Mike Israetel's RP Bodybuilding Posts
General Diet
Mass Gain
Some Mass Gain Tips:
1. Leaner individuals gain more muscle when they mass than fatter individuals. If you're
male and can't see your abs at all, you're better off losing fat so that you can put on more
muscle later, rather than just gaining mass now and getting even fatter.
2. Eat mostly the right stuff to fuel your training and your health, but have some fun too.
Night time junk food consumption can be a part of most massing plans, especially if done
only a few nights a week. Get your good food in, train hard, and in the evening have
some fun eating junk. This beats not having any junk (psychologically) and beats eating
junk early in the day and messing with your training performance (physiologically).
3. Gain weight slowly each week and in 2-3 month intervals. If you gain much faster than a
pound a week, you'll not gain much more muscle than if you went slower, but just more
fat you'll have to burn off later. If you try to gain weight continuously for longer than 3
months or so, your body begins to respond more poorly to hypertrophy training and
because all gains will be some muscle and some fat, you'll get too fat to gain muscle at
best rates if you try to gain for too long. Gain for 2-3 months, maintain for 1-2, cut for 1-2
months, and repeat for best results in the long term. That's more or less how I went from
wrestling in the 103 weightclass in high school to weighing a bit more now.
4. When you choose to start a massing phase, commit to the process. Yes, you'll
temporarily get a bit smoother and that's OK. Trying to stay your leanest at all times is a
good way to never put on much size. Training and diet are cyclical processes. Just like
you can't be peaked to be your strongest at all times, you can't be your leanest at all
times. Do what it takes, look 'ok' toward the end of mass and during maintenance, and
you'll look GREAT over the long term.
Fat Loss
Having a healthy relationship with food/eating:
The MOST important element of success with a fat loss diet is to have a healthy relationship
with food. This means among other things that:
1. Fat loss diets DO NOT strengthen your relationship with food, they strain it. If it starts out
weak, it might fail and disordered thoughts and eating patterns may result... some of
them long term in nature.
2. If you don't have the healthiest relationship with food, it's imperative to work on that
BEFORE you start a diet.
3. There's no rush to get healthy and certainly no rush to get lean. If you do it right, you can
set up a lifetime of looking your best and being healthy. If you do it wrong and rush the
process, you may find yourself fighting diet-created demons that are even tougher than
the ones that pushed you in to dieting too fast in the first place.
Some qualities of a 'healthy relationship with food/eating':
1. Not being overly emotional about food in general. This means mostly that you can eat
food for logical reasons only (nutritional programming, for example) and are not often
overwhelmed with emotional reactions or attachments to food.
2. Your life's main sources of happiness are diverse, including friends, career, family, pets,
hobbies AND food. Food does not hold a central position in determining your happiness
or lack thereof far above and beyond those other features.
3. Not being overly attached to food. If you have to eat certain foods, bland foods, or
less/more food than ideal, you tend to think that's usually ok and not a big deal.
4. You have fundamentally healthy eating habits, focusing most of your calorically adequate
but not excessive intake on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean meats/protein sources
and healthy fats.
5. You don't tend to view food as 'good vs. bad' and understand that long term habits
determine health and appearance/performance, not single meals. This usually means
that while most of your diet consists of foods from point D above, you enjoy the
occasional junk food with no big reservations.
6. You view bodyweight, appearance, performance and health on a spectrum, not in binary
'good vs. bad' terms. If you weighed 155 today but weighed only 152 yesterday and you
don't want to gain weight, you're not upset, or at most 1.5% more upset, not 200% more
upset (upset in proportion to the size of the perceived issue, if upset even at all).
7. You understand your value and worth outside of your purely body-related metrics. Your
value in your career, family, friendships, and other facets of life that can't be conveyed in
a bathroom selfie (so you know I'm struggling lol!)
All of these are on a spectrum. There is no 'perfectly unhealthy relationship' or
'perfectly healthy relationship,' just a continuum.
Re-establishing your healthy relationship with food/eating:
In relation to my last two posts on a.) the need to establish relatively healthy relationships with
food and eating before dieting and b.) defining what such a relationship actually entails, here
are some thoughts to consider about HOW to work on improving your relationship with
food/eating:
The process of re-establishing your healthy relationship with food can involve the following
process of 4 phases. Each phase is only begun when the last phase is no longer a struggle
and feels completely natural and worry-free. For some this means the phases take weeks, for
some, months. Rushing the process is almost never a good idea... you're doing this to HEAL,
not to "get it done and move on."
Phase 1: Unattached Eating
You don't count, track, plan, or alter your food intake in any structured way. You eat ONLY
what you want, when you want. Keep training hard, don't look at the scale. Sooner or later
you'll have had your fill and you will legitimately have addressed every craving so much that
you'll likely start to miss some kind of structure. For most people this will be by far the hardest
phase.
Phase 2: Nutritious Choices
You don't track or plan any amounts of food, nor do you weigh in on the scale. But you start to
focus on getting MOST (not all) of your food from fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein
sources and healthy fats. Still eat junk when you feel like it, but keep most of your food
healthy. This phase ends when eating like this feels habitual and perfectly natural.
Phase 3: Rough Macros
Keep eating like in Phase 2, but determine your rough maintenance macros and follow them
on most days to a decent degree of precision. Eyeballing macros is ok, and formal meal
structure or number is not necessary. This phase ends when you're habitually hitting your
macros worry-free and with no pressure.
Phase 4: Counting and Measuring
Maintenance diet in which your eat for particular macros every day, you plan meal numbers,
macros and food types in accordance with your training and waking/sleep schedule, and you
start to weigh yourself again. When this feels natural and habitual, you're likely ready to try
another fat loss phase of 2-3 months in duration, maintain, then go from there!
MUCH more detail available on this in the female dieting book we wrote at RP
If you're interested in being guided through this process, Kevin Gatti specializes in working
with females in just such situations and may be able to help you out and coach your through
just such a process.
DISCLAIMER: this is for those that have taken their dieting to the extreme and
suffered psychologically for it and are now in that grey area between diagnosable
eating disorder and mildly poor eating relationships. This advice is thus for those
folks. If you are not at that extreme, trying a toned-down version of this process
might work best. If you're more extreme, seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist to
work on your disordered eating patterns is highly recommended.
Ending a Fat Loss Phase
When you finish a fat loss phase, you want the transition to set you up for sustainability.
Eating tons of junk right after and blowing up super quick isn't conducive to ANY goal,
massing included. As far as junk is concerned, adding it in slowly is the best way to go to
minimize fat gain rebound after your fat loss phase.
But how do you pull off the slow reintroduction of junk food from a mental standpoint? Toward
the end of a cut, aren't we all just going nuts and ready to eat all the junk in the world? How is
the average dieter supposed to realistically pull that off?
There's a way! If long term weight loss is your goal and nasty rebounds are not in your plan,
you can give yourself the edge by ending each of your fat loss phases EARLY. How early?
