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BRAIN GAINS: THE BEST OF

STRENGTHEORY

Greg Nuckols
STRENGTHEORY.COM

Read This First:

Let me start by saying thanks for downloading a copy of this ebook.
Next, let me explain what this IS, and what it ISNT.
This is not a comprehensive training manual. You wont find much that looks like do x sets of x
reps of these exercises and youll get big and strong. There are plenty of books like that, and Im
planning on writing specifically about programming in the future; but thats another book not
this one.
Also, this is not a book in the traditional sense of one section building upon another. Its a
collection of articles and essays from my blog, loosely organized around themes. Because of this,
dont feel obligated to read it cover to cover. If a heading looks interesting to you, dive in. If it
doesnt grab your attention, skip on over.
More than anything, I want this to serve as a repository for some of the best work on the site. If
youre a new reader, this will save you a lot of time separating the wheat from the chaff a lot of
the early articles on the site were admittedly pretty rough. If youve stuck with me from the start
(double thanks!), this will give you most of your favorites in one place.
One more note the articles in this book go back 2 years or more. As Ive learned more, my views
on some of these subjects have shifted somewhat, or have at least become more nuanced.
However, Ive gone back through all these articles to make sure theres nothing in here that is just
flat-out wrong; but there are some topics presented in a manner thats a little more simplistic than
my current way of looking at them. Ultimately, though, if I were to put out a book to capture
exactly what I think about every fitness-related topic, Id have to write it in one day, and pieces of
it would already be outdated by the next week. I guess what Im saying is that you shouldnt take
everything in this book as my final word (and CERTAINLY not THE final word) on these topics.

Contents
PROGRAMMING ....................................................................................................................................... 5
More is More ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Peaking AKA, How to Hit PRs in Meets .................................................................................................... 16
Increasing Work Capacity ........................................................................................................................... 22
The Bogeyman of Training Programs (and Why It May Be Just What You Need) ...................................... 29
In Defense of Program Hoppers; DUP Revisited ......................................................................................... 36
Study Write-up: Sprints Are Anabolic*, Even When Fasted! but with Big Gender Differences .............. 47
Cardio and Lifting Cardio Wont Hugely Impact Your Gains in the Short Run, and May Be Beneficial for
Strength and Size in the Long Run .............................................................................................................. 54
Practical Considerations for Combining Cardiovascular Training and Lifting ............................................. 61
Cardio Isnt Going to Kill Your Gains. Need More Evidence? You Got It..................................................... 72
Making Your Novice Strength Training Routine More Effective Two Quick Tips..................................... 78
PubMed Doesnt Replace A Strength Coach ............................................................................................... 82
Do Women Need to Train Differently Than Men?...................................................................................... 89
What I Learned on the Way to Squatting 500 ............................................................................................ 93
What I Learned on the Way to Deadlifting 500 pounds ............................................................................. 98
What I Learned on the Way to Benching 350 pounds .............................................................................. 103
DIET ........................................................................................................................................................... 107
The Three Laws of Protein ........................................................................................................................ 107

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Being Strong Is Not an Excuse to be Fat (and Being Fat is Probably Holding You Back)........................... 111
TECHNIQUE ............................................................................................................................................. 117
Should You Wear a Belt or Not? Study Write-Up ..................................................................................... 117
Everything You Think Is Wrong With Your Deadlift Is Probably Right ...................................................... 122
Fixing the Good-Morning Squat ................................................................................................................ 132
Hamstrings The Most Overrated Muscle Group for the Squat .............................................................. 135
Its Time to End this Nonsense. High Bar vs. Low Bar Squatting .............................................................. 139
Squats are not Hip Dominant or Knee Dominant. Some Biomechanical Black Magic. ............................. 147
Speed Kills: 2x the Intended Bar Speed Yields ~2x the Bench Press Gains ............................................... 159
Band-Resisted Pushups = Bench Press for Strength Gains? Plus, How Useful is EMG? ........................... 172
MISCELLANEOUS ................................................................................................................................... 182
Making Sense of Strength ......................................................................................................................... 182
Unleash Your Inner Superhero.................................................................................................................. 199
What it Takes to Break World Records ..................................................................................................... 211
The Science of Steroids ............................................................................................................................. 225
Stress: The Silent Killer (of gains) .............................................................................................................. 247
Wrecking Your Diet, One Night at a Time ................................................................................................. 259
Poor Recovery and Increased Muscle Breakdown: Insufficient Sleep Part 2! .......................................... 266
Exercise Science: What is it good for? ...................................................................................................... 270
Buy-In ........................................................................................................................................................ 279

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Be Honest with Yourself. Training for Health vs. Performance ................................................................ 288
The Size of your Pond ............................................................................................................................... 291

PROGRAMMING
More is More
Key points
1) The most reliable way, though not the ONLY way, to get stronger is to do more.
2) Even advanced, drug-free athletes can make great progress training a lift just twice per week.
3) You probably dont need to worry about overtraining. Participants in this study squatted 8
sets to failure with 80% of their max and made sweet gainz.
If you dont understand anything else about programming, understand this:

The most reliable way to make progress is to do more.

Its certainly not the ONLY way to make progress. Exercise selection plays a role, intensity
plays a role, frequency plays a role, and proper periodization plays a role. But the primary
contributor hands down is training volume.
Its been a while since Ive done a dedicated study write-up. Ive come across some cool stuff,
but nothing that deserved its own article. This study really caught my eye, though, because it
illustrates this concept perfectly:

The Effect of Training Volume on Lower-Body Strength by Robbins et. Al. (2012)

Participants

Most of the guys were mid-20s to early 30s. The great thing about this study was that they were
all experienced lifters. A minimum of two years of consistent training was required, but most of
the participants had been under the bar for 5-8 years.

A squat of at least 130% of bodyweight was required to participate, and the average squat for the
people in the study was around 155kg to start with. Strangely, the participants weights werent
reported, but for most studies like this, the people are somewhere between 75-85kg. Its pretty
safe to assume that most of the people in this study were squatting around 1.5-2
times bodyweight.
Not too shabby these werent the untrained subjects typical of most strength training studies.

Training Protocol

Before the study, all the participants did two weeks of a body part split routine (chest and bis,
back and tris, and legs) with standardized volume and intensity to make sure their prior training
wouldnt significantly influence their results. After that, they maxed and were put on different
training protocols.

For the actual trial period, all the groups trained 4 times per week for six weeks. One day was
squats and upper back work. The other was all upper body work (since youd have a hard time
recruiting well-trained subjects for a study if they knew theyd lose all their upper body
swole). All of the training was the same for all three groups, except for their squat work.

One group did 1 set of squats to failure with 80%.

One group did 4 sets of squats to failure with 80%.

One group did 8 sets of squats to failure with 80%.

Failure was defined as volitional failure (i.e. when they felt like they couldnt get the next rep),
or when they needed to take more than three seconds between reps.

They squatted twice per week, with no extra exercises that were leg- or lower back-intensive.

They retested maxes after Week 3 and Week 6.

After Week 6, they were put back on a standardized protocol. They all trained four times per
week, hitting each muscle group twice per week, and all squatted for three sets with a 4rm load.

Basically, they were on a training program that was similar to how people actually train, which
makes it easier to generalize the results.

The one thing that irked me a bit was that squat depth was specified as 90 degrees of knee
flexion a bit above parallel. Oh well. Thats fairly standard, though. Assuming results are
generalizable from a slightly above parallel squat to a slightly below parallel squat isnt too
much of a leap of faith.

Results
As its explained in the study, the 1-set group did not get any stronger at three weeks, but did get
stronger at six weeks, with no difference between Week 6 and Week 10. The 4-set group got
stronger by Week 3, but didnt gain any further strength between Week 3 and Week 10. The 8set group was stronger at Week 3 than Week 1, but wasnt significantly stronger at weeks 6 and
10 than at Week 3. The 8-set group gained significantly more strength than the 1-set group, but

there was no significant difference between the 4-set group and either the 1-set group or the 8set group.
However, I dont think those results are telling the whole story. This study, like many exercise
science studies, was plagued by small study groups (10-11 people per group), which means
pretty big differences between groups or time points are required to reach statistical
significance. The chart of the results themselves tells a somewhat different story.

From Robbins (2012)

Over three weeks, the 4-set and 8-set groups got almost identical gains, but between weeks 3 and
6, and between weeks 6 and 10, the 8-set group starts to pull away.

Average strength gains through the first six weeks.

By the end of the six week intervention, the 1-set group had gained about 16kg on their squats on
average (~148kg to ~164kg), the 4-set group had gained about 23kg (~157kg to ~180kg), and the
8-set group had gained about 31kg (~160kg to ~191kg). So while the difference between the 4set and 8-set group may have not been *statistically* significant, its still probably relevant in the
real world. The effect sizes (often used in studies like this where the sample size is rarely large
enough to produce significant results) bear this out the effect size for the difference between 1
and 4 sets was small, and the effect size for the difference between 4 and 8 sets was
moderate. The authors say as much in the abstract as well:
At 6 weeks, the magnitude of improvement was significantly greater for the 8-SET, as
compared with that of the 1-SET group. The magnitude of improvement elicited in the 4-SET

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group was not different from that of the 1-SET or 8-SET groups. The results suggest that high
volumes (i.e., >4 sets) are associated with enhanced strength development but that moderate
volumes offer no advantage. Practitioners should be aware that strength development may be
dependent on appropriate volume doses and training duration.

Another interesting thing to notice is that the 8-set group was the only one that gained strength
during the four weeks of training heavier at the end of the study (about 7kg, on average). Again,
the results werent significant so you may not want to put TOO much stock in them, but it
conforms to typically-held beliefs about overreaching and peaking only the group that was
previously doing a lot of volume actually got stronger during a heavier, lower volume phase
(somewhat similar to a peaking program) before the final maxes.

Another interesting thing to note is that only in the 4-set group did everyone actually get
stronger. In the 1-set group, eight people were able to increase their training loads, there was no
change for one participant, and two actually had to decrease their training loads. In the 8-set
group, nine out of 10 were able to increase their training load, but one was not (no change). So
while 8 sets of squats produced the best average results, 4 sets was the only condition that caused
strength gains across the board.

Discussion

I wanted to write about this journal article because it represents a larger trend, both in
research and in-the-trenches practice. This was the particular article I chose because it was 1)
done on dudes who were actually pretty strong and experienced (5-8 years training, on average)
and 2) because it was about squatting, not leg extensions or something of that nature.

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If you want to get stronger, the best thing you can do is train more, provided youre sleeping
enough, managing stress, and have good technique.
Sure, other factors certainly matter. And sure, its certainly possible (though unlikely) to
overtrain. But in the simplest terms possible, your current program is probably less effective
than it would be if you just added an extra couple of sets to each exercise. If youre not making
progress, your default thought shouldnt simply be, time to find an exciting new program! It
should be either time to add more work to my current program or time to seek out a new
program that employs more volume than my current one.
Another thing Id like to point out in the face of the current prevailing wisdom in the
powerlifting world: It is entirely possible to get great strength gains just training a lift a couple
times per week. The current trend seems to be recommending everyone (especially drug-free
lifters) train every lift 3-4 or more times per week.

These were experienced lifters with an average of five to eight years under the bar and an
average squat of ~155kg. Every group had non-negligible strength average strength
gains. Every person in the 4-set group made strength gains, and the average strength gains over
10 weeks in the 8-set group were around 37kg (82lbs). Yes, there is a trend for higher frequency
to yield better results (one, two, three), but you can certainly get stronger doing a lift just once or
twice per week.
Another interesting thing to point out about this particular study the point of diminishing
returns doesnt even seem to be kicking in yet at 8 sets for these experienced trainees. The
difference in average strength gains between the 8-set and 4-set group was actually greater than

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the difference between the 4-set and 1-set groups (again, the difference isnt statistically
significant, but the effect size was considerably larger). Although 8 sets to failure may sound
like a ton of work for a single training session, this study indicates that its perfectly reasonable.
Another thing to point out about the awesome results the subjects got this wasnt even a
periodized training program (which tend to yield better results). It was the same percentage of
their 1rm, for the same number of sets, week-in and week-out. They didnt even do any lower
body exercises EXCEPT squatting. However, the average squat gains across the board were still
10-20% on average.
Fancy programs with a ton of bells and whistles may be more fun and engaging (which shouldnt
be discounted), and may produce better results yet, but you can DEFINITELY get stronger on a
basic meat-and-potatoes training plan.
This should be obvious, but just to explicitly mention it 8 sets to failure (average of 7 reps per
set) was not enough to cause overtraining, rhabdo, and death. Its the level of volume that the
participants responded the most positively to.

Another thing worth mentioning: Although doing more work yields better strength gains, that
doesnt necessarily mean its efficient. The 8-set group gained about 80% more strength on
average than the 1-set group, but they did about five times as much total work (131 total reps
versus 670 total reps) over the six weeks of volume manipulated training. As Ive said before,
its entirely possible to get results with a low volume program, but it probably wont give you the
BEST results. And although the process gets less and less efficient the more you do (less gains
per unit of increased work), more gains are still more gains.

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When comparing the 1-set group to the 8-set group, youre looking at ~five times as much work
for ~80% better results.
One last practical caveat before ramping up the volume (especially if youre training close to
failure as these guys were), make sure your form is good. If you get a ton of practice with great
technique, you get stronger and further ingrain great technique. If you get a ton of practice with
bad technique, youll still get stronger, but youll further ingrain bad habits youll have a much
harder time unlearning.

Practical Application

So how should you apply this information to your training?

Well, heres a super simple decision tree:

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Disregard the HRV bit if youd like (I made this for a presentation for Elite Fitness Mentoring
where Id already talked about HRV, but you can read more about it here), and substitute it with
feeling great and energetic for high HRV and feeling crummy and worn down for low
HRV.
Essentially, if youre getting stronger, dont fix what isnt broken. If youre not getting stronger,
assuming you arent feeling worn down all the time, do more.

That could take a few different forms:

1) sticking with your current program, but doing more work sets or adding dropback sets

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2) starting or increasing accessory work targeting specific weaknesses

3) adding more work for your stalled lift on another day of the week
The amount of work you do doesnt need to double overnight, but if you look through your
training journals and see that a lift has been stalled for a year, and youre doing the same amount
of work for that lift today as you were doing a year ago, youve probably found your culprit.

If you find yourself unable to increase training volume while still recovering, the factor
bottlenecking your progress is probably work capacity (read more about it here and here). In this
case, you still need to eventually do more work, but you need to take a step back (put maximal
strength on the back burner for a while so you can focus on increasing work capacity) so that you
can ultimately take a step forward (increasing training volume productively).

Wrapping it up

As an athlete or coach, you should have a lot of tools in your toolbox. However, increasing
training volume should be one of the tools you always keep at the top of your mind. If you dont
see any glaring issues in program design, you already have good technique, and youre taking
care of business outside of the gym, simply doing more is the most reliable way to keep making
progress.

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Peaking AKA, How to Hit PRs in Meets

How many times have you heard someone say something like this, Well, I squatted 500 in the
gym a few weeks ago, but 450 felt heavy at the meet and I missed 475.
Thats because they peaked wrong. Im even convinced that if you ONLY hit your gym PRs in
meets, you peaked poorly. If youre good at programming, meets should be PR city.

Here is a breakdown of my last two meets:

August 2012
Gym PRs (under the same circumstances)* 625 squat, 415 bench, 625 deadlift
Meet 650 squat, 419 bench, 645 deadlift

May 2013
Gym PRs (under the same circumstances) 725 squat, 420 bench, 675 deadlift
Meet 750 squat, 425 bench, 710 deadlift

*I had hit a couple bigger benches in the gym before my meets, and before my 2013 meet I had
pulled more with straps. However, Im a low bar squatter and squatting low bar before benching
makes a little biceps tendonitis flare up, so I listed my gym PRs after low bar squatting to mimic
meet conditions, and I listed my strapless DL PRs.

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I dont intend for my own example to be perceived as bragging. This is essentially what meet
numbers SHOULD look like compared to gym numbers. When you walk into a meet, you
should be set for PRs across the board. Any other outcome, barring something beyond your
control (getting sick on meet day, sustaining some random injury at work, no AC at the meet
venue, etc.), either indicates that your training lifts didnt mimic meet lifts (high squats, bounced
benches, hitched DLs, etc.), or your programming was bad. Oh, you may want to chalk it up to
some trite excuse like, oh, it was just a bad day. Well, why was it a bad day? Because you
failed to peak properly. Simple as that.

Matthias Steiner hit a 12kg (26.5 pound) clean and jerk PR to win Olympic gold in 2008.

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So, now lets examine the factors that influence how well your peak goes:

1. Training volume leading up to the meet

This is an important factor. Ive written about this subject before here. Peaking 101 youre
training hard, you taper volume, your body supercompensates, and youre stronger on meet
day. Well, if youre not training hard in the first place, theres really no peaking that can
occur. Theres no overreaching from which you can supercompensate. And when I say
training hard, Im not talking about hitting a vein-popping 1rm or 3rm. Im talking about
putting in volume. High-intensity stimuli (heavy freaking weight) tend to cause primarily neural
adaptations which tend to occur fairly quickly. Increasing volume, on the other hand, will have
cumulative effects that may take a few weeks to fully recover from once overreaching occurs.

If you train a lift only once per week, and in that session you get in less than 25 or so heavy
working reps, and then you pack it up without hammering accessory work hard, you simply
havent been doing enough work to warrant a taper, and if you try, theres no overreaching to
warrant a supercompensatory response from your body. Higher frequency helps fix this problem
(because you can get in a lot more volume over two or three sessions without having to kill
yourself in any given one of them), and if you prefer lower frequency, make sure you focus on
constantly increasing your training volume leading up to a meet, so when you DO pull back, you
actually benefit from the taper.

2. How long you take to taper

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This is another common mistake. People either tend to overdo or underdo tapering.
Overdoing: You either see people who read old Westside articles about the delayed
transformation method and trying to taper volume over 3 or 4 weeks, only to peak a week or
two before the meet (because, keep in mind, you only peak for a short period of time, and then
optimal performance quickly becomes detraining). When youre aiming to squat 1100 and
youre cranking out 12 training sessions a week, you may need that long to taper. When youre
the other 99% of lifters (especially raw lifters), one week of lowered volume followed be one
week of deload is plenty. That approach works great even for me personally. I may take one
more week to not push quite as close to failure (same general training plan, but shave a rep or
two off of everything), but I only purposefully taper for one week before my deload. In my
experience, very few people are strong enough to warrant a taper longer than two weeks before
meet week. During this period, maximize your schedule for sleep. Shoot for 10 hours a night, or
at least an extra hour compared to your norm.
On the other hand, other people think peaking means just taking a session or two off before a
meet. They may hit their openers Monday, skip training the rest of the week, and compete
Saturday. Thats simply not enough time off. (Warning, its about to get bro-sciency, but this is
a reflection of my experience and conversations with a LOT of lifters) Its enough time for your
body to get shifted into recovery mode and for you to lose your edge, but not long enough for
you to start really getting the itch to tear into some weights. Your physical strength and your
psychological aggression simply dont have enough time to manifest themselves. Its like
preparing for battle the next day, but then being caught off-guard by your enemy during the
night. Be willing to take some time off. If you trained for several months to get ready for a

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meet, one easy week and one off week isnt going to make you weak. You think strength that
took that long to build is going to leave you so quickly? Trust the work you put in, and give your
body a chance to reward you for your efforts.

3. Nutritional factors

For people cutting water weight: get the weight off as fast as possible, and put it back on as fast
as possible. Dont spend hours jogging in a trash bag the day before a meet. Get in a hot tub or
run a hot bath. Water has a much higher thermal conductivity constant than air, which means
more heat is imparted into your body, so you sweat WAY more. Get that weight off fast, then
have a couple gallons of 1/2 Gatorade 1/2 water waiting for you. Then hit a buffet. You should
be heavier than you were prior to the water cut within an hour or two of stepping off the
scales. Dont let a botched weight cut ruin your meet.

The night before and the entire day of the meet, eat as much salt and as many starchy foods as
possible, and drink as much water as possible. You want a huge bloat.
I recommend cutting out caffeine a few weeks before the meet. Youll be re-sensitized by meet
day, and you can use that to your advantage. High doses of caffeine have been shown to reliably
increase power output, but only in people how are caffeine-sensitive. Ill usually have a coffee
and a monster in my system before my first squat attempt, and drink 4 or 5 more highly
caffeinated beverages throughout the course of a day. It makes weights feel much lighter and
move much faster. And, before anyone asks, this caffeine strategy is about maximizing weight
lifted, not about maximizing cardiovascular health. And besides, its just one day, so no big
deal.

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So, there you go. Im sure I glossed over some details, but contained in this post are the basics
of consistently PRing in meets. Get your volume in in your pre-meet training cycle, take a week
or two to taper volume and a week of deloading, make your water cut as fast as possible (if you
cut), consume massive amounts of carbs, salt, and water, and use caffeine to your advantage. If
you dont feel comfortable setting up your training plan, hire a competent coach or take the time
to study training logs of lifters who consistently do well in meets.
On meet day, you shouldnt be wondering IF youll PR, the only question should be, HOW BIG
those PRs will those PRs be?

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Increasing Work Capacity

A common question I get asked has to do with how to effectively build work capacity.

First, let me just start off with a working definition of work capacity, and an explanation of why
its so important. Work capacity is, essentially, the total amount of work you can perform and
recover from.

The total volume of work you expose your body to essentially determines the magnitude of the
training effect you receive from the work. We all intuitively know this. You dont walk into the
gym, warm up, do one easy set of 10 biceps curls, and expect to find yourself ripping the sleeves
of T-shirts any time soon. You have to expose your muscles to more of a training stimulus.

How do you progress then, to attain your 18 inch pythons of glory? Well, obviously, you do
more work. You pick a more challenging weight, increase you sets do more exercises, decrease
you rest intervals, etc. Its not rocket science, and we all know that eventually, if you want your
arms to grow, youll have to do more work.

However, this concept seems foreign to most people when you apply it to anything besides arm
hypertrophy. The fitness world has become so entranced by minimalism that weve forgotten
that eventually you just have to do more work. People are surprised when they do the same
program with the same sets and reps and the same accessory work for several months, and they
eventually plateau. Then they ask about it on a message board and get a response like, oh,
youre doing too much so you cant recover. Dial back what youre doing and youll keep
getting stronger.

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So, lo and behold, they dial back their training volume and the gains start coming again. Only
they last for a mere 4-8 weeks. Then they plateau even harder. Why? They werent getting
stronger. They were peaking. Their body was used to a certain level of work. When they
reduced the amount of work, supercompensation happened, and they could put more weight on
the bar. However, thats not something that happens indefinitely. But, the fact is, it worked
for a while, so this person ends up banging their head against a wall on a super low volume
routine wondering why theyre not getting any stronger, not questioning the efficacy of their new
routine because it worked initially.

Eventually, after months of wasted time, they decide to change things up. They start increasing
their training volume, only to find that it beats them up, their lifts start regressing, and they start
losing motivation to go to the gym. So clearly low volume was the way to go, theyve just hit
their genetic ceiling and are in for a lifetime of hard-fought, incremental gains. Then they weep
and drown their sorrows in cheesecake.
Lets dissect this little (perhaps all-too-familiar) vignette:
1) The guy originally plateaued because he wasnt increasing the stimulus to his muscles and
nervous system. Remember the SAID principle (specific adaptations to imposed demands)? The
demands didnt change significantly, and eventually the guys body had adapted all it intended
to. Sure, as he initially got stronger, the slightly heavier weights were a slightly greater stimulus,
but his body finally reached the point that training was no longer disrupting homeostasis enough
to elicit a response.

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2) He dials back the volume and gets stronger! Its a miracle! Orits what happens when
your body is used to adapting to a certain level of stress, then you dial back the stress and your
body is still used to the same magnitude of response. It would help to look at training in the
(overly simplified, but still instructive) light of simply tearing a muscle down and building it
back up. Lets say youre muscle mass is currently 100%, and your training breaks it down 20%,
and since youre plateauing, you build it back up 20% between sessions: 100 20 + 20 =
100. Then you dial back how much your tearing your muscles down, but your body is used to
recovering 20% between sessions: 100 17 + 20 = 103 17 + 20 = 106. However, the fun
doesnt last forever. Your body catches on to the game, and your recovery again aligns itself
with the training stress: 106 17 + 17 = 106. Viola, another plateau.

3) When he tries to add back in more volume, his body is used to recovering from less per
session. However, hes still trying to train at maximum intensity: 106 20 + 17 = 103. He
perceives himself as getting weaker, and sees no way around the plateau.

Work capacity, in essence, increases the amount your body is used to recovering from. As it
increases, you can increase your total training load, therefore the stimulus to your muscles and
nervous system, therefore your results. Theres a catch, however. As youre increasing your
work capacity, you shouldnt expect to be a peak performance (and certainly not PRing). PRs
come when youre recovery outpaces stress. The whole point of increasing work capacity is for
stress to slightly outpace recovery until recovery catches up to the stress. Once youve increased
your work capacity and allow recovery to catch up, youre in a position where youre able to
tolerate much more volume, which means a greater stimulus, which means an increased potential
for gains. Also, it gives you more ability to taper and hit PRs at meets. You know those guys

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who always hit their biggest lifts in training, but fail hard at meets? Typically, theyre the ones
who never trained with high enough volume to get any significant supercompensation when they
tapered.

Basically, increasing your work capacity over time is THE ONLY way to continually make
gains. You can only say youve reached your genetic ceiling when you no longer have the
ability to increase your work capacity.

So, that finally brings us back to the question: How does one actually go about increasing their
work capacity? For a full, in-depth answer, Id recommend you read Supertraining, some
Zatsiorsky, some Verkhoshansky, or some Issurin. This answer is more based on
implementation and strategies that have proven themselves effective over time.
There are several different ways. The one in the original question really isnt a bad way to do
it. Adding sets DOES increase work capacity. Lets say you can do 3 sets of 3 with 315 on
squat. Whats easier? Trying to go 325 33 (assuming youve exhausted your linear gains), or
doing another single with 315 at the end? The single, obviously. Then a double the next session,
then a triple the one after that. Once you could do 6-8 triples, you could drop back to 3 sets, and
probably go 335 33 and do it all over again. Thats a 20 pound increase in about 2
months. Not too shabby. The key is that adding one rep per session isnt all that taxing on your
body over your established baseline. Then when you drop back to just 3 sets, its less volume
than youve grown accustomed to, setting you up nicely for the subsequent re-ramping of the
volume.

26

Another version of that same idea is the Doug Hepburn method. Hed pick a weight he could do
8 singles with, and slowly add an extra rep to each set until he was doing 8 doubles, at which
point hed increase the weight and start over with singles again.

A more sophisticated way is the way Sheiko waves volume week to week, but always increases
volume over time. A program for a ranked lifter (i.e. a novice) usually starts with a week thats
the exact right volume, based on where the trainees at. The second week has significantly
higher intensity, with a slight increase in volume, the third week dials back the intensity a bit but
raises the volume, and the fourth week drops the volume and intensity, allowing for
supercompensation. This same pattern basically holds true for months as well. Then, when
youd start over, youd dive back in with slightly higher volume to continue to drive
adaptation. Unfortunately, not all of Boris Sheikos writings have been translated into English,
but you can see the progression from ranked lifter routines to CMS/MS routines, to MSIC
routines. The volume increases incrementally as the lifter gets stronger until youre on a MSIC
routine that makes you want to cry just reading it.
Another way is to increase training density. Although this doesnt increase your work capacity
in the strictest of terms (total volume you can handle), it does increase your work capacity PER
UNIT TIME, allowing you to supercompensate when you spread you sets back out. Lets say
youre doing 55 with 315, and youve plateaued. You currently rest 5 minutes between
sets. Next workout, just knock 15 seconds off your rest periods. Continue to do so each workout
until youre only resting 2 minutes between sets. You could probably then jump to 335 55 with
5 minutes between sets again. This method has the drawback of not increasing your total

27

training volume which can make peaking for meets a little trickier, but its ideal for someone
who doesnt have room in their schedule to increase their weekly gym time.

Another way to increase work capacity is to add extra workouts. This method was popularized
by Westside, and can be easily implemented (although what Im about to say isnt how they do
it). Lets say you squat 315 55 twice per week, and youve plateaued. Try adding in a third
squat day. Start with 225 55. Just the simple act of practicing the motor patter more often
MAY get your maxes moving again. However, 225 55 shouldnt be enough to mess with your
recovery. If anything, it would enhance recovery by promoting blood flow without inducing any
more muscle damage. Add weight on your third squat day until it becomes difficult to get 315
55 on both of your main workouts (maybe 275-295 55). Then drop the third workout. You
should be able to increase the working weight on your main training days. Then, slowly build
back up the weight on your third squat day again, initially starting very light.

Finally, just something to keep in mind: over time, your total training volume MUST
increase. Most of these suggestions Ive written about tell you ways to effectively wave volume
and benefit from a short-term reduction in volume once youve acclimated to SLIGHTLY more
volume. As you progress, BOTH the peak volume youre handling, and the reduced level of
volume need to increase. So if youre working from 33 to 63 now, eventually youll need to
only drop back to 43 and increase to 73, then from 53 to 83, etc. If youre adding a third
workout to two 55 days, those days will need to eventually become 65 days, or 103 days, or
some other loading pattern that adds up to more overall volume. The reason I gave examples of
waving volume was that waving helps make the overall increase in volume over time easier to
manage. If youre plateaued doing 55, you cant just start doing 85 and make progress

28

forever. The way to add volume is to make the peak volume of a wave higher, and the reduced
volume slightly more. That way youre never overreaching too far, youre still giving yourself a
break for supercompensation, and youre gradually increasing the total magnitude of stimuli your
body can handle, and therefore your potential for growth.
Increasing work capacity really is the secret to long-term progress if ever there was one. The
best lifters, over time, have simply developed the ability to do more work than anyone else, so
they get better results than anyone else. Look at the Eastern Bloc PLers, successful nations in
weightlifting, pro strongmen, and practically any other group of incredibly strong people for
plentiful examples with surprisingly few exceptions.

29

The Bogeyman of Training Programs (and Why It May Be Just What You
Need)
Its always interesting to see how long it takes for scientific practices to gain traction on the
internet, and then in gyms everywhere.
Sometimes theres an exciting paper, it gets discussed on social media and across the internet,
and then people become guinea pigs within weeks or months.
Other times, its a slow burn creatine has been researched for well over 2 decades, but only
recently (in no small part because of the great work of Examine.com) have most people accepted
that its both safe and effective.

Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP), also called Daily Nonlinear Periodization, has been
another beast entirely. Its an idea that seems to be gathering cobwebs in the fitness world at
large, in spite of the fact that its been well-supported in the scientific literature for over a
decade.

Sure, a few articles on popular websites have popped up here and there, and a lot of the better
coaches have incorporated DUP into their programming, but the concept of it hasnt taken root
generally yet. It sounds so scientific and complicated, and that scares people.
However, Im here to explain it in simple terms, and tell you how you can use it in your own
training.

30

DUP primarily serves to mitigate the repeated bout effect the idea that the more youre exposed
to a stimulus, the weaker your reaction to it will be. Think about your first days in the gym vs.
now back then you gained strength and size much faster, and you got much sorer after each
session thats the repeated bout effect in action.
With conventional training, youre exposing your body to essentially the same stimulus every
time you train. Sure, youre going to apply some sort of progressive overload, but the volume is
similar, the weights are similar, the reps are similar, and the goal is incremental progress. An
alternative is a periodized plan, with shifts in training variables every few weeks.
However, the theory behind DUP is that even periodized plans dont go far enough in varying
the stimulus to mitigate the repeated bout effect several weeks is still plenty of time to adapt to
a stimulus. Indeed, some research from Charles Poliquin showed as much back in the 80s
changing stimulus every 2 weeks wasnt any better than classic linear periodization (1).

With DUP, rather than changing your volume/intensity/rep ranges every few weeks, you change
them every day you train. That way, your muscles dont adapt with as much specificity as they
otherwise could, decreasing the impact of the repeated bout effect allowing responsiveness to
training to remain higher.
Now Im sure one of the questions Im going to get is, So bro, basically this is saying that
muscle confusion is scientific, right?
I almost hate to dignify this with a response, but I know I need to beforehand DUP is only
muscle confusion in the broadest sense. It maintains that the body will respond more strongly
to more novel stimuli, BUT without the haphazardness of what is typically seen as muscle

31

confusion. This isnt barbell curls today, dumbbell curls tomorrow, preacher curls after that,
followed by drag curls = all kinda gainz.
Its more like squat with more reps and volume today, then squat heavy doubles a couple days
from now, and squat with a classic 3-5 sets of 5-6 reps a couple days after that. You still get the
motor learning benefits of frequent exposure to a motor patterns, while retaining the benefits of
enhanced muscular responsiveness to changes in stimulus.
So, enough theory let me throw a study at you as proof of concept:

In one of the classic studies in this area, two groups of subjects that had been training for an
average of about 5 years prior to the study (not elite athletes by any stretch of the imagination,
but they at least had some time under the bar) used either a linear periodization, or a DUP
training plan.

The two plans were set up thusly (from Rhea et. Al. 2002):

The results? Mindboggling. These two groups had put in essentially the exact same work over
12 weeks. The workouts were the same, the order and structure were just different.

32

The DUP group experienced almost exactly double the results. 28.8% vs 14.4% improvement on
bench press, and 55.8% vs. 25.7% improvement on leg press.
Several other studies have shown similar results, but the study groups werent large enough to
reach statistical significance (often a problem in training studies).

Of course, to be honest about the data, there is one study showing that block periodization may
be slightly better than DUP under certain circumstances.

However, the fact remains, DUP is a better setup than most of the popular programs out
there. So, to make this article useful, lets go into how you can set up a simple DUP program for
yourself, and how to make adjustments moving forward.
Step 1: Choose exercises. These should be the exercises youre trying to improve in, or close
variations of them (i.e. close grip bench is fine for bench press, but DB incline may not be the
best choice)

Step 2: Pick 3 different set/rep schemes for each exercise. The Rhea study showed that 34,
36, and 38 is plenty of variety, but some coaches Ive talked to who rely heavily on DUP have
told me that larger swings works as well. In general, make these in line with your primary
goal. If youre trying to gain size, 12s, 8s, and 5s might be perfect. If strength is your main goal,
6s, 4s, and 2s might be a better option.
Step 3: Define how youre going to overload each lift and set/rep scheme

Step 4: When you plateau on one set/rep scheme, make some substitutions that keep the
integrity of overall program intact.

33

Example:

Day 1 (combo strength/hypertrophy day):

Squat 55, progress by adding weight

Bench 55, progress by adding sets until 8 sets are attained, then drop back to 5 sets and add
weight

Deadlift 63>4; Start with 6 sets of 3. When you can get 6 sets of 4 with a weight, go up next
week.

Day 2 (hypertrophy day):

High bar squat 310, progress by adding sets until 5 sets are attained, then drop back to 3 sets
and add weight

Close grip bench 312, progress by lengthening the eccentric from 3 seconds per rep on week 1,
4 seconds per rep on week 2, and 5 seconds on week 3. Then add weight and go back to 3
second eccentrics on week 4

RDL 58, progress by adding weight

Day 3 (strength/overload day):

34

Chain squat, Start at your current 5rm. Add 5 pounds each week until you can no longer do a
double.
2 Board press, 42 progress by adding sets until 8 sets are attained, then drop back to 4 sets
and add weight.
Rack pull from mid shins work up to a conservative 3rm. Pull it for one more rep each week
until you hit it for 5 reps. Then add weight and start over with 3 reps.

Once you stall with one of your progressions, simply substitute it for something that
accomplishes the same purpose (max strength, hypertrophy, or a blend thereof) and keep rolling.
Scary sounding programs arent so intimidating when you can apply a paint-by-numbers
approach to building them, are they?
Or, if you dont want to add your own creative flare, you can just run a linear program for each
lift on each day, but still achieve DUP simply by rotating workouts. So instead of crazy
sets/reps/progressions, it could be as simple as sticking with the same set/rep scheme on day 1,
having a different one for day 2, and having another one yet for day 3, and running each training
day as if it was a linear progression adding weight as youre able. Like:

Day 1

Squat 55

Bench 55

35

Deadlift 55

Day 2

Squat 312

Bench 312

Deadlift 38 (who does 12 reps on deadlift?)

Day 3

Squat 33

Bench 33

Deadlift 33

It can be as simple as this example, or way more complicated than my first example (adding in
RPEs, biofeedback, and all kinds of goodies). The elegance of it is that its not a rigid workout
its a system you can work with regardless of your experience and confidence in programming.

Hopefully now another bogeyman can be laid to rest.

(1) POLIQUIN, C. Five steps to increasing the effectiveness of your strength training
program. Natl. Strength Cond. Assoc. J. 10:3439. 1988.

36

In Defense of Program Hoppers; DUP Revisited

Ever since I wrote my article on Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP) a couple months ago,
Ive had a nagging feeling that something wasnt quite right, like something was a little bit
off. (If you havent read the first article, or if you dont know what DUP is, Id suggest you
check it out first)
Physiologically, Im not sure the rationale behind DUP totally makes sense of the situation. Not
that it is entirely nonsensical, but I had a feeling that the effects and benefits couldnt be
explained solely by the physiological mechanisms proposed.

