Dante Trudel - DoggCrapp Notes PDF

 

DC Training Crib Notes Snippets of posts by Dante and In-Human.

What Makes You Big Training is all about adoption. In simple terms you lift a weight and your muscle has one of 2 choices, either tear  completely under the load (which is incredibly rare and what we don't want) or the muscle lifts the weight and protects itself by remodeling and getting bigger to protect itself against the load (next time). If the weight gets heavier, the muscle has to again remodel and get bigger again to handle it. You can superset, superslow, giant set, pre exhaust all day long but the infinite adaptation is load---meaning heavier and heavier weights is the only infinite thing you can do in your training. Intensity is finite. Volume is finite (or infinite if you want to do 9000 sets per bodypart)...everything else is finite. The Load is infinite and heavier and heavier weights used (I DON'T GIVE A CRAP WHAT SOME BUCK 58 POUND WRITER FROM FLEX MAGAZINE SAYS) will make the biggest bodybuilder (add high protein, glutamine and drugs to the mix and you have one large person). I believe in Powerbuilding not bodybuilding--using techniques that build the most strength gains in the fastest time  possible while using the most effective effe ctive exercises e xercises for that per son. I am posit positive ive I could take ta ke 2 twins--have the first one do his own thing training wise, but using the same drugs, supplements and nutrition as the twin I train......come back a year later and the twin I trained would have 25 lbs more muscle. I've seen powerlifters (who catch a lot of guff from bodybuilders for being "fat") diet down and come in and destroy  bodybuilders in bodybuilding shows ttime ime and time again. Over and over. Powerlifters and Powerbodybuilders are by far the thickest guys onstage when and if they t hey decide to enter bodybuilding shows.  No matter what the method someone uses to gain super strength gains-it’s imperative imperati ve they do so. Again if you put someone out on a desert island with 135 lbs of weights he can superset, giant set, high rep, superslow etc etc squats, deadlifts and benches to his hearts delight...the sad story is his gains will quickly come to a halt because his limiting factor is the amount of strength he will gain. He has 135 lbs to work with. You take that same guy on a desert island and give him squats, deadlifts, and benches and an unlimited weight supply that he constantly pushes, in 5 years I'll show you you a big Gilligan. For the next few months take note of the people you see in the gym that never change. They will be the ones using the same weight time after time on exercises whenever they are in the gym. These are the people who use 135, 185, 225 on the bench every time its chest day. Your best friends in the gym are the 2.5 lbs plates--your very best buds!!! You put those 2.5 lbs plates on that bar every time you bench press for 52 weeks and now your bench is 250 lbs more at the end of the year! That would equal out to another inch to inch + half thickness on your chest. Can it be done? Probably not at that rate but TRYING TO DO IT will get you a lot bigger than doing what 98% of the people in the gym do. Unless you are gifted genetically to build muscle at a dizzying rate (most people aren't), the largest people in your gym will also be the ones heaving up the heaviest weights. Do you think they started out that way? No, they were probably 175 lb guys who bulldozed their way up to that level. A perfect example are male strippers. These guys use a boatload of  drugs on par with hardcore competitive bodybuilders. After an initial phase where they grow off of steroids like everyone else--their growth stops (like forever). Why? Because they aren't eating 500 grams of protein a day and don't fight and claw their way to 500 lbs bench presses and 700 lbs squats and deadlifts. They stay on the drugs for years and years while stripping but don't go beyond that 200 to 220 lbs range. So much for juice being the total equalizer. I don't know why pseudo experts try to make training such an elite science when in actuality it’s pretty cut and dry. If you keep a training log and note your weights used for the next 5 years and find they are still the same you will pretty much look "still the same" in 5 years. If you double all your poundage's in the next five years in everything, your going to be one thick person .....If someone ever took a ratio of people who don't make gains to people who do, it would be pitiful. I would venture to say that 95% of people in gyms across this country aren't gaining muscle and are wasting their time. The absolutely best advice I could ever give a guy starting out lifting is "go train with an established powerlifter" and learn all the principles he trains t rains with. There would be a lot more happy bodybuilders out there. So now you guys know I believe in the heaviest training possible (safely)---I think I hammered that home, I needed to do that because so many bodybuilders are lost on how to get from A to Z.....it’s all part of my quest to make the biggest heavy slag iron lifting, high protein eating, stretching and recuperating massive bodybuilders I can. As you progress as a bodybuilder you need to take even more rest time and recovery time. READ THAT AGAIN PLEASE AS YOU PROGRESS AS A BODYBUILDER IN SIZE AND STRENGTH YOU NEED TO TAKE EVEN MORE REST AND RECOVERY TIME. EXAMPLE: My recovery ability is probably slightly better now than when I started lifting 15 years ago but only slightly...but back then I was benching 135lbs and squatting 155lbs in my first months of lifting. Now I am far and

