Consolidated Volume Training

The following blog post is actually an e-mail from a friend of mine here in Tuscaloosa—Jared Smith—who sent me this workout, and wanted to know what I thought about it. He calls it "consolidated volume training". I kind of like that title. Wish I would have thought of it myself.

Check it out:

I was reading some of Mentzer's writing and though I think that training balls to the wall heavy all the time will inevitably lead to injury. However, I do agree with his ideas on consolidated training. Using only a handful of key compound exercises which will sufficiently stimulate all muscles of the body to their fullest. The program I have in mind is a 3 day a week program. Each muscle will get trained 3 times over the course of each week which is a significant difference from the once a week programs that most people do. But if people notice, successful lifters train major lifts several times a week. The rep ranges will differ each workout for the sake of making sure all muscle fibers are stimulated and we all know that you can only drive a vehicle full throttle for so long before it brakes.

Day 1

Incline Barbell Presses 5x10-12

Underhand grip barbell rows 5x 10-12

Standing calf raises 5 x 10-12

Squats 5x10-12

Note: Some may question the rational for doing arguably the most difficult bodypart last. The reason being is that it is the most draining and if done first I feel that it may take away from the amount of intensity and focus that you could give your other bodyparts.

Day 2 Rest

Day 3

Flat dumbell presses 5x6-8

Palms in Chins 5x as many as u can

Front Squats 5x6-8

Note: Notice calves aren't trained on each day that you train since they're doing thousands of reps each day as you walk.

Day 4 Rest

Day 5

Flat Bench Presses 5x 4-6

Squats 5x 4-6

Deadlifts 5x4-6

Day 6 Rest

Day 7

Dips 5x as many as u can

Seated Dumbbell Shoulder presses 5x8-10

Dumbbell Pullovers 5x8-10

Take 2-3 days off then repeat the cycle.

Comments

Classic Bodybuilding: Serge Nubret's "Chase the Pump" Training

For those of you who are my age or older, you can probably remember well the first time you saw the amazing physique of Serge Nubret: It was in the pseudo-documentary we all now know and love as “Pumping Iron.” With the director and writers of Pumping Iron attempting to make out the film as a “David vs Goliath” with the young (but massive) Lou Ferrigno taking on the older “Goliath” in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger, they had no idea that their whole half-true enterprise would crumble a bit with the entry of Serge Nubret. You took one look at Nubret and you knew there was no doubt that Ferrigno was out of his league with both Schwarzenegger and the Frenchmen. (Nubret was French.) Nubret - to this day - had one of the most classically beautiful physiques of all-time. Arnold, of course, won the whole thing, but Nubret easily came in 2nd. By the time I watched Pumping Iron sometime in the mid to late ‘80s, there was very little information that I could fin...

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 ...

Consistency and Variety

The Two Keys to Mass-Building, Strength-Training Success The other day, in my essay on the “ 2 principles of strength training ,” I outlined what I believe are the two most important principles for continued results in strength training or muscle-building (or a combination of the two). In many ways, those two principles revolve around staying consistent and injecting variety into your programs. So, here, I want to present some thoughts on much the same concept but frame it in a slightly different manner to touch upon varied aspects of proper programming. I’m going to call these the “two keys to success” and they are: 1. You must be consistent. 2. You must inject variety into your program. Consistency is the key for continued success, make no bones about it. This is true no matter your goal. You must train consistently to impro...

C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Search This Blog