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Table of Contents Legal and Copyright 4 Introduction 5 How did 753 come to be? 5 It's Not About the PR's... 6 Paying the Price 7 Know your Why 8 What you'll get out of this book 9 How to Use This Book 10 Chapter 1: Core Work 11 753 Major Keys 11 753 Programming 12 Original and Mayhem 13 Finding Your Maxes 14 Setting your Training maxes: 15 Scheduling 17 Order of Workouts 20 Top Set PR 21 RPE and RIR 22 Top Set Progression Method 24 What do I do after the Top Set? 26 RPE and RIR Action Chart 27 The Back Off Sets 29 Falling Short of the Goal 30 AutoRegulating 32 Looking for Connections 33 Increasing your Training Maxes 34 Resetting your Training Maxes 34 Should You Reset Your Top-Set PR Training Weight 35 Decreasing the Weight Increase Increment for your Training Max 36 Warm Up Sets 37

Chapter 2: More Work 39

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Don’t Call it Accessory Work 39 It's Necessary Work 40 Full Upper Body and Full Lower Body Workouts 41 Considerations for More Work - Time 42 Considerations for “MORE WORK” - Goals, Rep Ranges… (and Time)44 Considerations for “MORE WORK” - Recovery 45 Considerations for “MORE WORK” - strong points & weak points 46 General Tips for “MORE WORK” 47 Legs/Calves/Abs Tips for “MORE WORK” on Squat Day 49 Legs/Calves/Abs Tips for “MORE WORK” on Deadlift Day 51 Chest Tips for “MORE WORK” on Benchpress Day 55 Shoulder Tips for “MORE WORK” on Benchpress Day 55 Back Tips for “MORE WORK on Benchpress Day" 56 Arms Tips for “MORE WORK" on Benchpress Day 57 Chest Tips for “MORE WORK” on OHP day 58 Shoulders Tips for “MORE WORK” on OHP day 58 Back Tips for “MORE WORK" on OHP day 59 Arms Tips for “MORE WORK" on OHP day 60 “More Work” Templates 60 "In-N-Out" Work (for those who have 30 minutes to do “more more") 61 “Dedicated Work" (for those who have around 60 minutes to do “more work”) 63 “Ultimate Work” (for those who have 90 or more minutes to do “more work”) 65 Chapter 3: The Big Lifts 68 Squat 68 General Squat Setup 69 The Walkout 71 Squat Execution 71 The High Bar Squat 73 Low Bar Squat 74 Hybrid Squat 75

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Benchpress 76 Benchpress Fundamentals 77 Benchpress Setup 78 Using a Spotter on The Benchpress 81 The Unrack 82 Benchpress Execution 83 Benchpress Miscellaneous 84 Deadlift 84 Conventional Deadlift 85 Sumo Deadlift 88 Deadlift Grips 91 OHP 92 Chapter 4: Warming Up, Injury Prevention, and Recovery 96 Chapter 5: A Quick Word on Nutrition, Cutting, Bulking 96 The 753 Excel Workbook 97

Before beginning any new exercise or diet program, it is recommended that you seek medical advice from your personal physician. This book is not intended to be a substitute for the advice of a licensed physician, nor is it intended for the treatment or prevention of disease. Use of the information herein is at the sole risk of the reader.

Copyright No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. Copyright © 2016 by Matt Ogus. All rights reserved.

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Introduction How did 7/5/3 come to be? In the late summer of 2014, a year into my “offseason” from competitive natural bodybuilding, I decided to really work on my high-bar squat, benchpress, sumo deadlift, and overhead press (OHP).  Tell me if this sounds like you: I also wanted to build a bigger chest, a bigger back, bigger shoulders, bigger legs, bigger calves, a bigger penis (wait, did I just say that), and bigger arms by the end of the year. In other words, I wanted it all.             I’d done strength programs in the past, like Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1, and saw great results but this time around I wanted to spend more time under the bar building strength rather than what felt like constantly testing it every workout. I also knew that I wanted to try something a bit different. Something I could say was “mine.”             After looking around the internet and at dozens upon dozens of powerlifting and powerbuilding programs, I decided to take the Russian Smolov Squat Program and really make it my own; customizing my own training program using two templates commonly referred to as “Smolov” and” Smolov” Junior as inspiration for my program, at least in terms of reps, sets, and percentage schemes. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really interested in doing any powerlifting meets, but I did want to get big and strong.             I ran my “Big 4” lifts through a week of 7’s at 75% for 5 sets of 7, then a week of 5’s at 80% for 7 sets of 5, and then a week of 10 sets of 3 at 85%. (If this doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry, it soon will.) Let’s not forget that I was also doing proper hypertrophy work, hitting each bodypart twice a week (actually more than that, but I’ll get to that later).

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After that I took a deload week, I decided I wanted to see if at all those three weeks had bumped up my strength. I ran a “Top-Set PR week” (PR meaning Personal Record) and easily hit new rep PR’s in all 4 lifts, including raising my deadlift by 20 Lbs and then hitting my old max for a triple.  I had just hit the previous Deadlift PR not much time before this, so I knew I was onto something. I love my PR’s but I loved what those three weeks of solid percentage based training had allowed me to do even more.  I couldn’t wait to get back to them and spend more time building my strength. 7/5/3 was born.

It’s Not about the PR’s until it is about the PR’s             Initially, my new program was designed for the consistent creation of new 3-5 rep PR’s, except in the case for the deadlift where I also liked establishing a new 1 rep max every once in a while. Before starting 7/5/3, I had recently hit the biggest Squat Rep PR (425x5), Benchpress Rep PR (330x3), Overhead Press Rep PR (240x4) and Sumo Deadlift (550x1) of my life. Instead of trying to up those numbers every or every other week, I became more interested in spending time doing structured work below those weights and accumulating a lot of volume. I decided I’d be patient and go for bigger PR’s in the future, all the while doing plenty of bodybuilding work to further myself in that endeavor.               From this, a new and alternate version of 7/5/3 was born. I added a 6x6 workout at 70% and took out the top-set PR week. I also broke up the structure and varied the percentages throughout a 4 week block so that there was no longer a 3’s week, a 5’s week, and a 7’s week, but now in each week, every workout is a different percentage and rep scheme from the previous one. What resulted was a very enjoyable and varied system for gaining strength and size.  After just 4 months, I tested my

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squat and deadlift again.  I hit a 50 pound PR in the deadlift with 600 Lbs and I took my high bar squat to 500 Lbs, 50 pounds more than my previous low-bar with knee wraps PR back in 2012. I also packed on quite a bit of muscle.             Much time later, I went back to performing 7/5/3 how it was originally intended; with a dedicated 7’s week, a 5’s week, a 3’s week, followed by a deload week and a Top-Set PR week. This is currently my favorite style of running 7/5/3. 

Are you willing to Pay The Price for Strength AND Size?             If you just wanted to increase the powerlifting competition lifts with no care of anything else (like what you look like), this program isn’t for you. Likewise, if you only care about the size of your muscles and not about being strong and awesome, this program isn’t for you. Fortunately, I can say that the vast majority of you reading this want to gain both strength and muscle size. You’re probably in the right place.             The 7/5/3 Program is a bit different than other strength based programs in the sense that what other people call “accessory work”, I call “an equally important part of the workout”. This program, or better yet, this training philosophy, is NOT for the weak hearted or for those trying to get away with doing nothing. It’s a philosophy of common sense. If you want it all, you have to do it all. If you really want both significant strength gains and size gains, you have to face the fact that you want something that is more complicated, difficult, and time consuming to achieve than either goal by itself. Your workouts will be longer than ones where you have a single goal. Your workouts will be tougher than ones where you have a single goal. You will be forced to acknowledge that the more muscles you want to progress simultaneously, the less you can get

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away with saying things like “yeah, but benchpress works my triceps enough.” You will have to pay more attention to your recovery and minimizing stress than if you had a single goal. But look… Nobody told you to try and gain both size and strength at the same time. It’s what YOU WANT. Do what it takes to get it.             Unlike the guys who are 100% powerlifting focused, you can’t go home after having just hit 1 or 2 compound lifts and a couple sets of face pulls. You want bigger arms/back muscles/legs/calves/shoulders/chest and just doing the big 4 lifts, for the majority of people, isn’t going to be enough to develop the balanced and aesthetic physique most of us desire. What and how much, we will eventually get to.

Know Your Why Why do you want to be bigger and stronger? You probably didn’t expect you’d get asked this question. Some of you may be thinking, angrily, “DON’T JUDGE ME! JUST TELL ME HOW TO DO IT, MATT!” I bet some of you are thinking to yourself. Now I’m not here to judge nor condemn why you may want to get bigger and stronger. But before you start or continue, this journey, take a moment and answer these questions: Why do you want to get bigger and stronger? What does being bigger and stronger mean to you?      The reason I’m asking, is if you have a strong enough “why”, your "what” will be clearer and more likely attained. We all want and prefer certain things in life, but the why is what drives us. It’s the reason we do

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the things we do. If you don’t have a clear why, you’ll be in the gym constantly questioning yourself, the program you’re on (if any), and everything related to the gym.  Here are a few of my why’s: •

I love working out, and I love the feeling of progress

•

Taking care of myself (exercising for the health benefits) is very important to me, so I might as well be doing it in a way I really have a ton of fun

•

Getting bigger and stronger is just one way I can have deliberate and complete control over, a control which branches out to other areas of my life

•

Not that I need it for my ego necessarily, but becoming bigger and stronger commands me more respect, and also happens to make me more marketable to my target audience

•

I will never have to worry about being out of shape, or too weak to do most every day things, especially as I age

What You’ll get out of this book: I get a kick out of it when I overhear people talk about lifting weights. People overthink things so much. Not only that, but they’re usually still stuck on a myth or piece of advice that was false in the first place. If only getting big and strong was as simple as that “one weird trick” that you see in the advertisements while scrolling through your Facebook feed…      Simple, day in, day out work in the gym, lifting with good form, and slow progression doesn’t sound as sexy as a click-bait article on increasing your benchpress by 100 lbs in a month, but in reality, it’s what works, and we all kind of knew that already. The basic to-do’s of building

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strength and size are pretty simple, but the day to day grind, pivoting and adjusting, and knowing when to push and when to pull back… That’s the difficult stuff. Patience, planning, and sticking to a plan; that stuff’s hard. The purpose of this book is to arm you with a manual for creating and checking off the perpetual to-do list on the road to a bigger and stronger you. You made the decision to buy this book. Now, you will have to make the decision to implement what you read in it.

How to Use This Book I recommend that you first read this book from start to finish, or at least chapters 1 and 2, before beginning the program. It shouldn’t take too long. Then, at the end of the book, you’ll find the worksheets that you can print out and take with you to the gym. It’s incredibly important that you keep track of the weights you’re hitting, even on the exercises that you don’t think are significant.

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Chapter 1: Core Work 7/5/3 Major Keys: Read and understand these fully 1. “Core Work” consists of work done on the Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press, and Benchpress based off of a training max and prescribed sets and reps. Each Lift gets a different Day. 2. Do “More Work”. Train like a bodybuilder. On the Squat day, hit a full leg workout. On the Deadlift day, hit a full leg workout. On the OHP day, hit a full upper body workout. On the Benchpress day hit a full upper body workout. Hit an adequate amount of volume of exercises that work the muscles you want to grow, and progress on those lifts too. Train like a bodybuilder. 3. Start Your Training Maxes Light, at 90% of current maxes, and add weight each training cycle 4. Each Training Cycle lasts 5 weeks, the 5th being a deload. 5. Reset your training maxes if and when necessary 6. Training maxes are increased each cycle, but you can lower the weight increase increments if and when necessary 7. Do not Miss/Fail any reps of the 7/5/3 programming 8. Perform each and every lift to the highest standard of form capable and appropriate. The assumption is that you’re performing every lift, especially the core lifts, with great form. 9. Train exactly how you want to train, based on how you should train: according to your goals, personal circumstances, preferences, and individual characteristics.

