Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

Making your novice strength training routine more effective – Two quick tips

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This is something all new lifters need to read when they’re doing Starting Strength, Stronglifts 5×5, Greyskull LP, or any of the other beginner programs out there.

From a practical standpoint, it’ll help them get the most out of their first couple of years under the bar.  Taking the long view, it’ll also be a good introduction to some basic principles of program design.

1.  Periodize

Periodization is a massive subject, and it’s 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 for men and women, individuals of varying training backgrounds, and for all age groups.”  That’s about the most conclusive statement you’ll hear from an exercise scientist.

Here’s 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 3×8 for your lifts, adding weight each session until you’re unable to do so.  Once you can’t add weight every session anymore…

Switch to 5×5.  Repeat the process.

Then 5×3.

You don’t 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 beginner’s program, while also implementing some basic periodization, which will almost certainly make the program more effective for you.  You’ll be able to linearly add weight for a longer period of time, and odds are very good that you’ll end up with bigger maxes than if you stuck with 3-5×5 for the entire program.

2.  When you finally plateau, add volume

Something I’ve 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.”

What’s 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?

gainz fairy

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 don’t 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 3×8 to 5×5.  Build back up by proceeding from 5×8 to 6×5 to 7×3.  This will more reliably keep your progress going than sticking with 3-5×5, deloading a bit, and building back up with the same sets and reps.

 

I’m sure if you’re a regular Strength & Science 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.

Fixing the good-morning squat

The fitness-related content on this site has all been moved over to Strengtheory.com, my new website.

If you want to keep reading on this page, that’s perfectly fine. If you want to read this article on Strengtheory, just replace “gregnuckols” in the address bar with “strengtheory,” and don’t forget to check Strengtheory.com regularly for new articles!  If you’d like to share this article with your friends (please do!), then I’d appreciate it if you shared the Strengtheory.com URL.  It’s a prettier site for your friends to use, and it helps with the new site’s ranking in search engines.

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This is a common problem, and one I get asked about frequently enough that it was worth explaining what’s happening and how to fix it in a blog post.

For those of you who don’t 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 you’re 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.

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, you’re 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 won’t 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 what’s already strong, you’ll probably be able to move more weight, but it’s 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” isn’t the be-all-end-all of lower body training, I do absolutely think it’s 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, that’s 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 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, it’s a little funny I feel like I need to justify a recommendation to train the quads.  They’re 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 I’m 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 Contreras’s 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.