Max strength gains to date are during my current program S2B. This is built for specifically Hypertrophy but Phase III uses Wave Loading and my body really responded well to that. Lots stronger.
Book Of Muscle I gained a lot of strength and mass.
Scrawny to Brawny I gained a lot of strength! Some mass.
I'd have to add in also that BoM is a 6 month long program as opposed to StB only being 4 months or so.
__________________
"When he was six, he believed that the moon overhead followed him. By nine, he deciphered the illusion, trading magic for fact, no trade-backs. So this is what it's like to be an adult? If he only knew now what he knew then."
Max OT for strength
My custom Max OT over planes of movement again for strength
Barely Legal is beating me up atm, so I'll throw it in here simply b/c all the supersetting is kicking my ass.
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"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -- T.S. Eliot
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."-- Aristotle
For strength, my first real taste was a program I hired Bill Starr to design for Men's Fitness, which was kind of a modified version of his Big Three. (His Big Three are squat, bench, and power clean. We used the high pull instead of the clean.) It had heavy, medium, and light days, and it was my first real clue that strength was connected to hypertrophy.
A couple years later, when I was at MH, Mike Mejia introduced me to Charles Poliquin, and I made another big step forward. Poliquin's ideas were mostly about hypertrophy, but that was the first time I really got the idea of using compound movements like chin-ups and dips for vanity goals like bigger arms.
(Mike introduced me to Alwyn Cosgrove and Dr. Eric Serrano that same day. Eight years later, Alwyn and I have a book coming out and Eric is still a go-to guy for nutritional information.)
Ian King's programs were my next "light bulb" moment. I realized the importance of balance in program design, not just of "body parts" but of the actual human movements those "body parts" were designed to perform.
Then Craig Ballantyne clued me in to Westside training, and I've spent most of the past four years working with pretty heavy weights because of that.
Another step forward came when I got to meet and work with Mark Verstegen on Core Performance. (Although I have to say that book required less "work" than just about any other, thanks to his coauthor, Pete Williams.) That's when I developed a greater appreciation of how to use dynamic movements to warm up for lifting.
It's amazing to look back at what I considered a good workout 8 or 10 years ago, compared to what I do now, because of what I learned from these guys.
And I'm happy to say there's a lot more to come. I recently had a paradigm-shifting encounter with an experimental strength program designed by a trainer you've heard of. Now the trainer and I are trying to figure out what to do with it, since it's not really something that would make sense in a conventional book-publishing situation.
The next frontier for me is fat loss, conditioning, and cardiac health. I'm not particularly fat or deconditioned, and I certainly don't have heart problems. But I've been researching all those topics (and learning directly from Alwyn, because of his research), and from what I've picked up so far, the things that help you lose fat are also the things that improve your heart's functional abilities. And, to my surprise, they aren't the obvious things.
That's what keeps me going -- there's always something new to learn and share with readers.
Lou, I think most good programs have always have a few key factors that make them good. Most of the best in the field of training just put different aspects of importance to each aspect in their writing. In the end they really have a few common threads usually IMHO:
1) Hard Sets(5x5 ala Starr, 10x3 ala Waterbury).
These are proven to stimulate growth
2) Managment of Stimulus and Fatigue(this is done many diff way IE: linear vs conjugated systems)
3) Big movements(Squats, DL's, Rows)
4) Core Strength
5) Balanced Volume for all body parts
6) Brings light to warmup,flexibility, etc.
Any program that has these things will pretty much be successful. How cmoplicated you go with one aspect will probably depend on your needs and your training age.
Pendlay said something once that I absolutely think every lifter should live by. I am paraphrasing as I dont remeber it exactly but basically it went something like
"Only make lifting as complicated as it needs to be for you to see results."
Originally posted by Lou Schuler: ....the things that help you lose fat are also the things that improve your heart's functional abilities. And, to my surprise, they aren't the obvious things.
Are you going to keep us in suspense about this?
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"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
The short answer is "intermittent exercise," better known as intervals.
