High-Frequency Grease-the-Groove Training - The Intuitive Approach PART 2

Training Design for the “All-Around” Lifter

     The popularity—or lack thereof—of many of my articles often surprises me.  Sometimes I will write an essay that I think will be a real hit—I spend several days crafting and honing it, giving it plenty of thought and time—only to find that it never really “takes off” or gets many reads.  On the flip side of that, I will occasionally write a piece in a flash of inspiration, giving hardly any thought to it but just allow my writing muse to take me where it will.  I also, quite often, don’t think that those works will be very popular, only to find that they get way more reads than many of my others.  My last article “High-Frequency Grease-the-Groove Training - The Intuitive Approach,” is a case in point.  I wrote it very quickly, in only a few hours, shortly after I came up with the idea while on a morning hike with my dogs Kenji and Kiko.  I was unsure if it would garner interest, but within a day of posting it, I received a few emails asking questions about it and it already has a few-hundred reads, enough that I decided I should write what you’re now reading.

     Two of the follow-up emails asked questions regarding what an “all-around” approach would potentially look like.  In part one, I gave an overview of how a hypothetical powerlifter might utilize it.  Here, I will look at how a hypothetical “powerbuilder” who wants to gain mass and get strong on a handful of big, basic lifts might wield its use.

     Know thyself.  The ancient Greek Socratic aphorism is important for emotional, mental, and philosophical growth.  But it's also important for the lifter seeking hypertrophy, size, power, and just general health and fitness.

     Before you take up a program similar to the one for our hypothetical powerbuilder, make sure that you have spent a considerable amount of time training with different programs.  If you’re new to training, the first thing you should do is spend the first year—6 months at a minimum—training with a basic, full-body program 3 days a week.  After that, experiment with routines that utilize high-frequency, high-volume, or high-intensity.  Once you have spent at the minimum 1 year working out, you will know if you’re ready to use a program such as this one.  In other words, know thyself.

     With that little prologue out of the way, let’s get down to business and return to our hypothetical powerbuilder.  Since he is seeking power and strength but also hypertrophy, he will use higher rep ranges than our prior powerlifter from part one.  He will also focus on more than just 3 lifts.  He will lift with various squats, overhead presses, bench presses, quicklifts (and other pulls), and curls.  He has made a list of the exercises he will use: back squats, front squats, bottom-position squats, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses, military presses, two-arm dumbbell presses, behind-the-neck presses, barbell bench presses, weighted dips, bottom-position bench presses, deadlifts, power cleans, power snatches, high pulls, weighted chins, barbell curls, thick-bar curls, and dumbbell curls.  He will track his workouts in general to ensure that he is getting stronger—not at every workout, but over the course of the next 12 weeks running this high-frequency regimen.  He will train more lifts at each session than the powerlifter, so he will, on average, do 3 to 2 lifts at a session.  He decides to squat, pull, and overhead press at one session and do some sort of bench press and curl on the next.

     If you’re setting up your own program, you need to do something similar.  Some lifters will do well by only using 5 (or so) lifts, and not worry about any derivatives of those lifts.  Other lifters, even if they could do that, get bored from using the same movements over and over.  Any or all of the above exercises that I listed would work well.

     Let’s look at what a week of our hypothetical lifter’s training might look like.

     On Monday, he decides to do front squats, deadlifts, and one-arm dumbbell overhead presses.  He wants to deadlift at the beginning of the week while he is fresh and will do a quick lift derivative for the remainder of the week’s pulls.  He has taken off the previous two days in order to prepare his body for his new routine.

     He begins with the front squat for sets of 5 reps.  His max front squat for 5 is around 315 pounds, so the heaviest he will work up to today is 275.  This is 87% of his 5-rep max.  Close enough.  He does one set of 5 reps with just the Olympic bar, then puts 135 on the bar and does a set of 5 reps.  He follows this up with progressively heavier sets of 5 with 185, 205, 225, and 275.  After his first set of 5 reps with 275, he does 6 more sets, but he does them by doing 2 clusters of 2-3-5.  This brings his total reps on the lift to 45.  This, I believe, is ideal for a lifter around his level of strength.  Do no more than 25 reps on the sets with 90% of your 5-rep max.  The additional reps will depend upon how many sets it takes you to work up to that weight.

     For deadlifts, he will follow the same scheme.  His max set for 5 reps is around 425 pounds.  Since he’s already warmed up from the front squats, he starts with 135 for 5 but then moves directly to 225 after that, followed by sets with 275, 315, 345, and 380.  Since he’s already done quite a bit of work on the front squats, he decides to just do one set of 5 with 380 followed by one cluster of 2-3-5, bringing his total reps to 40.