The basic notion is that your body meets a new stressor, and responds strongly to it. The more
times its exposed to the same stressor, the weaker the reaction to it is. When you give someone
similar workouts week-in-and-week-out their body habituates to the stressor, so the rate of
adaptation slows down. This is known as the repeated bouts effect. With DUP, since youre
changing the volume and intensity with every training session, youre not dealing with the exact
same stressor all the time, so less habituation takes place, so your body keeps adapting
faster. DUP, the theory goes, minimizes the factors contributing to the repeated bouts effect, so
you get better gains from it.
Thats the basic theory, and its certainly a plausible one. And I certainly believe that it can
account for some of the differences observed in the research. However, the more I think about it,
the more Im convinced these physiological differences dont account for the entirety of the
difference, or perhaps even the majority.
Id like to go back to the study I used as an illustration in my first DUP article, Rhea (2002).

37

Just to recap the study, two group of people trained their bench press and leg press. One group
did linear periodization (LP), and the other group did daily undulating periodization.

The LP group did 38 for each movement three times per week for 4 weeks, then 36 three
times per week for 4 weeks, and then 34 three times per week for 4 weeks.

The DUP group did 38 for each movement one day, 36 the next training day, and 34 the last
training day of each week. They continued with that pattern for the 12 weeks of the study.

Training volume was the same, average intensity was the same, but the DUP group got, on
average, twice the gains of the LP group.* 28.8% vs 14.4% improvement on bench press, and
55.8% vs. 25.7% improvement on leg press.

38

So lets just stop and think about this for a moment. Volume and intensity, which are generally
considered the most important factors for strength and hypertrophy, were equated. Simply
changing around when people did which workout made a big enough difference to result it
basically twice the gains for the DUP group.
Lets think about something for a moment, though. Are the sets of 6 on Wednesday REALLY that
different from the sets of 8 on Monday? Are the sets of 4 on Friday REALLY that different from the sets
of 6 on Wednesday? Although the stressors are slightly different, are they really so different that your
body wouldnt experience the repeated bouts effect? I dont think theres a definitive answer, but Im
skeptical of the notion that your bodys adaptations are so specific that its response to training at 75% 1rm
(about what youd use for 3 sets of 8) would have no bearing on how it would subsequently respond to
training at 80% (about what 3 sets of 6 would be) or 85% (about what 3 sets of 4 would be).

39

However, I think theres something else going on here. I think theres a psychological
component that is quite important.
Theres an old British proverb that has become popular in sports psychology, a change is as
good as a rest. This notion is captured in the Russian weightlifting concept of staleness the
idea that if an athlete does the exact same type of training for too long, theyll lose motivation
and burn out emotionally, leading to decreased performance and adaptation.
Lets do a scary thing with a scientific study. Lets forget about the data for a moment,
remember that the participants were human beings and not robots, and step into the subjects
shoes.
Youre in the LP group.
First day in the gym/lab. 3 sets of 8 leg press and bench press. Time to kill it. Lets give this
100% and hop aboard the gain train. Workout went well. Looking forward to the next 12
weeks.
Second training day. You gave it everything you had on day 1. Youre a little sore, but youre
pretty sure that if you push yourself, you can lift a little more than you did a couple day
ago. Sure enough, you get sets of 8 with 5 more pounds on your bench press and 10 pounds
more on your leg press. Feeling good about yourself.

Third training day. Man, it took everything you had to make improvements on day 2. Getting
those sets in with a little more weight seems a bit more intimidating today, but youre going to

40

give it your best. You end up having to repeat the same weights on bench press, but you get 10
more pounds on leg press. Not bad.

Fourth training day. Really not looking forward to this. 3 sets of 8 again?! Stalled on both. Oh
well, Ill do better next time.

Fifth training day. 3 more sets of 8? If I HAVE to. Do I seriously have to do two and half more
weeks of this exact same workout?
Now youre in the DUP group.
First day in the gym/lab. 3 sets of 8 leg press and bench press. Time to kill it. Lets give this
100% and hop aboard the gain train. Workout went well. Looking forward to the next 12
weeks.

Second training day. 3 sets of 6 for each. Fewer reps mean I can go a little heavier than day
1. Time to load up the bar/leg press and destroy these weights.

Third training day. 3 sets of 4. Heck yes, even heavier. Low volume today, too, so walking out
of the gym feeling good. I am a god among men.
Fourth training day. 3 sets of 8 again. Good week of training last week. Im pretty darn sure I
can get more weight than I did on day 1. Sure enough, I can. Lets keep the gain train rolling.
Fifth training day. 3 more sets of 6. Lets keep this momentum rolling. If I could go up for 3
sets of 8, I bet I can do the same for 3 sets of 6. What do you know, I can. Let the sweet, sweet
gains shower down upon me forever.

41

You see where Im going with this. Even though both groups were doing the same workouts
across the 12 weeks of training, the way the LP program was structured all but ensured that the
subjects would hit a wall with each set/rep combination at some point, and even if the
participants WERE able to keep adding weight to the bar, the only exciting thing about the
training was the gains the workouts themselves were bound to get pretty dull, pretty quickly.

For the DUP program, since each workout was always a bit different from the previous one, they
would be a little more novel and exciting, and it would take longer for the participants to reach a
point that they couldnt progress with a certain set/rep scheme, thus avoiding the demotivational
effects of failure.
Those factors enjoyment and novelty, can affect perception and effort, which can impact
performance and training effect. If you do two equally difficult tasks, the one that is fresh and
challenging without throwing you too terribly far outside your comfort zone is the one that will
seem easier, and the one youre going to pour more effort into.
Like I said previously, if we lean solely on physiological explanations for DUPs success, we
have to ask ourselves, Are sets of 6 on Wednesday really that different from sets of 8 on
Monday? Are sets of 4 on Friday really that different from sets of 6 on Wednesday? Its not
that Im saying the repeated bouts effect is totally unimportant, but I dont think you can lean on
it, and it alone, to explain the difference.

So, what do we do with all this?

42

Lets take a look at some of the popular training programs floating around out there, and try to
understand why people tend to hop from program to program. Im sure theres an element of
chasing the exciting new thing the strength worlds flavor of the week but I think theres
more to it than that.
Lets start by looking at the various beginner routines out there. When you look at the Starting
Strength program, or Strong lifts 55, or any of the other LP programs, what do you see?

Basically the exact same workout every time you walk into the gym. The same exercises, with
the same volume and intensity, in the same rep ranges, 5 pounds heavier than last time. Im not
saying it cant work, but for many people itll be just as much a test of their patience as it will be
a test of their strength. Why not keep the latter while dispensing with the former?
When you move past that, you see a much broader range of approaches. Theres Sheiko with
vanilla exercise selection and the same general intensities, with weekly fluctuations in
volume. Theres Westside with a load of exercise variation, but similar volume and intensity
week to week. Theres the Cube and 5/3/1 that have more weekly variation in loading, with the
Cube having a broader array of exercises than 5/3/1. Theres Madcow and the Texas Method
with variations in volume and intensity workout to workout, but the same training setup week to
week. Going back to the Rhea DUP study from earlier in this article, the same principles
apply. Some things change (volume and intensity with each session), while others remain
constant (exercise selection and the structure of the training week). In all these examples, theres
variety of some sort or another to keep the training fresh, while retaining enough consistency for
you to gauge progress.

43

The great thing about this scenario? They all work. Plenty of people have gotten good results
with all of them.

So what do we make of the program hopper? Are they ADD, lacking diligence and
motivation? Or are they simply trying to find the type of training that clicks with them?

Motivation comes from both intrinsic and extrinsic sources. Your choice of training plan can
substantially affect your extrinsic motivation. The more you enjoy your training, the more
extrinsically motivating it is. Its the whole behaviorist idea of reinforcement. The more you
enjoy going to the gym and training, the more that reinforces the behavior. The more apt you are
to continue lifting, and the more effort youll put into your training. Conversely, if youre
intrinsically motivated to train, but your training plan bores you to tears and you stop looking
forward to going to the gym to carry out the training you have planned, it starts setting up a more
aversive relationship with training.
When you like what you do, it sets up a positive feedback loop. You enjoy training, so youre
more motivated to train harder, so you get better results, so you enjoy training more, so youre
more motivated to train harder, so you get better results, etc. Worst case scenario is that, even if
the training is psychologically appropriate, its not physiologically appropriate. In that case, you
can retain the training structure that you enjoy, and make some changes within that framework to
get the results to start coming again. Easy peasy.
When you dont like what you do, it sets up a negative feedback loop. You dont enjoy
training, so youre less motivated to train, so you get worse results, so you enjoy training less, so
youre less motivated to train, etc. Best case scenario here is that you get good results in spite of

44

hating your training plan the results of training are motivational while the training itself is
demotivational. Certainly not the worst possible scenario, but why suck it up and deal with such
a scenario when it can be improved upon?
Not to mention, this isnt Soviet Russia or Bulgaria where your ability to lift a barbell is directly
related to your ability to provide for your family. Why hate the process, in spite of good results,
when youre just doing it for personal enjoyment anyways? There are other options out there
that have worked for loads of people that you could also get results from, while also enjoying
training.

Now, obviously different people are affected more or less by different motivational factors. If
your only drive to train is to be the biggest and strongest you can possibly be, youll probably
find yourself enjoying any type of training that works for you, because the primary reinforcer
is the result of the training, not the process of it. But keep in mind that not everyone is wired like
that many people do want to get stronger and sexier, but the results themselves arent the only
thing that draws them to the gym. Maybe they lift for social reasons or for stress relief or just to
stay healthy. People competing at a high level (or striving to) are usually in the first category,
while more casual lifters tend to be in the second.
Its worth pointing out that not everyone finds the same type of training enjoyable. Personally, I
know that if I got my lifting advice from the internet when I first started and thought the only
way forward was to run an LP program, just adding 5 pounds to the bar each workout for sets of
5, theres no way in hell Id have stuck with it for more than a couple weeks. However, there are
people who totally dig training in that style. More variety and ambiguity drives them crazy,
while predictable workouts and easily measurable progress are very motivating.

45

I still think the goal should be to stick with a training plan long-term for 12 to 16 weeks
minimum. However, I dont think you should necessarily stick with the training plan you have
NOW long-term. Just because youve done a program for a week, that doesnt mean you have to
do it for 15 more. Try out a few training plans for a few weeks apiece. When you find one thats
enjoyable and clicks with you, where you say, Hey, Id really look forward to training like this
for the next year or so, then stick with THAT one. Until that point, program hop to your hearts
content. You may find you enjoy more exercise variety, or more changes in rep scheme, or
weekly changes in volume and intensity, or you may just like doing the same thing every day, a
little bit heavier. Until youve tried, you dont know what type of training youll find motivating
and productive.

The key is to find something that meshes with your unique psychology (motivational factors) and
physiology (it actually makes you bigger and stronger). When you find it, stick with it. Until
then, dont feel like youre married to any particular program because you used it for 2 weeks.
*I realize that subsequent research hasnt been AS eye-popping as Rheas 2002 study, but there
is a trend in strength training right now moving toward DUP. Additionally, though most of it
hasnt been published yet, Dr. Mike Zourdos has done a lot of research thats either in review or
being prepared for publication showing DUPs benefits specifically for powerlifters. Heres a
link to his dissertation for anyone interested.
So while we cant make any definitive statements about DUP being better for all people, at all
times, in all circumstances (which is obviously a ludicrously high bar in the first place), this is
based on the general assumption that it tends to be better than linear approaches, and Rheas

46

study was used our illustration since it just make it easier to dig our teeth into some of these
concepts.

47

Study Write-up: Sprints Are Anabolic*, Even When Fasted! but With
Big Gender Differences
This is by far the most interesting journal article Ive read in a long time.
It touches on so many things that are relevant to all of us fasted training, sprints vs (?) lowintensity cardio, gender differences, and insulin (so, by extension, peri-workout nutrition). On
top of that, its a really well-controlled study that uses a really challenging protocol, so it should
be more applicable than most. Ill warn you up front, the beginning of this post will be pretty
dry and sciency, but stick around and I promise itll get exciting by the end.
The study is called Sprint exercise enhances skeletal muscle p70S6k phosphorylation, and more
so in women than in men by Esbjrnsson et. Al.

What they were doing:

This was essentially a follow-up study. The same researchers had used a similar protocol in a
1996 study, and found a pretty substantial hypertrophy response in women after 4 weeks of
doing sprints 3x per week (+25% in cross-sectional area of type IIB fibers), with NO hypertrophy
response in men. Obviously thats a puzzling result, since men tend to hypertrophy easier than
women do, primarily its generally assumed due to differences in testosterone levels.

Since that 1996 study, more research had been done on gendered responses to sprinting
protocols, examining the mechanisms that could explain the difference primarily the via the
mTOR pathway which controls the initiation of protein translation and ultimately skeletal
muscle growth. In short, various protocols had shown that the mTOR pathway wasnt activated

48

in men due to sprinting, so Esbjrnsson wanted to repeat the original protocol that had produced
gender differences in hypertrophy to see if women and men would have differing mTOR
responses, which would then explain the differences in hypertrophy.

Methods:
They recruited nine men and eight women, aged 20-30, who were active and healthy but didnt
compete in anything at the elite level.
The testing protocol was brutal report to the lab fasted, then 3 successive Wingate tests with 20
minutes rest in between. The Wingate test is a 30 second, all-out sprint on a stationary bike to
measure your anaerobic power. It may not sound difficult, but its generally considered one of
the most crushingly hard research protocols in existence. Doing it three times is, for lack of a
better term, insane.

They took muscle biopsies before the first sprint and 140 minutes after the last, and they drew
blood before the first sprint, between sprints, and 9, 80, and 140 minutes after the last sprint.

What they found:

1) When controlling for fat free mass, there was no significant difference in power output
between the men and the women. Thats a HUGELY important point, since that means,
normalized to negate body fat differences, the men and women were exercising at the same
relative intensities. So the potential contention that difference in response may be due to one
gender or the other working harder simply isnt founded.

49

2) There were also no significant fiber type differences between the men and the women. So
it cant be contended that the differences in outcome were actually due to fiber type
differences. After ruling out fiber type and work rate as potential differences, it really seems like
the influencing factor has to be gender which is exactly what the authors were going for.

3) mTOR phosphorylation after exercise was increased about 120% on average, with no
significant differences between men and women.

4) AMPK (a protein that, more-or-less, has an antagonistic relationship with mTOR)

phosphorylation was not different between men and women, or between pre- and post-exercise.

5) p70S6k, a downstream protein in the mTOR signaling pathway, was elevated in both men and
women, but the increase was 230% in women and only 60% in men. (VERY important
implications here that well discuss later)

6) Plasma leucine (the amino acid most associated with mTOR activation) was significantly
higher in men pre-exercise, but decreased significantly more in men pre- to post-exercise, though
it decreased significantly in women too.

7) Lactate levels were the same at rest between genders, and plasma lactate increased
significantly for both genders, but increased more in men than in women when measured
between sprints.
8) Glucose levels werent significantly different at rest and increased in both genders in response
to the sprints, but the increase was larger in women.

50

9) Serum insulin levels werent significantly different at rest, and increased in both genders, but
the increase was roughly 3x over baseline in men, and 5x over baseline in women.

10) Serum growth hormone levels were higher at rest for women, but increased to a larger
degree in men, though peak values werent significantly different.

11) There was a pretty strong correlation (r = .68) between increase in p70S6k and increase in
insulin in response to the sprints.

Making sense of it all:

I warned you that it would be a little science-heavy at first, but heres the pay-off. There are a
couple of really exciting implications here.
First and foremost if you train and dont get to eat right away, though its not optimal, you
certainly dont need to worry about getting catabolic. These people were training fasted, doing
an absurd protocol, and didnt eat for 2 hours after they worked out and they STILL had
elevated mTOR one of the primary markers of anabolism.
Secondly (this is the important part) energy status of your cells has a lot to do with
hypertrophy response to the same stimulus.

Let me break it down for you

a. Women had a larger rise in blood glucose, so the liver was putting out more glucose to be used
for the sprints.

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b. Women had a larger increase in insulin, so there was a larger hormonal signal to drive glucose
uptake into the muscle.

c. Women had a SMALLER increase in lactate. Lactate levels acutely decrease insulin
sensitivity.

d. Women had a SMALLER decrease in plasma leucine

Add all this together, and the mens muscles were in a much more depleted state post-exercise
than the womens. mTOR is, to a degree, a fuel gauge for the cell.

So, what you wind up with is the SAME activation of mTOR due to exercise, but significantly
blunted downstream signaling in men, as evidenced by the much smaller increase in
phosphorylation of p70S6k.
Implications (one serious, and one *sort of* joking, and one to make you go hmmm):

1. If either hypertrophy or the maintenance of muscle while dieting is your goal, consider eating
or supplementing with some carbs before or during really depleting workout. Although the jury
is definitely still out regarding pure resistance training and carbohydrate supplementation, this
study seems to suggest that some carbs around your training would have a beneficial effect on
workouts that are similarly challenging to your anaerobic energy systems.

Obviously the rest periods (20 minutes) make this a difficult study to generalize to traditional
circuit training in general, but this at least seems to suggest that, as long as cellular energy status
is maintained, HIIT may actually be anabolic. At the very least, the type of training described in

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this articles is definitely NOT catabolic to muscle tissue, even when done in a fasted state with
no food consumption for over 2 hours post-workout.

Interestingly, the authors of the study propose that one reason that the women may have had a
larger spike in insulin is that men tend to have higher catecholamine output (epinephrine and
norepinephrine) in response to sprint training, and catecholamines have been shown to blunt
insulin secretion. Maybe that should call into question the SUPER JACKED HARDCORE preworkout you take, considering the correlation the authors found between rise in insulin and
phosphorylation of p70S6k (and thus, hypertrophy)

2. The differences in gender response here may help explain why CrossFit women are so
freaking jacked. The physiological responses these women had to SEVERELY depleting
training elevated glucose, elevated insulin, blunted elevations in lactate, smaller decrease in
insulin might suggest that theyre metabolically suited to this type of training. At the very
least, we have mechanisms to explain a previously-observed hypertrophy response.
3. Hypertrophy is not just a mans game. This study sheds some light on the fact that theres a
gendered response to various hypertrophy stimuli. I think its pretty well-accepted that high
muscular tension tends to cause more hypertrophy in men than in women. However, stressing
the energetic capacity of the muscle cells evoked a larger response in women, at least in this
study. Whats more, as was previously established, the primary response is in the most powerful
fibers type IIB!

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Thanks for wading through this one with me. Not as clear-cut and straight-forward as my belt
vs. beltless article, but I think this one gave us the opportunity to touch on a lot of interesting
topics.

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Cardio and Lifting Cardio Wont Hugely Impact Your Gains in the Short
Run, and May Be Beneficial for Strength and Size in the Long Run
The strength and fitness worlds have, unfortunately, fallen prey to cardio fear-mongering, and I
think thats to their detriment. At this point, it should be indisputable that aerobic training can
improve almost every major marker of health, however, I think that it might actually improve
your strength and size gains (or, at the very least, not hurt them) as well.

Short-Term
For starters, we dont really have to guess about the short-term effects of cardio on strength and
size gains . Ill give you the cliff notes.

1) You can still get bigger and stronger with doing strength training and cardio simultaneously.

2) In the short term, concurrent training (strength training and cardio together) is about 31% less
effective for hypertrophy, and about 18% less effective for strength.
3) Frequency and duration of aerobic training affected strength and hypertrophy gains more
frequency and volume of aerobic training meant smaller strength and size improvements.

4) When looking at the data more closely, mode of exercise mattered. Running, but not cycling,
negatively impacted strength and size gains.

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So, theres one major takeaway here aerobic training does not hamper strength training in and
of itself. The effect starts materializing when it begins causing additional stress to the muscles
and soft tissues. Running, with its impact element, affected strength and size gains especially as
volume increased, whereas cycling didnt. Id venture that the old-school bodybuilding staple of
incline treadmill walking would also have minimal effects, just like cycling, due to its minimal
impact, and hence its minimal addition to training stress.

If your choice of cardio is 1) low impact, and 2) not overboard on volume and intensity, you
shouldnt have to worry about it negatively affecting your training or your results. Theres also a
strong vein of broscience suggesting that low intensity steady state cardio may actually aid in
recovery from workouts by promoting blood flow to the muscles without causing further
damage. It makes sense intuitively (and Ive noticed it to be true in my own training), though
theres not any studies confirming it at this time.

My friend Alex Viada is a poster boy for combining aerobic and

strength training as an ultra-endurance athlete and an 800 pound squatter.

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Long-Term

So, short term, running for hours on end all the time may not be the best idea, but a reasonable
volume of low impact stuff is fine. But what about long-term effects? This is where the
potential benefits come in. This part is a little more theoretical, but also a lot more exciting.
For starters, theres preliminary evidence that aerobic training increases intra-muscular DHT
conversion. For those of you who clicked on the study, yes, its in rodents, so I realize that we
cant put TOO much stock it in. However, the potential implications are huge, especially for
drug-free athletes. Not to mention the training protocol wasnt anything crazy: 30 minutes, 5x
per week.

DHT is a derivative of testosterone which binds more readily to androgen receptors and stays
bound for longer allowing it to exert its anabolic effects for a longer period of time. The linked
study found that aerobic exercise can increase the activity of the enzyme that converts
testosterone to this more potent androgen, without altering the levels of the sex hormones in the
blood. Essentially, if this finding holds true in humans, it means you can get a lot more bang
for your buck from the testosterone you produce naturally. Luckily scientists have begun
studies examining the effects of exercise on DHT in healthy humans. Though theres not a ton
of research yet, early studies ARE finding that exercise (in this case, sprints) affects DHT in
healthy young people as well, and aerobic training can increase DHT without affecting
testosterone in middle-aged men. So, maybe cardio is a little manlier than youve been led to
believe!

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Programming

To add a little context to this discussion, we also need to bring up periodization. The
effectiveness of any programming is based upon the work capacity of the athlete the amount of
work the trainee can perform and recover from. In all the literature on periodization and
program design, one major principle is that work capacity should be built from general to
specific. Start with a strong foundation of generally being able to move for long periods of time,
progress to more specific movements, and finally work on movements that are highly specific to
competition.

In these longer-term programs, building up work capacity at the beginning of the training cycle is
necessary for the volume and intensity of training thats necessary to hit PRs at the end of the
cycle. Aerobic work can be used to build up that base.
Im sure someone will object and say, Well sure, people write about that in training books, but
no good strength athletes ACTUALLY train that way. I suppose no one told Ilya Ilin, Olympic
champion weightlifter and one of the greatest strength athletes walking the face of the
earth. Near the end of the article: Ilya has a program that encompassed 10 months and went
from swimming and rowing to a gradual inclusion of the lifts, to an ultimate elimination of
everything but the lifts and squats. The Chinese weightlifting team, whose lifters have been
winning international competitions like theyre going out of style for the past several years, also
jogs or plays aerobic-based sports regularly to improve and maintain conditioning and work
capacity. Also sprinters, who are some of the strongest and most explosive athletes pound for
pound in the world, get a large portion of their training volume from tempo runs, which is
basically a fancy way of saying jogging.

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Body Composition
Next, aerobic training positively influences body composition. Yes, I know, abs are made in
the kitchen. However, the combination of aerobic and resistance training has been shown to
improve body composition more so than either in isolation. Resistance training increases
metabolic rate, while aerobic training decreases hunger more so than resistance training, which is
perhaps what makes the combination especially potent.

With improved body composition comes a host of improved hormonal and metabolic
markers. Improved insulin and leptin sensitivity, increased testosterone, lower estrogen (since
adipose i.e. fat tissue contains the aromatase enzyme which converts testosterone to
estrogen), and many more all of which contribute to an improved biochemical environment for
muscle and strength gains.

On Energy
Something else to keep in mind is that lifting heavy things is an energy-intensive endeavor.
A 2000 study found that energy expenditure when deadlifting is almost linear. If youve been
training for a while, youve probably noticed this in your own training, or in training others.
Ive seen relatively new lifters take the 20 rep squat challenge and be just fine afterwards. Maybe
they squat 200 pounds for 20 reps. Sure theyre a little winded afterwards, but they catch their
breath pretty soon, and can continue with their workout soon thereafter.

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I made the mistake of squatting 40520. I will never do that again. I felt like I was going to die.
Am I in THAT much worse shape, aerobically, than the guy whos fine after squatting 20020?
Not necessarily. Double the bar weight means double the work and double the energy
expenditure (if you assume the findings for DLs hold true for squats and theres no reason not
to) in the same amount of time.
If you double your strength, your training isnt just twice as demanding on your muscles. Its
also twice as demanding on your aerobic system. So if you get twice as strong without also
improving your conditioning, recovery time between sets increases dramatically, so you simply
cant do as much work per session and handle the same training volume.
Improving your conditioning may not pay huge dividends in the short term, but theres a very
real chance that insufficient conditioning could limit your progress in the long term.

Counter Arguments and Context

But what about the arguments against aerobic training? All the people crying that your muscle
will shrivel up, leaving you skinny fat?

Check their sources. Oh, in spite of a meta-analysis showing that strength and size
improvements absolutely occur with concurrent training, theyll claim that its impossible, and
cite research from people running for hours and hours each week in a massive calorie
deficit. Well sure, in that context, they may be onto something. Starving yourself while putting
in 100 miles of road work every week without lifting isnt exactly ideal for muscle growth or
metabolic health. However, in that regard, theyre less prophets and more just stating the
obvious while making huge extrapolations.

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Remember, were not talking about running to purposefully open up a huge calorie
deficit. Were talking about aerobic training, accompanied with strength training and adequate
calorie intake, aimed at improving performance. Context is everything. As with most things, the
dose makes the poison.

Summing it all up

Hopefully, at the very least, you can walk away from this with the assurance that the worst case
scenario when combining strength training with reasonable aerobic training is that youll still get
bigger and stronger, but perhaps at a slightly slower rate. However, when programmed correctly,
it can actually improve your results, and your body composition as well!
Share this around with your cardio-phobic friends. Hopefully theyll see the light and cardio
can stop being such a dirty word in the strength and fitness worlds.

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Practical Considerations for Combining Cardiovascular Training and

Lifting
After a huge response to the previous article, I got my friend Alex Viada to go into a little more
depth on the subject. Combining the two is what he does for a living, so hes the guy to really
talk about application.

After Greg Nuckols posted his excellent piece on Cardio and Lifting, I was more than pleased
when he offered me the opportunity to do a follow up based on my practical experience working
with concurrent/hybrid programs, and relay a few of the major lessons Ive learned both from
programming for myself and for my athletes a group that includes dozens of 200-300+ pound
individuals with 450+ pound bench presses, 600+ pound deadlifts, 600+ pound squats, and other
such numbers that are useful to throw around in heated internet arguments in other words,
none of these folks are delicate flowers who shrivel up and die when asked to run a few miles.
For the strength-focused athlete, incorporating cardiovascular training into ones program is
something that is approached with everything from mild distaste to outright horror- and
potentially with good reason. Introduction of cardiovascular training into an already stacked
strength training regimen without proper attention paid to recovery or overall work load can
result in a loss of strength, overtraining, and underwhelming performance gains in the aerobic
realm to boot.

This is an extreme case, however- it is not terribly difficult to intelligently incorporate aerobic
conditioning into a strength program, and as Gregs article points out, if done correctly the net

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effects can be improved recovery, greater work capacity (both specific and general), and overall
just not feeling like a generally un-athletic heap of crap when trying to go up a flight of stairs.

In my experience, when it comes to training hybrid athletes (those who train for strength and
endurance, concurrently), the major considerations in designing a program are: Recovery
management, energy systems management, managing progressive overload in the aerobic arena,
and correctly timing workouts in the microcycle.

Figure 1: The author on a bike. You helmet does not have to look this silly.

63

Recovery management and choosing the correct form of activity

Resistance training and aerobic training both tax the bodys energy stores and various
structures in a number of ways- certainly both forms of activity consume energy stores, cause
muscle tissue breakdown, stress bones and connective tissue, and so forth. What is important to
remember, though, is that the level of stress is very different between the two, and if properly
managed, the body can recovery from a greater overall level of stress provided the TYPES of
stress are varied.

For example- sprinting and high repetition squatting are relatively similar in terms of physical
stress- both involve relatively high peak loads at momentarily acute joint angles, as well as heavy
eccentric and concentric stresses, so treat these as nearly identical workouts in your planning
(and understand that they can, in fact, be combined). On the opposite end of the spectrum, slow,
easy cycling or swimming are completely different than standard resistance training- far less
trauma to the muscle fibers (very low mechanical stress), far less damage to bone (these are not
load bearing, for the most part), and can therefore be programmed with less consideration to
heavy lifting.

Without getting into a breakdown of every single kind of exercise, just remember that it pays to
examine HOW your existing routine is stressing your body, and choose your aerobic exercise
modality accordingly. Pushing your leg strength to the limit or focusing on your squat? Avoid
heavy sprinting or fast cycling, and opt for low intensity swimming, low intensity cycling or
even rucking (hiking with a weighted pack) as your cardiovascular activity. Bench
specialist? The erg or the pool are doing you no favors. SHW athlete? Forget running entirelyrucking is an excellent option, (possibly even superior to cycling, since few things are less

64

comfortable than putting 300 pounds of pressure on your crotch.), just make sure you have solid,
supportive, well-fitting boots.

Another point to consider- to maintain explosiveness and specificity, ensure that the aerobic
activity chosen is as DISSIMILAR to the required movement patterns as possible, particularly if
you are an athlete who typically struggles with rate of force production. Swimming tends to hurt
Olympic lifters less than endurance cycling, while cycling interferes minimally with the bench
press. Rucking, because it uses movement patterns very different from most lifts in general (no
acute joint angles, low intensity movement, etc.) has been (in my experience) the MOST
tolerable for all strength athletes. This sounds like common sense, but seems to escape many
individuals- the body adapts to how it is trained, and if you perform similar movements with
different cadences, you may be training your body to perform sub-optimally in both. Of notedespite all the arguments both for and against speed work for powerlifters, I find that
incorporating speed work for concurrent/hybrid athletes is nearly a must, while for pure strength
athletes it can often be optional- implying that frequent RFD work is more important for athletes
who are performing high volume non-explosive activity on a regular basis. This is consistent
with the findings in the summary presented here.

Energy systems management- proper recovery and recuperation

The second most critical piece to remember- think about what energy stores youre depleting,
and recover accordingly. A true LISS (Low intensity steady state) session WILL deplete your
glycogen, but its remarkable how LITTLE glycogen you need to perform maximum effort
lifting the next day. Ive had dozens of athletes do 20+ mile runs one day, then squat heavily the
next. They may require more bar-only warmups to get loose, and their overall workout duration

65

will be shorter (they will NOT have re-synthesized their full glycogen stores by the time they go
squat, so their drop down sets may suffer), but their maximum power output will be largely
unaffected. The takeaway here is to plan volume accordingly- high repetition/hypertrophy work
or extended RFD/dynamic effort sessions require more stores than a few maximum effort lifts, so
take care to allow sufficient time after extended aerobic activity to replenish this can take up to
72+ hours if sufficiently depleted.
Do note- no matter how slow the activity or low intensity the activity in question is, you still
ARE burning glycogen. Ultra runners moving at a 13:00/mile pace can still bonk when they run
out of glycogen, and are nearly unable to even maintain a steady walk at this point. Do not think
that any sort of metabolic optimization (such as eating massive amounts of fat rather than
carbs during activity to keep the body burning fat over glucose, or any such nonsense) will
preserve glucose for lifting.
Also note that, while the post workout anabolic window is indeed overstated in terms of its
importance, it is not ideal to perform long duration cardio immediately after a lifting sessioncatabolic hormones are already high, significant microtrauma has already been done to the
muscles, and the body needs to recover. Short duration sprints may not be contraindicated (as
15-20 minutes of HIIT may be little different than simply performing a few burnout sets of
squats), but the athlete should always perform longer duration aerobic activity when the body is
at least marginally recovered from resistance training. While I am a big advocate of big picture
thinking i.e. the athletes overall program over the course of a week matters more than a few
minutes here or there post workout it still pays to consider when the system is primarily

66

catabolic, and when youre better off recovering versus simply wringing out an already
exhausted body.

Finally, do note that SHORTER duration, lower intensity aerobic activity can indeed aid in
recovery. Anecdotally, simply getting the legs or arms moving can increase blood flow and
mobility, prevent tightness, and warm up the body enough for active mobility work or
stretching. Endurance athletes have done similar such recovery runs for decades for great
effect- just make sure not to overcook these sessions and try to turn them into challenging
workouts! A recovery run 6-8 hours after a leg session (or the next morning) can, certainly
anecdotally, speed recovery significantly.

Progressive overload and preventing stagnation

Aerobic activity is no different from resistance training- simply performing the same exercise at
the same intensity and volume week after week will result in no improvement. Any individual,
even if his or her goal is simply to improve background aerobic capacity, should vary his or her
aerobic training to prevent stagnation and chronic overuse. Careful incorporation and gradual
accumulation of low intensity, extended duration steady state workouts (The long slow run or
overdistance work, to be done on its own training day), moderate intensity tempo work (also
to be done on its own training day), and higher intensity, shorter duration sprint or interval style
work (which can be done at the end of resistance training, provided it is taxing the same muscles
as those worked in the previous workout) should all be incorporated to maximize adaptation and
ensure progression.

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Over-doing any one of these will result in overtaxing discrete systems already pushed to their
limit- too much sprinting or interval training will rapidly overtax the same energy systems and
muscles you need for strength training, while too much low intensity extended duration work
will result in chronic glycogen depletion/fatigue and potential overuse injuries.

Figure 2: I have no idea whats going on here, but it seems relevant

68

Also, according to the internet, your CNS will burn out if you do just one thing over and over
again. I asked the internet specifically what this meant, but nobody could really agree on an
answer, just that it was very bad. So please, dont anger the internet.

Putting it together
So what, then, is the ideal template? One you create yourself- nearly every athlete Ive worked
with has a unique program, with cardiovascular training implemented completely
differently. There is no one magic bullet, particularly with strength-focused athletes. I
HIGHLY recommend that the individual experiment with different types of training, from
swimming to aqua jogging, hiking and trail running to rucking with a loaded pack, from distance
cycling to cross country skiing. Simply thinking of aerobic activity as running is shortsighted- unless you are specifically training for an event, it pays to consider all the above factors
when incorporating aerobic conditioning into a program.

It ALSO pays to understand when aerobic conditioning should be decreased or even

eliminated. Prior to peaking for competition, strength athletes may find a benefit from reducing
volume in the aerobic component of the program- shortening their duration by 25-50% two
weeks before competition, and 50-75% the week of competition. If the athlete has consistently
done some sort of aerobic conditioning throughout the training cycle, however, I would NOT
recommend eliminating it entirely the athlete has adapted and become accustomed to the
regular stimulus, but has also become accustomed to the regular mobility and loosening up that
aerobic conditioning can provide, on top of the particular hormonal/neurological
effects. Loosely translated- dont change ANYTHING too dramatically right before
competition- you may find that the regular cardiovascular conditioning has been helping your

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legs recover, has been helping your appetite, and helping you sleep at night, and suddenly
eliminating it a few days before competition may REALLY disrupt things for the worse.

Finally, as Greg noted in his article, for the athlete entering a competitive season, the nature of
your aerobic activity should change as you approach competition. Consider WHY you are
incorporating it, and do not hesitate to drop it to a bare minimum during a peaking phase- just
ensure that this is done gradually.
Of the various athletes Ive had the privilege of working with, from Powerlifters to military
Special Forces to Strongman competitors, the VAST majority of individuals have been able to
maintain or even increase the rate of strength and size gains when intelligently incorporating
cardiovascular conditioning into their routines, and very few of these individuals restricted this
conditioning to HIIT, prowler pushes, or other such typically recommended exercise
modalities. Regular cardiovascular conditioning improves their recovery, their overall work
capacity, and (not unimportantly) truly teaches pain tolerance and a willingness to push through
discomfort, an additional benefit that cannot be discounted.

The human body is a remarkably adaptable system- it is designed to respond to whatever

stimulus acts it is exposed to, and it is simply foolish to assume that, because strength
adaptations and endurance adaptations SEEM at opposite ends of the spectrum, that an individual
cannot train for both and reap rewards from both ends, as long as they refuel and recover
properly from both.

A final note- treat aerobic activity no different than lifting weights- it PAYS to know what
youre doing. Get a good pair of shoes before running (a good pair for YOU- go to a specialty

70

running store and get evaluated, dont just run in shoes that look fancy). Get a good bike fit if
you want to cycle. Get good supportive boots and a well-balanced pack if you want to ruck. Get
proper goggles and a real swimsuit (or jammer shorts) and not board shorts if you want to
swim. And sign up for a lesson or two from somebody who knows what theyre doing. Most
strength athletes are so specialized for power production that we have terrible mechanics for
lower intensity activity, and spending a bit of extra time looking at our running form or finding a
proper bike saddle will prevent a HUGE amount of issues down the road.

Figure 3: Hoka One One shoes next to a conventional running shoe.

Learn whats out there, and know your gear!

71

The final lesson here - if anything, give Gregs article another read - from practical experience, it
is certainly 100% accurate - incorporating aerobic conditioning in no way means a strengthfocused athlete cannot continue to gain size and strength, it must just be done carefully, so as to
not lose gainz.

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Cardio Isnt Going to Kill Your Gains. Need More Evidence? You Got It.
After I published my first article on this subject, my inbox was flooded with questions about
it. Half of them were asking if I was crazy, and the other half were asking me how to implement
some cardio in their training (which Alex already covered in the article above).
If youre in the former group of people, this article is for you. A study in January 2014 covered
this topic, and did so on the molecular level.
By necessity this post is pretty science-heavy. Ill do my best to explain things as we go along,
but if gene expression and protein phosphorylation arent your shtick, feel free to skip to the
Takeaways section at the bottom.

