopped trying to bury us when we walked past a
graveyard.
At the University of Texas in Austin my obsession continued and
had me doing a deep dive into the science of building muscle. In
one of my journalism classes, I remember my professors telling
me, “You need to get out of the gym.” That was all I wrote about.
The obsession eventually helped me develop what I eventually
called Positions of Flexion, a full-range muscle-training system.
I thought of POF as multi-angular
efficiency-of-effort mass building, and
it was a big reason that I was able to
win a small local bodybuilding contest
while still in college, despite my crappy
genetics. (Interesting side note: Rachel
McLish was at the contest and was so
inspired that she went and trained that
very night, making the decision to go into
women’s bodybuilding. She went on to
win the first Ms. Olympia contest. We put
her on IM's cover when she was almost
50 looking fantastic.)
It was around that time that I decided to try the anabolic
steroid Dianabol. I took one little blue five-milligram pill a day
for two weeks, ramped it up to 10 milligrams for another two
weeks—and then flushed the rest down the toilet because my
hypochondriac brain convinced me that it was giving me tumors.
I never touched steroids again, determined to keep finding ways
to build muscle faster without drugs.
My dual obsession with bodybuilding and journalism eventually
led me to the top editor position at Iron Man magazine, working
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Old Man, Young Muscle
for legendary physique photographers John Balik and Michael
Neveux in Southern California. I started training at the Mecca of
Bodybuilding, Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, a dream for me.
(Another dream fulfilled: I interviewed Arnold in his office in Santa
Monica before he was California's governor.)
A few years later, we put together the Iron Man Training and
Research Center, the magazine’s well-equipped warehouse gym.
That became my training facility and also our muscle-building
“lab.” That’s where my education took a giant leap with my
training partner and “human guinea pig” Jonathan Lawson.
It was an educational, passion-fueled journey, but after 27 years,
the magazine sold and I semi-retired. I started training with my
wife Becky in a commercial gym—and then Covid-19 hit. The
virus pandemic was a mixed blessing, as I came full circle, once
again forced to train in a home gym (see photo below). I had not
foreseen all gyms closing, so my home gym was rather pathetic—
even more bare bones than the one I started with in high school.
This time I had only an adjustable bench, 50-pound adjustable
PowerBlock dumbbells and a doorway chinning bar.
With the knowledge and experience I had accumulated and
the training science I’ve
embraced over 45 years,
My current bareI honed my ability to
bones home gym.
build muscle with only
35-minute workouts three
days a week, no heavy
joint-crushing poundages
necessary.
While I have a lot of
confidence in my abilities,
I didn’t think I could
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Old Man, Young Muscle
maintain a good physique, much less build muscle, which is why
I kept my workouts brief. But after a few tweaks, and advice from
Mr. America Doug Brignole, whom you'll read about in the next
chapter, I was elated with my over-60 physique.
While I may add to my equipment—there’s a cable unit I have
my eye on—I’m almost positive that I’ll flex into my golden years
training in my spare bedroom and building all the muscle I want.
Home sweet home, indeed.
In my spare-bedroom
home gym, summer 2021.
Note: Being over 60, my goal at
this stage of my life is to do the
most efficient workouts I can in
my limited gym, with the fewest
sets necessary to get the results
I’m satisfied with. Those results
include being pain-free and healthy,
plus having enough muscle to
look like I’m a fit, older drug-free
bodybuilder. I accomplish that with
35-minute workouts three times a
week. If you want to strive for even
bigger gains, you can add sets to
the listed workouts. Just keep in
mind that while volume can trigger
more muscle growth up to a point,
you need to balance your recovery
and the amount of time you want
to spend training. What you don't
want is to do so much that you
overtax your recovery ability and/or
dread your workouts. Do everything
in your power to stick with it. The
goal is to be built for life.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 1
Mr. America Mass Moves
It was in the early 2000s when we
published Doug Brignole’s first article in
Iron Man, and it riled up a lot of people.
He took conventional wisdom to the
woodshed, saying that the overhead
press was horribly dangerous for the
shoulder joint and not even that great for
shoulder development.
He argued that it’s the reason so many
bodybuilders need shoulder surgery—
sometimes sooner rather than later.
Impingement of that joint is unavoidable
with that exercise, he concluded.
He made solid points. I knew something was amiss when I did
overhead presses. In fact, I’d moved presses to the back end of
my shoulder workout because they were painful, with a barbell or
dumbbells. Could it be that I was just brainwashed into believing
that I needed them? Even with that backend adjustment, my
shoulders often throbbed.
Hmm, maybe Doug was right. I’m always up for a training
experiment, so I eventually dropped them. I say “eventually”
because it took me awhile to convince myself that my shoulders
wouldn’t flatten like pancakes without some form of overhead
press. And guess what? My deltoids didn’t lose size. They actually
got better because I was focusing on more biomechanically
correct exercises, one in particular that you’ll learn about in a
moment. Even better, I was recovering more quickly due to an
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Old Man, Young Muscle
increase in restful sleep—because
my shoulders weren’t screaming with
pain and waking me up every hour.
Doug Brignole, age
59, winning the 2019
AAU Drug-Free Mr.
Universe. (Photos
Lance Kincaid)
So who is Doug Brignole? He won
his class at the 1982 Mr. America.
He then took the Mr. Universe a few
years later in ’86. Most recently, at
almost 60, he won the 2019 DrugFree Mr. Universe using only the
exercises he says are the safest,
most-efficient muscle builders.
Very impressive. His muscle size
and density as an older man are
excellent, and he is articulate in his
knowledge
of exercise
biomechanics.
Here’s what
he told me
recently:
“I believe
the real key [to
optimal muscle
growth] is exercise selection—using only
the most precise, most efficient and most
biomechanically efficacious exercises. I
think it's good to avoid the vast majority
of traditional mostly compound exercises
because they lack precision, mechanical
efficiency and optimum benefit.”
Plus, a number of these conventional
exercises are just plain dangerous—like
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Old Man, Young Muscle
overhead presses. Barbell squats are on his hit list as well.
There is simply no reason to put a spine-crushing weight on
your shoulders and then squat if quad development is your
goal. The resistance is more directly affecting your glutes and
lower back than your quads—which only receive about 30
percent of the load according to biomechanics analysis.
And you’re not doing your vertebrae any favors. Sure you can
get some quad growth from barbell squats, but severe spine
compression with possible blown disks is a high price to pay
for inefficient muscle stimulation and keeping your chiropractor
driving a Tesla.
Doug’s book, The Physics of Resistance Exercise, explains
the good, the bad and the ugly of many exercises. It’s a huge
400-page text that has shifted my exercise selection—and my
training has improved exponentially thanks to Doug’s analysis
and painstaking explanations
on the science and logic
behind muscular movement.
He’s definitely taught this
old dog some new musclebuilding tricks.
I deviate from Doug on a
few things, as I'll explain later,
but first I want to focus on
five of his core principles that
are now central to my training
philosophy. Let's start by
looking at how they apply to
training shoulders.
First, Doug explains why
barbells are inferior to
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Old Man, Young Muscle
dumbbells in almost every case. Why? You want to force the target
muscles to fire independently for focus and more growth-fiber
activation.
Okay, so you should be doing your upright rows for shoulders
with dumbbells, and standing laterals are excellent, right? Not
so fast. With upright rows and standing laterals, there is zero
resistance at the start of a rep and way too much at the end, or top
contracted position. That’s the exact opposite of a target muscle’s
strength curve. It should be hardest at the bottom and easier at the
top. So how do you build round delts according to Doug?
A key exercise he recommends is one I’ve been using for years as
a stretch-position exercise for the medial head; my mistake was not
emphasizing it by making it my primary shoulder move: Incline onearm lateral raises. Lying on your side on a low incline creates an
almost perfect strength curve—hard at the beginning stretch when
the dumbbell is by your thigh, and easiest at the end contracted
position when your arm is
Incline one-arm vertical.
Lightest
Heavy
Heaviest
lateral raise:
Ideal strength
curve.
If you have the equipment,
the one-arm cable lateral
raise is another almost ideal
medial-delt developer—but
the pulley should be set at
waist height. That setting is
important so that near the
bottom of the arc the pull is
to the side. With the cable
set at your waist, you get the
most resistance at the start,
and it decreases as you drive
up to the contracted position.
Another perfect strength
curve for the medial head.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
I’ve touched on two of the factors that determine the “efficiency,
productivity and safety of resistance exercise,” according to Doug:
forcing the target muscle to work independently and creating an ideal
resistance curve—hardest at stretch and easiest at contraction. Let’s
dig into those and a few more along with more ideal exercises so that
you can start supercharging your muscle gains. (See all five factors in
the chart below; if you're not into exercise analysis, which is the subject
of the next few chapters, page 44 is where the workouts begin.)
Top-5 Efficiency, Productivity and Safety Factors
(from Doug Brignole's 16)
1) Bi-lateral deficit: You're stronger when training one side at
a time, so choose one-limb movements when possible (one-arm
cable laterals); if that’s not possible due to balance or other issues,
fire the target muscles simultaneously but independently by using
two dumbbells (decline dumbbell bench presses).
2) Range of motion: Move from near full stretch to full
contraction—research has shown that partial-range moves are
inferior for optimal fiber recruitment.
3) Resistance curve: Early-phase loading near muscle stretch,
late-phase unloading near contraction; in other words, an exercise
should be harder near the stretch and easiest at contraction
(dumbbell decline bench presses, dumbbell decline triceps
extensions).
4) Direction of resistance: Pull of resistance should be directly
toward the target muscle’s’ origin—for example, upper arm moving
toward breast bone on dumbbell decline bench presses, forearm
moving toward the shoulder on dumbbell curls.
5) Non-target muscle activation: Minimize the involvement or
loading of other muscles during the exercise.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 2
One-Limb Work and
Range of Motion
1) Bi-lateral deficit. This
simply means that a muscle
cannot fire as effectively when
it’s activating along with its
opposite-side counterpart.
In other words, one-arm and
one-leg movements are usually
more efficient mass builders
than simultaneous two-limb
exercises, as long as there’s
no twisting or distorting of the
working joint. Here’s a quote
from Doug’s book, with his
explanation as it applies to
one-arm cable laterals:
“There are two reasons
why it’s best to perform this
exercise [one arm at a time]. First, it would be difficult to set
up two pulleys at the exact height, but in opposing directions.
Although it could be arranged, the cable handles would collide in
the middle, which would make it cumbersome.