While we say around 12 weeks each, there's a clearer guideline from a psych perspective.
The trick is to stop cutting BEFORE you have crazy cravings. You know that point in your fat
loss phase during which you've already lost a ton of weight but your cravings are pretty minor?
Push just a bit further than that and STOP! Could you have gone even further THAT TIME?
Yes. But if you stop before crazy cravings, you nearly ensure that a rebound won't happen. If
you get greedy and push too far, your chances of rebound go up, and your chances of your
long term success go down.
In long term fat loss, the hard part isn't always pushing yourself at any one time. It's being
patient enough to take needed maintenance phases, patient enough to let the whole process
take longer, and willful enough to make it happen.
General Training
Bringing Up a Lagging Lift
If you want to bring up a lift, is the automatic answer to train the lagging muscle group of that
lift. Like if you have weak triceps, will training them MORE bring up your bench? If only it were
so simple. A couple of considerations need to be made before we can be assured that this is
the likely best course of action, including:
1. Does the lift have clear limiting factors?
For example, if your lower back isn't strong enough for your glutes, hams, upper back
and grip, your deadlift will round you over and positioning will be compromised, leading
to limited performances. By bringing up your lower back, you can very much boost your
deadlift in this scenario. You can make your glutes or hams as strong as ever, but
because your lower back is the limiting factor, this will almost certainly have no effect on
your deadlift going up.
On the other hand, in the bench press, if your triceps are weak, making them strong
should help you bench more. But making your chest strong will help you bench more as
well, even if your triceps don't get any stronger. Because of the mechanics of the lift, the
chest isn't ever limited by the triceps and vice-versa, and can contribute to the lift all the
way through. If you triceps are super unresponsive but your chest grows great, lockout
problems on bench may actually be solved with more chest training. Same goes for all
lifts (shoulder press is another example) in which there is no clear limiting factor in the
kinetic chain.
2. Is the muscle you suspect as the limiting factor ACTUALLY the limiting factor in your
case?
Sometimes it might seem that way, but it turns out to be another muscle altogether.
When lower backs round in the deadlift, it MIGHT be the erectors at fault. But it might
also be the scapular retractors of the upper back that are weak, and their weakness
leads to the chest falling over, putting the lower back in a poor position no matter how
(realistically) strong it is.
It can also be a technique issue. If you're not hitting the right positions at the start and
through the lift, your back might round no matter how strong you are, and all the erector
training in the world won't fix that. But working with a coach to improve your technique
might reveal to you that your erectors were strong enough to not limit you all along, you
just needed to improve your movement patterns.
3. If you do find a limiting factor muscle, is MORE work the answer?
It depends! You have to figure out if the muscle in question is:
under its MRV
around its MRV
over it's MRV
If it's under its MRV, it can do better with more training, so go to town. If it's around
its MRV, you'll have to work on technique or something else because more training
will only be a net negative. If it's over its MRV, then the surest path to gains is to
train it LESS and let it progress faster due to improved recovery.
4. Choose your work wisely.
If you finally find the limiting muscle in question and more work is the answer, make sure
it's the kind of work that transfers well and is phase-appropriate. For example, if you're
doing tricep extensions on a cable to help your bench press, but you're doing this with
sets of 10 at 3 weeks out of a meet, you're causing some muscle growth, but the neural
characteristics of the triceps are becoming less explosive and will probably make no
change to your strength for that meet, or those neural changes and extra fatigue from the
work may temporarily make you a tad weaker! If you're months out of your meet and
eating enough to support size gains, you can use isolation moves like cable extensions.
But as the meet gets closer and the training heavier, you need to transition to the right
exercises that match the characteristics of the phase of training you're in, going perhaps
from extensions with a cable to skull crushers, to close grip benches, and finally to board
work or slingshot work right before the meet.
TDLR: If you complain of poor lockout ability and someone tells you "just add some triceps
work after your heavy lifts," they MIGHT very well be correct... but they might also be way off.
Training Focus
Some very good reasons to focus on several bodyparts at a time during your bodybuilding
training, instead of trying to grow EVERYTHING all at once:
1. Adaptive Resistance
Every muscle group develops resistance to adaptation over time. Throwing the kitchen
sink at your biceps, for example, will work great for a while, but after several months,
your biceps have seen pretty much everything you've got. They won't grow much even if
you keep training them super hard unless you take a break for a month or so and just
train them enough to hold their current size. When you come back, they'll respond very
well again for several months, upon which you'll have to repeat the process. In essence,
the idea that you can and should always try to get every muscle on your frame to grow is
flawed for at least this reason.
An interesting fact of physiology helps buttress this idea. The fact is, the human body is
VERY resistant to making adaptations and will only do so at fastest rates if high
overloads and lots of variation are present. Just "meh" training will likely get the
intermediate/advanced not "meh" results, but actually no results at all. On the other
hand, the body is VERY good at KEEPING gains with quite a low level of training (esp if
that training is still heavy but low volume). You don't need to hammer every bodypart to
the max for it to stick on you... you can actually hold your gains with as little as half the
volume it takes to make the best ones. With this reality being as it is, training super hard
for some time and really backing off for some time becomes almost essential for best
gains.
2. Psychological Monotony
A minor concern for the extra-motivated, but a concern nonetheless. If you push
EVERYTHING all at the same time, your training starts to look quite similar month to
month. Not only is this physiologically limiting to growth, it can get super stale
psychologically. Changing the focus can not only keep you excited for training because
it's regularly different, but it also gets you excited for the next training phase when you
start "missing" going hard on a body part you haven't focused on in a while. Nothing gets
you wanting to smash quads like taking a month to focus mostly on glutes and hams.
3. Recovery Limitations
Fact: Your whole-body MRV is LOWER than the sum of the MRVs of your individual
muscles.
What this means is that if you tried to actually train ALL of your body parts at their MRVs
(see my posts from this whole month about individual muscle MRVs), your training
volume would be completely insane and you'd almost certainly not recover from the
systemic fatigue. Every time you train, your local muscle physiology is disrupted, but so
is your central physiology. Brain, spinal cord, hormones, and GI tract are taxed with
recovery, and if you try to train every individual muscle hard, you'll likely break into two
pieces very soon. So how do you get around this? Certainly it's not by training every
muscle "sort of hard," because that wouldn't lead to the best gains. The idea is to pick
maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of your muscles and train them all-out at their MRVs, and train the rest
at 1/2 to 2/3 of their MRVs, so that they don't lose size during this de-emphasis period.
Then after 1-2 mesocyles, you rotate out the prioritized groups and rotate in the deprioritized groups. This way you get to grow all of your body's muscles over time without
going too far overboard.
Oh and drugs don't change these relationships. Drugs like anabolics allow your MRV to go up
both locally and systemically to about the same extent, so they let you train and recover from
MORE, but you can now also handle more. Yes, even folks taking drugs need to go through
this pattern of emphasis/de-emphasis to get best results.