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753 Programming There are two main versions of 7/5/3: The Original Version and “Version Mayhem." These numbers are in reference to the squat, benchpress, overhead press, and deadlift, which are all worked on separate days. The Notation is as follows:  Percentage of Training max for X sets of X reps per set. Original

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Deload

Day 1

Top Set

75%x5x

80%x7x

85%x10

60%x3x

PR

7

5

x3

5

Top Set

75%x5x

80%x7x

85%x10

60%x3x

PR

7

5

x3

5

Top Set

75%x5x

80%x7x

85%x10

60%x3x

PR

7

5

x3

5

Top Set

75%x5x

80%x7x

85%x10

60%x3x

PR

7

5

x3

5

Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

*”Top Set PR” will be explained later*

Mayhem

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Deload

Day 1

75%x5x

80%x7x

70%x6x

85%x10

60%x3x

7

5

6

x3

5

80%x7x

70%x6x

85%x10

75%x5x

60%x3x

5

6

x3

7

5

70%x6x

85%x10

75%x5x

80%x7x

60%x3x

6

x3

7

5

5

85%x10

75%x5x

80%x7x

70%x6x

60%x3x

x3

7

5

6

5

Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

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You will be performing the main 4 lifts based on training maxes. You take your training max for a given lift, and lift it at the percentage laid out, for the sets and reps laid out. If the number you’re supposed to lift comes out to something like “206.25”, just round to the nearest 5 lbs, and if you’re not sure whether to round up or down, round down. If you have microplates (0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0 Lb plates), you’d round the numbers to the nearest half pound. If unsure, round down. More on microplates later. 

What’s the Difference between Original and Mayhem?      As you can see, in the original version, each week has the same lifting percentages, sets, and reps. Each week 1 workout is the same in terms of core 7/5/3 programming, same with week 2, and so on. There is a week called “Top Set PR week” in the original version. This will be described in greater detail later, but imagine this week as the one in which we test out our strength. In the mayhem version, there are four percentage/sets/rep schemes being alternated (besides the deload). You’ll notice there is a workout saying “70%x6x6” that isn’t in the original version. Every workout is different in terms of core work.  This can be great for those who might get bored doing the same percentages for four workouts in a row and for those who don’t want to test their strength each week on a regular basis.       Neither is easier or harder than the other. One may fit you better based on preference. I’d recommend starting with the original version and running it for several training cycles until you have to take a reset (which we’ll discuss later) and then perhaps try the other version, or vice versa. If you’re not sure which to pick, pick the original. You’ll have

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a better idea of how Mayhem would be while doing the Original, than doing Mayhem and wondering what the Original version would be like.       One thing I’ll point out with Mayhem is that I I set it so that before your heaviest workouts is a “light” (more like moderate) workout. Not quite a deload, but each set should feel easier to complete than the sets in the 7’s, 5’s, or 3’s workouts. 

Finding Your Maxes:      You may or may not know your current one rep max for each lift. To calculate a one rep max, identify your most recent best set for each lift. If you haven’t trained one or more lifts in a while, feel free to take a week to test out where you stand on the core lifts. Just aim for what you think you can hit between 5-8 reps and do as many as you can without hitting failure.  A simple but imperfect way to estimate your one rep max is as follows. (Weight x reps x 0.0333) + Weight      For example, If you recently squatted 275x5 and want to find out what your estimated one rep max is, you’d take 275, multiply by 5, multiply by 0.0333, and then add 275. Pull out a calculator and do the math with me. The number we end up with is 320.7875 but let’s round to the nearest 5, so that’s 320 Lbs. Your estimated one rep max if you can squat 275x5 is around 320 lbs. This isn’t a perfect calculation by any means, for reasons I won’t get into, just know it gives a good starting point for which to base your training max from.      Also, let me clarify, this is assuming you’re doing proper form, which includes a full range of motion on each lift. This means not bouncing the

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bar off your chest, or bouncing the weights off the floor to help you rep out a couple more deadlifts. Everything in this entire book is written under the assumption that you are using proper form. Without high standards in which you lift your weights, you’ll get less results on any program you try out. If you aren’t seeing results, but lift with bad form, you can’t blame the program you’re on. You can only blame yourself. Do not intend on going through with this program without addressing what may be hard for some of you to admit… That (for many of you) your form absolutely sucks. The sooner you can admit it, the better.       You should be constantly trying to improve your form and technique on each and every lift. This book, this program, and practically every other program, is written under the assumption that you are lifting correctly. I cannot emphasize this enough, so I will again later in this book. Refer to the later chapter on form. Lucky for us, we are starting with lighter training maxes, thus, improving form and technique is a built-in and foundational part of this program. 

Setting your Training maxes:      A key component to 7/5/3 is starting light. This will allow you to focus on proper form, especially at the start, which will help you make better strength increases in the long run. With better lifting mechanics, you have more potential for strength and size gains. On the other hand, if you start with bad form, or too heavy, you have less room and less potential to progress. Trust me, start 7/5/3 light.      To set your training maxes, simply take your true or estimated one rep max and multiply by 0.9, or in other words, take 90% of your max to get your training max. 

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To give you an example, we have “Billy”, a 20 year old. Here is his recent best lifts and what he would set his training maxes at, in pounds:

Calculate

“Billy"

Weight

Reps

d One

Training

Rep Max

Max

(weight x

(90%)

reps x

(rounded

0.0333 + weight)

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down, nearest 5)

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Squat Benchpres s Deadlift Overhead Press

255

6

306

275

225

3

247

220

315

5

367

330

105

4

119

105

Scheduling:  The default 7/5/3 schedules are based on a 7 day calendar week. What schedule you pick and how many days you lift per week is completely up to you, but for now, I recommend starting with 4 days per week and adjusting from there. The more days per week that you lift, the less volume per workout (and/or the less volume at heavier loads) you will generally aim for, but we’ll get more into that later. Train on whichever days fit best around your work, school, and life schedule.  Four Days Per Week Options: 1. Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday 2. Monday/Tuesday/Friday/Saturday 3. Sunday/Monday/Wednesday/Thursday 4. Sunday/Monday/Wednesday/Friday 5. Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday

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6. Etc...      You see where I’m going here? You generally want these workouts as spread out as possible, if you’re training 4 times a week. That means a maximum of two consecutive days back to back. Don’t do three 7/5/3 workouts in a row in 3 consecutive days. I recommend Options 1, 4, and 5 over options 2 and 3 because the workouts are more spread out.       If you are having recovery issues with the recommended scheduling options layed out, you may want to look beyond the days on and days off, and into your sleep, nutrition, and overall workout volume, and also perhaps consider lowering your training maxes. All this will be discussed later. For Alternate Schedules, ***See The Chapter on Customization***      Now, let’s look at what these lifts look when laid out into the 7/5/3 program, for a lifter without microplates (rounding to the nearest 5 Lbs, and rounding down if in the middle). Let’s use Billy, from above, and his training maxes. 

Original Version Squat (275) Monday

Week 1

Top Set PR

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Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Deload

(75%x5

80%x7x

85%x1

60%x3

x7)

5

0x3

x5

205x5x7

220

235

165

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Benchpress (220) Wednesday

Deadlift (330) Friday OHP (105) Saturday

Top Set PR

Top Set PR

Top Set PR

(75%x5

80%x7x

85%x1

60%x3

x7)

5

0x3

x5

165x5x7

175

185

130

(75%x5

80%x7x

85%x1

60%x3

x7)

5

0x3

x5

245x5x7

265

280

200

(75%x5

80%x7x

85%x1

60%x3

x7)

5

0x3

x5

80x5x7

85

90

65

Side note on rounding: On OHP of week 2, the training max of 105 multiplied by 0.75 came out to 78.75, and since that is closer to 80 than 75, we rounded it to 80. On Deadlift of week 2, the training max of 330 multiplied by 0.75 came out to 247.5, and since that is halfway between 245 and 250, we rounded down to 245. (more rounding was done in the above table, this was just to point some out)

And now, with the “Mayhem” Version: Mayhem

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Deload

Squat

(75%x5x

80%x7x

70%x6x

85%x1

60%x3

(275)

7)

5

6

0x3

x5

Monday

205x5x7

220

190

235

165

Benchpress

80%x7x

70%x6x

85%x1

(220)

5

6

0x3

Wednesday

175

155

185

Version

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(75%x5 x7) 165x5x 7

60%x3 x5 130

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Deadlift

70%x6x

85%x10

(330)

6 

x3

Friday

230

280

OHP

85%x10

(75%x5

(105)

x3

Saturday

90

(75%x5

80%x7

60%x3

x5

x5

265

200

80%x7x

70%x6

60%x3

x7)

5

x6

x5

80x5x7

85

75

65

x7) 245x5x 7

What about the Order of Workouts?      I’m sure you’re wondering if the order matters. In regards to the order of workouts, the major question for most people doing 7/5/3 at four workouts a week will be, “Should I squat or deadlift on Friday?” In other words, when a lower and upper body workout have to be paired consecutively, which pair should it be? The squat followed by the OHP? The squat day followed by the benchpress day? The deadlift day followed by the OHP day? Or the squat day followed by the OHP day? Ultimately it’s up to you and it will depend on which order you feel that you will, overall, perform the best under.       To be fair, whichever upper body workout gets a day off before it, you could consider “prioritized”. Perhaps ask yourself, which do you want to prioritize more, the benchpress or the OHP? Although I love the OHP, I think most people are better of putting the day off before the

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benchpress workout, as this workout is usually just a little bit more demanding, and you’re using bigger weights on the benchpress compared to the OHP, requiring a little bit more recovery.       For some of you, you may find that OHP’ing is difficult the day after deadlifts because of back soreness and/or fatigue. You’ll probably get used to it and eventually adapt, to be honest, not to mention that sometimes bench pressing with a tight lower back is also a little annoying. Or for others, sore traps from deadlifts may feel like they are negatively affecting your OHP. Keep in mind, after your main lift you still have the whole REST of the workout to complete, so other exercises may also affect performance of the big lift the next day.       If you decide to, feel free to change the order of workouts, by switching the squat day with the deadlift day, or the OHP day with the benchpress day, either on the following week or the following training cycle. In other words, make sure you end up with an equal number of squat and deadlift workouts, OHP and benchpress workouts. Simple, right? My recommendation is to just go through a whole cycle the way you start it, specifically, like the table above. You’ll probably find out that the original schedule (or whichever you set for yourself) works just fine. You don’t need to overthink things. As long as upper body workouts are alternating with lower body workouts, and you’re never hitting 3 days straight, you should be fine. Don’t spend your whole life constantly wondering “Am I doing this right?” Just trust the process.

What the hell does “Top Set PR” mean? What’s a “Top Set PR week?"

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     By now, you probably know that PR stands for “personal record”. Another acronym is “PB” (personal best). You can have all sorts of different PR’s in any given lift. Every rep range and individual number of reps can serve as a place for a record to be set at. You can have a one rep PR, which is generally called your one rep max or “best lift”, and you can have 2 or 3 or 5 or 8 or 10 or 20 rep PR’s too. A PR can also apply to total volume for an exercise, whether you did more sets, more reps per set, or both, of a given weight.       Top Set PR week will be the most exciting week for many of you doing the original version of 7/5/3 because it gives you an opportunity to go for some new PR's. By “Top Set”, I mean that you will go for a PR on the first working set of the main lift. This will be the heaviest set of the day for that big lift, as you will drop the weight after doing this set.       Now although we are going for a new PR here, the critical point I want you to take away here is to try your best to leave one rep left in the tank. This would be called an “RPE 9” or a “1 RIR” (RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion on a scale from 1-10 and RIR stands for Reps in Reserve). RPE and RIR are tools for helping us judge how a set (of any number of reps, whether it’s 1 rep, 3 reps, 8 reps, or 15 reps) happened to look in terms of difficulty. RPE and RIR are generally most useful in the 1-5 rep range, and even more so in the 1-3 rep range.  Here’s a brief look at how RPE and RIR work.

