Article worth quick read (short)

[Ryan]

This is from Greg Nuckles who used to post here years ago. He's now a pretty well respected member of the S&C community, published author, etc.

Here he summarizes in layman's terms what it takes to create the basis for a successful strength program:

People try to make programming way way way too complicated.
Here are some commonalities of (almost) all successful programs:
1) Practice the lifts you want to improve at
2) Do each lift between 1 and 4 times per week
3) Pick accessory work to bring up weaknesses. 30-50 reps, with 8-12 reps per set is a good place to start.
4) Get the bulk of your volume between 70-85% of your max
5) 10-15 total reps for main lifts on heavy workouts (85% or more), and 25-40 total reps for main lifts on lighter workouts (below 85%) is a good starting point.
6) Have some sort of progression. Add weight, add reps, add sets, etc. over time. If your main goal is putting on muscle, focus more on progressions that increase volume, and if you main goal is strength, focus more on progressions that increase load (in the short-term, at least).
7) If you're getting bigger and stronger, stick with it.
8) If you're not improving and you're feeling run down all the time, do a little less.
9) If you're not improving and you always feel fresh, do a little more.
If you have those things in place, it'll be a pretty solid program.
(bringing back an old post; originally from 2014)

I realize a lot of folks are going to say "everyone is unique, and what works for one may not work for the next". There's no question that's true, and I dont think he's aiming to oppose that line of thought. Instead, he seems to be saying that these points should serve as the underlayment for ANY good training methodology. It's not a "here's what you do to get stronger, and if you disagree, you're a dope". It's more of a basic foundation of common sense sprinkled with a few percentage markers meant to act as just guide points. This sort of philosophy should be the framework for any strength athletes training so that you can expand on or mold it to a given immediate purpose, but to still focus on building upon it for best results. My personal experience in strength sports is limited to my own training (and only 5yrs at that), but after I read this article and took an inventory of my successes and failures in training, I realized that the closer I've stuck in my past training to what he lays out above, the better results I've noticed during a given time frame.

I personally think he's spot on and that most of us are guilty of over OR under programming based on factors that are less personally unique than we want to admit. It usually boils down to that we're over training, under training, focusing on things that arent directly impactful to the core lifts, etc. You name it.

If any of you are on twitter, definitely follow him. He puts out a lot of good, useful content - some decidedly drier boimechanical-based stuff, but some "light reading" straight-forward stuff that you can put in to practice immediately.

Thoughts?

[osu122975]

I've never been a big believer in "weakness" training when it comes to accessory work. I think whatever lift it is keeping you from having a higher total you work on bringing up that lift with either more volume or intensity. I think most accessory work is counter productive if you hit the main lifts right. Very light and high reps can be of benefit but I've never gotten anything from doing any medium to heavy accessory work....

...but that's just me

[Ryan]

See, and where I agree with you on that Eric is the "bringing up weak points" thing. I am still in the Paul Carter camp of "get stronger and you'll move more weight", but I can give an example of where accessory work has at least indirectly translated for me to bigger numbers on main lift: Incline Bench. As my incline has gone up, so have my main bench. My volume day is the only other thing that has increased in my bench training during same period and I certainly attribute some bench poundage increase to extra volume too, but I think both have helped me. Without incorporating both of them into my training, my bench had stagnated for a solid 2yrs.

[3speed]

I've had a few discussions with Paul on that and we are at the point of agree to disagree. As you can tell from my logs, I am a big believer of doing the 'Big 3" for the great majority of my training. However, I do believe we are only as strong as our weakest link. I am a strong believer in bringing up weaknesses if, and only if, you have identified a specific weakness and pick the proper exercise to address it. I do not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach like hammering triceps, or worse yet lats, if you want a bigger bench. A movement which closely mimics the main movement while working on a specific weakness can be of great value. Ryan, your experience with incline bench most likely brought up your front delts which play a significant role in the bench about 4 to 6 inches off your chest.

I have preached for years that increased volume over time is the key to progress and Greg does a great job of showing how simple it is to apply this concept. I read the above post from Greg about 2 years ago and it is still one of the best common sense analysis of how to program and progress I have ever seen. Everyone seems to think they are a special snowflake and need specialized training, but what Greg outlined above will work for the great majority of people. There is a small population that requires different volumes for training, but this ^ will work for most.

[dbunch]

I remember Greg, he was a big help to me when I first started posting here and he was crazy strong.

I’m a big believer in week point training through accessory work. The majority of your training need to be the big three but as the old saying goes you are only as strong as your weakest link. So to me it makes sense to say make the weak links stronger and you get stronger, faster. Where I think the problem lies with the average lifter is they do a poor job of identifying week points and the associated muscles groups so they choose the wrong accessory movements to train week points.
Also, people tend to like movements that they are good at because they can move more weight and it’s easier and of course they avoid movements where they tend to struggle. So what they end up doing is trading strong points and ignoring week points. Because of this they get very little out of there accessory training except for getting better at the accessory movement.