New species identified: Quadrasaurus Flex

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Without going too far afield (and putting most of you to sleep in the process), there are two
major cellular pathways that largely govern aerobic and hypertrophy responses to training. The
AMPK pathway is activated by essentially anything that depletes cellular energy low calorie
intake, aerobic exercise, etc. The mTOR pathway is activated by food intake (especially leucinerich protein sources) and resistance exercise.
The two are typically thought to be essentially antagonistic. For our purposes here, its
commonly believed that activating the AMPK pathway is going to shut down the mTOR
pathway and the hypertrophy response. Its much more complicated than that, but most people
still assume that aerobic training > AMPK phosphorylation > mTOR inhibition > small and
weak.
A new study flips that assumption on its head. The study is titled (spoiler alert!) Exerciseinduced AMPK activation does not interfere with muscle hypertrophy in response to resistance
training in men (Lundberg et. Al, 2013).

Background

The recent meta-analysis I linked to in my first post on this subject essentially said that you can
absolutely get stronger while doing some aerobic training. Cycling is better at running for this
purpose, and duration is a key factor.

However, the question remains: If you have to do aerobic work and then train directly after, can
you still get jacked?

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This is an important question to answer because its putting the muscles in catabolic conditions
from the outset. The same authors showed that strength and hypertrophy could coexist with
aerobic training if there were 6 hours between sessions, but for this study, the participants did
their strength training a mere 15 minutes after cycling when the muscles were already fatigued
and glycogen depleted, and when the AMPK pathway was already activated.

The subjects

The subjects selected could be a little more relevant for out purposes. They were young (mostly
between 20 and 30) and healthy, performing recreational activities ~3x/week. None of them
were currently active in strength training.
Id like to see trained subjects (some strength trained and some aerobically trained would be
awesome), but these people were in decent shape, and with a fairly short study period (5 weeks),
untrained subjects are more apt to see noticeable changes.

The training protocol

This protocol was a little strange, but certainly creative for ensuring the results were from the
training itself and not differences between groups.

The subjects acted as their own controls. With one leg, they performed aerobic exercise
followed by resistance exercise, and with the other leg they only performed resistance exercise.
The aerobic training was cycling with one leg, and the resistance exercise was knee extensions
4 sets of 7 reps at maximal effort.

75

The one legged cycling sounds pretty freaking hard 70% of maximal work load at 60RPM for
40 minutes, and then, to ensure fatigue of the aerobic leg, work load was increased further and
the subjects cycled until failure.

Then, after only a 15 minute break, it was on to leg extensions.

Aerobic training was 3x per week for a total of 15 sessions, and strength training alternated 2x
per week and 3x per week, for a total of 12 sessions (but always occurring after an aerobic
session).

The results

After 40 minutes of pretty challenging aerobic training, eventually going to failure, peak power
in the subsequent leg extensions was 10-20% lower in the aerobic leg vs. the strength training
only leg. That was to be expected

Contrary to other studies where strength increased but power output decreased or remained
unchanged with strength + aerobic training, both legs increased in power output to a similar
degree.

Endurance improved in the aerobic leg but not the strength training only leg. That was to be
expected.

Peak knee torque increased for both legs, but while only eccentric increased significantly for the
aerobic leg, both eccentric and concentric increased for the strength only leg.

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Hypertrophy was twice as great in the aerobic leg vs. the strength only leg! A 6% increase in
quadriceps area vs. 3%.

The aerobic leg had more glycogen (stored carbohydrate) at rest after training, but glycogen
stores were about 32% less than the strength-only leg after the single leg cycling, heading into
the knee extensions.
There were a lot of gene expression changes. I wont bog you down with all of them, but two
worth noting were PGC-1a, which has been implicated in a wide range of health benefits, and
myostatin, which inhibits muscle hypertrophy. Increases in PGC-1a were significantly higher in
the aerobic leg (10.3-fold increase vs. 2-fold increase), and myostatin reductions were significant
in the aerobic leg (65% decrease), but not in the strength only leg (31% decrease).

AMPK phosphorylation was greater in the aerobic leg compared to the strength only leg, but
there were no changes in p70S6K phosphorylation (a downstream protein in the mTOR
pathway).

Limitations

As stated, it would be awesome if this study was performed on trained athletes.

While the study design was cool in that it let the subjects function as their own controls, its hard
to know for sure whether single leg cycling and knee extensions will translate to regular cycling
and squats.
Id also like to see this study repeated with higher resistance training volume. 28 reps is pretty
low for a workout, especially if hypertrophy is the goal. It could simply be that the added

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training volume from the cycling was the determining factor for the different hypertrophy
responses.

Takeaways
The AMPK-mediated effects of aerobic exercise probably arent going to negatively affect
hypertrophy, even if the aerobic training is performed directly before strength training. Protein
synthesis is elevated for 24-48 (perhaps even up to 72) hours post-resistance training which
means, to quote the authors, the very short-lived AMPK activation induced by AE most likely
evokes minute, if any, impact on the net protein balance accumulated between exercise
sessions.

At least based on this study, hypertrophy was enhanced by preceding strength training with
aerobic training, but improvements in strength were somewhat decreased. This may simply be
due to the fact that performance was hindered by the preceding aerobic work the volume was
sufficient for a larger growth response, but the inability to train at maximum strength hampered
improvements in concentric knee torque.
So, to broaden our scope just a little bit, when combining strength and aerobic training the
hypertrophy benefits may occur regardless of when you do your aerobic training relative to your
strength training (and due to decreased myostatin without changes in mTOR signaling, cycling
before leg training may actually be better for hypertrophy. Counter-intuitive for sure, but that
seems to be what this study is suggesting at least for untrained people), but cycling to
exhaustion right before strength training probably isnt the best idea if youre trying to get
stronger.

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Making your Novice Strength Training Routine More Effective Two

Quick Tips
This is something all new lifters need to read when theyre doing Starting Strength, Strong lifts
55, Greyskull LP, or any of the other beginner programs out there.
From a practical standpoint, itll help them get the most out of their first couple of years under
the bar. Taking the long view, itll also be a good introduction to some basic principles of
program design.

1. Periodize
Periodization is a massive subject, and its easy to get overwhelmed by the minutia. However, in
the simplest terms, periodization simply means having defined times in your training where you
emphasize different goals. The application can get really hairy, but the easiest way to periodize
your training without an in-depth knowledge of the theory behind it changing set and rep
schemes.

Yep, it can be that simple.

So, should you periodize your training? In a word: YES!

A 2004 meta-analysis essentially showed that periodized training is almost always better than
non-periodized training. To quote the authors, As a result of this statistical review of the
literature, it is concluded that periodized training is more effective than non-periodized training

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for men and women, individuals of varying training backgrounds, and for all age
groups. Thats about the most conclusive statement youll hear from an exercise scientist.
Heres the easiest way to periodize one of the common beginner training programs: instead of
sticking with the kosher 3-5 sets of 5 reps for everything, proceed thusly:
Start with 38 for your lifts, adding weight each session until youre unable to do so. Once you
cant add weight every session anymore

Switch to 55. Repeat the process.

Then 53.
You dont have to switch all your lifts over to the new rep scheme all at once. If you plateau on
your bench or OHP before your squat or deadlift, go ahead to switch the stalled lift to the new
rep scheme, and continue as you were with the others.

This setup allows you to stick with the basic progressive overload you would usually get from a
beginners program, while also implementing some basic periodization, which will almost
certainly make the program more effective for you. Youll be able to linearly add weight for a
longer period of time, and odds are very good that youll end up with bigger maxes than if you
stuck with 3-55 for the entire program.

2. When you finally plateau, add volume

Something Ive never understood is the stock advice of when you stall with your linear gains,
take 10% off the bar, and build back up using the same progression.

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Whats supposed to happen in the couple of weeks while you build back to your old plateau? Is
that when the gains fairy visits to defy the basic principle of progressive overload, thereby
granting you a substantially improved response to the exact same stimulus?

Pictured: Gainz Fairy

Instead, if you decide to stick with the same program, deload a little more than you otherwise
would, and build back up with 1-2 more sets per exercise. So if you were doing 3 sets, do 5
sets. If you were doing 5 sets, do 6 or 7 sets. The scientific literature agrees almost unanimously
that more volume is better for both strength and hypertrophy. Some studies dont reach
significance, but this is mainly due to lack of statistical power due to small sample sizes (a
common problem in this field).

If you want to combine these two pieces of advice, deload to about 10% below where you
switched from 38 to 55. Build back up by proceeding from 58 to 65 to 73. This will
more reliably keep your progress going than sticking with 3-55, deloading a bit, and building
back up with the same sets and reps.

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Im sure if youre a regular Strengtheory reader, none of this is new to you, BUT it will be new
and helpful to a lot of novice lifters. Share it around so they can see better results in their first
few months under the bar, and perhaps get their first exposure to the practical application of
periodization.

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PubMed Doesnt Replace a Strength Coach

Whats worse than someone who thinks science is worthless?
Someone who thinks its the best thing since sliced bread, but doesnt understand it (including its
limitations) whatsoever.

PubMed will never replace the need for a strength coach. I think that someone can gain a lot
from staying in the scientific literature, and especially by building a solid base in anatomy,
physiology, and basic physics. However, if I was choosing a coach and had to pick between
someone who knew every strength training study on PubMed, and someone who had been
coaching athletes 20 years without knowing the first thing about science, Id pick the latter every
time.
Heres why:
Irony Alert were starting with a journal article: Significant Strength Gains Observed in
Rugby Players After Specific Resistance Exercise Protocols Based on Individual Salivary
Testosterone Responses. by Beaven et. Al (2008).
However, it is, Im pretty sure, the most bonkers study in the history of sports science. And the
implications are pretty huge.
Heres what they did:

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The researchers put a group of sixteen amateur rugby players (all of whom had at least 2 years of
experience lifting) through workouts utilizing 4 different sets/reps/load/rest schemes, each
separated by at least 2 days

1. 3 sets of 5 reps at 85% 1RM with 3 minutes of rest between sets

2. 4 sets of 10 reps at 70% 1RM with 2 minutes of rest between sets

3. 5 sets of 15 reps at 55% of 1RM with 1 minute of rest between sets

4. 4 sets of 5 reps at 40% of 1RM with 3 minutes of rest between sets

They assessed acute testosterone response how much it rose or fell short term in response to
each protocol.

Then they assigned half the people to train for 3 weeks with the protocol that caused the largest
acute testosterone response, and assigned the other half to train for 3 weeks with the protocol that
caused the worst acute testosterone response.
They used progress week to week adding weight as able to estimate changes in 1RM each
week. Ive been emailing the lead researcher, and hes the first to admit that such an endeavor is
inherently prone to error especially with the 40% group, since 1RM had to be estimated based
off changes in bar speed. However, they did retest maxes at the end of each 3 week block.

Then they retested the protocols to see how many people still had their best and worst acute
testosterone response to the same protocols (all but 4 had the same best/worst acute responses).

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Then they swapped groups. The people who trained with the protocol giving the best T response
initially trained for 3 weeks with the protocol that produced the worst T response, and vice versa.

Then they retested maxes.

Before some of you jump down my throat about the fact that they used acute testosterone
response to assign protocols, in spite of the fact that acute hormonal changes may not have as
much of an effect on strength and hypertrophy as once thought, dont worry. The researchers are
the first to admit, it does not prove that T(estosterone) is the effector, but they do contend, T
can be used as a marker for selecting protocols to maximize functional gain. Heres why:

Results:

For the group that trained using the protocol that maximized testosterone (Tmax) response
initially, they saw:
A ~7% increase in bench press strength, and a 9% increase in leg press strength on average

Followed by a slight decrease in bench press strength, and a 4% decrease in leg press strength on
average when they switched to the protocol that caused the worst acute T response (Tmin).

For the group that trained using the protocol that minimized testosterone response initially, they
saw:
A ~3% decrease in bench press strength, and a 4% decrease in leg press strength on average

Followed by a ~7% increase in bench press strength, and a 10% increase in leg press strength on
average when they switched to the protocol that caused the best acute T response.

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The interesting thing about this study is that the results dont only show up when using
averages. In the group that used the Tmax followed by Tmin protocol, every single athlete had
significant increases in bench press, leg press, and body weight when using the Tmax
protocol. When using the Tmin protocol, 6 of the 8 participants either got weaker or gained no
strength on the bench press, and 7 of the 8 either got weaker or gained no strength on the leg
press.

The same pattern held true for the group staring with the Tmin protocol. For the first three
weeks, 6 of the 8 got weaker or gained no strength on the bench press, and 7 of the 8 eight either
got weaker or gained no strength on the leg press. When they switched to their Tmax protocols,
all of them had significantly better improvements on bench than on their Tmin protocol (though
the way its worded in the study, Im not entirely sure whether that means they all actually got
stronger, or whether it just means they did better i.e. perhaps gained no strength instead of
losing strength), and all 8 of them got stronger on the leg press.

Interestingly, 3 of the 4 people who got stronger on bench using their Tmin protocol were
actually people whose Tmax or Tmin protocol changed midway through the study, perhaps
indicating they were able to respond positively to a broader array of stimuli than the others.

Weaknesses of the study:

-they used body weight rather than using MRIs as a crude way to approximate changes in muscle
mass (however, they were mainly interested in strength changes, so thats really no big deal its
not a hypertrophy study).

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-They also didnt report the actual 1RM values, only % change. Even though we know they had
at least 2 years of training experience, they may still have not been very advanced trainees
without reported maxes, we dont know.

-As was previously mentioned, if you look at the actual study, they report % changes week to
week, which may be a little inappropriate since they were all projections however, since they
DID retest in between training blocks and at the end of the study, the week to week changes also
arent all that important.

-Finally, each training block was only 3 weeks long. However, 7-10% average strength
increases in just 3 weeks using the Tmax protocols is pretty substantial, especially since these
guys had at least 2 years of lifting under their belts.

Sam Byrd has squatted 850+, and does most of his training with about 60% of his max. Science
says hes doing it wrong, you may say. Nonsense. Keep reading.

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Takeaways:
Heres where things get crazy. Two of the participants had their best acute T response to 45 at
40%, and their worst to 410 at 70%. If you pitted these two protocols against each other using
groups of 30 lifters for each protocols, I absolutely promise you the average increases in the
410 at 70% group would be WAY more than the average increases in the 45 at 40%
group. 45 at 40% is barely any work at all, and we all know more volume and more weight on
the bar typically give better results, right?

Except (and I emailed the lead researcher to verify), the two individuals who had their best T
response to 45 at 40% got stronger and gained mass on that protocol, and either got weaker or
failed to improve with 410 at 70%.
Of course, that runs counter to everything in the scientific literature, except
It doesnt, because science looks at averages it has to if you want to use statistics to establish
significance. And it plays out in this study too. 7 or 8 people (including those whose
testosterone-optimizing protocol shifted throughout the study) had their BEST response to 410
at 70%. So if youre just looking at average responses to each protocol, for 45 at 40% youre
looking at 2 positive responses, but for 410 at 70% youre looking at 7 or 8 positive responses
410 at 70% almost certainly had a significantly better average response in this study.

In most studies, those two guys who got stronger with 40% but not with 70% are nothing but
statistical noise.

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And thats the biggest reason why scientific knowledge without a strong experience base is of
only marginal utility. Now, I think a strong knowledge base is going to help you glean more
from your in-the-trenches experience, and help you generate better hypotheses in troubleshooting
problems your athletes may have, but reading about science and talking about it on the internet
leaves you with huge blind spots until youve spent time training hard and coaching athletes.

A good coach recognizes there are special snowflakes (the 40% guys in this study), and knows
how to troubleshoot and try things out until they start seeing results. If you have the means to
test acute T response in your athletes every time theyre in the gym, more power to you, but for
most of us, that process still takes place using subjective feedback. Thats where the science
trails off, and the art of coaching begins.
Physiology is great, but individuals often dont fall into the neat little physiological models we
like to use, or have their best results on a training program that, on average, produce great
results. Individuals have different genetic makeups, different training histories, different
preferences, different goals, and different stressors outside the gym. All those things contribute
to how they respond to training. And many of them arent static factors either they shift with
changes in time and circumstance. If you could collect data about everything going on in
someones life physically, socially, and psychologically, you MIGHT (though still probably not)
be able to use a purely scientific approach to training. However, in the real world, to get the best
possible outcomes, decisions need to factor in the science, past experience, and the situation of
the individual.

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Do Men and Women Need to Train Differently?

For those of you why dont know, theres an absurd amount of misinformation in the fitness
industry. In few niches is that more true that training for women.
For starters, let me give you the TL;DR of this article 90% of a womans training should be
just like a mans. Allow me to elaborate on the other 10% by going through the major physical
differences between men and women that affect weight training, and the impact they should have
on a womans training program.

1. Larger Q Angle
For those of you who dont know what a Q angle is, heres an illustration:

The average female has a steeper Q angle than the average male, which means more valgus force
on the knee during activity. In general, this fact leads to two suggestions. First, women need to
really keep an eye on knee health if theyre doing a lot of running, especially if they have a

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broader pelvis, and thus a bigger Q angle generally (including straight running, soccer,
basketball, etc.). The same amount of running has the potential to do more damage to a womans
knee than a mans. This isnt to say women should never run, they just need to be judicious and
ensure their knees arent collapsing in. Number two: women should focus on VMO work and
always squatting below parallel. The VMO helps stabilize the knee when valgus forces are
placed upon it, so strong VMOs help prevent ACL injuries for women. Terminal knee
extensions (TKEs) and step-ups will help with this. Squatting below parallel will help reduce
shearing forces on the ACL as hamstring involvement increases with squat depth.
So to recap: A steeper Q angle shouldnt mean any huge changes in training for women, it just
means watching running volume, making sure you squat to the depth you should be squatting
anyways, and building some nasty VMOs.

2. Narrower waist
Ladies, I have some bad news. Getting a ginormous squat or deadlift usually means you wont
have the most pronounced hourglass figure on the planet.

The two largest determinants of how much force a muscle can produce are cross-sectional area
and neuromuscular efficiency. In laymans terms, a trained woman with the same size thighs as
a trained guy (assuming the same body composition) should be able to produce about as much
force with her legs as the guy can. This simple formula tends to work pretty well for things like
leg press or hip thrusts, but not for squats.

What accounts for this difference? Guys have thicker torsos with thicker abdominal musculature
that can better support the pelvis and spine to transfer that force from the legs and hips to the

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bar. To close this gap, ladies need to focus on core work even more than guys do. Im not
talking about sets of 500 crunches or buying the latest pseudo-sexual ab gadget. Im talking
breathing paused squats and front squats, farmers walks, waiters carries, and other HEAVY core
work that will strengthen the transverse abdominis and thicken the obliques, allowing for better
support of the pelvis and spine under heavy loading.

3. Broader hips
This isnt true in all cases, but it is in most. In general, women tend to do better with a wider
stance on squat and a sumo deadlift rather than conventional. This is true both because they have
the hip mobility to get to those positions which allow them to shorten the bar path substantially,
and because a wider stance means a more upright torso, helping to address the problem of having
a narrower waist.

4. Fewer and smaller fast twitch fibers

In general, fast twitch fibers are the ones most prone to hypertrophy and that most contribute to
maximal force output. There are two implications here for women:
1) You should train even heavier than a man (relative to your max). Since youre already
working with fewer fast twitch fibers, you need to train in such a way as to ensure you optimize
the fast twitch fibers you DO have.
2) You should do more volume than a man. Since youre going to be more reliant on your slow
twitch fibers, you need to increase your training volume and include some higher rep work (1020 reps, not 100) to get everything you can out of your slow twitch fibers.

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I remember reading an interview with the Chinese weightlifting coach. When asked how he
trains his female lifters, he replied that he trains them just like the men, except with about 15%
more volume. Keep that in mind.

One more offshoot here to keep in mind is that since women tend to have a fiber blend that is
more fatigue-resistant, they shouldnt rely as much on rep max calculators. Ive seen a girl squat
15515 with a 1rm of 185. 15515 would project a 1rm of 235-255ish. If a man can squat 185,
hes only going to get 6 or 7 reps with 155.

5. Hormonal factors
This is probably what people expected me to lead with. However, I dont think its really worth
dwelling on since theres not really any proactive steps a woman can take to address it (except
good ol vitamin S). However, it is worth noting that higher testosterone levels are the primary
reason theres a bigger gap between the upper body strength of men and women than lower body
strength. The muscles of the shoulder girdle have more androgen receptors than any other
muscle group. This means that testosterones anabolic effects are most potent on these
muscles. As an aside, thats the biggest reason a big chest and broad shoulders are seen as a sign
of virility in men its a sign the man has higher testosterone levels and is therefore probably
more fertile than other guys.

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What I Learned on the Way to Squatting 500

There are three types of strong people.

1. Lucky ones

2. Injured ones

3. Smart ones
Unless youre simply a freak, getting stronger requires a mind that can keep up with your
body. If youre not constantly growing in your mental pursuits, youll run into some serious
problems in your training. Youll stop getting stronger, start getting hurt, or both.

You would be hard pressed to find an 800 pound raw squatter or deadlifter who get that strong
by accident. Knowledge precedes strength. When you apply all the knowledge you have and
finally hit a wall, it takes more knowledge to know HOW to get around/over/under/through that
wall before you can direct your efforts towards doing so. You may clear a few barriers by
accident and luck, but thats not the best strategy to stake your long-term results on.
With that in mind, Im going to be writing an ongoing series about the main things I learned to
reach particular milestones in lifting. Ill start with my first 500 pound squat, then work in 100
pounds increments. Ill do the same with my bench, starting at 350 and working in 50 pound
increments. Deadlift will also start at 500 and go 100 pounds at a time. My PRs are currently
650/445/655, so hopefully Ill have three installments per lift (up to 700/450/700) fairly
soon. So, without further ado, heres how I squatted 500 pounds:

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Lesson 1: Work hard.

This is the most important thing Ive learned about attaining anything in life. In some sports,
talent often trumps hard work (i.e. you cant play center in the NBA at 57 by sheer force of
will). However, I dont think this is true for powerlifting, except in extreme cases. Ill illustrate
with something that SHOULD be a death sentence for a power/strength athlete: not having true
fast twitch muscle fibers. About 18% of the population has two nonsense copies of the ACTN3
gene which codes for a binding protein necessary for fast twitch muscles to twitch
fast. Basically, with two copies of the nonsense allele, none of your muscle fibers truly
function as fast twitch fibers.

Two different studies have linked having two working copies of the allele to elite anaerobic
performance. One showed that elite sprinters and power athletes are much less likely to have the
nonsense allele, and another showed that elite bodybuilders and strength athletes are much less
likely to have the nonsense allele. None of this should be surprising as fast twitch fibers are the
ones with the most growth potential and are primarily responsible for very high levels for force
production. However, dont let another pair of statistics slip by you: about 7% of ELITE
bodybuilders/strength athletes, and about 6% of ELITE sprinters have two copies of the nonsense
gene. Approximately 1 out of every 15 elite athletes lacks true fast twitch muscle fibers in sports
where force output and/or hypertrophy are ESSENTIAL. Let that sink in for a moment.
Id almost guarantee you, though: that 1 in 15 had to work twice as hard to reach the same level
of achievement. But if youre willing to put in the work, you can get there.

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While I was working towards a 500 squat, I learned to work hard. I.e. puked-the-first-4workouts-straight hard. Ive since learned to pick my battles (somewhat) and give my body a
rest when it needs it, but strength is only earned through hard work, pure and simple.

Lesson 2: Form is king

You can lift light weights with bad form. If you lift heavy weights with bad form, you will break
yourself eventually. Killer tendonitis in both knees and constant erector spinae strains taught me
that lesson the hard way. It wasnt until I made serious strides in technique that I reached 500.

Lesson 3: Nutrition basics

At the point of squatting 500, I didnt know a ton about nutrition. However, heres what I did
know, which worked just fine at the time:

a) Have some meat in front of you every time you sit down at the table

b) Never be hungry (I went from 170 to 213 in about 4.5 months, and took my squat from 405 to
523 in the same time span. Additionally, I stood up with 551 but got red-lighted for depth. It
was deeper than my previous 405, but a smidge higher than 523). Food is the best anabolic on
the planet.
c) Supplements are to supplement. Im pretty sure the only things I took when I first squatted
500 were a protein supplement and a multivitamin. Early on I noticed a strong correlation
between the number of supplements someone obsessed about taking and how weak they were.

Lesson 4: Atmosphere

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This is a lesson that I didnt realize I was learning at the time, but it became painfully obvious
soon after my first 500. The gym I trained at when I first started lifting was the home of Travis
Mash. He was at his peak at the time, and I saw him deadlift and back squat in the 700s and
front squat in the 600s fairly often. Additionally, Lavan, the guy I trained with most of the time,
was (and still is) slightly wider than most doorways with a 500 pound bench and a pretty decent
squat. Also, Joey Smith and a lot of geared benchers would come on Friday nights and all
handle 700-800 on a pretty regular basis. Throw all this together, and Im the weakest person in
the picture BY FAR. Oh, except for another occasional training partner named Seth who was
only about 150 pounds at the time and constantly just 10-20 pounds behind me in every lift. I
think I got stronger just because I saw so much room for improvement in myself. They were my
normal, so there was no good reason to not get a lot stronger in short order.
Lesson 5: Youre only as strong as your stomach
Ill be honest, this is one Ive gotten away from (to my own detriment). No matter what, I
always ended training sessions in my early days with absurd amounts of abdominal work. First I
worked up to situps (on a hyperextension machine) with a 165 pound dumbbell on my chest for
sets of 10. Then it was with a heavy band around my neck for 10s. Then it was with 90 pounds
behind my head for 10s. Never will you regret getting brutally strong abs. Looking back on it,
there are safer and more beneficial ways I could have strengthened by core, but those heavy
basics worked just fine at the time.
How I trained: Westside, mostly. Except it was Traviss form of Westside. The main
modification: DE days start as DE days (8 sets of 2 fast with band tension for squats, 83 for

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bench), but after youve hit your speed sets you just max with the band tension. Everything else
was pretty kosher. Lots of hamstring work, upper back work, and triceps work.

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What I Learned on the Way to Deadlifting 500 pounds

This is installment 2 in a (currently) 9 part series. The first was What I learned to squat 500
pounds. Im planning on doing one installment for each 100 pound increment for squat and
deadlift starting at 500, and each 50 pound increment on bench starting at 350. Just as a
refresher from the first installment:
There are three types of strong people.

1. Lucky ones

2. Injured ones

3. Smart ones
Unless youre simply a freak, getting stronger requires a mind that can keep up with your
body. If youre not constantly growing in your mental pursuits, youll run into some serious
problems in your training. Youll stop getting stronger, start getting hurt, or both.

You would be hard pressed to find an 800 pound raw squatter or deadlifter who get that strong
by accident. Knowledge precedes strength for all but a few freaks. When you apply all the
knowledge you have and finally hit a wall, it takes more knowledge to know HOW to get
around/over/under/through that wall before you can direct your efforts towards doing so. You
may clear a few barriers by accident and luck, but thats not the best strategy to stake your longterm results on.

1. Grease that groove

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Deadlift was a very natural movement for me the first time I tried it. Why? Prior to deadlifting,
I spent my whole childhood figuring out the heaviest things I could pick up: rocks, logs, people,
etc. On top of that, my family burned a wood fire all winter, so Id spend a fair amount of time
hauling logs, picking 18 segments of trees up to load them in a trailer, and pushing a loaded
wheelbarrow. When I first got a weight set, bending over and ripping something off the ground
was pretty second nature to me. Whats more, I found that having the weight on a bar that I
could wrap my hands around made the whole process significantly easier. As such, when I got
my first little weight set (I was 11 or so. It was a Christmas present in 6th grade), I could load
200 pounds on the bar (as much as it came with. As a note, the largest plates were 25s, so it was
a 2-3 inch deficit) and pull it that Christmas morning. In about 3 months I could do 510 with
200, and would do that 2-3 times per week on top of all of the other various things I did that
required picking stuff up.

The first time I actually pulled a max deadlift with a real bar and 45 pound plates I was 14, and
got 405 clean and 425 with some hitching. For most people, when they hear that they assume
Im just a freak. They ignore the fact that Id been effectively training for deadlifts since I was 5
years old. During childhood, neural development is hugely important. Youre not going to get
jacked, but you can improve muscle activation in patterns you practice. You see YouTube
videos of 9 year olds in China clean and jerking 135 and wonder how theyre so strong. Actually
they probably arent much stronger than your typical 9 year old. Theyve just had enough
practice to get their tiny little muscles incredibly efficient at Olympic lifting. Thats basically
what I did for deadlifts.

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If you didnt have the same type of childhood I did, you can still benefit from greasing the
groove; itll just take longer for your nervous system to adapt. However, neural plasticity is a
wonderful thing, and if you put in the reps, really substantial neural improvements will
occur. This means using less weight for fewer reps, but picking heavy stuff up every single day
(if possible), or even multiple times per day. The more often your nervous system is exposed to
a stimulus, the faster it will adapt to it.
When youre a brand new lifter, youre not gaining strength because youre getting so much
more muscular. Youre gaining strength primarily because of neural adaptations, with
hypertrophy coming in a distant second in terms of importance. Hypertrophy is important on
down the road, obviously, but isnt of primary importance early on. Doing more reps, more
often steepens the learning curve. Itll feel boring and counter-productive, but youll thank me
for it in the long run. Youll be stronger, and since youll get more perfect reps in (remember,
lighter weight), youll have a lower long-term chance of injury and you wont have to unlearn
and relearn form (which can be quite frustrating, and is a product of not taking the time to learn it
correctly the first time)

This stands in stark contrast to a few sets of 5, once a week that most beginner programs
recommend. Id say youre better off with 15 singles, 3-4 times per week minimum until you
can deadlift at least 1.5x your bodyweight for all the singles with perfect form and relative
ease. The amount of reps your need decreases as you increase in training age, but at first you
need to grease the groove.

2. Commit to the pull

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This is crucial no matter who you are or how long youve been lifting. Deadlifts are hard
freaking work. No two ways about it. On top of that, you dont actually get to feel the weight
before youre expected to do something with it. You dont walk it out like a squat, or press it out
of the pins like a bench press. Its just sitting there lifeless on the ground, taunting you. This is
especially true for a new 1rm attempt. You may have pulled that weight for a partial, but you
have no idea what it feels like when it breaks the ground.
As such, you cant be a mental midget when youre deadlifting. You have to be 100% sure about
your intention to destroy the lift, as well as the lifts parents, children, and extended
family. Compared to the other lifts, not being able to get your head into deadlifting makes a
much larger difference. A 635 top squat (705 max) or a 405 top bench (445 max) is a bad day
for me; about 90% of my max. For deadlift, there are days Im simply unmotivated to deadlift
and 545 looks up at me and says not going to happen, doesnt budge, and thats just how it is.
For this, it helps to have a ritual. It could be Magnussons mini charge, it could be Hatfields
jump, or it could be as simple as Im taking 3 breaths, and on the third, Im pulling this sucker
(thats mine). Little things like that take your mind back to the place it was when youve done
the ritual before (hopefully that place is ready to destroy worlds). Sometimes it doesnt work,
but its better than just approaching the bar all willy-nilly each time. It also gets you in the same
starting position each time you pull to reinforce your groove.
Im a pretty chill guy, but if theres a lift Im going to yell, put on loud music, and generally
make a fool of myself for, its the deadlift. Most people say a generally slow burning rage is the
most helpful. Thats the approach I like to take. Once the bars loaded, Ill stare at it like its
prey thats about to get its throat ripped out. Ill find a deep, dark place to go to (people who

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know me may find that one hard to believe), put on Calm like a bomb by Rage Against the
Machine, take about 30 seconds to develop a brief but intense hatred for pretty much all of
existence, and then pull. Find something that works best for you, but more than anything,
whether you make yourself angry, cocky, or Zen, just be ready to pull.

3. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link

And by chain, Im referring to the posterior chain, of course. When I started, my back was fine,
my glutes fired okay, but I had some weak hamstrings. Hypers and leg curls every training day
fixed that in a hurry. I found this weakness out via a grade two hamstring strain (sprinting) that
bled enough for blood to pool all the way up to mid-calf, so it took extra hamstring work to just
get back to where I was previously, much less build from there. Your weakness may be
different, but odds are its something on the back side of your body (unless its grip). Just to
point you in the right direction:

If your back rounds instantly (lumbar), it may just be your back is weak, or it may be weak hips
(making you need to start the lift with your back instead of your hips)
If your lockout is weak because you cant get your shoulders back, your lats, traps, or thoracic
extensors are weak.
If your lockout is weak because you cant get your hips through, your glutes are weak

If you miss around knee height, either your hamstrings are weak or your hips are too far from the
bar
If you just cant break the weight off the ground, you are just too weak in general.

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What I Learned on the Way to Benching 350 pounds

This is the first of three (planned) installments about the bench press.

1. Practice the pattern

I was a pretty good bencher the first time I tried. The main reason was that I had always done a
TON of pushups. When I started playing football in 3rd grade, I asked my coach how I could get
stronger. He told me to do pushups. So I did. Every day for the next 3 years. Id do as many as
I could in the morning, after school, and at night. When my parents got me a weight set for my
birthday in 6th grade, the first thing I did was max on bench press (I was a bro from the start). I
got 150, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of bodyweight. I didnt lift weights very
often at first because I was playing sports essentially year-round (and was told never to lift
weights in season), so fast forward another 3 years of essentially only doing pushups, and by my
freshman year in high school I was benching 275 with very little time spent under the bar.

This basically mirrored my experience with the deadlift, which was strong from the start because
of practice with the pattern from a young age, as compared to my squat, which was an uphill
battle for a long time. Ive seen this with essentially all my friends who have joined the armed
forces as well. In spite of sleeping very little, running and marching all the time, and doing
enough pushups and pullups to make the most people cry over-training, they almost invariably
come back from basic training with bigger bench presses than they left with from doing
bazillions of pushups.

This is a principle that can be applied to almost anyone, regardless of training age. If I find
myself in a rut with my squat or bench, Ill spend several weeks doing a few hundred

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bodyweight squats or pushups a day, and the increased work capacity, combined with the neural
effect of greasing the groove, almost always pays off for me.

2. Train the triceps

I heard bench was all about the pecs when I first started lifting. That was the common wisdom in
the YMCA weight room and the school gym. However, when I met Travis Mash and he told me
about Westside, I learned about how important the triceps are. Now, looking back it seems
obvious because the bench press requires you to extend your arms, but it was pretty
revolutionary to a 14 year old. Not much more to add to this point, and in those early days I
probably took things a bit too far by over-emphasizing my triceps and neglecting my chest (just
like the shirted benchers who taught me how to bench), but it is erroneous to think of the bench
press as purely a chest exercise, although obviously you shouldnt totally neglect pectoral
development.

3. Get comfortable with heavy weight in your hands

When I first started training, I used bands and chains all the time (because I cut my teeth on
Westside). Im less sold now on bands and chains being superior to straight weight for raw
lifters, but I do think they have one big advantage: they let you feel heavier weight in your hands
and move it through a full ROM.
Everyone whos spotted for someone benching heavy weight knows what the oh crap face
looks like. You lift out a weight to them for a PR attempt, and as soon as they feel it in their
hands their eyes bulge, they look like a deer in headlights, and you know they have no chance of
completing the lift. Using bands and chains (and nowadays things the Slingshot or the Titan

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Ram) lets you feel supermaximal weights in your hands while still moving the bar through a full
ROM, so that when you attempt a new max, the weight at least feels manageable in your hands
and you have a fighting chance. When I was starting out, I used bands and chains all the time, so
even when I missed lifts I found out the weight was too much when I couldnt grind it to lockout,
not when I got a liftoff.
4. Dont fixate on numbers.
I had a bad mental block with 315. Id hit 310 in either a meet or in training probably a dozen
times, but when I got 3 wheels on the bar I would literally be unable to budge it off my
chest. All my other bench press variations were going up (remember, I was training Westside
style, so I was rotating through several different bench variations), but my plain old competitionstyle bench press was staying put. My training partner at the time, Lavan, fixed this one day by
telling me I couldnt look at the bar during my workout. Between sets I had to sit up and face
away from the bar, and hed load the weight for me. He made sure to use an odd assortment of
10s and 5s so that after 2 or 3 sets, I honestly had no idea how much weight was on the bar. I
ended up benching 330 that day before I finally missed 335. When I finally missed and was
allowed to look at the bar, I was both relieved Id crossed that barrier, and pissed at myself
because I had obviously been capable of doing so for quite some time. If a number is screwing
with you, having a training partner do something like that for you might just be the ticket to a
new PR and fresh gains once you get past the mental barrier.

5. Train with volume

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I always loved benching with a TON of volume. Id do the normal 93 Westside speed work
one day, then work up to a max, then drop back for a burnout set or two, then do a DB press
pyramid accumulating 80ish reps over 6-8 sets, then direct triceps work, and 8 sets of rows and 8
sets pullups or pulldowns. On my other bench day, Id work up to a max single or triple on some
bench press variation, then strip some weight off the bar and do 8 sets of 5, followed by the same
basic accessories from the other bench day. By no means do I think what I just described was
optimal, but for bench Ive always found that erring on the side of too much was better than
erring on the side of too little (ditto with squat, opposite for deadlift). If nothing else, it builds
the work capacity to help you adapt and supercompensate when you take up a saner training
program or taper for a meet.

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DIET
The Three Laws of Protein
The purpose of this article is straightforward and simple help you reach your fitness or
physique goals with three simple, science-backed tips for getting the most from your dietary
protein. Protein consumption is such a popular subject that the basics can be lost in all the noise
(and supplement company hype), so the goal here is to simplify and get to whats actually
important.

