7 Ways to Get Jacked With Olympic Lifts

The O-Lifts Don't Build Much Muscle...Until Now

by Christian Thibaudeau 

LEAD PHOTO CREDIT: ALI GREGERSEN OF CROSSFIT JUNCTION. PHOTO: PAUL SCHLAFLY IV

Here's what you need to know...

1. Training like an Olympic lifter won't automatically give you gains, but there are ways to train your O-lifts and build muscle.
2. Most modern Olympic lifters aren't jacked. They're not trying to be. Old school weightlifters were more muscular because they spent more time under tension.
3. To make gains while training the O-lifts, include assistance work and slow eccentrics (negatives). Use higher rep ranges as well.
4. Accumulate training volume by lifting at 75-80% of your max instead of going all out, all the time.
5. Isolate the muscles you want to build. But don't prioritize isolation work at the beginning of your workouts. Save it for the end.

What Olympic Lifts Will Do For You

I've said it before and I'll say it again: You won't end up looking like Klokov by training the Olympic lifts.

This doesn't mean Olympic lifts can't develop your physique. It's possible to train like a weightlifter and still improve your look.

Olympic lift variations and their assistance exercises can be very effective in building the traps, legs, glutes, upper and lower back, and shoulders.

But to be able to build muscle mass while training like a weightlifter you need to know why elite weightlifting training isn't effective at stimulating overall muscle growth.

Once you know this, you can modify your training to reach your goals.

6 Facts About Elite Olympic Lifters

1. At the elite level, the top lifters strive to stay in the same weight class for most of their career.

There are a few exceptions. Some will hop back and forth between two classes depending on the competition. But very few actually let their body grow one or two full classes up. Once they find their optimal weight class, they tend to limit methods that'll make them gain size.

2. Most modern weightlifters use a highly specialized approach. This means doing very few assistance exercises.

Their volume is spent mainly training the snatch and clean & jerk (and their variations), front and back squats, and hyperextensions.

Depending on the coach's philosophy, this will be anywhere between 75 to 100% of their training volume. Modern-day lifting is all about technical mastery – being as efficient as possible – and neural efficiency.

3. Reps are normally kept between 1 and 3 on most lifting exercises. This will give the lifter mostly neural adaptations and won't lead to much muscle growth.

A paper by the coaches for the Kazakhstan national team even goes as far as stating that the goal is an increase in strengthwithout an increase in body mass. Training is planned with that goal in mind.

4. The eccentric (negative) component is greatly diminished when performing the Olympic lifts because modern lifters drop pretty much every rep from the lockout/end position to the floor.

There's a minimal eccentric component when the lifter catches/receives the barbell (to break its downward movement) but this lasts just a fraction of a second and is done in large part by the stretch reflex. That makes this "eccentric loading" insufficient to stimulate much growth.

Related:  Olympic Lifting Made Simple

5. The development of the proper lifting technique has evolved a lot in the past 20-30 years. The best lifters are extremely efficient, decreasing to a minimum the height at which the barbell is pulled.

The best lifters are normally those who move the fastest and more precisely under the barbell. At that point, leg strength is the limiting factor (to stand up with the barbell) which is why front/back squats are a huge part of their training.

If you compare that to the technique of lifters from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the latter weren't as fast getting under the barbell. Instead they pulled to a greater height, which required a big emphasis on pulling strength, both upper and lower body.

6. The time under tension for each set is very short, roughly 3-12 seconds per set. This is suboptimal for the development of hypertrophy, which is best accomplished by sets in the 30-60 seconds range.

Related:  Olympic Lifting For Bodybuilders

Furthermore, most of that 3-12 seconds isn't spent under maximum tension because in the Olympic lifts you only produce maximum force for a very brief period of time – at the point of explosion in the power position.

Prior to the "explosion" the lifting is submaximal, essentially a deadlift-like motion with 40-60% of your deadlift, and afterward the barbell is largely moving up due to the imparted momentum.

Modern day weightlifting has a lot more emphasis on speed and power than slower-speed strength.

Exceptions Give Us A Clue

Out of the modern day lifters, the Asian athletes – from China and North Korea mostly – have the most muscular bodies. We're speaking in terms of body composition and having a lean and muscular look.

Out of all the elite weightlifters, they're the ones using the most assistance exercises: lots of pulls, rows, chin-ups, dips, handstand push-ups, lateral raises, triceps extensions, and even barbell curls.

It's not unusual for them to do 30-45 minutes of bodybuilding work at the end of their lifting session.

Lifters from Russia and Poland also tend to have plenty of muscle and they use a lot of assistance exercises too, mostly various pulls and presses.

