More Heavy Training

The Ultimate Workout Routine for Getting Massively Big and Incredibly Strong?

     In my previous essay Go Heavy or Go Home, I discussed some ways to train using Pavel Tsatsouline’s seven “Russian rules” of training.  This article will be, in many ways, just a continuation of that one.  I’d recommend reading it first, but you don’t have to.  That article contained a few workout suggestions using Pavel’s 7 maxims.  In this one, I want to propose a workout that I believe is the ultimate for building a combination of size and strength.  This routine isn’t for beginners.  You need to be at the “intermediate” stage before even attempting this routine.  So, you’ve been warned.  If you attempt this without having the work capacity to handle it, it’ll be too much.  At the very least, spend about 3 months doing one of the workouts in the prior essay before moving on to this one.

     This routine utilizes a 2-way split.  You will do squats and pulls at the 1st session and all of your upper body work on the 2nd.  This program is similar to one that I used a little over a decade ago to get the biggest that I had ever been in my life, when I was already 40 years old.  If I had used a regimen similar to this one when I was in my 20s and early 30s, there is no telling how massive I could have gotten.

     I first discovered the benefits for hypertrophy with this style of training when I was powerlifting years before.  At the time, I didn’t want to gain any weight.  I needed to stay in my weight class which, as time went by, proved harder and harder to do.  It really became hard when I started using various “Russian” programs, such as those by the legendary powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko.  I had to stop using Sheiko training, or modify it, because, try as I might, I couldn’t not gain weight.  I was practicing intermittent fasting, eating as little as possible while still attempting to get adequate calories and protein, but I was still gaining muscle.  That ought to tell you something.  There are a lot of bodybuilders out there who do everything “right” as far as nutrition and training goes—or at least they believe they are—but they still find it hard to gain any appreciable muscle mass.  Perhaps one should look at those training methods that produce muscle, however, even when the lifters are trying their best to not gain any.  If you combine that kind of training with proper nutrition and recovery, the sky’s the limit as far as the amount of muscle you might gain.

     When I knew that I was no longer going to compete in powerlifting—I made several attempts at a comeback but I had accrued too many injuries that made squatting and deadlifting with 600 pounds-plus no longer feasible—I decided to apply my lessons learned to gaining muscle mass.  Now, when I did this, I didn’t use outright Russian training.  To explain it in simplistic terms, Sheiko, and similar routines, involves very mathematical calculations as far as what weights are utilized.  That might be what is needed for gaining a lot of strength on a Sheiko routine, but I think a more “relaxed” approach is fine if your primary goal is muscle.  You will still gain plenty of strength along with size, but the routine I’m going to suggest is more “American” in the sense that it’s inspired by old-school power-builders such as Marvin Eder and Anthony Ditillo.  Russian training along with Eder and Ditillo’s systems all use the “sub-maximal effort” method of multiple sets of low reps performed rather frequently, and that is what is important for the quick mass gains.

     This program will produce mass gains because it uses high-frequency training combined with enough fairly high volume and a moderate amount of “intensity.”  Intensity in this case refers to the percentage of your one-rep maximum, not how “hard” you train.  I will explain the details in more depth as I outline the program.

The Ultimate Get Big Routine

Workout 1 - Squats and Pulls

• Squats: 8x5.  Do 4 to 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps.  Once you reach a weight that is around 90% of your 5-rep maximum, stick with that weight for the remainder of your sets, whether it’s 3 or 4 sets, for a total of 8 sets on the lift.  If, at any one of your “straight” sets, you think you might reach failure, or come close, on the remaining set(s), then decrease your weight by 10 pounds or so for whatever sets remain.  Since you will be doing each workout multiple days per week, do NOT worry if some of your sessions are lighter than others, especially when you first begin the program.  As you progress on the routine, you will find yourself getting stronger and stronger (and bigger and bigger).  But this increase in strength should come naturally.  Don’t force it.  Use this same technique on all of the lifts in the program.

• Power cleans: 8x3.  Because of the nature of quick lifts, and the form degradation that can occur with reps above 3, use the same technique here but with triples instead of sets of 5 reps.