“The more important reason, however, is because it’s better
for an individual to focus ALL of their attention on producing
movement toward the right side or movement toward the left
side—rather than trying to divide their focus on producing
movement in two OPPOSITE directions [at once].”
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Research shows that when you
use two arms or two legs at a time,
the target muscles are not as strong
as training one limb at a time. That’s
bi-lateral deficit.
So if you want the best mass
stimulation, it makes sense to focus
on one target muscle at a time when
possible—and in some cases you
don’t need a cable setup. I use
the low-incline one-arm lateral
raise, as mentioned in the previous
chapter, an excellent alternative if
there’s no cable setup.
Bi-lateral deficit: When
When you can, choose one-arm
you use two arms, as
or one-leg exercises. Exercises that
on barbell curls, or two
have you alternate with the opposite
legs simultaneously, the
limb, like alternate dumbbell curls,
target muscles are not
are the next best thing; however, I’m
as strong as training
not a fan of one arm resting between
one limb at a time.
every rep while the other works.
I’m a believer in continuous tension
through a set, so I curl the dumbbells simultaneously most of the
time or train one arm for all sets of all exercises, then repeat for the
other. I have found that concentration curls are best for my biceps
development.
And sometimes an ideal exercise requires two-arm or two-leg
action to avoid balance/form problems or potential joint damage.
For example, you should do dumbbell decline bench presses using
both arms simultaneously. Alternating is awkward and less effective
due to balance issues—if you try training one side at a time, you’ll
flip off the bench, ending up on the floor and possibly YouTube.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Why dumbbells and not barbell decline presses? Dumbbells
can at least force the muscles to work independently, even
when using both arms at once. That’s a big reason dumbbells
are better than a barbell in almost every case: The independent
activation of each side is more efficient from a hypertrophy
standpoint than having your arms locked on a barbell. Another
reason is that dumbbells allow the arms to move freely, for
more range of motion…
2) Range of motion. The target muscle should move the
resistance and the operating lever (limb) through a full range of
motion. As mentioned above, that’s one reason the dumbbell
bench press is superior to the barbell bench press for chest
mass. The upper arm, which is the pec’s operating lever, does
not move through the fullest range with a barbell because your
hands are locked at a position outside the shoulders.
That means, at the top of a barbell bench press, your upper
arms are still angled out away from your pecs, shortening the
range of motion. With dumbbells, your hands move closer
together and your upper arms reach a more perpendicular
position to your pecs eliciting more contraction.
Granted, even with a decline dumbbell bench press, there
is almost zero resistance at the top, but that’s as it should be as
you’ll see in the next chapter on the ideal resistance curve.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 3
Resistance-Curve
Fiber Activation
An ideal
exercise
for quads
is the sissy
squat.
3) Resistance curve.
Science has shown that a
muscle is strongest when it is
elongated, close to full stretch,
as opposed to when it is
contracted. For example, on a
leg extension machine that has
the same resistance through
the entire stroke, you fail about
halfway up, not able to drive the
pad to the contracted position;
however, you could do more
partial reps in the lower part of
the stroke due to the fact that
the quads are stronger in that
bottom stretch quadrant.
In their book Designing Resistance Training Programs, scientists
Steven J. Fleck, Ph.D., and William J. Kraemer, Ph.D., explain:
Near a muscle’s stretch position, like the bottom of a standing
curl, the actin and myosin filaments within muscle fibers can
pull optimally for maximum force—they are best lined up for
near-perfect muscular action. But as the muscle shortens, those
filaments become more crowded and that ability is significantly
reduced. The contracted position, such as a flexed biceps at the
top of a curl, is the least advantageous position for the muscle to
generate force.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
In other words, in the peak-contracted position, the fibers are
very bunched up, so much so that they can’t produce as much
tension as when the muscle is in a more lengthened state.
Therefore the ideal exercise for building muscle would have
early-phase loading and late-phase unloading—harder at the
stretch and easier at the contracted position. That’s true of
a standing curls as well as the three ideal exercises we’ve
discussed so far: one-arm cable laterals, incline one-arm
laterals and dumbbell decline bench presses.
Another good example is the sissy squat, an ideal exercise for
your quads. For these you squat holding your torso and thighs on
the same plane throughout the set—like you’re doing a Limbo.
You will have to hold onto something for balance and be up on
your toes or have support under your heels. (See photo on page
19.)
What about the
regular he-man barbell
back squat we've
been taught to fear
and revere? It’s got
stretch loading at the
bottom and unloading
at the top. Still not
that great, however,
because range of
motion is limited
and the resistance is
The feared and revered he-man back squat is
diffused through other
inferior to sissy squats for quad activation.
muscles, like glutes
and spinal erectors. In
fact, direct resistance on the quads during a barbell squat is only
about 30 percent of the load—definitely not worth the danger to
your spine if you’re after quad development.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Triceps pushdowns are good, but to get them into the ideal
category, you need the correct angle of pull. Many people step
back from the pulley so that they are pushing down and back
toward their thighs. That angle creates increased resistance
as you reach the contracted position. Unfortunately, that latephase loading has you fail before you maximally stimulate your
triceps.
For a more accurate resistance curve on pushdowns, the
cable should be coming from straight over your head or even
back behind it. When the pulley is directly above, the resistance
will be more at the beginning of the movement when your arms
are bent and tail off as you straighten them for contraction.
An alternate choice for triceps is dumbbell decline
extensions, or “skull crushers.” Resistance is greatest when
the dumbbells are down next to your head and least when your
arms are straight with the dumbbells over your chest.
Incidentally, resistance bands produce the opposite of the
ideal resistance curve. Think about it: You get less resistance
when you start a repetition as there is less band tension, then
more as you stretch the band to contract the muscle.
So when you curl with a band, the least resistance is at the
start, it gradually increases, and you get the most resistance at
the top—late-phase loading. Again, that is the opposite of the
ideal strength curve.
Not that bands are bad. They can be a godsend when you’re
training without weights in a hotel room for example. The simple
truth is that bands are not ideal because they are inefficient at
training the target muscle’s resistance curve correctly.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 4
Direct Action and
Solo Contraction
Flat dumbbell flye, upper
arms pulling toward pecs'
origin on the sternum.
4) Direction of
resistance. As
Doug says in his
book, with many
examples, a muscle
works optimally pulling
directly toward its
origin. With the incline
one-arm lateral raise,
pictured on page 14, the resistance
from the dumbbell is exactly opposite
the side head’s origin, which is near
the collarbone.
If you move your arm that’s holding
the dumbbell out in front of your
chest to start the movement and then
raise it, you would be working the
rear head instead. The rear head’s
origin is on the back of the shoulder
joint. That’s an almost ideal rearhead move with the correct direction
of resistance and strength curve—
hardest at the start and easiest at the
top when the arm is straight up.
For the chest muscles, or pectorals, the origin is along the
breast bone, so the upper arm should move from out to in, as in a
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Old Man, Young Muscle
dumbbell flye or dumbbell bench press. As previously discussed,
dumbbells are best for bench presses because they allow more
range of motion than having your hands locked on a barbell. You
want your upper arms to be as close to vertical as possible at the
top of each rep—not angled out as with a barbell bench press.
And consider this: With the barbell bench press, your arms are
angled away at the top, so your hands will be driving outward,
which involves more triceps, not inward for pecs. In other words, if
the bar was greased, your hands would slide out as you push the
bar up, not in toward the pecs’ origin as they should to contract
the pectoral muscles. Doug made that eye-opening observation in
a recent interview, which made me realize why I never got much
chest development from barbell bench presses and that eliminating
them from my workouts years ago was the right move.
5) Non-target-muscle activation. For the target muscle to
fire optimally, it’s best to minimize loading other muscles during the
exercise. For example, during a barbell bent-over row, the spinal
erectors are being overloaded due to the position of the torso
with a barbell or dumbbells in your hands. So a better alternative
would be a supported one-arm
dumbbell row (pictured at left).
But if you look back at the
other factors, even a one-arm
dumbbell row is not great for
the back. Why? It is late-phase
loaded—too heavy at the
top contracted position. The
resistance curve should be
harder to easier from stretch to
contraction, not vice versa.
Dumbbell row: Mostly rear-delt
activation, only indirect back work.
Late-phase loading is only part
of the problem with the one-arm
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Old Man, Young Muscle
row—or any row, if you’re trying to work your back. The direction of
resistance is wrong for both lats and middle back, or traps. You’re
pulling the arms straight back, which is more a function of the
deltoid’s rear head. The back muscles do work, but inefficiently.
Pulling for the lats should be from up at an angle and to the side of
your torso. A pulldown gets you close, but the resistance is coming
from directly above, so you pull more down rather than into your
side. Ideally resistance should come from the side and only slightly
up.
Doug favors one-arm lat pull-ins, sitting sideways to a cable
that’s set at about just above the top of your head (photos below).
He rotates his torso slightly toward the resistance as he reaches
contraction, which improves the resistance curve, making it easier at
that "flexed" position.
Doug Brignole demonstrating the
lat pull-in on a cable machine.
(Photos courtesy of Doug Brignole)
My home-gym alternative is chin-bar one-arm lat pulls. I stand
sideways to my doorway chin bar that’s set at about eye level. From
that sideways position, I place my feet under the bar and grab it
with an under grip, upper arm in next to my lat. Then I lower till my
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Old Man, Young Muscle
arm is straight, torso
leaning out at an
angle. Resistance is
least at the top and
most at the bottom,
arm-straight position
(photos at right).
For the midback
the resistance should
come from slightly
out to the sides and
Ideal lats in my home
forward of the body,
gym: chin-bar one-arm
almost like a widelat pulls
grip row but with only
slight arm bend during each rep—you basically just squeeze your
shoulder blades together, elbows never moving past the plane
of your torso. Doug calls that cable exercise seated scapular
retractions.
Again, it’s not a rowing exercise. The anatomical fact is that
the middle-back fibers are not connected to the arms, they are
connected to the shoulder blades with their origin on the spine.
So you want to squeeze your shoulder blades together on every
rep with only a small amount of arm movement.
Due to lack of a cable setup, I do what I call chin-bar back
pulls (photo page 49). With the bar set at about nose height, I
face the bar and grab it with both hands just outside shoulder
width. I place my feet under the bar and lower myself as I
straighten both arms so I’m at a 45-degree angle at the bottom
of the rep. As I pull up, I try to drive my elbows back and inward
toward my spine, the trapezius muscles’ origin. I get a bit too
much arm movement, but the most resistance occurs at the
bottom, with the least at the top—perfect resistance curve.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Keep in mind that what I’ve outlined in these last three
chapters are biomechanical factors to determine the optimal
exercise for best fiber activation in a target muscle. To review,
these are my top five efficiency, productivity and safety factors
from Doug’s 16:
1) Bi-lateral deficit: strive for one-limb movements when
possible (one-arm cable laterals, alternate dumbbell curls); if
that’s not possible due to balance or other issues, fire the target
muscles simultaneously but independently by using dumbbells.