 

away the strongest person in my gym using poundages three to six times greater than when I first started lifting. With my recovery ability being what it is both then and now, do you think I need more time to recover from a 155lb squat for  8 reps or a 500 lbs squat for 8 reps? Obviously the answer is NOW! Yet remember this-the more times you can train a  bodypart in a years time and a nd recover will me mean an the fastest gr owth possible! I’ve done the training trai ning a bodypart ever y 10 days system in the past and while recovering from that--the gains were so slow over time I got frustrated and realized the frequency of growth phases(for me)was to low. I want to gain upwards of 104 times a year instead of 52--the fastest rate that I can accumulate muscle (YET AGAIN WITHIN ONES RECOVERY ABILITY-I CAN’T SAY THAT ENOUGH) A of people askgyms me how comejust to conclusions on things.....a of all this can deduct from whatthink you see going onlot around you at and Ifrom watching people. A lot oflot what I do is you "reverse engineering"--I things out  backwards to find out the reasoning. You can sit there and study medline all day long but until you have a practical  brain to think t hink how it pertains to bodybuilding, your not going to get very fa farr in applying appl ying it. For example a lot of people freak out about the controlled negative on reps in DC training and why the heck its done. Think of certain instances with repetitive movements. Boat rowers, sawing lumberjacks and gymnasts. A boat rower is trying to power along a boat as fast as he can, a sawing lumberjack is using power to saw down a tree, a gymnast does repeated movements with bodyweight. All are pushing the limits trying to use as much power as possible for the task at hand. Which one of those three has a discernable musculature? Boat rowers don’t have huge backs, sawing lumberjacks don’t have huge arms but gymnasts always   have that musculature. They sure aren’t eating to get huge and most likely they aren’t doing incredibly heavy weight training but you can always see the musculature on a gymnast. Why? Well which one of those three does controlled negative movements? The rowers and sawers are just using positive movements and it does virtually nothing for their  musculature (science agrees with that theory-concluding that the positive movement is a strength/priming phase and the eccentric is where the magic happens)--the gymnasts on the other hand are all doing heavy eccentric and controlled negative work—the moral of the story is your whole thinking in all this should get to the point where your curling a weight up just for the simple reason of controlling the descent downward so you can get bigger  There was a study some years back which included 3 groups--elite sumo wrestlers who did no weight training whatsoever, advanced bodybuilders and advanced powerlifters--about 20 in each group. Now there is a lot of variables here but they took the lean muscle mass of each group and divided it by their height in inches. Surprisingly the sumo wrestlers came out well ahead of the powerlifters (2nd) and the bodybuilders (very close 3rd). This is a group who did no weight training at all but engorged themselves with food trying to bring their bodyweight up to dramatic levels. How is a group that is doing no weight training having more muscle mass per inch of height than powerlifters and  bodybuilders? For anyone that doubts food is the greatest anabolic in your arsenal, you bet better ter get up to t o speed and on the same page as what my trainees have found out. Gee now what would happen if you actually ate to get dramatically larger like a sumo, but actually weight trained like a powerbuilder (which is what we train like), and also did enough cardio/carb cuttoffs etc to keep bodyfat at bay while doing all this? Are you guys coming around to how I think yet....in how to become the biggest bodybuilder at the quickest rate but keeping leaness on that journey? You have to start thinking in terms of point B from point A. Do you really think that eating 3000 calories with 225 grams of protein and doing the Weider "confusion training principle" to keep your body offguard will somehow magically make your 175 lbs into 250 lbs of rock granite monstrosity? Every year of training is so damn important. If  you just trained for a whole year and only gained 2 lbs of muscle mass, you just pretty much wasted a productive year  of training--its gone--its lost and you aren’t getting that year back. Three weeks ago I was contacted by someone in his early 40's who had been lifting for many years, weighed about 170 lbs and showed me a picture of Geir Borgan Paulsen and said that’s what he wanted to look like and can I get him there?!. Laughable. Geir Borgan Paulsen is 50 years old and looks freaking phenomenal. He is a tiny bit (and I mean every so slightly tiny bit smaller) than he was when he competed in his 30's. Instead of wasting years and years of lifting getting absolutely nowhere, Geir spent his 20's and 30's eating huge amounts of food and training with heavy heavy weights so that he could walk around all thru his 30's, 40's and now 50 years old jacked to the hilt. Not many people have a better front double biceps than Geir no matter  what age they are. What I’m hoping to relay to you slackers and dreamers that are in this forum is that you have to put your time in and  pay your dues in this t his sport. Your 2-3 lbs gain a year aren’t going to get it done so unless you want to get to 55 years old and look back and think "wow besides the people I told and myself, no one even knew I was a bodybuilder and I never  made it"....you better get your ass in gear and your head on right and get this done now. Gaining fat is easy but if you never lifted how long would it take for you to gain 80 lbs of fat from 175 to 255 lbs? Probably a year and you would have to force-feed yourself to get there. Just think how long it takes to put on 80 lbs of muscle mass which is an

 

extremely "hard to come by" commodity. This sport is about extremes--using weights you haven’t used previously, taking in amounts of food to build greater muscle mass-in amounts you never have done previously, and GETTING THE CARDIO DONE to keep you at an acceptable offseason training bodyfat that keeps you happy. Get your act together and think this all out or quit your complaining and dreaming and take up tennis.