They don't have the same type of development as the Asians (less arms and pectoral development) but still look more muscular than the lifters using a program relying only of the competition lifts and squats.

These two groups of lifters also tend to do more volume of work with a lower average weight.

Lessons From Old-School Weightlifters

Weightlifters from the '60s, '70s, and '80s were more muscular than today's lifters. They had more arm, shoulder, and upper back development. On average they were also leaner.

David Rigert, Anatoly Pisarenko, Pavel Pervushin, Lee James, Phil Gripaldi, Bill Starr, Yuri Vardanyan, and Sultan Rakhmanov, to name a few, had physiques that most of us would be very happy to have.

Here's why:

The Press Was Included

Prior to 1972, a third lift was contested in weightlifting competitions: the clean & press. The press was more of a slow-speed strength movement and involved the upper body a lot.

The press actually had a huge place in the training of weightlifters from the '60s and early '70s. Lifters used a lot of assistance work like the bench press, incline press, and push press to strengthen that lift.

David Rigert bench pressed 460 pounds, military pressed 375 pounds, and push pressed 480 pounds. This explains the bigger shoulders, triceps, and pecs.

Even though the press was removed from competition after 1972, it took some time for coaches and athletes to change the training approach. So lifters from the '70s and early '80s trained in the press era and had time to develop their upper bodies.

They Were Inefficient

Technique wasn't as efficient in those times either. On average, lifters pulled the bar higher in the clean and snatch and "pushed" the bar higher in jerks.

Today's lifter has a more efficient technique. They get under the bar faster, which means less emphasis is placed on pulling high.

When you pull the bar higher, you focus a lot more on the strength of the upper back, traps and even arms, as opposed to only maximizing leg and lower back strength.

This partly explains the thicker traps and upper back of lifters from the '60 through '80s.

They Couldn't Drop the Bar

Another major factor contributing to the thicker traps, upper back, and arms was bumper plates – the lack thereof.

Bumper plates, which can be dropped without damaging the barbell and platform, were introduced in the late '60s. Prior to that, lifters trained on iron plates.

The competition rules stated that the lifter had to lower the barbell down to the platform after a lift and in training. They didn't drop the barbell (unless it was a missed lift) because it would damage the bar.

The lowering portion of the Olympic lifts placed a tremendous eccentric load on the shoulders (when lowering a jerk or snatch down from overhead) and on the traps and arms (when lowering down to the thighs and floor).

This increase in eccentric loading relative to today's lifting practices no doubt contributed to building more muscle mass.

They Used Higher Reps

Finally, old-school lifters used higher rep ranges in training. The norm was closer to 3 reps per set on the competition lifts and 5 reps on the strength building movements.

Today it's 1-2 and 2-3 reps. Not surprisingly, this longer time under load created more physiological adaptations.

Related:  The Fallacy of High Rep Olympic Lifting

It's also worth mentioning that in the US it was typical for Olympic lifters to do bodybuilding work either off-season or between competitions. Tommy Kono, John Grimek, and Steve Stanko were international lifters who also won bodybuilding titles.

7 Training Modifications for Muscle Mass

Who this is for: Those who enjoy training the Olympic lifts and want to make them the cornerstone of their routine. They like the feeling of explosion and feeling athletic, but they also want gains.

Who this is not for: Those interested in competing at a high level in Olympic lifting. Those people would be well served to train in a way that's more in line with modern-day weightlifting programming.

1. Use more assistance exercises.

PHOTO CREDIT: CROSSFIT SNORIDGE

Your first choice should be movements that will have a positive impact on your Olympic lifts: pulls (hang, floor, blocks), deadlifts with your clean and/or snatch form, military presses, push presses, deficit deadlifts, power shrugs, and barbell rows for example.

A typical session for me will include:

• One competitive lift or a variation, like snatch or power snatch from hang/floor/blocks, clean or power clean from hang/floor/blocks.
• Two assistance exercises specific to the lift trained first in the session, like snatch pull from hang and deficit snatch deadlift, and one basic strength movement like front/back squat or good morning.

Good assistance exercises include:

A.  Snatch Related

• Snatch high pull (hang, floor or blocks)
• Snatch extension/low pull (hang, floor or blocks)
• Snatch deadlift (floor, deficit, blocks below knees)
• Overhead squat
• Behind the neck press with a snatch grip
• Behind the neck push press with a snatch grip

B.  Clean related

• Clean high pull (hang, floor or blocks)
• Clean extension/low pull (hang, floor or blocks)
• Clean deadlift (floor, deficit, blocks below knees)
• Shrugs or power shrugs

C.  Jerk related

• Push press
• Military press
• Behind the neck push press
• Half or quarter front squat
• Strict press from a split position
• Power jerk

2. Use a slightly higher rep number most of the time.

Do sets of 3 for the Olympic lift variations and 4-6 reps for the assistance movements.