2) Range of motion: move from near full stretch to full
contraction—research has shown that partial-range moves are
inferior for optimal fiber recruitment.
3) Resistance curve: early-phase loading near muscle
stretch, late-phase unloading near contraction; in other words,
an exercise should be harder near the target muscle's stretch
and easiest at contraction.
4) Direction of resistance: pull of resistance should be
directly toward the target muscle’s’ origin—for example, upper
arm moving toward breast bone on dumbbell decline bench
presses, forearm moving toward the shoulder on dumbbell
curls.
5) Non-target muscle activation: try to minimize the
involvement or loading of other muscles during the exercise.
With that, let's diverge from Brignole's principles and look at
muscle growth from a few other angles that I believe can help
you're muscle-building efforts become even more efficient and
put your physique development on the mass fast track.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 5
Anabolic-Acceleration
Factors
Maxing out hypertrophy is more
than just finding the single best
exercise for fiber recruitment.
There are other harbingers or
accelerators of muscle growth
you should consider, like
triggering anabolic hormone
production.
Here are the three key
hypertrophy triggers for optimal
mass stimulation, according to
Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., one of
the current top researchers on
the subject. After the explanation
of each is how I have been addressing that particular factor with
Positions-of-Flexion exercises:
1) Mechanical tension. This is best achieved with heavypoundage demand on the target muscle. In POF I addressed
this mechanism of hypertrophy with midrange moves, usually
compound, or multi-joint, exercises, as they allow the most
weight—for example, squats, bench presses, rows, etc. My
mistake was that not all compound exercises place the target
muscle in the most biomechanically favorable position for
maximum load. Squats, for instance, produce more mechanical
tension in the glutes; the quads get only about 30 percent of the
load; however, dumbbell decline bench presses do put the pecs in
perfect position.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
2) Metabolic stress. According to Schoenfeld, this is “an
exercise-induced accumulation of metabolites.” These include
lactic acid, or lactate, and inorganic phosphate. This buildup, or
pooling, of metabolites is best triggered by blocking blood flow
during sufficient tension time—an exercise that lasts longer than 20
seconds, for example. Short rests between sets and higher-rep sets
contribute to "the burn" as well.
I addressed this in POF with contracted moves: like leg
extensions, machine flyes, etc. These exercises are usually isolation
and maintain load on the muscle throughout a set—continuous
tension.
3) Muscle damage. This is microtears or disruptions in the
muscle fibers. The eccentric stroke of an exercise contributes most
to this, such as lowering a curl or bench press. Muscle stretch and
stretch overload against resistance also produce these disruptions.
Controlled lowering on all exercises facilitates the process, like two
to three seconds on the down stroke of a curl. POF stretch moves
add to that microtear accumulation in a unique way, including sissy
squats, flyes, overhead extensions, incline curls, etc.
A full-range POF triceps workout would be:
Midrange: Close-grip bench presses (compound)
or lying extensions (more isolated)
Stretch: Overhead extensions
Contracted: Pushdowns standing back from the
upper pulley for continuous tension
Contracted.
Midrange.
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Old Man,
Young Muscle
Stretch.
Notice how the triceps are trained along the muscles’ full
arc of possible movement—overhead, out in front of the body
and down next to the torso. Brignole would say all of that is
unnecessary—that you can get optimal triceps development with
one ideal exercise, like dumbbell decline extensions.
There’s an argument for that. The MRI studies show it
effectively hits all three heads of the triceps. And the dumbbell
decline extension does in fact give you each of Schoenfeld’s
three factors to some degree:
Optimal mechanical tension occurs with heavy training stress.
While the dumbbell decline extension is a more isolated move,
the target muscle doesn’t know “weight,” it only knows effort
against resistance. So if you’re using an exercise with the the
correct resistance curve, direction of resistance, etc., you will be
using a weight that the muscle perceives as heavy for mechanical
tension. While you would not consider the decline dumbbell
extension a “heavy” exercise, it is damn heavy to the working
muscle due to the length of the lever (your arm), a challenging
weight (dumbbells) and the proper strength curve.
Metabolic stress, or accumulation of metabolites in the target
muscle, is best achieved with continuous tension, or constant
stress from start to finish of an exercise—no rest throughout the
set. If you keep moving during an exercise without pausing, you
are getting continuous tension and lactic acid accumulation.
You often see big bodybuilders doing rapid-fire, piston-like
movements for that very reason.
While the dumbbell decline extension doesn’t provide much
resistance at the top, arms-straight position, you do not have to
lock out your elbows and/or rest at the top. Just keep moving,
never quite straightening your arms.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Muscle damage mostly occurs on the negative stroke, or
lowering phase, of an exercise. So if you lower in a fairly slow and
controlled manner—two to three seconds—you can get some
hypertrophic “damage.” You also get a mild stretch at the bottom
of the stroke, which may contribute to that hypertrophy factor.
So why include other exercises that may rank only a 6 or 7 on
the biomechanics scale compared to the ideal exercise that ranks
a 9 or 10? Maybe you don’t, depending on your goals; however,
if you’re looking for the most muscle possible in the shortest time
frame, keep in mind that it’s possible to get unique muscle-fiber
activation with different exercises. Back to Fleck and Kraemer:
“[Muscle fiber] recruitment order in the quadriceps for the
performance of a leg extension is different from that of a squat.
Variation in the recruitment order may be one of the factors
responsible for the specificity of strength gains to a particular
exercise. The variation in recruitment order provides
evidence that to completely develop a particular
muscle, it must be [trained] with several different
movements or exercises.”
So according to these two researchers, one exercise may
not do the job of complete muscle development. Schoenfeld
references a study using two triceps exercises to make the point.
In his textbook Science and Development of Muscle
Hypertrophy, Schoenfeld discusses a study that had subjects do
close-grip bench presses, a compound move for triceps, for 12
weeks. Then researchers compared muscle development after
another 12 weeks of flat-bench lying triceps extensions (skull
crushers). Triceps development occurred in different segments, or
heads, of the triceps depending on the exercise.
In 1993, the book Muscle Meets Magnet by Per A. Tesch, Ph.D.,
was published (later titled Target Bodybuilding). Tesch took many
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Old Man, Young Muscle
arm and leg exercises and had a subject perform five sets of 10
reps. After the target muscle was analyzed via magnetic resonance
imaging, which allowed a look “inside” the muscle to see which
heads “light up” the most.
After seeing Schoenfeld’s analysis of the close-grip bench press
and flat-bench lying triceps extension, I checked the findings in
Tesch’s book, which included those two exercises in the triceps
section. Sure enough, the close-grip bench press significantly
affected the lateral and medial heads, with only moderate
activation of the long head. The lying triceps extension on a flat
bench primarily lit up the long head, with only moderate activation
of the lateral and medial heads.
So different exercises can affect different heads. The good
news is that Doug’s ideal triceps exercise is lying extensions on
a decline, and the MRI analysis in Tesch’s book shows that the
decline version lights up all three heads to the max. So from that
perspective, it is the best choice.
I’ll have more MRI results from
Tesch’s findings later. It’s one of
the most fascinating bodybuilding
books ever published and
sits next to Brignole’s Physics
of Resistance Exercise and
Schoenfeld’s Science and
Development of Muscle
Hypertrophy on my bookshelf.
And they all have had a part in
the latest revision of my even
more efficient Positions-of-Flexion
method.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 6
Positions of Flexion
Reloaded
Dumbbell decline extensions.
There’s no
question that
you can achieve
Schoenfeld’s three
key hypertrophic
factors—mechanical
tension, metabolic
stress and muscle
damage—to
some degree with
Brignole’s ideal
exercises, such as
dumbbell decline
extensions for
triceps.
But adding
exercises that
trigger growth with
more concentration
along some of
those pathways can
contribute to faster
progress—even though the add-on exercise is less than
ideal from a biomechanics standpoint. Fleck and Kraemer’s
observation of variation in muscle-fiber recruitment order is
only one reason to train the missing positions.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Contracted position. Here’s something to consider: Once
you do a couple of sets of the ideal exercise, have you not
altered the strength curve of the target muscle by overloading
the semi-stretch position with very little loading at contraction?
Why wouldn’t you want to train the weaker contracted position
that got only minimal resistance with the ideal move?
Muscle fibers fire throughout the range, which is why fullrange of moion is best. So after weakening the semi-stretch
range, emphasizing the contracted position can provide better
continuous tension in most cases—heightened metabolic
stress—as well as a different muscle-fiber recruitment order.
For example, after dumbbell decline
extensions, Doug’s ideal, why not train
the contracted position with pushdowns
standing back from the pulley so there is
more resistance at contraction?
Or after incline one-arm laterals for the
side-deltoid head, why not do a set or
two of one-arm standing lateral raises to
emphasize the weaker top contracted
position?
Triceps contracted:
pushdowns, back from
the pulley.
Training the target muscle with a
contracted-position exercise can have
a unique growth effect on the fibers via
better continuous-tension occlusion, or blood-flow blockage.
That results in heightened blood flow after the set ends, a type of
anabolic blood bath.
Stretch position. While the ideal-strength-curve exercise
has the most resistance in the semi-stretch position, the target
muscle is not getting an overload when it is fully elongated
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Old Man, Young Muscle
in most cases. For example,
dumbbell decline extensions
provide a bit of stretch at
the bottom, but not the full
elongation you achieve with
overhead extensions when your
arm is up next to your head.
Studies show that a muscle
forced to resist at full stretch
gets unique size-building effects.
Triceps stretch: overhead
extensions.
I often reference the bird-wing
study by Jose Antonio, Ph.D., et al., that produced incredible
muscle size increases via stretch overload alone. For the
uninitiated, here's what he said about it:
“I performed the study using the stretch model. I used a
progressive-overload scheme [only at the full-stretch point].
Using this approach produced the greatest gains in muscle
mass ever recorded in an animal or human model of
tension-induced overload, up to 334 percent increase in
muscle mass!”
There were no “reps” performed, only increasing resistance in
the stretch position of the latissimus muscle—gradual overload
to the target muscle at full elongation.
You may be thinking, “But I’m not a freaking bird.”