Overanalyzing I’m seeing a repetitive phenomenon with the people I train that I want to state here. I’ve trained a lot of people now in the last 2 years on the net and also in person previously. I keep noticing the same things-basically on how various trainees brain's work. When people contact me for training, the guys who have a big work ethic and believe in a system of training whether its mine or westside or 5x5 or whatever, and hammer it and hammer it hard come to me as big  people already. These T hese are the bodybuilders you see out there in the street. Big guys that you know lift, there is no doubt that they are bodybuilders. On the other hand I have gotten a lot of guys who have been lifting 5-10 years and you would never know they lifted even once unless they made it a point to tell you about it (and many do--LOL). And I’ll tell you what the overwhelming continual trait those guys have. THEY OVERTHINK THIS, OVERANALYZE, keep second guessing themselves, follow this routine this month and that routine the next, and Flex magazine the third month. It all depends on what they happen to read that week. HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT WORKS IF YOU SWITCH IT EVERY DAMN MONTH? I’ve showed TPC some of these emails in the warehouse and he didn’t realize the extent of what I was telling him about. I’ve had a couple guys in the last 2 months who have been lifting for  5-10 years and by their pics it would be embarrassing to tell anyone that they actually lift. Both of these guys are sending me emails talking about iso-tension at the top of bicep curls, worrying up and down about the statics, should I flex the pinky finger inward to make more of a contraction on my alternate curl, should my forearm be perpendicular to the earths axis at the bottom of the shoulder press (you get the drift). I went off on one guy and felt bad about it after   but he kept saying "well how I used to do it is. is..." .." and "well I’ve always done it this way" My answer was "well why do you look like shit if your old way worked so well"? No one will ever know who these trainees are because its my  business only but I want them the m to read thi thiss to get it cl clear ear in their heads. If you double triple t riple or quadruple your training trai ning weights in good safe form over the next year/s or so your basically (with diet) going to be double or triple your current muscular size. If your going to sit there and overanalyze this shit like its rocket science (which it isn’t I don’t care what anyone tries to make it out to be) and worry about things that really aren’t going to add up to pounds of muscle mass, then blame yourself when you never get there. Are you going to be a happy man at 50 years old when you look back  and think "Wow I screwed up, I never looked like a bodybuilder, never achieved my goals, never got dramatically  bigger, and it itss gone now.....I’m too old to make up for that lost ttime" ime" because be cause that’s t hat’s where a lot of you are heading he ading if  i f  you don’t get your heads on straight. I blame a lot of the muscle magazines for this. A lot of articles are ghost written for pros or are solo articles by people who are 165lbs who never made a huge change in their physique themselves. They try to portray lifting weights as this huge science (and they splurge up their articles with 8 vowel words and searching thru the thesaurus to find a word that makes them look extremely intelligent)--I go back to the beginning of  cycles for pennies on this---The absolute strongest you can make yourself in all exercises, coupled with food intake to eat your way up to the new musculature will allow you to hold the most muscle mass on your body that your genetics  predetermine. You want to worry bout something? Worry about that damn logbook. Worry about staying uninjured in your quest. Worry about not missing any meals. Worry about somehow someway making yourself the strongest bodybuilder you can become. I’m not talking singles here. I’m talking 9-15 reps rest paused. A brute. A behemoth. A human forklift. I guess I had to use this post to vent because TPC saw me pissed off in the warehouse today after answering emails such as "Dante should I try to isolate the upper portion of the pec muscle and hold the peak contraction and flex hard at the top of every rep for about 5 seconds?" If you have been lifting many years with no muscle mass to show the last thing you need to worry about is peak contraction--GET THE DAMN WEIGHT UP AND BEAT THE LOGBOOK WITH BIG WEIGHT JUMPS (and then you and I will be happy)

Program Basics Nutshell: Heavy progressive weights, lower volume but higher frequency of bodyparts hit, multi-rep rest pause training, extreme stretching, carb cuttoffs, cardio, high protein intake and blasting and cruising phases (periodization).

 Now to get ge t into specifics regarding training. Stay with me here. You are only doing one exercise per muscle group per  day. You are doing your first favorite exercise for chest on day one, you're doing your second favorite exercise for  chest the next time chest training rolls around and then your third favorite exercise for chest the time after that when chest training rolls around. Then you repeat the entire sequence again. You're doing the same exercises you would be doing anyway in a 7-14 days time and training chest 3 times in that same period with minimal sets so you can recover. You cannot do a 3-5 exercise, 10-20 set chest workout and recover to train chest again 3-4 days later. It's absolutely impossible!! But you can come in and do 2-5 warmup sets up to your heaviest set and then do ONE working set (either  straight set or rest paused) all out on that exercise then recover and grow and be ready again 3-4 days later. This kind of  training will have you growing as fast as humanly possible.