Applying Specificity
In exercise selection, specificity says you have to do the competition movements coming up
close to your meet. It doesn't say you have to do them ALL THE TIME.
Example: while standing presses transfer best to strongman, seated presses or even incline
presses can train most of the same muscles while perhaps not being as taxing on the lower
back (and whole-body recovery as well) as standing presses.
Is this an conundrum of specificity vs. fatigue management? Absolutely not! Just do the
seated and incline moves in the months before your next meet and switch to standing presses
in the weeks before the meet itself.
This way you get the best of variation, fatigue management, AND specificity. And what's this
logically phased structure called, you ask? Why, periodization, of course.
Fatigue Accumulation
The effect of relative intensity on fatigue accumulation (given volume and absolute intensity
are held constant) is likely exponential in nature.
Thus, if you have to do 60 total reps in the squat with your approximate 10RM, doing all the
sets as 3's vs. 5's won't make a huge difference on the fatigue you generate from that session.
Doing all the sets as 6's vs. 8's will have a meaningful effect, and the 8's will fatigue you more,
being that they are closer to failure.
Doing all the sets as 9's (let's just say 1 rep shy of failure for each set) vs. taking each set to
concentric failure will have have a BIG difference on effect on the cumulative fatigue of that
training session, with the "to fail" approach causing much more fatigue for the same volume
and absolute intensity.
Because it's unlikely that stopping one or two reps shy of failure produces MUCH less
stimulus than going to failure but that going to failure produces MUCH more fatigue than
stopping just short, it's probably a good idea to use failure training very judiciously in a
program, especially for intermediate and advanced lifters.
Because it's not just about asking "how much more growth did training to failure give me?" It's
also about asking "how much more sub-maximal training could I have fit into the same amount
of fatigue and would that have grown me even more?"
Soreness and MRV
For the muscles that get sore from training (not all get regularly sore), can you use soreness
as a proxy for approximating how close you are to your MRV and thus if you should consider
adding or removing volume? To some extent, yes.
Best muscle growth requires plenty of muscle damage, but there's certainly such a thing as
too much. A good start for each of your accumulation weeks of your mesocycle except the last
would be to aim for a midrange soreness. A level that lets you know you hit it hard but nothing
that lasts for a week and seriously hinders daily movement. To catch the potential benefits of
overreaching, the last week of your accumulation phase (pre-deload) should get you very
sore. Still not insanity, but much more sore than usual.
Best strength training occurs with high volumes, but the volumes must be low enough to keep
fatigue lower than during size training. Why? Because while those training for size can be
pretty beat up and still grind the reps to present an overload, those training for strength need
to be much more fresh to present the high forces with good techniques that produce the best
strength adaptations. Those training for strength might aim to train with just enough volume so
that they don't get sore on a weekly basis or just get minimally sore, but with no more volume
than that. For the final pre-deload week of the meso, strength trainers will benefit from doing
more volume; enough to get them moderately sore but not much more than that.
Is this way of informing your training perfect? Not even close. But it might be a good start.
Let's put it this way: if you're training for size and you never get sore and if you're training for
strength and are always radically sore, you might be using to little or too much volume for your
goals.
Adding Cardio to Weight Training
Weights burn as much fat as cardio (if not more) and build/spare muscle better by a long shot.
So why do bodybuilders do weights PLUS cardio and swear that it's the best way to lose fat
and keep muscle?
The fundamental reason why weights plus cardio is the choice for bodybuilders is that weights
generate more fatigue PER CALORIE BURNED than cardio. Put another way, cardio is a
really good way to burn lots of calories at the lowest cost to the bodybuilder's total maximal
recoverable volume (MRV).
Especially when dieting down, your MRV is very constraining on how much work you can put
into the gym. Do too much and exceed your MRV, and muscle loss, stalled fat loss and injury
are not far behind. But when you're dieting, you've got a certain amount of calories to burn per
week, and unlike during massing, that's gotta fit into your MRV as well as weights. So the right
choice is to do as much weight training as possible THAT STILL LEAVES ENOUGH MRV
ROOM FOR CARDIO to burn the needed calories. If you try to get to that calorie amount with
weights alone, you'll overreach your MRV long before you reach the needed calorie burn. If
you try cardio alone, calories won't be a problem but muscle mass won't either when you lose
it all!
We can also see here why the biggest and hardest-training (most MRV-constrained)
bodybuilders usually choose lower intensity cardio; it has the highest calorie/fatigue ratio. You
can do more of it without draining your MRV as much and leaving more of it for weights. Does
that mean everyone should do this? No way. If you've only got a couple hours a week to train
to be leaner, it should all be weights cause you're nowhere near pushing recovery limits. If
you're training lots but not close to your limits, HIIT is good to add in to burn a ton of calories
and save tons of time, esp. if getting lean is more important to you than sparing max muscle.
But if you're pushing your training and cutting diet to the max and wanna save the most
muscle, low intensity cardio is the way to go.
When you are cutting, should you add cardio or reduce food intake?
I think that any approach the eschews either completely is probably not the best one.
If you do no cardio at all (and you are just trying to get lean; some strength sports get an
exemption from this), you have to drop your food intake so low that your metabolism will
slow down a ton and your cravings will skyrocket.
If you do minimal food lowering and add more cardio (some endurance athletes can use
this approach effectively), pretty soon you risk doing so much cardio that muscle loss,
wear and tear, and sheer time loss are big concerns.
For best cutting results for the physique-oriented, a combo of calorie cuts and cardio additions
is probably best.
Role of Maxes in Training
If you take training maxes (heavy singles in training), make sure it's for at least one of the
following two reasons:
1. You're using them to inform and alter future training.
2. You're using the maxes for direct stimulus as part of a logical program structure.
Make sure you're NOT just taking heavy singles "to see where I'm at." You should be able to
see where you're at (in a general sense, not discounting point 1 above) by just tracking your
performance in any rep range, including the one you're doing now. Keep that ego in check!
Chest
Chest Training Tips:
1. Flat and Incline Barbell Presses are still king for chest development. Most chest growth
programs should be built around them.
2. If you want your biggest chest, learn to arch and retract during pressing like a powerlifter.
A small arch and big retraction exposes your chest to more of the stress of the work,
prevents your shoulders from taking over the movement too much and keeps your
shoulder joints safer.
3. A big stretch and full lockout on each rep are important for full development. I pause
every rep at the bottom for more stretch and safety. If you're into ego lifting, you'll be
giving up gains and getting hurt more often.
4. Strict dumbbell and cable flyes are great for direct pec work, but the weight used is very
far behind in priority to strict technique and full ROM. If you use too much weight and
your flies look like presses, you have a problem.
5. Machines can be great for variation and for occasional intensity techniques like drop
sets.
6. Chest can be trained 2-4x per week with a total of 15-25 sets per week of 6-20 reps at
various times. Just like with all other moves, getting stronger slowly over time with strict
technique is the ticket to size.