[Cormac]

I'm definitely guilty of doing accessory work that doesn't benefit the big 3. I always believed it was important to look strong as well as be strong and this is possibly true but some accessory work has no crossover to performance whatsoever. 
I would like to get some of your opinions on training methods for the following,


Beginner - (I thought focusing on Squat, Bench, Deadlift, Press, Row and maybe some curls or gh raises)

Intermediate (Needs to be more muscular in order to achieve genetic potential, so would start each session with the main lifts for low-ish volume and make up the majority of volume with properly selected accessory)


Advanced (majority of training should be high volume on the core lifts).


If you think i'm way off i'd like to get your opinions. I'm an intermediate lifter myself so am quite limited with real time under the bar. 

[Ryan]

Here are my feelings on training in general, and for the most part, they go along with Greg's article:

Whether beginner, intermediate or advanced, what creates strength increases is adaptation. In other words, keep doing things you're not used to which forces your body to get stronger. The impetus for change is usually a mixture of volume, load, intensity, and between-set rest periods.

For beginners, practically anything will work. You squat down to crap and you get stronger, as long as you're eating more (and hopefully sleeping more) than you have been in the past.

However, as you progress through training the stimlui -and methods used to employee them- need to be more strategic. So in other words, simply "doing" things will not yield results anymore as an intermediate the way it did in your beginner days. As an intermediate, you need to actually focus your training, set specific near-term goals and slightly less specific further-reaching goals. This usually involves programming that continues to focus on intensity (because that runs through almost all levels of strength sport training), but I believe the scales shift somewhat away from hypertrophy-specific training (meaning 8 rep or higher work sets) and toward form-focused training that helps you hone your craft but also challenges your body to adapt to moving heavier loads using calculated technique.

As an experienced lifter, I firmly believe that you need to pay more attention to what you're moving, how often you're moving it, etc than you do the skill set behind moving weight because if you haven't developed solid, consistent repeatable form by the time you're moving legit weight, then respectfully, you're not truly an experienced/advanced lifter. Part of the definition of experienced/advanced is having already mastered the minutia of the sport, and you're now on to perfecting your max capacity to demonstrate at competitions. So knowing how to do things the right way might give you the "yoda" factor, but knowledge doesn't make you advanced; it just makes you knowledegable. So, reasonably speaking, as an advanced lifter, your primary work will be in heavier % ranges and at mid to lower rep ranges with longer rests between sets so as not to degrade the form accuracy you've spent so hard practicing and nearly perfecting.

Beginner: lift anything and everything a few times a week at higher rep ranges, short breaks between sets. Eat lots, sleep lots. Easy growth stage.

Intermediate: begin to focus your efforts toward the sport of choice (strength sport that is) and make the key lifts for that sport the focal points of your training. When practicing those key lifts, key on your form and keep WORK reps in moderate ranges w/varying levels of intensity.

Advanced/experienced: you're always working on your form/technique, but the lion's share of that should be automatic by now. Watch film, have people critique your training, etc. But at this stage, you really ought to just be brushing up on form issues, not overhauling. If you feel the need for the latter, you're likely missing something MUCH simpler earlier on in the training process. Also here, there is little point to incorporating "assistance training sessions". I do some of these now, but that's only because I'm pseudo-rehabbing a low back injury that's preventing me from DLing. So in general, I am not advocating throwing everything away that's not sq/bn/dl, but rather if you're gonna do assistance work, make it as immediately relevant in the scope of the Big 3 as possible or you're wasting your time and resources.

[Cormac]

Thanks for that Ryan, that makes me think quite a bit differently about specifically the focus of an intermediate lifter. I remember competing last year in the 181lb weight class and at 5 foot 9 being the second tallest lifter in the whole weight class, quite a few guys said I needed to go up to the 198 or 220 class, i'm 187 now. The reason I bring this up is because I had initially thoought intermediates need to focus on hypertrophy and building muscle hence the greater focus on assisstance exercises.

[Ryan]

No problem and I'm really eager for others like Woody, Eric and Dan to chime in here. I'm sure they have things to add and maybe some different opinions too.

[dbunch]

Ryan I’m more or less in line with what you wrote.

Begginers will make gains just by touching the weight and because at this point everything is a week point there is a lot of crossover. For example if a person only did shoulder and arm work his bench would still go up. This time should be focused on form getting the movements right to get the most out of them at this stage I think intensity is more important than load.

Intermediate lifters have to start thinking harder about what they are doing, gains are no longer give-me. They have to work for them. But gains are still plentiful. At this stage lifters should be refining their technique. They should have the form down, but start looking for subtle way to prefect it. They should be settling down into a more formal routing training with specific goals in mind. Lol – IMO, you can tell when a lifter transforms for a beginner to and intermediate lift it is when they start seriously logging their training. They should be working the big three and starting to drop the extraneous accessory lift and focusing on what supplements the big three. Again this is just my opinion but I believe that most lifter never advance past this point (Myself included)

An experienced lifter to me can be an intermediate or advance lifter. It is just someone who has been in the game long enough to talk intelligently about the nuts and bolts of lifting.

Advanced lifters, most never achieve this stage, are lifters who have reached the top of their game. Their technique has reached near perfection. They need to constantly analyze their movement looking for small way to improve. Their main focus will be on load and building up weakness. Gains will be painfully slow and hard won. At this point nutrition becomes super important because you’re now a high tuned performance machine that need super fuel.

[vegasjon]

greg knuckles is the man. love his strongerbyscience articles