     Now, it’s time for the one-arm dumbbell overhead presses.  His max set for 5 reps is around 90 pounds.  He does a set (each arm) of 5 with a 30, 45, 60, and an 80 pound dumbbell.  Since the workload will be less because of the nature of the movement, he does more sets than on the preceding movements.  After his first set of 5 with 80 lbs, he does 4 more cluster sets of 2-3-5, bringing his total reps to 60.

Monday workout:

Front squats: 135x5, 185x5, 205x5, 225x5, 275x5, 2-3-5, 2-3-5 (45)

Deadlifts: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x5, 345x5, 385x5, 2-3-5 (40)

One-arm dumbbell overhead presses: 30x5, 45x5, 60x5, 80x5, 2-3-5, 2-3-5, 2-3-5, 2-3-5 (60) - each arm

     On Tuesday, he returns to the gym for flat barbell bench presses and barbell curls.  Since his shoulders and triceps are a little fatigued from the previous session, he decides to do a “moderate” bench press workout.  He will do cluster sets of 2-3-5 again, but will use a lighter weight for his sets than 90%.  When fresh, his max set of 5 reps on bench presses is around 275 pounds.  Today, he will do no heavier than 225, which is around 82% of his 5-rep maximum.  He does a set of 5 with just the empty bar, followed by progressively heavier 5s with 135, 160, 185, 205, and 225.  After his first set of 5 with 225, he follows that with 2 clusters of 2-3-5, for a total of 45 reps.

     When training in this manner, it’s good to rotate between heavy, light, and moderate sessions.  On the heavy days, when you feel good, you should train with your top sets at the 90% range.  Your moderate workouts can be around 80% and your light sessions can drop to 70% or even less when you need more of an “active recovery” day.

     Like most guys, he’s looking for bigger biceps.  He responds well to higher volume on his arms, so he decides to use 90% of his 10 rep max for clusters of 2-3-5-10.  His max reps for 10 reps is around 105 pounds, so he will work up to 95 pounds today.  He does a set of 10 with the empty bar (45 pounds) followed by a set of 10 with 65 pounds.  He then does a set of 5 reps with 85 pounds.  Then, he loads the bar with 95 pounds and does 3 cluster sets of 2-3-5-10, for a rep total of 85 reps.

Tuesday workout:

Flat bench presses: 135x5, 160x5, 185x5, 205x5, 225x5, 2-3-5, 2-3-5 (45)

Barbell curls: 45x10, 65x10, 85x5, 95x2-3-5-10, 2-3-5-10, 2-3-5-10 (85)

     After two days straight of training, he thinks about taking off on Wednesday, but then decides to go ahead and train.  However, he decides that today will be a “light” workout session.  That way, he can take off on Thursday, then return to the gym on Friday for a heavy bench session.  He selects back squats instead of front squats, but still trains no heavier than he did with front squats on Monday.  His max set of 5 on the barbell squat is around 375 pounds.  He repeats the same weights from his Monday front squat workout.  He does a set of 5 with the empty bar, followed by sets of 5 with 135, 185, 205, 225, and 275.  He stops there, with a total of 25 reps.

     For his pulls, he decides to do power snatches.  It’s the pull movement that he’s the weakest on, so he knows that even if he trains “all-out,” his workload will still be significantly lower than other pulling movements, meaning that it will still fit the “light” bill, despite how hard he trains.  He’s never done much quick lift training—but he does want to get strong on them—because he’s primarily used deadlift derivatives for his back work during his time lifting.  His max set on power snatches for 5 reps, the last time he trained them, was around 160.  He starts with progressively heavier sets of 5 reps.  After the empty bar, he does a set of 5 with 70, 90, 105, and 135.  He then loads the bar with 145 and does 3 cluster sets of 2-3-5, for a rep total of 50 reps.

     Since he wants to be capable of benching heavy on Friday, he opts for two arm dumbbell overhead presses.  He’s capable of around 70 pounds for a max set of 5 reps, so he does 5-rep ramps, working up to a pair of 60-pound dumbbells.  He does a set of 5 with a pair of 20s, 30s, 50s, and then 60s.  He does 2 sets of 5 reps with 60 pounds, for a total of 25 reps.

Wednesday workout:

Back squats: 135x5, 185x5, 205x5, 225x5, 275x5 (25)

Power snatches: 70x5, 90x5, 105x5, 135x5, 145x2-3-5, 2-3-5, 2-3-5 (50)

Two-arm dumbbell overhead presses: 20x5, 30x5, 50x5, 60x5,5 (25)

     On Thursday, he relaxes as much as possible and eats as much good food as he can.  He understands that his highest caloric days should be his off days.  It not only aids in recovery from the previous sessions but ensures that he will be prepared for the next day’s workout.