3. Include plenty of work from the hang or blocks.

PHOTO CREDIT: CROSSFIT ERO

These force you to lower the weight back to the starting position after a completed lift and add a bit of eccentric loading. Lowering a snatch/clean or absorbing the bar on the way down on high pulls from the hang can build traps fast.

4. Focus on accumulating volume in the 75-80% range rather than going all-out all the time.

Doing 6 x 3 for the Olympic lift variations and 4-5 x 4-6 on the assistance exercises. Accumulate quality volume focusing on technical precision and speed.

5. When doing slow-speed strength exercises, focus on lowering the weight slowly in 3-4 seconds.

Think military press, back/front squats, and good mornings. This will add the eccentric component that's lacking from training on the competitive lifts and their variations.

6. Add dips and pull-ups to the program.

Dips will hit the triceps and chest nicely while maintaining proper range of motion at the shoulder joint. Pull-ups will improve back, arm, and grip strength. For these "bodybuilding" exercises do 3-4 sets of 6-8 reps.

7. Do isolation work for a muscle that you feel is neglected by the program.

Just make sure that it's trained at the end of the session and no longer than 15 minutes.

The Benefits

Making these adjustments will allow you to build plenty of muscle while working on your Olympic lifts. They'll help you get leaner.

Explosive work has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity more than other forms of training. And the more sensitive you are to insulin, the easier it is to get lean.

Yes, focus on increasing the load, but not at the expense of form, speed, and volume.

If you ever decide to test yourself, you'll need only 1-2 weeks of training on sets of 1-2 reps with reduced assistance work to peak your strength and get used to the feeling of maximal weights.

Fasted Cardio Eats Muscle, Plus 6 More Fat Loss Mistakes

by Christian Thibaudeau   

Here's what you need to know...

•  When most people attempt to lose fat, they use dumb diet and exercise strategies that make it impossible to preserve muscle, which makes them look worse and gain all the fat they lose right back, plus more.

•  Fasted cardio works, if you're using performance-enhancing drugs to protect your muscle. Otherwise it stinks.

•  If you decide to add cardio, use low-intensity work for 45-60 minutes or high-intensity work lasting 15 minutes or less.

•  Dropping carbs during the peri-workout period is one of the worst things you can do.

"Cardio doesn't burn fat. Muscle burns fat." – John Meadows

Whenever people decide to lose body fat, they make the same dumb mistake: They adopt strategies that make it impossible to preserve their muscle mass. They lose weight, of course, but they lose just as much lean body mass as fat mass. They simply become smaller versions of their unaesthetic selves. They occupy less space, the scale tells them they weigh less, and their doctor might even congratulate them for being closer to their "healthy weight," but in reality they aren't looking any better, which kind of misses the point.

The number one priority when attempting to lose fat should be to keep the muscle you have. Losing muscle mass should not be acceptable. Losing muscle will make it harder to look good when losing the fat, but it'll also make it harder to lose fat since muscle tissue is metabolically responsible for most of the fat you'll lose. Ten pounds of muscle burns 50 calories per day even at rest, so if you lose 10 pounds of muscle, you will burn 50 fewer calories per day, or 350 fewer calories per week. That can make a significant difference in the long run.

Then there's the issue of insulin sensitivity. If you have more muscle, your insulin sensitivity will be slanted more towards accruing muscle mass. A larger muscle has more insulin receptors, which makes the muscles more insulin sensitive. That means you'll tend to store more of what you eat in the muscles instead of as body fat. Lastly, when you have more muscle mass, you can lift more weight and train harder, which increases the amount of calories you burn during a workout.

As you can see, it's not only important to maintain muscle when dieting, it's vital! Here are the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose fat.

1. Doing Fasted Cardio

Fasted cardio, most often done first thing in the morning, has been a popular approach in the world of bodybuilding for years... and it works, if you're using performance-enhancing drugs to protect your muscle mass. But for a natural trainee, fasted cardio is a very good way to eat away muscle mass. First of all, cortisol is at its highest in the morning (the cortisol spike is what allows you to have energy when you wake-up). If you don't eat, it will stay elevated and even increase. And if you do cardio work, which also tends to jack up cortisol output, you'll end up with a sky-high cortisol level, which is one of the best ways to lose muscle. Not only that, if it gets high enough you'll actually have a hard time bringing it down during the day (especially when in a caloric deficit). You end up spending the whole day in a muscle-wasting state!