RPE and RIR

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RPE (Rate of Perceive d

Description (Objective analysis of the

RIR (Reps in

set, especially based on the last rep)

Reserve)

Exertion)

10

9.5

9

8.5

8

7.5

7

Maximal Effort. (no more reps, no more weight possible) Small chance of 1 more rep. Could have possibly added weight Definitely Had One Rep Left in the Tank Maybe 2 reps in the tank. (or 1 rep + a little weight)  Definitely Had Two Reps Left in the Tank Might have had Three Reps in the Tank (or 2 plus weight) Three Reps Left in the Tank (great speed on last rep)

0

-

1

-

2

-

3

(Not worth 6.5

Work-Up/Acclimation Weight

Worrying about)

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(Not worth 6

Work-Up/Acclimation Weight

Worrying about) (Not worth

5.5

Work-Up/Acclimation Weight

Worrying about)

5 and

Warm-Ups that you could do for very

below

high reps

(Not worth Worrying about)

I recommend going for a new 3-5 rep PR, but this number is up to you. I’d open this range even up to 3-10 reps. Perhaps one month you want to see where you stand in the 3-5 rep range, and the next you want to test out the 8-10 rep range. This is totally fine and not a bad idea. Some of you may decide to use this day to go for a new 1 rep max, which is your prerogative, but once again, if you want to do this program the way I intended for it to be done, go for a weight you’ll most likely hit in the 3-5 rep range, on most Top Set PR workouts in most Top Set PR weeks. You’ll make more overall progress if you’re not going for new 1 rep maxes all the time. You build more strength from consistent work than from consistent testing. What’s the method for progression on the "Top-Set"?      For the default, we’ll be following a pretty simple double progression

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method with the Top-Sets. What you go for on this Top-Set will depend on the last time you did it during the previous Top-Set PR week. With 3-5 being the recommended rep range, if you only hit 3 or 4 reps with a given weight, you don’t increase that weight until you’ve hit 5 reps on the top set. If you end up hitting more than 5, that’s great. Once you’ve hit 5 reps on the top set, you can add weight (just add 5 lbs) and then go for 3-5 reps again. Should you aim for 3, 4, or 5 reps specifically when you’ve added weight? It’s up to you, but remember when I said “Leave one Rep Left in the Tank?” If you remember that, and focus to let that dictate the lift, it will decide whether it’s 3, 4, 5, or maybe even 6 reps or 2 reps.      For best overall results, follow the default, the simple double progression method, and this is *ASSUMING* we’re actually hitting RPE 9’s like we’re supposed to. Last month you hit 3 on the top-set? This month aim for 4. Last month you did 4? This month aim for 5. Last month you did 5? This month, add 5 pounds and go for 3.       Also, keep in mind the RPE of what last month’s top-set was. If you hit 315x3 at RPE 10, perhaps you should aim for 315x3 at RPE 9. Common sense tells us that we should probably master a weight before going up. So, bare minimum, don’t increase the reps unless it’s a 9.5 or easier. Also, keep in mind that the easier your top-set is, the heavier your back-off work will be, so don’t be too caught up on feeling like you always have to get one more rep every single Top-Set compared to the last. Don’t kill yourself on top-sets hitting RPE 9.5-10’s every time, because in the end, you’ll be achieving more total volume by hitting RPE 9’s on your top-sets (where you generally end up also doing more back off-sets)   

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     What happens if you intended to leave one rep left in the tank, but you feel like you left more, or in most cases, less in the tank than one rep? This will be discussed next.

What do I do after the Top Set?      After your top set, you will drop the weight and do “back off sets”. These are more sets, generally of equal reps per set of the top weight, assuming the top set actually landed in the 3-5 or 8-10 (essentially 3-10) rep range. We’ll be utilizing a form of auto regulation to help us do what is appropriate after the Top Set. With the Pre-Work Set intention of trying to leave one rep left in the tank on that top set, you have to take a brief moment to judge if, in actuality, that was an RPE 9 (1 RIR) or if it wasn't. I’ve found that in most and especially less experienced lifters (less than 10 years total or less than 5 years smart), even myself, it’s more frequent that what actually happens is closer to an RPE 9.5 than an RPE 8.5 when we initially unrack the bar with the intent of landing on an RPE 9. In other words, as we try to aim towards lifting a weight for however many reps leaves just one left in the tank, during the split decision moment of going for 1 more rep or stopping, we tend to either let ego take control and/or overestimate our ability and strength rather than underestimate our ability and strength. Somewhat often you will hit an RPE 9.5 or an RPE 10 (or extremely close to RPE 10) going for an RPE 9. Not only that, but we also tend to misjudge our sets, calling them RPE 9’s when they really were RPE 9.5’s or close to 10’s. It’s only a natural egoic tendency to tell ourselves and believe that we are stronger than we really are, to look back at how hard a lift was and think

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“That was easy” versus “that was hard”.  Over your training career, and especially during the time spent training utilizing RPE, RIR and auto regulation tools, you get better at aiming for, landing on, and actually judging RPE (specifically RPE 9’s).       That said, I feel it’s better to land more on RPE 8.5’s than it is to land on RPE 9.5’s, when it comes to maximizing training volume and recovery, and therefore gains. Granted, on 7/5/3 original version, there is only 1 week for every 5 where this even applies. Nonetheless, I recommend that you try to be as objective as possible in any and all lifts you complete, it’s only for your benefit in the long run, and heck, your ego wants more gains anyway, right?       So, despite the intent to land on RPE 9 (1 RIR), after your top set, judge how difficult it was, by feel and/or video recording if you happen mohave it handy, and lower the weight for your "back off sets” based on the following chart.

Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and Reps in Reserve (RIR) Chart

Drop RPE

Description (Post-Set

RIR

 

Objective Analysis)

 

the Weight this Much:

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Advice:

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Drop the

Maximal Effort. (no more 10

reps, no more weight

0

10%

possible)

more rep. Could have

Leave more -

7.5%

possibly added weight

9

Definitely Had One Rep Left in the Tank. Great Job. 

in the tank (probably could’ve added weight too), might’ve had 2 reps 

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in the tank Next Time

1

5%

Absolutely had One Rep left 8.5

RPE 9 next time

Very Small chance of 1 9.5

Ego, Hit an

Great Job

Good Job, -

5%

better to be conservativ e here

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Why did you stop? LoL. Begin “Back Off Sets” OR Rest up and add weight 8 (or

Definitely Had Two Reps left

less)

in the Tank...

2 to 2+ 

(try to match the number of reps) OR try to go more more reps while hitting an RPE 9

The “Back Off Sets"      The better you are at judging what actually happened on your top set (i.e. the closer your perceived RPE/RIR judgement is to the actual RPE/RIR), the more easily your back off sets will flow and the more total (high intensity) work volume you’ll be able to jam into your tightly packed workout and life schedule. As you can see above, after your Top-Set, you lower the weight by 5%, 7.5%, or 10% based on the RPE/ RIR (rounding to the nearest 5 lbs or rounding to the nearest 0.5 lbs if you own microplates). 

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    Using this new “back off” weight, you will be completing 2-5 “back off sets”, or until you hit another RPE 9 (whichever comes first). You will go for the equal number of reps per set as you did on the top-set. If you hit an RPE 9 (or higher) on your first back off set, that is a very good indicator that you either misjudged your RPE on the top set and didn’t lower the weight enough, and/or you didn’t give yourself enough time to rest between the top set and first back off set, and/or just really messed up with technique, set up, etc. If you hit an RPE 9 on your second set, the same reasons may apply, just to a slightly less degree. for most workouts, 3-4 back off sets is where most people will land, granted they did at least an okay job of aiming, hitting, and judging their RPE. Even if you did an RPE 9.5 on the top set, if you back off accordingly, which is 7.5%, in most cases 3-4 back off sets before you hit RPE 9 again should happen. On better days, with great recovery, good focus and concentration, good RPE accuracy and judgement, 5 back off sets will result.       A 10% drop to the weight for your back off sets because you hit an RPE 10 on the top-set may seem like a huge reduction in weight, but this is done to be conservative. Quite often, an RPE 10 on the top set correlates with only 2 back off sets of equal rep count (with 10% less weight), because RPE 10’s really wipe us out. 

What if I get less than 3 reps when aiming for 3-5, or less than 8 reps when aiming for 8-10 on the top set?      Let’s start with the easier question;  if you’re aiming for 8-10 reps and an RPE 9 (leaving one rep left in the tank) on the top set, say for

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squats, but you end up only hitting 5, 6, or 7 reps, for whatever reason, simply gauge how difficult that set was from RPE 8.5 to RPE 10, and drop the weight accordingly, and perform 2-5 back off sets until you hit an RPE 9 doing the same number of reps per set as that top-set. Simple right? Most of the time these scenarios, where you end up hitting reps below the intended rep range, will be RPE 9.5-10’s, as common sense would tell us that. Now, don’t worry too much as this scenario will not happen very often. It might happen during your first initial Top-Set PR week when you’re still getting an idea of where you stand strength-wise, but it really shouldn’t happen later on, especially as you gain more experience with the RPE scale and with every aspect of your own training.        What do you do if you’re aiming for 3-5 reps but end up hitting 1 or 2? The reason I’m even bringing this up as a separate point, is we want you putting in some substantial volume, and we won’t be getting that done with singles or doubles. We’d like your back-off work to be done with sets in the 3-5 rep range. If you hit 1 rep and then had to rack it, that means you were 2 reps below goal. Let’s have you drop the weight 15% and perform triples, for 2-5 sets until RPE 9. If you hit 2 reps on your top-set (but were aiming for 3-5), let’s have you drop the weight 12.5% and perform sets of 4, for 2-5 sets until RPE 9.       Once again, you shouldn’t be coming up short very often, and if you are, that could mean that you’re doing something wrong. Perhaps you need to master the upper rep of a rep range (hit an RPE 9) before increasing weight on the next Top-Set PR the next month. Look at your sleep, recovery, and nutrition. More on that later. 

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So what can this actually look like in application? Give me some examples of Top Sets and Back off Sets Cycle 1

Top-Set

Back off

Back Off

Fictional

PR set

%

Sets

Example lifter had great

Deadlift

405x5

7.5%

375 x (2-5

sleep,

sets) x 5

great

reps

focus, hits 5 back off sets

(247.5 Benchpres s

275x3

10%

round

Lifter hits

down)

RPE 9 on

245 x (2-5

3rd back

sets) x 3

off set

reps Lifter hits 300 x (2-5 Squat

325x4

7.5%

sets) x 4 reps

RPE 9 on 4th backoff set, great workout

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Top-Set “Felt (147.25, round OHP

155x5

5%

down) 145 x (2-5 sets) x 5 reps

Easy”, lifter expected 4-5 back off sets but hits RPE 9 on 2nd back off set

*order of workouts doesn’t really matter, either lower body workout can be switched with the other, either upper body workout can be switched with the other. OBVIOUSLY do not switch an upper body workout with a lower body workout because then you’d be hitting two lower’s in a row and two upper’s in a row. Don’t do that. Use common sense. You should be alternating between lower body workouts and upper body workouts*

Will the Top-Set RPE/RIR (and the back-off %) correlate with the number of back-off sets achieved? (up to RPE 9 or max 5 sets) This is a difficult question to give you a solid answer to. I’m still trying to figure this out. One may assume that a lower RPE on the top-set (i.e. entering the back-off sets more fresh) would equate to more back-off sets before hitting RPE 9, but the adjusted (auto-regulated) back off percentage nullifies that a little bit. Perhaps that is why I like working with back-off percentages so much. Gym performance fluctuates so much on a day to day basis, depending on so many factors. RPE judgement also is never perfect and can even fluctuate. But, with that said, utilizing this form of auto-regulation does help allow lifters to get in

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a lot of volume, at a load dependent on how recovered and able they are on any given day. It also helps lifters not run themselves into the ground, even when the intent is to set new records for themselves and constantly be pushing the envelope.  Increasing Your Training Maxes After running your current training maxes through the 5 weeks (4 training weeks and the deload) you will increase your OHP and Benchpress training maxes by 5 LB’s each and your Deadlift and Squat training maxes by 10 LB’s each. For females, cut this number in half.  Resetting Your Training Maxes      Over the span of several training cycles, there will come a point when many working sets begin to get very difficult and grindy. This is the point at which you want to reset your training max, ideally before you actually begin to fail reps. Failing reps due to a fluke, such as it actually being "just a really bad day", and not a true lack of strength, won’t necessitate a reset of your training maxes, but if you’re constantly failing throughout a training cycle, that’s no fluke. For those on Original 7/5/3, you’ll know you should probably reset your training maxes when every set during percentage programming starts to feel like your TopSet PR sets. Your scheduled 7/5/3 programming should be a tad bit easier than those generally RPE 9-9.5 sets that you do once a month. Ideally, your 7/5/3 sets should only get as hard as an RPE 9 on the latter set(s). When every set becomes RPE 9 or harder (probably 5-8 cycles in) reset your training maxes.