Tips for Cable Flyes:
1. Unless your training is very advanced or you're hurt, it's best to do these after your heavy
compound chest pressing of that session is done. Flyes are great for added volume, but
won't be able to supply the very high forces also important for growth. Doing heavy
pressing first ensures that you get the best of both worlds and don't just use flyes to tire
out your ability to press.
2. As always, technique is paramount. The cables allow tension through the whole ROM
like even dumbbells cannot give, so take advantage by not only stretching at the bottom,
but by holding the peak contraction at the top. Especially for stronger lifters, I
recommend pausing at the bottom to keep the lift safe. Elbows should be barely
unlocked to reduce stress on them, but any sharper an angle and the movement starts to
look more like a press than the flye it's supposed to be.
3. This video was an actual work set. Yes, I'm using very little weight. That's on purpose
because it keeps this isolation move safe and keeps the reps higher to get the volume
I'm using this move for. Wanna go heavy? Great! They make barbell benches and
inclines for that. If you use cable flyes to feed your ego, you also probably borrow your
mom's car to hang out with your friends cause you're 16 years old.
Upper Chest Tips:
1. It's not rocket science. Focus on incline movements. You'll see some emg studies on
various other moves (reverse grip pressing, for example) being great for upper pec
stimulus, but take those with a big grain of salt, as just a few studies don't mean all that
much in the grand scheme. Especially when almost all athletes don't do any of these
funky moves. Now, feel free to try them, but don't just think the cutting edge stuff is all
you're gonna be doing.
2. Balance specificity with overload. Yes, isolation moves like incline flyes and cable flyes
are great, but they are best done in conjunction with the heavy incline compound
pressing of barbells and high volumes of pressing of dumbbells. Don't get carried away
with isolation moves and make sure to get your big pressing done.
3. To adapt AND recover, have some weekly chest workouts that DON'T focus on the
upper chest so that those fibers can heal and resensitize to further growth. So if you
have 3 chest training sessions per week, make 2 of them upper pec oriented but keep
one that avoids direct upper pec stimulus.
4. Use great, consistent technique and track your progress to make sure there's no
question mark about your long term gains. How much can you incline barbell and
dumbbell press for a max set of 10? Make sure to occasionally (every couple of months)
test your limits with good technique so that you can SEE these numbers going up and
don't have to just try to eyeball gains from your bathroom mirror. If you used to do 185 for
10 in the incline but you can now do 205 for 10... your upper pecs are probably getting
bigger!
Avoiding Common Mistakes on the Incline Dumbbell Press
1. Don't go too heavy.
Dumbbells are inherently unstable. This instability is detected by your nervous system
and your top-end force production is capped. Like trying to jump high when standing on
ice or trying to squat a lot from a bosu ball. The whole purpose of heavy weights is to
generate high forces, and since dumbbells can't do that, why use them for it? Use them
for volume. In addition, because of instability, heavy dumbbells can more easily
misgroove and can get you hurt, never mind how annoying it is to get them into position.
If you want heavy (which is great), they make barbells for that!
2. Don't cut your ROM
Very related to using dumbbells that are too heavy is the mistake of using dumbbells in a
shortened range of motion. A bunch of folks neither go up nor down all the way, robbing
themselves of full muscle activation and stretch-based hypertrophy as well. Most do this
for the same reason they go too heavy: ego. It's pretty simple... do you want to get
jacked or do you want to fool yourself into thinking you're strong? Dumbbell pressing can
be very humbling. I have incline pressed 335lbs for 10 with pauses and I only use at
most 100lbs on these; usually 80 or even 70 on down sets. Do the right thing. You show
up to the gym to grow, not to show off.
3. Don't touch the dumbbells to your mid chest
Some folks confuse incline presses for flat presses and try to push the dumbbells
forward during the motion. That makes the move awkward and actually reduces upper
pec involvement. Push the dumbbells up in a vertical line with respect to gravity and
touch the outsides of your front delts at the bottom for that full stretch. To those used to
flat pressing, this will in fact feel like you're pressing almost up and back, but you quickly
get used to it.
4. Don't bounce out of the bottom
More ego problems, and a great way to get hurt. Try full pauses at the deepest stretch
(touching the weights to the outsides of your shoulders) to mitigate this temptation.
Shoulders
Front Delt Training Tips:
1. Compound Pushing movements for chest work will take care of almost all front delt
stimulation. This means that for folks training chest regularly, MRV for specific front delt
work is as low as 6-10 working sets per week.
2. Almost all lifters will get more than enough front delt work from compound pushing alone
and won't have to do any specific work most times. From a bodybuilding perspective,
front delts that are too small for the physique are incredibly rare, and it's the rear and
side delts that need the work.
3. Because front delts get hit so much during chest training, most specific front delt work (if
you're even doing it) should usually be done after chest work, in that same session or
later in the day. Spreading your front delt work out too much over the week can leave
your front delts too fatigued for your chest work and interfere with that chest work.
4. Best exercises for front delts are all the pushing moves, and among them strict overhead
pressing is king. Barbells are key, but seated, standing, smith, dumbbell, and machine
work is all good for variation. You can use front raises sparingly, and when you do, I
recommend a supinated (palms up) grip with a full ROM and low weight, focusing on sets
of 10-15 and on slow eccentrics. Remember, heavy presses already took care of the
heavy work, so the lighter stuff is reserved for isolation.
Side Delt Training Tips:
1. Exercise Selection
The best exercises for side delts are usually a variation on upright rows and/or lateral
raises. Barbell, dumbbell, smith machine, and cable upright rows, and dumbbell lateral
raises. Cable and machine laterals can be ok, but in my experience are usually inferior to
the aforementioned exercises. In the end you have to do what you feel hits them most,
but be honest. Don't just do moves you like or are good at... do what hits the muscle.
2. Exercise Technique
As with most muscles but ESPECIALLY side delts, making sure to use strict technique
allows you to get the actual target muscle to do the work, reduces injury risk, and lets
you know if you're actually getting stronger vs. using crappier technique to get the reps.
Use the biggest ROM you can use without pain, which for most means lateral raises and
upright rows find the upper arm at or above parallel to the ground at the top, and for
many, another 10-15 degrees higher than that. Oh and if you're swinging much, you're
doing the exercises wrong.
3. Rep Ranges
For upright rows, as few as 6-8 reps can be done on occasions. But for most times, and
pretty much all times for lateral raises, reps of 8-20 keep the exercises safe on he
shoulders and provide the volume and metabolites needed for growth.
4. MRV
For most lifters, side delt maximal recoverable volumes are some of the highest of all
muscle groups. The small, fatigue resistant and quickly recovering side delts can handle
around 25 working sets per week, with almost everyone capable of 20 a week and many
able to handle 30 or more.