     He feels good on Friday.  However, he also understands that how you feel is a lie, so he knows that there is a possibility, once he begins his workout session, all might not go according to plan.  But this also means there are days when he feels like crap before a workout and then ends up having one of the best workouts of his life.  When you understand the concept that how you feel is a lie, that’s the way it goes.

     He wants to utilize a different set/rep range apart from just 5s and cluster sets of 2-3-5, if for no reason than a mental change of pace.  He starts by repeating the sets from Tuesday: 5s with the empty bar then 135, 160, 185, 205, and 225.  He then loads the bar with 245 and does sets of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 reps.  As he hoped, he feels good, though the set of 5 reps is tough.  For his next cluster, he goes back down—5, 4, 3, 2, and 1.  He now wants to see if he can go back up the cluster.  He does a set of 1, 2, 3, and 4 reps.  The set of 4 is really hard, and he barely manages to get it, so he stops there.  He has done a total of 70 reps.

     For curls, he opts for standing alternate dumbbell curls.  He grabs a pair of 40s and does 4 sets of 5 reps, each arm.  The last two sets are only reasonably hard, and he knows this will be a good light-to-moderate session.  Next week when he trains his biceps, he will return to some heavy barbell curls, and this workout will better prepare him for that.

Friday workout:

Flat bench presses: 135x5, 160x5, 185x5, 205x5, 225x5, 245x1,2,3,4,5,5,4,3,2,1,1,2,3,4 (70)

Standing alternate dumbbell curls: 40x5,5,5,5 (20)

     On Saturday, he selects bottom-position squats and power cleans.  He elects to forgo the overhead work for this day because of the heavy bench presses the day before.  When he returns to the gym for his next squat, pull, and overhead session, he will do barbell overhead presses.  He wants to test his squat strength a little, and, since he doesn’t have a workout partner at the moment, he knows that bottom-position squats are a good selection for someone who trains alone.  The last time he maxed out on regular barbell squats, he did 450 for a near max.  His bottom-position max is about 75 pounds less, so he doesn’t know if he will be capable of more than 375.  He does ramps of 5s, triples, and then singles.  He does 5 rep ramps with 135, 185, and 205.  He then starts doing triples.  He does a triple with 225, 275, and 305.  The 305 is a little tough, so he starts doing singles.  He does singles with 315, 335, 355, and 375.  375 is very hard, so he stops there.  He has done a total of 28 reps.

     For the power cleans, he returns to cluster sets of 2-3-5.  His max power clean for 5 reps is around 225.  After doing a set with the bar, he then does 5-rep ramps with 95, 135, 155, and 175.  He then loads the bar with 205 pounds and does 2 clusters of 2-3-5.  The 5s are relatively hard, so he knows this is a good session.  His total reps for the movement is 40.

Saturday workout:

Bottom-position squats: 135x5, 185x5, 205x5, 225x3, 275x3, 305x3, 315x1, 335x1, 355x1, 375x1 (28)

Power cleans: 95x5, 135x5, 155x5, 175x5, 205x2-3-5, 2-3-5 (40)

     He takes off again on Sunday.  There are weeks when he trains 6 days and some weeks when he only does 4 sessions.  He finds, however, that 5 days is the perfect “sweet spot” for him.  Not too much.  Not too little.

     On the following week, if he trains 5 days once again, he will do 3 days of bench pressing and curling and 2 days of squats, pulls, and overhead work.  Since he didn’t do an overhead movement at his last session, he will train that lift heavy and make his next bench session light.

     Keep in mind that what I wrote above is just an example.  For you, you might need to do 4 days or 6 days.  You might train with less total sets or you might train with more.  If you read this and are completely unsure of what to do, then, at first, do a “pre-written” program.  If you’re an older lifter, try something such as my “Easy Strength for the Older Lifter.”  If you’re younger, I have some advice for how to adapt that program for you.  I have a plethora of other pre-designed programs that you can use, as well.

     Here are some additional programs that you can follow if you’re not yet prepared for the instinctive way.  Look over them and find one that you feel would be good for your particular goals.

Full-Body Big and Strong

The High-Frequency 6x6-8 Regimen

The Squat and Grow Big Program

The Full Body Big Barbell 5 Program

Power Bodybuilding

The Mass-Volume Program

The 8x5/6 Program

     Once you are ready for it, give a program similar to the one I’ve outlined here a try.  When you know your body well, this kind of training really is as good as they come.  Also, feel free to experiment with different set/rep combinations.  You won’t know what works for you until you try it.