Skill Training as Size Building

AKA: The 90% Rule for Mass and Power

Some Thoughts and Programs on “Skill Training” as a Method for Gaining Size and Strength

     In my recent essay “Heavy and High,” I suggested that the key to gaining mass for the natural bodybuilder lies in the ability to do programs that utilize both heavy weights and a high workload.  When a lot of modern bodybuilders think about training for hypertrophy, they largely think along the lines of training hard and then coupling this with plenty of rest and recovery.  Almost every program you encounter—whether you read about them, watch a YouTube video discussing it, or have a casual conversation about them with a fellow gym-goer—revolves around the balance of “intensity” with rest days after workouts.  The harder, or more, you train then the more you should rest.  I’m not denying here that workouts do, and should, involve those considerations, but I prefer lifters to think in terms of workload and work capacity.  As you progress in your training, you should work up to being capable of handling heavier and heavier workloads and your work capacity—your ability to do more and more work—should increase.  Once you have developed a work capacity that can handle programs that include heavy weights for high workloads, you will have developed a large, muscular, and strong physique.

     One of the best ways to do this is through skill training, where you approach your sessions more as a skill to be developed than a battle waged against your muscles.  If you have read, or used, any of Pavel Tstatsouline’s programs or most of my high-frequency training (HFT) routines, especially any of my easy strength regimens such as my 30-Rep Program, then you have encountered what it is that I’m writing about.  I think that the majority of lifters, as long as they actually understand them, would agree that those programs are a great means of building strength.  They are the sort of programs that built the physiques of the “bronze era” bodybuilders and the workouts that, to this day, are utilized by Russian and East European powerlifters and Olympic lifters.  But I think that fewer lifters consider them to be valid means of training for hypertrophy.  In this article, I want to present some training programs that use this form of lifting but with the intent of building strength and size.

     The best workouts that build a combination of size and strength, and exemplify the methodology that we’re discussing here, use multiple sets with heavy weights.  The multiple sets can be done with the same reps on all of the sets—5 to 8 sets of 5 reps will always be effective—or can be done with undulating rep ranges, so called ladders or “wave” sets.  Ladders are good, for the mind as well as the body, by allowing you to really push it on some sets and then back off on others.  They also allow you to get in more work in a shorter period of time than you would be able to do if you used a static rep range, as you’ll see shortly.

     A good rule to help guide your training—it will be utilized in the programs below but will also allow you to design your own, personal routine—is what I like to call “the 90% rule.”  Do most of your sets for a lift with a weight that is roughly 90% of your max for a rep range.  This doesn’t mean 90% of your 1-rep max, though you would use that weight if you were going to do multiple sets of singles.  You might utilize 90% of your 3-rep max, 90% of your 5-rep max, or even 90% of your 10-rep max, as you’ll see in our first example workout below.  The 90% rule ensures that you’re training heavy enough but not so heavy that the intensity—intensity here referring to % of your 1-rep max and not how “hard” you are training—causes fatigue to prevent you from doing enough work.

     Okay, let’s get right into some workout programs.  While explaining the workouts to you, you will better grasp the methodology that I have been discussing so far.  Use any, or all, of the workouts below in whatever order you would like to use them, but read through each one first before rushing off to the gym.  Understanding all of them will allow you to design a workout program of your own, as well.

The 2-3-5-10 Program

     “The problem with standard hypertrophy programs—besides their built-in boredom (at least, for the strength or power athlete)—is their inability to jack up intensity. We tend to let accumulated fatigue, which is good in the case of high-rep squats, to limit the load. By breaking apart the sets just a little bit, you can add more weight to the bar and actually cut rest periods between what we traditionally called sets.” ~Dan John

     I opened this program with John’s quote because it exemplifies the reasoning of this workout, and also because I read about this program from John.  He’s not the creator of it (I don’t think; someone can correct me if I’m wrong) but he is its popularizer.  I first wrote about this method more than 15 years ago.  It works then and it works now.