That's because the gap between maximum heart rate and resting heart rate, and the speed at which your heart can shift from one to the other, are far more predictive of heart disease and heart attack than the conventional measurements, like cholesterol levels.
We also know that intervals are best for fat loss.
The "big tent" theme I'm working on is how intermittent exercise, particularly the start-stop rhythms of sports, are the key to everything -- heart health, body-fat control, and lifelong enjoyment of physical activity.
There's a lot of material, and I'm just starting to pull it together in various ways.
1) Hard Sets(5x5 ala Starr, 10x3 ala Waterbury).
These are proven to stimulate growth
For discussion sake, how and when were these methods proven to stimulate muscle hypertrophy? I can understand the general message of 'hard sets' but the set/rep/intensity of 5 x 5 and 10 x 3 is what I am questioning.
__________________
Robert dos Remedios, MA, CSCS,
HCC (Hartman-Cosgrove Certified)
Director of Speed, Strength & Conditioning
College of the Canyons, CA http://www.canyons.edu/departments/pe/strength
"NO CHAMPION HAS EVER ACHIEVED HIS OR HER GOAL WITHOUT SHOWING MORE DEDICATION THAN THE NEXT PERSON; MAKING MORE SACRIFICES THAN THE NEXT PERSON; WORKING HARDER, TRAINING, AND CONDITIONING HIM / HERSELF MORE THAN THE NEXT PERSON; ENJOYING HIS / HER FINAL GOAL MORE THAN THE NEXT PERSON"
Dos, Can you provide a link to a DOS approved program that works well for Hypertrophy.
Im looking for something new that is not sports specific and my primary goal is hypertrophy. I am less concerned with gaining strength at this time, and more concerned with gaining more size. I consider myself an advanced lifter so Oly style movements and complex lifts are fine.
Originally posted by Lou Schuler: The short answer is "intermittent exercise," better known as intervals.
That's because the gap between maximum heart rate and resting heart rate, and the speed at which your heart can shift from one to the other, are far more predictive of heart disease and heart attack than the conventional measurements, like cholesterol levels.
We also know that intervals are best for fat loss.
The "big tent" theme I'm working on is how intermittent exercise, particularly the start-stop rhythms of sports, are the key to everything -- heart health, body-fat control, and lifelong enjoyment of physical activity.
There's a lot of material, and I'm just starting to pull it together in various ways.
Interesting posts, Lou. I've had a couple of PE type guys tells me that in their experience, martial artists are some of the best overall conditioned people they've ever met. I would think that is despite the fact that a lot of what ma's do is not necessarily pumping iron or lots of running. But there is something to the overall total body work capacity in a workout/class that seems to offer a lot of benefit.
Newlife, it's not like I have a magical program or anything. I just believe that the concept of higher volumes + adequate loads + appropriate rest intervals is the key to muscle hypertrophy. When I train our kids and we are in a hypertrophy cycle say doing 4 x 8. I will tell them to warm-up then go as heavy as they can for 8. If they get 8 and can do another 1-2 reps, they will. Then, on the next set, they will go up in weight. If they fail to get 8, they will finish the 8 with a spotter then lower the weight for the 3rd set etc. Basically, we don't want to waste any sets or any REPS for that matter. The goal is to complete 4 x 8 with a butt-kicking load.
I know it's not glamorous but there are a lot of very effective training methods that are far from glamorous if you know what I mean.