Good point…
Recently a new study on humans has emerged that verifies
stretch-overload as a significant get-bigger trigger: “Stretch
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Old Man, Young Muscle
training induces unequal adaptation in muscle fascicles and
thickness in medial and lateral gatrocnemii" [Scand J Med Sci
Sports, Jan 30, 2017]
It was the calf muscles that were stretched against
resistance for bouts during a six-week period. Muscle
thickness increased by 5.6 percent. And remember, that was
with ONLY stretch stimulation—no full-range work. Back to
Schoenfeld:
"Studies in animals have shown that loaded stretch is a
potent stimulus for muscle growth, most notably shown by
the early work of Jose Antonio…. [But] this is the first study
I'm aware to show that a loaded stretching protocol
produces significant hypertrophy in humans.”
Notice that he said “significant” hypertrophy, so the
results were not minor. Plus, the growth was unique. Here’s
Schoenfeld explanation:
"An interesting finding here was that at least some
of the growth was due to the addition of sarcomeres
in series (as opposed to in parallel growth, which is
predominant in traditional training protocols). The
authors speculated that muscle damage was a driving force in
the growth process."
So as with contracted-position exercises, where resistance
is maximum at full contraction and there is heightened
continuous tension for blocking blood flow through a set, it
appears that overloading the stretch position with resistance
has unique hypertrophic effects.
To put it another way, full stretch against resistance can
add another “layer” of muscle growth. Stretch overload may
be one reason T-bar rows and V-handle cable rows provide
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Old Man, Young Muscle
midback development even
though the angle of pull is off and
the strength curve is wrong. While
not biomechanically correct, both
initiate stretch overload at the
start of the row with hands close.
You may have seen Mr. Olympia
doing bottom-range T-bar rows
with inhuman poundages.
His middle traps were getting
significant stretch overload to spur
growth.
Arnold built midback
muscle with close-grip
T-bar rows despite it being
biomechanically incorrect
for that target muscle. Why?
Extreme overload in the ful
stretch position, as seen
above.
Midrange position. So
contracted- and stretch-position
exercises can have unique sizebuilding effects, adding to your
overall mass—if you use them
correctly. What about midrange, or
compound, exercises like squats
that have muscle teamwork?
Almost all of Brignole’s ideal
exercises are isolation—one joint
operating for direct resistance
on the target muscle with minor
involvement of other muscles.
So are compound exercises, like
close-grip bench presses for
triceps or squats for quads, in
which multiple muscles work as a
Biceps midrange: Undergrip chins
or pulldowns hit biceps with help
from the large lats and traps for
an overall, or systemic, lactic acid
saturation.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
team to move the resistance, useless?
One reason for including some compound exercises is
synergy. Multiple muscles working together can produce
unique overload with a different fiber recruitment order, as
Fleck and Kraemer explained previously with leg extensions
vs. squats.
Synergy simply means the interaction or cooperation of
two or more things to produce a combined effect greater
than the sum of their separate effects.
Synergy indicates that so-called functional exercises like
squats may have a place in maximum development. Perhaps
not as the lead harbinger of growth, but maybe as a followup
to the “ideal” biomechanically best exercise—sissy squats
first, then do a standard squat move.
In addition to unique muscle-fiber recruitment order in the
target muscle, synergistic-muscle action on the “big” exercises
have been shown to be best for triggering anabolic hormone
release.
For example, one study had subjects train arms after some
compound lower-body work. That pre-arm-work protocol
significantly increased muscle gains in the biceps when
contrasted with arm-only workouts—more muscle size in the
arms trained after leg work than arms-alone workouts. Here's
what researchers Gabriel Wilson, Ph.D., and Jacob Wilson,
Ph.D., had to say about it…
"The arms trained [after lower-body work] achieved an
increase in the part of the biceps with the largest crosssectional area…. No changes occurred in the arms trained
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Old Man, Young Muscle
alone [without the preliminary leg work].
Studies suggest that training large
bodyparts before smaller ones increases
the smaller bodyparts’ growth. In
addition, coupling lower- and upper-body
exercises increases muscle growth and
testosterone receptors within skeletal
muscles."
Standard squat moves
have muscle synergy,
training glutes and
spinal erectors as well
as quads. That may have
unique muscle-building
benefits.
According to this study as well as past
research, it appears the greater rise in
testosterone and its receptors may be the
result of greater metabolic stress, such as
increases in lactic acid. (Med Sci Sports
Exerc. 36(9):1499-1506. 2004.; J Appl
Physiol. 74(2):882-887. 1993.)
On a 10-rep set of squats for example,
the muscle teamwork involved activates
more OVERALL muscle mass and
therefore more OVERALL lactic acid,
which appears to trigger testosterone
increases. The muscle synergy better floods the system with
anabolic signaling factors like lactic acid. A study by Kraemer
and Ratamess had this conclusion:
“Anabolic hormones such as testosterone and the
superfamily of growth hormones (GH) have been shown to
be elevated during 15-30 minutes of post-resistance exercise
providing an adequate stimulus is present. Protocols high
in volume, moderate to high in intensity, using short rest
intervals and stressing a large muscle mass, tend
to produce the greatest acute hormonal elevations (e.g.
testosterone, GH and the catabolic hormone cortisol) compared
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Old Man, Young Muscle
with low-volume, high-intensity protocols using long rest
intervals.” (Sports Med. 2005:35(4):339-61)
So while the squat—or row, for that matter—may register
a 6 or 7 for target-muscle development from a biomechanics
perspective, it may get a 9 or 10 when it comes to overall
lactic acid release and anabolic hormone stimulation from
muscle synergy. Even so, shouldering a heavy spine-crushing
barbell isn’t necessary. The cost/benefit is not in your favor.
Instead, hold dumbbells at the sides of your thighs and do
them after the ideal quad exercise, sissy squats.
But don’t sissy squats train a large muscle group, the
quads? Yes. So shouldn’t they have the same anabolic effect
found by Kraemer, et al.? Perhaps to a degree; however,
standard squats bring in the glutes, the largest muscles in the
body. Training quads and glutes together with squats or even
leg presses no doubt provides a significantly better overall
anabolic hormone boost. And rowing exercises train the lats
and trapezius, two of the largest muscle masses in the body
as well.
Does exercise stimulation of anabolic hormones matter
in the grand scheme of muscle growth? Some say yes,
some say no. I prefer to include at least a set or two of big
compound exercises after the ideal moves at many workouts
because I like the multiple-muscle benefit, and I can use all the
testosterone I can get.
While continuous-tension contracted-position exercises, like
leg extensions, elicit lactic acid increase, it’s within the target
muscle rather than overall, or more systemic. Compound
moves have a more lactic acid tsunami effect.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
My conclusion from all of the above is that after
emphasizing the ideal exercise, hitting a set or two of
an exercise from one or both of the missing positions
can trigger more growth, be it from occlusion, a
different muscle-fiber recruitment order, anabolic
hormone release, lactic acid pooling, a volume
increase—or all of the above.
It’s interesting that Brignole’s ideal exercises don’t fit into any
one POF category. Most are isolation; however, his ideal move
for chest is dumbbell decline presses. That’s a midrange move
that uses multiple muscles, with the pecs as the prime mover,
triceps and front deltoids as secondary movers. Another is
step-back lunges for glutes, which activate the quads as well.
And the ideal move for quads, the sissy squat, is actually a
stretch-position exercise. The incline one-arm lateral raise is
also a stretch-position exercise.
Now I’m not into the shotgun approach of throwing every
possible exercise at a muscle, as you’ll see in my workouts.
Remember, you want efficiency so you don’t outrun recovery;
however, I do believe in using more than just the ideal exercise
for each muscle most of the time. Here’s Schoenfeld’s
conclusion after pouring over all the research and
doing his own:
“Maximal hypertrophy can be achieved only by
systematically varying the exercise performed and
fully working all aspects of the target musculature,
varying the angles and planes involved, and using both
multi-joint and single-joint exercises.”
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Old Man, Young Muscle
As you’ve seen, my efficiency-of-effort response is multiangular Positions of Flexion; however, I don't believe you have
to cover all of the positions for a muscle each time you train it.
There’s an updated list of the POF exercises for each muscle
on pages 42 and 43. Doug’s ideal exercise for each muscle is
included in bold type.
While you can train all three positions for each muscle at each
workout, it would lengthen your workouts. I usually like to lead
with the most biomechanically ideal exercise, then follow with
one of the missing positions. I believe in some variation for more
muscle creation, so I mix it up—and yes, sometimes training all
three positions is a good option (Chapter 8 will have workouts
that do just that—with an interesting twist).
What you've seen in this chapter explains my rationale for
including additional exercises from the other categories, or
positions, while emphasizing Doug’s ideal—or something close.
Speaking of which, let’s go through how I’ve been using this
strategy for each major muscle group in my bare-bones home
gym. That will give you a better understanding of how you
can get the most efficiency bang for your mass-training buck.
At this point I do not have a cable machine. I get it done with
dumbbells, an adjustable bench and a doorway chinning bar—
but not for chins as you'll see.
I may get a cable setup soon, but until then I have
to compromise on some of Doug’s ideal-exercise
recommendations. Still, I’ve been getting damn good results
considering my limited equipment and workout time.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Positions-of-Flexion Exercise Matrix
Legs, Abs
Quads
Midrange: Leg presses, hack squats, dumbbell squats,
lunges
Stretch: Sissy squats*
Contracted: Leg extensions
Glutes
Midrange: Step-back lunges*, squats, leg presses
Stretch: Semi-stiff-legged deadlifts,
machine hip extensions*
Contracted: Hip thrusts, machine hip extension*
Hamstrings
Midrange/Stretch: Semi-stiff-legged deadlifts
Contracted: Seated leg curls*, lying leg curls
Spinal erectors
Midrange: Semi-stiff-legged deadlifts
Stretch/Contracted: Erector curls (butt against wall)*
Calves
Midrange: Running, biking
Stretch: Leg press calf raises*, donkey calf raises
Contracted: Standing calf raises
Abs
Midrange: Lying hip roll-ups
Stretch: Incline crunches* (head at top of bench)
Contracted: Flat crunches
*Ideal Exercise
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Positions-of-Flexion Exercise Matrix
Chest, Back, Delts, Arms
Chest
Midrange: Decline dumbbell presses*, cable chest presses*
Stretch: Flyes
Contracted: Machine flyes, cable crossovers
Midback
Midrange: Pulldowns, chin-ups
Stretch: One-arm dumbbell rows, close-grip rows
Contracted: Scapulae retractions*
Upper traps
Midrange: Dumbbell upright rows
Stretch/Contracted: Dumbbell shrugs*
Lats
Midrange: Pulldowns, chin-ups
Stretch: Two-dumbbell pullovers
Contracted: Cable one-arm lat pulls*
Delts
Midrange/Contracted: Dumbbell upright rows
Stretch: One-arm incline laterals*,
one-arm cable laterals* (pulley at hip height)
Contracted: Lateral raises
Biceps
Midrange: Alternate dumbbell curls*, undergrip pulldowns
Stretch: Incline curls
Contracted: Concentration curls
Triceps
Midrange: Dumbbell decline extensions*,
close-grip bench presses
Stretch: Dumbbell overhead extensions
Contracted: Pushdowns away from pulley, kickbacks
*Ideal Exercise
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 7
The Ultimate Bare-Bones
Home-Gym Mass Workout
I’m going to lay out the
home-gym workout I’ve found
to be incredibly effective at
building muscle in minimal
time. But first I need to
explain the Size Principle of
muscle-fiber recruitment.
