Take it from the pros, splitting is the way go. Full-body training, provided that the intensity is high and the routine is good, can produce some amazing results, but splitting lets you get more from less: more results from a shorter period of time spent in the gym. If you had to train all your… Continue reading ‘Basic Split Training’, Animal Owner’s Manual (New Jersey, 2010), 14
Though few exercise programmes maintain a venerated status for long in the Iron Game, the mystique surrounding 20 Rep Squat programmes has endured. As hinted by the name, such programmes require lifters to back squat twenty times before unloading the bar, and in my own experience, lying on the ground questioning your decision-making. Primarily touted… Continue reading The History of 20 Rep Squats
For Nasser El Sonbaty, who has spent 19 years torching, torturing and otherwise harassing every muscle fiber on his 5'11" frame, there are two absolutes. "The first thing is consistency; the second, intensity." Given his behemoth lower quarters -- complete with voluminous muscle bellies, subterranean separation, Gibraltarian density and shape -- we took notes. Nasser… Continue reading Kathleen Engel, ‘Put Size on Your Thighs with Nasser El Sonbaty’, Muscle & Fitness, 63: 6 (2002), 134-138
Having previously discussed the history of the squat exercise, today's post examines the creation of the Rader Chest Pull, an exercise that Peary Rader, one of the Irongame's biggest names in the twentieth-century, often used in conjunction with the squat. Typically Rader would inform trainees to perform this exercise directly after a set of twenty… Continue reading Forgotten Exercises: The Rader Chest Pull
One of the strongest men of the early twentieth-century, Thomas Inch was known in both Great Britain and the United States for his feats of strength. Unlike others however, Inch was hardly strict with his diet. In fact Inch was recorded as saying There is nothing so wearisome as having to be extremely particular about what one… Continue reading Thomas Inch’s Diet
When choosing assistance exercises for the power lifts, I suggest you choose ones that provide the highest positive transfer of strength to the targeted lift; and for this month we will deal with the bench. The best way to accomplish that is to choose exercises that are the most similar to the bench yet still… Continue reading Doug Daniels, ‘BENCH PRESS VARIATIONS,’ Powerlifting USA, 33. 10 (2010), 14
Before you can go more hardcore, you have to open your mind and psych up to push yourself to new limits. Here are seven ways to get into hardcore hypertrophy heaven. 1. Drop-set bench dips Support yourself between two benches, set parallel, hands on one, feet on the other. Start with four 25-pound (11kg) plates… Continue reading Ben Tatar, ‘7 Awesome Train Insane Mass Tactics’, Ironman Australia, 20., no. 11(2013), 65-68.
I have spoken so much of Louis' great strength that now I must tell you of his great weakness - eating. His excuse for eating so much was that his great expenditure of strength required it. That was just his joke, though, for he was a slave to the table all his life. He could… Continue reading How Much Could Louis Cyr Eat?
What we shall endeavor to do here in this section of Chapter 5 is to outline for you a few choice specialization programs which can be utilized by you in the training year, for whatever particular training goal you may endeavor to fulfill. These routines are not mere figments of my creative imagination, for they… Continue reading Anthony Ditillo, ‘Various Strength Specialization Routines’, THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL STRENGTH
Who invented progressive resistance training? Or in simpler terms, who discovered that lifting heavier and heavier loads made one bigger and stronger? It's a strange question admittedly. A question that we may never be able to answer. Luckily that hasn't stopped people trying. One such theory comes from the magical world of Greek mythology. A body… Continue reading Milo of Croton, the Father of Resistance Training