1. Eat enough protein

How much? .82g/lb. (1.8g/kg). Rounding up to 1g/lb. or 2g/kg may be easier to remember, and
getting a little more certainly doesnt hurt, but the point here is that the crazy recommendations
of 2g per pound (or even more) are overkill. As you eat more past that point, rates of protein
synthesis and breakdown both increase at essentially the same rate so again, theres no problem
with erring on the high side, but unless youre on steroids to further elevate protein synthesis (to
make use of extra protein), you hit a point of diminishing returns.
On the flip side, if youre not getting in this amount regularly, you WILL probably benefit from
increasing intake. For some people, .82g/lb. may seem like a ludicrously high
number. However, if youre currently under that level of intake, you will accrue benefits as you
eat more protein.

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As an aside, increasing protein intake above .82g/lb. may have benefits if youre trying to lose
weight. Protein is more satiating per gram than either carbohydrate or fat, and in a caloric
deficit, erring on the high side to ensure you hold onto as much muscle as possible is wise
anyways.

2. Space your protein intake throughout the day

A recent study showed that, on average, 24 hour protein synthesis rates are about 25% higher if
you space your protein intake out throughout the day, rather than eating the majority of it in one
meal.
Obviously there are implications for intermittent fasting (personal opinion it can be a useful
tool for cutting, but for gaining size, its hard to beat eating food all day. Shocking thought), but
also for extreme post-workout nutrition protocols.

In a recent meta-analysis, Alan Aragon, Brad Schoenfeld, and James Krieger showed that postworkout nutrition only worked insofar as it increased overall protein intake for the
day. Essentially, getting enough protein in your diet is the important factor, not bombing huge
amounts of protein around your training session.
Maybe there was some wisdom in your parents insistence that you eat 3 square meals a day after
all (provided they all have a fair amount of protein).

3. Get your protein from high-quality sources

This issue is definitely not as important as the first two, but its still worth mentioning.

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Whey, in particular, seems to be particularly good at stimulating muscle protein synthesis,

leading to hypertrophy. Its been shown to be superior to both soy and casein for this purpose
(and not just acutely, but in training studies showing increased lean mass gains from lifting).
Although all possible protein sources havent been compared at this point, obviously, as a
general rule of thumb animal sources are better than plant sources for stimulating protein
synthesis. When in doubt, though there are a ton of options on the market, its hard to beat a
plain old whey isolate when you need some more protein and dont have time to make some
meat.

Pictured: Gains

The takeaway:

Get somewhere in the neighborhood of 1g/lb. or 2g/kg of protein per day, space your intake out
rather than concentrating it all in one period, and prioritize protein sources like whey, meat, and
eggs. It sounds so simple, but its amazing how often people get sucked in by some exciting new
study or fad and forget the basics

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Want to learn more?

Check out Examine.coms series on Schwarzenegger.com. They go into a lot more detail than I
do. This article is simply meant as a helpful reminder to some, and a basic primer for
others. Its the type of thing that should be shared around for people who are confused or new to
working out the Schwarzenegger series is for people who want to go into a little more depth.

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Being Strong Is Not an Excuse to be Fat (and Being Fat Is Probably

Holding You Back)
There are many things I know now that I wish I could go back and tell teenage Greg such as if
you had a book to read along on during loading screens in Madden 2005, you would practically
be a literary scholar at this point, if she says she doesnt like beards, shes no good for you,
and wearing a fedora is never acceptable.
Also on this list Getting strong is no excuse for gaining a lot of fat.

Astoundingly, this flies in the face of a lot of nutrition advice swirling around in the strength
world, particularly as it applies to brand new trainees. The astounding features are
twofold. Firstly, its astounding that anyone would think that a substantial degree of fat gain is a
good idea for any goal where sheer weight isnt a primary benefit (i.e. anyone other than
offensive lineman and sumo wrestlers). Secondly, its astounding that numerous people who
hear this obviously bad advice, regardless of the source, still take it and run with it.
Unfortunately, while substantial fat gain during periods of intense strength training should be
expected and even encouraged seems like ludicrous enough advice to dismiss out of hand, an
alarming number of people believe it. Therefore, its necessary to explain exactly WHY its bad
advice.

The explanation hinges on insulin sensitivity.

Many of you probably know what insulin is and what it does. For people who need a brief
primer, insulin is the bodys primary anabolic hormone. It halts almost all forms of catabolism

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(tissue breakdown, including stored carbohydrate and muscle protein), signals for glucose uptake
into your bodys cells, aids in amino acid uptake and amplifies protein synthesis, and much
more. Basically, its the main hormonal driver for adding mass, whether that be muscle or fat.

Insulin sensitivity describes how well your tissues respond to insulin. When a tissue is insulin
sensitive, a little insulin goes a long way. When its insensitive, more insulin is necessary to
have the same effect that was once accomplished with less insulin.
Now, Im not going to deal with how insulin insensitivity and hyperinsulinemia are primary risk
factors for a host of chronic diseases. Not my domain of expertise.
Im talking about performance and training goals gaining muscle, getting stronger, and
crushing your competition.

So, the problem with gaining fat while training for mass and strength is this: gaining fat
specifically reduces insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle.

As you accumulate fat, blood levels of free fatty acids (FFAs) increase. Elevated blood levels of
FFAs decrease insulin sensitivity in the muscles two different ways. Firstly, they directly
decrease insulin sensitivity, and secondly, they contribute to increased muscle triglyceride levels,
which also decrease insulin sensitivity.
However, it doesnt stop there. As fat mass increases, the release of adipokines (hormones from
fat tissue) also increases. Of these, some (like TNF-a) decrease insulin sensitivity and others
(like leptin) increase insulin sensitivity. However, over time, your tissues lose sensitivity to
leptin if levels are chronically elevated, so the net effect of these adipokines is also decreased

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insulin sensitivity (and the loss of the effectiveness of leptin your bodys most powerful
hormone for countering weight gain).

Also with increased fat mass comes increased inflammation (related to those adipokines, and a
few other factors). Inflammation decreases insulin sensitivity in muscle, AND increases
expression of genes that aid in fat storage and creation of new fat cells.

I hope the picture is becoming clear by now.

The more fat you gain, the LESS anabolic insulin is for muscle, and the easier it is to increase fat
storage. Its a positive feedback loop where the more you eat over baseline, and the more fat you
gain, the less it benefits strength and hypertrophy and the more it simply increases the proportion
of extra calories that go to fat storage.

Jesse Norris is one of the best PLers in the world today. However, staying lean is obviously
killing his gains. Imagine how strong hed be if he gained 50 pounds of fat. Sarcasm.

Implications

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Learn how to count calories.

Seriously. Gaining mass uses the same basic principles as shedding fat, except in reverse. Keep
track of weight and waist circumference (a good indicator of visceral fat, which is much more a
culprit in this process than subcutaneous fat). If youre fairly lean to start with, eat at a little
above baseline with the goal of gaining a pound every 1-2 weeks, and dont let your waist
circumference increase by more than 1/4 inch every couple of weeks. If the numbers are
increasing too fast, bump calories down. If theyre stuck in place, bump calories up.
Youll still probably gain some fat. I mean, you ARE in a surplus, and its much easier for your
body to store extra energy as fat (relatively cheap metabolic currency) rather than muscle protein
(expensive metabolic currency). However, at the sane rate of weight gain I proposed, fat gain
shouldnt be extreme as long as youre training hard. Minimizing fat gain means that your
muscles will stay more sensitive to anabolic signaling than they do on more extreme bulking
plans.
So, in essence, I think its a fools errand to try to gain a ton of muscle with absolutely NO fat
gain, but the notion of Lets gain 60 pounds this offseason with 5000 food calories per day + a
gallon of milk per day! is even more misguided

Also, for sports where weight matters, this approach should be common sense. For weight-class
governed sports like powerlifting, weightlifting, or wrestling its a no brainer: the more muscle
you can have with the least amount of fat possible, the greater your potential. However, the
same principle applies to almost every sport in existence because the more force you can
generate per pound of weight, the faster and more explosive youll be. Additionally, the less

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non-functional fat mass you have, the longer youll be able to perform at a high level in any sport
with an aerobic component since you wont be lugging around as much mass.

Short term and long term

Short term, you MAY see better results with a huge surplus. Sure, Ill grant that. However, its
absolutely a case where there are diminishing returns past a certain point. So if you are seeing
better results initially, theyll be marginally better, NOT exponentially better. And yes, exercise
will mitigate the decreases in insulin sensitivity, but thats still not the same as no decrease at
all. You may have to pay the piper later, but that day will still come eventually.

In the long run, gaining a bunch of fat is going to decrease the effectiveness of your training for
muscle and strength gains as muscle insulin sensitivity decreases. Additionally, if you need to
cut for 16 weeks after your aggressive bulk, youve essentially shortened the period of time that
you could have been making progress by 2-3 months (assuming youd need to cut for 4-8 weeks
if youd managed your weight gain better).

Clarifications

By no means am I saying you can never gain any fat whatsoever, or that you have to be 6% body
fat year round for your training to be effective. Nor am I saying that you plunge off the deep end
and instantly wind up obese and diabetic with moderate fat gain. However, as I see it, theres
really no reason to ever be over 20% body fat for men, or 30% for women (although 15% and
25% are better targets for most people). Youre not going to get massively better results with a
1000 calorie/day surplus than you will a 300-500 calorie/day surplus, and if excessive fat is

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gained in the process, any immediate benefit will eventually be erased by decreased muscle
insulin sensitivity.

Get lean. Gradually add size. Repeat the process.

Citations:

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/85/3/662.long

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20973164

ajcn.nutrition.org/content/83/2/461S.full

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18094066

https://www.uoguelph.ca/hhns/grad/courses/HBNS6130W08/HBNS6130W08Week9APSreview
copy.pdf

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TECHNIQUE
Should You Wear a Belt or Not?
The belt vs. beltless discussion is a common one in the strength world. What I have for you guys
today is a study write-up to cut through the speculation and actually provide some data for the
discussion. The study is titled The Effectiveness of Weight-Belts During Multiple Repetitions
of the Squat Exercise.

A few notes about the study itself:

Its actually uses relatively strong subjects. Not world champions, but the subjects had to meet
one of two minimum criteria: either an 8rm of 125.5kg (~277 pounds) or an 8rm of at least 1.6x
body weight. So these guys at least had a little experience under the bar, which means the results
are more apt to translate to people who have been lifting for a few years than if the study had
been done on untrained people.
They looked at a lot of different variables. They used a force plate to examine force output,
they used a camera system to gather kinematic data (joint angles and how the body moved,
essentially), they measured intra-abdominal pressure, muscle activation via EMG, and time it
took to complete each phase of the lift (bottom of the lift to 90 degree knee angle, 90 to 135
degrees knee angle, and 135 degrees to full extension). This is good because it gives us a broad
picture of how wearing a belt affected the movement as a whole, not just one variable.

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The subjects used the same load for both sets their beltless 8rm. This is an important thing to
point out. Ill touch on its importance later.

What they found:

1. The sticking point became much more pronounced without a belt. Although there werent
huge differences between total time it took to complete the eccentric and concentric portions of
the lift with or without a belt, the period of the concentric with the knee angle between 90 and
135 degrees increased throughout the sets both with and without a belt, but increased
significantly more without a belt. Of course, this is to be expected since the load used was the
beltless 8rm, so it would be relatively less difficult with a belt than without.

2. There were no significant differences between belted and beltless with regard to kinematic
and force plate data. HOWEVER, in both groups, the amount of forward lean increased across
the sets, from a minimum of about 51 degrees to a maximum of about 46 degrees.

3. Intraabdominal pressure was 25-40% higher in the belted group, as opposed to the beltless
group.

4. EMG data was taken for the vastus lateralis (a quadriceps muscle), biceps femoris (a
hamstrings muscle), external oblique, and spinal erectors.

a) No significant differences were observed for the spinal erectors in the belt vs. beltless set, and
muscle activation in the eccentric and concentric phases was actually quite similar, indicating
that it takes about the same amount of effort from the spinal erectors to keep the spine extended
during both phases of the lift.

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b) No significant differences were observed for external oblique activation either. The EO is one
of the muscle used to compress the abdomen along with the internal oblique, rectus abdominis
and transversus abdominis. Proponents of beltless training often argue that these muscles will
contract harder without a belt to product the necessary intraabdominal pressure. Such was not
the case in this study. However, they did observe about twice as much EO activity in the
concentric as the eccentric, regardless of belt usage.

c) The vastus lateralis showed significantly more activity during the concentric portion with a
belt than without across most time points, and especially during the sticking point of the
lift. This increased activation of the knee extensors may help explain the smaller increase in
time spent at the sticking point with a belt than without. Both with and without a belt, the VL
showed about 50% higher activation during the concentric than the eccentric portion of the lift.

d) The biceps femoris showed about twice as much activity during the concentric portion of the
lift than the eccentric both with and without a belt. The biggest difference seen with vs. without
a belt was that the increase in BF activation during the concentric portion of the lift increased
more across the set with the belt than without. Initially the values were about the same, but
activation only increased 31.5% across the set without a belt, vs. 42.5% with a belt.

Implications:

1. In spite of the set with a belt being easier (since both sets were performed with the beltless
8rm), it still resulted in greater quad and hamstring activation, especially during the sticking
point and as the set progressed, respectively.

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2. Wearing a belt seems to increase intraabdominal pressure (which should reduce net shear
stress on the spine) without diminishing abdominal activation, at least if we assume that external
oblique activation is representative of the rest of the muscles of the abdominal wall.

3. Increased forward lean is an undesirable effect of fatigue. The researchers found that the
subjects experienced more and more forward lean as their sets progressed. In their discussion at
the end of the article, the referenced another article (here) saying that the more proficient
someone was at the squat, the more upright they stayed and the more they relied on knee
extension rather than hip extension. Ive written about it here.

4. It seems like abdominal weakness may have more to do with the back rounding at the bottom
of a squat than spinal erector weakness. Spinal erector activation was about the same for both
phases of the squat, which means that if weak erectors caused the back to round over, the
rounding should be expected to start from the moment you unrack the bar. Conversely, external
oblique activation was about twice as high for the concentric as the eccentric, indicating an
increased challenge to that muscle (and potentially the muscles of the abdominal wall in
general).

5. There is a bigger difference in eccentric vs. concentric muscle activity for the biceps femoris
(hamstring muscle) than the vastus lateralis (quad muscle). Its hard to draw definitive
conclusions from this factoid, but it could mean a couple things. It could mean that people tend
to excessively load the knees relative to the hips in lowering a squat. It could also mean that
loading the knees to lower a squat is the more natural pattern (i.e. the Olympic style squat vs. the
butt back powerlifting style squat). No definitive guidelines can be drawn from this one study,
but its worth keeping in the back of your mind.

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Based on the variables assessed in this study, it seems like one could use it to argue for training
with a belt. Wearing a belt allows you to lift more weight, and even with the same training
weights it increases muscle activation in the quads and hamstrings without decreasing abdominal
activation. An argument for beltless training either needs counter evidence or a rationale based
on other variables.

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Everything You Think Is Wrong With Your Deadlift Is Probably Right

Key Points:
1) If youre afraid you deadlift with your hips too high or too low, its probably just a matter of how youre
built.
2) Rounding your back when you deadlift works, primarily, by decreasing how hard your glutes and
hamstrings have to work to move any given weight.
3) If your back is rounding unintentionally when you deadlift, either your hip extensors are too weak or the
weight is too heavy, in all likelihood.

Here is why you deadlift with a rounded back, and why some people deadlift with their hips
lower than others.
I want to be straightforward about what this article IS, and what it ISNT. Its an explanation of
why a rounded back deadlift tends to allow people to pull more weight. Its NOT a
recommendation to deadlift with a rounded back, and it purposefully doesnt address the
potential for injury. Im not a physical therapist. I have my own opinion (the fairly kosher PL
opinion that thoracic flexion is probably okay, but lumbar flexion should be avoided), but I am
by no means an expert on injury mechanisms and prevention. The question of what lets me lift
the most weight? and whats the safest way to lift the weight? are two different questions, and
Im only addressing the first one, because the second is well outside my scope of practice.
With that out of the way, lets dive in.

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What are you doing in the deadlift?

For starters, the deadlift is not a squat. I dont mean that in the way most people mean it. People
who say this usually mean you should start with your butt high, rather than starting with a low
hip position to squat the weight up.' Ill be addressing this misunderstanding later in the
article.

All I mean is that the forces your body has to overcome are quite a bit different. The deadlift
doesnt have nearly the balance of knee and hip extension demands that the squat does. Yes, the
knees DO have to extend in the deadlift, and yes, knee extension can aid somewhat in hip
extension as I discussed in my last article, but these factors do not influence performance in the
deadlift NEARLY as much as they do in the squat. Heck, a properly performed deadlift with the
bar close to the shin until it clears the knee, has an external moment arm for the knee extensors
with a length of basically zero. As an aside, thats a major reason most people can deadlift more
with a trap/hex/diamond bar your knees can shift forward so your quads CAN actually
contribute substantially to the movement, rather than being constrained by keeping the bar in
front of you and the shins essentially vertical.

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So, at least in the lower body, hip extension is the primary limiting factor. Other things can limit
the deadlift, such as grip and the ability to extend the back again once it goes into flexion, but
from the waist down, its your ability to produce enough hip extension torque getting enough
juice from your hammies and glutes thats the make-or-break factor. Well come back to this
later when we talk about pulling with a rounded back.
So if a deadlift isnt a squat, is it a problem if I pull with my hips low?
Everyone tells me I stiff-leg my DLs and that my hips are way too high. Is that a problem?

You cannot pull with your hips too low.

When the bar breaks the floor, it will be directly beneath your shoulder joint. Otherwise, youd
have to be doing what would amount to a partial front delt raise isometric, or a partial straight
arm pullover isometric with the weight you were deadlifting. I mean, its probably possible, but
it 1) would be incredibly inefficient and 2) just doesnt happen in the real world.
Furthermore, the bar wont leave the ground until your shins are basically vertical. There may be
a *very* slight forward shin angle for the first inch or two, but for the bar to have a clean vertical
path, the shins have to straighten out pretty quickly, otherwise the bar will shift forward and
youll lose your balance.
(For the sake of nuance, whats really happening is that the bar will be, at its very farthest
forward, under the middle of the knee joint and over the middle of the foot JUST as the weight
breaks off the floor. However, it only takes an inch or two of bar movement for under the
middle of the knee joint to give way to an essentially vertical tibia.)

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So to clarify this concept in nice tidy terms, well treat your arm and shin as fixed, vertical
segments when the bar breaks the floor.
That leaves us with three basic variables were working with: the lengths of your arms, femurs,
and torso. Those are the three basic factors that determine how your deadlift will look. Not how
an ideal deadlift on the Vitruvian man will look, but how YOUR deadlift will look. (At least
for the conventional deadlift, although hip abduction/adduction factors in SLIGHTLY, thats not
going to make a huge difference)

Rather than talk through how these three variables will influence your starting position (nothing
is more imposing than a wall of text of biomechanical jargon), I made some doodles in MS Paint
to illustrate the effects that different segment lengths will have on your deadlift form. In all of
these, the torso length is expressed relative to the length of the femur.

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In each of these, the bar is directly below the shoulder, and the tibias are vertical. This is the
position in which the bar would break the ground.

In some videos, it may appear that someone is pulling with their hips low because they squat
down while setting up for the deadlift, but watch when the bar actually breaks the ground. That
is the hip height dictated by their anthropometry and the constraints of the lift. A couple good
examples are Mark Henry and Misha Koklyaev.

Deadlifting with the lowest hip position possible will tend to be the most efficient way to pull the
most weight. Can you start with your hips artificially higher? Of course. However, that does
two things that are typically undesirable:
1) It decreases, even more, the amount of assistance youd otherwise be able to get from your
quads.

2) Since higher hips can only really be accomplished by allowing the knees to drift backward
(remember, were constrained by some basic geometry here. Since the lengths of the segments
arent changing, if the hips raise and your hands stay on the bar, your knees will have to drift
backward), youll typically wind up with your hips even farther behind the bar, meaning more
hip extension torque which is already the limiting factor to overcome.
Heres what that looks like:

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So here are the takeaways from all this:

1) Pull with the lowest hip position possible. No, youre not turning the deadlift into a
squat. You simply have body proportions that make that the most advantageous position for
you.
2) If it looks like youre stiff-legging a deadlift, but your knees arent drifting backward
substantially when you pull, you probably arent doing anything wrong. A combination of long
legs and a short torso (perhaps paired with short arms) will give the lift a stiff-legged
appearance, but thats simply how the deadlift will look for you with your body proportions. No
amount of training to get your hips lower will make much of a difference.

Why can you lift more weight when you round your back?

Remember, hip extension strength is the primary limiting factor for the deadlift. With that in
mind, the explanation is very straight-forward. Rounding your back a bit shortens the length of
the torso in the sagittal plane. In non-nerd speak, it lets you keep your hips closer to the bar

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front-to-back so they dont have to work as hard to lift the same amount of weight. Its actually
very similar to how you can lift more weight in the low bar squat than the high bar squat
dropping the bar a couple inches lower on your back effectively shortens your torso so, all
other things being equal, it requires less work from your hips to move the same amount of
weight.

The two black lines in the above picture represent your spine in the deadlift (yes, natural
kyphotic and lordotic curves, etc. For the sake of simplicity, were just assuming its flat. It
doesnt change the point, and straight lines are easier to draw in MS Paint.). The numbers
assume a lifter is 6 feet tall with average body proportions 72 inches tall, the torso is about
30% of total body height for the average person, so that gives us 21.6 inches.
With the spine in a neutral position, its about 15.3 inches long front-to-back. With some
(pretty substantial) rounding, that number is decreased to ~11.7 inches. That change in length
front-to-back represents a huge decrease in the amount of hip extension torque that would be
required to lift any given weight.
Dont get hung up on the 24% number, thinking oh, if I pull 500 with a perfectly flat back, I
should be able to pull 620 if I let my back round! Thats just one example, that would change

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based on degree of rounding, whether your lats, traps, and spinal erectors are actually strong
enough to get your back extended again after it rounds, and it would also be counterbalanced
somewhat by the increased tension on the glutes and hamstrings that would come with the
increased hip flexion required to pull with a flat back. Furthermore, as your spine flexes more,
your hip position also changes so that your shoulders will still be over the bar (i.e. your torso still
has to stay roughly the same length, front-to-back, as your femur), which negates a pretty fair
amount of the advantage. Bret Contreras and Andrew Vigotsky informed me that based on some
modeling theyd done after this article was published, the difference is reduced to about 6%,
which seems much more realistic. Your body isnt a physics equation this is just to illustrate
the main reason why you can pull more with a slightly rounded back: for any absolute load, the
required hip extension torque needed to lift it is decreased if the spine flexes a bit.

Who better to illustrate this with than the champion of round-back deadlifters himself:
Konstantin Konstantinovs. Here he is, deadlifting a casual 350kg (771 pounds).
Heres a screen shot of right when the bar breaks the floor, showing where his spine and hips are
when hes actually deadlifting, and roughly where they would be if he kept his back completely
flat:

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As you can see, his hips would be lower in his start position, and they would be quite a bit farther
behind the bar, requiring more hip extension torque to lift the same weight.

He has deadlifted 939 in competition, but has said in interviews that he once tried to train his
deadlift without letting his spine flex at all, and was unable to pull much over 700 pounds.
Obviously an extreme example of this principle.
A lot of times when people round their backs unintentionally when lifting heavy loads, theyre
afraid its because their back is too weak. However, more often than not, the opposite is
true. Their back is strong enough to lift more, but the hip extensors arent, so they
unintentionally round their backs a bit so their hips will have an easier time producing the
required torque to lift the bar.

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Takeaways:
1) Contrary to what the internet tells you, you cant turn your deadlift into a squat. All other
things being equal, the lower your hips are when the bar breaks the ground, the more efficient
your deadlift will be. Otherwise youd RDL more than you deadlift.
2) If you stiff-leg a deadlift but the bar stays close to your shins and your knees dont drift
back a ton, its probably not something to worry about. Thats just how you deadlift based on
your body proportions.

3) Rounding your back makes the deadlift more mechanically efficient by reducing how much
hip extension torque your hamstrings and glutes have to produce in order to lift any given
weight.

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Fixing the Good-Morning Squat

For those of you who dont know, a good-morning squat is ostensibly a squat, but when the lifter
starts coming out of the hole, their butt shoots straight up, so instead of squatting the weight up,
they end up using their hamstrings, glutes, and back primarily, effectively taking the quads out of
the movement.

A good-morning squat = when your squats end up looking like this.

When you squat like this, odds are youre going to wind up missing the lift when the weight
rounds your back over and folds you forward. Consequently, the common prescription is to
strengthen your back or hip extensors (glutes and hamstrings) to keep you from getting folded
forward. Makes sense, right?

Nope.

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You see, your body is pretty good at optimizing movement. Do something enough times, and
your body is pretty good at finding the most efficient way for you to accomplish the pattern,
given your strengths and weaknesses. So, when you find yourself GM squatting, youre in that
position in the first place BECAUSE your back and hip extensors are strong. Strengthening
them further MAY help you lift more weight, but it only furthers the imbalance that already
exists.

Instead, you need to strengthen your quads. When your quads are weak, your butt will shoot
right up out of the hole without your shoulders moving much getting knee extension out of the
way without much of a change in center of gravity taking your quads out of the equation and
shifting the load to the muscles that are already strong, and putting you in a GM
position. Strengthen your quads, and they can pull their own weight, allowing you to stay a little
more upright so you wont have such a tendency to round forward with heavy weight.

Training your quads will also increase your max more for the amount of effort you invest into
the training. If you strengthen whats already strong, youll probably be able to move more
weight, but its a matter of diminishing returns. If you bring up the weakest link, you get a
much, much better return on investment.
Now, before anyone jumps down my throat for implying that training the posterior chain isnt
the be-all-end-all of lower body training, I do absolutely think its important. Most new lifters
need more work on their posterior chains, and it should be prioritized to a point. However, once
you develop a GM squat problem, thats a good indicator that the posterior chain is definitely up
to snuff and no longer the limiting factor of performance. Also, I understand that mobility
problems, especially poor ankle dorsiflexion, can cause this problem is the absence of any

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strength imbalances; however, in my experience, most lifters can get around that just by getting
some weightlifting shoes with a raised heel.
And, just for social proof and all that (as an aside, its a little funny I feel like I need to justify a
recommendation to train the quads. Theyre big, strong muscles that need to be well
developed for powerful knee extension which is one of the basic tasks involved in
squatting. But the strength world has been so enamored with the posterior chain lately, I feel
like Im being slightly rebellious by suggesting that people should directly train their quads!),
consider that Dan Green shares my opinion with his 865 squat, and the study on elite
powerlifters I wrote up for Bret Contrerass blog basically said that the hallmark of elite
squatting was *minimizing* GM-ing the squat.

So, if you end up looking like Miley Cyrus on Robin Thicke at the VMAs every time you squat
heavy weights, train your freaking quads. Your back, and your squat numbers, will reap the
benefits.

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Hamstrings The Most Overrated Muscle Group for the Squat

After the huge response I got to my article on the infamous Good Morning Squat, I realized that
most peoples whole conceptual schema for proper squatting is out of whack. So, I wanted to
keep building upon the same concept a huge squat depends on strong quads, and as a corollary,
the hamstrings are vastly overrated as a contributor to a huge squat.
Since theres research on the subject, I think its best to start there. Chris Beardsley has
reviewed some relevant research on hamstring activation in the squat, and Id suggest you take
the time to check it out. The basic conclusion is that the hamstrings arent activated very well
during the squat and that, in fact, the lowly seated hamstring curl achieves about 3x as much
hamstring activation as the squat with equally challenging loads.

So, what are we to do with this knowledge?

Some people would say that, naturally, you should try to make the squat more hamstring
dominant. The hamstrings are powerful hip extensors, hip extension is important for the squat,
and the more musculature youre activating to a high degree, the more weight youll move.

Nope.
I see where that point of view is coming from advocating the low bar squat with considerable
forward-lean to engage the hamstrings more in the squat. But I think its proponents fail to
remember one important fact about the hamstrings

The hamstrings are two-joint muscles.

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Originating on the ischial tuberosity and inserting near the top of the tibia, the hamstrings are
effective at both knee flexion (i.e. hamstring curls) and hip extension (i.e. RDLs or good
mornings). Furthermore, when you flex the muscles, its not like it can pick and choose which
end it pulls on without other muscles activating to stabilize the joints, hamstring activation
means both hip extension and knee flexion torque.

Hamstrings: both for extending the hips AND flexing the knees

So, what does that mean for the squat? Referring back to my article write-up about
characteristics of elite squatters:
The three group A lifters (the best squatters in the study) exhibited the largest extensordominant (i.e. quadriceps producing more torque at the knee than the hamstrings and
gastrocnemius) thigh torques. This is not to be confused with merely having the strongest
quads. It means that throughout the movement, the group A lifters quads were producing more
torque relative to their hamstrings and gastrocnemii, resulting in a higher NET extensor torque.

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In laymans terms, what all that means is that excessive hamstring activation is actually
detrimental to optimum squatting performance. The harder your hamstrings are pulling you
toward knee flexion, the harder your quads have to contract to produce the SAME amount of net
knee extension torque. Thats the exact opposite of what you should be shooting for!

Context:
As a powerlifter, Im primarily concerned about lifting the most weight possible. Im assuming
that applies to many of you also. If so, purposefully aiming for high hamstrings involvement in
the squat is counterproductive. Plain and simple.

I can somewhat understand the inclination to teach a more posterior-dominant squat to new
lifters, especially if theyre using one of the many typical beginner routines which include high
frequency, fairly high volume squatting with very little deadlifting or hamstring accessory work.
However, if that describes you, be warned: you are forming a bad habit youll have to break
later! I personally think you should instead squat in a more efficient manner (either high or low
bar, trying to maintain a more upright torso and prioritizing quad involvement), while also doing
some accessory work for your hamstrings such as GHRs, hamstring curls, or RDLs since, like
weve already established, the squat is NOT a good hamstring builder anyways!
Now, just to preempt a question I know will pop up I am NOT saying you shouldnt train your
hamstrings. Strong hamstrings mean a big deadlift, healthy knees, and a potentially lower risk of
hamstring tears. Just dont use the squat to train your hamstrings. Use hamstrings exercises to
train your hamstrings.

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Also, just so were clear, Im not saying hip extension isnt also important for the squat. Its just
that it doesnt need to be coming from your hamstrings. Prioritizing glute activation is a much
better route, since the gluteus maximus is a one joint muscle only producing hip extension
without accompanying knee flexion torque as with the hamstrings. The good news: (based on
my understanding, at least) range of motion is the primary determinant of glute activation during
the squat, so as long as youre squatting deep, your bases are covered there!

Putting it all together:

If you want to get a massive squat you should train your quads, try to minimize forward lean, and
not concern yourself with hamstrings involvement when squatting. Squat for a huge squat, and
pull or do direct hamstring work to turn you hamstrings into pork cords. Purposefully trying to
increase hamstring involvement in the squat is an exercise in futility if your goal is to move more
weight and get stronger.
Share this article with your misguided friends who preach posterior chain and then wonder
why their squat is stalled. When they see the light, theyll love you for it.

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Its Time to End this Nonsense. High Bar vs. Low Bar Squatting
Sayres law: In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the
issues at stake

There are few arguments in the strength world more common than high bar vs. low bar squats,
therefore, you can probably assume prior to knowing anything more about the subject that there
are few arguments more pointless.
Just to make my opinion known before diving in (if you cant guess it already): It really doesnt
matter.

Of course, though a hearty shrug of the shoulders and the timeless wisdom from the Big
Lebowski: well, yeah, thats just like, your opinion, man is sufficient response for anyone who
argues too shrilly for one or the other, thats not my style. Usually I wont take a side in an
argument without having a solid case in favor of one position or against the other, and in this
instance, I think my ambivalence has a more solid case than either of the sides.
Lets dive in:

1. A very brief primer on torques

Your muscles pull in straight lines, but the result is angular motion at joints. The effort you have
to exert for straight-ahead things in measured as force, and for angular things its measured as
torque.

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The relatively linear bar path of a squat isnt the result of any type of muscle activity directed
straight up. Rather, its the result of muscles producing torque at joints.

To overcome external resistance (i.e. a bar on your back), your muscles have to produce
sufficient torque at the joints to move them.

Just as in illustration, extend an arm out in front of you. Imagine someone hung a 25 pound plate
from a rope, and hung the rope around your wrist. How long do you think you could hold your
arm straight out in front of you before the weight started pulling it down? Now imagine
someone hung the same 25 pound plate from a rope, and hung the rope around your upper arm,
just above your elbow. How much easier would it be to keep your arm extended straight in front
of you?
Thats torque in action. The external resistance is the same, but since its closer to the fulcrum
(your shoulder, in this case), your deltoids have to produce less force to produce the necessary
torque at the joint.

2. The difference between high bar and low bar squats

For low bar squats, the bar is 2-3 inches further down your back.

Yep, as big of a deal as people like to make about high bar vs. low bar squats, the previous
sentence sums up the one single difference that has spawned so much vitriol.

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Dropping the bar a bit farther down your back means that youll have to lean a bit farther
forward as you squat down to keep the bar (roughly your center of gravity, especially if youre
squatting a few times more than your bodyweight) over your foot. It also generally means that
your knees dont track quite as far forward.

Also, typically people can squat 5-10% more weight low bar than high bar.

3. Torques, applied to the squat

There are two main things you have to overcome to stand up from the bottom of a squat. You
have to extend your knees, and you have to extend your hips. This means that your quads have
to contract hard enough to produce the required knee extension torque, and your glutes,
hamstrings, and adductors magni have to contract hard enough to produce the required hip
extension torque.

Going back to our illustration of keeping your arm raised with a weight hanging off of it, the
distance your knees are in front of the bar, and the distance your hips are behind the bar are
analogous to how far away from your shoulder you hang that 25 pound weight.
Heres what that means:
When you drop the bar a little lower on your back, youre effectively decreasing how long your
torso is for the purposes of the movement. Its like moving the 25 pound plate a little closer to
your shoulder and farther from your wrist. The same basic principle applies to how far forward
your knees track. Since they typically wont track quite as far forward when squatting low bar,
thats also analogous to moving the 25 pound plate a bit closer to your shoulder. That means that

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your muscles dont have to produce quite as much force to produce the required torque to
overcome the resistance.
In non-nerd speak, thats why you can squat more weight with a low bar position. It makes the
movement more mechanically efficient.

4. Does it matter that you can move more weight low bar?
Ill nuance this answer a bit more later, but simply for training to make the lower body
strong: no, it does not matter.

Remember, torque is what produces tension is what produces a training effect (strength and
hypertrophy).
Your muscles dont know how much weight is on the bar. They just know how hard they have
to contract to produce the necessary torque.
The difference in torques between high bar and low bar squats is minimal, the way theyre
typically done. (Just to preempt a potential criticism this doesnt deal with every possible
iteration of squat form. Sure, you could low bar squat much more upright with a ton of forward
knee tracking, and then there would probably be more knee torque. Or you could high bar squat
with a silly amount of forward lean, and then there would be more hip torque. If youre
concerned about going into that much detail, take a physics class, video tape your squat, and do
some calculations. This discussion covers 90%+ of people, though)

Of course, this similarity is to be expected. Your body is pretty darn good at finding the
strongest positions for itself once you have the feel for a movement. If your quads can contract

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harder to produce more knee torque, its not like theyll think We just about made a terrible
mistake. Were squatting low bar right now, which is more hip dominant, so we need to
relax. Similarly, your glutes wont quip, gotta make sure we contribute as little possible to this
high bar squat since its knee-dominant, dontcha know. You may be able to bias your knee or
hip extensors with submaximal weights by purposefully altering your technique, but with
maximal weights or on sets taken fairly close to failure where youre doing all you can to stand
up with those last few reps, your body finds the position it needs to be in to give you the best
chance of completing the rep.
Why dont peoples knees track farther forward on low bar squats (thus giving them the illusion
of being more hip-dominant)? Your quads are already doing all they can at the bottom of a
squat. Since theres less weight on a high bar squat, they can track a little farther forward
because the required knee extension torque is the same as for a heavier low bar squat. Why are
you typically a little more upright for a high bar squat? Because the bars a little farther from
your hips, so even though youre staying a bit more upright, youre having to overcome the same
amount of hip torque as you would for a low bar squat.
Like I said previously the only difference is that the bar position changes by 2 or 3 inches. It
doesnt make THAT much of a difference, and it certainly doesnt transform it into an entirely
different exercise. The slight technique differences dont fundamentally change what your body
has to do to complete the lift. Rather, they make sure that your body has to do pretty much the
exact same things to complete the lift.

When you squat heavy or at high RPEs, does your back angle relative to the ground decrease a
bit as youre coming out of the hole? If so, youre giving your quads all they can take. Does bar

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speed decrease at or slightly above parallel when you squat heavy or at high RPEs? If so, youre
training your hip extensors hard.
No more to it than that. Both of those things will happen when you train your squats hard,
whether it be high or low bar.
5. But since theres more forward lean with a low bar squat, wont they train the
hamstrings better?

Probably not.
First off with the low bar squat, the bar is closer to the fulcrum, which means similar hip
extension torque has to be produced even though there may be a little more forward lean than
with a high bar squat. Similar hip extension torque means similar challenge to the hip extensors
(including the hamstrings).
Second the squat isnt a very potent exercise for the hamstrings anyways. Ive written about
this before, but just to cover the high point: when comparing the squat to exercises where
hamstring strength is apt to be a limiting factor (RDLs and leg curls), squats produce much lower
hamstrings activation with the same percentage of a 1rm. This leads you to believe that 1) your
hamstrings are probably not a limiting factor for your squat, and 2) squats arent a particularly
good exercise to train your hamstrings.
Lastly, theres not even a significant difference in hamstrings activation when comparing back
squats and front squats. Surely if altering squat form would change the training effect for the
hamstrings in any meaningful way, youd see it when comparing front squats and back squats,
which are much more different (different-er?) than are low bar and high bar back squats.