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     Resetting your training maxes is simple. Just take 90% of what your current max is and go from there. It’s best to do this when before 'entering a new cycle, but this can also be done mid-cycle, since it’s better to reset then to keep grinding yourself to bits and pieces, and risk injury. At the end of each cycle, try to look objectively at the RPE’s and just how difficult that cycle was for each lift. Generally, around the 5 or 6 cycles-in mark is where things begin to get pretty difficult. Another option that can be used in conjunction to resetting your training maxes, or before you reach the point in which you should reset your training max, is to decrease the weight increments in which you increase the training max from cycle to cycle. More on that later.      Resetting your training max may seem like “FAILURE” but trust me, it’s not. You’re being smart. You’re looking at the big picture, the long term investment here. Don’t let this demotivate you. Not just that, but if you’re doing Original 7/5/3, you’re constantly setting new benchmarks for you to shoot over each month. You still have some pretty darn heavy work on a regular basis programmed. Resetting your training maxes will bring down the weights of your 7/5/3 work, but not your Top-Set PR and back-off set work.

Should You Reset your “Top-Set PR” Training Weight?      No. Well… It depends. If you’ve been doing the Top-Set PR and back-off sets work correctly, you aren’t absolutely destroying yourself on that week. There’s no reason you need to lower your weights on the Top-Sets if you’re doing things correctly. Besides, your Top-Sets are

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based on what you are capable of doing on any given day. We try our best to top the previous top-sets from the month prior, but when it comes down to it, we’re also just giving our best effort (at RPE 9) which could fluctuate from day to day, week to week, month to month depending so many different factors.      With the exception for those who may be dieting, experiencing injury, etc., “resets” aren’t applicable or necessary on your Top-Set PR weeks because you generally shouldn’t ever be stalling or regressing in your Top-Set work, because each week you either add a rep or increase weight (and take down the reps), or hit a specific weight for a specific number of reps, easier (i.e. at a lower RPE than the last week), like squatting 315x5 at RPE 9 whereas last week you hit 315x5 at RPE 9.5 or RPE 10). For those who are dieting, you have to look at your TopSet PR weeks in relation to your bodyweight, and if you hit equal weight at a lighter bodyweight, that’s progress. This is also helpful for those who aren’t dieting, so you can be aware of your relative strength (strength compared to bodyweight). 

Decreasing the Weight Increase Increment for your Training Max      I personally went about 6 cycles in before I chose to decrease the weight increment at which I was increasing my overhead press and squat. I did this so that I could train for longer (more cycles) before I’d have to reset the training max. This is a similar strategy as resets in general, giving us more overall time in which to progress before a wall. This isn’t something you do when things get really grindy and you’re

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approaching a mandatory reset, this is something you do just BEFORE you get to the point where things are about to get really difficult. D      Decreasing the weight increments is an arbitrary decision that you have the option of making. But, when you decide to do it, it’s pretty simple. Just cut the weight increments in half. Each cycle, raise your upper body maxes by 5 Lb’s and your lower boy maxes by 2.5 LB’s each. This is where microplates can really come in handy, and I’d recommend them to everyone on 7/5/3, but especially for those who want to make 2.5 and 5 Lb jumps in training maxes. 

Warm Up Sets I highly recommend doing a general warm up before even doing your warm up sets of your first exercise. On every exercise, I usually recommend beginning with a pump-up set or two with extremely light weight (or bodyweight, depending on the exercise) Here is how I’d warm up to squat or benchpress 225 for sets of 5 •

Typical general warmup/mobility

•

Bodyweight x 8-10

•

45 lbs (bar) x 8-10

•

135 lbs x 5-6

•

175lbs x 3-4

•

200 lbs x 1-2

Here is how I’d warm up to squat 405 for sets of 5 •

Typical general warmup/mobility

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•

Bodyweight x 8-10

•

45 lbs (bar) x 8-10

•

135 lbs x 8

•

225 x 5

•

275 x 3-4 (optional)

•

315 x 2-3

•

365 x 1-2

When warming up, it’s important to get the blood pumping, but also to practice the movement pattern. Hit the warm up sets (okay maybe except for that first 1-2 “blood pump-up sets” or bodyweight sets) with the kind of force you would on your working sets.

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Chapter 2: More Work Don’t Call it Accessory Work For a few years, percentage based training programs were becoming all the rage in the fitness world, especially ones like 5/3/1 and such. Overall, I believe programs like 5/3/1 helped and still help a ton of people get themselves focused on some of the main points and fundamentals of weight training, like lots of big compound lifts, a focus on progression, and a higher training frequency per muscle than a traditional bodybuilding bro-split. This helped advance the collective training intelligence quite a bit. I loved and enjoyed doing 5/3/1 for almost a full year.       On the flip-side, and I’m sure this doesn’t apply to everyone but surely a lot of people, many lifters who originally were in the iron game for bodybuilding began, perhaps unknowingly, shifting away from bodybuilding style training, further and further. Also, came the phrase, “accessory work”, which is generally work done to improve a main lift or to help work the antagonist muscles. Benchpress days included bench pressing and “accessory work,” squat days included squatting and “accessory work”, and so on. For a lot of people, “accessory work" wasn’t just a label, but a reality. A lot of people began to deemphasize direct arm work, direct calf work, “less important” compound movements, and several isolation movements that when added up over the span of months and years, can play a significant role into the development of our physiques. Now this is fine and dandy if strength goals are the priority, but what happens when someone changes their mind and wants to put their focus back onto bodybuilding? Well, naturally one would go back to training their smaller muscles with more

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volume and frequency, but how many of these people wish they’d been doing that all along, during their strength-focused phases of their training careers? I think a lot of us who were partially or wholly bodybuilders at heart, who once or twice went through this phase, wish we had not neglected all the hypertrophy work that we could have been doing.      I used to be in this bunch. I’d hit my benchpress numbers, do a few sets of a pull exercise, a few sets of another push, then decide if I wanted to do some more pulling, and from there I might do some arm work but it was pretty optional. In fact, I thought for a while it was pointless to do “more work", since I figured my arms and shoulders (all three heads) got plenty of work as is from the pushing and pulling. And while they do get work and do grow from the major compounds, especially during your beginning phases, if you want the maximum hypertrophy in a muscle such as biceps, triceps, rear delts, and calves, you have to hit ithem directly.

It's Necessary Work To give a brief personal example, from summer 2011 to the end of 2012, I trained very focused on my “core work” (the Big 4). What had improved the most were the muscles I worked the most, via the exercises I did the most volume on. Once again, think “CORE WORK” aka the big 4. High-bar squatting improved the heck out of my quads, sumo deadlifts my glutes (and hamstrings a bit), bench pressing improved my chest, and OHP’ing made my front delts explode. Now, I did a fair bit of “accessory work” in the form of pulling exercises but not

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at all enough on my calves and arms, and guess what? When I did my bodybuilding shows in 2013, those were the areas that had the least improvement, if any. Those were the places that I wish I had hit with way more volume, exercises, and frequency. My back and hamstrings had improved, but still were far from where I wanted them to be. I had wished I did even MORE pulling and hamstring work.       Once I realized how much growth I missed out on, I began to see “accessory work” much differently. I began to see “accessory work”  as my friend Corey puts it... “necessary work.” Call it what you want, but don’t expect your triceps to grow as much as they could be if you aren’t doing any sort of isolation work on them. If you’re not doing direct calf work, unless you have incredible genetics, don’t expect for your calves to grow (proportionally) at the same rate that your legs may be growing, just because you took your one rep max on squat from 315 to 405. This doesn’t mean you have to have dedicated arms or calves days, but by making sure you hit each smaller muscle with at least a minimum number of sets each lower or upper body workout, you’ll be writing yourself a solid insurance policy towards growth. 

Full Upper Body and Full Lower Body Workouts Because of your desire to grow every muscle in your body (I’m assuming this is what you want), you will want to work every muscle at least once week. Muscle growth and protein stimulus aren’t elevated for an entire week from one single workout, so we’re better off fitting multiple sessions per muscle in each week. Ideally, something between two and three times a week is best for most natural lifters, but on THIS

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program, it’s not quite feasible for most people to hit each muscle three times a week while still hitting the 7/5/3 lifts. I like to play it safe, and hit everything twice a week on this program.      With that said, this means we’ll be doing things like direct arm work, direct rear deltoid work, and direct calf work. Now before some of you say it, yes, back exercises do work the biceps and pushing exercises do work the triceps, but you’ll have bigger arms 6 or 26 months from now if you hit them directly in combination with plenty of compound movements rather than neglecting direct arm work. It doesn’t mean you have to do tons of sets either; just at least a couple sets of biceps and triceps each upper body workout and you’ll thank yourself down the road when your arms have made progress. I’ve seen a lot of intermediate lifters end up regretting not having done the fluffy isolation work because they thought their core compounds were enough.       How much “necessary work” or “more work” should we be doing? The simplest way for me to answer that question is: you should do as much “more work” as you need to achieve your goals, assuming you have the time of day, and assuming you can recover from it. 

Considerations for More Work - Time The first thing to consider when setting up “more work” is to look at how much time you are allocating towards the gym. Is your time flexible or is it set in stone? Generally, warming up and completing the 7/5/3 work can take 30 to 90 minutes, depending on how fast you warm up, which week you’re on, how many cycles it’s been since a reset, how you feel, how hydrated you are, and how much time you need to

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recover between sets. How much more time after the 7/5/3 lifts can you afford to spend in the gym?      Many other programs promise you fast, quick, miracle solution workouts but 7/5/3 promises you nothing of that nature. This is because anyone who has been lifting for longer than a few years, naturally, knows that in general, the bigger and stronger you get, the more volume you need to keep progressing in strength and hypertrophy. More volume directly or indirectly means more longer workouts, over time. Most of these “quick and effective” snakeoil-advertisement style workout programs are marketed to beginners who are seeking fast results but who also CAN HAVE fast results... from simply lifting weights consistently for the first time in their lives. From there, with the help of validation from their gurus, beginners sometimes enter a mindset of “Oh hey, fast and quick workouts are how muscles grow”.       If you’re reading this, you’re most likely at least a couple years into the lifting game. The fast results are long gone. The quick and short 30 minute workouts are fine if you are just trying to maintain your muscle. You bought this program because whatever you were doing wasn’t working, or you weren’t doing it long or smart enough to find out. Short 30 minute workouts… Haha. what was this program you bought about? Oh yeah. Building strength (in 4 major lifts) and overall muscle simultaneously. Basically the maximum number of fitness goals you could attempt to reach at the same time… Please don’t tell me you think you can get incredible results without putting in incredible time and effort. For anyone who is two, five, or ten years in this game, good luck trying to get BOTH bigger (in every muscle) AND stronger (at 4 key lifts in the 1-5 rep range) at the SAME TIME with 4 short 30 minute workouts a week. Seriously, good luck, from the bottom of my heart. 