 

Again the simple equation is "the most times per year you can train a body part incredibly heavy, with major strength gains, and recover will equal out to the fastest accumulation of muscle mass possible". DC training consists of one extremely intense workset for each muscle group. for every body part, pick 3 movements which you feel will improve your physique the most, usually compound. every workout, you must strive to either  increase the number of reps with the amount of weight you currently use, or increase the amount of weight used. the goal is 10+ reps, done in either a straight-set or rest-pause fashion. You choose a weight you can get 10 reps on your own, For example a set of hammer strength incline press, which I can get 11 or 12 reps with. Then, I pause and take exactly 15 breaths. I go again and knock out another three or four reps. Fifteen more breaths and now I can only get one or two reps. so far, I have done 15-20 total reps. But even though I can't get any more full reps, I do short one or two-inch partials from the stretch position, the bottom of the rep, until I can't budge it at all. You're hitting every bodypart twice in 8 days. The volume on everything is simply as many warmup sets as you need to do- to be ready for your ONE work set. That can be two warmup sets for a small muscle group or five warmup sets for  a large muscle group on heavy exercise like rack deadlifts. The ONE work set is either a straight set or a rest pause set (depending on your recovery abilities again). For people on the lowest scale of recovery its just that one straight set--next up is a straight set with statics for people with slightly better than that recovery----next up is rest pausing (on many of the of movements) with statics for people with middle of the road recovery on up. This last one is what I use for  most people unless we find out that their mom and pop didn't grant them with the best genetics for recovery ability. At that point I have to downshift everything. All of our sets are brutal - max effort on every single one because you only get one chance to beat the logbook.

Blasting and Cruising

Remember Cruising too - that's very important to keep yourself from overtraining. If you wait too long when it's time to cruise, you're just going to dig a hole for yourself. overtraining "stacks" so to speak....the longer you do it, the worse it gets, and the longer it will take to recover back to normal so you can make good progress again. As soon as you start feeling those symptoms of overtraining settling in, it's time - you should be able to recognize this before beginning the  program (which is one reason why new lifters aren't recommended recommended to lift DC style). Blast Phase: 4-8 weeks, till you start to sense any overtraining Cruise Phase: 2 weeks, time off or girl-scout workouts to let your body recover. After Cruise, start next Blast Phase at 90% of the weight you ended the last Blast with.

Rep Execution I believe rest pausing is the most productive way of training ever. I've never seen a way to faster strength gains than what comes from rest pausing. I'll use an incline smith bench with a hypothetical weight to show you my recommended way of rest pausing. Warmups would be 135x12, 185x10, 250x 6, 315x4 (none of these are taxing--they are just getting me warmed up for  my all out rest pause set) MAIN REST PAUSE SET-375x8 reps (total failure) rack the weight, then 15 deep breathes and 375x 2 to 4 reps (total failure) rack the weight, then 15 deep breathes and 375x 1 to 2 reps. Another example: Explosively do the positive motion and then on the negative resist (control) all on the way. I don't want specific seconds, or a certain time amount, I just want control on the negative to the point if they had to, they could easily reverse direction. They would keep going to the point in the set where they would reach failure, hopefully between rep 7 and 10. At that point, they would take 10-15 deep breaths (usually 22 seconds or somewhere in that area) and then start the exercise again and go to failure once again . Then another 10-15 deep breaths. And then once again to failure. During the rest pauses you do not stay strapped to the bar or anything, you take your 10-15 deep breaths and then get  back in there. t here. Oxygen is the key here. What I'm looking for in a restpause set usuall usually y is a 11-15 rest pause pa use total (with 3 failure points in that set). That usually comes out to something like 8 reps (failure) ...10-15 breathes....4 reps (failure)....10-15 breathes.... 2 reps (failure) = 14 rp. (hypothetically a total of 11-15 rest paused reps is what I’m after). Remember every time you go to failure you always finish on the negative portion and then have your training partner  help you pull it up fast to rack the weight. To explain further on my first rest pause above I struggled with every iota of 