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Squat to build the squat, do exercises that target the hamstrings (which do not include squats) to
train the hamstrings.

Now that my main argument is articulated, here are a few caveats:

1. Since youll be able to move more weight low bar, if you plan on competing in powerlifting,
it would probably behoove you to learn how to squat low bar. Powerlifting isnt exactly about
being the strongest person its about moving the most weight. If youre slightly stronger than
someone else, but you squat high bar and they squat low bar in competition, and they post a
higher number than you, they beat you. It is irrelevant that you may have been producing more
hip and knee extension torque the sole measurement of proficiency in powerlifting is the
amount of weight you can squat to competition depth.
With that in mind, since the form is slightly different, Id recommend you take at least a few
months to squat mostly or exclusively low bar to learn the motor pattern. Establishing a skill
takes more practice than reestablishing or maintaining it. After youve mastered the movement,
train however you want. Plenty of good squatters train mostly high bar (Fred Hatfield is a
prominent example. Though I wouldnt put myself in the same category, 90% of my squat
training is high bar as well, and Im no slouch), then transition to low bar squats for a few
months to peak for a meet. Plenty more (Eric Lilliebridge and Andrey Malanichev come to
mind) train exclusively low bar all the time.
If youre going to compete in powerlifting, learn how to squat low bar. After that, train with
whatever bar position youd like, but make sure you squat low bar for at least 4-8 weeks leading

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up to a meet to make sure your groove is fresh and locked in, and so you have time to get
comfortable handling the 5-10% heavier weights youll be able to move low bar.
2. If youre training for weightlifting or CrossFit (for which weightlifting proficiency matters
more than a huge 1rm squat), theres really no reason for you to ever squat low bar. As was
previously established, theres no significant difference between high and low bar squats in terms
of how effectively theyll train the muscles involved in squatting. High bar squats, since you can
do them with a more upright torso, will help ingrain a more favorable position for catching heavy
cleans and snatches.
3. If youre training for literally anything else, I stand by my basic premise: it really doesnt
matter. If you like moving more weight in the gym, squat low bar. If your elbows get banged up
squatting low bar, or you just want to give your body a break from handling really heavy
weights, squat high bar. Squat however you enjoy squatting. Both will make you
stronger. Personally, if I had to give the edge to one, it would probably be the high bar squat
since, for most people, it allows for a slightly longer range of motion, but the difference isnt big
enough to make a ruckus about. Squat however you enjoy squatting and the rest will take care of
itself.

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Squats are Not Hip Dominant or Knee Dominant. Some Biomechanical

Black Magic.
Key Points:
1) The origins and insertions of the hamstrings and rectus femoris allow them to extend the hip and knee
simultaneously, even though their actions oppose each other.
2) Two joint muscles allow force from single joint muscles to be transmitted to joints they wouldnt
otherwise be able to effect. For example, the rectus femoris allows the glutes to help extend the knee.
3) You can put these principles to work for you by learning the best way to grind through your sticking
point on a squat
4) Because two joint muscles transmit force throughout all of your hip and thigh musculature, squats
arent truly knee or hip dominant, regardless of how they look or what the external torques at the joints
are.

If you guys havent figured this out yet, I think about squatting a lot. It was the one lift that took
a long time to click with me usually I can pick up a new movement pretty quickly, but squats
were always uncomfortable and awkward for about half a decade once I started doing
them. Because of the amount of work it took to master them, they now have a special place in
my heart. I dont think theres a subject Ive written more about, and I dont expect that to
change any time soon.

This article is a continuation of the previous one about high bar vs. low bar squatting. If you
havent read it yet, Id suggest you do so, because this article picks up where that one left off,
going a bit further down the biomechanical rabbit hole.

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Assuming youve read my last article and you have a basic understanding of torques, applied to
the squat, its time to talk about Lombards Paradox.

W.P. Lombard was a biomechanist in the early 1900s, and he investigated an interesting
phenomenon. When you walk or run or rise from a chair, the quadriceps and the hamstrings
contract at the same time to cause movement. Your quads and hammies, however, are
antagonists, producing opposing movements (hip extension and knee flexion for the hamstrings,
and hip flexion and knee extension for the quads). Why, Lombard wondered, dont these
antagonistic contractions cancel each other out? Why dont they just lock your hips and knees
in place? Opposing muscles firing together seems like a great way to accomplish absolutely
nothing, NOT sprint at high speeds or jump or move heavy loads.

The answer, it turns out, has to do with the different distances from the hip and knee joint that
the quads (specifically rectus femoris) and hamstrings originate and insert.

The hamstrings originate on the ischial tuberosity, and insert just below the knee joint, on the
back of the tibia. The rectus femoris originates just above on hip on the anterior inferior iliac

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spine and the rim of the hip socket, and inserts a couple inches below the knee joint on the tibial
tuberosity, via the patellar tendon.

Hamstrings: Origin a few inches away from the hip, and insertion very close to the knee

Rectus femoris: Origin just above the hip joint, and insertion a couple inches below the knee.

What that means is that when the hamstrings contract, the amount of hip extension torque they
produce is considerably greater than the amount of knee flexion torque they produce. The
opposite is true for the rectus femoris it produces much more knee extension torque than hip

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flexion torque. Those basic facts solve Lombards paradox since the origins and insertions
of these muscles mean they hamstrings are much more efficient at producing torque at the hips,
and the rectus femoris is much more efficient at producing torque at the knee, when they contract
together, you get both knee and hip extension.
Okay, cool. Co-contraction of the quads and hammies doesnt give you rigor mortise. But what
can we actually do with that information?
Heres where things get cool:

Let me point you in the direction of a paper titled From Rotation to Translation: Constraints on
multi-joint movements and the unique action of bi-articular muscles by G.J. van Ingen Schenau
(1989).

It was a study trying to figure out how, exactly, humans coordinate muscle contractions to move
and transfer force so efficiently. The study itself examined speed skating, jumping, and cycling;
however, the authors found the same principles to be in play for all three, and propose that their
findings are generalizable to all movements involving two-joint muscles (such as the hamstrings
and rectus femoris) based on some basic physics and geometry. The model they propose makes
a lot of otherwise-confusing facts about squatting make a lot more sense.
In their investigation of jumping, they examined the role of the quads in plantar flexion
pushing off the balls of your feet as you leave the ground for a jump. Of course, the quads dont
cross the ankle joint. If you cut all the other muscles away from the human body and contracted
the quads, nothings going to happen at the ankle. However, force from the quads is transferred
to the ankle by the gastrocnemius, which originates just above the knee and inserts on the

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heel. As the quads extend the knee, the gastroc would stretch slightly if it were
relaxed. However, if it remains the same length or contracts, the lengthening that would
otherwise occur due to knee extension is instead transferred to the ankle where it aids in forceful
plantar flexion.

In fact, previous studies had estimated that only 25% of the plantar flexion force that occurs
when jumping is actually attributable to the contraction of the calf muscles. 25% actually
comes from the quads, and is transmitted to the ankle via the gastroc, while the other 50%
comes from the elastic properties of the Achilles tendon.

If the gastroc stays the same length, as the knee extends, the ankle is pulled into plantar flexion.

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A slightly more in-depth illustration, showing how the quads pictured here as a spring can
cause plantar flexion even if the gastrocs pictured as a string dont contract at all, but
merely stay the same length.

From this, we can draw some surprising conclusions, and make some practical
recommendations. Ill start with the surprising conclusions.

1) The glutes can aid in knee extension.

2) The quads can aid in hip extension.

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Just let that sink in for a while.

Heres the same model from this study, illustrating how the glutes can cause knee extension via
the rectus femoris:

As long as the rectus femoris isnt actually lengthening during the concentric phase of the squat
(which it wouldnt be), hip extension torque is transferred down the rectus femoris, causing knee
extension.
Likewise, heres an illustration of how the quads (vastus lateralis, intermedius, and medialis) can
cause hip extension via the hamstrings:

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Again, as long as the hamstrings arent lengthening, knee extension causes hip extension.
This concept also makes an interesting piece of a study Ive discussed before make a lot more
sense. In the Bryanton study I discussed in this article, at face value it would appear that squats
are quite challenging to your calf muscles, with relative muscular effort (RME) hovering
between 65%-80% for a hefty portion of the movement. However, RME was normalized based
on the strength of the calf muscles alone when you throw the assistance from a forceful quad
contraction into the mix, it makes sense that your calves arent as wrecked after a hard squat
workout as your quads and hips are.

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Practical Takeaways
1) If youre prone to turn your squat into a good morning, these findings throw another
potential culprit into the mix your glutes. Since they can contribute to knee extension via the
rectus femoris, if youre unable to produce enough knee extension torque to come up out of the
bottom of a squat without your back angle relative to the ground decreasing (hips rising faster
than the bar), they could potentially be to blame.
2) This provides even more evidence for the idea that its probably NOT your hamstrings that
are limiting you. Actually, they are probably the last thing that could potentially fail
you. When weights get too heavy and you wind up having knee extension without concomitant
hip extension, what thats actually doing is lengthening your hamstrings so they can increase

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their independent contribution to hip extension torque, rather than allowing them to function
primarily to transfer force between segments.

In my previous article looking at the effects of wearing a belt on squatting performance, one of
the things that jumped out at me was the effects of fatigue on forward lean in the squat. As you
get more and more tired, you start leaning farther and farther forward. Based on this model, the
most reasonable explanation is that the prime movers (the quads and glutes) start fatiguing as the
set wears on, so the hamstrings, which are still relatively fresh, are put in a position where they
can independently do more to aid in hip extension. Getting your hamstrings more involved in
the movement should not be a priority their increasing involvement means your quads and
glutes are failing you.
3) Lombards paradox explains beautifully the proper way to grind a squat.

This is a video of my friend John Phung, who may have this technique more dialed in than
anyone I know. Watch as he comes out of the hole, and bar speed slows almost to zero. In that
position, co-contraction of the hamstrings and rectus femoris can reposition your body under the
bar so you can finish the lift. When you fail a squat above parallel, the culprit is pretty
straightforward the amount of hip flexion torque the bar is exerting on you exceeds the amount
of hip extension torque youre capable of producing.

By driving your traps back into the bar (to provoke a stronger contraction from your hamstrings,
similar to a good morning), and squeezing your glutes to drive your knees forward and out
(transferred down your rectus femoris, resulting in increased knee extension torque to keep your
knees from flexing as more stress is shifted to your quads), you shift your hips forward

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slightly. That shortens the moment arm theyre working again, and voila! Same weight +
shorter moment arm = less hip extension torque necessary to get through your sticking point and
finish the movement.

Before he knew this trick, this is a lift that would have pinned him. The key to grinding a lift is
to keep yourself from getting stuck with your butt a mile behind the bar, and to fight to get your
hips forward, even if the bar remains motionless for a moment Lombards paradox lets you do
that.

4) Knee dominant and hip dominant squats are misnomers

This concept also helps us make sense of a study Ive linked in the past that has been met with
disbelief (and, admittedly, I didnt really understand it either). Muscle activation in the back
squat and front squat is just about identical. Is there a longer moment arm for the hips in a back
squat? Of course. However, although a squat may look more hip dominant, the quads are still
aiding in hip extension via the hamstrings. Conversely, although a squat may look more knee
dominant, the glutes are still aiding in knee extension via the rectus femoris. If the external
torque is less at one joint, the prime movers at that joint are freed up to help overcome the
increased external torque at the other joint.

Now, Westside-style box squats may truly be hip dominant, and something like is probably knee
dominant in a really substantial way:

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But just about any other form of squat is going to train your hip and thigh musculature in pretty
much the exact same way. (A quick caveat a wider stance may train your glutes a little harder,
but other than that, the only major variable that changes how hard your muscles are working is
depth.)

So what do squats train? Is it the quads, or the hamstrings, or the glutes? All of the above to a
point, but none of the above specifically. The squat trains the squat. For training purposes, just
find where the bar is most comfortable, squat as deep as you safely can, and repeat. The whole
system of muscles that extends your hips and knees is tied together by your hamstrings and recti
femori, which make sure the work is distributed over all the muscles involved.

Just stop worrying about the minutia and squat.

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Speed Kills: 2x the Intended Bar Speed Yields ~2x the Bench Press Gains
If you want to get stronger, training volume and intensity are the two most important variables,
right? Well, a recent (May 2014) study published in the European Journal of Sports Science
sheds some light on another crucial factor bar speed.
Now, if youre like me, youve always heard that youre supposed to lift the bar (concentric) as
fast as possible, and that doing so would recruit more fast twitch fibers since youre producing
more force, and more muscle fibers activated = more gains.
However, Ive never heard anyone pinpoint how much of a difference maximum rep speed
actually made at least not with any credible sources backing them.
Well, this recent study Maximal intended velocity training induces greater gains in bench
press performance than deliberately slower half-velocity training suggests that it makes a huge
difference:

Approximately double the strength gains by lifting the bar with maximum speed each rep, as
opposed to a slower cadence, even when equating training volume and intensity. VERY
cool. Personally, I would have expected a difference, but not anything THAT dramatic.
Lets dive in.

Background

As I previously touched on, the thinking behind lifting the bar as fast as you possibly can is this:

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1. To produce more force, your body uses more muscle fibers (as opposed to each fiber just
contracting harder to produce more force)

2. The first fibers your body uses are the smallest, slow-twitch fibers. To produce more and
more force, it recruits progressively larger and stronger fibers, with your largest, strongest fast
twitch fibers being the last ones integrated into the movement. (This is called Hennemans Size
Principle)
3. Recruiting these fibers isnt based on the weight youre using per se, but rather the amount of
force you produce. Force = mass x acceleration, so all other things being equal, lifting a bar
faster means you produced more force to lift it.

4. Therefore, lifting the bar faster recruits more muscle fibers.

5. The fast twitch muscle fibers the last ones you recruit are the ones most prone to
hypertrophy, so lifting faster = more fast twitch fibers used = more strength and size gains.
Sounds great in theory, right? Except

The bulk of the previous research looking at the effects of lifting velocity on strength gains
showed that there was no significant difference between lifting as fast as possible and lifting at a
slower cadence.

Oops. That theory sounded so appealing and straightforward a moment ago.

But wait a second as the authors in this current study point out, much of the past research on
the subject was methodologically flawed.

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1. Many of the studies didnt equate load and volume. This was a problem with the studies that
HAD shown intentionally lifting fast was better than intentionally lifting slower. If youre
intentionally lifting the bar slower, youre not going to be able to handle as much weight or
volume, so of COURSE the protocol lifting at maximum speed would yield better results but
you have no idea whether it was the bar speed itself that mattered, or whether it was simply the
difference in intensity and volume.

2. In the bulk of the studies showing no difference in lifting fast vs. lifting slow, they were doing
sets taken to failure, or close to failure. Going back to Hennemans size principle, another
application of it is that as the first fibers you recruit start fatiguing, you recruit larger and
stronger fibers to take their place to keep producing force. Also, many of those studies werent
volume-equated either. Additionally, regardless of what the cadence was SUPPOSED to be,
when taking sets to failure, all your reps eventually end up being slow! So with these studies, the
differences in ACTUAL bar speed werent substantial, and the real takeaway is that if you push
yourself to failure, rep speed doesnt matter as much.
But what if you dont WANT to train to failure for all your sets, all the time (i.e. most of
us)? Well, thats where this study fills in some gaps.

Subjects:

24 men were recruited (4 dropped out), mostly in their early to mid-20s, and of normal height
and weight (1.77 0.08m, 70.9 8.0kg). They were healthy and physically active, with 2-4
years recreational experience with the bench press. Recreational is a slippery term. Their
1rms averaged around 75kg to begin with slightly more than 1x body weight. So it wasnt the

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first time these guys had picked up a barbell, but they also werent elite athletes by any stretch of
the imagination.

Protocol:

The subjects maxed at the beginning and end of the program to assess strength gains. Also, bar
speed of all of their warmup sets was recorded (both groups were instructed to lift the bar as fast
as they possibly could on all of their warmup sets) to see whether training fast or slow affected
their force production capabilities.
They split the subjects into two groups. Half of them trained at max velocity (MaxV controlled
eccentric, and explosive concentric), and half of them trained at half velocity (HalfV controlled
eccentric, and 1/2 maximum bar speed for the concentric). They benched 3x per week for 6
weeks, then assessed results.

The way they made their weight selections for each day was *very* interesting. Prior research
had found that average concentric bar velocity (how fast you can push the bar up) correlated very
strongly with given 1rm percentages for bench press.
An average maximum bar speed of 0.79m/sec means youre lifting about 60% of your 1rm, 0.70
m/sec is about 65%, 0.62m/sec is about 70%, 0.55m/sec is about 75%, and 0.47m/sec is about
80%.

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Percentage
Average concentric velocity (m/sec)
of 1rm
0.79

60

0.7

65

0.62

70

0.55

75

0.47

80

To make sure they were using, say, 75% of a subjects ACTUAL 1rm for the day, rather than
75% of their initial 1rm (which would become outdated as they got stronger over 6 weeks), the
researcher would have the subject lift each warmup rep as fast as possible, until their average
concentric bar speed was 0.55m/sec. That would be their working weight for the day.

(As an aside, a common knock against percentage-based programs is that you have a harder
time accommodating good days and bad days. As your strength fluctuates, 80% of your all-time
PR may not actually be 80% of your actual strength for the day. Using bar speed as a way to
approximate percentage of 1rm may be a smart way to account for daily fluctuations in a
percentage-based program)

So, on 75% day, the people in the MaxV group would warm up, find the heaviest weight they
could lift at .55m/sec, and do the assigned reps for the day. The HalfV group would warm up,

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find the heaviest weight they could lift at .55m/sec, and do the assigned reps for the day, but with
an average concentric velocity of ~0.27m/sec, with visual and auditory feedback from a screen in
front of them letting them know if their cadence was too fast or too slow.

There were 48-72 hours between training sessions.

On week 1, they did 3 sets of 6-8 with 60% each day, eventually progressing to (decreasing
volume, increasing intensity kosher linear periodization) 3-4 sets of 3-4 reps on week 6.
The study was impressively well-controlled. Heres a great little line: Sessions took place
under supervision of the investigators, at the same time of day (1 h) for each participant and
under constant environmental conditions (20C, 60% humidity).

Time of day matters because circadian fluctuations in hormones like testosterone and cortisol
may affect the training outcomes. Additionally, heat and humidity can affect performance if
its too hot and humid youre more apt to fatigue because of thermal stress or dehydration, and if
its too cold you can have a harder time getting warm and performing well. Studies like that are
*supposed* to control for environmental factors, but many dont (or at least they dont explicitly
say that they did).

Along with the training study, the researchers did another study with different subjects to assess
metabolic effects of lifting with different bar speeds. In this study, subjects came in, had their
blood drawn, performed one of 6 routines (38 @60% with MaxV or HalfV, 36 @70% with
MaxV or HalfV, and 33 @80% with MaxV or HalfV), and had their blood drawn again to
assess lactate and ammonia concentrations.

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Additionally, fatigue was assessed based on changes in the heaviest load the subjects could move
at an average velocity of 1.0 m/sec pre-workout vs. post-workout

Results:

Before the training, there were no significant differences between the MaxV and HalfV groups.
Average concentric speed WAS faster for MaxV, as youd expect (0.58 0.06 vs. 0.32 0.03
m/sec)

HalfV spent more concentric time under tension (360.9 19.2 vs. 222.8 21.4 sec)

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In every single category, MaxV saw basically twice the gains of HalfV

1rm bench press: +18.2% vs. +9.7%

Average velocity with weights they could move faster than 0.8 m/sec at both the beginning and
end of the study: +11.5% vs. +4.5%

Average velocity with weights they could move slower than 0.8 m/sec at both the beginning and
end of the study: +36.2% vs. 17.3%

Notice right around 2x the gains across the board

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In the metabolic study, there was actually a larger rise in lactate in the MaxV protocol vs. the
HalfV protocol for both the 60% and 70% workouts, and fatigue (as assessed by the heaviest
load they could move at a set speed) was greater in MaxV than HalfV on the 60% workout (7.6%
vs. 1.4%), with a trend (that didnt reach significance) toward more fatigue with the 70%
workout as well (7.1% vs. 3.9%).
Now, take the lactate and fatigue data with a grain of salt both protocols reached pretty
moderate levels of lactate (were not talking about the metabolic difference of a heavy triple vs. a
max set of 20 reps) that may not make a meaningful difference, and the standard deviations for
fatigue were pretty large. Theyre interesting trends to see, but any tentative conclusions drawn
from them need to be even more tentative than usual.

There were no ammonia differences for any of the protocols.

Breaking it all down:

So, lifting the bar faster means more gains, and it makes you more explosive with lighter weights
too? Sweet.

Not so fast.

Remember the issues with past research? This showed that when you equate for training volume
and intensity and when youre not training to failure, lifting faster may produce superior gains in
maximal strength.

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Additionally, the improvements in bar velocities with concrete loads doesnt necessarily mean
faster training makes you faster. If youll notice, the degree of improvement in bar velocity was
pretty similar to the degree of improvement in 1rm strength.
Essentially, lets say you bench 300. 50% of your 1rm is 150. If you get your bench up to 400,
youll almost certainly be able to move 150 faster than you could when you benched 300. But
will you move 200 faster than you used to move 150? Maybe, maybe not, but this study at least
seems to indicate that it wouldnt have to do much with whether you were training fast or slow
the larger gains seen in the MaxV group were with absolute loads, not loads relative to their new
1rms. The biggest takeaway is that being able to pick up heavier things makes it easier for you
to move lighter things faster.

Another interesting thing about the improvements in velocity: For both groups, larger gains
were seen in bar speed for heavier weights (ones they moved slower than 0.8 m/sec; 17.3-36.2%
improvement) vs. gains in bar speed for lighter weights (ones they moved faster than 0.8 m/sec;
4.5-11.5% improvement). This has implications for pure power athletes. Getting stronger
DOES help you produce more power, but its not highly specific. Lifting heavy things has a
much higher carryover for lifting heavy things fast than it does for lifting light things fast.

So will you be able to throw a shot put further by increasing your bench, or be able to jump
higher by increasing you squat?
Absolutely! To a point After that time, training specificity becomes a bigger concern, and the
carryover you get from producing force against something really heavy (training for an 800
pound squat or an 600 pound bench press) becomes increasingly less if your goal is to be able to

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produce a lot of force against something relatively light (your body or a 16 pound ball). This is
an aspect of training specificity people dont talk about quite as much. Training is specific to the
muscles and movements you train, sure, but its also specific to the velocity you train with.
Going back to fatigue and lactate for a moment more fatigue and lactate accumulation with the
MaxV protocols may indirectly indicate a larger reliance on fast twitch fibers (as Hennemans
Size Principle would lead you to expect). Fast twitch fibers are more fatiguable than slow twitch
fibers, and they rely more on glycolytic energy systems. However, the differences between the
two protocols were really pretty minor in both these regards, so an indirect conclusion based on
shaky foundations shouldnt be something you put TOO much confidence in to account for the
difference in training effects.

One thing I really loved about this study was that it actually recorded average velocities and
concentric time under tension. TUT has been preached by some as a driving force in strength
and hypertrophy gains. However, the HalfV protocol had substantially more TUT than the
MaxV protocol, but it produced substantially worse results. Perhaps TUT should be amended
from time under tension to time under maximal tension how much time you spend actually
moving the weight with as much force as possible.

Of course, that runs counter to the pretty little 4 number notations people like to use (3-1-3-0
would mean 3 second eccentric, 1 second pause at the bottom of the rep, 3 second concentric,
and 0 second pause at the top before the next rep). This study seems to suggest that for
maximum strength gains, you may dictate a certain cadence for the eccentric, and time at the top
and bottom, but the concentric should be completed as fast as possible.

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Now, before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, there is a time and place for controlled
concentrics learning. If someone has poor awareness or is trying to fix a technique flaw,
slowing down the concentric while focusing on appropriate cues can help reinforce proper
technique. If someone cant perform a movement properly slowly (weightlifting aside), they
probably arent going to be able to perform it properly at maximal velocity. You can also use
controlled concentrics if you want to practice a movement for the day, but want to employ a
means of naturally limiting how much weight you can use for the exercise. However, for most
lifts, most of the time, its probably most beneficial to lift the move the load as fast as possible.
One last thing to point out from this study: you DONT constantly have to train to failure or
close to failure if you want to get strong. Sets of 3 at 80% (an ~8rm weight) or sets of 6 at 60%
(a ~12-15rm weight) arent going to be incredibly difficult. But the MaxV group averaged gains
of about 30 pounds on their bench in 6 weeks not too shabby! The frequency in this study
(benching 3x per week) was fairly high, and the weekly volume (36-60 reps between 60-80%)
was fairly high too considering the strength and experience of the trainees. However, Id wager
than none of their sets pushed them within a rep or two of failure. Total training volume is more
important than running yourself into the ground every set.

Wrap-up

When not training to failure, moving the bar as fast as possible probably produces better gains
than intentionally slowing your rep speed.
When youre constantly training to failure, it may not matter quite as much. However, you
DONT constantly have to train to failure to get stronger.

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Moving heavy things as fast as possible improves your ability to move heavy things fast much
more than it improves your ability to move light things fast.

You can use bar speed as an indicator of your strength day-to-day. You can use this knowledge
to adapt a percentage-based program to fluctuations in strength day-to-day and (hopefully)
improvements in strength over time without having to max in the gym regularly.

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Band-Resisted Pushups = Bench Press for Strength Gains? Plus, How

Useful is EMG?

First things first, please give this post a little time to get rolling. There are bits of it that are
primarily for nerds like myself, but there are also directly actionable parts, so be patient while we
get there.
You may have heard of EMG before. EMG stands for Electromyography essentially measuring
the electrical activity in your muscles.

Muscle contraction starts with a nerve impulse. If the nerve impulse is strong enough, it creates a
small electrical current that runs down the muscle (wave of depolarization), setting off the chain
of events that leads to muscle contraction (excitation contraction coupling). The harder your
muscle needs to contract, the more muscle fibers will be activated in this manner, so the stronger
the electrical current measured in your muscle will be.
Thats the basis of EMG. If you can measure the electrical activity in the muscle, you have a
good idea of how hard that muscle is contracting and how many muscle fibers are being used.
So, a higher EMG measurement means more muscle fibers used, which means a greater training
effect, which means more strength gained, right?

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Well not so fast. Thats the story youll hear from people who fully endorse the use of EMG as
a primary factor in assessing exercise effectiveness. It sounds nice in theory, and it feels good
for an uninformed reader. 100 people may have 100 different opinions, but with EMG you can
actually measure something, and get a nice objective number you can use to compare one
exercise to another.

In that regard, overreliance on EMG can really give you a false sense of security.

There are a few issues with this, though.

First and foremost is that EMG readings are relative to load, not just exercise. Lets say you
bench press 30% of your max, and then bench press 80% of your max. The 80% load will give
you higher EMG readings than the 30% load. So EMG isnt necessarily telling you one exercise
is better, but that a given load with a given exercise may be better (i.e. comparing an 80% bench
press load with an 80% incline press load may be more appropriate). Of course, extending this
idea further, youll also get higher EMG readings with 100% of your max than with 80%. So if
youre relying solely on EMG, the logical assumption is that you should do singles with your
max and nothing else, which is obviously absurd because it doesnt take training volume the
much larger driving force into consideration

Furthermore, to normalize EMG data to compare results for different people, you have to base it
on something you typically dont just use raw electrical data. That something is the Maximal
Voluntary Isometric Contraction (MVIC). An MVIC is essentially how much muscle activity
you can attain without actually moving a load. By definition, your MVIC is 100%MVIC.
However, the basic recommendation that goes along with EMG data is that exercises and loads

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that produce average EMG readings above 60%MVIC are probably going to be good bets for
increasing size and strength. As an illustration of this, average %MVIC for squats at 70% 1rm
(an exercise and load that we can all agree will build quad size and strength) averages around 6080%.
If EMG was all you used to compare exercises, youd think that training your quads purely with
isometrics was better than squatting with 70% of your max.

We know that volume, load, and range of motion are all major contributing factors for getting
bigger and stronger, but EMG doesnt account for these by itself.

With that brief primer on the function and limitations of EMG out of the way, we can dig into the
study at hand: Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity result in similar
strength gains

The first thing that jumped out at me, right in the abstract, is this statement which is pretty
damning for people who have put too many eggs in the EMG basket to this point:
While researchers assume that biomechanically comparable resistance exercises with similar
high EMG levels will produce similar strength gains over the long term, no studies have
actually corroborated this hypothesis.

However, from there, things really start looking up for the usefulness of EMG.

The subjects:

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There were 30 subjects (22 men and 8 women), mostly in their early 20s, who weighed ~70kg.
They were lean (average body fat about 14%), healthy, and had been training an average of 2
years (1 year minimum). They met the NSCAs definition of advanced trainees: minimum of 1
year of resistance training experience, performing at least 3 strength training sessions per week at
moderate to high intensity, and currently involved in strength training (more on that later).

Procedures:

After 2 familiarization sessions, the subjects worked up to a 1rm bench press on their third
session, and during their 4th session, they worked up to a 6rm for both band-resisted pushups and
bench press (half of them did pushups first, and the other half benched first to make sure exercise
order didnt affect the outcomes). During their 6rm test, EMG readings for their pec major and
anterior deltoid were recorded.

Band-resisted pushups

After that, they split the subjects into 3 groups. One group trained bench press for 5 weeks, one
group trained doing band-resisted pushups for 5 weeks, and the third was a control group.

The pushup and bench press group both trained with the 6rm load they established at the
beginning of the study, doing 5 sets of 6 each training day, twice per week.

The researchers controlled for basically everything that could have affected the outcomes.
Volume and intensity were identical, rest periods were timed (4 minutes between each set), hand
placement was standardized (50% wider than shoulder width) and enforced every set, and rep
cadence was standardized (2 seconds up and 2 seconds down). Read how intended rep speed can

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affect results here) ROM was dictated (elbows to 90 degrees. So at the bottom of each rep, the
bar was a couple inches off the chest/the chest was a couple inches off the floor for most people.
However, if youre a short-armed barrel-chested grizzly bear like myself, thats your normal
bench stroke. Yes, the bar rests on my chest when I do floor press.), and bench was done in the
smith machine to make sure technique was similar between subjects (i.e. there wouldnt be
differences from some people flaring their elbows and others tucking their elbow).
Im sure some people will read didnt touch their chest and bench in the smith machine and
throw the baby out with the bathwater. But thats how good research is done control as many
variables as possible to make sure that what youre studying is the thing making the difference,
not some unrelated variable that wasnt accounted for. However, I would be the first to admit
that what were getting out of this study (as with most studies) is a principle, not direct
application.

After 5 weeks, they hit new 1rms and 6rms on their bench press.

Results:

The EMG differences between bench press and pushups were negligible for both the pec major
and anterior deltoid.

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Additionally, there were no significant differences between 1rm and 6rm bench press for the two
groups at the start.

The pushup group and the bench press group saw similar strength increases for both 6rm and
1rm. The control group did not get any stronger, which should be expected. However, this study

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did something interesting the subjects were currently training when they started this study, and
were told they could continue training as they currently were, so long as the bench press and
pushup group didnt do any pec-dominant exercises or pushing movements. We can assume that
the control group, however, WAS still pressing in their training. So the fact that the control
group didnt get any stronger during the same time period that the two intervention groups made
substantial improvements speaks to the inadequacy of their training program.

Takeaways:
This study shouldnt be taken as a ringing vindication of using EMG at all times for all
purposes, but it did show that EMG can be used to draw a comparison between two
biomechanically similar movements. However, more dissimilar movements (i.e. squat vs.
deadlifts rather than bench press vs. pushups), or movements that are going to be performed with
different volumes (i.e. trapezius activity between Olympic lifts that you may do for 10-20 total
reps in a workout, and shrugs that you may do for many more reps), or through different ranges

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of motion (i.e. comparing hamstring activation in the RDL vs. the glute ham raise) should still be
approached with caution when trying to compare using EMG.
Also, I just want to point something out if you missed it in the procedures section. They found
these peoples 6rms, and made them do 5 freaking sets with the same load for the same 6 reps.
This isnt one of those exercise science studies where they put the subjects through a foo foo
training program that doesnt have any relevance to the real world. 5 sets of 6 with a true 6rm
would be somewhere between very difficult and impossible for most people. Since they could
actually perform all 5 sets, I think that speaks to their initial training status, though. With less
neural efficiency, they couldnt induce as much fatigue on each set, so they could keep the same
intensity across 5 sets, whereas if a 400 pound bencher hits a 6rm of 330 or so, I can promise you
they arent doing 4 more sets of 6 with 330 in the same workout.
Another interesting thing about this study (though Im not entirely sure what youd do with this
information) they didnt apply any sort of progressive overload. They had data that the initial
6rm loads resulted in similar muscle activation, so those are the same loads they stuck with for
the entire study. However, the average strength increase was ~20% in spite of doing the exact
same workout twice per week for 5 weeks. If someones fairly untrained to begin with, a fancy
lifting routine isnt required to make them stronger. Heck, progressive overload isnt even
required to make them stronger. Just making them work hard (and 56 at a 6rm load certainly
classifies as working hard!) is enough to make them stronger.

In terms of an interesting finding about EMG research itself, from the study:

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using EMG levels below the threshold of 60%MVIC has been considered ineffective to
produce strength adaptations, another relevant and novel finding in our study is that lower EMG
values (i.e., 52%MVIC) induced a high intensity stimulus, which were adequate to produce
muscle strength gains.

As an aside, assuming a threshold of 60%MVIC was required for strength gains, that would
mean the bench press with 6rm loads (~85% 1rm 52.7%MVIC in this study) would have been
ineffective in strengthening your pecs. Sorry Arnold, for science has spoken. Hopefully, this
study will cause people to reevaluate applicability of EMG research, since there are so many
other factors in play.
In terms of exercise selection if youre going on vacation or your gym is closed for a holiday
that coincides with Monday (international bench press day), dont lose any sleep over it. Just get
a heavy elastic band to provide resistance and you can still get a decent faux-bench workout in. It
would be a stretch (get it? Elastic band? Bad joke, and Im not sorry) to assume it would be as
effective for you if youre more highly trained than the subjects in this study, but itll do the job
well enough that you dont have to worry about losing all your hard earned gainz.

Another point worth bringing up is the difference between muscular strength and efficiency of
movement. Since these people clearly werent training optimally (as evidenced by the control
group that continued to train how they were previously without getting any stronger), they
probably didnt have an incredibly efficient bench press stroke. So getting stronger at pushups,
since theyre similar enough, transferred directly to a bigger bench at the end of the study.
However, if youre already very efficient, the transfer probably wouldnt be 1:1 as it was in this
study, even if you strengthened your muscles to the same extent doing a similar movement. We

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*may* be seeing that starting to occur with these subjects already via the % change in 6rm vs.
1rm. Both intervention groups increased their 6rm by essentially equivalent percentages (21% vs.
22%), but the bench press group increased their 1rm by a larger % than the pushup group (14%
vs. 20% though the difference didnt quite reach statistical significance), perhaps indicating
slightly larger improvements in efficiency.

Finally, and most importantly from an application standpoint, if you want to generally improve
your upper body strength, or youre training someone for a sport other than powerlifting, bandresisted pushups can get someone stronger effectively (more effectively than however these
study participants had been training for the past year or more, at least!). Since they allow the
scapulae to move through their normal range of motion (instead of being pinned to the bench) as
well, Id argue that heavy band-resisted pushups (along with other exercises that let your
scapulae move freely like push press, dips, and landmine press) will probably improve
performance more than bench press will. Just my 2 cents.

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MISCELLANEOUS
Making Sense of Strength
The Map is not the Territory

-Alfred Korzybski

For starters, I just want to be up front about the fact that the subjects covered in this post are very
vast subjects. There are dozens of very long, technical books written about them, and this post is
just a basic introduction.
Also, dont skip the abstract stuff. There are several concrete examples, but theyll make more
sense if you actually take the time to understand the conceptual bits.
With that out of the way, lets dive in.

Your body is insanely complex.

Humans, with all of our scientific knowhow and the aid of vast computational power from
supercomputers, have just reached the point of being able to model a single cell of the worlds
simplest organism. Were still a long way from having a comprehensive model for a single
human cell, let alone modeling, from the bottom up, how individual cells interact, or how entire
organs signal back and forth with each other, or how the human brain works in its entirety, or

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how it interacts with, influences, and is influenced by the other tissues of the body, and how we
interact with other complex organisms (each other) and our environment.
We, as a species, know a lot, and were quickly learning more every day. But we still have a long
way to go to understand all of the workings of a single one of our cells.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

A nihilist, when faced with this realization, would throw his hands in the air and lament,
compared to how much there is to know, we know effectively nothing. Theres no way to
understand all of this stuff, so why even try?
Luckily, Im not a nihilist, and I think that response is nonsense. Not knowing EVERYTHING
doesnt mean we dont know anything. Far from it. We know enough to treat many diseases, put
a man on the moon, and split the atom. Heck, hundreds of years ago Isaac Newton could
describe, with stunning accuracy, how the planets move the way they do with nothing but a
telescope and some calculus. We, as humans, are really good at doing a lot with astoundingly
little (relatively) information.
But, because we dont know everything, we have to construct models.
Models are our way of wrapping our minds around complex systems that we dont know
everything about, distilling them down to their most important features, and being able to have a
basic idea of how they work and being able to predict how theyll respond to various challenges
(stimuli or stressors).

A good model has three main features:

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1)

It captures enough of the systems complexity to be useful in describing how it works

and how it will respond.