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Considerations for “MORE WORK” - Goals, Rep Ranges… (and Time) Your goals will strongly dictate what you do with the time you have. If you have exercises that you really want to get strong in, train them in the rep ranges you want to be strong at in those given exercises. Nobody is stopping you, and this is your one and only life. Just understand what you’re getting yourself into, of course. Understand that the more goals you want to achieve at one time, the less you probably will. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Keep in mind you’re already prioritizing 4 big lifts: the benchpress, squat, overhead press, and deadlift, how many more exercises do you want and need to get brutally strong at right now, you greedy bastard?      The more exercises that you want to get brutally strong in, at lower rep ranges, the longer you can expect workouts to become. This is because load highly dictates resting periods. Load is a simple way of referring to “Percentage of One Rep Max”, or in other words, Intensity (a word too many bodybuilders misuse all too often). The heavier the weight in relation to your one rep max, the more time required for you to rest before you are ready to hit that weight again, assuming you want the same number of reps or something close to it. So, holding the number of sets constant, the longer the resting periods, the longer doing a given exercise for all those sets will take. To give an example with something besides the big 4 lifts, let’s say you’re really strong at chin-ups and pull-ups. Four sets of weighted chin-ups for triples (let’s say with 90 Lb’s strapped to you) will generally take longer to complete than four sets of weighted chin-ups for 6’s (let’s say with 45 Lb’s

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strapped to you), which will take longer to complete than four sets of bodyweight chin-ups for 10-12 reps each. This is because you’ll probably want and need to rest longer between those heavier sets, than between the lighter sets. (Remember that the words “heavy” and “light” are relative, they should generally be in reference to your one rep max.)       This is one reason why I highly recommend the vast majority of “more work” to be done in the hypertrophy rep ranges. This is why I recommend looking at all of “more work” as bodybuilding work. You’ll be able to fit in more high effort sets, and more overall volume, both key factors for muscle hypertrophy, by lifting in the 8-15 rep ranges on most lifts. Let the 7/5/3 work scratch your itch for lifting heavy crap. Train as much as a bodybuilder as possible for “more work”. The real key to building STRENGTH and MUSCLE simultaneously, is to minimize the number of exercises that you are doing lower rep training in (down to the big 4 here), carefully periodize and prioritize those lifts, and spend as much time and energy as you can realistically afford training like a bodybuilder outside of those big 4 lifts. 

Considerations for “MORE WORK” - Recovery      This one ties into the previous consideration. The more exercises you attempt to get brutally strong at, in low rep ranges, the more careful you have to be that you are recovering properly. Overtraining is generally the popular term here, but the real issue is that when the workload is too great in a given workout, or in a given string of workouts, workout week, or workout month, and you don’t recovery from it in time for the next workout (or next string of workouts, workout

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week, or workout month), you aren’t able to perform at the same level that you did during the first workout (or string of workouts, workout week, or workout month). Think of it like this, you were able to get that first workout or set of workouts in, but then only later does the “WOW, I feel like utter CRAP” feeling which we tend to call “overtraining” set in. You generally don’t get that feeling during the workout in which we’d later describe as part of the “overtraining”. You sure didn’t feel like you were overtraining in the workouts you felt great at. Yes, eventually you entered into an over-trained state, but it was from not recovering properly. I could go on, but usually when we speak about underrecovering or overtraining, we’re usually talking about the same combination of factors.      I’ll go over maximizing recovery later in more detail. For now, just know that there is generally a level of total volume, highly influenced by how much high intensity (think compound lifts, 75-85% and above 1RM) volume inside that total volume, that you can handle on a regular basis, dictated by how much sleep you’re getting, your diet, outside of gym activity, and anything that (negatively or positively) affects your stress levels. 

Considerations for “MORE WORK” - strong points & weak points      The second thing to consider when setting up your “more work” is to identify which body parts you want to give a little extra attention to. For example, if you have really strong arms due to working them a ton in the past or great arms genetics, you’d program very minimal direct arm work, if at all. If, genetically, you have an amazing chest and it grows

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easily, we wouldn’t have to add a ton of more chest work since by default you’re already doing 5-10 heavy work sets per week; you’d be better off giving more time and energy to your back, shoulders, and/or arms muscles.      That said, just because you have a strong point or two, doesn’t mean to neglect them completely. They still should be getting hit around twice per week, granted,at lower volumes than if they were weak points. It’s smart to keep a little volume on your strong points and still focus on progressing at the exercises involved at hitting them just as an insurance policy. In my opinion, making a strong point stronger with minimal effort isn’t a bad thing, but letting a weak point stay weak usually is.

General Tips for “MORE WORK”      Some of this will seem obvious. Please don’t take the following as an insult to your intelligence, but some people need to hear this or I’d be getting 600 emails, tweets, and Facebook/Instagram messages a day about it.  •

If you’re in a hurry, do less sets, not more sets.

•

Usually 3 sets for most exercises is plenty, if you have time to do more, go ahead, but make sure you’re balancing the rest of your core work appropriately

•

If you get an emergency phone call, it’s okay to leave the gym

•

If you have more time to allocate towards the gym, feel free to do more sets in the given range of a set recommendation

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•

If you leave the gym before finishing your workout you can finish the work the next day if you want

•

Be deliberate and do what you set out to do, (including the “More Work” you decided on)  

•

Don’t train to failure on compound exercises, especially in earlier sets, especially in lower rep ranges (Keep most sets RPE 9) 

•

Feel free to train to failure on isolation exercises, especially in latter sets, especially in higher rep ranges (I encourage it) 

•

There is no need for obvious exercise redundancy. If you do a flat dumbbell benchpress, you don’t need and probably shouldn’t want to do a flat hammer strength benchpress later that workout. You could if you want, but we’re trying to maximize the time we spend in the gym

•

Hit muscles you want to grow

•

Hit muscles that you may not care a ton about, but you know you should hit; do it for the cosmetic symmetry but also structural symmetry

•

Keep the rep ranges for most compound lifts 8-12 (with some work in the 12-15 rep range) 

•

Keep the rep ranges for most isolation lifts 10-15 (with some work in the 15-20 rep range) 

•

Try to do face pulls at least once a week

•

When in a time crunch, alternating sets seems to be a good option (Exercise A, 1 minute rest, Exercise B, 1 minute rest, etc) 

•

When you get a semi-urgent phone call or decide you have to leave the gym ASAP, only then are giant/drop sets permissible

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Legs/Calves/Abs Tips for “MORE WORK” on Squat Day      We generally want to place a hip-dominant compound exercise after the squat, so we can work our glutes and hamstrings. Calves will also want to be thrown in as a default. From there what you do is extra credit. The following is advice for what to do in terms of leg work after your 7/5/3 squats on squat day. For Those With More Time: •

If you have a Moderate to Massive Amount of Time and need more Quad Work than Hamstring/Glute Work ◦

Do 3-6 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9 on all sets) OR 3-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts, 3-5 sets of Leg Press (I recommend Cybex leg press), 3-5 sets of 6-12 hamstring curls or 3-5 sets of 12-20 leg extensions, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs

  •

If you have a Moderate to Massive amount of time and need more Glute Work than Quads/hamstrings Work ◦

Do 3-4 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9 on all sets), 4-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts, 3-5 sets of Walking DB Lunges or Reverse DB Lunges OR 3-5 sets of Glute Ham Raises / Reverse Hyperextensions if you need more hamstring than flute work) , 3-5 sets of 6-12 hamstring curls, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs 

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•

If you have a Moderate to Massive amount of time and need more Hamstring work than Quads or Glute Work ◦

Do 5-6 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9 on all sets), 4-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts, 3-5 sets of Glute Ham Raises or Reverse Hyperextensions or equivalent/similar exercise, 3-5 sets of 8-12 hamstring curls, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs 

For Those With Less Time: •

If you have a short amount of Time and want to prioritize glutes over hamstrings/quads, or your back is very sore from squats, or hamstrings too tight for SLDL's:  ◦

Do 3-4 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts. 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

•

If you have a short amount of time and want to prioritize hamstrings ◦

Do 3-4 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay BENEATH RPE 9 on all sets, RPE 9 okay on last set), 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

•

If you have a short amount of time and want to prioritize quads (I seriously would not recommend this option to the majority of people)  ◦

Do 2-3 sets of leg press, 2-3 sets of leg extensions, 2-3 sets

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of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

Legs/Calves/Abs Tips for “MORE WORK” on Deadlift Day      After the deadlift, especially if you deadlift conventional or narrow sumo, the first thing we’re looking to add is a quad-dominant compound exercise. You’ll also want to make sure you get calves in there too, that’s the minimum. I’ll be making separate suggestions for those with a very wide (quad heavy) sumo deadlift so that these guys can get in more hamstring work (narrower sumo deadlifts and conventional deadlifts are more hamstring heavy than wide, sumostance-standing-leg-press-lookalike, sumo deadlifts) For Those With More Time, and a conventional or narrow/moderate stance sumo deadlift: •

If you have a Moderate to Massive Amount of Time and need more Quad Work than Hamstring/Glute Work ◦

Do 3-5 sets of front squats AND/OR 3-5 sets of Leg Press/ Hack Squat, 3-5 sets of 6-12 hamstring curls, 3-5 sets of 12-20 leg extensions, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs

  •

If you have a Moderate to Massive amount of time and need more Glute Work than Quads/hamstrings Work ◦

4-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts, 3-5 sets of Walking DB Lunges or Reverse DB Lunges, 3-5 sets of 6-12 hamstring

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curls, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs  •

If you have a Moderate to Massive amount of time and need more Hamstring work than Quads or Glute Work ◦

Do 5-6 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9 on all sets), 4-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts AND/OR 3-5 sets of Glute Ham Raises or Reverse Hyperextensions or equivalent/similar exercise, 3-5 sets of 8-12 hamstring curls, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs 

For Those With Less Time and a conventional or narrow/moderate stance sumo deadlift: •

If you have have a short amount of Time and and need more Quad Work than Hamstring/Glute Work ◦

Do 2-3 sets of front squats AND/OR 2-3 sets of Leg Press/ Hack Squat, 2-3 sets of 12-20 leg extensions, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs

•

If you have a short amount of time and need more glute work than quad/hamstring work ◦

Do 3-4 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay BENEATH RPE 9 on all sets, RPE 9 okay on last set), 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

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•

If you have a short amount of time and need more Hamstring work than Quads or Glute Work ◦

Do 2-3 sets of leg press, 2-3 sets of leg extensions, 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

For Those With More Time, and a very wide stance (quad heavy) sumo deadlift that practically looks like a sumo-standing leg press: •

If you have a Moderate to Massive Amount of Time and need more Quad Work than Hamstring/Glute Work ◦

Do 3-4 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9 on all sets), 3-5 sets of Leg Press (I recommend Cybex leg press) or hack squat, 3-5 sets of 12-20 leg extensions, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs

•

If you have a Moderate to Massive amount of Time and want to prioritize glutes  or if your back is very sore from deadlifting:  ◦

Do 3-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts, 3-5 sets of walking DB Lunges or Reverse Lunges, 3-5 sets of 8-12 hamstring curls, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs 

•

If you have a Moderate to Massive amount of Time and want to prioritize hamstrings ◦

Do 5-6 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9

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on all sets), 4-5 sets of 8-12 Barbell Hip Thrusts AND/OR 3-5 sets of Glute Ham Raises or Reverse Hyperextensions or equivalent/similar exercise, 3-5 sets of 8-12 hamstring curls, 5 sets of 5-6 standing calves, 3-4 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 3-5 total sets of abs  For Those With Less Time, and a very wide stance (quad heavy) sumo deadlift (that practically looks like a sumo-standing leg press: •

If you have a short amount of time and want to prioritize quads ( I probably wouldn’t recommend this one)  ◦

Do 2-3 sets of leg press OR front squat, OR hack squat, 2-3 sets of leg extensions or 2-3 sets of seated leg curls, 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

•

If you have a short amount of time and want to prioritize glutes ◦

Do 2-3 sets of barbell hip thrusts, 2-3 sets of walking or reverse DB lunges, 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