Workout 2 - Upper Body

• Bench presses: 8x5

• Weighted chins: 8x5

• One-arm dumbbell overhead presses: 8x5 (each arm)

• Barbell curls: 8x5

Tips

• Option 1: Train 6 days per week, alternating back and forth between the 2 sessions.  So, you might do Workout 1 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Workout 2 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

• Option 2: Train 5 days per week, but still alternating back and forth between the 2 workouts, on a 3-on, 1-off, 2-on, 1-off rotation.  So, you might train, for example, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  The 1st week of training, you would do Workout 1 on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and Workout 2 on Tuesday and Friday.  In the 2nd week of training, you would do the reverse.  Alternate back and forth in this manner from week-to-week.

• Do NOT train less than the above recommendations.  This program works by forcing your body to adapt to the frequency.  The 1st couple of weeks on the program might be rather hard for you, but your body will adapt.  Once it does, watch out!  That’s when the gains really start accruing.  To give you an example of how this works, when I first started using an “advanced” Sheiko training regimen that had quite a bit more volume than what is in this routine, I thought there was no way in hell that it was going to work.  The 1st week I was drained and “beat up” from all the training—I had trouble making it through each workout.  The 2nd week was almost just as bad.  I was on the verge of throwing in the proverbial towel.  But I stuck with it.  By the 3rd week, I was still kind of fatigued, but I could tell I was adapting.  In the 4th week, I had no problem making it through the workouts, and I could tell I was starting to get stronger.  The only reason I reduced the volume and frequency, eventually, was because of the muscle I was gaining—I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay in my weight class.  The same thing happened when I did a program very similar to this over a decade ago—though it also had even more volume.  I felt like crap for a couple of weeks, but then I adapted, and I was off to the muscle-building races!

• After several weeks on the program, if you want to, feel free to add another pull to Workout 1.  Power snatches would be a good idea.  You can also choose to alternate between power cleans and snatches from session to session, if you like that idea.  I think Workout 2 has enough volume as is, but you can add another exercise to it, such as skull crushers, if you need more arm work, or you can add another pressing movement, preferably an overhead one, such as military presses.

• If you want to add in deadlifts, then only do them once per week, on the 1st Workout 1 of the week.  Perhaps even every-other-week would be better.  Do the rest of the routine exactly as written.  Infrequent deadlift training works really well when it's coupled with frequent squatting and cleaning or snatching.

• Stick with this program for 8 to 12 weeks before switching over to something different.  If you find, by week 8, that you are getting great gains and you don’t want them to stop, then take a de-load week in your 9th week of training, and then do another 8 weeks of training but switch to some new movements.  You might, for instance, select front squats, power snatches, incline bench presses or weighted dips, a different overhead movement, a rowing movement in place of chins, and dumbbell curls instead of the barbell version.  When switching lifts, always remember: same but different.  I think that three 8-week blocks of training, with a de-load week in between each cycle, would be about the limit before you need to change over to something entirely different.  At that point, going to a basic 3 days per week, full-body routine would be a good plan.

• Another option for another training cycle is to do 8 or 10 straight sets.  After warming up with 2 or 3 sets, select a weight for 8 sets of 5 reps where you could get 10 reps for 1 all-out set.  Use that weight at each workout until the weight starts to feel easy and then add weight at the next session or stick with that weight for another session or two and only then add additional weight at the next workout.  This is what I mean when I always write that you should add weight naturally.  You can also do 10 sets of triples or doubles.  In that case, use a weight for 3 reps where you would get 6 reps for 1 all-out set or a weight on doubles where you could get 4 reps.  This is always a good approach for high-set training on a single lift.

• Eat plenty of food while on this routine or anything similar.  Your body will need it in order to keep up with the volume and frequency.

• Make sure that you rest big, as well.  Limit your activities outside of the gym so that your nervous system only has to focus on one thing: getting bigger and stronger.

     This program may not be easy, but it is simple.  Just the way most result-producing programs should be.  Try it out for yourself and discover the power of HFT and sub-maximal effort lifting.  It really is as good as anything else out there.

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If you have any questions or comments about this program, or anything else, leave them in the comments section below or send me an email.