 

my strength to get that 8th rep up. At that point instead of racking the weight up top I brought the weight down to my chest again slowly (6 seconds) and had my training partner quickly help me lift the weight back up to the top to rack it. That "always finishing on the negative rep" will accrue more cellular damage over time and allow for even greater  gains. Every exercise is done with a controlled but explosive positive and a true controlled negative phase. The science is there just read it. Almost every study states an explosive positive motion is the priming phase and the negative portion of an exercise should be done controlled and slowly. I have the mindset that I hope you guys develop. I try so hard to get the weight up only for the sole reason I can lower it slowly to cause eccentric phase cellular damage. It doesn’t matter if its 3 seconds lowered or 6 seconds lowered or whatever--just get to the point where you know you controlled the descent of the weight and at any time you could of stopped and reversed direction if you had to. Some exercises are done with 2 straight sets to avoid injury (mostly quads and back thickness - squats and deadlifts, other similar exercises). Heavy quad pressing movements would usually be something like 6-8, then a widowmaker  (aiming for 20 reps as heavy as you can go). Back thickness lifts (like a deadlift) would be a set of 8, then a set of 4 the numbers can vary depending on you, and you can ca n do the 4 set first if you like but it should resemble that layout. Bent row exercises are also done with a straight set, about 12 reps or so. Calves are done differently - straight set for around 12 reps, sinking deep into the stretch, holding it for 15 sec (just count it, but don't be too cheap about it...none of this "ontwthreforiveixseveighnintenelevtwelvthirtfourte fifteen" crap that only last like 4 real seconds). Most exercises that are rest paused are done anywhere from 11-15 rp to 15-20, or even 30 rp depending on the individual person's preference, what works best for them, and injuries. to put it simply, the fewer tthe he joints, the higher  the range for the most part. Some exercises involving legs and some back rowing exercises don't allow themselves to rest pause too well. A sample couple of days for me would be the following (I’m not including warmup sets--just working sets). Workout 1 CHEST: smith incline 375 x 15 reps rest pause (RP) and a 30 second static rep at the end (then stretches) SHOULDERS: front smith press-330 x 13 RP and 30 second static (then stretches) TRICEPS: reverse grip bench press 315 for 15-20 reps RP-no static (then stretches) BACK WIDTH: rear rack chins to back of head 100 x 18 RP (20 second static at end) BACK THICKNESS: floor deadlifts a brutal straight set of 8 reps and then a heavier debilitating 4 rep one (after  warmups of course) (then stretches for back) Workout 2 BICEPS: preacher bench barbell curl RP for 14 reps and 30 second static FOREARMS: hammer curls straight set for 15 reps (then stretches for biceps) CALVES: on hack squat straight set for 10-12 reps but with a 20 second negative phase HAMSTRINGS: HAMSTRING S: Cybex hamstring press (pressing with heels up top) RP for 20 reps QUADS: hack squat --a brutal set for 10 reps (I allow people with good legs to go with one straight set only--but if  your quads are playing catchup to the rest of the body, then you must do a heavy set of 4-8 reps followed after a rest by a "good god I freaking hate Doggcrapp" 20 reps set. Then stretches for quads and hams. Control the negative, don't hurt yourself, every set is MAX effort, do some cardio but not enough to kill your legs.

Routine A typical split looks to be: workout A: chest/shoulders/triceps/back width/back thickness workout B: biceps/forearms/calves/glutes/hams/quads Where you do alternate workouts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (A few very advanced lifters can do four  sessions per week. Almost certainly, this isn’t you. Do three days instead.) You always rotate between 3 workouts for A days and 3 workouts for B days, so you will always have 3 exercises for  each bodypart running at once. then once an exercise plateaus, you swap it out with a new one. a full rotation of a standard DC split for most people should look something like this: A1 MON

 

B1 WED A2 FRI B2 MON A3 WED B3 FRI It would probably be a good idea if back thickness and quads were done at the end of the workout (you're going to be  pooped after them if you do it right).

Exercise Selection To start-Three key exercises are picked for each body part. USING ONLY ONE OF THOSE EXERCISES PER  WORKOUT you rotate these in order and take that exercise to it's ultimate strength limit (where at that certain point you change the exercise to a new one and get brutally strong on that new movement too). That can happen in 4 weeks or that can happen 2 years later but it will happen some time (You cannot continually gain strength to where you are eventually bench pressing 905 for reps obviously) Sometime later when you come back to that original exercise you will start slightly lower than your previous high and then t hen soar past it without fail. I think the biggest fallacy in bodybuilding is "changing up" "keeping the body off balance"--you can keep the body off   balance by always using techniques or methods that give your body a reason to get bigger (in otherwords, strength). If  you don't write down your weights and every time you enter the gym you go by feel and do a different workout (like 98% of the gym members who never change do now) what has that done? Lets say Mr. Hypothetical gym member does 235 for 9 on the bench press this week, "tries to keep his body guessing" by doing 80 lbs for 13 on flyes next week, 205 for 11 on inclines the week after, 245 on hammer press for 12 the week after that --and so on and so on---there is only a limited number of exercises you can do. Two months later when he does bench presses again and does 235 for 8 or 9 has he gained anything? Absolutely NOT! Four months later he does hammer presses for 245 for 11 (again) do you think he has given his body any reason to change? Take 2 twins and have one do a max squat for 20 reps and the other  twin giant set 4 leg exercises with the same weight. All year long have the first twin blast away until he brings his squat with 20 reps from 185 lbs to 400 lbs. Have the second twin giant set four exercises every workout with the same weight he used in his first workout all year long. Believe me he is always going to be sore and he will be shocking the body every time but the sad truth is he will not gain shit after about the third leg workout because the load didn't change. There is no reason for his legs to grow in size due to the strength demand presented. The first twin who can now squat 400 for 20 is going to have some incredible wheels. I use a certain method in my training because in my opinion it is the utmost method to rapidly gain strength. More on that later. Others might like a different method, that's up to them, doesn't matter as long as they are rapidly gaining strength. If you’re gaining appreciable strength on an exercise with a certain method I think the ABSOLUTELY WORSE THING YOU CAN DO is to change up right then. Take that exercise and method to its strength limit and when you get there, then change to a different exercise and get strong as hell on that exercise too. We don't do separate trap exercises.. they usually aren't needed because they're hit pretty darn hard with deadlifts and rack pulls.  Note any good exercise that works for you is ‘ok’… there is no master list of approved exercises . Here are some common ones: CHEST incline smith decline smith hammer strength press other good machine press incline barbell decline barbell incline dumbbell press flat dumbbell press decline dumbbell press SHOULDERS smith presses to front smith presses to back of head hammer strength press other good machine press

