More Tips and Ideas for High Frequency Training

 

The High-Frequency Training Manifesto
Part Two:
More Tips and Ideas for Designing and Implementing a High-Frequency “Easy Strength” Training Program

     If you haven’t done so, please read Part One first, especially if you’re at all unfamiliar with HFT or what is meant here by “easy strength.”  The remainder of this essay simply picks up where Part One left off.

     Throughout the more than 30 years I’ve worked as a writer for different bodybuilding/strength training magazines, I have been asked by hundreds of different people if I would look at their programs and make suggestions for improvement.  It doesn’t surprise me now, but years ago I was a little bit surprised that the majority of questioners were guys who trained in their home gym.  But in a way those questions really helped how I designed—and still design—programs, by cutting out a lot of the fluff and allowing the lifter to do only a few things, but do those few things really well.  (That’s another big benefit of HFT in my book.)  Right behind the home gym lifters were the high school coaches who wanted me to look at their programs and see if I could figure out why their strength-training protocols weren’t improving their play performance (in whatever sport, but usually football).

     No matter who it was—home gym trainee, high school football coach, or wannabe champion fill-in-the-blank—their programs almost always made the same mistake to a T.  They weren’t doing enough of the “correct” exercises and they were doing too many exercises at each session.

     The beauty of almost any HFT or easy strength program is that they immediately cut down on these problems.  Designed, and implemented, correctly, they really do allow the lifter to develop a solid base of strength.  So the first tip that I have for you here is this: build your strength base before adding movements.  Focus on a few select compound exercises, and only add exercises when you need to add them.

     As mentioned in the last essay, when you do change over to a new exercise, you want to always think same but different.  Replacing power cleans with lat pulldowns—although they are both technically back exercises—would not be same but different.  Replacing power cleans with power snatches would be same but different.

     Let’s break down exercise selection in even simpler terms, with a method that I think you can’t go wrong with.  For each of the core exercises that you start the program with, pick two additional exercises that you can rotate in when needed, however frequent or infrequent that might be.  If you are using the program exactly as written from Part One, your core lifts would be squats, barbell bench presses, chins, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses, and power cleans.  Here are some recommendations for two additional exercises that perfectly fit the “same but different” bill:

• Squats: bottom-position squats and front squats

• Bench presses: weighted dips and dumbbell bench presses

• Chins: pick two different “styles” of chins.  So if you were utilizing under grip-style chins to start the program, select neutral grip chins and wide-grip chins as replacements.

• One-arm dumbbell overheads: barbell overhead presses and two-arm dumbbell overhead presses

• Power cleans: power snatches and dumbbell power cleans

     Remember, those are just suggestions, but if you choose some different movements, always make sure that you are replacing “hard” exercises with ones that are equally as hard or harder.

     I’ve had a few lifters complain that they just need more variety in their programs than what the easy strength method has to offer.  Now, to be honest, most of these complaints come from lifters when they first look at the program, take it in, and just view it to be too “minimal” for their tastes.  These guys typically don’t complain after 3 or 4 weeks when they’ve broken their PRs on a few lifts.  At that point, minimal ain’t so bad after all.  But there are some lifters who prefer more variety, even if it’s from nothing other than boredom.  I’m a little like that myself, so I understand.

     The first thing I always recommend the variety lifter to do is to simply rotate set/rep ranges at each workout.  If the first workout is all 3 sets of 5, the 2nd workout of the week can be 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2 reps.  At the next session, do 5 sets of 2 on each lift.  And at the session after that, do 2 sets of 8.  When opting for higher-repetition sets, just make sure you don’t overdo it with the weight selection.  For the 2 sets of 8, for instance, select a weight where you would probably fail at the 20th repetition if you were doing one all-out set.  (Remember that it’s the frequent training and the total workload through the course of a week that produces results on these programs, not the “intensity” of the sets.)