Sorry, a bit more science—
keep your lab coat on for a
few more paragraphs. Then
you can change into your
PowerBlock selectorized dumbbells.
workout gear as I dissect
my training and the method that has significantly increased my
muscle-building efficiency: slow-twitch exhaustion, or STX.
The Size Principle of muscle-fiber recruitment states that
a muscle fires its fibers from slow-twitch to fast-twitch. So on
a set of 10 reps to failure, the first easy reps are accomplished
with mostly slow-twitch. As the set progresses and the reps get
harder, more fast-twitch fibers are dialed into the action. By the
end you are firing mostly fast-twitch fibers.
So if you rely on heavy weights and sets in the six-rep range,
you are neglecting slow-twitch fibers. No problem, right? After
all, fast-twitch are the ones most responsible for growth. But
hold on. Researcher Jerry Brainum recently said, "It's now
known that type-1 fibers are also capable of showing a
significant level of muscular hypertrophy."
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Developing those slowtwitch fibers is another layer
of muscle growth you should
strive for in order to maximize
your muscle size. How? If
you do your first set with
high reps, you will train those
endurance fibers. Plus, you
will prime the fast-twitch fibers
to fire more efficiently and
Alternate
therefore achieve more overall hammer
muscle growth on the sets that
curls.
follow it. That’s what Brazilian
researchers found.
This study was published in the European Journal of Applied
Physiology. Researchers had one group do a preliminary set of
leg extensions to failure with only 20 percent of their one-repmax before moving to heavier sets. The other group did only
standard sets with 75 percent of their 1RM. Rests between sets
for both groups were 30 seconds to one minute.
Results: More muscle size and strength occurred
in the group that included a preliminary high-rep set.
Why? The researchers concluded that it was because "muscle
failure (principally of [slow-twitch] type-1 fibers) and metabolic
accumulation induced by prior exhaustive exercise [promoted] a
greater global recruitment of type-2 [high-growth] fibers during
traditional training sets and, thus, further stimulate muscle
performance and adaptations." [Ergo-log.com]
In other words, the high-rep set isn’t just a glorified warmup;
it fatigues slow-twitch fibers, priming more fast-twitch growth
fibers to fire on the heavier sets that soon follow—if the rest time
between the two is minimal. That triggers a better hypertrophic
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Old Man, Young Muscle
muscular response. It can also elicit growth in the slow-twitch
fibers. So you get a double dose of muscle growth, an efficient
prelude to better, faster hypertrophy. But there’s more…
According to Schoenfeld, "Sets that last longer than 20 to 30
seconds substantially increase metabolic stress." If you recall,
that’s one of his three key muscle-growth factors.
Hydrogen ions that fill your muscles during long tension times
lower the muscles' pH due to lactic acid. "That seems to make
them bigger by stimulating the production of proteins and
hormones that act as growth factors for muscle tissue."
Okay, here’s the STX method I’ve been using for a few years
now, based on the Brazilian study:
I use this two-phase approach on my first “ideal” exercise. I
take a poundage I can get 20 to 25 reps with, go to failure, or
very close. I rest 20 seconds and use the same weight again and
rep out—usually getting between nine and 12 reps.
Base STX, using the same weight: 20 reps to failure, rest
20 second, 10 to 12 reps to failure
If I’m motivated or training a lagging muscle, I’ll rest 10
seconds after the second phase above, then rep out a third time.
Extended STX, using the same weight: 20 reps to failure,
rest 20 seconds, 12 reps to failure, rest 10 second, 6 reps to
failure
Tempo: I lift in one second and lower in two to three. The
slow lowering, or eccentric phase, helps create some growthinducing “damage” that Schoenfeld includes in his three key
hypertrophic factors.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Now there are multiple studies showing that rests between
sets of about two minutes are best for hypertrophy. But this is
not “multiple sets” but rather “phases.” The short rests make
this one long “extended” set—eliciting a progression
of fiber types to fire, moving from slow-twitch to
fast-twitch. You are striving for maximum fast-twitch
activation on the last phase.
And that last phase feels heavy although the poundage is only
moderate, which makes it much safer for the joints. It’s the short
rests that make it “heavy” for the target muscle. Remember,
the muscle doesn’t know poundage; it only knows
effort against resistance.
I use the two- or three-phase STX method above on the “ideal”
exercise only. If and when I do a follow-up exercise, for example
dumbbell squats for quads, I will rest for 20 seconds, then hit a
set with a slightly faster rep speed—one second up, one second
down, or slightly faster—but never using momentum. I stay in
control.
Again, this is a unique fourth phase that extends the set. My
quads are fatigued from the ideal exercise, sissy squats, so the
weight on DB squats is not heavy, and the “speed” reps help to
quickly fatigue fast-twitch fibers in a unique way to provide an
altered growth stimulus.
Quads
Sissy squats: 20 reps; rest 20 seconds, 10 reps;
rest 10 seconds, 7 reps
Rest 20 seconds
Dumbbell squats: 15 speed reps
Speed reps. From Schoenfeld’s Science and Development
of Muscle Hypertrophy: “Altering the style of training may affect
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Old Man, Young Muscle
changes in serial hypertrophy. Increases in fascicle length have
been reported in athletes who replace heavy resistance training
with high-speed training. These findings suggest that
performing concentric actions with maximal velocity
may promote the addition of sarcomeres in series even
in those with considerable training experience.”
In other words, you can get yet another “layer” of growth with
faster reps. As late Olympic coach Charles Poliquin said, one of
the least used hypertrophic stimulators is changing rep tempo.
These speed reps are more dangerous on stretch-position
exercises, like semi-stiff-legged deadlifts, so I may avoid the
method for those moves. If I do use speed, it's about a threesecond rep, 1.5 seconds each for lowering and lifting.
Speaking of which, here—finally—is a description of the two
primary workouts I use for each muscle. The entire workouts are
shown on pages 60 and 61. There will be an alternate workout in
a later chapters, a full Positions-of-Flexion version that I rotate in
every third workout or so.
Workout 1
Ideal chest: dumbbell
decline presses
Chest. I start with dumbbell decline
presses, an ideal exercise for chest. I
will follow with ether flat-bench dumbbell
flyes (pics on page 22) for stretch or
close-grip bench
pushups with feet
on the floor, the
best contractedposition pec move
I have in my home
gym: I place the
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Old Man, Young Muscle
bench long-ways,
hands gripping
it on the sides
so that I have a
narrow grip and
am forced to
squeeze my pecs
throughout the
set. These also
train the deltoids’
front heads.
Contracted
chest: closegrip bench
pushups
Back. Without a cable
machine, it’s hard to mimic
anything that resembles
Brignole’s ideal exercises for
middle trapezius and lats.
But I get close. I start with
a midback move, chin-bar
Ideal midback:
back pulls. The bar is set
chin-bar back
at neck level, feet directly
pulls
under the bar, and I use a
grip that's slightly wider
than shoulder width. I keep my body rigid and lower until my arms
are straight. Then I pull up until my chest is near the bar. The most
resistance occurs at the bottom when I'm angled at 45 degrees.
As I pull my torso toward the bar, I squeeze my scapulae together.
Mid-back gets stretch and lats get a contracted-position hit
with chest-supported dumbbell under-grip rows. I do these
facedown on an incline bench. I start with the palms facing each
other, which provides the traps with a stretch, and as I pull them
up, I rotate my palms to forward-facing. That curl grip at the top
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Old Man, Young Muscle
is important
so that my
hands end
up outside
my torso
for a lat
and trap
squeeze.
While the
Stretch midback,
contracted
lats: supported
angle of pull
undergrip rows
isn’t quite
as it should
be for the mid-back or lats, it still gets about a 7 out of 10 on
the ideal-exercise scale because as I pull the dumbbells up and
slightly outside my torso, I drive my upper arms and elbows in
toward my spine where the mid-back and lat muscles insert,
squeezing my scapulae together. It’s also not ideal because
resistance does not decrease as I pull the ‘bells up as it should. I
classify it as a stretch move for midback and contracted for lats.
Ideal lats: chin-bar
one-arm lat pulls
I finish with chin-bar
one-arm lat pulls. This is
similar to the first exercise,
back pulls, but I use one
arm at a time and stand
sideways to the chin bar,
still set at neck level. I
stand sideways with my
feet under the bar and grab
it palm up, upper arm next
to my lat. I straighten my
arm and lower my body,
which leans out at an
angle. That gives me the
most resistance on my lat
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Old Man, Young Muscle
when my arm is straight, and as I pull myself up from an angle, I twist
my torso slightly toward the bar until I’m next to it and almost vertical.
There's less resistance at the top, with the most at the bottom when
arms are straight. It’s as close as I can get to Doug’s one-arm cable lat
pulls.
The problem with back pulls and one-arm lat pulls is that it's difficult
to add resistance. Adding reps and/or slowing down the negative
part of the repetition is
Stretch lats:
the only way. Of course,
pullovers
a functional cable
machine would solve
the problem—something
that’s on my wish list.
I sometimes do a set or two of two-arm
dumbbell pullovers reclining on a flat bench
for lat stretch—never heavy as it can be
stressful to the shoulder joints and never
taking the dumbbells past a plane even
with my face (top photo). This exercise also trains the long head of the
triceps, as indicated in Tesch’s book Muscle Meets Magnet.
Shoulders.
My front and
rear heads work
hard during the
chest and back
exercises above.
That means I
need to focus on
the middle head.