I'm not pro-cardio or anti-cardio. Some people need it to get super lean, some don't. But I do think that people introduce it too soon in a fat loss phase (more on that later). However, if you decide to use cardio to get leaner, doing it fasted is a very bad idea. The absolute best way to get the greatest caloric expenditure over the whole day from cardio is to do your cardio in what's called the post-absorptive state. That means not in a fasted state, but not while you're still digesting either. It's a state where nutrients are available in the bloodstream and fat oxidation and caloric expenditure is at its greatest.

Look, if you do your cardio in a fasted state, the overall fat oxidation over a 24-hour period is significantly lower, probably because the metabolic rate doesn't increase or stay elevated, but also because the bout of activity causes more fatigue. You instinctively end up lowering your activity level throughout the day. There's also the issue of fasted cardio being potentially catabolic to muscle mass.

However, doing cardio after you just ate isn't better either. It'll lead to less fat oxidation and more glucose oxidation, not to mention that a lot of people have a hard time going hard on energy system work when they're still digesting a meal. The best option is to perform cardio when the body has fully absorbed nutrients prior to the activity. Unfortunately, this is really hard to do with solid food. It's almost impossible to know how fast solid food is digested. It will vary from person to person and even from time of day in the same person.

That's where a supplement like Mag-10® shines. It's readily absorbed, you can drink it and go do your cardio soon after without fear of it having negative effects, and you get all the benefits of doing cardio in a post-absorptive state. I find that Mag-10 pre-cardio also boosts metabolic rate and actually helps you get leaner even faster. One serving roughly 20 minutes prior to your cardio is all you need.

To synopsize, avoid fasted cardio when you're trying to lose fat and are not using an anabolic aid. The best way to do that is with a serving of Mag-10 in your body. That will preserve your muscle mass and will have the greatest impact on your fat loss over a 24-hour period.

2. Lifting Lighter Weights for More Reps

Maintaining or even gaining strength is the absolute best way to make sure that you're not losing muscle mass. If you keep pushing big weights, it'll force the body to keep its muscle since it will see it as necessary for survival. If you reduce the amount of weight you're lifting, the body will "assume" that you don't require as much strength and that it's okay to lower your muscle mass. Why? Because muscle uses a ton of calories every day and the body will see it as expendable.

Then there is the second part of the mistake: increasing reps. Often times this is done to "cut up" a muscle. Too bad that's impossible to do. You cannot get a muscle more cut. You can only make it bigger or smaller. To get more "cut" you need to get rid of the fat while keeping the muscle large and full. Some people aren't stupid enough to think that lifting lighter weights for more reps works, but they still perform higher reps simply to burn more calories and accelerate fat loss.

In my experience that's fine, provided that you did your heavy lifting already. However, if you overdo the reps, you can indirectly decrease your muscle mass by impairing recovery. When your caloric intake is reduced, your capacity to recover from training is already handicapped, so adding the burden of increased volume can lead to regression in both performance and muscle size. The moral of the story? You should do everything in your power to at least maintain your strength when dieting down, and this will not happen if you stop lifting heavy to focus on doing more pump work.

3. Doing Moderate Intensity, Steady State Cardio

If you decide to add cardio to your fat loss regiment, you have two options and both are at opposite ends of the spectrum. You can go low-intensity (walking) or high-intensity (sprints, intervals, etc.). It's a hormonal thing. Moderate intensity/steady state cardio – the type that most people are doing when trying to lose fat – will increase cortisol levels the most. The activity is just intense enough to stimulate the release of cortisol, and also long enough to elevate it significantly.

Low-intensity cardio, however, in the form of taking a one-hour walk in the park or something, will not be intense enough to stimulate much cortisol release. In fact it might actually lower cortisol levels by having a relaxing effect. High-intensity work, on the other hand, might lead to a lot of cortisol being produced, but the duration of the activity isn't usually long enough to lead to a large elevation.

My recommendation is either to use longer, low-intensity work (a relaxing pace at which you can sustain a conversation) for 45-60 minutes, or high-intensity work lasting 15 minutes or less. That's why I love loaded carries. Three to five minutes is all you need to get an amazing fat burning effect with basically zero negative impact on muscle mass. In fact, it can help you build some muscle!

4. Cutting and Doing Everything Right From the Start

Losing fat and changing your body is an emotional issue; we want that dream body and we want it right now! That mindset leads to our fourth mistake: starting out way too abruptly. I've seen people start their diet out with less than 50 grams of carbs and fat per day for a total of roughly 1200 calories. Add to that doing 90 minutes of cardio per day (sometimes 120 minutes spread into two daily sessions), doing circuit training in the gym, and using a powerful fat burner formula.

