The Two Exercise Program

I have, for a long time now, been a proponent of one-exercise-per-bodypart routines. I think this kind of training is effective for building muscle, building strength, or just getting in great strength.

Bodybuilders of old would use this form of training in the off-season, where they would train one (or at the most, two) exercises for each of their muscle groups. In general, most "old-timers" thought this was the best form of training for growing muscle, not to mention becoming bigger, stronger, thicker lifters. It wasn't until a couple of months from a contest that they would switch over to a multi-angular approach. They (rightfully, I might add) believed that multi-angular training splits were best done for "shaping" and "detailing" the muscles, but NOT for building big muscles in the first place.

Not only, however, is it good to limit the number of exercises performed for each bodypart, but it's also wise to limit the number of exercises per workout.

Enter the "Two Exercise Program."

This program is great for building muscle mass. If you used this program for the majority of the training for the rest of your life, then you would end up with a lifetime of great workouts, and plenty of good training experience.

Don't worry, there's also plenty of variety inherently built into this program.

First, I'm going to outline this program's parameters, then I'll give you an example of an actual training program. Here's the parameters:

1. Use only two exercises at each workout.

2. Pick exercises that use a lot of muscle groups at one time.

3. Use a (fairly) high amount of volume for each muscle group.

4. For the most part, alternate exercises from workout to workout.

5. For the most part, alternate set/rep ranges from workout to workout.

6. Train 3 days per week.

Here's what an example program (one week of training) might look like:

Monday:

squats: 100 reps using the 2, 3, 5, 10 workout plan

dumbbell bench presses: 100 reps using the 2, 3, 5, 10 workout plan

Wednesday:

snatch-grip deadlifts: 10 sets of 3 reps

barbell curls: 10 sets of 3 reps

Friday:

dips: 5 sets of 5 reps

chins: 5 sets of 5 reps

Above all, have fun and be innovative with this program. It looks simple, but it's also highly rewarding.

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...

The Squat and Grow Big Program

A Hybrid High-Frequency Regimen for Natural Mass-Building I have long been a fan of high-frequency training (HFT) and other methods of lifting that go against the stream of most modern training. This is especially true of strictly muscle-building methods. Perhaps it’s hubris on my part to think that I know better than bodybuilders lifting in today’s gyms, but I think there are better methods for the natural bodybuilder than what is currently used by the vast majority of lifters (at least in the West—bodybuilders in East Europe are another story). Infrequent training simply isn’t a good method for the majority of lifters if their goal is to gain muscle mass. And by “majority” I mean natural lifters. Steroids change the equation—and change it big time . Anabolic steroid use is often cited as the reason why bodybuilders from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and early ‘90s (before Dorian ...

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 ...

C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Search This Blog