 

 barbell press to front  barbell press to back of head shoulder press TRICEPS close grip bench in smith reverse grip bench in smith skull crushers dips (in upright position) BACK WIDTH rack chins to front rack chins to back of head reverse grip rack chins (close grip) assisted pullups hammer strength "pulldown" machines other good "pulldown" machines  pull downs to front  pull downs to back of head BACK THICKNESS deadlift rack deadlift T-bar rows smith rows BICEPS  barbell curls alternate dumbbell curls  barbell preacher curls hammer strength machine curls other good machine curls cable curls FOREARMS hammer curls (alternated)  pinwheel curls (alternated) reverse grip one arm cable curls CALVES calves on a leg press standing calf raises calves in hack squat seating calf raises any calf machine with a good range of motion HAMSTRINGS seating leg curls standing leg curls lying leg curls stiff leg deadlift sumo presses QUADS squats smith squats hack squat leg press This is going to be pretty basic—Just like Back Thickness and Legs, I want you to do 2 working exercises sets for  Chest.

 

I want you to do something like this t his every time Chest comes about. First Chest Day A)  Incline Smith (after warmups obviously and the same goes for everything below)—for 11-15 reps rest/pause and then, after a rest (whatever you need to go all out, 3-5 min) B)  Flat DB Press, straight set 20-30 reps to failure, I want you to go deep into the stretch on these. Do them really strict and deep.  Next Chest Day A)  Decline Smith for 11-15 RP, then after a rest B)  Flat DB Press again for a straight set of 20-30 reps to failure, slightly heavier or more reps than last time. Third Chest Day A)  Machine Press Seated, 11-15 reps, then after rest B)  Flat DB Press again for a straight set of 20-30 reps to failure, slightly heavier or more reps than last time.  Now you don’t have to use Flat DB Press, you can use any exercise you feel is key for you—but whatever you do HAMMER that thing every chest workout---every single one with an all out straight set until you cannot improve on it anymore, then switch to another straight set exercise and do the same thing with it it.. Of course extreme stretching with all the above. a bove. So that’s how its done guys if someone felt the need to get their chest up. And the penance for doing that is you give up frequency of other bodyparts hit. Here is where the problems are with all this weak bodypart stuff. A lot of guys think  their chest is weak and actually they are fat fucks who don’t do cardio and carb cutoffs and have fat drooping all over  the place and think they have weak pecs. Take the fat off and you might just see you have a lot more there than you thought. A lot of young guys think they have weak arms because they look at them all the time but don’t look down and see that those very same arms match the very same effort and size that their legs and lats and other bodyparts have. You can’t have 21 inch arms on a kid who is 190 lbs! Get overall bigger and stronger and everything will come along with it, so stop staring at your arms all the time and start becoming a bodybuilder (overall) Let me bottom line it for you  before you think there is some magical underhanded cable crossover one handed pushdown exercise with an isolated 30 lbs that you think is going to magically transform your triceps. The day you can do full bottom to top range tricep dips with 4 45's hanging from your dip belt for 20, or the day you can close grip 405lbs for 20 or the day you can reverse grip 405 for 20 on the smith, your going to have the biggest triceps your unique genetics allow.  No one handed rope pulldown at a 45 degree aangle ngle bull bullshit shit exe exercise rcise tthat hat you can use for 40 lbs and 15 reps this week  and 45 lbs for 16 reps a year from now is going to get you there....so there.. ..so choose your path wisely in all this. Pulley row high pulls-awesome for lat width here guys--this is going to be a pain in my ass to explain but lets see if I can do it--god its so much easier showing someone these in person. First up--do you know that position that is at the  bottom of a stiff leg deadlift if you do it very deep (some people don’t)--remember that position because that is key here ok? Ok-Your on a seated cable row with a close grip parallel handle--your legs are slightly bent--your aiming for the greatest amount of stretch possible at the very beginning of the pull ok so remember that you should be in that "position" above or close to it (I talked about earlier) thruout this whole movement. With your back rounded and you leaning forward (huge stretch) you pull the handle to right about 3 inches above the kneecaps, that’s it. At no point do you stick your chest out and arch your back and pull the handle into your midsection and sit straight up as in a seated  pulley row, what you do inste instead ad is flare your lats at tthe he stretch stretc h at the very beginning and keep your lats lat s flared till you  pull right over your kneecaps and then control the return to the stretch and repeat. Because your bent forward in a  position that doesn’t put your back in a precarious safety position you will have no worries with a rounded back. I guess a simple way I could describe it is Huge stretch at beginning Do half a pulley row movement but don’t lean your torso backward or arch your back--keep it stabilized maybe only moving a few inches the whole movement