     If you have ever used the classic 10 sets of 10 reps regimen, then you’ll probably like this one.  It’s also a one-exercise-per-bodypart routine where you do 100 reps for one lift.  The beauty of it is that you’re able to use a heavier load and still do the 100 reps, but in less time than it takes you to do the standard 10x10.  When doing a 10x10 workout, the recommendation is to use a weight where your max is 20 reps for 1 set.  Any heavier, and you will have trouble getting 10 reps on all 10 sets.  With this program, however, you will utilize a weight that is 90% of your 10-rep maximum, doing 5 “clusters” of 2, 3, 5, and 10 reps.  John again on the reasoning: “It adds up to 100 reps, with only 5 sets being that rep-reducing, tough set of 10. What is amazing about this program is that you often find that you put the bar down or in the rack and almost immediately do the double, because that set of 10 was hard but ‘anybody’ can do 2. Oddly, the triple is done quite quickly, and, as I often think, ‘I might as well do the 5, too.’ So, between those hellacious 10s, you nail 10 more reps with surprising little rest. If hypertrophy is honestly ‘time under load or ‘time under tension,’ it logically follows that more load (because you are NOT doing 10 sets of 10 and roasting yourself in the process) in less time will lead to greater muscle mass.”

     I recommend training 4 times per week, using 2 exercises at each workout.  You could select 8 different exercises to utilize, but I think that selecting 4 is better, doing the 4 movements twice in one week.  Here’s a good sample routine:

Monday and Thursday: double kettlebell cleans and overhead presses

Tuesday and Saturday: squats and barbell curls

     If you were to go with the 8 exercise route, then try this one, using same but different movements:

Monday: double kettlebell cleans and overhead presses

Tuesday: squats and barbell curls

Thursday: deadlifts and bench presses

Saturday: front squats and dumbbell curls

     For those of you who want a heavier routine, but one with less total volume, you can move on to the next program.

The 2-3-5 Program

     This is a heavier version of the above, albeit one that uses less total volume.  Here, you select a weight that is 90% of your 5-rep max and do 5 clusters of 2, 3, and 5 reps for a total of 50 reps.  As with the 2-3-5-10 method, it allows you to get more work in a shorter period of time.  You can use a heavier weight on this, for instance, than what you could use for 10 sets of 5 reps done with the same weight.

     Since you’re doing less total work per movement, I prefer a workout that utilizes more exercises per session.  Instead of just using 2 movements at each workout, use 3.  4 might be doable for some, though I would stick with 3 movements to begin with and see how your body handles it.

     Here’s a good program using 3 movements per session:

Monday and Thursday: squats, bench presses, power cleans

Tuesday and Saturday: chins, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses, barbell curls

     If you find that the above is too much total work, and you aren’t recovering enough between sessions, you can always go to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday program.  In the first week, do one of the above sessions on Monday and Friday and the 2nd one on Wednesday.  On the 2nd week, reverse the order, so that the workout you did on Wednesday now becomes the Monday and Friday workouts, and vice-versa.

Re-Engineering 5x5

     Here’s a way that you can use the 90% rule to “reverse engineer” the traditional 5x5 routine.

     One of the most popular methods for building size and strength—it was used to great success by old-school bodybuilders such as Reg Park, John Grimek, and Bill Pearl—is the 5x5 program.  Now, if you’re familiar with my writings on 5x5 training, I typically mirror Bill Starr’s advice and mean 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps where only the top set is all-out—although that’s not always the case.  (For more discussion on training variations using 5x5, see my article, aptly titled, 5x5 Training Variations.  In it, you will also find more “skill training as size building” info.)  Here, I’m talking about 5 straight sets of 5 reps, using the same weight on all 5 sets.  The standard way that I recommend doing this, and the way it was used by Park, et al, is to select a weight where 5 reps is really tough, but you’re pretty sure you can get 5 reps for 2 or 3 sets, which means you will probably be selecting a weight that is roughly 90% of your 5-rep max, though you may have to go a little lighter.  On the last couple of sets, you do as many reps as you can, which might be only 4 or 3 reps.  Once you can get 5 reps on all 5 sets, you add weight at the next session.  Like almost all programs that induce training to failure on an exercise, it works for a couple of workouts but then the progress comes to a grinding halt.  You can prevent this—and keep your progress moving at a steadier pace—by using the 2-3-5 method but stopping once you hit 25 reps total on the lift.  This means you would do 3 clusters of 2-3-5, 2-3-5, and 2-3.  As with our first two programs, you will get all 25 reps in a shorter period of time than attempting 25 reps in the standard 5x5 model.