2)

It accounts for few enough factors to actually be user-friendly

3)

It actually works

It captures enough of the systems complexity

I want to use the study Effect of squat depth and barbell load on relative muscular effort in
squatting by Bryanton et. Al. (2012) as a lens through which to see this issue.

The study is very straightforward and very well-done.

They researchers measured each subjects maximal plantar flexion, knee extension, and hip
extension strength.

Then the researchers got people to squat with weights from 50% to 90% of their 1rm squat,
working up in 10% increments.

They set up a camera directly to the side of the people when they were squatting, and analyzed
the net joint moment (NJM) for each joint at each point in the movement. NJM is the minimum
amount of torque necessary to keep the joint turning at the observed rate.
Then, with the NMJs determined, they calculated relative muscular effort (RME) a measure of
how much torque is required at each joint, relative to the maximal amount of torque the subjects
were capable of producing at that joint.

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Here were the results:

Notice how the solid line (calf muscles), is higher than the dotted line (quads) for almost the
entire movement

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Notice how similar all the trends on the left graph are.

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Just to break this all down a bit: Squat depth and barbell load affected how much torque was
required at the hips. Barbell load had the biggest effect on plantar flexion RME. Depth, but not
barbell load, increased knee extensor RME.
Just at face value, without understanding the limitations of this type of research, youd make a
couple surprising conclusions.

1. Ankle plantar flexor RME gets a lot closer to 100% than knee extensor RME. This would
effectively mean at face value that squats work your calves harder than they work
your quads.
2. Since barbell load didnt affect knee extensor RME, squats at 50% of your max would
train your quads just as hard as squats at 90% of your max.

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However, as the authors explain in the discussion section, thats clearly not whats going on.
Because, while RME provides a useful biomechanical model for analyzing a movement, there
are variables it doesnt account for.
Most saliently here its based on Net Joint Moments which are the minimum amounts of torque
required to keep movement going at that joint.
Heres the problem: we have pesky antagonist muscles that make sure were never only having
to produce the minimum required torque from our prime movers at any given joint.

For example, with the quads, although RME may be virtually identical between 50% and 90%,
since plantar flexor RME and hip extensor RME were increasing as the load increased, that
means the gastrocnemii and hamstrings were contracting harder and harder as the load increased.
The gastrocs are plantar flexors, but theyre also knee flexors. The hamstrings are hip extensors,
but theyre also knee flexors. So at 90%, although the nice tidy description of the physics of the
situation says the minimum amount of necessary torque at this joint hasnt changed from 50%,
in reality the quads DID continue having to work harder, because they were fighting against
more force from their antagonists.

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Hed stop smiling if he learned that science called and said all those squats
were doing nothing for his quads (sarcasm).

So, returning to our discussion about the usefulness and drawback of models, we can see that
models are only useful insofar as they account for enough complexity to make them a decent
enough approximation of whats actually happening and that you have to be aware of the
limitations of the model youre using so you dont come to a silly conclusions like squats at
50% are just as hard for your quads as squats at 90%.

In this study, the model took into account three important factors:

1)

The pure physics of the situation (net joint moments)

2)

How much torque the subjects were maximally capable of producing at each joint

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3)

The contributions of antagonistic muscles (though not quantified).

Just relying on RME, you come to less accurate conclusions because your model is accounting
for fewer factors (only the physics and maximal torque, without taking into account antagonists).
You decide that squats are a calf exercise more than a quad exercise.
Just relying on physics, you lose another variable maximal torque at each joint. You know how
much torque is required, but have no idea whether the resulting numbers are big or small because
you have nothing (maximal torque at each joint) to compare them to.

As each model accounts for fewer and fewer factors, it manages to account for less and less
complexity, and it becomes less and less useful.
In this instance the simplest model an analysis based purely on physics is useful for perhaps
pointing you in the right general direction of whats going on, and nothing more.

It accounts for few enough factors to actually be user-friendly

A perfect example here is calories in and calories out.

We all know calories in minus calories out equals caloric surplus or deficit equals weight loss.
While this may be true from the perspective of pure physics, things are a little fuzzier in the
human body its essentially impossible to pin down an exact value for either calories in or
calories out under reasonable conditions.

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Different macronutrients (carbs, fats, and proteins) take different amounts of energy to digest and
process in your body. They can also influence various hormones like leptin and thyroid
hormones that change your metabolic rate.

A caloric excess or deficit is met with regulatory responses from your body to naturally adjust
how active you are or how many calories your metabolism will burn at rest. Theyll also affect
hunger, which mediates how much food youll want to consume without forced self-restraint or
gluttony.
Not everything you eat is even absorbed by your body to be utilized as fuel you naturally
excrete a small percentage of what you eat, which can change a bit with dietary composition.
Furthermore, some foods will be used as fuel by your intestinal bacteria to a greater or lesser
extent, meaning more or less of it is actually left over to be used by YOU.

Of course, then you toss in the monkey wrench that nutritional labels only have to be within 20%
of the actual energetic values of the food and that regulation isnt always followed to a t by
food manufacturers or restaurants. So even if you COULD know what your body was going to
do with the food you ate, you still wouldnt ever know for sure exactly how many calories you
were putting in your body unless you made two identical meals, ate one, and tossed the other in a
bomb calorimeter.

Also, even if you could know the exact number of calories that were going into your body or
being expended by your body, other hormones like cortisol alter the relative amounts of each
type of fuel your body is using fatty acids, proteins, or carbohydrate. So being able to predict

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changes in weight with perfect accuracy still wouldnt mean you could predict changes in body
composition with dead-on precision.
Then, pressing further, you cant know exactly how many calories your body is expending in day
to day activities unless you live in a metabolic chamber in a lab. Different people display various
degrees of efficiency in movements, so two people who are the same size who run the same mile
will burn slightly different amounts of energy in doing so.

So am I proposing we throw the baby out with the bathwater and scrap CICO? Of course not!
What would we replace it with, or how would you improve it?

Could the model account for more complexity? Sure.

However, lets go back to the fact that for a model to be useful, it has to be user-friendly.

Attempting to account for ALL that complexity would make the model much less user-friendly.
You could fine-tune the calories in and the calories out sides of the equation if you burned your
feces in a calorimeter, accounted for fluctuations in lean and fat mass, measured the
concentrations of various hormones a few times per day, took your temperature at regular
intervals, and measured your daily activity by wearing an accelerometer all the timebut whos
going to do that.

There would be issues with gathering data (who wants to burn their poop and draw blood a few
times per day?), and there would be issues analyzing data (the equation would be quite a bit more
difficult to use than calories in calories out).

And, as a segue into the next topic, although CICO is not a perfect model, it works well enough.

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It actually works

This is what it all comes down to. Does the model work?
The first two factors accounting for enough complexity and being user-friendly, are necessary
factors, but they arent sufficient.

Any model, no matter how elegant or thorough it may appear, is ultimately of little value if it
doesnt actually describe the system well and lend itself to making predictions about that system
that are fairly accurate (or more accurate than a competing model).
You cant assume that a model is automatically a good model if it meets the first two criteria.
Heck, you cant even assume its an accurate model because it meets the first criterion, userfriendliness be damned (accounting for so much complexity that its no longer user-friendly).

Bringing this full circle, refer back to the initial part of this post about complexity and how little
we know.
If we simply dont know enough about a system, a model built on everything we know is still not
going to be a good model. Even if we know enough to construct a good model, if we need a
massive computer to account for enough factors to run the model, its still not going to be very
useful to a coach or an athlete in-the-moment in the gym.

Imagine you have a machine that you feed a number into and, through a massively complicated
algorithm you cant understand fully, it spits another number out the other side, and the number

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it spits out isnt always the same if you feed the same number into it repeatedly, though the
output usually falls within a reasonably small range of values.
For example, if you input 5, the machine may spit out 33, 37, 32, and 35, but not 2 or 13243.
Youre playing a game with a friend where you have to get the machine to spit out the biggest
number possible.
Through trial and error, you find a range of inputs that tend to results it high outputs. You dont
know WHY it works, but you know that it works.

Your friend, on the other hand, knows more about math and computer science than you, and he
does his best to figure out the algorithm. He constructs the best model he can to describe how the
machine will respond, based on what he knows, though he cant yet account for the full
complexity of the machines operation.

When you play the game, you consistently get the machine to produce higher values than your
friend does. His model looks better on paper (accounting for as much complexity as he possibly
can vs. simple trial and error), but yours is better at reliably getting the machine to produce
higher numbers.

This is the reality test. The ultimate usefulness of a model is not in its construction, but in its
results.

If trial and error produces better results than a model accounting for everything we know, there
may have been a problem with the actual construction of the model, or it may just be that we
dont know enough to construct an adequately good model.

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You see this in exercise technique and program design a lot.

Theres nothing wrong with trying to build a model for ideal exercise technique, or proper
program design. But does it produce results? Does it produce better results than competing
models?
If its been tried and its failed, its not a good model, the elegance or complexity of it be
damned.
If its been tried and it works better than the other models out there, its a better model even if it
seems rudimentary or simplistic on paper.
If it simply hasnt been tried, you have to treat it as an untested hypothesis you cant assert that
it would work better than the other things out there, because what should work isnt always what
does work (refer to the multitude of cant-miss drugs that fail badly when put through human
trials).

A bit about humility

So, going back to CICO, even though there are a lot of factors it doesnt account for, is it a good
model? YES! Because it simply works. It produces results that are within 5-10% of what would
be predicted by the model in the vast, vast majority of cases. For a model as simple as CICO,
trying to describe the behavior of an enormously complex system, perfection is an unrealistic
standard 5-10% is truly exceptional.

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However, we cant forget what were dealing with.

We are dealing with models.

Models are not the system. Models approximate the system and its behavior.

Models help us wrap our minds around and work with a set of factors, circumstances, and
interactions that cant be (at this time, potentially ever) fully known. Building and using effective
models helps inform practice and helps us make useful predictions, but they are not Fact. They
are not Truth.

They are maps, of varying degrees of quality. Your body and the world it interacts with are the
territory. A perfect map of the USA doesnt tell you what its like to be American.
As such, dont fall into the lazy intellectual trap of treating your model as the facts about the
situation. It simply helps you deal with facts that arent fully known.
Your body changes day to day, and it wont respond exactly the same way to an identical
stimulus if it meets it twice. Your body is different from someone elses, and theirs wont
respond exactly the same way yours does.
Its usually weak people who try to argue that one exercise technique or one program is the best.
Chasing optimal is a fools errand.
There are very few raw lifters who Id instruct to squat as wide as I do, but I have hips that let
me drop into an almost-full split with no stretching, but that go bone-on-bone with very little
straight-ahead flexion.

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This is what my hips do with no stretching whatsoever. This is a very comfortable position for
me. If thats not the case for you, you probably shouldnt squat like I do.
There are very few lifters who Id recommend to squat heavy once every other week in pursuit of
a 1000 pound squat like Eric Lilliebridge.
If you construct models and treat them as Truth, youd think I squat wrong (still the highest raw
drug-free squat at 242 all-time), and youd think Eric Lilliebridge programs wrong (totaled 2000
when he was a teenager, and highest raw total of all-time at 275).
Ive never had a strong person (someone who understands what it takes to actually get results)
tell me I should squat differently, and I doubt Eric has ever had a strong person tell him he
should program differently.

Your model (exercise technique, program, diet plan, etc.) may be a useful approximation of the
facts for a lot of people, but its not the best for everyone, and its not the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth.

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This is not to say that everything comes down to trial and error. Its not the nihilist we cant
know, so why bother, position. Gathering more facts and trying to build progressively better
models as we learn more and more is a worthwhile pursuit. If we ever get to the point that we
CAN model the human body from the bottom-up, it will doubtlessly save us a lot of time and
resources in just about every branch of biological science. If we COULD build a model from the
bottom up (taking into account individual differences) for proper exercise technique, it would
save people a lot of trial and error and frustration.
But for the time being, were not there. Learn, experiment, build models, test hypotheses, and
troubleshoot, but be humble about your conclusions.

More than anything, never lose sight of the single most important question: Does it work?

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Unleash Your Inner Superhero

Key Points:
1) Your beliefs influence your physiology directly, and the choices you make. In these ways, they strongly
influence your training success.
2) These effects have been noted in almost every area thats relevant to your performance and progress.
3) Mental hang-ups can harm your success just like a bad training program or diet can. Remove them to
unleash your inner superhero.

Beliefs have consequences.

Usually this statement is a segue into a discussion about how its important to use reliable criteria
for coming to beliefs about the world, because beliefs motivate action, and our actions affect
others. More often than not, its a launching point for a (typically condescending)
discussion/diatribe about some political or religious issue. Thats not what this article is about.

This is an article about the beliefs you hold, and how they influence your ability to make sweet,
sweet gainz.
As Ive talked about before, its not appropriate to try to sum up who you are and the results you
get from training solely by describing physiological processes. Obviously those things are
important, but they arent everything. (I realize theres an argument that can be made for strict
determinism, but I think we can all agree that regardless of that philosophical possibility, we
dont know nearly enough about the body to describe it yet in such terms.) What you think, what
you expect, and what you believe about yourself can make a huge impact on your progress.

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Training

In my recent article on steroids, the majority of the feedback I got was about the section
discussing the placebo effect. The purpose of this article is to go a little deeper down that rabbit
hole to explore other ways your beliefs influence your training outcomes.
Just to rehash the bit about steroids, placebo studies have shown you can get steroid-like
strength gains from simply thinking youre on steroids. In one study, experienced lifters gained
4x the strength in about half the time (100 pounds in 4 weeks, vs. 22 pounds in 7 weeks, across 5
exercises) because they thought they were taking steroids. In another, national-level powerlifters
put an average of 10-12kg (22-26 pounds) on each of their lifts (squat, bench, and deadlift) on
the very same day because they thought they were given a fast-acting steroids. Two week later,
when half were told it was a sham, their new strength gains vanished, while those who still
thought they were on steroids managed to hit similar lifts again.

When people thought they were taking steroids, they believed they were going to get
substantially strongerand they did. Some of them were able to lift more on the very same day
(putting about 70 pounds on their powerlifting total), and some of them gained strength at ~7
times the rate they had been, on the exact same training plan.

For a more anecdotal treatment of this same topic, you may like this article from about 18
months ago. (My views on some of these things have evolved since then, but the overall
message is still a good one, I think).

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Nutrition
But your mind isnt just powerful when it comes to strength gains. It could also play a role in
diet success.

In one study, participants all drank a 380 calorie milkshake. However, the researchers put
different labels on the milkshakes. One of the labels said it was 620 calories, and the labeling
portrayed it as delicious and indulgent. The other label said it was a scant 140 calories, and was
a sensible, figure-conscious choice.
After drinking the milkshakes, the researchers monitored the participants ghrelin levels (a
hormone associated with hunger the higher your ghrelin, the hungrier you feel), and their
feelings of fullness and satiety. The group that thought they drank an indulgent 620 calorie
milkshake had steep drops in ghrelin, and reported being quite full and satiated, whereas the
group thinking they drank the sensible 140 calorie milkshake maintained fairly consistent ghrelin
levels, and reported being hungrier.

Even though they drank the exact same milkshake, they had different expectations of how the
milkshake would affect them. Its not overly surprising that they reported less hunger (a
psychological phenomenon expectancy affecting another psychological phenomenon
perception of hunger), BUT they also had different ghrelin responses. The expectation didnt
just alter psychological parameters, but physiological ones as well.
Its very likely that the best way to make dieting suck is to expect it to suck, and that expecting it
to be more pleasant can actually make it so.

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Pain

So your beliefs can affect your performance in the gym and your dieting success (assuming
hunger influences how well you stick to a diet). They can also affect whether or not you hurt.

In recent years, people have come to new understandings about what pain actually is. The old
idea was that pain was solely about tissue damage, and that degree of tissue damage scaled pretty
much linearly with the amount of pain you felt. For example, if your quad is undamaged, its not
going to hurt. If the muscle experiences a little damage from intense training, itll be sore. If
you push too hard and partially tear it, its going to hurt a lot. If something really bad happens
and you have a full rupture, things are going to be pretty excruciating.
However, its been revealed that pain is a much more complicated phenomenon than that,
because pain isnt in your tissues. Its a perception generated by your brain, after taking into
account a host of different inputs. Some of these inputs are from the tissues themselves,
obviously (usually by way of nociceptive fibers), but other factors such as your mood, social
situation, and expectations also influence IF you feel pain, and HOW MUCH pain you feel.

If you really want to dig deeper into this topic, check out the resources and studies here. If you
want the quick and dirty version, Id highly suggest this article, or this podcast. These are some
highlights, though:

1) Up to 40% of people in the ER for massive injuries feel no pain from their injuries

2) Large numbers of people have injuries like bulging discs or torn menisci, in spite of feeling no
pain whatsoever.

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3) Putting people in a situation where they expect to feel pain can make them feel pain, even if
there is no activation of the nociceptive nerve fibers themselves.
4) Simply explaining what pain is, and that its not synonymous with tissue damage, can
decrease the perceptions of pain in many people.
Heres why this is so important for athletes, and especially coaches: since pain is based, at least
in part, on expectations, you can increase the chances that you or your athletes experience pain
needlessly because of the nocebo effect. The nocebo effect is sort of like the crappy version of
the placebo effect. With the placebo effect, you expect good things to happen, so good things
happen. With the nocebo effect, you expect bad things to happen, so bad things happen.

A recent meta-analysis found that the nocebo effect could have a moderate to large effect on how
much pain someone experiences. Because of this, Im of the opinion that using fear of injury to
get someone to perform an exercise correctly should be your very last resort. For example, if
someones knees are caving in when they squats, instead of saying theyre going to hurt
something (ACL, MCL, meniscus, etc.), use performance-based language. Tell them that if they
keep their knees out, they can get their hips more involved in the movement and squat more, or
something of that nature. Now, it may be true that what theyre doing is increasing their risk of
injury (tissue damage), but you dont need to beat them over the head with it, because you could
wind up giving them knee pain by influencing their beliefs, even if they never end up
experiencing a real injury. There may be a time and place to eventually say to an especially
stubborn individual, stop doing that exercise that way, or youre headed for snap city, but that
should be your last resort, not your first.

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Willpower
In recent years, its been en vogue to tout the research about ego depletion. Ego depletion is
the idea that willpower is a limited resource that can be used up. If you use too much of your
willpower resisting the urge to punch your coworker in the face, youll be more apt to splurge on
your diet, because you wont have enough willpower to resist the cheesecake in your fridge. If
you use all your willpower dialing in your diet, you wont have enough left to really push
yourself in the gym.

However, new research is calling that notion into question. Your beliefs about how much
willpower you have and how willpower works (i.e. whether it can be depleted or is essentially
unlimited) can actually affect how much willpower and restraint youre capable of displaying.

Behavior change strategies built around notions of ego depletion have been very effective,
though. Its not a concept to completely discard by any means. These strategies usually involve
limiting how many hard choices you have to make every day that might sap your willpower. For
example, if youre on a diet, but you have a box of cookies sitting on the counter or a cake in the
fridge, every time you see those things, you have to choose to not eat them, even if youre
craving them. So to mitigate the effects of ego depletion, you might only buy things that are on
your diet, so that you arent constantly seeing stuff around your house that you shouldnt be
eating. You have to make good choices when youre at the grocery store shopping, but you
dont have to make those same choices multiple times per day when youre at home. When its
time to indulge, you might either go out, or buy a quantity of indulgent food that you plan on
eating in one sitting. Its based on making it as easy to succeed as possible, rather than making it
easier to fail.

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However, if you can adopt strategies like that without also subscribing to the notion that your
willpower is a fragile, limited resource, you may be even better off yet. Think of yourself as
someone with infinite willpower and restraint, but still adopt strategies that make it easy to make
good choices and hard to make bad choices, and youre getting the best of both
worlds. Focusing too much on the concept of ego depletion may actually be a nocebo of its own,
artificially limiting how much willpower youd otherwise be able to use.

Who you are

We all tell ourselves stories. Theyre important for us to frame our concept of who we are. We
dont remember and survey all of the events in our lives and every thought weve ever had, and
treat them as a totally flat landscape. We pick out the ones we find the most important, and
assign meaning to them to frame who we think we are as individuals. Those events and thoughts,
and the values you ascribe to them, inform who you see yourself as, and what you think youre
capable of.
The important thing about this process is that its not an objective process by any stretch of the
imagination. We pick and choose what we weight more heavily, those decisions influence what
were more apt to remember, and the whole narrative informs where you think youre capable of
achieving. The exact same set of circumstances could be viewed through entirely different
lenses, crafting two entirely different personal narratives.

You see this a lot in people who were raised in tough situations. Some people see it as a
challenge to rise up and overcome, and every little step up the totem pole frames them as
someone whos capable of beating the odds and continuing on an upward trajectory. Chris

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Duffin, an amazing powerlifter and all-time world record holder in the squat in the 220 class,
seems to typify this personal narrative and orientation toward the world. Other people see it as a
world where the deck is stacked against them, theyre the victims of things outside their control,
and they can never hope to rise up. This seems to be the case of a lot of people who feel caught
in the vicious cycle of poverty (for good reason). The truth (though obviously its contextspecific, and a multitude of things factor in) is probably somewhere in the middle there are a
lot of ways people are more privileged and have more opportunities than others, but there are
almost always opportunities for people who are willing to take risks, work hard, and arent
beaten down by the world.

The important thing about personal narratives is that they tend to be self-perpetuating due to
confirmation biases. We tend to seek out and remember information that confirms thoughts we
already have about the world, and forget or avoid information that conflicts with what we think
and believe in the interest of minimizing cognitive dissonance.

A lot of this has to do with the idea of your locus of control. Locus of control is basically your
concept of who is in charge of your life. Is what happens to you a simple result of the actions
you take and the choices you make, or is it the result of more powerful forces you cant do
anything about? Someone with an internal locus of control is someone who ascribes their
successes to their hard work, and their failures to their own shortcomings. Someone with an
external locus of control is someone who ascribes their successes to luck, and their failures to
other people, outside forces, or the fact that the task was too hard. Again, neither of these is
right or wrong in any objective sense. Its more a lens you use to understand the events in
your life.

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This is important to us (athletes and coaches), because it can have a lot to do with success in
athletic pursuits. For example, theres not a significant difference between people with an
internal and external locus of control in regards to how anxious they get about competition, but
people with an internal locus of control tend to interpret the pre-competition jitters as a good
thing something that will help them perform better whereas people with an external locus of
control interpret the same feelings as something that will harm their performance, psyching them
out. Also, people with an internal locus of control are more apt to make decisions that will
benefit future performance, such as sticking to a rehab protocol following injury.

It is worth noting, as well, that locus of control is domain-dependent. Some people can feel in
control of their athletic pursuits, but out of control in the rest of their lives, or vice versa you
may feel like you are in control of your job and social life, but out of control in the gym. Im not
a psychologist so Im not even going to touch the rest of your life stuff, but as a coach its my
job to help foster this self-concept in the gym (strategies for doing so would be an entirely
different article, however). Help your athletes come to expect success, see their outcomes as a
results of their own hard work, and feel like theyre in control of their results when theyre
dealing with stagnation or injury, so theyll be more motivated to do everything within their
power to continually reap the rewards they expect from their hard work.

Your inner superhero

Everyone has both physical and mental limits. The physical limits arent worth losing sleep
over, because you really cant do anything about them. If something is outside the realm of
possibility with the genetic hand you were dealt, its just not happening, and theres really not
anything you can do about it.

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However, the thing about physical limits is that you have absolutely no freaking idea what they
are. Although differences in genetic potential are very real, you dont know what hand you were
dealt until you play it, and play it with the expectation that its a good one.
Adopt ideas that help you along the way, rather than holding you back. As weve seen from
placebo research, pain research, nutrition research, and willpower research, the things you think
have a huge impact on the results you achieve. Since the story you tell about yourself isnt true
or false in any objective sense, tell yourself one that gives you a ton of potential, and that puts
you in control of your life and your results.

The first step is simply to be aware of how powerful your beliefs and expectations can be. That
was the purpose this article was meant to serve.
Obviously you cant chalk it all up to psychology physiological factors are very real, and you
cant simply out-think a poor program or diet. But these psychological factors interact with
and influence physiological factors in a really major way. You cant focus solely on one set of
factors while ignoring the other.
Remember your successes without getting cocky, dont dwell on your failures, and put yourself
in situations that make it easy for you to think of yourself as a winner. Dont do programs that
drain your confidence, dont make it harder on yourself to make good food choices, and dont
think of yourself as someone with feeble amounts of willpower and restraint. Dont concern
yourself with things that are outside your control (like your genetic draw), and always assume
the sky is the limit, and that your own choices and hard work are the way to get you there.

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When I talk about Unleashing your Inner Superhero, I dont necessarily mean that anyone is
capable of accomplishing anything. Your Inner Superhero is you without mental shackles. It is
what your body is capable of, with the help of facilitative ideas and beliefs, rather than the
burden of debilitative ones. Because of how psychological factors can impact your physiology,
the simple act of believing your training plan or diet will be effective will increase the odds that
it will be. Unleashing your Inner Superhero starts with believing you have an Inner Superhero to
unleash.

Finally, to bring this full circle, beliefs motivate actions. Your beliefs have their own innate
power, as can be seen in the milkshake study, the placebo steroid study where people got 5%
stronger on the very same day, and much of the pain research. However, your beliefs also affect
how you behave, and whether youre willing to do the things necessary to reach your goals. If
you feel in control of your results, youll take the proper steps to set yourself up for further
success. I think thats what were seeing in the placebo steroid study where the participants
gained strength at a ~7x greater rate, and it also seems to be implied by locus of control research.

If you really feel like you are capable of doing great things on the power of your own hard work
(especially if you dont think your willpower to make good choices is a precious, limited
resource that youll run out of by working too hard), it motivates you to take the appropriate
actions to reach your goals and make the progress you want. If you feel like youre a slave to
misfortune, blaming genetics, other people, or circumstances, youre almost certainly
shortchanging yourself and limiting how many sweet gainz youre going make by imposing false
mental limits on yourself.

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Achieving your goals starts not just with a plan of attack, but also with a deep belief that the plan
of attack will be successful.

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What it Takes to Break World Records

This is something I feel like I need to say
And I dont mean that in a this needs to be said, so I may as well say it, way. I mean it in a, It
does not benefit me to say this, and I benefit from not saying it, so I feel like Im the one who is
supposed to say it because then people will actually listen, way.

This is what it really takes to be the best and set records in powerlifting.
I dont broadcast this, so a lot of people even consistent readers are unaware that Ive held
three all-time records in powerlifting. Not federation records in some obscure division, but no
one in this weight class in this style of lifting in any federation has ever lifted this much records.
Two have since been broken my 1714 total with no drugs or knee wraps at 220 pounds, and my
1885 total with no drugs at 242. My 750 squat at 242 is still on the books
(powerliftingwatch.com hasnt updated their records to reflect it yet, so for all I know its already
been broken with another lift that hasnt been recorded yet, but its still the record to the best of
my knowledge), but it wouldnt surprise me to see it fall soon. But, for a time, I was at the very
top of the world of drug free powerlifting in two different divisions.
I dont say any of this to brag (youll see why in the rest of the article), its not something I bring
up more than is necessary (also to be elaborated on), and Ive never sought sponsorship for more
exposure.

Why not?

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Thats the purpose of this article. People wonder what its like to be one of the best, Im going to
tell you, and youre going to be disappointed. But thats okay, because then youll understand.

What did it take for me to break records? Train consistently, identify weaknesses, and avoid
injury. Yes, that was entirety of the revolutionary strategy that helped me get to the top.

First, a bit about my background.

My parents got me a weight set when I was 10. It was a small bar (not an Olympic bar) that
could only hold 200 pounds. I rushed down on Christmas morning, and, as any true future bro
would do, I maxed out on everything. That first morning, I bench pressed 150 and deadlifted all
200 pounds with ease.
Fast forward 4 years. I barely used that little weight set because I wasnt allowed to bench
without a spotter (which was rarely available), and I could deadlift all the weight I had basically
until I got bored. Finally I had access to the high school weight room with full-size Olympic bars
and plates. At a bodyweight somewhere around 165-170, I benched 275 and deadlifted 425 that
first day in the weight room keep in mind that Id done both movements maybe a dozen times
in my life, spread over a 4 year period prior to that point untrained for all intents and purposes.

I took up powerlifting seriously a year later after some concussions knocked me out of basketball
and football. I did a little local meet with no training leading up to it and broke the state records.
I learned about the 100% raw federation soon after, checked out their record books for my age
and weight, and thought, oh, I can break all those records now, so over the next few months, I
did.

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At this time, my training was incredibly stupid. Imagine the ignorance of youth combined with
the added arrogance of breaking records with minimal effort, and youll have a pretty good idea
of how insufferable and closed off to critique and criticism 15 and 16 year old Greg was. My
training routine was a high volume, high intensity, high frequency, high band tension, high
accessory work, high disregard for life, limb, and proper form monstrosity. And with it, I
managed to squat mid-500s, bench 400, and deadlift 600 not long after turning 16 at a
bodyweight hovering around 195-205.

I got hurt pretty badly not long after, and proceeded to get pretty bad rehab (I had a torn QL, but
they didnt actually figure that out until I was on my 4th physical therapist). Combine that with
the fact that I jumped right back into training full bore every time a PT gave me the green light,
re-aggravating the injury within a couple weeks, and you wind up with a very frustrating year.
Finally, I just gave up lifting for a while.

I went from being a pretty good athlete to being a pretty good powerlifter, to being a lazy fat
slob. I realized one day that I used to be able to run a 5 minute mile, but was having issues
walking up stairs or standing up off the ground. I was 260. That wasnt cutting it. I basically
stopped eating, started doing a ton of cardio, and had a strength training routine consisting of
only bodyweight pushups and pullups. At the end of 4 months of less than 1000 calories per day,
I was 190 and could do 40 strict bodyweight pullups. From there, I started powerlifting again at
ground zero. Ground zero was a pretty easy 405 deadlift and 275 bench and (my memory is hazy
on this one) either a 275 or 315 squat.
I got back to my old PRs pretty quickly mid 500s squat, 400ish bench, 600ish deadlift.

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After that, I took up a program of daily maxes for squat and bench. I put 100 pounds on my squat
and 30 on my bench in 12 weeks, leading up to my 1714 world record at 220.

I was lazy for about 4 months, registered for another meet, trained hard for about 5 months, and
put another ~70 pounds on my squat, 10 on my bench, and 80 on my deadlift for my 750 squat
and 1885 total at 242.
Ive since squatted 755 without wraps and benched 475. The squat progress came from working
up to a 10rm one week, 8rm the next, 5rm the next, and then starting over until I was pretty sure I
was good for a big squat PR. The bench PR came after 3 months of not benching. I did some
overhead work, and some weight dips for a few months, laid back down on the bench, and PRed
3 weeks later.
During all this time, Ive used a variety of training styles. Just about any program out there with
a name (Sheiko, 5/3/1, Westside, etc.), daily maxes, basic linear periodization, and just screwing
around and doing what sounded like fun for a month or two at a time. Ive also tried a variety of
different diets. I was eating strict keto for most of my prep leading up to 1714, and a more carbcentric IIFYM approach for 1885.

As long as I was consistently challenging myself, recovering effectively (sleeping/minimizing

stress), and not getting hurt, I got stronger, regardless of the methods I was using.
I used to want to pin the success on small factors. Ah hah! I added 100 pounds to my squat
doing daily maxes! Well yeah, that helped. It was basically a crash course in REALLY teaching
my body how to squat. But keep in mind I squatted 545 with god-awful form before my body
had any idea of how to squat. I also got a lot of mileage out of breathing paused squats (for both

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squat and deadlift), but that only worked because I had another glaring weakness super strong
legs and a relatively weak torso.

I just lifted weights, practiced the movements, addressed weaknesses, stayed healthy, and broke
world records.

No secret formula.
The thing that people, especially other people in my position, dont want to come to terms with is
that innate genetic factors are hugely important. I wanted to believe I was the strongest because I
was so smart and worked so hard.

Nonsense. I think I understand training pretty well, and when my training is focused for a meet I
do work very hard, but those are small factors compared the more salient issues.

My first day with a real weight set when I was 14, I hit numbers that some people work years for.
In my first year of real (incredibly stupid) training, I hit bigger numbers than most people will in
their entire life. The former didnt have a damn thing to do with how hard Id worked on the
weights, and the latter didnt have a damn thing to do with how much I knew about training.

The more I learned, the better I became at identifying weaknesses and staying healthy. That may
be what pushed me over the edge from really strong to world records, but I promise you that
it will not push you from average to world records.

I could benefit from (and people like me do benefit from) tacitly implying that we can make you
as strong as we are, or that we know some sort of secret. Thats nonsense. If youre as gifted for
strength as I am, I can make you as strong as I am. If you arent, I cant.

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The range of natural ability really becomes obvious when you start working with general
population clients. A lot of powerlifting coaches never see this because they give off a very
elitist if you dont squat 500 why are you even talking to me? Just push yourself harder, pussy,
vibe. I do my best to be down to earth and approachable, though, so I get a lot of very average
clients. I also get a lot of very gifted clients. I put just as much time and effort into both groups.
Ive had an experienced lifter in his 40s put 30 pounds on his deadlift in 10 weeks for his first
triple bodyweight pull. Ive had an experienced lifter put 115 pounds on her deadlift (345 to 460)
in 12 weeks while losing 20 pounds. My sister-in-law pulled 380 at 18 years old with the most
basic program imaginable (she only lifted 2 days per week, with relatively low volume because
she was in-season focusing on volleyball).
Ive also had very average people come to me barely benching bodyweight wanting to get a
second wheel on the bar, or desperately wanting to squat 315 at 200 pounds, or gunning for their
first 400 deadlift after 3 or 4 years of consistent training. And they also make progress, slowly
but surely. The game is the same, they work just as hard, but the results are dramatically
different.

We like to believe that anyone can be the best if they work hard enough. At least for my
American readers, thats something woven deep into our cultural mythos. Theres nothing you
cant do if you put your nose to the grindstone and apply a little elbow grease.
Such notions are furthered by Malcolm Gladwells famous 10,000 hour rule all it takes is
10,000 hours of focused practice to achieve greatness. However, recently that idea has been, if
not totally debunked, at least shaken significantly. We want, so badly, to believe that people who

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have achieved have done so solely because of their efforts. While practice and effort do
CERTAINLY matter, you cant use them at a catch-all to explain the entirety (one could even
argue the majority) of someones success.

If most people did the things I have done to reach the level of strength that I have, they would
probably improve, but that would not make them lift as much as I do. If a perfectly genetically
average person (assuming that exists) was twice as smart about training and worked twice as
hard as me, I would still lift more.

One of the things that really struck me as I started reading more and more research was just how
strong the average person is. If I open a study, look at the subject characteristics, and see
untrained, I usually just close it. I look for at least moderately trained, and usually trained,
or highly trained people who have been lifting consistently, at least 3 days per week, for at
least a year or more.

A common measure of strength is bench press max. Especially since most of these studies are
conducted on college-aged males, you can safely assume that if theyve been lifting for at least a
year, there was a gratuitous amount of bench press work included for most of them.
A pretty typical average 1rm in these studies is 70-80kg. Ive seen a couple in the 90-100kg
range, but I dont think Ive ever seen a study not using competitive powerlifters with an average
bench press max of even 125kg.
Sure, they probably havent had a perfectly thought-out and periodized strength training
program, but these people who have been in a weight room for at least a year, presumably bench

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pressing like any red blooded American males, are nowhere close to strong by powerlifting
standards.
Thats one reason I abhor strength standards tables, particularly when they use words like
novice, intermediate, and advanced. Especially because many people (most, perhaps)
assume theres a strong correlation between the category and the experience/knowledge of the
lifter.
Bro, youve been lifting 2 years and youre still not an intermediate? Whats wrong with you?
Train harder and drink more milk, bro.

That makes my blood boil. Strength standards may be useful for football players or competitive
athletes, to connote if you cant squat this, youll probably get wrecked on the football field or
if you cant deadlift your bodyweight, you probably wont be competitive at a powerlifting
meet, but not for applying to the general strength training population.

It makes a lot of ungifted but knowledgeable people feel inferior (Some of the brightest people
Im working with currently are some of the weakest theyve been reading so much about how
to get stronger because theyve been led to believe they must be doing something wrong!), and it
gives dumb, gifted lunks (16 year old Greg) a false sense of superiority.

There is another salient factor in play here that skews our perception of how strong most people
are.
You have to take into account selection bias who is actually lifting weights? People tend to
gravitate toward mastery activities; they find something theyre naturally good at, and then find

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it rewarding to continue trying to improve in that area. Most people who have minimal aptitude
for strength training probably lift weights a couple times, realize theyre not very good at it, and
give it up for something else.
So, in all likelihood, these averages are already based on the typical attainment of a population
with above-average natural aptitude. Very few people who are lousy at something and have
extreme difficulty improving are going to stick with that activity long-term. Someone in the
bottom quintile of strength for day-to-day gym lifters (not even competitive lifters) is probably
well above the median of the population as a whole, both in terms of natural aptitude and actual
strength.
This isnt to say that theres absolutely no validity at all in claiming a certain degree of expertise
because of your achievements.
Some people probably just tensed up, ready to shout APPEAL TO AUTHORITY at their
computer screen. Cool your jets.
While thats certainly a logical fallacy, such fallacies are only particularly problematic in a
deductive argument when youre trying to prove something. In 99.99% of strength training
discussions, youre dealing with probability more than proof.