Ideal side delts: low-incline
The best exercise
one-arm laterals
for my set-up
is low-incline
one-arm lateral raises. In POF that is a
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Midrange side delts:
one-arm upright rows
Stretch/Contracted
upper traps: shrugs
Ideal biceps: seated
dumbbell curls
stretch move. I follow that with either onearm standing laterals or one-arm upright
rows, both contracted-position exercises;
however, the uprights are multi-joint, or
compound, so I sometimes classify it as
midrange. I work all exercises for one side
first, rest, then repeat
for the other side. I
don’t do overhead
presses. I believe
Doug is right on when
he says those are
dangerous and cause
Contracted
joint impingement.
side delts:
one-arm
My shoulders agree.
laterals
Upright rows can also
be dangerous. If you
do them, be sure NOT to raise your elbow
higher than your shoulder joint to prevent
impingement. I do dumbbell shrugs to
finish. This move is for upper traps. I don’t
include it with back because it would make
my shoulder work more difficult due to
upper-trapezius fatigue.
Biceps. Seated
dumbbell curls or
concentration curls
kick things off. If I do
dumbbell curls, I follow
with concentration curls
(contracted). Or I may
do 45-degree incline
curls (pic on page 70), a
stretch-position move,
or incline hammer curls,
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Contracted biceps:
concentration curls
thumbs up, a biceps exercise that emphasizes the brachialis
muscles that snake under the biceps.
Triceps. I make dumbbell
decline extensions my
primary move for triceps. I
often add either high-incline
overhead dumbbell extensions
for full stretch or kickbacks
as a
contractedposition
exercise.
Pushdowns would
be a better choice
if I had a cable
setup.
Ideal
triceps:
decline
extensions
Forearms (optional).
Dumbbell wrist curls
for the flexors get the
Stretch triceps: incline nod most of the time. The
brachioradialis muscles on
extensions
the tops of my forearms
get enough work with
hammer curls.
Contracted/stretch
forearm flexors: wrist
curls
Abs (optional). I
sometimes add incline
Contracted triceps:
crunches, head at the top
supported kickbacks
of the incline (pics on page
58). That may sound counterintuitive; however,
it’s the way to get decreasing resistance as I
pull into the contracted position. Remember,
that’s the proper resistance curve. Flat
crunches would be a contracted-position move.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Workout 2
Quads.
Ideal quads:
sissy squats
I make
sissy
squats
my
primary
front-thigh
move. I
will follow
those with
a speed
set of
dumbbell
squats—to achieve some
functional muscle synergy
and more overall lactic acid
My 62-year-old legs. Not
accumulation. I don’t have a
bad for a few sets of leg
work once a week and
leg extension machine, so I
running twice.
can’t do a true contractedposition quad exercise; my
next best choice is wall squats,
using a foam roller behind my
back, feet forward and squeezing
my quads at the top of each rep.
I rarely
Contracted
do those,
quads: wall
however,
squats
as my
quads get
additional
work via
synergy on
Midrange quads:
the next
dumbbell squats
exercise…
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Ideal glutes: stepback lunges
Glutes/Hamstrings.
I begin with step-back
lunges, working one leg
at a time for all sets, then
going to one-leg hip thrusts,
one foot on the floor and my
elbows on a bench. I lower
my butt to the floor, then
Contracted glutes:
one-leg hip thrusts
drive up for a working-side glute
contraction. You’ve no doubt seen
people do these with both feet on
the floor and a barbell across their
pelvis. Doing one side at a time
after training that same side with
step-back lunges has me needing
zero additional weight—much safer.
On to hamstrings with what I call
torso floor rolls. Lying on the floor
with a foam roller under my lower
back and heels on a flat bench,
I pull my body forward with my
Contracted hamstrings: torso floor rolls
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Stretch hamstrings:
semi-stiff-legged
deadlifts
hamstrings, similar to a seated
leg curl. Not great and somewhat
awkward, but it’s all I’ve got—I can
at least squeeze the hamstrings in
the contracted position. I finish with
a set of flat-back semi-stiff-legged
deadlifts for hamstring and glute
stretch. Keep the dumbbells close
to your legs all the way down
to mid-shin, then reverse the
movements to near fully standing.
Keep your back flat throughout,
no bowing forward.
Calves. One-leg forwardlean calf raises ignite the fire in
my calves. I put a riser long-ways
Ideal calves: forward-lean calf raises
under my chin bar to elevate my
foot, and I lean forward on the chin bar
for balance. The second exercise is
usually one-leg donkey calf raises for
stretch, bent at the waist and hands
on a bench. I sometimes don’t use any
elevation here, instead angling my leg
back for plenty of calf stretch. Again,
I train one side through all sets of all
exercises, then move to the other leg
and repeat all sets. Calf midrange work
Stretch calves: one-leg
occurs on my two runs each week.
donkey raises
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Spinal
Ideal spinal
erectors:
erectors.
incline
You may
erector
call this
curls
muscle your
lower back
because it’s
only visible
on the lower
region.
That’s
a misnomer because these muscles
actually run from your rear-end all the
way up under your lats and traps to the
base of your neck. The exercise I use is an incline erector
curl. With an incline bench set at 45 degrees, I straddle it and
stand on a riser placed under the bench, positioning myself
facedown on the bench with my chest hanging off the end. I
lower my torso until it’s bent forward somewhat, then I curl it
back up to where my back is flat, torso almost perpendicular
to the floor. Resistance is maximum at the bottom of the stroke
due to gravity and minimal at the top. It’s like a high-incline
hyperextension. Often
Contracted spinal
I will add a set without
erectors: wall
erector curls
the bench. For these
I bend over with my
butt against a wall,
torso parallel with
the floor. I simply do
the erector curl—no
weight; however, this
version provides more
resistance at the top
contracted position.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Abs. I
begin with
incline
crunches,
standing,
head and
upper back
above the
top of the
incline
bench. I
allow my
shoulders
to go back
Ideal abs: incline crunches
a bit past the top of the
incline, then curl forward.
That provides decreasing
resistance as I get to the
contracted position. After
that, I will finish with flatbench hip rollups—like a
reverse ab crunch, but pulling
my knees into my chest as I
Midrange abs: flat-bench hip rollups
roll my hips up off the bench.
I usually do these with a
faster rep speed. That’s a midrange
move because the hip flexors are
involved in the abs' hip-roll function—
pulling the legs and hips toward my
chest.
Most weeks I train upper body twice
and legs only once because I run four
miles twice a week—and some of that
distance involves 100-yard semi-fast
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sprints separated by one minute of walking. I usually do three
of those intervals, unless my legs have been mocking me in the
mirror the days prior, in which case I may do four or five. I only
work sprints into my Monday run, which I consider a secondary
"resistance" leg workout. Here is the schedule I follow:
Monday: Run (2.75-mile steady jog, then three
100-yard semi-fast sprints alternated
with 1-minute of walking; after the
sprints, I usually walk the remainder
of the four-mile distance)
Tuesday: Upper-body workout
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Leg workout
Friday: Run (3-to-4-mile steady jog with no
sprints—day after leg workout)
Saturday: Upper-body workout
Sunday: Off
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Home-Gym Workout 1: Base STX
Regular
Decline bench presses
21, 9
Speed
Close-grip bench pushups
Chin-bar back pulls
10 / 7
21, 10
Incline undergrip rows
12 / 9
One-arm chin-bar lat pulls
10
Incline one-arm laterals
18, 9
Standing one-arm laterals
12 / 9
Shrugs
22
Concentration curls
18, 9
/
7
Decline extensions
18, 9
/
6
Incline hammer curls
15
/
11
Two-dumbbell pullovers
14
/
9
Incline crunches
21
12
Regular = lift in one second, lower in two to three;
rest 20 seconds between sets and same-muscle
exercises.
Speed = faster tempo: 1.5-second reps
/ = rest 10 seconds between sets
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Home-Gym Workout 2: Base STX
Regular
Sissy squats
21, 11
Dumbbell squats
Step-back lunges
10
18, 11
17
One-leg calf raises
20, 12
One-leg donkey calf raises
16 / 11
20, 12
Wall erector curls
Incline crunches
9
14, 9
Semi-stiff-legged deadlifts
Incline erector curl
/
15
One-leg hip thrusts
Hamstring floor rolls
Speed
12 / 8
21, 14
Bench hip rollups
11 / 8
Regular = lift in one second, lower in two to three;
rest 20 seconds between sets and same-muscle
exercises.
Speed = faster tempo: 1.5-second reps
/ = rest 10 seconds between sets
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Snapshot of my training log: These two Base-STX workouts
are the ones I use the most. This particular leg day took me
about 34 minutes and upper body about 39 minutes. The
"All," "Wht," "Grn," etc. out to the right of each exercise
indicates the color/poundage on my PowerBlock dumbbells.
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CHAPTER 8
Volumize to Pack On
Muscle Size?
You may be asking
yourself if the 35-minute
workouts outlined in the
last chapter are enough
work. Or would you—and
I—grow bigger with more
sets and more time in the
gym?
Depending on your age
and a few other factors,
in general I would say
yes, you can volumize for
more muscle size. For me,
however, my goal is to do
the most efficient workout
I can in my limited gym,
with as few sets as
possible to get the results
I’m satisfied with.
In my backyard just after my
62nd birthday. This was my
leanest using intermittent
fasting and 35-minute
workouts three days a week
with some running. But could
I be bigger with more work in
my home gym?
At my age I simply
want to be as healthy as
possible and have enough
muscle to look like I’m a
noncompetitive drug-free
bodybuilder. Even that’s
been tough throughout
my life because my
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Old Man, Young Muscle
genetics for building muscle are very much from the ectomorphic
distance-runner category. I knew early on that the only way
I would become Mr. Olympia is if I changed my last name to
Olympia.
Nevertheless, my latest workouts have made it more possible at
my age to look like an older drug-free bodybuilder with less time
in the gym than I ever imagined—35-to-40 minutes three times a
week, using a two-way split—that is, upper body at one workout
and lower the next.
Doug Brignole, on the other hand, trains only the ideal exercises
for 10 to 15 sets each. He uses a five-way split, dividing his body
over five days, and his workouts last 1 1/2 to two hours five days
a week. Like me, he is also 62.
So at the moment, I work out for a total of less than two hours
a week; Doug’s weekly total is around 7 hours. I go to muscular
failure on almost all of my sets, he does not, saying that holding
back allows him to do more sets, or volume.
Is he overtraining, or is all of his extra time in the gym
necessary? For him perhaps it is. Schoenfeld concludes:
“A clear dose-response relationship was noted
between volume and hypertrophy—that is, higher
volumes correlate to greater hypertrophic adaptations,
at least up to a certain point.”