•

If you have a short amount of time and want to prioritize hamstrings ◦

Do 2-3 sets of 6-10 Stiff Leg Deadlifts (stay UNDER RPE 9 on all sets), 2-3 sets of seated leg curls, 2-3 sets of 5-6 standing calves AND/OR 2-3 sets of 8-10 seated calves, 2-3 sets of abs

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Chest Tips for “MORE WORK” on Benchpress Day •

If your chest needs work and you have a moderate to high amount of time: ◦

Do 3-5 sets of 8-12 on an incline press (between 20 and 45 degrees) and 3-5 sets of 12-20 on some sort of chest fly

•

If your chest is already very strong or you have very little time ◦

Do 2-3 sets of 8-12 of an incline press OR 2-3 sets of 12-20 of a chest fly

◦

OR program yourself to do more shoulder work instead of more chest work

Shoulder Tips for “MORE WORK” on Benchpress Day      Most people’s front deltoids are going to explode in size from doing Ogus 7/5/3. All of the bench pressing and OHP’ing will be why. Vertical Presses are great for working the front deltoids but will also have better carryover to the OHP and benchpress than doing front raises. With all the front deltoid growth, it will be important to focus on your rear delts. Everyone can use more rear deltoids. For the medial head, side lateral raises, especially done 1-arm at a time with cables are recommended.  •

If your anterior deltoids are weak and you have a moderate to high amount of time: ◦

Do 3-5 sets of 8-12 of a vertical press (like dumbbell seated shoulder press), 3-5 sets of 12-15 on side lateral raises (1arm cable side laterals), and 3-5 sets of 12-20 on reverse

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flyes/rear delt flyes, and 3-5 sets of 10-15 reps on face pulls •

If your anterior deltoids are strong and you have a moderate to high amount of time: ◦

Do more incline chest work instead of vertical pressing, 3-5 sets of side lateral raises (1-arm cable side laterals), and 3-5 sets of reverse flyes/rear delt flyes, and 3-5 sets of face pulls

•

If you have weak front deltoids and very little time: ◦

Do 2 sets of a vertical press (dumbbell shoulder press), 2-3 sets of side lateral raises (cable side laterals), and 2-3 sets of face pulls

•

What About Traps? ◦

The amount of deadlifting you do should cover it

◦

If after 6+ months of 7/5/3 you disagree: ▪

 If you have plenty of time do 3-5 sets of shrugs in the 8-15 rep range

▪

If you have little time, do 2-3 sets of shrugs in the 8-15 rep range

Back Tips for “MORE WORK on Benchpress Day"      The general flow for a benchpress day is 7/5/3 bench, then pull, then push, then pull, then other work, but the question I expect is, “should a vertical pull or a horizontal pull follow the benchpress? In other words,

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“should it go benchpress, horizontal pull, vertical/incline push, vertical pull, OR benchpress, vertical pull, vertical/incline push, horizontal pull?" Honestly, I’m not sure if one is better than the other because a logical case could be made for either order. I’ve done both and found I prefer to do a vertical pull after bench pressing, thus, the order I recommend you start with is 7/5/3 bench, vertical pull, vertical/incline push, horizontal pull.  •

If you have a Ton of Time:  ◦

Do 2-3 pulling exercises for 3-5 sets each, with at least one vertical and at least one horizontal pull ▪

Order can be Benchpress, vertical pull, incline/vertical push, horizontal pull, optional pull of choice

•

If you have very little time: ◦

Do 1-2 Pulling Exercises for 2-3 sets each ▪

Do a vertical pull (and then if time allows, your incline/ vertical push and a horizontal pull)

Arms Tips for “MORE WORK"  on Benchpress Day •

If you have a fair amount or a ton of time ◦

Do 2-3 sets of standing cable triceps pushdowns, 2-3 sets of a compound biceps curl, 2-3 sets of a cable or machine long head triceps exercise, 2-3 sets of a high rep cable curl or machine preacher curl

◦

If you’re an overachiever, before the arm work above, you

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can do 2-3 sets of a triceps dip (bodyweight+attached weight, or on a machine) •

If you have very little time ◦

Do 2 sets of a standing cable triceps pushdown or long head triceps exercise  ▪

You could do triceps pushdowns on bench day and a long head triceps exercise like preacher extensions on OHP day

Chest Tips for “MORE WORK” on OHP day •

If your chest needs work and you have a moderate to high amount of time: ◦

Do 3-5 sets of a decline, flat, or incline press (between 20 and 45 degrees), or weighted dips, and 3-5 sets of some sort of chest fly

•

If your chest is already very strong or you have very little time ◦

Do 2-3 sets of a decline, flat, or incline press, or dips, OR 2-3 sets of a chest fly

Shoulders Tips for “MORE WORK” on OHP day      I would not recommend more vertical pressing after your 7/5/3 OHP’s. If you want more vertical pressing, do it on the benchpress day. •

If you have a moderate to high amount of time:

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◦

Do 3-5 sets of side lateral raises (1-arm cable side laterals), and 3-5 sets of reverse flyes/rear delt flyes, and 3-5 sets of face pulls

•

If you have very little time: ◦

Do 2-3 sets of side lateral raises (cable side laterals), and 2-3 sets of face pulls

•

What About Traps? ◦

The amount of deadlifting you do should cover it

◦

If after 6 months of 7/5/3 you disagree: ▪

If you have plenty of time do 3-5 sets of shrugs in the 8-15 rep range

▪

If you have little time, do 2-3 sets of shrugs in the 8-15 rep range

Back Tips for “MORE WORK" on OHP day      The general flow is 7/5/3 push, then pull, then push, then pull, then other work, but the question I expect is, “should a vertical pull or a horizontal pull follow the OHP?” •

If you have a Ton of Time:  ◦

Do 2-3 pulling exercises for 3-5 sets each, with at least one vertical and at least one horizontal pull ▪

Order can be OHP, horizontal pull, incline/horizontal push, vertical pull, optional pull of choice

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•

If you have very little time: ◦

Do 1-2 Pulling Exercises for 2-3 sets each ▪

Do a horizontal pull (and then only if time allows, your incline/horizontal push and a vertical pull)

Arms Tips for “MORE WORK" on OHP day •

If you have a fair amount or a ton of time ◦

Do 2-3 sets of standing cable triceps pushdowns, 2-3 sets of a compound biceps curl, 2-3 sets of a cable or machine long head triceps exercise, 2-3 sets of a high rep cable curl or machine preacher curl

◦

If you’re an overachiever, before the arm work above, you can do 2-3 sets of a triceps dip (bodyweight+attached weight, or on a machine)

•

If you have very little time ◦

Do 2 sets of a standing cable triceps pushdown or long head triceps exercise  ▪

You could do a long head triceps exercise on OHP day, and a lateral head focused triceps exercise like pushdowns on Bench day

“More Work” Templates      These templates will give some examples with what you can do with

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your time allotted to the gym. These templates are based around overall physique development. Don’t let the choosing of a specific template or creating your own custom “more work” plan take up too much of your time or cause you a mental breakdown. Keep it simple. What muscles do you want to grow? Program exercises that hit those muscles. How many sets should you do per exercise? You can set guidelines for yourself but ultimately… Do you have a ton of time or not very much time? The more time you have, the more volume you can try to fit in. For example, if you have a really busy day and have only 1-1.5 hours to lift, just do 2 sets of each “more work” exercise after your Core Work, but on days with more time, do 3-5 sets. Common sense goes a long way here and if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’re a sensible person. I won’t be your therapist if you decide to ignore your family and friends to spend all day at the gym. That’s your problem. Just know that sometimes there is such a thing as “too much” and other times there is such a thing as “not enough.”       Squat day and Deadlift days are interchangeable. Benchpress and OHP days are interchangeable. Practically any exercise can be changed out for another of similar movement pattern. 

"In-N-Out" Work (for those who have 30 minutes to do “more more")       You can alternate sets of antagonistic or non-like exercises to speed through these workouts faster. Keep your rest periods between 60-120 seconds on the compound upper body lifts and 60-90 seconds between the isolation upper body lifts. Keep your rest periods between 90 and 180 seconds on the compound

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lower body lifts, and 60-90 seconds between the isolation lower body lifts. It may look like too much work in 30 minutes, but if you keep the pace and use weights that are appropriate and don’t make you hit failure in lower rep ranges, you should be fine.  •

Monday (7/5/3 Squat) ◦

Stiff Leg Deadlift: 3-4 sets of 6-8

◦

Standing Calves: 5 sets of 6 (begin these between sets of SLDL, done in alternating fashion)

◦

Hanging Leg Raises: 2 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets with standing calves if necessary) 

•

Wednesday (7/5/3 Benchpress) ◦

(weighted) Pullups: 2-4 sets of 8-10 (alternating sets w/ slight incline DB press) 

◦

Slight Incline Dumbbell Press: 2 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets with pull-ups if necessary)

◦

Triceps Pushdowns: 2 sets of 10-15 (alternating sets with curls if necessary)

◦

Cable Curls: 2 sets of 12-15 (alternating sets with Triceps Pushdowns if necessary)

◦

Rear Delt flies: 2 sets of 15-20 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary) 

◦

Face Pulls 1-2 sets of 12-15 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary, but not with rear delt flies) 

  •

Friday (7/5/3 Deadlift) ◦

Front Squat: 3-4 sets of 8-10

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•

◦

Seated Calves: 2-3 sets of 8-10

◦

Seated Hamstring Curls: 2-3 sets of 8-12

◦

Seated or standing cable crunch: 2 sets of 10-15

Saturday (7/5/3 OHP) ◦

Cable Row: 2-4 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets w/ flat db press)

◦

Flat DB Benchpress: 2 sets of 10-12 (alternating with sets of rows)

◦

Seated Preacher Triceps Extension: 2 sets of 12-15 (alternating with sets of cable curls if necessary)

◦

Standing Dumbbell Supinating Curls (alternating or both at same time): 2 sets of 8-12 (alterating with sets of triceps ext)

◦

Rear Delt Flies: 2 sets of 15-20

◦

Face Pulls: 1-2 sets of 12-15

“Dedicated Work" (for those who have around 60 minutes to do “more work”)     •

Monday (7/5/3 Squat) ◦

Stiff Leg Deadlift: 3-5 sets of 6-8

◦

Leg Press OR Hack Squat: 2-3 sets of 8-15

◦

Standing Calves: 5 sets of 5-6 

◦

Hamstring Curls of Choice: 2-3 sets of 8-12

◦

Hanging Leg Raises: 3-4 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets with standing calves if necessary) 

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•

Wednesday (7/5/3 Benchpress) ◦

(weighted) Pullups: 2-4 sets of 8-10 (alternating sets w/ slight incline DB press) 

◦

Slight Incline Dumbbell Press: 2-3 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets with pull-ups if necessary)

◦

Chest Supported Row: 3-5 sets of 10-12

◦

Triceps Pushdowns: 2-4 sets of 10-15 (alternating sets with curls if necessary)

◦

Cable Side Lateral Raises: 2-3 sets of 12-15

◦

Cable Curls: 2-4 sets of 12-15 (alternating sets with Triceps Pushdowns if necessary)

◦

Rear Delt flies: 2-3 sets of 15-20 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary) 

◦

Face Pulls 2-3 sets of 12-15 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary, but not with rear delt flies) 

  •

•

Friday (7/5/3 Deadlift) ◦

Front Squat OR Leg Press OR Hack Squat: 3-5 sets of 8-10

◦

Reverse DB Lunges: 2-3 sets of 10-15

◦

Seated Calves: 2-3 sets of 8-10

◦

Seated Hamstring Curls: 2-3 sets of 8-12

◦

Seated or standing cable crunch: 3-4 sets of 10-15

Saturday (7/5/3 OHP) ◦

Cable Row: 2-4 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets w/ flat db press)

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◦

Flat DB Benchpress: 2 sets of 10-12 (alternating with sets of rows)

◦

Seated Preacher Triceps Extension: 2 sets of 12-15 (alternating with sets of cable curls if necessary)

◦

Cable Side Lateral Raises: 2-3 sets of 12-15

◦

Standing Dumbbell Supinating Curls (alternating or both at same time): 2 sets of 8-12 (alterating with sets of triceps ext)