5. Frequencies
Side delts recover fast for most lifters. Training them 2x a week is the bare minimum for
anything resembling best results, and for most lifters, 3-4 times a week should be even
better. One or two of those sessions can be easier than the others to promote recovery-
adaptation.
More on Facebook! Check me out there, where I also answer way more questions
on all these kinds of posts! 'Just search 'Mike Israetel.'
Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press Tips:
1. Use high reps and low weights
Save the big weights for seated and standing barbell presses. Dumbbell pressing is
inherently unstable and thus not the best exercise with which to generate high forces.
Instead of high forces, aim for reps of 10-20 and lots of sets to put in high total volumes.
2. Go through a full ROM
If you're gonna use dumbbells, take the big advantage they can give you and use the
potential for enhanced range of motion to its fullest. I like to touch outside of my lateral
delts for each rep.
3. Use down sets
Shoulder presses fatigue easily, so feel free to do some down sets with lighter weight
once your working sets with heavier weight drop off.
Lateral Raise Tips:
1. The use of weights too heavy for proper technique is a huge problem for many people
doing lateral raises. The cool thing is, there ARE exercises for these muscles in which
bigger weights can be used (upright rows, shoulder presses, barbell face pulls), but
lateral raises are not one of them. I can strict upright row 135 for sets of 10, can
overhead press 245 for sets of 10, but only use around 40lbs for laterals, just to give
some perspective. Anything much under 8 reps per set is probably too heavy a job for
laterals.
2. Going higher usually activates the delts more. So long as it doesn't bother you, go above
parallel each time.
3. Arm bend can be anything you want, but the more you bend them, the more weight you
have to use and the more your grip becomes a limiting factor. I prefer elbows just slightly
bent to keep that joint safe but keep the weights low.
4. Milking out the eccentric can be a great way to get more out of this exercise. Don't just
let the dumbbells drop down each rep.
5. It's ok to swing a little to keep your balance and accommodate for the change in center of
mass through the motion. But that's different than swinging to get the weight up. You
KNOW the difference when you're doing it, so don't BS yourself!
Tips for Rear Delt Development:
1. Heavy compound rowing and vertical pulling moves are the biggest factor to rear delt
development. It's from these that you're getting most of your rear delt stimulation and
because you do them as part of your back training anyway, you're almost all the way to
full rear delt development just by training your back! This means that you won't ever have
to do a TON of specific work for rear delts.
2. When training your medial delts (future post to come), there is a considerable amount of
rear delt involvement. This coupled with back training greatly lowers your rear delt MRV.
However, your MRV for rear delts will still be between 12-18 sets per week on average
even with these factors taken into account. Why still so high? Because for most lifters,
the rear delts recover incredibly quickly and can handle a ton of work.
3. Because they recover quickly, rear delts can be isolated 3-6 times per week, and I'd
venture to say that for this muscle, even 2x a week might be missing out just a bit of
growth gained by going up to at least 3 sessions. If rear delt development is a big goal
for you, this means that you might train rear delts during most if not all of your training
sessions for the week. And what about having a "rear delt day" in your split? Leave that
to the bros.
4. Going along with point 1, we can see that back training has largely taken care of
stimulating the big, fast twitch fibers of the rear delts. This is the beginning of the
argument that when you isolate the rear delts, you should use lighter weights (10-30
reps) and more metabolite techniques (supersets, drop sets, etc.) because the heavy
conventional training is already taken care of with back. The other part of the argument
for training rear delts lighter is technique-based. ONLY with lighter weights can you
execute the NEAR-PERFECT techniques needed to actually isolate the rear delts. As
soon as you start moving heavier weight, there is a huge temptation to use other
muscles and that basically turns into more back or medial delt/trap training really quick.
When you train rear delts, focus on technique FIRST and the feel/burn/pump second.
Dumbbell Upright Row
This is one of my favorite medial and rear delt exercises, the dumbbell upright row. A couple
technique rules I use:
1. I go as high up as I can without pain. If you can go higher, do it, but if not, just keep your
ROM to whatever is pain free.
2. Always lead with the elbows up.
3. Hold at the top for a split second.
4. I like to pull up and back to make sure medial and rear delts are hit, not front delts.
5. Always go down under control and all the way.
6. Anything heavier than your 10RM on these will just be an unstable attempt at max effort
and yield little results. Sets of about 15 reps work best for me on this exercise.
7. Pull the dumbbells slightly out to the sides as you go up instead of keeping them closer
together in front of your body. This makes it more of a delt and less of a biceps exercise.
Arms
What I've been doing to bring up my arms:
1. Higher frequency
I used to train my biceps twice a week and my triceps every 5 days. Now I train my
biceps 4x a week and my triceps 2x a week. The weekly total volume is a much higher
for biceps but only a bit higher for triceps, but the higher frequency alone seems to make
a difference in growth.
2. Moderate and high reps
Because biceps get plenty of heavy work from back training and because isolation
moves are not very safe to do heavy, I train my biceps with reps between 8 and 16 on
most occasions.
3. Strict technique
I never cheat curl. Some people have come up with all sorts of justifications for loose
technique, and all of them are ego-feeding bullshit. Also, every bicep move is full ROM.
Yeah, I'm not the guy at the gym curling the most, but I often have the biggest arms.
4. Planned progression
I keep track of the weights, reps, and sets I use. I'll design my training to periodically
exceed those old values and establish higher ones. If you just 'train hard' and don't plan
on pushing yourself further, it's easier to get complacent and not overload enough.
5. Exercise Variation
I use two bicep moves 2x a week every mesocycle. Every meso (month), I pick two new
bicep moves and use them the whole month. This allows for a reduction in adaptive
resistance and a growth of all parts of the muscle.
6. Emphasis, De-Emphasis
Every other mesocycle I either focus on bicep training or rear/medial delt training. I do
this by training the focus bodypart earlier in each session (more energy for overload) and
using volume close to MRV. The deemphasized bodypart is trained later in the session
with about 2/3 MRV. This strategy allows both bodyparts to grow long term without
stalling out.
7. Take pics in front of strange objects like garden hoses.
Triceps Training Tips:
1. The triceps are a big, strong muscle. Such a muscle can benefit greatly from heavy
loading and compound or semi-compound moves. The best tricep builders in my
experience are:
Skull Crushers
Overhead Barbell or EZ Extensions
Dips
Close Grip Bench and Incline Presses
You can do all kinds of other work and should for full development, but most
(maybe 2/3 on average) of your triceps work should come from those moves.
1. As is the case with all muscles, stretch under load is important. And especially in the
case of the triceps, peak contraction is important too because that's often when the
triceps take over the most in pressing. In addition, more motor units are recruited during
full ROM lifts. If we all got paid a dollar for every tricep extension done without full stretch
or lockout, we'd all be very rich, which is not a great state of affairs. Yes, full ROM and
peak contraction mean less weight used. But guess what? Heavy triceps training is
already taken care of during presses! Isolation work should be kept higher in reps and of
course high in quality. Wanna big a big man? Incline close grip 225 for sets of 12 instead
of trying to be a one-arm cable extension quarter-rep hero.