If you asked a dozen 700 pound squatters a question and a dozen 300 pound squatters a question,
youll probably get on average more useful answers form the 700 pound group. This isnt to say
there arent some people who are strong and still idiots, or that plenty of weaker people arent
very bright about training (Ive already acknowledged both of those things). But lets say you
squat 400 now. Dont you think youll know more about squatting and training the squat when

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you squat 500? So while stronger does not equal smarter in all discrete cases when comparing
two individuals (so dont think you know nothing if youre weaker, or that youre the omniscient
god of training because youre strong), there will be that general trend.
One more thing Id like to tie into this my total ambivalence about drugs. People recoil against
drugs because they say steroids make it an uneven playing field. I laugh at that, because it
implies the playing field was ever level in the first place. Genetic differences make the playing
field much less level than drugs ever could. I havent checked their standings recently, but my
drug free world records were all top-10 or 15 all-time for untested lifts as well. Quite a few
USAPL and IPF (drug tested) lifters have all-time world records regardless of drug usage, or are
within 5-10% of those records.
Also, something I didnt realize until I started making more connections in the strength world a
lot of the guys you assume are on drugs are clean, or on amazingly little. A lot of fairly weak
people are on everything and the kitchen sink. A lot of people who are on drugs now were
already astoundingly strong before they touched anything (cant name names of obvious legal
reasons, so dont ask). Sure, drugs make a difference, but they dont make as big of a difference
as people like to think.
Obviously, since there are federations in powerlifting that allow you to take drugs, I think its
ethically wrong to compete in a drug-tested division if youre on. However, to be entirely honest
about it, although thats an ethical conviction I hold, its not one that I particularly care about. No
one makes a living off powerlifting. Its not like the drug cheat in a tested division is taking food
off the second place guys table. Hes a jerk, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesnt matter
enough for me to REALLY get fired up about it.

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One final thing Id like to touch on. Where you start is a poor indicator of your genetic potential.
Someone may say Oh, look how much Ive accomplished, and Im not genetically blessed at all.
I was so weak and small and I broke all of these records in spite of my poor genetic draw.
Nonsense.
Id like to introduce you to my friend Eze. I have never met an adult male weaker on his first day
in the weight room. He literally could not bench the bar. I dont mean that hyperbolically. He
tried to bench press the barbell, and couldnt. He also could not deadlift 225. Not only could he
not lift it he couldnt even break it off the ground. He was amazingly, astoundingly weak.

Prior to lifting and learning that Nickelback is garbage.

Five years later, he benches 355 pounds, clean and jerks ~160kg, snatches ~130kg, pulls in the
500s, and is one of the most muscular drug free athletes I know of. He rocks sub-12% body fat
year-round at a bodyweight between 205 and 210 (when last I checked. Note I dont train Eze,
so Im not trying to take credit for his progress. Just using him as an example).

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He doesnt train any differently from the other athletes at the same gym. Actually, hes
considerably lazier than quite a few of them. But hes one of the best lifters in the bunch, and he
easily has the most jacked physique.

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Some people start out with a lot of strength (like me), and others gain strength and muscle
quickly after a low initial starting point (like Eze), but you do not accomplish truly exceptional
things in strength sports without the right parents.
One last caveat: But Greg, isnt this post horribly condescending? Youre basically saying that
youre an ubermensch, the best are just going to be the best, and theres nothing anyone else can
do about it. Could you possibly be more elitist?
Im expecting this criticism, but I think it comes out of a horribly skewed value system. No one
is better than someone else because they can lift more weight on a barbell. There is much, much
more to life than a big total. If anything, this is an egalitarian position. If theres a value
judgment to be extracted from this rambling article, its precisely that Im no better than you
because I lift more. Its not like Im saying, Im more empathetic than you, and theres nothing
you can do about it, or, I have more close meaningful relationship than you, and theres
nothing you can do about it. That would be condescending because those are things that
actually matter.

Quite the contrary. I have a lot of aptitude for lifting heavy barbells. Our destinations may be
different, but the journey is the same thats the piece that really matters.

This should only be interpreted as elitist if your self-worth comes from how much weight you
can lift, and you project that same value system onto others. And if you do, the way youre
assessing personal value isnt too different from a teenage (literal or metaphorical) dick
measuring contest.

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So, getting back to the original subject what its like breaking world records, and how you have
to train for it.
Well, in all honesty, its not all that different from how you probably train. Be consistent, stay
healthy, pick exercises that have the biggest carryover to performance (practice your main lifts
and choose accessory exercises that address weaknesses), and aim for measurable progress over
weeks or months.
If youre reading, learning, training, and improving, youre doing it right. The better goal is to be
a progressively better you, not to be better than everyone else. For one thing, its attainable for
everyone, not just people like me who picked the right parents. For two, if you did get the lucky
draw, by trying to constantly be a stronger you, the records will take care of themselves.

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The Science of Steroids

Steroids are a very taboo subject in our culture. They are Schedule III controlled substances,
meaning they are illegal to own without a prescription, and illegal to distribute unless you are an
MD. Furthermore, they are banned in almost all athletic competitions (with the exceptions being
some untested strength sports). This is not meant to be read as an article condoning steroid use.
They carry numerous short-term risks (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, liver toxicity, etc.),
with the potential for long-term risks (atherosclerosis, infertility, hypogonadism, etc.) dependent
on the particular compounds used, the dosages, and the duration you take them. Anyone who
knows anything about steroids has probably heard about the risks they carry, so Im not going to
beat you over the head with that.

With that standard disclaimer out of the way, I still think steroids are worth having frank, open
discussions about, for two main reasons.

Theyre really interesting.

People are going to use anyway, so they may as well be informed.

In fact, as of 2002, 4% of high school students were willing to self-report that they had used
steroids, and that number was trending upwards. If I had to take a guess, that number is probably
low since people are known to underreport their involvement in socially undesirable behavior,
even if they know theyll remain anonymous.

Other surveys indicate that between 1-3 million Americans use steroids. For context, there are
about 60 million people with gym memberships in the country, and 2/3 of those people never go
to the gym, taking the number of actual gym goers down to about 20 million. If we assume that

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the people using steroids are actually working out, that means that between 1 in 20 and 1 in 6
people you see in the gym are on, or have at least tried, steroids. Its hard to pin down an exact
number because these types of surveys about illegal behavior are notoriously unreliable, but its
safe to say that its certainly a not a negligible proportion of the gym going population.
Odds are, whether theyre open about it or not, you know someone on steroids.
(If youre interested in understanding the basic physiology of how steroids work, then just
keep reading from here. If you already know it, or if it doesnt interest you, skip ahead a
couple pages to the subheading Steroids work, in part, because you expect them to
work.)

The first question is, how do they work?

The mechanism of action for steroid hormones (like the anabolic steroids were talking about,
though the same is true of any steroid hormone including cortisol, estrogen, aldosterone, etc.) is
pretty straightforward. Theyre lipid-soluble, so they can diffuse directly into a cell (rather than
needing to bind to a receptor on the surface of the cell like peptide hormones like insulin and
IGF-1), bind to their particular steroid receptor, and go to the nucleus of the cell so they can
influence gene transcription. Those transcribed genes determine what proteins are produced, and
those proteins affect the structure and function of that cell.

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From tube.medchrome.com

The steroids were talking about are mostly derivatives of testosterone (or similar hormones like
DHT, though some like Deca-Durabolin are derivatives of progesterone), and have the same
mechanism of action. They diffuse into the cell, bind to a receptor, influence gene transcription,
and ultimately influence the proteins the cell produces. Different steroid hormones cause cells to
produce different proteins, but in skeletal muscle, testosterone and its derivatives primarily
increase the production of the actin and myosin that are the major proteins that make you strong
and jacked.

Backing up a step, though, before these steroids can make their way into the muscle to have an
effect, they have to actually travel in the blood to the muscle.

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So the first issue is getting those steroids into your blood. Routes of administration that dont
involve digestion tend to be the safest for your liver, including injections and transdermal
administration (like Androgel). Oral steroids have to be modified so your liver cant immediately
excrete them things you swallow are absorbed, and then pass through your liver before they
can make it to general circulation. Your liver isnt particularly keen to pass high doses of steroid
hormones directly to general circulation, so it will break them down into non-bioactive
metabolites unless theyre modified to resist this process. Because of this, your liver tends to
have to work quite a bit harder to handle orals than injectables, so orals tend to be more
damaging to your liver. There are orals that arent very hepatotoxic (damaging to your liver), and
there are injectables that are quite hepatotoxic, but since this post isnt meant to be a how-to
guide for steroid use, recognize Im painting in broad strokes here.

Now that the steroids are in your blood (either by direct injection, or because they survived their
first pass through the liver), they need to make it to your muscles.

Most testosterone in your body is bound to proteins in your blood, most notably albumin and sex
hormone binding globulin (SHBG). If you get your testosterone levels checked, the lab should
report total testosterone, and free testosterone. The free testosterone is the stuff thats most
available to diffuse into your cells and affect the body.
This is a key point, and is the main reason why steroids dont seem to have much effect until
theyre taken in supraphysiological doses presenting your body with a concentration it
wouldnt experience in normal circumstances. When you dont have any major endocrine
problems and your testosterone levels are within the normal physiological range, your body will

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produce more or less binding proteins to make sure you have the right amount of free
testosterone not too little, and not too much.
Your body cant just jack up albumin production because it plays a critical role in keeping fluid
concentrations stable between your cells and the extracellular fluid, and while SHBG levels
increase when you introduce high levels of some exogenous steroid hormones into the body
(including estrogen, which is a major reason many women experience loss of sex drive when
they go on birth control increased SHBG binds more of their precious, tiny amounts of
testosterone that are so important for sex drive), testosterone actually decreases SHBG levels
slightly for reasons I admittedly dont quite understand.
This is the main reason why over-the-counter testosterone boosters dont work for building
mass and strength if you have normal testosterone levels, and steroids work really, really well.
Even if your test booster increases your testosterone by 40% like it claims, youre still relying on
your testes to produce it, and they simply wont pump out enough to push you to
supraphysiological concentrations to outrun the effects of the binding proteins. You could have
40% more testosterone but the same free testosterone.
So, this was a long way of explaining why steroids work. You put enough of a hormone into
the body that the bodys normal regulatory mechanisms cant quite cope, so you wind up with
more free androgens to make it to your muscles and make you jacked.
This is quite a bit more dry physiology than I like going into, but I think its important to cover
because a lot of people are ignorant of it, and it can help provide a basic backdrop of
understanding for discussions about steroids.

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Of course, an article basically saying steroids make you strong, and heres the physiology
behind steroids work, really wouldnt be saying much thats relevant to you. So now its time to
actually delve into the fun stuff.

Steroids work, in part, because you expect them to work

Lets take a look at two studies examining the placebo effects impact on steroid-induced
strength gains.

In the first (Ariel, 1974), researchers told 15 trained athletes they could get their hands on some
free, legal steroids. The subjects were already relatively strong at the start of the study with
squat and bench press maxes around 300 pounds, and military press maxes a shade under 200
pounds.

They trained for 7 weeks with the promise that the people who made the best strength gains (to
give them an incentive to train hard and make as much progress as possible) in those 7 weeks
would get free, legal steroids. So the athletes trained for 7 weeks, and put a combined total of
~22 pounds on their bench, military press, seated press, and squat.
Then, 6 of the participants were selected at random to take part in the steroid trial. They were
told they were being given 10mg/day of Dianabol, when really they were taking placebo pills.

They trained for another 4 weeks, thinking they were on drugs.

In just 4 weeks, they put a combined total of ~100 pounds on those same four lifts. 100 pounds
instead of 22, in 4 weeks instead of 7. Simply because they THOUGHT they were on steroids.

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Strength on each lift, in kg

Strength on the 4 lifts combined, in kg

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4x the strength gains in a bit more than half the time. The placebo effect at work, because the
lifters *expected* to gain so much strength.

So the placebo effect clearly increases your strength gains from training when you simply
*think* youre on steroids. You expect more gains, so you get more gains.

However, what about lifting more today?

For that we turn to another study (Maganaris, 2000).

In this one, the researchers were in a perfect position to study the placebo effect. The researchers
were coaching a powerlifting team, and the eleven members of the team actually asked their
coaches about using steroids. Presumably they trusted their coaches, so when their coaches told
the lifters they were providing them with fast-acting steroids, the lifters bought it hook, line, and
sinker.

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Their coaches gave them saccharine pills, telling them they were steroids. Then they maxed out
on squat, bench, and deadlift.

An important thing to note is that these were all nationally ranked powerlifters. The average
bodyweight was around 85kg, with average maxes of 257kg squat, 207kg bench, and 260kg
deadlift (566 squat, 456 bench, 573 deadlift at ~187 pounds). Based on how close the bench is to
the squat and deadlift, Im assuming they were lifting in powerlifting gear, but Im not positive.
However, they werent new lifters these guys were really strong.

When they maxed, thinking they were on steroids, every single one of them hit PRs on every lift.
The smallest PR on any lift was 5kg. Most were 10 or 12.5kg PRs. These PRs represented 4-5%
improvements on their maxes, taking their 724kg average total to ~755kg (1597 pounds to
~1670).

After that, they trained for two more weeks, continuing to think they were on steroids.

After these two weeks of training, they were asked how their training had been going. All of
them reported that theyd been lifting heavier weights, lifting the same weights for more reps,
and generally feeling more energetic and having better training sessions.

Then they maxed again. However, the coaches put a twist on it. 6 of the lifters were allowed to
continue believing they were on steroids. 5, however, were told they had been taking a placebo
the whole time.

The results were astounding.

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The group that continued to believe they were on steroids stayed at about the same level they had
reached two weeks prior. There were a few small regressions and a few small new PRs, but on
the whole they held onto the 4-5% extra strength theyd gained by thinking they were on
steroids.
The group that was informed theyd been taking a placebo absolutely tanked. Their maxes
essentially returned to their pre-placebo baseline. None of them could hit a single lift that equaled
what theyd done two weeks prior. This is IN SPITE OF knowing they hadnt been taking
steroids when they had hit PRs two weeks before, and in spite of reporting better training for the
two intervening weeks. As soon as the mental crutch was removed, they couldnt perform on the
same level, even though they knew the initial PRs and the two good weeks of training were just
the result of their hard work not drugs.

10-12kg PRs are nothing to scoff at. But notice the gray bars when they found out they werent
actually on steroids, their lifts headed back to pre-placebo baseline immediately.

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4-5% stronger on every lift. When they continued thinking they were on steroids, they kept it.
When they didnt is evaporated, even though they reported two exceptionally good weeks of
training, and knew they were drug-free for trial 1 as well.

Placebos = PRs all around. 33 opportunities for PRs (11 lifters, with 3 lifts apiece), and 33 PRs,
ranging from 5-15kg.

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Still thinking they were on steroids, there were some 2.5kg PRs and 2.5kg regressions, but most
people had just about the same strength as for trial 1.

Take the placebo away, and no one could match what theyd done previously, even though they
knew they were clean for trial 1, and for two awesome weeks of training in between trials.

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So from these two studies we see a piece of why steroids are so effective. On top of how well
they work physiologically, when people go on steroids, they THINK theyre going to get a ton
stronger. They can lift more weight just by thinking theyre on, and theyll gain more strength
from training just by thinking theyre on. Part of the reason steroids work so well is that you
expect them to work so well.
Of course, the effects of steroids arent just all in your head. They do, very much, work.
Lets take a look at a major study (Bashin, 1996) that confirmed what bodybuilders had known
for years namely that supraphysiological doses of testosterone work really really well for
building size and strength.

The subjects were split into 4 groups. One group was given a placebo (sesame seed oil injection
instead of a testosterone injection) and didnt lift. One group was given testosterone and didnt
lift. One group was given a placebo and lifted. The last group was given testosterone and lifted.

They maxed on bench press and squat at the beginning and end of the 10 week program. The
program itself was a mix of DUP and linear progression, by the sound of it pretty decent
programming if youre trying to get people bigger and stronger.

The results:

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Check out the strength and mass gained while not touching a single weight in the second column.
From the New England Journal of Medicine
Yes, youre reading that chart correctly. The group that took a placebo and worked out only
gained slightly more strength than the group that took testosterone and sat on the couch for 10
weeks. The group that took testosterone without exercise gained just as much, if not more,
muscle mass than the people taking a placebo and actually working out.

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Keep in mind, the dose for this study was 600mg/week of testosterone with nothing else added
in. This wasnt a several-grams-per-week pro bodybuilder steroid stack. This was a fairly low
dose that might represent someone sticking their pinky toe into the world of steroids.
So for people who say, Oh, steroids dont make you bigger and stronger. They just let you work
harder, Im sad to inform you that such a statement is patently false. They may help with
recovery and let you work harder, but I guarantee you that you could stick with the exact training
routine you have now, start taking steroids, and gain more size and strength from it no extra
work required. And an untrained person might (would probably) gain more muscle from just
taking steroids than they would if they actually worked out.

Steroids clearly make you bigger and stronger. But how much of an advantage do they
actually provide for sports?

For sports where absolute strength and size are paramount, they give a huge advantage: The
superheavyweight class of any sport where you can weigh as much as you want comes to mind.
Powerlifters, weightlifters, and strongmen in the very top weight division. Obviously
bodybuilding and physique sports as well.
For everything else I think they help, but not to the degree people would like to make it seem,
and not at super high doses.

Most sports, at their core, are about producing as much force as possible relative to your
bodyweight, while effectively meeting the energetic demands of the sport. The relative to your
bodyweight piece is the part Id like to hone in on.

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You see, steroids dont directly make you stronger. They directly make you bigger. They cause
your muscles to synthesize more protein, but theres more to strength than muscle protein
accretion. There is a relationship between bigger and stronger (obviously), but the
relationship isnt 1 to 1.
(Edit: the statement they dont directly make you stronger may not be entirely
true. Testosterone does have nervous system effects that could directly improve strength output,
and many lifters report substantial acute benefits of various fast-acting oral compounds due to
mood alteration and lowering of central inhibition. However, the former works on a slightly
longer time scale compared to muscle protein synthesis, and the latter DOES probably
contribute, but theres no research to determine how effective orals are at altering mood,
perception, and expectancy relative to placebos. Thanks to Dr. Mike Israetel for the catch.)
Especially in sports with weight classes, added muscle mass isnt good for much if your strength
doesnt increase at the same rate. At least based on the scant research available, it looks like it
may be the case that if you take too high of a dose, itll actually hinder your performance by
increasing your mass much more than your strength.
The first place Id like to look is at a study examining the effects of different doses of
testosterone. Participants natural testosterone production was slowed down, and then they were
given test in doses ranging from 25mg/week (really really low) to 600mg/week (well above the
physiological range).

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Linear increase in muscle mass gains, but not much of a difference between 300mg/week (which
took the people about 40% above the top of the physiological range) and 600mg/week (which
took them several times above the physiological range, effectively increasing their testosterone
by 4-5 fold) for strength gains, in spite of the substantially increased mass gains with
600mg/week. From the American Journal of Physiology.

Gain in muscle size was quite linear. However, gains in strength were not. The 300mg/week
group got nearly the exact same strength gains as the 600mg/week group, but with less
hypertrophy (about 5 pounds less fat free mass). Over time, this could potentially mean lower
force output relative to bodyweight for the group taking a higher dose.

This notion is borne out in further research (Yu, 2014), comparing strength and muscle
characteristics between lifetime drug-free lifters and long-term steroid users. In this study, the
steroid users had larger legs and more lean mass, but the drug free lifters squatted considerably
more relative to lean body mass and leg muscle volume. Each pound of leg muscle for the drug
free lifters could produce more force than a pound of leg muscle for the steroid users.

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Check out Maximal Squat Force relative to Lean Leg Mass. 88N/kg vs. 130N/kg about 47%
more force output per unit of muscle for the drug free lifters. From PLoS ONE.

Of course, in this study, a confounding factor is training histories. Due to ethical constraints,
there was no intervention it was merely an observational study. The drug free lifters were all
weightlifters or powerlifters, whereas the steroid users included a mix of lifters, strongmen, and
bodybuilders. So it could simply be that the differences could be attributable to the sport-specific
training, not the drugs. Because the difference was SO profound, though (almost 50% higher

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force output per pound of leg muscle in the drug free lifters), I dont think we can chalk it all up
to training.
However, Im not entirely sure WHY someone would be stronger, relatively, if they built their
muscle without drugs. Maybe the rapid protein synthesis and decrease in protein breakdown
doesnt allow for effective remodeling. Maybe muscle strength increases faster than tendon
strength, so sensory mechanisms like the golgi tendon organ dont allow the muscles to contract
maximally. Maybe the muscle is being built so fast that neural factors simply cant keep up, so
the lifters in these studies wind up with large, inefficient muscles that could be made more
efficient with training and by transitioning into a training phase focusing on adding strength
without any more mass.
Or, of course, I could be entirely wrong. Theres not a lot of research on steroid use in healthy,
athletic populations, and there are obvious confounding factors in both of these studies. I will
say, though, it matches some of my observations. The guys on drugs who tend to do the best in
weight class dominated sports like powerlifting, are the ones who add mass slowly, gradually
increasing their doses or sticking with a conservative cycle for a long time instead of
aggressively trying to add a lot of mass all at once. Look how long it took for Ed Coan to go
from 165 to 242, as an example. Based on what Ive seen, the guys who get the most out of their
drugs for strength are the ones who take enough to primarily improve recovery, while
gradually add mass over time not put on 20+ pounds over night. Going back to Bashin, 2001,
if youre a powerlifter, you want the results of the 300mg/week group, not the 600mg/week
group.
The last thing Id like to talk about is how long steroid use benefits you.

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The short answer basically forever.

When your muscles grow, your muscle fibers add new myonuclei each nucleus can only
manage a finite amount of real estate in a muscle fiber, so your fibers have to add more as they
grow. If you stop training, you may lose muscle size, but those myonuclei stick around for much,
much longer. Thats the main reason behind the phenomenon of muscle memory. If you take a
few months off lifting, you can come back to the gym and get back to your old levels of strength
and muscularity pretty quickly, because your body doesnt have to fuse new myonuclei again.
The old ones are still sticking around (unless the muscle fiber itself dies, as could happen with
aging or severe injury), so your body just ramps up protein synthesis and voila! It takes you a
month or two to gain back the muscle it initially took you years to build, because protein
accretion can proceed at a quicker rate than gaining new myonuclei.

The blue lines represent years of hard training. The red line represents a couple weeks or
months. From the University of Oslo.

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Of course, the application for steroids is pretty obvious. You take steroids, you gain mass, you go
off, and those myonuclei are still hanging around, keeping you more jacked than you would have
been otherwise.

So, here are some takeaways:

1) Steroids, physiologically, work. This much is not debatable.

2) On top of how well they work physiologically, a major factor is how well they work
psychologically if you do something expecting to get a ton stronger, theres a good chance
youll get a ton stronger. This applies to much more than steroids.
3) Steroids do provide a substantial advantage for sports that arent governed by weight
classes. However, taking too high of a dose right off the bat may actually decrease performance
(increased strength and mass, but decreased relative strength), especially in sports with weight
classes. If you decide to use steroids, youll probably get the best bang for your buck, strengthwise, with very conservative doses initially.
4) If you take steroids and then come off of them, youll probably lose some of the size and
strength you gained, but youll always be at an advantage relative to a lifetime drug-free athlete.

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Stress: The Silent Killer (of Gains)

One of the biggest problems we have when we talk about training is that we tend to only talk
about physical stressors.

We like complicated periodization models, manipulating training volume, intensity, and

frequency. In short, we like having a sense of control. We like thinking, If I plan out and control
these training factors, Ill get this outcome. Sure, nutrition and sleep play a role too, but as long
as those factors (often given the blanket term recovery) are accounted for, youre in the clear.
However, those factors dont paint the whole picture. Biology is messy. Your body is not a
simple machine that you can feed inputs and expect predictable outputs.
Now, you can have a general idea of whatll happen. But 1+1 doesnt always equal 2. Maybe itll
be 2 most of the time, but sometimes itll be 5, and sometimes itll be -3. The reason is that your
body isnt in a static state, only being challenged by the workouts you put it through. There are
billions of reactions taking place in your body every moment affecting whatll happen at the
systemic level, while dozens of inputs are simultaneously entering the system via your thoughts
and your senses (which then affect and modify other thoughts and sensations). 1+1 wont always
equal 2, because your body isnt dealing with 1+1. Its dealing with 1+1 plus a million other
inputs and moderating factors. The result may be between 1.5 and 2.5 most of the time, but
theres plenty of built-in ambiguity thats difficult to predict, harder to account for, and
impossible to quantify.

Biology is nonlinear. You cannot control it. You can, at best, influence it.

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Via trial and error, you can get a pretty good idea of how your body will respond to a certain set
of training parameters. However, that response is still context-specific, and is largely mediated
by how well your body can respond to stress. When youre in a comfortable schedule with a 9to-5, a predictable social life, no large sleep or diet perturbations, etc., you can develop a good
idea of how your body will respond to training stress. The more constant the other inputs, the
more predictable the result of imposing a particular stressor (training, in this case) will be.

However, increase the overall stress your body is coping with, and your ability to then cope with
a given level of training stress is decreased. Although simplistic, Selyes General Adaptation
Syndrome, is still very useful, even 80 years after its introduction.

Even if your training inputs havent changed, the rest of the inputs feeding into the system have
changed, so the system with respond differently and perhaps unpredictably.

General Adaptation Syndrome essentially says that your body feeds all of its stress into a
generalized pool of adaptive reserves that your body can use to elicit the specific adaptations
necessary to respond to the stressor and strengthen the body against it in case the same stressor
presents itself in the future. In the case of lifting, the strain on the structural and metabolic

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capabilities of the muscle are the stress, and your body responds by building larger muscles with
more ability to resist strain and more of the enzymes necessary to handle exercise metabolically.
However, if other stressors (work stress, poor sleep, heavy drinking, marital issues, moving to a
new city, etc.) are present, theyre dipping into those adaptive reserves, so your body cant
respond as robustly to exercise.
This is something we all know, but which hasnt gotten much attention in research. In fact,
though specific stressors (sleep deprivation, food deprivation, high altitude, etc.) influence on
exercise and subsequent adaptations have been studied for decades, there was actually only one
measly study previously conducted on how general stress affects recovery from strength training,
and it lasted less than 24 hours (i.e. not long enough to assess recovery on any meaningful scale).
However, now we have a brand new one which is really really good. Its not a 12 week training
study, but its I think useful.

Chronic Psychological Stress Impairs Recovery of Muscular Function and Somatic Sensations
Over a 96-Hour Period by Stults-Kolehmainen et. Al. (2014)

The researchers sent out a questionnaire to 1200 people to place them on the Perceived Stress
Scale (PSS). Based on their PSS scores, the researchers purposefully sought out people who
scored high or low on the scale to make sure there was a significant difference in stress level
between the participants.

Participants

All the participants were enrolled in college weight training classes.

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Once the subjects were selected, they were given two stress-related questionnaires. One was to
place them on the PSS scale again (to see if their scores had changed since they last filled out the
questionnaire), and one was the Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire (USQ).

PSS evaluates how stressed you *feel.* USQ evaluates how many stressful events are taking
place in your life. This is a useful distinction to make, because some people tend to be able to
just let the stress roll off their backs, so to speak. Others respond more negatively to life
stressors. The high-stress group in this study both had stressful events in their lives, and felt
mentally stressed about those things.

Procedure

The study procedure was pretty freaking brutal. The subjects worked up past a 10rm (i.e. they
did sets of 10 until they could no longer complete 10 reps). Then they dropped back to their
established 10rm for another set of 10. Then they took 10% off the leg press for another set of
10. If they got all 10 reps with that weight, they stayed with that weight and did 4 more sets to
failure. If they didnt get 10 reps, they took 10% more off and did 4 more sets to failure.

Before the training session, the researchers measured Maximal Isometric Force (using the same
leg press MIF), vertical jump height, and cycling power. They reassessed MIF directly after the
workout and 60 minutes post-workout, and they reassessed all 3 performance-related variables at
24, 48, 72, and 96 hours post-workout.

They also assessed soreness, perceived physical energy, and perceived physical fatigue before
the workout, directly after, 60 minutes after, and at 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours post-workout by
having a number line with a statement like I have no feelings of soreness on one end and

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strongest feelings of soreness ever felt on the other end, and telling the subjects to place a mark
on the line that corresponded with how sore they felt.

Results

First of all, it should be noted that there were no significant differences in any of the parameters
(MIF, 1rm strength, jump height, cycling power, etc.) between groups at the start of the study.
Additionally, total workload and cardiovascular response to exercise (max and average heart
rate) were similar between the high stress and low stress groups, indicating that the results cant
simply be explained by saying one group worked harder than the other.

Rate of recovery from exercise was strongly correlated with the stress inventories.

For Maximal Isometric Force, everyone was gassed after the workout, with strength dropping off
almost 50% directly post-workout, recovering substantially at 60 minutes post-exercise, and
continuing to improve from there.

However, the low-stress group had already fully recovered by 48 hours post-exercise, whereas it
took a full 96 hours for the high stress group to recover pre-exercise MIF.

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It should be noted the researchers found this pattern by simply comparing the high stress and
low stress groups. Then, to make sure there werent confounding factors, they made adjustments
for fitness, training experience, and workload and found the same pattern still held true.

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Cycling power and vertical jump height were less affected by the exercise bout, and recovered
much faster in both groups near pre-exercise levels by 24 hours post-exercise. The researchers
theorized that this could be explained by specificity. MIF was assessed on the same leg press
used as the workout, so that was the movement pattern showing the most fatigue.

Perceptions of energy, fatigue, and soreness were also affected by stress. The higher stress group
had less energy, more fatigue, and more soreness for longer than the low stress group.

Takeaways
The results of your training cant be reduced to how many sets, reps, and exercises you did.
Other factors affect how your body will respond to exercise.
Furthermore, you cant take your exercise performance in the gym today as an indicator of how
hard you SHOULD be training, given other stressors. Both groups lifted a similar amount of
weight, did a similar amount of volume, and had similar cycling power and vertical jump height.
Thats one factor that makes overtraining/overreaching tricky to manage. We like looking for
objective signs getting fewer reps, being able to lift less weight, etc. However, if this study is
any indication, other stressors start interfering with exercise recovery prior to performance taking
a major hit.

One of the things that was difficult to adjust to when transitioning from training 90% of my
clients in-person to training 90% of them online was that subjective feedback was harder to come
by. When an athlete walks into the gym, you can tell from their body language, how they move,
etc. whether theyre feeling good or starting to get run down and you can make adjustments

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accordingly. You dont get that if the only feedback youre getting from your online training
clients in objective.

Online, communication is so much more important. The sets, reps, and weights someone can lift
only tell so much. You also need to know how they feel, how theyre sleeping, how their appetite
is, etc. There were times that someone hit a huge PR one week, then took a nosedive the next
week. I saw this person has acclimated to the workload and is getting awesome results when,
in reality, they had adapted to the stressor as much as they were capable, and their performance
peaked right before they started backsliding a bit. Lesson learned.
As hard as it is for people to accept (and trust me, I get a lot of push-back on this), Ill usually
deload someone directly after an unusually good week of training steady, consistent PRs are
one thing, but when an intermediate or advanced lifter hits a 40 pound PR out of nowhere, or
gets 7 reps with a weight that was a max triple a month ago, Ive found theyre usually teetering
on the edge of overtraining right when their results are telling them to push harder to see more
big PRs. I dont have any data to back me up, but its a pattern Ive noticed enough times that I
find it has good predictive value. 9 times out of 10, someone will hit a huge PR, Ill pull back on
the reigns for the next week of training, theyll send me a few emails bellyaching, Ill put my
foot down, and on Tuesday or Wednesday Ill get an email saying, on second thought, the
deload was a good call. Everything is feeling really freaking heavy this week.

Physical fatigue often follows psychological fatigue, but the latter is harder to recognize without
subjective feedback, meaning the former can creep up on you or you can inadvertently rush
headlong into it by putting your foot on the gas when the purely objective indications mislead
you.

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As was previously mentioned, the stressed-out people in this study both had stressful events
taking place in their lives, AND they felt stressed about them. You cant make any statements
from this study about someone who has a lot of life stressors but who manages to stay feeling
relaxed, or about someone who has fewer stressors but who still lets every little thing stress them
out. My hunch is that the perception of stress matters more than the volume of stressors
themselves, but this study doesnt address that distinction. Id love to see a follow-up study
looking as people with high PSS scores, and low USQ scores (feel stressed without many
stressors) and people with low PSS scores and high USQ scores (stressful life events, but
minimal feelings of stress).

Interestingly, much of the research cited in this article had to do with wound healing. While the
connection between muscle repair and wound healing isnt 1 to 1, there are some notable
similarities. Namely, both are mediated by the inflammation pathway to a large extent, and both
are inhibited by glucocorticoid dysregulation. Psychological stress screws with cytokine
signaling (including IL-6, IL-1b, and TNF-a) and results in a chronic elevation of cortisol.
In non-nerd speak, when your bodys stress response is switched on too much, for too long, the
pathways that mediate the inflammatory response and tissue repair dont work quite as well as
they should. As a result, wounds heal slower and/or you take longer to recover from training.
Remember, you cant just draw out a plan on paper, look at the volume, intensity, and frequency,
and know how your body will respond to it 100%. What may be low volume and easy to recover
from in a situation with minimal life stress may be high volume and crushingly difficult when
other stressors in your life rear their heads. Ongoing adjustments need to be made, and some

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wiggle-room needs to be built in so you can alter your training stress based on what life throws at
you.
This isnt to say theres no value in having a plan. It just means that plan needs to be interpreted
more like a compass than like a road map.

Of course, ambiguity stresses some people out more than others. I love things that have a lot of
gray area, while other people hate them, and want everything spelled out. In that case, a training
plan with too much wiggle room can, paradoxically, cause more of the psychological stress that
it was intended to moderate and account for. I think thats one reason RPE-based training works
so well for some people (people who can handle more gray area) but not-so-well for others
(people who agonize about whether something was REALLY an 8RPE or not).

You are a psychosomatic being.

Psycho = mind

Soma = body
You cant divorce the two. Mental stress can manifest itself as physical stress, and physical stress
can manifest itself as mental stress.
Dont be fooled into thinking the only thing that matters when it comes to training are the sets
and reps you do in the gym.

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Dont be fooled into thinking the time between training sessions, the food you eat, and the sleep
you get are the only things that matter when you talk about recovery. Those things matter, but so
do the other events in your life, and your perceptions about those events.

Personal Anecdote
Managing stress is key for success in the gym. Heres my own experience:

I started college as a triple major and double minor (History, Psychology, and Leadership, with
minors in Economics and Mathematics). I started lifting again after a few years out of the gym
the spring semester of my freshman years.

I got back to my old plateaus pretty quickly, but then progress slowed substantially for about 9
months as I took 19-20 credit hours per semester. At the end of my sophomore year, I decided to
go with my heart and switch to Exercise Science. I dropped all my other majors and minors.

That summer, I interned at a gym. I only worked 3 hours per day, had very minimal life stress,
slept as much as I wanted, worked out 3-4 hours per day, and generally enjoyed life. I added 100
pounds to my squat and ~175 pounds to my total in 3 months, destroying my old plateaus.

My first semester in the Exercise Science program, I took another 20 hours to get all my pre-reqs
out of the way to make sure Id be able to take all the upper level classes in the program
(designed for 4-5 semesters) in my final 3 semesters. Progress = zero.

The next semester, I only took 12 hours, and all of my classes were incredibly easy. Stress was
minimal, and I added another 100 pounds to my squats (in wraps this time, so realistically more
like 50), 20 to my bench, and 80 to my deadlift.

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The work situation in the first half of that next summer was a lot more stressful that I was
expecting, and I got married in July, so not much training took place after that (nice long
honeymoon, and then only a week before going back to school). I got weaker that summer.

This past year (last August to this August) has also been fairly stressful. My wife and I were
angst-y because we didnt really have a plan for what we wanted to do with our lives. There was
some stress about jobs, finances, and grad school that would take way too long to explain in a
blog post about training, but suffice it to say that training wasnt my #1 focus. As a result very
slow progress. Still hovering around where I was strength-wise 15 months ago when I last
competed.

I like to look back and see what I was doing training-wise at peaks and valleys in my progress,
but the factor that most strongly predicts how much strength Ill gain at any given point in time
more than training (I totaled 1714 at 220 with a program utilizing daily maxes, and 1885 at 242
for a more kosher upper/lower-ish split) and more than diet (I was drinking the keto Kool-Aid for
most of my training time leading up to 1714, and had a more standard carb-based diet for 1885)
is simply how stressful the rest of my life is outside the gym.

Anyway, just wanted to leave you with that anecdote.

Manage your stress and adapt your training plan to what life throws at you. You cant separate
your time in the gym from the rest of your life.

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Wrecking Your Diet, One Night at a Time

Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity

The title of the study says it all.

If theres one subject I tend to get preachy about, its sleep. Its not exciting like a new exercise
protocol or as sexy as some new diet trend, so it doesnt get the coverage it deserves. But it is
absolutely crucial that you get a full night of sleep.

This article is about how sleep can help make you sexy. Putting aside the considerable health
implications of neglecting sleep, were starting off on a topic more immediately relevant to most
of you body composition losing fat while holding onto muscle.
So, without further ado, lets dive in.

The study at hand was conducted to ascertain whether amount of sleep would affect results while
dieting. It built upon previous studies showing hormonal disturbances with lack of sleep (which
Ill cover in more detail in a later post), and increases in appetite. So the authors wanted to know
whether those changes would actually manifest themselves in meaningful body composition
changes when on a controlled, low calorie diet.

Participants

The subjects were 10 overweight (average BMI 27.4) but otherwise healthy people, mostly in
their late 30s or early 40s. They were excluded from the study if they were heavy drinkers,

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smokers, had jacked up sleep habits, had any major abnormalities on a physical, or were habitual
heavy caffeine users. In short, they were pretty average, middle aged folks.