◦

Rear Delt Flies: 2 sets of 15-20

◦

Face Pulls: 1-2 sets of 12-15

“Ultimate Work” (for those who have 90 or more minutes to do “more work”)    •

Monday (7/5/3 Squat) ◦

Stiff Leg Deadlift: 3-5 sets of 6-8

◦

Leg Press OR Hack Squat: 3-5 sets of 8-15

◦

Standing Calves: 5 sets of 5-6 

◦

Seated Calves: 3-4 sets of 8-10

◦

Hamstring Curls of Choice: 3-4 sets of 8-12

◦

Hanging Leg Raises: 3-4 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets with standing calves if necessary) 

•

Wednesday (7/5/3 Benchpress) ◦

(weighted) Pullups: 2-3 sets of 8-10 (alternating sets w/ slight incline DB press) 

◦

Neutral Grip Pulldowns: 2-3 sets of 10-12

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◦

Slight Incline Dumbbell Press: 3-4 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets with pull-ups if necessary)

◦

Chest Supported Row: 3-5 sets of 10-12

◦

Triceps Pushdowns: 2-4 sets of 10-15 (alternating sets with curls if necessary)

◦

EZ, DB or BB Curl: 2 sets of 8-12 (alternating sets with Triceps Pushdowns if necessary)

◦

Cable Side Lateral Raises: 3-5 sets of 12-15

◦

Cable Curls: 2 sets of 12-15

◦

Preacher Triceps Extension: 2-3 sets of 12-15

◦

DB Hammer Curls: 2 sets of 12-15

◦

Rear Delt flies: 2-3 sets of 15-20 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary) 

◦

1-arm Cable Rope Hammer Curls: 2 sets of 15-25

◦

Face Pulls 2-3 sets of 12-15 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary, but not with rear delt flies) 

  •

•

Friday (7/5/3 Deadlift) ◦

Front Squat OR Leg Press OR Hack Squat: 3-5 sets of 8-10

◦

Reverse DB Lunges or Hip Thrust: 3-5 sets of 10-15

◦

Standing Calves: 5 sets of 5-6

◦

Seated Calves: 3-4 sets of 8-10

◦

Seated Hamstring Curls: 3-4 sets of 8-12

◦

Seated or standing cable crunch: 3-4 sets of 10-15

Saturday (7/5/3 OHP) ◦

Cable Row: 2-4 sets of 10-12 (alternating sets w/ flat db

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press) ◦

Flat DB Benchpress: 2 sets of 10-12 (alternating with sets of rows)

◦

Triceps Pushdowns: 2-4 sets of 10-15 (alternating sets with curls if necessary)

◦

EZ, DB or BB Curl: 2 sets of 8-12 (alternating sets with Triceps Pushdowns if necessary)

◦

Cable Side Lateral Raises: 3-5 sets of 12-15

◦

Cable Curls: 2 sets of 12-15

◦

Preacher Triceps Extension: 2-3 sets of 12-15

◦

DB Hammer Curls: 2 sets of 12-15

◦

Rear Delt flies: 2-3 sets of 15-20 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary) 

◦

1-arm Cable Rope Hammer Curls: 2 sets of 15-25

◦

Face Pulls 2-3 sets of 12-15 (alternating sets with curls/ triceps if necessary, but not with rear delt flies) 

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Chapter 2:

The Big Lifts You’ll be doing a ton of squatting, deadlifting, benchpressing, and strict overhead pressing on #Ogus753. We’ll generally be referring to these lifts as “The Big 4”, “Core Work”, or “The Main Lifts”. We’re focusing on these lifts to keep things simple and to get you strong. If you’re reading this book, it’s assumed that you’re not a beginner, so I’m not going to treat you like one. Normally for the squat I’d have to teach the bodyweight squat, the goblet squat, and so on, before ever having someone put a barbell on their back. I won’t do that here because I’m assuming you can already squat at least your bodyweight for reps. This isn’t a book on biomechanics, but here are some basic fundamental tips for your Big 4.  

The Squat:      Squatting technique is highly individual and preferential. There are so many variables at play. For the most part, the two distinct styles of squatting are high bar The key difference here is whether you place the bar on top of your traps, or somewhere downstream from the top of the traps. Don’t switch back and forth between one and the other during this program. It doesn’t really matter which you go with. It’s not like low bar squatting doesn’t work out your quads, and rest assured, high bar squatting converts quite well to low bar squatting strength if you plan

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on low bar squatting in the future. Pick whichever you prefer, whichever feels most comfortable for you at this time, or whichever you plan on doing long term. If you’re focused on lifting the most weight possible during your time with #Ogus753, try the low bar squat. For a greater demand on range of motion of the knees and ankles, and slightly greater load on the quads, go with the high bar squat. The high bar squat and low bar squat are different in that the bar always travels above the mid-foot, so wherever you place it on your back, changes how much you lean forward, how much the hips come back, how forward the knees will go, etc. Place it higher on the back and your torso in the squat will be more vertical, there will be more forward knee travel. Place it lower on your back and you will naturally lean forward more, and prefer to have a wider foot stance (more hip opening). First let’s go over some fundamentals for all squats, then we’ll get into some focused tips for squatting high bar or squatting low bar.

General Squat Setup: •

Set up the squat J-Hooks and/or the bar at a height so that the lift off is comfortable ◦

You don’t want to have to do half a squat just to get the bar off the rack

◦

You shouldn’t have to do a calf raise and get onto your tippy toes to unrack the bar

•

Every set should begin the same way

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•

Use a grip width that allows you to create a tense upper back shelf for the bar to rest upon ◦

Try to grip as narrow as possible while still keeping the wrists straight

◦

A thumbs around the bar grip is recommended, but a over the around the bar grip is okay, to avoid wrist pain or if preferred

◦

Break the bar with your grip, pulling it apart, externally rotating the shoulders, tensing the upper back

◦

Pull the chest up, the shoulders down and back

◦

Grip the bar evenly, and tightly

◦

You can step underneath the bar before placing it on your back, or vice versa, doesn’t matter, just keep it consistent

•

Once the bar is on your back, find your proper feet positioning for the lift off ◦

Feet should be placed somewhere around shoulder/hip width for the lift off

◦

Screw the feet into the ground to engage and stabilize the hips (create outward feet pressure) 

◦ •

Tense the upper back and keep the torso vertical

Initiate the lift off ◦

Keep the neck relatively neutral, looking at a point directly ahead of you

◦

Elbows underneath the bar

◦

With a neutral spine, breathe into the diaphragm, not uncomfortably hard

◦

Brace the core (like someone was going to hit you in the

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torso ◦

Extend the knees to lift the bar off the rack

◦

Wait for the weight to stabilize; for the plates to stop spinning and the bar to stop shaking

The Walkout: •

Take a breath and brace before taking one step back with the dominant foot

•

Take a step back and out with the other foot, placing it into it’s squatting position

•

Readjust the dominant foot into it’s squatting position

•

Finally then, breathe out, the walkout should only take but a moment

•

The wider the feet placement, the more outward foot angle (foot flare) you’ll probably find necessary ◦

The wider your feet, the more open your hips must be during the squat

◦

Experiment over time to find the right amount of foot flare

Squat Execution: •

Take however many breaths necessary

•

Stare straight ahead or slightly down; pick a point and keep your eyes on it. Don’t look around

•

Feel your WHOLE foot on the ground ◦

Feel the ground

◦

all 3 balls of your feet in contact with the ground

◦

Weight not distributed all on your toes

◦

Don’t lift your toes

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◦ •

Weight is distributed around or just behind midfoot 

Brace your core ◦

Take a final deep breath to 70-85% capacity

◦

Tense your core as if someone was going to hit you somewhere (anywhere and everywhere) on your torso

◦

Keep your core neutral (not flexed with your ass sticking out, not crunched down)

•

Initiate the descent  ◦

Depending on bar placement and preference you will prefer to initiate the descent by breaking at the knees first or simultaneously at the knees and hips. Some people may prefer moving the hips back before breaking at the knees.

◦

Keep the torso as braced and vertical as possible while the bar travels above midfoot

◦

With outward rotation of the hips and knees, have the knees track with the direction of mid to outer toes

◦

The placement of the hips and forward travel of the knees will depend heavily on your body structure and bar placement

◦

Squat down to around parellel, keeping your air in and keeping tight

◦

Parellel is when the hip crease is at the same height as your knee joint, or when the line from the hip crease and the knee joint are parallel to the ground

◦

Utilize the stretch reflex at the bottom but don’t dive-bomb (unless you’re advanced and know exactly what you’re doing)

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•

Squat the Weight Up ◦

Keep the Core Braced, Explode Up

◦

Breathe out only after a full rep is complete, or once you’re at least 3/4 the weight up

◦

Make sure the knees track with the toes, keeping the hips as open as necessary

◦

For some people REALLY driving the hips out is very important

The High Bar Squat (It’s key differences from the low bar squat)  Equipment: •

Most high bar squatters find olympic lifting shoes more helpful than flat shoes

•

Among olympic shoe wearers, many also prefer larger heels over smaller heels. 

•

Flat, thin, hard soled shoes are

Feet Placement: •

High bar squatters generally squat a bit narrower than low bar squatters - with the feet usually somewhere between below the hips to below the shoulders

•

Feet flare should be appropriate, based on how wide your feet are placed, and your individual preference

Execution: •

To Initiate the descent, once completely tensed all across your body, especially your core, simply drop in place by breaking at the knees

•

To maintain as vertical a spine as possible, the knees must come forward - if they aren’t coming forward, you’re probably sacrificing depth, the torso is going to be leaning forward, and you’ll probably

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notice more buttwink once you go a certain depth with the hips back (what you don’t want) versus the hips and knees more forward (what you do want). The Low Bar Squat (It’s key differences from the high bar squat)  Equipment: •

Flat shoes like converse’s are far more common amongst low bar squatters than high bar squatters, but nowadays more and more casual lifters and competitive powerlifters are using olympic lifting shoes.

•

Wrist wraps can be helpful for low bar squatters to cushion the wrist pressure caused from a low bar position

Feet Placement: •

Feet just outside shoulder width, or wider

•

The feet will flare out according to your personal preference and based on how wide your feet are spread apart

•

Track your knees with the direction of your toes

•

Focus on keeping the ENTIRE foot on the ground; not just the heel, but the whole entire freaking foot

•

Push through the mid foot

The Descent: •

Many people like to drive the hips back a bit before they break at the knees and that’s fine ⁃

Some people like to momentarily flex the glutes and then “unlock” them to “reset” to initiate the beginning of each rep

•

Because of feet and bar placement, a greater demand is placed on

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opening and using the hips, they must be engaged and forced open, especially the wider you set your feet on the ground, and the wider you flare out those feet •

The torso will always lean forward as much as it needs to, to keep the bar above your midfoot - film yourself directly from the side and you’ll see biomechanics right before your eyes Hybrid Squat The Hybrid Squat is a funny guy. I’d say Most people who barbell squat do it.

