Work on strength and volume with our ten rules!

If you follow the rules we offer you in today's article, you won't be able to avoid progress in volume and strength! Why aren't more people using this method? Because people have the attention span of aquarium fish, and they love shiny new things.

One day, you'll have to make a decision in the gym. What's more important? Having fun or getting better? Because these are often mutually exclusive!

Here are 10 rules that will guarantee your progress!

1.

This is best for optimizing the quality of your training. You'll recover optimally with days off and be able to train brutally hard, but you won't burn out.

2. Build your workouts around the most important exercises

Rotate 4 workouts, each focusing on one essential exercise (e.g. bench, squat, overhead press and deadlift). After this exercise, do one essential assistance exercise and 1-2 isolation exercises. All will be complements to improve the main exercise of the workout.

3. Use addition in the range of three

Start with 4-6 or 6-8 reps (range 3). Work 4 sets with the same weight. Once you reach the top of the rep range, add 2.5-5 pounds in the next workout. Before you can add, you need to actually master 6-6-6-6 or 8-8-8-8. If you still can't, keep the weight the same.

4. For isolation exercises, focus on burning and muscle fatigue

The weight doesn't matter. Get to failure or close, and you need to feel a proper burn/pump!

5. Rest for a long time for the main exercise

For complex exercises, rest for 3-4 minutes to maximize performance.

6. For isolated exercises, rest briefly

This will engage secondary growth mechanisms. These include lactate, local growth factors, etc. Also, a good volume response will come without overloading the nervous system.

7. Keep an excess of 300-500 calories every day

If you're not gaining weight, you're hardly going to build any proper muscle. You need to fuel this process with a caloric surplus. This will also optimize recovery and performance. If your weight doesn't grow for at least ob week, you don't have a caloric surplus.

8. Eat 2g of protein per kilo of weight and add carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are almost as essential as protein. They are anti-catabolic and promote the flushing of growth factor and insulin. They also activate m-TOR, which promotes proteosynthesis. Carbohydrates are also the best fuel for intense workouts and accelerate recovery. A large serving of your carbs should come around your workout.

9. Drink plenty of water

At least 4-5 litres a day. Water helps transport nutrients, stores carbohydrates as glycogen, and is involved in so many metabolic processes I can't even name them. Water is the real secret weapon for strength and size.

10. Sleep at least 8 hours a day

Sleep is essential for recovery, optimizing your nervous system and hormones, and building muscle. If you can get a few hours of sleep before midnight, all the better. Why? It's all about sleep rhythm. As the intensity of daylight decreases, signals are sent to the brain that adjust how our cells function.

Details

Split divided by exercises

This is one of the easiest ways to plan your workout. Works well for performance, size and strength. It's a split focused on building volume and strength. It does not work optimally for competitive bodybuilders who have to overdevelop each of their muscles.

You will rotate through 4 workouts, each built around one major axis exercise:

• Day 1: Squat Variations
• Day 2: Horizontal Pressure Variation
• Day 3: Hip flexor variation
• Day 4: Vertical Pressure Variation

Start by choosing your 4 exercises. These will stay the same for as long as possible, so pick something that works for you and fits your somatotype.

Examples for each category:

• Squat: axial squat high, axial squat low, front squat, Zercher squat, box squat, etc.
• Horizontal Press: Bench press, slightly positively inclined bench, positively inclined bench, negatively inclined bench, etc.
• Hip flexion: traditional deadlift, power relocation (and variations), power market (and variations), Romanian deadlift, sumo deadlift, trap axis deadlift, high lifts, etc.
• Vertical press: military press, push press, log press, very positively inclined bench, seated single arm presses, etc.

Each workout includes 4-5 exercises

• Exercise 1: Is the main exercise. You will have it in your workout for a long time (see adding in a range of three).
• Exercise 2: Is a multi-joint assistance exercise for the main exercise (it can also be a variation of it, e.g., close bench). You can also keep this exercise long in your program and add it following the same pattern as the main exercise. However, if it is no longer the exercise for your weakness because you have improved it, replace it.
• Exercise 3: Choose a deadlift or row, ideally a different one each workout. Incorporate both vertical and horizontal deadlifts.
• Exercise 4 and (maybe) 5: Isolated exercise(s) for key muscles for the main exercise. You can change these at any time.

If we split "training day, day off" it would look like this:

• Day 1: Squat
• Day 2: Free
• Day 3: Horizontal Pressure
• Day 4: Free
• Day 5: Hip flexion
• Day 6: Free
• Day 7: Vertical pressure
• Day 8: Free
• Repeat

Adding in a range of three

This is actually for progressive overload.

• Choose a range of three reps, for example 4-6. Start with a weight near your max for the top of the range (so in this example, max out at 6RM) and use that weight for all 4-5 work sets. Aim to complete all sets at the top of the rep range (i.e. 6 reps).
• If you take 100kg for example and don't complete the max reps but only 6,6,5,4 for example, in the next workout the weight still remains 100kg.
• In the next workout you will make progress because you put in one extra rep, so 6,6,5,5, but the weight again stays the same.
• Once you have done the full 6,6,6,6 reps, you add 2.5-5 kilos of weight.
• You will repeat this process until you get so stuck that you can't manage to add a single rep 3 workouts in a row. When this happens, you will move down one rep range.

Your 3 rep ranges:

• First: 6-8
• Second: 4-6
• Third: 2-4
  
• Let's say you start out at 6-8 reps and do 12 workouts before you hit the brakes. After that, you'll move into the 4-6 rep zone, where you'll start with a weight 5 pounds higher than the previous rep range.
• In the second zone, you may be able to improve for another 6 workouts. After those, you'll need to move down a zone (2-4 reps) where you'll again start with a weight 5 pounds higher than the previous rep range.
• Once you get stuck in the last zone as well, you can either start over from the beginning with the same exercises or go back to the beginning with different ones. Either way, take a week off from heavy exercises before starting a new cycle.

This is a simple, brutal workout for workers. You'll never slack off or ignore the basic rules of improvement. If you can handle being a worker in the gym and kitchen, you'll be improving for a very long time!

Source: www.t-nation.com - 10 Rules for Guaranteed Strength and Size
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