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Programming Made Simple

  Simple, Easy-to-Implement Strategies for More Size and Strength        If the titles of workout articles are any indication, America doesn’t know how to train.   I can’t speak for other countries, since I haven’t lived anywhere else.   In the past, I have spent some time in Asia for work, and if my visits there were any indication, then I don’t think the rest of the world trains much better.   So I guess there’s that.      Now, if you know anything at all about proper training, and if you walked into any gym anywhere in America, you’d probably come to the same conclusion—that Americans simply don’t know how to train—so why am I singling out the titles of English-language workout articles?   The reason is simple.   Almost every single article I have seen lately—to a friggin’ tee—has almost the exact same title, and it goes something like this: “I did (fill-in-the-blank) for (fill-in-the-number of days...
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Full-Body Blast

George Turner’s Old-School Full-Body Program for Gaining 90 Pounds—that’s right, 90!—of Pure Muscle George Turner was in his 60s in this picture!      When it comes to old-school bodybuilders, George Turner remains one of my favorites.   Probably because of the fact that he was more than just a competitive bodybuilder.   He was a gym owner along with being a damn good writer of (damn good) training articles.   He was also a bit—how should it be said?—curmudgeonly.   But he was without a doubt curmudgeonly in the best possible way.   He was, in many ways, similar to Vince Gironda in that regard, just without the disdain for squats.   (That’s right, as much as I like Gironda, he wasn’t a fan of the barbell back squat.)   Myself, I love back squats.   As did Turner.      Anyway, that paragraphic preamble is just a way of writing that, as I was thumbing through an old IronMan magazine this morning, looking ...
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Ultimate Mass and Power ESSAYS Now Available in Paperback!

 My book Ultimate Mass and Power Essays in now available for purchase in paperback. (Click on link to purchase) This book is a follow-up to my first book in this series, "Ultimate Mass and Power." That book is primarily a collection of different training programs to help you get incredibly strong and massively big. This book is concerned with the same topics - building massive amounts of strength, power, and hypertrophy - but is a collection of essays instead of programs. Oh, there are some programs thrown in here and there. But this is for anyone who wants to be informed and (hopefully) entertained with some of my thoughts and ideas when it comes to building the ULTIMATE in Mass and Power. If you enjoy reading the likes of "old school" writers such as Bill Starr, Bradley Steiner, and John McCallum, or modern-day writers such as Dan John or Pavel, this collection of essays should be right up your alley.
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Squat – Press – Pull

  A Split Training Program for Strength, Power, and Mass      In general (even if you’ve only read a small smattering of my writing, you probably still know this), I’m a fan of full-body workouts.   When training with a split program, I typically like 2-way splits and little else.   There are times, however, when a “multi-split”—splitting your body into 3 or more sessions—can be effective.   In this article, I want to present one such program.   This program will be great for anyone who is at least at the “intermediate” level and is looking to gain even more mass, strength, and power.      Before we go any further, let’s look at the reasons that I generally favor full-body workouts and problems I have with most split training programs.   Once you understand that information, then you can make an informed decision over whether or not this program would be right for you.      Full-body progr...
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Train Heavy. Train Often.

       If you’re a natural lifter who wants to gain plenty of muscle mass but also the strength to go with it, I think there are three things that are paramount.   First, you need to train heavy.   Second, you need to train often.   And third, you need to remain fresh while doing the first two.      If you’re a student of the lifting game, and if something about my above statement seems vaguely familiar, there’s an explanation for that.   I basically paraphrased the great Russian strength coach Vladimir M. Zatsiorsky, who, rather famously, said that the key to strength training was “to train as heavy as possible as often as possible while being as fresh as possible.”   That quote is well-known for a reason.   Following it judiciously will unlock a lot of strength and hypertrophy gains.      Of course, there are a couple caveats to that statement.   You need to be training with barbel...
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