2. The MRV range for direct triceps work tends to be between 15 and 20 sets per week.
Rarely over 20 because triceps are so heavily involved in pressing moves for the chest
and shoulders (and the long head in pulling moves, too). So the muscle's volume
tolerance is quite high, but direct work doesn't reflect nearly all the volume the triceps
can handle.
3. Triceps can take a lot of damage and can take a while to heal. 2-4 weekly sessions for
them are best, with very advanced lifters possibly only having one or two big triceps
sessions and a second or third much easier triceps session to promote
recovery/adaptation.
4. Splitting up triceps training can take many forms, but a very productive split involves
alternating overhead work (oh extensions) with horizontal work (skulls) or with downward
work (pushdowns, dips). This develops the whole muscle without overreaching any parts
of it and works to reduce chronic injuries.
Biceps Training Tips:
1. Barbell, EZ bar and dumbbell curls seem best, but cables can be useful at times
especially for drop sets and variations.
2. Vary grips once a mesocycle (straight, EZ, hammer, etc.) but don't do any grip that hurts
your wrists, shoulders or elbows even when you've played around with hand spacing.
3. You're not in high school and the other sex doesn't give a shit how much you curl, so cut
out the partial reps and swinging. Curls should be done with full range of motion and as
little swing as possible if you want bigger arms.
4. Most people's biceps don't take on much damage and heal very quickly, which means
they should be trained more often, probably 3-6 days a week for most. Training my
biceps more frequently was one of the best decisions I ever made for arm size. There
should not be a 'biceps day' in your program.
5. 15-30 sets is the typical MRV for biceps, so you'll have to spread that out over 3-6
sessions. On some days you can train them earlier in the workout with more volume and
intensity, on others you can train them with less volume and intensity towards the end of
a workout. Using different exercises for those different days can provide excellent
variation and promote recovery/adaptation while minimizing overuse injury potential.
6. You can build impressive arms by compound pulling only, but to get maximal
development you should isolate the biceps with curls. Chest flies done right can also
provide some eccentric loading to the biceps.
7. Many people will respond well to intensity techniques such as drop sets, ultra high rep
sets and occlusion training for a metabolite stimulus. Just make sure not to overuse them
and keep conventional straight sets with progressing weight in the 8-16 range for around
2/3 of your bicep training.
8. When taking pics of your biceps, make sure to do it in a bathroom no-pic zone and
include folks just walking by to use the john in your pictures.
Hammer Curl Tips:
1. You already use very heavy weights in a hammer grip for most rows and pull-ups, so
that's taken care of. For an isolation move like this, lighter weights will usually be the
focus. This is also a bonus as it reduces injury risk and lets you really focus on quality
technique.
2. A lot of people LOVE to show off on hammer curls by swinging a lot of weight around.
Somehow by the grace of god I managed to get decent arms by only ever using about
half the weight of all the gym heroes. My weird tricks? Using a full ROM and not swinging
of course! I also like to squeeze the peak contraction, but that's mostly a personal choice
I may or may not recommend to others.
3. You CAN do one arm at a time, but I like bilateral moves more in general. Your call there,
just don't use it as an excuse to loosen up technique.
4. I use these as one of my two bicep moves per mesocycle pretty regularly. They are in
the rotation with cable curls, barbell curls, regular dumbbell curls and EZ bar curls. I train
biceps after every upper body workout, which is 4x per week, with 3-6 sets each time.
Forearm Training Tips:
1. The VAST majority of your forearm training will be in front of your computer, at home, by
yourself. JUST KIDDING!!! (I hope). Ok seriously, the vast majority of your forearm
training will come as secondary work from gripping weights during your normal heavy
training, especially in pulling movements.
2. For your normal pulling training to transfer best to forearm growth, make sure you only
use straps WHEN YOU NEED THEM. I see guys strapping into pulldowns, for example,
and that just tells me your forearms need serious work. For heavy bent rows and deadlift
variants, strap up for sure (cause you don't want to limit your back via your forearms), but
for the rest, use just chalk and let your grip get some work.
3. If you choose to do direct forearm training, your MRV here will be between 10-15 sets
per week in most cases. I recommend using barbell and dumbbell wrist curls (where you
let the weight roll all the way down to your finger tips, then curl all the way back up to
squeeze and repeat slowly) as well as grippers (Ironmind, for example) for most forearm
training. Use 8-20 reps per set and do QUALITY contractions, getting a full ROM and
holding peak contractions for a second or two. You don't isolate this muscle to just heave
weight around... your pulling already does that.
4. Isometric holds are ok, but a.) Isometric contractions don't cause as much muscle growth
as dynamic ones and b.) your pulling training already accomplishes this effect.
5. If you choose, train your forearms either the day after back training or at the end of a
back session. Don't train back before your forearms have healed, or you'll interfere with
the growth of both muscle groups.
6. Don't expect overnight results. Forearm growth takes a long time, and the surefire way to
get big forearms is to gain weight over time and get your back stronger... the direct work
is icing on the cake.
Legs
Quad Training Tips:
1. The typical MRV for quads is between 15 and 25 sets per week. Some very big and
strong lifters will fall under 15 per week, some smaller lifters esp females might tolerate
just over 25 sets per week.
2. Most will benefit from between 2 and 4 quad training sessions per week. Because quad
training is so disruptive and fatiguing, it's usually best to have half the sessions very
overloading and half as easier sessions. A good way to do this is by having one session
type be very quad focused (heavier weights, higher set numbers, more proximity to
failure), then the next session train quads easier (lighter weights and/or lower set
numbers and less failure proximity). A great setup example of this is to focus on quads
on the quad session and train hams and glutes easy, then go hard on hams and glutes
the next session while backing off on quads.
3. In any quad exercise you employ, full range of motion is a must for full development and
the independent hypertrophic stimulus of stretch under load. There's NO pump and
soreness like that of full rom quad moves. In addition, less weight on the bar has to be
used, which means less fatigue and less wear and tear. And always use good technique,
staying tight and in stable position.
4. The most effective exercises for quads are movements that heavily tax the quads, but
are compound and allow for heavy loading (not leg extensions!). Some of these moves
include olympic-style high bar squats, deep leg presses and hack squats. You can totally
use other moves (lunges, belt squats, etc) but there's not much you can't do with just
those big 3, mostly focusing on squats themselves.
5. Typical rep ranges for growth can be between 6 and 20 reps, with higher reps (30+),
occlusion training and drop sets being used on occasion. For fatigue and sustainability
reasons, I'd only do this once every couple months but a total of 100 reps in the leg
press with 1 minute rests between mini-sets with a weight you can do for 30 reps on the
first set is WILD. Do 2-3 sets of squats for 10's after and your quads will BLOW UP.
Special Quad Training Techniques:
In an earlier post I already went over quad training basics. Just a few special technique tips
here, mostly for the metabolite training phase or those who have some trouble getting their
quads to grow.
