Well, understand that many of these “big dudes” had a background in gymnastics. One IFBB pro (I don’t remember his name, I’ll have to check it out) was a very high level circus performer way before he decided to start bodybuilding. If someone has done gymnastics at a high level for 15+ years, he will still maintain some of these acquired capacities even as he gets a lot larger.
Now, let’s say that this 225lbs pro bodybuilder did a human flag,… people would be astonished … but they don’t now that he likely used to do stuff that was 10x more difficult. He cannot do the more difficult stuff anymore, but he was so high level that even what he can still do is very impressive stuff.
Charles Glass (bodybuilding guru, former competitor) was a college gymnast and so was Fred Hatfield (who squatted 1013lbs at 45 years of age). I’m sure that in their lifting prime they could still do some cool stuff, but not the highest level they reached.
Now… if you look at pure strength body weight movements. Stuff like handstands, dips, chins… big strong guys can be good at them as they are almost closer to lifting exercises than to gymnastic work… in fact in gymnastics circles HSPU, dips, chins are seen as strength-building exercises, not gymnastic movements.
I never heard that about fat loss and I’ve been around for a long time.
If you are losing weight and you MAINTAIN body weight performance you are getting WORSE, so you are not doing it right.
If you lose 20lbs but your chin-up performance remains the same, you are getting weaker because you are lifting less weight.
To MAINTAIN you would need to be able to have a performance increase equal to the weight lost. For example, if your best effort on chin-ups was 5 reps with an added 30lbs and you lose 20lbs of fat you better be able to do 5 reps with 50lbs or 10 reps with 30lbs otherwise you are regressing.
Maintaining strength IS a great sign that you are not losing muscle mass. But I’m talking about maintaining your absolute strength not your relative strength.
For example if you bench press 275 at 185lbs (1.48x body weight), lose 20lbs and you can now lift only 245lbs your relative strength is still the same BUT you are weaker… if all you lost was muscle you should have been able to pretty much maintain your strength… maybe lose 10lbs due to water loss giving you worse leverage, but not 30-40lbs.
Muscle moves weight… if you keep the same amount of muscle, your strength should be about the same. Keeoping the same relative strength would indicate that you likely lost almost as much lean mass as fat.
In theory yes. But again, strength and size gains aren’t always linear, especially on movement requiring more neural implications. It could very well be possible to gain almost all muscle and still get worse on chin-ups. What if you gained a lot more mass in your legs and glutes than upper body for example?
Also understand that if you are eating for growth you might store more glycogen and water in the muscles. So you might gain 5lbs of muscle tissue but 8lbs of lean mass due to the increase glycogen/water storage… so you might gain more size than strength.\
Very cool and nice article today about legs (100 reps leg press each workout), Could this same logic be applied to pushups (50-100 pushups) for upper body? Or even inverted rows
I’m curious what weights you handle on dips/chins. With your tremendous poundages on BP, overhead, etc. and favorable view on dips (for chest), what might your poundages look like?
I was doing handstands the other day and thought if had training partner, could put a heavy DB between feet, it would mimic the overhead power hold you liked (haha too creative?)
I’m honestly the worst at chins. But I personally nev3er liked them and never really used them in my own training. I do use it with some clients but it’s one of those things that I do not do with any regularity myself.
As for dips the heaviest I went, as far as I can remember was 140lbs for 5 reps, but it got to the point where adding the weight was not worth the effort (I had to use dumbbells and the rack was far away) so when I do them now it’s at the very end of the workout, when my muscles are tired, and for higher reps.
any news on the book? separately, there’s so much junk content out there (fitness/physique), especially social media.
i wish your stuff gets promoted more. there’s this fitness youtuber that made $1m based off pure scammy marketing (“transformation contests”), so many jokes out there
your content is gold and should really get mainstream…
Would these methods work for the new workout template you provided for us? Or is the key with the fixed weight progressive overload the frequency of hitting the lifts 3 times a week?
