Skip to main content

High-Frequency Dumbbell Training for Mass and Power

 Building Mass and Power/Strength with HFT + Dumbbells Combo


The great Reg Park overhead pressing a pair of dumbbells


In my last post, I outlined a brief, basic, (somewhat) hard full-body, 3-days-per-week program using ONLY dumbbells.  For this post, I'd like to outline a  high-frequency training (HFT for short, hereafter) program using primarily dumbbells to build mass, power, and strength.


The MASS is going to come about on this program from the sheer amount of total work performed in the course of the week.  When a lot of lifters -at least the ones I've worked with over the years - first take up HFT, they typically complain because it doesn't seem as if they are doing enough at each workout, or they don't think that they are training enough.  But the sheer frequency of the workout program really does add up.  After several weeks on the program, when most of the lifters I've worked with begin putting on muscle at a rate they hadn't been doing before, often while eating less, the complaining stops.


The STRENGTH will be built on the program also from the high-frequency, but, in the case of the strength built, it will be the daily practice of performing the same exercises (or ones very similar to each other) on a near-daily basis, as opposed to the total workload, that will build impressive strength.


When designing a HFT regimen, it's important to pick exercises that allow you to train very frequently (3+ days per week).  Squats, Olympic lifts, overhead presses are all good choices.  Deadlifts, barbell curls, bench presses (and other exercises that directly work the lower back, the biceps, or the rotator cuff in a supine fashion) are NOT good choices.  If you can substitute dumbbell replacements for the barbell versions of squats, quick lifts, and overhead work, then you have even better exercises for HFT.


Please keep in mind that what follows is an example of a week of workouts.  For the first week, feel free to follow it verbatim, but changes will need to be made (at least, after a couple of weeks) eventually in order to keep your body healthy and your strength/mass gains rolling along.  (If you decide to follow this program and have any questions/concerns after a couple of weeks of training, please shoot me an email or add a comment, and I will try my best to get back in touch in a fairly timely fashion.)


Monday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Clean and Press: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

One-Arm Thick Bar Dumbbell Deadlifts: 3-5x2 - Work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double.  This exercise, unlike deadlifts of the two-handed variety (both barbell and dumbbell) puts far less stress on the lower back and lumbar muscles, therefore making it ideal for highly-frequent training.

Barbell Curls: 3x3 (straight sets)


Tuesday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Snatches: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

Weighted Chins:  3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

Flat Barbell Bench Presses: 3x5 (straight sets)


Wednesday:

Dumbbell Power Cleans (two-handed): 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy double

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Thick Bar Dumbbell Deadlifts: 3-5x2 - Work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double


Thursday: OFF


Friday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Clean and Press: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

One-Arm Thick Bar Dumbbell Deadlifts: 3-5x2 - Work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double


Saturday:

Dumbbell Front Squats: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

One-Arm Dumbbell Snatches: 3-5x2 - work up over 3 to 5 sets (each arm) to a heavy double

Weighted Dips: 3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple

Weighted Chins:  3-5x3 -  work up over 3 to 5 sets to a heavy triple


Sunday: OFF


Monday: REPEAT





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Feel free to leave us some feedback on the article or any topics you would like us to cover in the future! Much Appreciated!

Popular posts from this blog

Bradley Steiner’s Rugged Size and Strength Split Routine – Easy Strength Version

  Bradley J. Steiner, author of the original "Rugged Size and Strength Split Routine"      In the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, Bradley J. Steiner was the voice of (what he called) “sane, sensible” barbell training.   His workouts were full-body programs done 3 times per week, utilizing a limited number of big “bang-for-your-buck” movements such as squats, deadlifts, barbell rows, bench presses, overhead presses, barbell curls and the like.   They were intended for the average, drug-free lifter who didn’t have the luxury of living at Muscle Beach in Venice, California and training all day, but worked a full-time job, had a wife and kids—you know, a “regular” life—but still wanted to build a strong, impressive physique that could move some heavy iron and turn heads at the local swimming hole.      He wrote prolifically for (primarily) IronMan magazine up until the early years of this century.   When I started writing for IronMan i...
2 comments
Read more

Basic Lifting, Instinctive Training

                     While doing research for my last article, I was re-reading Bradley Steiner’s original “Rugged Size and Strength” essay (from 1972) and came across this bit of advice: “Do not attempt to set up a pre-planned schedule of either sets or reps.”  That may not seem like much—it’s the kind of “basic” advice that’s easily overlooked—but there is wisdom in it, minimal as it may seem at first glance.      Depending on the workout program and the lifting population it’s aiming for, that quote could be either good or bad.  It’s not good advice for a beginner’s program, any beginner’s program.  It’s not good advice for intermediate or advanced lifters, either, who are attempting a new workout program or a new “style” of lifting that they haven’t utilized before.  For instance, if you’ve been training for the past decade on a bodybuilding workout consi...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more