Here is a link to our spring FB lifting....notice that we have a 5 week Hypertrophy cycle at the beginning. I have not updated it recently but we have actually added a little more volume since then (4 x 10 and even up to 5 x 8 at times). Also, we have exercises that we perform that are not listed on the schedule such as pull-ups, presses, single leg multi-joint movements, hip dominant movements etc. We also vary most of these lifts from bilateral to unilateral. FB Spring lifting
__________________
Robert dos Remedios, MA, CSCS,
HCC (Hartman-Cosgrove Certified)
Director of Speed, Strength & Conditioning
College of the Canyons, CA http://www.canyons.edu/departments/pe/strength
"NO CHAMPION HAS EVER ACHIEVED HIS OR HER GOAL WITHOUT SHOWING MORE DEDICATION THAN THE NEXT PERSON; MAKING MORE SACRIFICES THAN THE NEXT PERSON; WORKING HARDER, TRAINING, AND CONDITIONING HIM / HERSELF MORE THAN THE NEXT PERSON; ENJOYING HIS / HER FINAL GOAL MORE THAN THE NEXT PERSON"
And I do undertsand what you are saying about the glamorous workouts. I was playing with 10x3 and 5x5 and moving more weight each workout, but my size gains started to vanish. I saw a post from you about a month ago about volume and the difference between 10x3 and 3x10. I went back to 4x8 and 4x10 and my gain in size is now starting to show again.
My son followed one of Dos's posted bball workouts last summer. He made great progress, better than he did with the pre & during football program at his school.
Originally posted by Lou Schuler: For strength, my first real taste was a program I hired Bill Starr to design for Men's Fitness, which was kind of a modified version of his Big Three. (His Big Three are squat, bench, and power clean. We used the high pull instead of the clean.) It had heavy, medium, and light days, and it was my first real clue that strength was connected to hypertrophy.
A couple years later, when I was at MH, Mike Mejia introduced me to Charles Poliquin, and I made another big step forward. Poliquin's ideas were mostly about hypertrophy, but that was the first time I really got the idea of using compound movements like chin-ups and dips for vanity goals like bigger arms.
(Mike introduced me to Alwyn Cosgrove and Dr. Eric Serrano that same day. Eight years later, Alwyn and I have a book coming out and Eric is still a go-to guy for nutritional information.)
Ian King's programs were my next "light bulb" moment. I realized the importance of balance in program design, not just of "body parts" but of the actual human movements those "body parts" were designed to perform.
Then Craig Ballantyne clued me in to Westside training, and I've spent most of the past four years working with pretty heavy weights because of that.
Another step forward came when I got to meet and work with Mark Verstegen on Core Performance. (Although I have to say that book required less "work" than just about any other, thanks to his coauthor, Pete Williams.) That's when I developed a greater appreciation of how to use dynamic movements to warm up for lifting.
It's amazing to look back at what I considered a good workout 8 or 10 years ago, compared to what I do now, because of what I learned from these guys.
And I'm happy to say there's a lot more to come. I recently had a paradigm-shifting encounter with an experimental strength program designed by a trainer you've heard of. Now the trainer and I are trying to figure out what to do with it, since it's not really something that would make sense in a conventional book-publishing situation.
The next frontier for me is fat loss, conditioning, and cardiac health. I'm not particularly fat or deconditioned, and I certainly don't have heart problems. But I've been researching all those topics (and learning directly from Alwyn, because of his research), and from what I've picked up so far, the things that help you lose fat are also the things that improve your heart's functional abilities. And, to my surprise, they aren't the obvious things.
That's what keeps me going -- there's always something new to learn and share with readers.
The best part about this post is that for those of us Lou Schuler groupies on here who have been around forever we basically have followed Lou through these cycles and come out better because of it.
Its been great. As Lou has met and worked with these top guys he has written articles and posts on message boards about the same topics and passed them down to us.
I am really interested to hear who the lastest trainer he has worked with about this experimental strength program. Sounds awesome.
Danny
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Limitations are for people who have them.
quote:Originally posted by Lou Schuler: ....the things that help you lose fat are also the things that improve your heart's functional abilities. And, to my surprise, they aren't the obvious things.
Are you going to keep us in suspense about this? [/quote]On this page Bill Hartman mentioned interesting tidbits about body fat distribution being affected by wearing high heels.
I'm thinking that Lou is going to hit up ODBsGirl for some tips on what types of black pumps are fashionable in the Northeast this time of year.
Say it ain't so, Lou... say it ain't so.
By the way, BOM Intermediate helped me most in the strength department, while Iron Manual rocked for fat loss.
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