The study procedure

For 14 days, participants had to stay in bed for either 8.5 or 5.5 hours per night. At least 3
months later, participants swapped conditions. Food intake was restricted to 90% of resting
metabolic rate. Doubly labeled water was used to assess energy expenditure (I wont go too far
afield explaining how it works, but rest assured that doubly labelled water is a VERY good
method for assessing energy expenditure accurately). Meals were standardized and weighed to
ensure calorie intake was controlled for as tightly as possible. In short, it was a very wellcontrolled study.

The results

Amount of time the participants actually slept increased or decreased as it was supposed
to. Those in bed 8.5 hours per night slept, on average, 7hrs and 25min per night (pretty close to
their habitual average before the study of 7.7 hrs./day), and those who were in be 5.5 hours
per night slept, on average, 5hrs and 14min.
Energy consumption was darn near identical about 1450 calories per day. Daily caloric
expenditure was also nearly identical about 2140 calories per day. Thats essentially a 700
calorie daily deficit, which is quite reasonable.

Macronutrient breakdown was 48% carbohydrate, 34% fat, and 18% protein.
Both groups lost about 3kg (6.6lbs) during the study, BUT

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The 8.5 hour group lost about 50/50 fat and lean mass.
The 5.5 hour group lost 20/80 fat and lean mass. Thats not a typo. Only 1/5 of the weight lost
was actually fat. 0.6kg of the 3.0kg total. Thats substantial.

So, in more concrete numbers, the 8.5 hour group lost 2.33x more fat than the 5.5 hour group,
and the 5.5 hour group lost 1.6x more lean mass than the 8.5 hour group. If most of us are
aiming for body REcomposition (more muscle and less fat), would this be the definition of body
DEcomposition?

It doesnt get much better for the poor sleep deprived subjects from there, either.
Hunger was higher. This was accompanied by greater increases in acylated ghrelin a hormone
that promotes hunger.

Respiratory quotient was higher. That means that for each calorie burned, more of the energy
came from carbohydrate, and less of it came from fat.

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You need more of this

And less of this

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Drawbacks

Well, for one, the participants were sedentary. That makes it a little harder to generalize results
since resistance exercise helps you retain more muscle while dieting.

Also, at least in the eyes of most people reading this, protein intake was laughably low (about
65g/day).

It should be noted that lean mass also includes water. So of the 3kg lost, only about 1.2-1.7kg
(2.7-3.8 pounds) of that should come from tissue loss (your body theoretically gets about 3500
calories from a pound of fat, and 2500 from a pound of muscle, so with an overall deficit of 9660
calories on average, some of those 6.6 pounds almost certainly came from water).
With that in mind, lets do a little rough math. Lets say both groups lost about 50/50
water/tissue a fair enough assumption. The 8.5 hour group lost 1.4kg of fat, which means .1kg
left over for lean tissue loss (93% fat lost, 7% lean not too shabby!). The 5.5 hour group lost
.6kg of fat, which means .9kg left over for lean tissue loss (40% fat lost, and 60% lean mass. A
little better than 20/80, but still pretty dismal).

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Ill admit, thats just a rough estimate, but it probably gives a little clearer picture of what was
actually lost by both groups. The 8.5 hour group probably lost almost all fat and kept their lean
tissue quite well, in spite of a 1450 calorie diet, low protein, and no exercise. The 5.5 hour
group, no matter how you slice it or dice it, lost a considerable amount of lean tissue, whether
that be from muscle, bone, or organs.
If we wanted to go into the weeds of the effects sleep deprivation on cortisol, and cortisols
effects on water retention, theres even the potential that the 5.5 hour group was holding onto a
little more water, which means even more of their lean mass loss would be muscle but well be
charitable.

Breaking it down
I understand if youre a little skeptical about how well this would translate to you if youre eating
enough protein and youre lifting.
Sure, youd probably do a better job of holding onto lean mass than the 5.5 hour group in this
study, BUT were probably just talking about the degree to which you stop the bleeding. Maybe
instead of 40/60 it would be 60/40 fat/lean. Thats still not painting a rosy picture.

Mechanistically, I have a hard time seeing how improved diet and exercise would mitigate ALL
the lean mass loss that comes from losing sleep. There are some well-documented hormonal
changes (Ill talk about those in a later post), a higher RQ means less fat is burned proportional
to total energy expenditure so that energy HAS to come from stored glycogen or protein, and
acylated ghrelin does some nasty stuff on its own. To quote the authors, Acylated ghrelin has
been shown to reduce energy expenditure, stimulate hunger and food intake, promote retention

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of fat, and increase hepatic glucose production to support the availability of fuel to glucosedependent tissues.

Literally the best case scenario with a shift in RQ is this: with adequate protein intake and
resistance training, youre still able to hold onto your lean mass. However, for every calorie you
burn, more of it comes from stored glycogen, and less of it comes from stored body fat. Less fat
burned per calorie burned means youll have to diet longer to get lean. More glycogen burned
per calorie means youll have less energy for your workouts. Elevated acylated ghrelin means
youll be hungrier. So, if youre not sleeping enough and doing everything else 100% right,
the best possible scenario is that you have to diet for longer, while having crappy workouts
and being even hungrier all the time. Sounds like more fun than a barrel of monkeys,
right?

The Takeaway

Sleep.
Its as simple as that. Lets take it out of the realm of sleep helps with recovery, and lets
forget for a moment about the health consequences or fogginess that come from not
sleeping. We have concrete evidence that sleep is essential for optimal body composition. Lack
of sleep directly makes it harder to burn fat and increases your risk of losing lean mass.
If its worth it to you to prioritize training and prioritize nutrition (as seems to be the case for
almost everyone), make a point of also prioritizing sleep. Good sleep will magnify the
effectiveness of the other two, and bad sleep will be a huge obstacle to your physique goals.

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Poor Recovery & Increased Muscle Breakdown: Insufficient Sleep Part 2

This article is pulling heavily from a 2011 review by Datillo et Al. if youd like to follow along.

1. The anti-anabolic effects of sleep deprivation

Failing to get enough sleep is especially deleterious for your strength and hypertrophy based
goals because it reduces circulating levels of two of your primary anabolic hormones testosterone and IGF-1.

Testosterone directly increases muscle hypertrophy, binding to androgen receptors, going

straight to the cells nucleus, and increasing transcription and protein synthesis. It also inhibits
the activity of other proteins that block the mTOR pathway the primary cellular pathway of
muscle hypertrophy. The effects of testosterone levels within the physiological range on muscle
hypertrophy can be overstated (i.e. injecting steroids makes a noticeable difference, but swings
within normal healthy range arent massively important), and testosterone levels dont paint the
whole picture of someones ability to gain muscle in response to training, but theres no denying
that it is an important piece of the puzzle.

IFG-1 is also important for muscle hypertrophy. It also works via the mTOR pathway to
increase protein synthesis, and is critical for satellite cell proliferation and recruitment that
means the potential for more nuclei for each muscle fiber, which is the major limiting factor for
muscle growth.

So, with sleep deprivation, you have a reduction in muscle protein synthesis via two separate
pathways. But it just keeps getting worse from here.

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2. Catabolic effects of sleep deprivation

Building on the fact that sleep deprivation decreases testosterone release, testosterone inhibits the
effects of myostatin. Myostatin blocks satellite cell proliferation and differentiation (opposite of
IGF-1).

Lack of sleep also increases cortisol levels. Acute elevations of cortisol while training are totally
normal and expected. However, chronic elevations can cause all sorts of nastiness. Cortisol
blocks protein synthesis by inhibiting the activation of the mTOR pathway, and it activates
pathways that lead to muscle protein breakdown.
Heres a handy little picture from the authors summing up whats going on here:

Gainz: nowhere to be seen

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Worth considering

It may be useful to think of insufficient sleep being similar to the aging process when it comes to
its effects on strength, size, and body composition.

1. Decreased testosterone

2. Decreased IGF-1 and growth hormone

3. Increased catabolism

Just thinking aloud (or in text) here, but mechanistically it makes sense. Melatonin does a lot of
things in your body beyond promoting sleep, including stimulating growth hormone release,
which is crucially important for IGF-1. Melatonin, growth hormone, and IGF-1 all decrease with
age. Decreased melatonin release with sleep deprivation could be the first domino setting off the
rest of the hormonal cascade. That doesnt explain the testosterone and cortisol effects, but
decreased melatonin production has been implicated in the aging process as a whole. In fact, in
mice, swapping the pineal glands (the part of the brain that makes melatonin) from young and
old mice substantially prolongs life in the old mice and shortens it in the young mice. Now,
dont think Im saying that this is absolutely the mechanism behind sleep deprivations effects
its just an interesting connection worth stewing on (and, I might add, its one that gerontologists
scientists studying aging are stewing on as well). Obviously there are other things going on
as well tidy explanations rarely explain everything going in in a biological system!
So how much should you sleep? Honestly, it depends person to person. Theres no one-sizefits-all answer. Some people simply need to sleep more or less than others, and the amount of

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sleep you need will vary depending on how hard youre training and how much stress youre
under. However, my one-size-fits-all answer is this: if you need to wake up to an alarm, youre
not sleeping long enough. Your goal should be to wake up naturally every morning, with an
alarm reserved for rare occasions when you NEED to be up earlier or go to sleep later than
normal this should be the exception, not the rule.

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Exercise Science: What is it Good For?

It seems like the anti-science backlash is beginning.
(Warning: this is a 2100 word post about the scientific process. For a TL;DR, jump to Is there
really a conflict at the bottom.)

The old-guard of strength coaches sat quiet long enough. For these people, science is useful
insofar as it verifies things they already believe, but can be dismissed if it counters their own
opinions and observations. Apparently, the relatively new trend of evidence-based coaches and
writers questioning their claims and eroding their credibility has made them uncomfortable
enough that they feel the need to start pushing back. And each time one of their articles gets
published, it gets shared around and praised by a lot of very intelligent lifters and athletes, so
clearly their position still broad appeal.

I feel like this position still has such a following because most folks like me suck at explaining
how science works and both when it is and isnt useful. We are stereotyped as nerds who are out
of touch with the real world and in-the-trenches coaching, and boy do we deliver in spades.
So, I want to use this article as a defense of exercise science, only insofar as its actually
defensible. Ill do this by rebutting the most common anti-science claims made by opponents.
1. The studies done in the exercise science literature dont have much relevance to the
athletic population

Often, this is the case. For every study that gets done about how to further elite athletic
performance, 10 are done examining how to help obese people lose weight, or help old people

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maintain a reasonable standard of living. Why? Because, quite frankly, it ultimately matters a
lot more that we reduce our societys waistline, or that the elderly can live independent, happy
lives than it is for you to take your squat from 500 to 600. Therefore, the more valuable studies
are the ones that get funded.

You may see a study looking at changes in strength and bone mass due to training on a vibration
plate and think dumb scientists, why not just make the people squat?! Well, theyre probably
more interested in outcomes for people unable to perform traditional strength training programs
(i.e. the elderly or diseased), or for women developing osteoporosis. Scientists arent idiots. If
you see a study and think the entire premise of this study does not seem to relate to my goals in
any meaningful way then its because. that study probably wasnt conducted with people like
you in mind.
HOWEVER, the fact that a preponderance of studies arent relevant to athletic performance does
not mean that those studies that ARE performed on trained subjects and ARE relevant to athletic
performance dont have merit.
Rejecting the relevant exercise science literature because the bulk of the literature isnt aimed at
elite athletics is like dismissing mathematics because most of the math textbooks printed are for
grade school classes, not Ph.D. level mathematicians.

2. Exercise scientists are dumb and design experiments to answer obvious questions

This critique is based on a misunderstanding of how science works. Something that *seems*
self-evident cant be assumed to be true if its a testable hypothesis.

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For example, lets say you see a study that says hamstring curls increase EMG readings in the
hamstrings, and heavier loads increase EMG readings more so than lighter loads.

Those scientists probably knew they were going to get those results before they performed the
experiment. However, if they wanted to do further research on the hamstrings (maybe something
related to hypertrophy, strength, sprint performance, etc.), they need to establish the basics first.
It may seem like a tedious process, but its the only way to make sure you dont have faulty
assumptions that affect your outcomes and conclusions.
For example dehydration causes cramping, right? Well, not so fast (example 1 and example
2). Thats an example of something everyone assumed to be true, but was found to be a faulty
assumption when it was studied rigorously. One of the strengths of the scientific method is that
it doesnt take anything for granted. Studies about topics that SHOULD be obvious are just part
of that process. They may seem pedantic, but they do occasionally find that things we all
assumed to be true are, in fact, false assumptions.

3. Too many studies on untrained subjects

Refer to #1. Most people ARE untrained!

A study on untrained subjects is less relevant to the trained population, but it doesnt affect the
relevance of the literature as a whole, or whether applying science to the training process is a
worthwhile endeavor.
4. Science says such and such is wrong, but we all know its true

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I love this one (love as in, it makes me want to ram my head through a wall).
This criticism carries with it the assumption that youre more likely to be right than the entirety
of the scientific literature.

One of my favorites is hamstring involvement in the squat. Numerous coaches have hailed the
squat as a hamstring developer, and have scoffed at scientists who have found (repeatedly) that
squats really dont train the hamstrings very well at all.
Do these coaches have EMG studies theyre hiding? Have they taken MRI or DEXA scans to
assess hamstring hypertrophy utilizing squats vs. RDLs/GHRs/etc?
As my mother was fond of saying, the truth has nothing to hide.
The barbell squat exercise causes substantial increases in hamstring activation, strength, and
hypertrophy relative to (insert here any hamstring dominant exercise, such as deadlift
variations) is a testable hypothesis. If they think thats true, they can test it and publish it, and
then it will BE a part of the scientific literature. If all theyre saying is that the hamstrings do
something in the squat, then theyre really not making a statement thats at odds with the science
at all.

Now, in some cases (the original steroid research prior to Bashin et Al comes to mind), science
will come to poor conclusions because of poor study design, but thats a question of context, and
the correct response is to critique the methodology of the studies rather than to turn your back on
the scientific process itself.

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If you think youre right and the science is wrong, and you cant find major design flaws in the
studies you dispute, youre either arrogant and lacking a leg to stand on, or youre in the position
of needing to put up or shut up.
5. Science flip flops, changes positions, or isnt reliable
Changing positions in the face of new evidence isnt a weakness. Thats a sign of
humility. Science doesnt claim to have Truth (notice the capital T). Science merely tries to
move closer and closer to what is actually true and verifiable. If something is found to be false,
it should be discarded. Thats not wishy-washy-ness. Thats epistemological honesty.

6. You can find a study that says anything

This is another fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. Applying science isnt
about finding a single study to support your position. Its about looking to see what the bulk of
the literature says. Science is consensus-driven.

For example, if you have 2 poorly-controlled studies saying GMOs are going to cause cancer and
kill you, and 15 major, well-controlled studies saying theyre fine and carry no significant longterm risk of disease, you go where the best and most numerous studies are leading. The fact that
there are dissent and conflicting studies doesnt mean science isnt useful it just means you
need to examine the literature as a whole and not try to cherry-pick studies to make a point.

Reviews and meta-analyses are good places to start for an overview of a topic.

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Drawbacks:

1. Prescription vs. principles

Scientific studies dont write training programs for you. They teach you about mechanisms and
principles that you can then apply to your own training or to how you train athletes.

Science will never remove the importance of the strength coach. Science may give you the
ingredients, but the trainer or coach is still the master chef. Training and program design will
always be equal parts art and science.

2. Individual variation
As Ive harped on before, science deals with averages. It doesnt (at least yet) account for
individual variability. As such, it can help give you a starting point for programming, but a
smart coach or athlete still needs to make adjustments to account for individual differences that
cant show up in a study that has to deal with means and standard deviations.

3. Insufficient literature
This is a point the critics are 100% right about right now, the scientific literature about training
for elite level athletic endeavors is pretty thin gruel.

However, some would assert that the logical implication is we need to forget about exercise
science.
I couldnt disagree more. The best way to fix bad science or insufficient science is with more
science! It is a self-correcting process.

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For example, prior to the germ theory of disease, it was often thought that disease was caused by
ill humors in the air, or by bad blood. Doctors werent held in particularly high esteem, and
many were skeptical of the medical profession as a whole. However, Louis Pasteur and Robert
Koch helped demonstrate that infectious diseases were actually caused by microorganisms, and
thus modern medicine was born, and doctors were actually able to treat disease well and reliably
get positive results from their treatments.

Just because the exercise science literature is insufficient for many questions an athlete or coach
will wrestle with, that does not mean the process as a whole is unsound it just means more
research needs to be done to expand the knowledge in the field.
Luckily, I think were on the cusp of some really exciting times in strength science. Alan
Aragon, Brad Schoenfeld (who has literally a dozen studies in review right now Im sure
mostly on trained athletes!), and many others are pumping out research almost every week thats
relevant to most of us.

I think the critics are going to be amazed at the relevance and quality of studies that are coming
down the pike in the next couple of years.

Is there really a conflict?

Or, to state it another way, why would a coach be critical of applying the scientific method to
training athletes.
To reiterate the truth has nothing to hide.

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Honestly, I can only think of two reasons why someone would oppose exercise science.
a) They dont understand how it works, and come to conclusions about its usefulness based on
bad assumptions.
b) They dont want to find themselves in a position of having to admit theyre wrong if the
evidence comes out against them.
The best coaches (even once who arent explicitly citing scientific studies) are already using the
scientific process every day.
Science isnt complicated or reserved for the elites. Its a simple process

1. Make an observation

2. Make a hypothesis (prediction) based on that observation

3. Think of a way to test your prediction

4. Run the test (experiment)

5. Ask yourself if the outcome of the experiment supported your prediction, or called it into
question.

Any good coach should always be trying to figure out better and better ways to improve their
athletes performance. When they observe that something could be improved upon, attempt a
fix, and then check to see if the changes had the desired effect, they are doing science. That is
how good coaches became good coaches, and continue to become better coaches.

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The only coaches not doing science, on some level, are the ones that say theres only one way of
doing things and refuse to change in the face of new evidence. They dont realize that just
because something works, it could still work better. Instead of innovation and improvement, this
approach represents stagnation. It belies a stronger desire to assert that Im right, and have been
right this whole time than the desire to improve training outcomes for their athletes.

There is no true conflict between evidence-based coaches and in-the-trenches

coaches. Evidence-based coaches start with the literature, and refine their approach based on inthe-trenches experience. In-the-trenches coaches start with experience, and apply the scientific
method to their training programs to continue improving them. In my opinion, both are
legitimate ways to learn and improve, and both camps should listen to what the other has to say.

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Buy-In
Id like to introduce you all to a friend of mine. This is Alex.

Ive known Alex online for a while now, but I didnt meet him until this summer, when he was
cool enough to let us stay at his place while we got set up in an apartment (its hard to apartment
search in CA while living an Arkansas and North Carolina). Luckily, he was the cool kind of
person you meet online who turned out to be even better in real life than on the internet not the
kind that seems normal enough, until you wind up 6 feet under the earth in the New Mexico
desert as soon as you close your eyes.
Anyways, Ive learned a lesson from Alex this summer that may be more valuable that any
individual tidbit of information I picked up in the entirety of my formal education or experiential
leaning so far. Namely, physiology only matters if someones already psychologically invested.
Emotional buy-in is hugely important.

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I guess this was something I knew on an intellectual level, but it didnt really make sense on an
experiential level until I saw Alexs work this summer.

Alex runs a kick-ass weight loss facility in Huntington Beach. In the corner of it, he has a fully
equipped powerlifting gym (power rack, competition plates, Texas power bar and deadlift bar,
DBs up to 200s Its awesome) where weve been training most of the time, but the majority of
the facility is dedicated to his weight loss clients: mostly middle aged, mostly female people
wanting to lose weight and look good. The place is always packed, and everyone always seems
to be having a good time.
So I asked Alex what his special sauce is obviously weight loss is a big industry and HB is a
great place to be, but hes not the only gym in town by a LONG shot (there are 5+ in a 1 mile
radius) and his place is doing *exceptionally* well, especially since it just opened its doors 9
months ago.
His answer, I tell these women that theyre going to lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks, and I deliver.

Hold up.
I did some quick mental math. Thats roughly three and a half pounds per week. Its
physiologically best to shoot for 1-2 pounds per week, right?
I think he could tell I was about to protest, so he cut me off. These people arent happy with
how they look and they want to lose a lot of weight. We both know they need to start working
out and eating right. Whats going to get them to do that? Telling them, you want to lose 40
pounds, but the healthiest thing is to drop a pound or two per week, so I can help you get to your

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goal in 5-10 months, or telling them, you want to lose 40 pounds. Sweet. How about we cut
that number in half in the next six weeks?

Next I asked him about success rates. 68% lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks, and virtually everyone
loses at least 15.
Im starting to get skeptical. I know the research showing that sustained, substantial (20+
pounds) weight loss is possible, but exceedingly rare without bariatric surgery. But thats the
norm for him. Sure, hes only been at it for 9 months, but the hefty majority of the people who
have been with him from the beginning have lost 30 pounds or more and have kept it off or are
still losing weight.

So I ask him about his methods. He shows me the diets that he puts them on. He starts them at
roughly 10-11 calories per pound of body weight, adjusts down if theyre unhappy with how fast
theyre losing weight, and wont drop someone below 100 grams of carbs per day or 1,500
calories per day. He puts a premium on protein and quality food sources. Nothing mind-blowing
or revolutionary.
So whats his secret? Emotional buy-in. It starts with the pitch of losing 20 pounds in 6 weeks (a
goal that is doable, but big enough to animate the people hes working with), is intensified by the
group classes and supportive environment, and is reinforced at every step along the way. These
people are interested in losing weight (why else would they set foot in the door?), Alex makes
them believe they can lose weight (68% of the people Ive worked with have lost 20 pounds or
more in 6 weeks. You seem like someone who works hard enough to be in the top 2/3, right?),
and he has a solid plan in place good workouts and solid nutrition to make sure their buy-in

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isnt squandered. More than anything, his adherence rate (a low adherence rate is the bane of
every trainers existence) is absurdly high.

Rewind 4 years to when I started doing online training consultations. I thought online strength
training was something I wanted to get into, but Im a little sensitive about charging for things
Im the worlds biggest cheapskate, so if Im going to charge someone for a service Im
providing, I want to make sure Im providing a service thats worth the cost.
So what I did was blast all over Facebook and the forums that I was a part of at the time that Id
be taking on training clients for free. I thought I knew what I was doing Id been writing
training programs for workout partners and friends at my gym for quite some time with overall
good results, and I thought that would translate online.

Oh boy was I wrong.

Some people did okay. Most, however, did not. The biggest issue they werent doing what I
told them to do! Some would openly admit it. Others would complain they werent getting
results, and as soon I told them they had to start taking video of their main lifts and their major
accessory work every workout, in addition to taking pictures of all the meals they ate they
magically started improving.

After a lot of frustration, I finally had a success rate good enough that I felt like I was ethically
justified to charge for my services.

And a magical thing happened. Adherence rate jumped a solid 25% right away as soon as people
had some skin in the game. And results improved noticeably.

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Once that was off the ground and running, I havent promoted hardly any occasionally Ill brag
on a client who has hit a big PR or had a major accomplishment but thats because Im
legitimately proud of the effort theyve put in, and I think they should get some public kudos for
it. Other than that, I dont talk about it much. I hate hate hate sales.

The great thing about hating sales: my adherence rate is now very high: 90%+. Sure, people
dont work out when theyre celebrating their honeymoon, or will cheat like a beast if they get
invited to a wedding (and Id be disappointed if they didnt; unless you have a world record or an
Olympic medal in your sights, life should trump training) but on the whole, people eat like
theyre supposed to, get all their workouts in, and see great results.

Why?
I didnt have to convince them to train with me because of brilliant marketing or sales tactics.
They read this blog, see what Ive done, and think Hey, this guy knows what hes talking about
and I think he can help me get stronger. Furthermore, Im convinced enough of that fact that Im
willing to pay him to train me. I dont have to use any fancy tactics to get belief and buy-in. No
one contacts me asking me to work with them unless buy-in is already there.
So at this point you may be thinking, Thats great, but how does this apply to me in any way at
all. Congrats to you and your friend, but I read your damn blog because I usually get something
out of what you write, so get on with your freaking point.

Okay, okay.

For the fitness professional:

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Are you having to aggressively market yourself and your services to keep your head above
water? Think about taking a step back and focusing on the quality of the work you do.

Are you knowledgeable? Do you write or make videos that benefit your readers or viewers while
simultaneously demonstrating you know what youre talking about? If not, get on it.

Are you getting your clients the results they want and do you love what you do and the people
you train? Then let people see that it goes a lot further than fancy advertising schemes do in my
opinion.
Of course, if youre selling a program, I do think theres something to be said for marketing.
How many new lifters are absolutely stoked to start Strong Lifts or Starting Strength because
theyre convinced its the best thing since sliced bread because of how dang confident Medhi and
Rip sound when they talk about training new lifters? Ditto for intermediate lifters starting 5/3/1
or the Cube Method because of how Wendler and Brandon Lilly sound 100% sure youre going
to get a ton stronger doing their programs.
Without that emotional buy-in, I guarantee you that youre going to get less effort and worse
results. Of course, theres a fine line between getting someone excited about your program and
making claims you cant back up, but if you can be honest while building justifiable excitement,
youre going to be able to get better results for your clients.

For the person looking to get in shape, get stronger, or look sexy:
Invest in what youre doing. The fitness industry makes it really easy for you to convince
yourself you really care without actually buying in to your own fitness. You can get a ton of

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information for free, and you can get a gym membership dirt cheap most places its easy to go
through the motions without ever really putting any skin in the game.

How much do you pay for cable TV? How much is your monthly phone bill? How much do you
spend on entertainment or eating out at restaurants?

How much do you spend on your fitness goals?

In a society like ours, spending habits are a pretty good indication of priorities.

Want to get stronger or improve your performance? Your best bet is to hire a competent local
coach or trainer to work with you 1 on 1. Your next best bet is to get in with a group or semiprivate fitness class germane to your goals. If you dont have good local options or you cant
afford them, THEN think about hiring an online coach (Yes, its last on the list for a reason. I get
good results with my online clients, but as a coach Ill be the first to admit that theres a lot you
simply cant address and wont see unless youre actually there with a person coaching them in
real time. If you can work with a competent coach in person, do not hire someone online).

Want to get sexy? Hire a diet coach. Some people have the willpower to make a meal plan for
themselves and stick with it, but most benefit hugely from hiring a good diet coach. Heres a (not
so) secret: most diet coaches dont do anything absurdly complicated: set calories, set protein,
and either set fat and adjust carbs, or set carbs and adjust fat then make small adjustments
based on how someones progress is going. And you know what? It works, because the first law
of thermodynamics is pretty accurate, and someone who cares enough to spend money on a diet
coach is (literally) invested in their results.

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Want to improve your knowledge? Buy an anatomy textbook and an exercise physiology
textbook. Read 10 pages per day. Assuming 600 pages apiece, youve read them cover to cover
in 4 months. Suddenly, everything will make a LOT more sense to you, youll be less apt to fall
for stupid marketing gimmicks, and youll find yourself less and less interested in the drivel on
most popular websites.

In summation:

Humans are not solely rational beings. More often than not, we make decisions based on
emotion, and then try to come up with logical justifications after the fact (no matter how much
we may hate to admit it) rather than make logical decisions and grow emotionally attached to
them later.
Id wager that very few people reading this need to be rationally convinced about the need to
train harder and eat more/less/better to meet their strength, performance, and physique goals.
Most people just need more emotional buy-in. Theyve tried and failed too often, or have never
had enough belief in their ability to succeed to fully devote themselves to their goals in the first
place.
1. Pick a goal thats doable, but big enough to animate you (the first ingredient in Alexs secret
sauce).

2. Find someone who you think can get you there. You may know enough to do it yourself, but
thats often not enough. Plenty of coaches hire coaches. Thats how I met Alex in the first place.
The other person and the payment you send each month keep you accountable

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3. And invest literally and emotionally in the process.

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Be Honest with Yourself. Training for Health vs. Performance

Heres a potentially touchy question: Does your training make you a healthier person? Do I get
a resounding roar of Yes, or do I hear crickets? How many bold souls will admit that honestly,
no, their training is not contributing to their health, but may in fact be damaging it?
Ill be the first to admit it. My training does not, in any way, maximize health. I think this is a
point more of us need to be honest with ourselves about before we can help other people.
Heres what I mean. Lets just take some general qualities of performance and body
composition: strength, size, body fat %, flexibility, and endurance. Just throwing out some
hypothetical numbers, a person (man, for this example) training to optimize health should
reasonably be expected possess these general abilities/qualities:

Squat 315

Bench 220

Deadlift 365

Weigh 170-180ish (for a normal sized guy) at 10-15% body fat

Perform adequately for most measures of flexibility/mobility (be able to hinge forward and touch
the floor, be able to touch their hands behind the back with one arm over the shoulder and one
arm coming from beneath, etc.)

Run a 5k in 24:00

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Now, Im sure we could quibble that some of those numbers are a little too high or too low, but I
think most of us can agree that the person I just described is probably quite healthy.

Let us now assume that this person decides to take up competitive powerlifting or competitive
marathon running. Do you honestly think they become healthier by pushing their strength or
endurance to crazy levels at the expense of everything else? What if he decided to become a
contortionist and did everything possible to drop muscle mass to be able to attain insane levels of
mobility? What if he wanted to diet down to 4% body fat for a physique show, or get as huge as
possible for bodybuilding? Although all of these things are associated with positive health
outcomes (strength, muscle mass, cardiovascular endurance, reasonably low body fat, and
mobility), pursuing any of them to the elite level does not intrinsically further your health, and it
could even be harmful to you depending on your goals, methods, and potential exclusion of
training for other physical characteristics and abilities.
I know that, in my training, Im not doing anything to improve my health by working to improve
a 700+ squat. To think otherwise is asinine. I do my best to keep a decent body composition
and maintain decent levels of flexibility and conditioning, but I am definitely increasing joint
wear and tear which is especially hazardous for cartilage which has poor blood supply and does
not repair very well.

Of course, joint wear and tear is also a result of excessive running. Cardiovascular disease can
result from getting too big (regardless of whether its muscle or fat, you still have miles of extra
blood vessels your heart has to pump to), dieting down to extreme leanness can cause endocrine
disruptions, and (the elephant in the room), the level of training necessary to become truly elite

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in ANYTHING typically carries with it an intrinsic social cost, whether it be in lost time you
could have spent socializing, or stigmas associated with your lifestyle or appearance.

Sure, training solely for performance in a given discipline is healthier than sitting on the couch
eating junk and doing nothing, but is that REALLY a comparison that verifies the healthiness of
your pursuit?
I think its important to differentiate between training for health and training for performance. I
am, obviously, not against training for extreme levels of performance by any means. Nor do I
think that training for performance in a given discipline must me unhealthy, just that it can be.

Consider your goals. If your main reason for training is so you can look good, feel good, and
live a healthy life, then ignore all the noise out there telling you that you should get down to 4%
body fat, run a marathon, lift ungodly amounts of weight, etc. Your training is not somehow less
important or less productive because youre not training to break records. Your goals are your
goals, and your training is perfect if it serves those goals. If a trainer tries to mold your goals to
conform to his or her area of interest, give them the boot and find someone who prioritizes your
goals over their own.

Hopefully, if nothing else, this will serve as a reminder to be cognizant of your goals (or your
clients goals) and to not fool yourself with false reasons for why you do what you do. If youre
training to be healthy youre training to be healthy. If youre training to be a freak, youre
training to be a freak. I think both a perfectly good reasons for training, and you shouldnt need
to fool yourself about your reasons.

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The Size of Your Pond

A friend of mine at the gym at school got sponsored not too long ago. He does physique stuff
(hasnt actually competed, but is still jacked enough to pick up a sponsorship. Pretty legit.), so
we come to a discussion with totally different paradigms. Hes helped me a lot with feeling
muscles that are inhibited and dont want to fire properly, and I help him with approaching
strength-based programming. Its a surprisingly productive relationship for a commercial gym.

Today he asked me simply how I handle heavy weights. For him, he said, squatting much over 4
plates feels like hes dealing with a crushing amount of weight, especially in the hole, and
pulling anything more than mid-400s feels intimidating in his hands when it breaks the
ground. So he was curious about how I seem so nonchalant when handling 500+, and how I
keep progressing even when the weights feel heavy. I gave him some basic advice about
exercise selection (partials and supermaximal holds can help confidence underweight, and
paused squats can make you feel much more comfortable in the hole when you squat heavy), and
then also explained the truly important change that needed to be made.

Everyone knows the illustration of moving a goldfish to a larger and larger bowl. Keep it in a
little bowl and it will stay small. Move it to a larger bowl and it will grow. Put it in a pond and
it will grow even more. Youre that fish, and your bowl is how wide you cast your gaze
(metaphor time!). If you want to be the strongest guy in your gym, thats great. Not a bad place
the start, but also a pretty lousy end goal. Unless you train at Westside, Big Iron, Lexen, , in the
weight room of a college or professional sports team, or one of maybe 3 or 4 dozen REAL gyms
in the county, being the strongest person in the gym is pretty meaningless. Youve simply
become the biggest fish in a tiny fish bowl.

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Bench 315 in most gyms, and people will oo and ah. Squat 5 plates and people will be
astounded. Thats one of the worst things that can possibly happen. You see, youve cast your
gaze pretty narrowly. Youve become the top dog. If youre the strongest person in the whole
gym, there must be a reason everyone else isnt as strong as you. You must be pretty darn
strong. How much stronger can you get? Its hard to say exactly, but probably not
much. Youre the strongest person at your gym, after all. Youre even stronger than that one
guy who uses prohormones (or, *gasp* a low dose of test from time to time). Its going to be
difficult moving forward, to further cement your place as king of the hill.
Cast your gaze wider than that. Lets say you weigh about 180 an average sized dude. Men
your size have squatted 710, bench 556, and pulled 791. So much for your amazing *cough*
lifts. Congratulations. Youve cast yourself from a tiny fish bowl into an ocean. Youve gone
from being the biggest fish to being a painfully average-sized fish which is fantastic (no
sarcasm).

I honestly think newb gains are 50% physical and 50% mental. Sure, they have a lot of untapped
potential for growth, but theyre also mentally playing catch up with everyone around
them. Heres an experiment I wish theyd do: take two groups of new lifters, and put them both
on the same popular beginners program (SS, SL, GSLP, or any of the others). One group trains
in a commercial gym. The other trains in a collegiate football weight room when the team is
actually lifting but receive no extra coaching, etc. I PROMISE you the second group gets
significantly stronger on the exact same program. All over the internet you see people talk about
finally squatting 315 or benching 225. It happens at the gym I train at when Im in school. At
Mash Elite (not a shameless plug, but a serious fact), doing either of those things means

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Congratulations. Youre a non-midget who just hit puberty. Pretty productive for your first 2
months of training. Now lets work towards something thats ACTUALLY worth bragging
about.
When you broaden your gaze throw yourself into the ocean it sets you up to get stronger
again, very quickly. Odds are, if youre taking the time to read this, you probably have been
training for a while and you think of yourself as pretty strong. Youre the strongest (or at least
one of the strongest) of your friends. You can show up most of the people up in your
gym. Youd probably beat most of the people at a state powerlifting meet. Forget it all. How
would you do head-to-head against Ed Coan in his prime? Or Lamar Gant? Or Donnie
Thompson? Or Larry Pacifico? Until you can honestly tell yourself that youd be competitive
maybe not win, but at least be mentioned in the same sentence youre not strong. The sooner
you can get that through your head the better.

Everyone knows about diminishing returns in the gym. The stronger you are, the harder it is to
continue getting stronger. Until youre at least kind of strong to begin with, though, gains come
naturally. The longer you can delay your assessment of yourself as a strong individual, the better
off you are. When people tell me Im strong, I usually bluntly deny it. Its not feigned humility
a practice I have no respect for. Its the truth. I really dont see myself as very strong. Not
yet, at least. Travis has gone 805/545/804 raw. Right now, thats strong to me. Until I take
down each of those, Im not strong in that particular lift. Once that happens, Coans records are
my next target, my next standard. After that, who knows?
Will it happen? Well see. Objectively its quite unlikely, but I wouldnt keep training if I didnt
see it as a possibility. As useful as it is to avoid hubris (the whole point of this discussion), its

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also important to avoid doubt. So what if you widen your gaze, if doing so makes you throw up
your hands and say I dont have a chance!? No matter how crazy the goal, you have to
entertain it as a possibility. Imagine young Dorian Yates:

Needs more Cell-Tech

What if he told you his dream of becoming Mr. Olympia? Youd laugh at him. And youd have
looked like a fool for doing so in hindsight:

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Just a wee bit huge

Luckily, as corny as it may sound, HE believed he could do it, and ultimately thats what
mattered.

People who follow my blog will recognize this as a variation on a theme I like to bring up fairly
frequently: you limit yourself by having low expectations. To bring this full circle and to tie it
back into the metaphor of the evening: throw yourself into the biggest ocean there is. You may
never become the biggest fish, but only by venturing there do you find out just how large of a
fish you can become.

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Parting Words

Thanks for taking the time to read through this compilation. If you got a copy of this
book when you signed up for the Strengtheory newsletter, I hope youll be able to learn and
benefit from the site and myself in the future. If you got this from a friend, Id really appreciate
it if youd sign up for the Strengtheory newsletter to keep up to date with new information and
goings-on.
Remember, this is just a start a first step. Never lose your thirst for knowledge if you
want to attain your full potential as a coach or athlete.