So more volume—again, up to a point—can produce more
mass; however, I don’t want to spend that much time working
out—and I definitely don’t want to do 10 sets of the same damn
exercise. Call me lazy, but at this point in my life it’s not worth it.
My quick, efficient workouts have me feeling great and looking
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Old Man, Young Muscle
good for my age with
enough muscle to satisfy
me. I’m not sure most
older folks have the
recovery capacity or
motivation to tolerate
too much more than
what I do—and the
majority, I believe,
don’t need it if they’re
motivated and train
correctly.
Efficiency of effort is
key, and there is very
little wasted effort when
you emphasize the ideal
exercises. Therefore, you
should be able to get
better results with less
work—fewer sets.
If you look at the
training of most of the
biggest bodybuilders,
they use up to 20 sets
per muscle group. But
keep in mind that there
is a lot of inefficiency
in the exercises they
emphasize, such as
barbell squats for quads,
cable rows for back,
etc. If the exercises you
If Arnold needed 20 sets per
muscle group to reach his
genetic potential with most
exercises that averaged a 6
rating, you should need less
if you're using more precise
moves that rank a 9 or 10—
and you're not on any "special
supplements." (Photo John Balik)
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Old Man, Young Muscle
emphasize are more biomechanically precise, then you’re
training smarter and the work required to stimulate maximum
hypertrophy in an array of muscle fibers should be less.
To put it another way, if Arnold needed 20 sets per muscle
group to reach his genetic potential with a lot of exercises that
averaged a 6 rating, do you need only five sets to gain the
most muscle possible with exercises that rate a 9 or 10? Or do
you need 10 or 12 sets? I can’t answer that emphatically, as
there are too many variables involved—age, recovery ability,
genetics, training experience, health, anabolic steroids, etc.
But logic would dictate that an older drug-free bodybuilder
training with the most effective exercises would need a lot
less than 20 sets per muscle. It’s going to be up to you to
determine the right volume for your circumstances. If you have
somewhat severe muscle soreness that persists, your joints
ache or you get ill often, you could be doing too much. Back
off immediately.
You may want to try a version of my workouts for a while,
then add to it if you feel the need. And you don’t have to add
to every muscle group. You could start with your lagging body
parts. For example, more often than not I add a rest/pause
phase on both of my chest exercises.
On dumbbell decline presses, I do the first two STX phases,
rest 10 seconds, then go to failure for a third time. Then on
close-grip bench pushups, I do a speed set, rest 10 seconds,
then rep out again with that 1-1 tempo. Done.
Chest (all sets to failure)
Dumbbell decline presses
20 reps; rest 20 seconds, 10 reps; rest 10 seconds, 6 reps
Close-grip bench pushups
10 speed reps; rest 10 seconds, 7 speed reps
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Resting 10 seconds and tacking on another phase is quick
and adds to the cumulative volume without too much stress
or additional time. And you could add more than one of those
rest/pause phases.
If and when you increase volume, you not only should
consider your recovery ability but also the amount of time you
want to spend working out. Yes, more volume can stimulate
more muscle growth, but only up to a point; you don’t want to
do so much that you drag down your gains and/or dread your
workouts and quit.
If you do decide to add sets to all muscle groups at once, try
gradually adding to the ideal exercise only, the one listed first
for each muscle, in bold type in the descriptions and with red
frames around the photo caption—pages 48 through 58.
You can add a set or two to the others down the line if you
want, but always emphasize the ideal move for each target
muscle. Doug’s biomechanics analysis is spot-on, so that will
give you the best results from extra volume.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
CHAPTER 9
Pre-Exhaustion-Inspired
Mass Workout
Mike Mentzer was a pro bodybuilder back in the late 1970s
whose common-sense, science-based views had bodybuilders
everywhere rethinking and retooling their workouts. Mentzer
did very few sets
for each target
muscle, trained
all work sets to
failure, and his
workout style
attacked multiple
muscle-fiber
types in short
periods of time.
Mike Mentzer was a proponent of short,
intense workouts and pre-exhaustion
training. (Photo John Balik)
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Old Man, Young Muscle
At his last
contest, the '80
Mr. Olympia, he
achieve his best
condition. Former
IFBB judge and
Pennsylvania
gym owner Roger
Schwab put him
through many
of his workouts
during his prep.
So how did he
train to reach his
best?
Roger said Mike used a full-body
routine three days a week with a
modified pre-exhaustion method.
That’s doing a single-joint isolation
exercise for a target muscle and
following it up with a multi-joint, or
compound, move.
For example, for chest he did a
higher-rep set of Nautilus machine
flyes (isolation), rested only briefly,
then did a heavy lower-rep set of
Nautilus machine decline presses.
Yes, one set of each exercise
only—higher-rep isolation followed
by lower-rep compound, both with
controlled repetitions to failure
and—this is important—very little
rest between exercises so that
he got the benefit of slow-twitch
exhaustion—STX.
So while Mentzer’s modified PreEx had a higher-rep slow-twitch set
followed by a lower-rep fast-twitch
attack like STX method, he was
using two different exercises for the
same target muscle.
Mentzer's herculean
mass was mind-blowing.
(Photo John Balik)
I have a home-gym version that I put into my training rotation
every third or fourth workout for variety—change to gain. It’s the
same upper-body/lower-body split I always use, not full body
as Mentzer did. I’m not a young, genetically gifted competitive
bodybuilder on special anabolic “supplements,” so I need to
split my workouts and space them out for more recovery time.
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Another reason I don't use
full-body workouts: I don’t want
to start dreading my training,
which has happened to me in
the past with full-body routines.
Incline
dumbbell
curls for
biceps
stretch.
On the next two pages are
my pre-exhaustion Mentzerinspired workouts, infused with
the efficiency-of-effort methods
I’ve explained in previous
chapters. In addition, these
workouts incorporate full-range
POF for each muscle—at least
the best I can do in my home
gym—using a stretch-position
move as the first exercise.
While some stretch-position exercises may not be quite ideal
from a biomechanics standpoint, some are almost perfect—
such as incline one-arm lateral raises, sissy squats and flatbench flyes, although the latter have some biceps involvement.
Other stretch exercises I’ve chosen may not be quite
biomechanically ideal; however, they light up all heads of the
muscle according to MRI studies from Tesch’s Muscle Meets
Magnet. For example, incline dumbbell curls provide max
stimulation to both the lateral and medial biceps heads, while
the dumbbell overhead extensions light up all three triceps
heads—lateral, medial and long. And all exercises are pictured
and described in Chapter 7.
You can easily adapt it to a commercial-gym setting—in some
cases using better exercises with the availability of cables and
machines. Use your imagination—and the POF Exercise Matrix
in Chapter 6.
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Home-Gym Workout 1: Stretch-First Pre-Ex POF
Regular
S: Flat flyes
21
M: Decline bench presses
10, 7
C: Close-grip bench pushups
S: Two-dumbbell pullovers
19
M: One-arm lat pulls
9
S&C: Incline undergrip rows
M: Chin-bar back pulls
17, 8
M: One-arm upright rows
11
C: One-arm laterals
S&C: Shrugs
21
S: Incline hammer curls
17
S: Incline curls
10
C: Concentration curls
M: Decline extensions
10
11 / 8
12
S: Incline one-arm laterals
S: 2-DB overhead extensions
Speed
11
9/6
17
10, 7
C: Bench dips or kickbacks
11
S&C: Wrist curls
9
21
S = Stretch C = Contracted M = Midrange
Regular = lift in one second, lower in two to three; rest 20
seconds between sets and same-muscle exercises.
Speed = faster tempo: 1.5-second reps; rest 10 seconds
between sets /.
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Home-Gym Workout 2: Stretch-First Pre-Ex POF
Regular
S: Sissy squats
20, 11
C: Wall roller squats
Speed
12
M: Dumbbell squats
15
S: Semi-stiff-legged deadlifts 16, 10
C: Floor rolls
14
M: Step-back lunges
C: One-leg hip thrusts
9
14
S: One-leg donkey calf raises 18, 11
C: One-leg calf raises
12
C: One-leg forward calf raises
S: Incline erector curls
15
20, 12
C: Wall erector curls
S: Incline crunches
20, 12
C: Flat crunches
12
M: Bench hip rolls
10 / 9
14
S = Stretch C = Contracted M = Midrange
Regular = lift in one second, lower in two to three; rest 20
seconds between sets and same-muscle exercises.
Speed = faster tempo: 1.5-second reps; rest 10 seconds
between sets /.
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CHAPTER 10
Details for Fast Mass
As I’ve mentioned,
my sparse home gym
is in a spare bedroom
and consists of an
adjustable bench,
PowerBlock 50-pound
selectorized dumbbells
and a chinning bar
that can be “wedged”
at any height in a
doorway—but I never
use it for chins, only
for balance on sissy
squats, step-back
lunges and calf raises,
as well as for one-arm
side lat pulls and twoarm mid-back pulls.
Here are some additional details you may want to consider
to trigger bigger gains.
Accessories: I recently got a cable handle to loop onto
the chin bar for my one-arm side lat pulls—that allows me to
turn my torso slightly toward the bar as I pull. I don't always
use it, but it's good for variety. I also have an aerobics-class
riser I use to elevate my bench for decline presses and
decline triceps extensions. Plus, I can stand on it with my
working leg for step-back lunges and one-leg calf raises.
While I prefer to stand on my toes for sissy squats, you may
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Old Man, Young Muscle
want to elevate your heels
on a riser for that exercise.
I also have a foam roller,
which I use for wall squats,
placing it between my
back and the wall so that
I can squat with my feet
somewhat forward for more
quad activation. I also use it
on the floor when I do floor
rolls for hamstrings, heels
on a bench, roller between
my back and the floor.
Foam roller
PowerBlock
dumbbells
Riser
Fan
Adjustable
bench
Something else you may want to have is a clock with a
second hand so you can time your rests between sets. I use
my Apple Watch, which also logs stats like workout heart rate,
calories burned and length of my workouts and runs—again,
I rarely go over 35 minutes per workout. My runs take around
45 minutes. On exercises where I can't free my hands, such as
dumbbell
decline
presses—
holding the
dumbbells
on my
thighs
during the
rest—I will
count onethousandone, oneHere's how my Apple Watch looks after a run.
thousand
The photo on the previous page was taken after
two and so
a home-gym weight workout.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
on, going to 10 twice, then hit another set. You could do that for
every exercise, although it may get monotonous. I always count
for my 10-second rest/pauses—watch not necessary for those.