     Some lifters like to rotate the sets and reps for each exercise during this workout.  If you select to do this, here’s what a few workouts might look like:

Workout One

• Squats: 3 sets of 5

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Power cleans: 5 sets of 2

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 3

Workout Two

• Squats: 3 sets of of 5, 3, and 2

• Bench presses: 5 sets of 2

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 3

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 5

Workout Three

• Squats: 5 sets of 2

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 3

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 5

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

Workout Four

• Squats: 3 sets of 3

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Barbell curls: 5 sets of 2

     

     You can also sort of “reverse program” this, by keeping the placement of the sets/reps the same in each session, but changing the order of the exercises instead.  In this case, a few workouts might look something such as this:

Workout One

• Squats: 3 sets of 5

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Power cleans: 5 sets of 2

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 3

Workout Two

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Barbell curls: 5 sets of 2

• Squats: 3 sets of 3

Workout Three

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 5

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Squats: 5 sets of 2

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 3

Workout Four

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 5

• Squats: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Bench presses: 5 sets of 2

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 3

     

     Here’s an idea for more advanced lifters using this same protocol, but with several same but different lifts rotated in:

Workout One

• Squats: 3 sets of 5

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Power cleans: 5 sets of 2

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 3

Workout Two

• Two-board bench presses: 3 sets of 5

• Power snatches: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• EZ bar curls: 5 sets of 2

• Bottom-position squats: 3 sets of 3

Workout Three

• High pulls: 3 sets of 5

• Thick-bar barbell curls: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Front squats: 5 sets of 2

• Barbell overhead presses: 3 sets of 3

Workout Four

• Standing dumbbell curls: 3 sets of 5 (each arm)

• Box squats: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Bottom-position bench presses: 5 sets of 2

• Sumo deficit deadlifts: 3 sets of 3

     

     After a little while on these programs, a lot of lifters want to start doing more work.  I think, assuming you’ve built up enough of a work capacity to handle it, this can be a good thing.  But don’t overdo it.  At first, just do more work on the first exercise of each training day.  Sticking with our training outline again, you could do something such as this:

Workout One

• Squats: 5-rep ramps.  Do progressively heavier sets of 5 reps until you reach a hard, but not “limit,” set of 5.  The beauty of this method is that the amount of work will depend on the strength level of the lifter, so beginning lifters will do decidedly fewer sets than more advanced lifters since they simply aren’t as strong.  And, of course, the inverse is true for the advanced lifter.

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Power cleans: 5 sets of 2

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 3

Workout Two

• Bench presses: 5-rep ramps.  Do progressively heavier sets of 5 reps until you reach a hard set of 5.

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Barbell curls: 5 sets of 2

• Squats: 3 sets of 3

Workout Three

• Power cleans: 5-rep ramps.  Do progressively heavier sets of 5 reps until you reach a hard set of 5.

• Barbell curls: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Squats: 5 sets of 2

• Bench presses: 3 sets of 3

Workout Four

• Barbell curls: 5-rep ramps.  Do progressively heavier sets of 5 reps until you reach a hard set of 5.

• Squats: 3 sets of 5, 3, and 2

• Bench presses: 5 sets of 2

• Power cleans: 3 sets of 3

     

     With all of the above workouts, please keep in mind that you won’t necessarily do all 4 of those workouts back-to-back, although you might on occasion if you’re advanced enough.  Depending on how you respond to the training, you want to get in 4 to 6 workout sessions per week.  You will typically train for 1, 2, or 3 days in a row, then take a day off.  Keeping that in mind, if you were to use one of the above workout plans, a couple weeks of training might look something such as this:

Week One

Monday: Workout One

Tuesday: Workout Two

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Workout Three

Friday: Off

Saturday: Workout Four

Sunday: Workout One

Week Two

Monday: Workout Two

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Workout Three

Thursday: Workout Four

Friday: Off

Saturday: Workout One

Sunday: Off

     I hope some of these additional tips and programs will help you in designing and implementing your own program.  In the next couple of installments of this series, I will cover specialization programs for anyone interested in really getting strong on certain lifts, and I’ll cover various programs that are geared more toward hypertrophy than strength.  Although these methods are usually, and almost exclusively, used by strength athletes, they can be highly effective for bodybuilders when used correctly.

     Until then, if you’re looking for even more HFT programs, here are a few other articles that may be of interest to you:

Slow, Steady, and Strong (this is a high-frequency strength program inspired by Doug Hepburn)

The 3 to 5 Method for Powerlifters

Easy Muscle (this one is for those of you who want to try some high-frequency and high-rep training)

     As always, if you have any questions, please email me or leave them in the comments section below.