Great. But how long do you think someone can sustain that? More importantly, how long do you think it will take your body to adapt? My experience is that the body will adapt to that level of deprivation and activity level in 4 to 6 weeks and fat loss will come to a screeching halt... and that is if you can make it to 4-6 weeks! You'll feel depressed, have unbearable hunger pangs and zero energy to train, and basically stop enjoying life. And then there is the muscle loss from such an excessive approach.

So what happens when fat loss stalls with this approach? What can you do to get it started again? You have nothing left to cut from your diet, and unless you can afford to devote your whole agenda to training, you can't ramp up the activity any further (you won't have the energy anyway). You will basically be doomed. You'll still lose some fat, but progress will be so slow that there is no way you'll be able to handle it long enough to reach your goal.

Avoid being excessive from the start. Use the dietary and cardio strategy to allow you to lose fat at an acceptable rate and train to maintain or increase your strength. The more conservative you are while still getting good fat loss results, the more room you'll have to play with when fat loss slows down.

5. Increasing Training Volume and Doing More Exercises

When someone wants to get ripped he naturally tends to add exercises to his program. He does that because he believes that doing so will help him "carve" the muscle by working it from as many angles as possible. Well, you cannot carve, shape, or cut a muscle. You can only make it bigger or smaller. So right off the bat adding exercises will not work for the purpose of shaping or carving a muscle.

Can you make it bigger by adding more exercises? Sure, if you're in a caloric surplus, but when in a caloric deficit your body will have a hard time just maintaining the muscle mass it already has. So adding a significant amount of muscle will be very hard to do if you're a natural lifter. Since you won't be in a physical state conducive to building new muscle tissue, adding more exercises will only make you burn more fuel. And as I mentioned, this might actually make it harder to recover from your training, which isn't something we want when trying to preserve muscle mass.

Now, some people swear that adding exercises makes their muscles larger. This is more likely due to inflammation of the muscle tissue (which will naturally tend to increase when dieting since it's harder to recover), which can make the muscles feel and even look swollen. But that won't last long and it won't take much time to start losing your capacity to get a pump, and that's the first sign that you're about to start losing muscle. The idea is to focus on the big money lifts to maintain your strength. You correct muscle imbalances and lagging body parts when you're in a caloric surplus, not when you're dieting down.

6. Getting Rid of Workout Nutrition Carbs

This is probably the most common problem. I've even been guilty of it myself! For a long time carbs were the enemy of fat loss. That was especially true during the low-carb diet craze a few years back. Nobody was as carbophobic as I was. So I do understand the impulse to suddenly stop taking in peri-workout carbs (before, during and post-workout) when dieting down.

Listen, a proper peri-workout formula like Plazma™ that contains fast acting di- and tri- peptides and functional carbs is your absolute best insurance policy when it comes to preserving (or even increasing) muscle mass when dieting down, so dropping carbs is one of the worst things you can do. If anything you should increase your peri-workout nutrient intake when dieting down. Go ahead and reduce carbs and calories for the rest of the day to get the maximum fat burning effect possible, but leave the peri-workout window alone!

Don't be afraid of peri-workout carbs (especially the highly-branched cyclodextrins in Plazma since they actually have fat burning effects) as they won't be stored as fat or reduce your rate of fat loss. In fact, they'll increase your rate of fat loss by allowing you to train harder and keep your metabolic rate higher.

7. Doing Cardio Before Going to Bed

I don't see this as frequently as many of the other mistakes, but it deserves a mention. This was popular in some bodybuilding circles when it got out that Ronnie Coleman was doing it when preparing for the Mr. Olympia. Again, not to talk bad about pro bodybuilding, but steroids change your physiology. For example, steroids/androgens and cortisol share a cellular messenger. Without giving you a physiology lecture, it means that the more androgens you have in your body, the less impact cortisol will have on you.

Doing cardio – especially moderate steady state cardio – will elevate cortisol levels, and in the natural hormonal cycle of humans, cortisol has to be at its lowest before going to bed. Having a high cortisol level when going to bed will make it much harder to go to sleep and much harder to have a restorative sleep episode. It will also turn your sleep period into a 7 to 10 hour-long catabolic episode, which isn't a good mix if you value your muscle mass. To maintain your muscle, recover faster from your training, and optimize your hormonal levels and cycles, avoid evening/night cardio.

It's Simple...

1. Keep lifting heavy on the big basic lifts.
2. Do not add extra exercises.
3. Do not try to burn more calories via weight lifting.
4. If you decide to do cardio, choose low-intensity cardio, high-intensity/short duration cardio, or loaded carries and make sure to be in a post-absorptive state. Also, avoid doing cardio at night.
5. Do not try to correct lagging muscle groups when in a caloric deficit. The best you can do is maintain your muscle or increase it slightly; you can't make drastic changes at this point.
6. Don't ditch your workout nutrition carbs. In fact, increase them!
7. Start conservatively. Do just enough to maintain a good rate of progress (a loss of 2 pounds per week, for example) so that you keep some weapons in store for when fat loss slows down.

