Several months back, I received an email that went something like this: “Hey, CS, is there a ‘secret’ to getting really big and strong for average lifters that you don’t share with everyone else?” I briefly thought of sending an email in which the entirety of it read “Nope!” and then just hit send. But I decided to explain to him, in a slightly more explanatory reply, that, no, I don’t have any “secrets” of any sort for “real life” lifters that I don’t share with my readers. I then gave him a few of my ideas that kind of come close to being “secrets”—ones that I’ve written about a lot in my writings, such as the “big 4,” and some of the HFT methods that I’ve used with many lifters that I’ve trained over the years, along with a couple of other things (though I don’t remember exactly what they were as I type this)—which were really nothing more than some good tips for training and lifting in the “real” world. T...
Thoughts on Training to Failure, the “Everything Moderate” Approach to Lifting, and Some “Easy” Size and Strength Programs When it comes to achieving goals, winning in competitions, or being our very best in whatever domain, “winners” often take the view that “failure is not an option.” But when it comes to building muscle, a lot of bodybuilders, personal trainers, and now “fitness influencers” take the view that failure—or training to complete momentary muscular failure—is the best, or even only, option for surefire hypertrophy gains. This view isn’t anything new. When I first started reading bodybuilding magazines back in the 1980s, the debate was already swirling around whether or not bodybuilders should train to total muscular failure on their sets. Some—the most obvious being Arthur Jones and then later Mike Mentzer—believed that you should only train to failure, using minimal sets for each muscle. Others, such as Bill Pe...