A spiral notebook is where I sometimes log my workouts—
snapshots appear in previous chapters. That way I can go back
and repeat a workout I have tagged as a favorite. I sometimes
alter exercise order, or add a tweak here or there. I also have
a whiteboard monthly calendar, pictured below—July, my
birthday month in case you want to send me gift next year. That
allows me to log my runs, workouts and other daily events. I
even jot down the days I don't have wine (no drinking), when we
go out to a restaurant (Casa: kids) and the days I do a 12-to-14hour fast, usually Wednesdays. At the end of the month I take
a photo of it with my iPhone, save the photo to my computer,
erase the calendar and start over. Obsessive compulsive?
Maybe, but it works for me and is a good reference tool.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Bedtime:
Rest: I try to stick to a
Tongkat
routine for bedtime and
Ali libido
awakening. For me it’s
herb
bedtime at 11:30, up at
kicking
7:30. Saturday nights are
in, wife
flexible. Margaritas and
is hiding
Mexican food can be a
again.
disruptive force to say
the least. And speaking
of alcohol, I tend to have
two glasses of red wine
most nights during the
week—you can see “no
drinking” logged on the
calendar on days I don’t
partake. Keep in mind
that alcohol can have
a negative effect on
sleep and testosterone,
so if you have trouble
sleeping or you’re low in that anabolic hormone, you may
want to abstain. I monitor my testosterone with yearly blood
work, and I try to stay in touch with how I’m recovering from
my workouts. If I feel drained, I will skip a workout or miss a
run. That helps me recharge, heal joints and
replenish hormones and mental faculties.
Always keep in mind that workout recovery
is as important as your training, and it’s
especially critical for older trainees.
Supplements: I use an array of capsules
and tablets, from a multi-vitamin and -mineral
(every other day), as well as B-complex,
CoQ10, vegetable capsules, calcium/
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Old Man, Young Muscle
magnesium and vitamin D when I
don’t get sun. Specialty supplements
include the herb Tongkat Ali in pill
form, which has been shown to
increase energy and libido. I know it
works because my wife hides from
me a lot. Researchers suggests it’s
possibly from better testosterone
production, but that’s debatable. I
also use the ever-popular creatine
monohydrate capsules. I take 5
grams of creatine after every workout
and run. I skip it on non-activity days,
like Sunday when I go supplementfree.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Also, after each weight
workout I have a scoop
of vanilla casein-whey
protein powder, BioTrust
LowCarb, stirred in water,
along with a piece of dark
chocolate. Whey is a fastabsorbing protein that has
been shown to increase
insulin. Insulin is a storage
hormone, so that can
help drive creatine and
sugar from the chocolate
into the muscle cells—at
least, that’s the theory. I
also use a scoop or two
of Garden of Life Sport
Organic Plant-based
vanilla protein in my
Anabolic Mud smoothie,
which I have every
afternoon seven days a
week. Here is the recipe:
Anabolic Mud Smoothie
1 cup Power Greens (mix of raw kale and spinach)
1/2 cup blueberries
1/4 banana
1 cup water
3 ice cubes
1-2 scoops plant-based protein powder
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Future Equipment: As
you’ve seen from my barebones home-gym workouts,
getting to the ideal exercise
as laid out by Brignole, as
well as adding poundage
when necessary, can be
difficult and in some cases
impossible. You can join a
commercial gym if you want
to up your
muscle-building
efficiency, or
you can spring
for one of two
cable machines
for your home
gym. The one I
have room for
There's barely
room in my small
spare-bedroom
home-gym for
the F9 FoldAway Functional
Trainer (above). I
plan to purchase
it soon. If I had
more space,
I'd opt for the
Genesis Dual
Cable Cross
G634 (right).
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Old Man, Young Muscle
and am considering is the F9 Fold-Away Functional Trainer,
available from Torque Fitness. If I had room for it, I would
instead purchase a Genesis Dual Cable Cross G624 that
Doug recommends. Unfortunately, the arms extend out too far
for my small spare bedroom.
If and when I get
an F9 Fold-Away
Functional Trainer
cable machine,
I will document
my workouts and
progress, which
should motivate me
to update this ebook
with a new chapter
or two or three. For
now, I’m getting
excellent muscle
gains with my
minimalist gym and
efficient approach.
It’s homework I
actually enjoy, and
it’s keeping me built
for life.
Age 62.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Epilogue
Throughout
this book, I
chronicled
some of the
highlights
of my nearhalf-century
involvement
in the world of
bodybuilding
and fitness
training. I’ve
seen a lot of
trends come and go. Some pushed the
body of training knowledge forward,
some had little impact and others only
frustrated or injured trainees.
I’m now 62 years old and some of my priorities have changed
since I was a young buck hoping to be the next Arnold flexing
to greatness on the Olympia stage. First and foremost, I want to
reiterate that I don't use performance-enhancing drugs, and I will
stay away from hormone-replacement therapy as long as I can as
I age. I do everything I can to avoid injury and stay healthy. Those
priorities are paramount, as I’d like to keep lifting and looking fairly
impressive as I get older.
Even so, I’m realistic about my goals. I’ve never had superb
genetics and so looking healthy, muscular and fit is enough for
me—there are no bodybuilding competitions in my future. If that
sounds like you, the workouts in the training chapters should work
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Old Man, Young Muscle
well as listed or with minor changes. If you want more than that,
you can adapt what I’ve presented to take your physique to the
next level safely and efficiently, albeit with longer workouts in
most cases and perhaps in a commercial gym.
The workouts presented are the result of influences by
numerous visionaries who have guided me throughout my
bodybuilding journey, including the Iron Guru Vince Gironda,
who used to visit the Iron Man offices while I was editor in chief.
And Mike Mentzer, who made me question dogmatic practices
in the gym and pay attention to recovery and intensity.
I introduced the most recent of these visionaries, Doug
Brignole, a former Mr. America and Mr. Universe, in the first
chapter. He’s a man with a deep understanding of biomechanics
and physiology. I also consider him a friend. As you’ve seen, his
book, The Physics of Resistance Exercise, has had a huge effect
on my recent training and results, which is what inspired Old
Man Young Muscle.
Nevertheless, as smart and insightful as Doug is, there are
other ideas, both old and new, that are supported by research
and that can add value to Doug’s groundbreaking principles. In
the world of science and bodybuilding, truth simply means, “that
which is our best understanding of a subject right now.” Even
when Einstein rocked the world with some of his perceptionaltering breakthroughs, it didn’t mean that prior scientific
knowledge went in the dust bin.
With Old Man Young Muscle I’ve attempted to marry Doug’s
principles and exercises with other scientific training protocols
as well as my own. As martial artist Bruce Lee said, “Absorb
what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially
your own.” The top-five factors of efficient exercise that I
selected from Doug’s 16 fit that quote nicely:
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Old Man, Young Muscle
1) Bi-lateral deficit: strive for one-limb movements; if
that’s not possible due to balance or other issues, fire the target
muscles simultaneously but independently by using dumbbells
or cables.
2) Range of motion: move from near full stretch to full
contraction—research has shown that partial-range moves are
inferior for optimal fiber recruitment.
3) Resistance curve: an “ideal” exercise should be harder
near the stretch and easiest at contraction; for example,
dumbbell decline bench presses.
4) Direction of resistance: pull of resistance should be
directly toward the target muscle’s origin—upper arm moving
toward breast bone on dumbbell decline bench presses.
5) Non-target muscle activation: minimize the
involvement or loading of other muscles during the exercise.
I found that those five factors can take you a long way in
identifying good or even ideal exercises while moving others
down the list. Those at the top of my ideal list that I’m able to do
in my home gym include:
Dumbbell decline presses for chest
Incline one-arm lateral raises for medial-delt head
Dumbbell shrugs for upper trapezius
Dumbbell decline extensions for triceps
Dumbbell curls for biceps
Sissy squats for quads
Step-back lunges for glutes
One-leg calf raises
Incline crunches for abs
Erector curls for the erector spinae
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Old Man, Young Muscle
Those that Doug discusses in his book and that I cannot do
until I have a cable unit include:
Cable chest presses
One-arm lat pulls
Scapulae retractions for midback
One-arm cable laterals for medial-delt head
Pushdowns or pushouts for triceps
Brignole cable squats for quads
One-leg leg curls for hamstrings
While I devoted the first few chapters to Brignole’s findings
and exercises, I transitioned in Chapter 5 to other research, like
Shoenfeld’s three primary factors affecting muscle growth—
optimal mechanical tension (challenging resistance), metabolic
stress (lactic acid pooling) and muscle damage (fiber trauma)—
and how they interact with Doug’s principles and various
exercises as well as my Positions-of-Flexion method.
I also explored whether “bigger” compound, or multi-joint,
movements may have the capacity to stimulate growth even
when they are not biomechanically ideal. Synergy was the
operable concept, suggesting that multiple muscles working
together can heighten the anabolic environment as well as elicit a
different muscle-fiber recruitment order.
You also saw some of the intriguing research on stretch
overload and its affect on muscle growth. All of the above helped
me reformulate my POF muscle-building “system"—working in
the ideal exercises and demonstrating how emphasizing those
is key to maximizing hypertrophy but that other specific moves
can help develop additional “layers” of muscle growth due
to Fleck and Kraemer’s “variation in muscle-fiber recruitment
order.” Those and many other researchers say that using different
exercises to train muscles within varying planes of motion
improves development.
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Old Man, Young Muscle
You saw all of that infused into my home-gym multi-angular
POF workouts that I use every third session or so.
And whether it’s POF or the Base workouts, all of them are
built around the Slow-Twitch-Exhaustion method, using a highrep set to pre-fatigue and even build the slow-twitch fibers.
Research suggests that a preliminary high-rep set forces more
fast-twitch fibers to fire on sets that quickly follow. Twentysecond rests between sets work best for me, but you may want
to try slightly longer rests if your cardiovascular system isn’t in
tip-top shape.
So is this or any other training manual the last word in
bodybuilding? Happily it is not. New ideas will emerge and
our understanding will grow, but that doesn’t mean that Doug
Brignole’s, Mike Mentzer’s, or even Steve Holman’s ideas will
cease to be relevant? No, they will simply be part of the neverending building process, helping our workouts evolve to be
more efficient and safe as we train our bodies to new muscular,
healthy heights.
Stay built for life.
End note: I highly recommend you
read Doug Brignole's book The Physics
of Resistance Exercise. It will help you
better uderstand the biomechanics
of muscle movement, which I've only
touched on, and how to achieve better,
safer results with weight training.
Get it through Doug Brignole HERE
Or at Amazon.com HERE
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Old Man, Young Muscle