1. 30RM Leg Press Fun
Not a typo, yes, 30. Get within 2 reps of failure each time for a total of 4-6 sets with 1 min
rest ONLY. Full ROM a must. Just 2-3 sets of 12 in light squats after and say goodbye to
proper walking for the next few days.
2. Occlusion Hack Squats
Tie off your quads as high as possible at the hips with a tight tourniquet. Put your 20RM
on the hack squat and get to work, only taking the tourniquets off every 2 sets, and only
taking a minute break between sets. Full ROM reps for 4-6 sets, 2 shy of failure each set.
Finish the workout off with 2-3 sets of 12 in the high bar squat. Again, forget walking for a
few days.
3. Leg Extension HELL.
After 3-6 sets of squats for 8-12 reps, put your 30rm on the leg extension machine (if it
doesn't bother your knees). Each rep should move up quick, take a FULL SECOND to
hold at the top, and the eccentric should take 3 whole seconds. Reach 1 rep from failure,
then drop the weight by 10lbs, rest only 30 seconds, and repeat. 5-8 sets total. Now, at
the end of the last set, put your hands behind your head, take your high bar squat stance
with only bodyweight (no bar), and begin squatting. Take 3 full seconds on the way
down, stop just short of lockout on the way up, and NEVER pause to rest. Do as many
squats as you can. Once you can't get up, you're done for the day!
PS: If you do one of these workouts, the other quad workouts in that week should
be much easier to allow for recovery.
PPS: If you do one of these and get it on video, I'd love to see it and laugh at/with
you!
Common Mistakes in Quad Training:
1. Avoiding squats
Squats are painful and uncomfortable. There are dozens of other quad exercises to
choose from, so why do squats? Because they work best, and pretty close to every set of
the best legs ever has been built with a foundation of squats. If you're having trouble
feeling them in your quads or they tend to get you hurt, your first priority should be to
work on your squat technique, not abandon squats.
2. Not squatting for best quad stimulus:
If you're not feeling squats in your quads, make sure you try the following:
Stay as upright as you're able.
Keep your stance as close as you can to shoulder width. Narrower is ok but no big
bonus. Much wider is no longer as quad-taxing.
Squat as low as you can with good technique.
Buy and use weightlifting shoes. For many they make a night and day difference.
Use sets of 6 reps or more most times. The only place you feel heavier than that is in
your connective tissue.
3. Partial ranges of motion:
Full range of motion gives you that combination of tension while stretching that yields the
most growth, and by going through full ROM, you stimulate all parts of the muscle. Check
the ego at the door and use full ROM on all quad moves.
4. Low frequency training:
Your quads don't grow for a whole week after a single training session, so why would
you only train them once a week? Try 2-3x a week for best results, spreading out your
usual weekly volume over those sessions.
5. Using too many exercises per session:
You can spur new growth by doing exercises you're not accustomed to. But if every quad
session you do squats, hack squats, leg presses, extensions and lunges, what do you
use for variation later? Try sticking to only 2-3 quad moves per week for 4-6 weeks at a
time and then rotating out the old moves and rotating in the new moves. If you need
more volume in any session, just do more sets or drop sets! 3x10 is no magic formula,
and there's nothing wrong with 5x10 or 6x10.
6. More on Facebook!
Hamstring Training Tips:
1. Because of the complex nature of the muscle, hamstrings are hit best by both doing hip-
extension movements (such as stiff legged deads, good mornings and glute/ham raises)
and leg curls. Splitting these two types of exercises up into different weekly workouts can
be a good approach. For example, Monday you can do lots of stiff legged deads,
Wednesday you can do lots of curls, and Friday you can do lots of glute-ham raises.
2. Attention to proper technique can make a world of difference in hip-hinge hamstring
movements. If you let your back round too much or your knees bend too much, tension is
taken off of the hams and transferred to the spinal muscles and glutes respectively. Keep
your chest up, back arched, and knees just slightly bent on all stiff legged deads, good
mornings, and glute/ham extensions.
3. Hamstrings take on a lot of damage, so they can take a while to recover. 2-3 sessions
per week will be best for most.
4. Always go through a full range of motion. Get a deep, painful stretch at the bottom (make
sure you feel it in your hams) of all hip extension movements and get a full contraction at
the top of all leg curls. For safety and to make sure the hams are being targeted, I
recommend doing the eccentric over 2-4 seconds and pausing all hip extension reps at
the bottom for a split second before going back up. Leg curls should also be squeezed at
the top for a split second and lowered slowly.
5. Reps should be between 5 and 15 most of the time, since hams tend to be a bit more
fast twitch. But, match your exercise to the rep range. Save sets of 10+ for leg curls (so
that your back doesn't fatigue too early like it will with hip extension moves) and save
sets of 5-10 for the hip extension moves (since low reps on isolation moves are a bit
riskier and possibly not as effective).
6. Every mesocycle, choose new variations of exercises and progress through weights and
volumes. Try high and low bar good mornings, regular and sumo sldls, glute/ham and
back raises of all kinds, and lying, seated, and one-leg curls.
7. Stiff legged deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts are the same exercise in bodybuilding.
Calf Training for Muscle Size/Bodybuilding:
1. Exercise Selection
Because the calves are composed of two distinct muscles, we can consider the best type
of exercises for each. The gastrocnemius is the superficial, upper 'diamond shaped' part
of the calf. The soleus is the deep, longer part of the calf, and its muscle belly is more
uniform down the length of the shank. Gastroc training will use a variety of calf raises
with a straight knee, while the soleus can best be targeted with a bent knee. Any raises
work, but they have to conform to the technique rules below to be most effective.
2. Exercise Technique
Because of the design of the calves, they take a ton of damage from being put in a
stretched position under load, additionally, they are well designed to generate a peak
contraction, as they don't really run into any other muscles (like your hams do when your
glutes stop you from leg curling further up). Exercises that accentuate the stretch and
contraction are thus very prized, and should be preferred over ones that don't. For
example, calf raises with dumbbells should be done off of a ledge or step and stretched
deep, not just done standing on a flat surface. Because of the design of the muscles and
their attachments, bent-leg calf work does not target the gastrocs, so it should only be
done if soleus work is desired.
3. Rep Ranges
On average, gastrocs tend to me much more fast twitch than the soleus muscles, which
are mostly slow twitch. Soleus muscles thus grow much less than gastrocs, which is
usually a good thing because small gastrocs and large soleus muscles tend to give the
calves a 'kankle-like' appearance. However, some individuals have very large soleus
muscles and small gastrocs ('long calves'), so they are better off doing a lot of soleus
work because all the gastroc work in the world won't help them much. For soleusdominant or otherwise slower-twitch folks, higher reps and shorter rests are best, with
reps as high as 30 and rests as short as 15s. For faster twitch folks, heavy sets of 8 reps
or so can be best, with up to a minute rest between sets. For most of us, a mix between
those two is best, biased slightly to the heavy side.