20-Minute Muscle Builder

Quick Barbell Workouts for Busy People

by Christian Thibaudeau   

Here's what you need to know...

•  You can build muscle and strength in as little as 20 minutes a day if you know what you're doing. Twenty minutes of well planned, focused training will lead to significant improvements in your physique and work capacity.

•  This program only requires a barbell and, ideally, a bench. You'll only do four basic lifts. They're split over two training days and you'll go back and forth between them throughout the week.

If you have access to a barbell and have 20 minutes a day to spare, I can make you bigger and stronger. I have plenty of clients who work inhumane hours, yet all of them train 4 to 7 days a week and all are making significant progress. I'm fed up with people who make excuses not to train. I couldn't care less if someone doesn't want to hit the weights. To each his passion. However, I do get pissed off when someone complains about not being able to build a good physique because he doesn't have time or that he's too tired. If you really want it, stop being weak and make time to train.

The thing is, you don't need that much time to work out. You can build muscle and strength in as little as 20 minutes a day (or even less) if you know what you're doing. Twenty minutes of well planned, focused training will lead to significant improvements in your physique and work capacity. Tell me that you don't have 20 minutes to devote to training! Here's a very simple program that will get you stronger and more muscular if you give it all you've got.

The Program

The plan is very simple. It only requires a barbell and, ideally, a bench. We'll use four basic lifts only. They are split over two training days and you go back and forth between them throughout the week.

The lifts are:

1. Deadlift
2. Military Press
3. Bench Press
4. Bent-Over Barbell Row (torso kept parallel to the floor)

The groupings are as follows:

Workout A
A. Deadlift
B. Military press

Workout B
A. Bench press
B. Bent-Over Barbell Row

It's crucial that you know your maximum (1RM) on those four lifts. I don't want a sloppy max, either. I want the maximum amount of weight you can lift for a technically solid repetition. This maximum will be used to calculate the weights you will use on the first week. Then the loads will be adjusted depending on your results.

After warming up (2-3 warm-up sets at the most), do 4 total sets per exercise:

Set 1: 5 reps with 80% of your maximum
Set 2: 1 rep with 90% of your maximum
Set 3: 1 rep with 92% of your maximum
Set 4: The maximum number of reps you can do with 60% of your maximum. This number should fall between 15 and 20

The important part to remember is how to adjust the load from workout to workout. What determines if you can go up in weight at the next session is the result of the fourth set. It's simple: When you reach 20 reps on the fourth set, you go up in weight the next workout. Until you can reach 20 good reps, the load used for your 4 work sets remains unchanged.

For example, let's say that your workout looks like this:

5 @ 240 pounds
1 @ 270 pounds
1 @ 280 pounds
17 @ 180 pounds

You'd keep 240, 270, 280, and 180 pounds as your work set weights the next time this workout comes around. When you're able to hit 20 reps on that last set, you increase the weight in the following amounts:

Deadlift: 10 pounds for the first 3 sets, 20 pounds for the fourth set
Military Press: 5 pounds for the first 3 sets, 10 pounds for the fourth set
Bench Press: 5 pounds for the first 3 sets, 10 pounds for the fourth set
Bent-Over Barbell Row: 5 pounds for the first 3 sets, 10 pounds for the fourth set

For example, if your bench-press numbers look like this:

5 @ 240 pounds
1 @ 270 pounds
1 @ 280 pounds
20 @ 180 pounds

Then the next time you do bench, your weights would go to:

5 @ 245 pounds
1 @ 275 pounds
1 @ 286 pounds
Maximum number of reps @ 190 pounds

Frequency Is King

In my experience, training frequency is a lot more important than volume. This is especially true if you're using a very low volume/training time approach like this program. A lot of people ask if they can change exercises every workout. For example, instead of doing Workout A (deadlift/military press) three times during the week, they'll ask if they can do that workout just once and then use other movements like a squat, incline bench press, or barbell curl on the other sessions. No, you can't! The program simply will not work if you use different variations of the exercises at every workout. You must progressively overload the same movement to force the body to adapt and build muscle.

It's simple:

Days 1, 3, and 5
Deadlift
Military Press

Days 2, 4, and 6
Bench Press
Bent-Over Barbell Row

Don't try to get cute. Simply work hard at pushing the weights up on those four lifts and you will grow.