 

Keep your lats flared outwards the whole way thru and don’t crunch your scapula together--pull with your lats and pull the handle 2-3 inches over your kneecaps and return------15-30 reps rest paused is the deal on these and you will not be using the weight you use on seated pulley rows so wipe that from your memory banks Someone asked about DC mods here in a post last week and I thought I would add my input here. I always stay in the scheme of things but I tune things to myself . For example: I always look for ways to make an exercise harder and safer for myself. By safer-such as back thickness movements such as deadlifts, rack deads and rack drag deads....I have gotten very strong on these and now I will only do them with overhand grips instead of an over-under. I don’t want to be tearing a bicep due to the very heavy weight I have to use on these and going overhand forces me to lighten up somewhat and takes a lot of stress off that undergrip  bicep. (I’ve gone as high as 765lbs on rack deads and really felt it pull there and will never tread those dangerous waters again) Triceps exercises: I will not do any extension movements at any less than 15rp and ill keep the range 15-30rp on those. I can get very heavy on ez bar movements and feel the potential for a muscle tear is great when you start grinding out sets like 6+3+2=11rp Bicep exercises I always keep in the 20rp range just because I seem to respond better that way and also for the safety factor  Quads, I tell everyone to do a 4-8 backbreaker set with very heavy tonnage and then a widowmaker set of 20 reps and I do this myself, but honestly at this heavy of a bodyweight, there have been times where I really thought I was going to cease living after getting off a 20 rep squat because I was breathing so hard and couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs to sustain me. My gym is on the second floor with no open windows at all, just central air ducts---for some strange reason, its ok breathing sometimes and other times (especially in a crowded gym) your gasping for air after a heavy chest set nevermind the 20 rep squat set. I do believe the lighter guys in the 150 to 250lb range in this forum can still get away with doing things normally but the very heavy guys might be biting carpet on a hot day after a 20 rep squat. So at times I’ve done it like the following--on day one I do free squats shit heavy and then the hack for my 20 repper (which leaves me breathing like a locomotive anyway) and on the other day I do the newer leg press for both my heavy and widowmaker sets and on the last leg day I do smith squats shit heavy and then the widowmaker on the older  leg press. So as you see same scheme just some tweaks I do for myself if you were curious.

Rep Ranges RP = Rest-Pause Chest: incline smith press (11-15 RP) hammer strength press (11-15 RP) decline barbell press (11-15 RP) Backwidth: front rack chins (11-20 RP) close grip pulldowns (11-15 RP) front pulldowns (11-15 RP) Backthickness: (back thickness exercises and quad exercises arent rest paused due to safety reasons of fatigue and loss of form) deadlifts straight sets (6-9 reps) + (9-12 reps) T-bar rows straight set (10-12 reps) rack deadlifts (6-9 reps) + (9-12 reps) Shoulders: military presses (11-20 RP) hammer strength presses (11-15 RP) upright rows (11-20 RP) Quads: (quads are done again with no rest pause because of safety reasons, but after progressive warmups there is a heavy set and then what I call a "widowmaker set" for 20 reps with a still heavy, but lighter weight) free squats (6-10 rep straight set) 3-5 minute rest and then (20 rep widowmaker) hack squats (as above)

 