4. MRV
Highly variable and depends a TON on average fiber type. Slower twitch folks can get up
to 30 sets a week no problem. Faster twitch folks might cap out at 10 sets. Ironically, this
means that people with the biggest calves usually need to train them the least.
5. Frequencies
Very fiber-type dependent, just like MRV. Slow twitch can train once every day or other
day, fast twitch sometimes just 2x per week. Generally, if your calves aren't sore, train
them.
6. Progression
As with all other lifts, add weight over time! But don't sacrifice technique to do so.
7. Periodization
The usual high volume, metabolite, low volume sequence likely applies, but with variation
in length. Faster twitch folks will spend more time in the high volume phase and have
very short (maybe 2 week) metabolite phases. Slower twitch calf owners will spend some
time with conventional high volumes, but might spend much longer in the metabolite
blocks.
Back
What are the 'secrets' to a big back?
1. Stick mostly to compound basics like bent rows and pull-ups.
2. Use strict, full ROM.
3. Use between 5 and 20 rep sets depending on the training phase.
4. Train back between 2 and 4 times per week.
5. Do between 15 and 30 working sets per week depending on your MRV.
6. Progress in weights used slowly and steadily; regular 10lb PRs are the ticket to size, not
50lb PRs once in a blue moon.
7. Eat for size and give it YEARS. Big backs don't grow overnight.
Tips for training traps:
1. Most of your trap growth will come from movements you already do for other bodyparts.
Full range of motion bent rows, upright rows, deadlifts of all kinds, squats (traps used to
keep a good frame) and overhead presses will all give a great start to your traps without
any dedicated work.
2. Because of #1, the MRV for direct trap work will only be between 10 and 15 sets per
week for most experienced trainers. Still pretty high because traps tend to recover very
rapidly and be very fatigue resistant.
3. When training traps, your focus should be on FULL range of motion for max development
of the muscle and to make sure you're actually using your traps. Putting 6 plates on each
side of the bar and doing 'the funky chicken' dance where you bob your head down to
pretend your traps actually moved the weight mostly just pisses away good training time.
Each rep should start from full scapular depression and end in a 1-second hold at the top
of full scapular elevation.
4. #3 implies that the weights used for shrugs will not be high, and that's correct. You
wanna be a big man and lift heavy, grow a pair and deadlift. Trap training isn't ego
training if you actually want big traps.
5. Reps between 6 and 20 depending on weight, and make sure to vary exercises every
mesocycle or so from barbell shrugs to cable shrugs to dumbbell shrugs to bench shrugs
(where you lie face down on a 60 degree incline bench and shrug from that position).
Row to Chest Tips:
1. It targets the upper back (traps, rhomboids) a bit more than the lats.
2. I've been holding the peak contraction at the top of each rep for a second. Holy CRAP
does that make this hard. I've bent-rowed 315 for 4x10 and 140 for 10 reps like this is
tough!
3. I use this in my meso-meso (once a month) rotation of free weight rowing moves, along
with conventional barbell rows, underhand EZ rows, and cambered bar rows (amazing
exercise) when I get the chance
4. If you cheat on this exercise, the low weight used makes it pretty much pointless
Posterior Chain
Glute Training for Muscle Size/Bodybuilding:
1. Exercise Selection
There are 7 classes of exercise I'd say target glutes in a pretty significant way. Before
that list, it's critical to mention that A TON of your glute stimulus will come from deep
squatting, RDLs, bent rows, and the many other exercises you do for back and legs. But
for more specific glute work, the following movement categories are very effective:
Glute Bridges
Lunges
Glute-Ham or 45 degree back raises
Sumo squats
Sumo deadlifts (especially deficit)
Pull-throughs
Glute machine kickbacks
2. Exercise Technique
Squatting and deadlifting activate glutes maximally at the bottom of the movement, the
lower the better. For the specific glute moves, there is likely benefit to exaggerating the
peak contraction as well. So with glute training technique, always do full rom and don't
just heave the weight around; squeeze the glutes hard at the top for a split second.
3. Rep Ranges
Anything heavier than 5 reps and you won't be able to guarantee that glutes don't get lost
in the noise, especially if you're not very in touch with yours. 5-15 rep sets are best for
glutes.
4. MRV
For growth purposes, glute-specific weekly MRV tends to be between 10 and 15 sets per
week. TOTAL MRV for the glutes is much higher for most, but leg and back training
swallow up a bunch of that.
5. Frequencies
Glutes are a huge muscle and need their recovery. Also, because they are used all the
time in other bodypart training, they get plenty of extra work and basically a ton of 'light
sessions' for recovery just by being used as supporting muscles. 2-3x a week direct
training is a good range for most who wish to bring up their glutes.
6. Progression
Seek to add weights to the bar (5-20lbs) every week while adding or maintaining set
numbers and keeping reps constant. You get big glutes not by doing 1 million reps but by
getting strong in the 5-15 rep range on the glute movements.
7. Periodization
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Using Deadlifts for Muscle Size/Bodybuilding:
1. Exercise Selection When using deadlifts for muscle size, numerous effective variations
can be employed. This allows both for exercise staleness to be minimized and for certain
muscle groups to benefit from more direct focus (directed variation). Good choices
include:
Conventional Deadlifts (all around back development)
Deficit Deadlifts (back and glute development)
Sumo Deadlifts (glute and adductor development)
Deficit Sumo (glute and adductor development)
Stiff-legged deadlifts (same as RDLs) (hamstring development)
Partial deadlifts (for when you want to save leg MRV)
2. Exercise Technique
You can only grow long term if you stay mostly injury free. By far the worst kind of
injuries to have to suffer through are the preventable ones. I recommend ALWAYS
having a neutral or lordotic spine (never rounding) and stopping and starting all reps).
Always keep your arms straight. Always keep the bar close to your body. Fuck around
with bad technique if you wanna get hurt and grow less; it's as simple as that.
3. Rep Ranges
Spinal erectors and hams tend to grow well even from reps as low as 5s. Anywhere from
5 to 15 reps is a good range for deads, with anything much over 15 becoming either a
technique/fatigue limitation or a grip limitation, not much of a stimulus.
4. MRV
For growth purposes, deadlift weekly MRV tends to be between 5 and 10 sets per week.
Yep, not much, as deads are VERY fatiguing.
5. Frequencies
Once a week seems plenty for deads. Of course you hit the muscles involved with other
exercises on other sessions during the week, so once a week is not all the muscles get
in total. I'd place deads as far away from your heaviest squat and bent row days as
possible to make sure there is minimal interference.
6. Progression
Seek to add weights to the bar (5-20lbs) every week while adding or maintaining set
numbers and keeping reps constant. You do deads because they are heavy, so make
them heavier over time. Want a big back? Add 50lbs to your 10s deadlift ability over a
year or so and you'll have one.
7. Periodization
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