How It Works

This program looks deceptively simple, but give it a shot for a month and you'll be shocked. If you work hard you will get everything you need to grow. The sets using 80-92% of your max will activate the nervous system and make your muscles denser and harder looking. Those sets will also get you stronger. The set of 5 will also contribute to hypertrophy and the set of 20 will further stimulate hypertrophy.

The cool thing is that these workouts aren't draining and they could in fact be done even more frequently if you want to (e.g., Workout A in the AM and Workout B in the PM, every day) and you'd make fantastic gains without feeling fatigued.

Possible Adaptations

I typically don't like to stray away from my systems, but here are three ways you can adapt this system to different situations:

1. You can do a longer workout, but you can't get to the gym that often.

Let's say that you can spend 40-60 minutes per day on your training but that you can only hit the gym 3 days a week. Remember that frequency is king with this program – you want to hit each lift often. If you can only go to the gym 3 times a week, then you should do all four lifts at every workout. This will allow you to hit all four movements three times per week. The best order to do this is as follow:

1. Bench Press
2. Deadlift
3. Military Press
4. Bent-Over Row

2. You want to train twice a day.

I personally like to do multiple short sessions during the day. I feel that if you can afford to do that, you'll get the best possible gains. If you want to do this, perform the A workout in the AM as your first training session and the B workout in the PM as your second session.

3. You want to also get leaner.

I suggest adding Tabata kettlebell swings to the end of the workout. Simply do as many KB swings as you can in 20 seconds, rest 10 seconds, and then start the next round of 20 seconds. You do this for 4 minutes straight. A 20 or 24-kilogram kettlebell will be adequate for most guys while a 16-kilogram kettlebell should work for most women.

The Best Exercises. Period.

by Christian Thibaudeau   

Here's what you need to know...

•  Nothing will build up the yoke like the snatch-grip high pull.

•  While using a Prowler is great for fat loss and building muscle, the farmer's walk with a trap bar is better.

•  The bench press is not the best exercise to build the pectoral muscles. Rather, it's the dip.

•  The best exercise to use as a test for power, speed, and explosiveness isn't the 40-yard dash or the vertical jump, it's the underhand forward medicine ball throw.

One cautionary note before I jump into my list of favorite exercises. I'm assuming proper form and performance on all of them. A great movement can be turned into something totally worthless if not done properly.

1. Best Exercise to Make You Look "Yoked"

First I want to apologize to Jim Wendler for stealing his "yoke" concept. Honestly though, what he calls the yoke, I normally call the shoulder pad area. I'm specifically referring to the size and thickness of the delts, traps, and mid-back – the muscles that make you look visually intimidating and that scream power!

Nothing will build up those muscles like the snatch-grip high pull from the hang or blocks. I've had people contact me saying that it changed the way their body looked in as little as one or two workouts! For the high pull, focus on exploding upwards with the lower body and hips to create upward momentum. Then pull the barbell violently toward your neck – anywhere between the nipple line and neck constitutes a high pull in my book. Keep the bar close and the elbows high.

To gain massive size:
Do sets of 3 to 5 reps.

2. Best Exercise To Get You Ripped

I want to apologize to Jim Wendler for a second time because, while he (rightfully so) loves the Prowler to keep fat at bay, I personally have a preference for the farmer's walk or Dead-Squat™ Bar carry. I prefer the farmer's walk for two main reasons:

1. You are less likely to be limited by metabolic factors. The Prowler causes the greatest oxygen debt in the least amount of time. This is in part due to the high demands of the exercise but also because it's hard to breathe when pushing the bastard! While the farmer's walk is also metabolically demanding, at least you can breathe properly when you do it. As such, you can carry big weights for longer than you can prowl big weights and you recover faster between sets. That allows for a greater density of work, which is important when trying to get as lean as possible.

2. The farmer's walk involves a greater number of muscles. The Prowler might hit the legs a little harder, but you don't get the same traps, arms, and abs involvement as the farmer's walk. You will also experience growth in those muscles because of the occluded stretch you create, which makes the farmer's walk a bigger bang-for-your-buck movement.

For fat loss: 
Bouts of 2 minutes with 1 minute of rest.

To build muscle and lose fat: 
Go heavier for 1 minute with one minute of rest.

To build size/strength while keeping fat gain at bay: 
Go very heavy for 20-30 seconds with up to 2 minutes of rest between sets.

3. Best Exercise To Be A Solid Power Athlete

A power athlete is someone competing in sports requiring a high level of speed and explosiveness like football, sprinting, throwing, jumping events, etc. If done properly, the best exercise for these athletes (and one of the best tests of athletic capacities) is the power snatch from the hang. Of all the lifting exercises, it's the one with the highest power production level. It also requires good overall coordination and full shoulder mobility.