Hey CT,
I have an idea. If I want to train in a more bodybuilding fashion with this program, maybe I can do somethi like this:
Monday - back day
Weighted pull up 3x5
Squat 3x5
3 exercises for back
Example:
Neutral close grip pull ups 2x8-12
Chest supported row 2x8-12
Face pulls 2-3x10-15
Thursday - Leg day
Squat 3x5
Weighted pull up 3x5
Stiff leg deadlift 2x6-12
Leg press 2x8-15
Superset:
Leg extensions, leg curls and Calf raises 2-3x10-15
Friday - Shoulders and arms
OHP 3x5
Bench press 3x5
Superset:
Lateral raise and Barbell cheat curls 2x8-12
Superset:
Rear delt raise and Each bar skull crushers 2x8-12
Barbell shrugs 2-3x8-15
Hey CT, loved the article and I’m going to be following this program soon because it sounds like a very good long term approach to improving the basic lifts. However, my main goal, long term is hypertrophy, and after reading a couple of articles I was thinking about throwing in a high rep - pump week for increased satellite cell fusion, hypoxia, occlusion, and cell swelling (Brett Contreras article*).
-Would you recommend doing something like this, (or a deload, light week) in conjunction with this four week strength cycle?
-If so, when would be the best time to do this…on the 5th week, in between the four week cycles?
BTW it’s not a “program”; it’s a method. A method you use on one lift per workout. It doesn’t represent everything you do nor should every exercises in the sessions should be done this way.
Hi Christian. Started this progressive overload a few weeks back. Got to say so far im loving it. I can already feel im simultaneously building strength and size with the negative eccentric pauses. My question is, is it normal that the first week of the block was fairly easy as it was normal reps, the second week with the 5 second negatives were also felt fairly normal at 75% of 1RM. Yet on the 3rd week when the 2 second pauses came in, i was only hitting 4 even 3 at times before hitting almost failure? If this is normal, do i just hit 3/4 and stay at my 75% of 1RM or up the weight slightly?
It just goes to show that you lack isometric strength. I would recommend spending 2 weeks on the pauses during the eccentric and 2 weeks on the pauses during the concentric since its a weekness
So just add them 2 extra weeks to the block/cycle and then continue on as normal? Generally speaking should i be able to move the same weight and reps on the pause weeks as in the regular and slow eccentric weeks without struggling too much?
Maybe you drop 1-2 reps but most people can follow the progression. But again it depends on your rate of progress. If you are already at a high performance level on a lift you can’t progress as fast so you might drop some reps. If you are on a caloric deficit the same thing will happe. If you have never trained the eccentric and isometric function of a muscle there might be a drop off too.
Thanks for replying again. Hope you dont mind another question. Loving the frequency and don’t seem to be overtraining. Although i am adding more exercises for the main muscle groups to fill out the session. Not just the accessories. Would you say this is ok so long as im recovering, eating and sleeping well? My lifts are staying strong on the main compounds so didn’t see why i shouldn’t add in more exercises.
I don’t see the problem with adding exercises. But this is a stupid mindset… adding exercises to “fill out a session???” … you aren’t there to kill time or be in a building called a gym for X amount of time.
You can add exercises but only to solve a specific issue. And do it very gradually to avoid overdoing it
Probably a poor choice of wording on my behalf. I dont use the the rest of my session as ‘filler’ so to speak. I just mean that I generally like to add in another compound or 2 and the odd machine. Mainly to practice some other exercises and brush up on my weak points. Eg Incline Press & Upright Row with some Delt Raises and Peck Deck. I feel i get a good workout then and i’m totally spent. I like to leave it all im the gym and never leave a work out regretting my efforts. It’s not massive volume as I know the idea here is to get strong isometricly in the big lifts. It’s just a few more intense sets on top. As the 2 main compounds don’t take much time to complete.