     You can use this on any program where you would typically do a 5x5 workout.  Since you’re doing fewer clusters, you can do more movements than the 2-3-5 program above.  Here’s a good 3 days per week routine.  This is a full-body program, and a great size builder:

Monday and Friday: squats, flat-footed power cleans, incline bench presses, barbell curls

Wednesday: deficit deadlifts (conventional or sumo), military presses, weighted dips, alternate dumbbell curls

     On the following week, do the Wednesday session on Monday and Friday and the M/F workout on Wednesday.  If you wish, throw in an abdominal movement on one of the days and a loaded carry on the other one.

“Bro-Splitting” the Skill Training

     I realize that a lot of bodybuilders—or just lifters seeking hypertrophy and aesthetics over strength—prefer to train one or two muscle groups at each session and take off more days between working each bodypart, the so-called “bro split.”  You can use our methods here and apply it to such a split.  In this case, however, do 2 exercises per muscle group.  For the first exercise, use 90% of your 5-rep max and do between 30 to 50 reps total for that lift.  On the 2nd movement, use 90% of your 10-rep max and do between 60 to 80 reps total.

     Since every man who ever walked into a gym has sought bigger arms, I’ll use an arm-training day as an example program.  Your workout might look something such as this:

Barbell curls - 90% of your 5-rep max: 10 sets of 5, 5, 3, 2, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3, 3 (36)

Seated dumbbell curls - 90% of your 10-rep max: 8 sets of 8, 6, 10, 8, 6, 10, 8, 6 (62)

Weighted close-grip dips - 90% of your 5-rep max: 10 sets of 5, 5, 3, 2, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3, 3

Skull crushers - 90% of your 10-rep max: 8 sets of 8, 6, 10, 8, 6, 10, 8, 6

     Those set/rep ranges are just suggestions but, hopefully, you get the gist.  Just make sure your total reps fall into the 30-50 and 60-80 range.  Some lifters will prefer to do all of the higher-rep sets at the start of the movement.  Others may prefer to do the lower rep sets at the beginning and the higher ones at the end.  I prefer to wave-load it, but it’s your discretion.

     Use the same 2-exercise technique on all of your bodyparts.  A good setup would be a 2-on, 1-off program and could look like this:

Monday: chest and shoulders

Tuesday: back

Wednesday: off

Thursday: legs

Friday: arms

Saturday: off

Sunday: repeat schedule

     Using the volume I’ve recommended, that schedule is a good starting point for most bodybuilders.  As you progress, you may find you do better with less days off or more.  It really is dependent upon the individual.  If you know you do better with more work, go to a 3-on, 1-off schedule but keep the 4-way split.  If you do better with less training days, take 2 days off after 2 days of training whenever you feel as if you need it or simply go to a 1-on, 1-off split and train 2 days in a row at any point when you feel as if you could use a little more training.

The Sum of All Things

     Most folks who walk into a gym will never even think about doing programs such as the ones outlined here.  We live in a gym culture that has an “all or nothing” mentality, where sets are constantly pushed to failure and little thought is given to proper programming.  We also live in a culture where big-time results are few and far between.  Luckily, you know better.  Apply the ideas presented here and you can make the kind of gains that will have you the envy of your local gym.  Use one of the programs I’ve described or create your own.  Workouts as skill training may not be popular but they do induce big-time gains in size, strength, and power.