The power clean from the hang would have been a good choice too, since the power produced is also very high, but you get higher acceleration and rate of force development and peak velocity in the power snatch – all elements that are key to ultimate performance in explosive sports. The power snatch is obviously a somewhat complex lift. Remember my cautionary note at the beginning of the article – if a movement isn't done properly, it loses it status as "best"!

To build maximum power and explosiveness:
Use a load that's 70-80% of 1RM. We want all reps to be violently explosive, so sets of 2-3 reps are best.

4. Best Exercise To Build A Big Chest

I didn't really want to include best exercises for individual body parts because more often than not these can vary from one person to the next because of leverages or muscle dominances. I'll make an exception in the case of the chest, however, because everybody tends to believe that the best way to build the chest is the bench press. Even though I love the bench press, it's not the best exercise to build the pectoral muscles. The dip is. To this day I haven't met one person who was very strong on dips (in perfect form) who didn't have a very good chest, but I have seen my fair share of big bench pressers with very ordinary pecs.

The first sign of a good/bad dip is body swing. Those who aren't doing the dip properly tend to have their torso and legs moving during the exercise, whereas those who are very good at dips seem to have their torso and legs fixed on a sliding rail. Another sign is whether the shoulders stay in the pocket or not. Many bad dippers (and those who get shoulder problems from dips) often have their shoulders move forward and up relative to their torso when they go down. If you took a picture of only their shoulders, it would look like they were doing a shrug.

When you dip down you should flare your lats (think of rubbing the inner part of your upper arm against the lats) and "open up" the chest, not unlike during a bench press.

To build a big chest:
Do full-range dips with an additional load of 50% bodyweight for 6-8 reps.

5. Best Exercise To Get Strong

Talk to every competitive strongman and ask him what his most important barbell lift is and 9 times out of 10 you'll get one answer: the deadlift. No movement transfers better to picking things up from the floor and carrying stuff with your hands, the two most important tasks in strongman competitions. Even back in the 1800s during the golden age of strongmen, the ultimate test of strength was how much weight you could lift off the floor (using two hands, one hand, one finger, etc.). In even older days, the strongest man in the village was the one who could pick up the heaviest stone.

Lifting a big weight off the floor requires greater overall strength than all other simple actions, so it's not surprising that the deadlift is the king of lifts for strongmen. Now, it's true that some small men have deadlifted big weights without being strong in other movements. Guys with formidable leverages like Bob Peoples, who has hands that hang almost down to his knees, have an advantage.

Regardless, becoming strong in the deadlift is the best way for 90% of the population to become strong overall. The reason for this – besides the fact that the deadlift involves so many muscles – is the effect that training the deadlift has on strengthening the nervous system. This, in turn, increases your strength potential everywhere else, too.

To build maximum strength:
I like doing a deadlift workout that I saw Canadian strongest man Jean-Francois Caron do. He would max out on rack deadlifts (bar starting just below the knees) and then do 6 sets of 3 reps of floor deadlifts. Caron has deadlifted over 900 pounds for reps, so it's hard to find fault with this plan!

6. Best Exercise For The Time Constrained

If you only had time to do one session of 10 minutes per week and could only do one lift, what would you do? My answer would be 5 sets of 3-5 reps on the clean and press – specifically a power clean from the hang followed by a push press – with about 60-75 seconds of rest between sets.

The clean & press involves to some degree most, if not all, the muscles in the body. I'm not saying that it will work everything optimally, but you can at least stimulate all of your muscles to some extent. It's also an exercise that can help get you leaner because it has a high-energy demand since it involves so many muscle groups and involves a high velocity of movement.

To build or maintain muscle size and burn fat:
Do 5 sets of 3-5 reps. More than that and it turns into a metabolic conditioning exercise.

7. Best Exercise To Test Athleticism

When you're a strength coach working with groups of athletes you often have to test your athletes to know where they are and who has the most potential. Coaches will use tons of tests and the testing of a team will often take 4 hours or more. From my experience, when testing an athlete in a sport like football, hockey, basketball, or baseball, I find that the test that has the highest correlation with athletic potential isn't the 40-yard dash or vertical jump, but the underhand forward medicine ball throw.

The 40-yard dash is of course a very popular choice, but nowadays it's more about technique and beating the test than pure athletic capacities. The vertical jump is a little bit less technique dependant, but it doesn't involve the upper body that much (about 10-15%) so it's less complete than the underhand throw.

To test an athlete for potential:
Have them swing the ball between their legs and throw it forward as far as they can. The weight of the ball should be 10-12 pounds. A 15-meter throw (16.4 yards) is a decent result, while 19 meters (20.7 yards) would be excellent.