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Breaking Plateaus Some time ago I wrote an article in regard to training for mass. Well as time has passed I have been training with high intensity and low volume for 2-3 years and finally I am finding it hard to continue to make satisfactory gains. I am now located in a new city and training in a new gym and exposed to all kinds of new ideas. Recently I picked up a new training partner, now that alone was an improvement, to have a partner of similar strength and similar goals can be quite motivating. Now after a couple of weeks, my partner came to me with a new program, it was far from what I was used to, as a matter of fact just the opposite, it consisted of a lot of sets. At first I wasn't very enthusiastic, as I am a very avid believer in short intense workouts. So after a little coaxing I agreed to a short switch to this new program. Wow! Am I ever amazed, in a short time my body has again begun to respond to training very well, my strength has increased significantly and even my bodyweight and appetite have again began to increase. Below I will detail a sample of the routine I have been employing but first I would like to explain why it works and why one should only employ such a routine for a short period of time.
There is this magazine article title that has always stuck in my mind, "everything works, and nothing works for long!" This really is the simple truth, if you have been training for a long time and your progress has recently come to a halt, then you need to learn, as I have, that your program must be continually evolving. In the past I wrote about reducing exercise volume for increased gains, the "less is more" concept, this is still the training philosophy that I believe in. But when a plateau hits its time to shake the body up, being the perfect machine that it is, it will eventually adapt to anything. Something I recently tried, under the forceful coaxing of my training partner, was to drastically increase the volume of my workouts. At first I thought it was nuts, but in a couple weeks I was amazed at how my strength was increasing. I didn't think gains like that were possible after seven years of training. The routine we followed was about 3-4 times as many sets as our previous training routine, but for a short period of time (3-4 weeks) it was very effective for increasing strength and size. The reason for this is simply because your body's adaptive capabilities. For example if your normal chest workout was 6 working sets your body would be used to expending the maximal amount of energy per set to be exhausted once the final set is completed. Now what happens if you come in this week and complete 15 working sets for your chest? Your chest will be exhausted after the 6th set and by completing the additional sets you will force it to grow stronger for next time. Now this sounds great and one might think that whenever your gains slow down you only need to do more than you were doing before. Sadly, this is not the case. (Personally I'm kinda glad because who wants to train for hours and hours.) By completing all those extra sets you severely tax your body's recovery system. This can be a benefit for a very short period of time. During the first couple weeks your body will work hard to recover for your next workout by diverting stored resources to accommodate what it believes is a temporary situation. This won't last very long though. If you continue to train with very high volume for longer than a few weeks, (3 weeks is plenty in my opinion) your body will begin to sacrifice muscle in order to provide the appropriate materials for the healing process. Effectively, you'll be shooting yourself in the foot. This type of training strategy can be very effective if you understand the messages your body sends you. For instance the minute your strength stops increasing or if you find your focus to your workouts slipping toward the end of these long workouts than I would advise switching back to a low volume training routine, or maybe even give your body a week or two to rest first. Here is a sample of the workout we completed for 4 weeks, though I think 2-3 weeks would have been plenty. REMEMBER, it is important to thoroughly warm-up and stretch before starting any workout, and I would not recommend this training routine to anyone who has not been training regularly and seriously for at least a couple of years. MONDAY: CHEST & BICEPS INCLINE/FLAT BENCH
PRESS 2 X 20 @ 135 lbs INCLINE FLYES: 4 X 6-8 FLA T FLYES: 4 X 6-8
LYING CABLE CURLS 4 X 6-8
SQUATS: 2 X 20
@ 135 lbs LEG EXTENSION: 4 X 6-8 LEG CURL/STIFF LEGGED DEADLIFT: 4 X 6-8 STANDING CALVE RAISES: 4 X 10-15 SEATED CALVE RAISES: 4 X 8-12 THURSDAY: SHOULDERS & TRICEPS SEATED BB PRESS:
2 X 15 @ 135 lbs UPRIGHT ROWS: 4 X 6-8 @ 155 lbs SIDE RAISES : 4 X 8-12
TRICEP PUSHDOWNS: 4 X 6-8 @ 130 lbs FRIDAY: BACK WIDE-GRIP CHINS: 4 X lO BARBELL ROW 2 X
8 @ 185 lbs PULLOVERS: 4 X 8 @ 110 lbs FRONT PULLDOWNS: 4 X 6 @ 220 lbs
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