Q&A: 3-Day Easy Strength? - Building Mass without Squats - Rest Periods for Strength

 

     Here is a random selection of questions that I received via email the last several weeks.  I figured these might be of interest to some readers.

Question: Is it possible to do an easy strength program only 3 days each week and get good results?

Answer: Maybe.  It depends.  (This might annoy some of my readers, but, to be honest, the answer to a lot of questions is it depends.)

     Now, first off, if you don’t know what “easy strength” is, the standard recommendations for an easy strength program goes something like this:

1.      Train with full-body workouts using a limited number of basic barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell lifts such as squats, bench presses, overhead presses, chins, dips, curls, cleans, snatches, or deadlifts.

2.      Lift 5 to 6 days per week.

3.      On average, keep your reps per set in the 1-5 range.  Doubles and triples are probably the perfect “sweet spot.”  Occasionally, you can do higher rep sets in the 8-10 range but only for 1 set.

4.      You should also average around 10 reps per lift per workout.  Pavel, in his and Dan John’s book Easy Strength, recommends these set/rep combos: 5x2; 2x5; 3x5,3,2; 3x3; 3x3,4,3; 3x4,2,4; 4x1,2,3,4; 4x4,3,2,1; 5x1,2,3,2,1.  When training with only singles, drop your total reps down to 6.

5.      Train between 80% to 95% of your one-rep max.  Always leave a couple reps “in the tank.”

6.      Go for a PR on either singles or reps on days when you feel particularly strong but don’t go “all-out.”  Instead, go for a “near max.”

7.      Vary the intensity throughout a training cycle.  Here is Dan John’s recommendation for varying your training loads over the course of several sessions: 3x3 (heavy), 5x2 (heavier), 2x5 (light to moderate), 6x1 (working up to a “near max”), 1x10 (very light for “tonic” recovery set), 3x5,3,2 (moderate).

     So, could you get decent results by using those rules but reducing your training to only 3 days weekly instead of the recommended 5 to 6?  I think for some lifters it would be perfectly fine.  Especially if you are more of a fast-twitch lifter.  A lifter who has more fast-twitch muscle fibers generally does well with a fairly low amount of work, as long as the intensity is high enough.  “Intensity” referring to the percentage of your one-rep maximum not the effort you exert in a set.

     If you’re only going to train 3 days in a week, it might be good to do a little more work for each movement.  Instead of averaging around 10 reps on each lift at each session, bump that up to around 15.  Do 3 sets of 5, 5 sets of 3, 7 sets of 2, 4 sets of 5,5,3,2—something such as that.

     It also might work well after a period of high-volume training.  In fact, in this instance, it might work really well.

     It could also be a good option as an “in-season” program or if you’re highly active in another athletic activity such as long-distance running or martial arts.  Heck, in that case, you might even get good results with just 2 days per week.

     Ultimately, you’ll only know if 3 days works for you if you try it.  Do it for a few weeks and see what kind of results you get.  If you start to lose strength, or muscle mass, during that time, go back to a higher-frequency easy strength regimen or use a more “conventional” 3 days per week program, such as Starr’s heavy-light-medium system.

Question: I know that you think squats are necessary for any muscle-building program.  But are there any good programs that don’t use squats?  Or is there an exercise that I can use in place of squats?

Answer: I do think squats are THE foundation of most mass-building programs, but I also think it is possible to create a “good” program without them.

     If you’re not going to do any squats, however, then you sure-as-hell better do a lot of other “big” compound lifts.  Your training should consist of various cleans, snatches, overhead presses, bench presses, deadlifts of different types, rows, chins, weighted dips, and curls.

     You need to train with free weights instead of machine, cable, or band movements.  Barbells should be the cornerstone of the exercises, though you can also include plenty of dumbbell and kettlebell versions, too.

     If I had to pick a non-squatting movement to use in place of squats, it would without-a-doubt be the sumo deficit deadlift.  I have long extolled it as the “best exercise no one does.”  In fact, for some lifters, especially taller ones, it may be better than squats.  It works your legs, butt, lower back, mid-back, and your traps.  Heavy, high-rep sumo deficit deadlifts are a beast-builder!  In fact, if you were to replace the classic 20-rep “breathing squats” program—such as outlined in the book Super Squats—with sumo deficit deadlifts performed in the exact same manner, you may end up looking like a massive gorilla when finished.

Question: In several articles, you have mentioned that you don’t give standard recommendations for rest between sets because it’s an individual matter.  But when trying to build strength, how long, on average, should I rest between sets?

Answer: You’re correct.  I don’t give “standard” rest recommendations, especially when it comes to hypertrophy training.  Having said that, I actually do give a recommendation for how you can determine your rest periods.  When training for hypertrophy only, or hypertrophy along with conditioning, you should do your next set just before your oxygen debt has recovered to its “pre-set state.”  When training for strength, or hypertrophy along with strength, you should wait until your oxygen debt has recovered completely and “returned” to its pre-exercise state.  Exactly how long that will be is individualistic.  For strength, let me just say that it’s probably longer than you think!

     Pavel Tstatsouline has said (or written) before that most strength athletes should rest, on average, about 10 minutes between heavy sets.  5 minutes would be about the least you should rest.  Pavel has also stated that the “best” rest time between heavy sets might be as long as 15 minutes.  He wants your body to “forget” the previous set before doing another one.  Like I wrote, probably longer than you thought.

     Of course, the issue with that is that most lifters don’t have the luxury of spending all day in the gym.  If you were to rest 15 minutes between all of your heavy sets, hell, you might be in the gym for 3 hours.  Not exactly practical, especially if you utilize full-body workouts or two-way splits as I recommend.  The one exception would be an easy strength program.  If you follow my 30-Rep Program, for instance, you could easily rest 10 minutes between sets and still be out of the gym in a relatively short time.

     If you’re following one of the other strength programs on my blog, such as my recent “Strength/Power/Mass Protocol,” 5 minutes should work perfectly fine.