Skip to main content

The 3 to 5 "Plus" Program

     Here's a simple program that really works well when it comes to gaining strength and plenty of muscle to go along with it.  In fact, it may be more conducive to muscle growth than to pure strength.

     Okay, first things first.  Go back and read my post on "The 3 to 5 Method for Strength and Power."  Here's a quick link.

     Read it?  Good.  Now, the one thing I want you to do different with the training program here is I want you to limit your training to just 3 days each week (as opposed to 4 or 5).  This way you have enough energy to perform the "plus" part of the training program—don't worry, we'll get around to just what the "plus" part is in a moment—and enough recovery time between workouts.
     So the 3 to 5 part of the workout might look like this:
Squats: 5 sets of 5 reps
Deadlifts: 5 sets of 3 reps
Bench Presses: 4 sets of 5 reps
Close-Grip Chins: 4 sets of 5 reps
     When you are finished with that portion of the workout, you will now perform the "plus" portion.  For this, pick a bodypart that is lagging behind the others and needs a little "specialization" work.  Then, pick a good "bang-for-your-buck" exercise to train the muscle group.  If your chest is sub-par in development, for instance, you could choose the dumbbell bench press.
     On this exercise, perform 100 reps.  Pick a weight, however, where you would typically reach failure between 25 and 30 reps.  Don't count sets.  Just count reps.  Do however many sets it takes until you reach 100.
     If you have a bodypart that is really lagging behind the others, then you could work it at each training session.  If you have several that need attention, then rotate exercises at each training session for a different muscle group.
     A week of training might look like this:
Monday
Squats: 5 sets of 5 reps
Deadlifts: 5 sets of 3 reps
Bench Presses: 4 sets of 5 reps
Close-Grip Chins: 4 sets of 5 reps
Dumbbell Bench Presses: 100 reps
Wednesday
Front Squats: 5 sets of 5 reps
Power Cleans: 5 sets of 3 reps
Incline Bench Presses: 5 sets of 3 reps
Bent-Over Rows: 4 sets of 5 reps
Dumbbell Squats: 100 reps
Friday
Squats: 5 sets of 5 reps
Deadlifts: 5 sets of 3 reps
Bench Presses: 4 sets of 5 reps
Close-Grip Chins: 4 sets of 5 reps
Pullovers: 100 reps
     This is another one of those workouts that looks simple on paper—and it is.  But that doesn't mean that it's not highly effective.  It's that too.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Marvin Eder’s Mass-Building Methods

  The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan  magazine.      In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.”  I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time .  In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put ...

Movements Over Muscles

Muscle-Building Tips and Advice for the Natural Bodybuilder      In my last essay on how to gain mass fast, I mentioned that the secret just might be getting stronger on a handful of exercises.   (This essay, I suppose, is just an extension of that last one.)   In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that I’m right.   If you’re a natural bodybuilder, then the one thing more important than any other is to get strong on a dozen or so exercises, with your strength-focus in roughly the 5 to 10 rep range.      One approach is to achieve this is to focus on movements over muscles .   In other words, instead of going to the gym and “obliterating” or “destroying” (why do bodybuilders always seem to use military-sounding jargon for a lot of their training) your quad muscles with endless sets of leg extensions, leg presses, and machine whatever, how about just trying to get stronger on the squat?   Same goes for the...

Classic Bodybuilding: Don Howorth's Massive Delt Training

Don Howorth's Formula for Wide, Massive Shoulders Vintage picture of Don Howorth in competition shape. I can't remember the first time I laid eyes on Howorth's massive physique with those absolutely friggin' awesomely shaped "cannonball" shoulders of his, but it was probably sometime in the late '80s and early '90s, when I read about him in either IronMan Magazine  or MuscleMag International .  IronMan  had regular "Mass from the Past" articles written by Gene Mozee that had a couple of articles about Howorth's training*, and he was also mentioned fairly regularly in Vince Gironda's column for MuscleMag  not to mention in some of the articles of Greg Zulak for the same publication. There is no doubt that genetics played a big role in just how fantastic Howorth's delts looked, but to claim Howorth's results were just because of genetics or anabolic steroids - as I've read claimed on some internet forums - is a l...