leg press (as above) Hamstrings: lying leg curls (15-30 RP) seated leg curls (15-30 RP) sumo press leg press (pressing with heels only- straight set of 15-25 reps) Biceps:  preacher curls (11-20 RP)  barbell drag curls (11-20 RP) dumbell curls (11-20 RP) Forearms:  pinwheel curls (straight set 10-20 reps) hammer curls (straight set 10-20 reps) reverse grip one arm cable curls (straight set 10-20 reps) Triceps: reverse grip bench presses (11-20 RP) close grip bench presses (11-20 RP) EZ bar tricep extentions (15-30 RP) (elbow safety) Calves: (all calves are done with an enhanced negative, meaning up on big toe, 5 seconds lowering down to full stretch and then a brutal 10-15 seconds in the stretched position and then back up on the big toe again. It really separates the mice and the men--this is an all straight set) leg press toe press (10-12 reps) hack squat toe press/sled (10-12 reps) seated calf raises (10-12 reps) I have no problem with anyone on leg training switching the exercises they do from the 6-8 heavy set to the 20 reppers on as long as the 20 repper gets done. A lot of the super large guys I train (270-340 lbs) have serious trouble breathingwise doing a 20 rep free squat. Hell I have trouble doing it myself. You are carrying a lot of bodyweight, breathing like a locomotive and hey lets not die on leg training day-LOL. I’ll give you an example--One of my guys does smith squats, free squats and leg presses as his three leg movements. On leg press day he does the heavy 6-10 (I make him do 10 reps on it) and then does the 20 repper on the same leg press. On smith day he does his heavy 6-8 and then does the 20 repper on a horizontal hack machine. On free squat day he does his heavy 6-10 and does the 20 repper on a Cybex (different) leg press machine at a slightly different angle than the other leg press day. I got no problem with any of you guys doing that especially you large beasts. Now if you start doing only leg presses with the same leg press machine for  all your 20 reppers then I’m going to call you on it that your taking the easy way out.

Weight Selection Heavy is relative--it doesn't mean 3 reps --- it means as heavy as you can go on that exercise no matter if it is 5 reps or  50 reps. I personally like to do hack squats for 20 reps but I use about 6 plates on each side rock bottom--that's as heavy as I can go on that exercise for 20 reps. I could do sets of 6 and probably use maybe 8 or 9 plates a side but my legs (and most people I train) grow best from heavy and 8-50 reps. The day you can squat 400 lbs for 20 deep reps will be the day you are no longer complaining about your leg size.

Log Books It will take 2 full training weeks before you're beating 'last times' weight. So the poundages you are aiming to beat were your best lifts as of 2 weeks ago. Let the reps increase until you hit the top of the rep range, then add weight and work up the reps again. If you don’t ‘beat your logbook’, then it is time to change out exercises.

Diet I don’t go into diet much because I save that for my trainees--I give a lot of this away but the real details go to those guys. Basically for people with appetite problems I have them using olive oil to get past plateaus--a good diet that leaves someone stagnant from the previous 4 week weigh in can be changed dramatically by just adding olive oil to  protein fat meals (I like to keep protein fats and protein carb meals separated)--Olive oil is a good fat with awesome health benefits along with being 118 cals per tablespoon--Just adding 3 tablespoons in two no-carb protein shakes a day gives a person 700 more calories a day to work with on the exact same eating they had done previously---but the scale will say 8 lbs more next month

 

High dose glutamine peptides has been a godsend to my recovery ability as has extreme stretching. My training weights continue to rocket upward on everything.

Extreme Stretching Extreme stretching is also a part of the workout - part of it, not in addition to it . These must be done, it's imperative. It stretches fascia and helps recovery immensely. It will dramatically change your   physique in a short amount of time if done right, trust me on that. For Example: CHEST: Flat bench 90lb dumbbells chest high--lungs full of air-- I drop down into the deepest flye I can for the first 10 seconds or so with my lungs full of air and chest out---then staying there I arch my back slightly and try to press my sternum upward --this is absolutely excruciating--the rest of the 60 seconds I try to concentrate on dropping my elbows even farther down (I try to but I don’t think they are going any lower--LOL)---the last 15 seconds I’m pretty much shaking like a leaf, I have tears in my eyes and I think about dropping bodybuilding and becoming a tap dancer  on Broadway (ok that parts not true)--My opinion is people should use dumbbells that are a little over half of what your  heaviest set of 6-8 reps would be. I can’t state this enough--extreme stretching royally sucks!!! Its painful. But I have seen amazing things with people -especially in the quads. Something you guys might want to try for your forearm belly that has worked better for me than a lot of other things is a (belly of the forearm) extreme stretch done exactly after biceps or wrist curls or whatever you are doing for forearms. Its as simple as this--once you’ve done biceps and forearms and have already stretched your biceps--or directly after  your last rep of seated wrist curls...sitting on a seat with your forearms resting on your legs and the barbell in your   palms face up...let your hands sag downward and let the barbell roll down the palm of your hand and hold onto it with your fingers until you feel that stretch and then the fun begins (30-90 seconds that’s what your trying for)..don’t let the topside of your hands hit your shin because that defeats the purpose....at about 30 seconds you’ll start shaking...45 seconds your head will be twitching from side to side because there is so much pain and it feels like your going to lose the barbell with your grip and if you make it to 60 YOU ARE THE MAN...but 90 seconds is the goal...(trust me you wont make it--its too fucking painful)....you’ll get to the point you’ll have to drop the barbell on the floor and take 30 seconds just to get your wits about you. Be very careful with this movement, I don’t want you tweaking your wrists here so be cautious. For those who do this, take a long look at your forearms the very next day in the mirror, flex your  forearm and I think you’ll be very surprised at how different/swollen it is. That’s all that needs to be done---let me know 3 months from now how different they look