Well, a really shitty version of it. It usually comes as the result of a high bar placement but low bar body language. I usually see it (often improperly) performed by people who fear letting the knees go over the toes and people who have an unexplained fear of squatting to parallel or deeper. People who quarter or half squat are usually doing an improper hybrid squat. Or by people who think the high bar squat is initiated with an overexagerated breaking of the hips. Or by people who combine all of the above. Very rarely will you find someone doing a high bar squat that you would sub-categorize as a proper hybrid squat. Usually it’s done (improperly) by accident. The hybrid squat does look a lot like it sounds, like a hybrid. Like something between a high bar squat and a low bar squat. And even then, it’s going to very from person to person. Let’s break it down, and assume anything not described has already been covered. •

High bar placement

•

Feet placement wider than normal high bar - somewhere between high bar and low bar, and feet usually not a ton flared out

•

Hips come back more than with a regular high bar squat

•

Break at knees and hips simultaneously ⁃

If this is uncomfortable, you can initiate by setting the hips back first, before you break at the knees and drop into the hole

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•

Because hips come back, knees aren’t coming as forward as the high bar squat

•

Don’t bring the hips back up into yesterday, practice makes perfect. Find the sweet spot of where the hips go and where the knees go, such that the lift “looks right” when viewing yourself from the side ⁃

•

Filming yourself from the side is an extremely invaluable tool for this

Because of the hips coming back and the knees not coming as much forward, depth is sacrificed since we’re not trying to overly round/buttwink the lower back

•

Hitting parallel is about as low as you want to go

•

Squat Shoes (raised heels) are recommended, low or high heel

Since many people have ankle mobility issues and their knees simply can’t get go forward a whole ton (at least right now) the hybrid squat is what a lot of people end up doing. It’s a bit more “hip-dominant” than a regular high bar squat, just as the low bar squat is more “hip-dominant” than the hybrid squat, but don’t get confused into thinking that the glutes and/or hamstrings are the prime movers in any squat - the quads are always the prime movers.

Benchpress: Just like the squat and deadlift, the benchpress is also an extremely unique exercise from person to person. Shoulder anatomy differs from one guy to the next just as hip anatomy does, not to mention everyone’s benchpress is highly influenced by previous injuries, setbacks, and how they’ve done it in the past. We all have different preferences and our benchpress is even dependent on who we look up to on Instagram and other social media. If you look around, everyone is going to have more or less elbow flaring, they’re going to bring the bar higher or lower on their body, have more or less arch, and

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have more or less hip opening and hip drive than the next guy. Just go to a powerlifting meet or watch a full length meet on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. Some guys plant their traps before their feet, other people set their feet before their back arches. The setup for the benchpress is perhaps the most unique of all lifts. With that said, I’ll cover some of the fundamentals that should apply to the vast majority of you benchpressing. Then I’ll cover the step-by-steps of how I recommend setting up to benchpress for most people and most purposes Benchpress Fundamentals •

Properly warm up the shoulders, chest, triceps, and even lats prior to your sessions of benchpress

•

When setting up the benchpress and during the execution KEEP THE SHOULDERS DOWN AND BACK ⁃

Same as when you’re standing up - down meaning towards your hips, back meaning retracting your shoulder blades and popping that chest up - do this while lying on the bench

•

You don’t want a completely flat back, no matter how much you’re trying to target and isolate your chest and no matter how often you say you’ll never do a powerlifting meet, and no matter how much shit you used to talk about that Russian 12 year old girl who benchpressed 300 lbs with a huge arch ⁃

If your back is completely flat, it means you’re not doing your upper body correctly; you’re not sticking out the chest and bringing down and back the shoulders enough - You’ll probably hurt yourself if you haven’t already

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•

The larger arches (the ones you see on YouTube and that you share and talk shit about on Facebook) tend to come from a combination of intentional spinal flexion and proper upper body benching position. ⁃

•

It’s usually down for powerlifting purposes - to limit the ROM

Mild to moderate arches come from simply doing what you’re supposed to do on benchpress involving the upper body musculature. ⁃

There’s a strong correlation between the people who don’t follow/haven’t followed these guidelines and shoulder injuries

•

The feet should never leave the floor unless you’re intentionally doing legs-up benchpressing

•

The heels don’t necessarily have to be on the floor, and such is the case if you position your feet towards the bench as opposed to out from it, but you should always be driving through the heels and the entire foot.

•

Keep your butt on the bench - no matter how much leg drive you use

•

Do not bounce the weight off your chest - don’t use momentum

Now that we’ve covered the fundamentals of proper benchpressing, let’s go over a few of the different ways Setup As I’ve mentioned before, benchpress setups are as unique as snowflakes. Everybody who’s serious about their bench has some sort of ritual they go through every time. The ritual itself isn’t as important as

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what you’re actually doing through the setup - and that’s positioning yourself in a safe and powerful place to benchpress. The main goal with the setup is so that you cover the benching fundamentals and that you get into the same starting position every single time that you benchpress. What a ritual helps with is creating a habit of doing the same exact setup every time, giving you a consistent, reliable benchpress. I’m going to give you an example of just one way you can set up. Over time you should create and find your own groove. ▪

You want the bar to be racked at a height that is proper for you, such that unracking the bar doesn’t require you to do half a benchpress to get it off, but also such that your shoulder blades don’t get “unpacked” when you lift the bar off the rack

▪

Unless you know exactly where your feet go, I’d recommend just guesstimating where your feet are going to go but focusing on setting up your upper body first.

▪

Lay back onto the bench with the bar somewhere above your face or neck ⁃

Some people begin their setup by putting their feet up on the bench, and then putting them on the floor only after their upper body is exactly where they want it

▪

Pick your grip width that is most comfortable and best accomplishes the goal at hand, whether it be maximum chest stimulation, maximum weight you can lift, or a combination of both ⁃

Wider grip will involve more flaring of the elbows and appears to beat up the rotator cuffs in many lifters more than a more moderate width grip

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⁃

Your “perfect grip” is a journey; it will change over time and that’s perfectly okay. When you do, only make but small adjustments and be cognizant

▪

In a one-swing movement, lift your upper body off the bench and plant it a little lower on the bench, the bar somewhere above your forehead or the space above your head, except this time with your chest puffed up, and your shoulders down and back - Remember that, DOWN AND BACK ⁃

Instead of lifting yourself into this position, you can also slide

⁃

The key here is upper back tightness and arching the upper back, making it look like you’re turning this movement into more of a “decline” press ⁃

A lower back arch comes as a side effect of an upper back arch and planting the feet on the ground

▪

This is usually where the benchpress setup ends for most people, even those with decent setups (except with the bar above the forehead). I like to add in this next part

▪

Next, while keeping complete tightness, In the opposite direction, Scoot or Slide your upper body just a half an inch or an inch back up the bench towards its head, ending with the bar directly above your eyes or eyebrows. ⁃

This is done to keep the meat of the traps down towards the bottom of the bench and keep the upper back stable during the bench press

▪

Open the hell out of your hips and make sure your feet are where you want them ⁃

Your feet can be placed in towards the bench/butt, or out

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directly underneath the knees ⁃

When the feet are set closer to the bench/butt, you have to be careful of bridging, which is when your butt leaves the bench

⁃

Just like we usually don’t want your feet in the air, we don’t want your heels out further than directly underneath your knees. You lose foundation and most of the benefit that the legs have to offer during the benchpress

▪

Re-assess your grip if necessary ⁃

Make sure the bar is placed in the lower meat of your palm, and not in the middle of your hand as if you were doing a pushup

⁃

I ALWAYS recommend a thumbs-around grip, they don’t call the thumbless grip “Suicide Grip” for no reason

▪

Apply tension through the legs, and take one final deep breath into your diaphragm and then unrack

Before discussing the unrack, let’s have a quick word on the use of spotters.

Using a Spotter on the Benchpress

Despite the warning signs in most gyms to always use a spotter, I recommend becoming self-dependent and not needing one in everyday training. Yes, even during your heavy top-sets where you’re hitting new

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PR’s (but if any situation calls for a safety-spot, that one would be it). I’m not advocating recklessness here, I’m advocating mastering your craft, unless of course, you’re into being dependent on somebody helping you with every the majority of your work sets for the rest of your life. I feel that it’s better to not need one than to need one and not have one, or worse, to need one every single rep of every single set in every single benchpress workout. Get used to not having to use a spotter. If your gym has a benchpress that sucks so bad that you need a spotter because the unrack point is so high that without a spotter you completely lose your upper back tightness and shoulder retraction… you know where I’m going with this. As a lifter independent of spotters during normal training, in terms of the unrack, you want to be as high up on the bench as you can, while not hitting the pins when you’re actually benchpressing. The lower on the bench you are, the more impossible it is to unrack the bar by yourself, especially with weight on it. I’m assuming you’re using a typical standard benchpress and not one of those magical “Easy Unrack” benchpresses. Anyway, let’s move on. Unrack: ▪

Before, during, and after the unrack, remember that maintaining all fundamental benchpress elements I mentioned above is incredibly important

▪

Take a deep breath into the diaphragm before the unrack, and before each rep

▪

Press the weight up just enough that you can bring the bar out from its supports

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▪

Keep everything tight, and don’t allow yourself to lose the retraction in your shoulder blades while unracking

▪

Do not begin the descent until the bar is in its starting position and the weight has completely settled

Benchpress Execution • •

•

•

Break the bar with your grip and keep everything tight With a deep breath, flex your lats as you lower the bar to your chest (where you lower it will depend on your grip, your arch, your goal, your preference, past injuries, etc) Tuck your elbows during the descent and inversely flare the elbows to the same degree during the ascent. ⁃ The extent of tuck is incredibly individual Let the bar either touch the chest or pause it for a 2 count ⁃

•

• • •

•

Whether you do touch-and-go or pause reps, just keep it consistent from one workout to the next. Keep in mind that you can touch-and-go more than you can pause rep, so don’t do pause reps with your touch-and-go training max. Don’t bounce the weight off your body, or double-dip if you’re pausing (where you pause it on your chest, and then let it sink further just before pressing) If you do pause reps, don’t change elbow position while paused Once you’ve pushed the weight up, allow the weight to settle before beginning the next rep Maintain the same high level of tightness and shoulder blade retraction, lower the bar to the same place, have the same pause count if you’re pausing, on every rep of every work set On the last rep, complete the repetition and let the weight settle before racking it, don’t start begin racking it during your last rep

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Benchpress Miscellaneous Head Position: It’s very common for people to lift their heads off the bench as they keep there eyes on the bar during the descent. As long as it’s not excessive, I don’t see a big issue. Wall Slides: As an insurance policy, I highly recommend incorporating wall slides during your upper body warmup routine, and perhaps between your first few sets of benchpress warmup. Heck, maybe even between working sets. Maximizing your benchpress on 7/5/3: If you’re leaning more towards maximizing your benchpress (say, versus getting in more upper chest work), during “more work” on your OHP day you may consider doing close grip benchpress for 2-5 sets of 6-10 reps. This will give you more bench work and help you strength the triceps for a bigger “normal” benchpress. Don’t do so much that it negatively impacts your normal benching. Try to stay beneath RPE 9 on the majority of sets if possible. It’s advisable to structure and customize each mesocycle a bit differently, having slightly different goals for the sake of specialization, variety/fun, and to “back off” in terms of volume on certain muscles or movements so that you can push even harder on them later. If going ham on everything equally is working for you right now, that’s great, but if/when you feel like you don’t want to do that any more, The Deadlift The only thing more painful to watch than someone doing quarter squats with the neck pad while wearing Air Jordan’s is seeing that same person do deadlifts. Notice I don’t even have to explain how they deadlift because you can already imagine it. The deadlift is the reason that parents tell their children “Be careful, don’t hurt yourself” as they drop them off in front of the gym. The thing is, it’s not

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the deadlift’s fault. It’s not any lift’s fault for anyone getting hurt, ever. That’d be like blaming the sport of basketball for your broken ankle. When it comes to all lifts, the deadlift included; it’s all about engaging the right muscles and using the right movement pattern; engraining that into your muscle memory, and then getting brutally strong. When you focus on how much weight you can lift, before making sure you’re lifting correctly, injuries happen. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya. We’ll cover the conventional and sumo deadlift separately, but much of the fundamentals are the same for both. Let’s take a look at some of the plain differences between conventional and sumo. Neither is “better” than the other. Which to go with just depends on preference, goal, and how your perceive your experience is with each. Conventional: • More ROM (range of motion) • More work for the glutes and hamstrings • Higher energy expenditure per rep/set Sumo: • Less ROM (Range of motion) • Less glute/hamstring, more quad and adductors (inner thigh) • Easier on lower back The following tips on deadlifting are under the assumption that you’re using standard sized 45 lb weight plates per side and that the bar starts at it’s typical height.

Conventional Deadlift: Setup: There are hundreds of ways you can set up for the conventional deadlift. Here’s how I recommend the setup, if you happen to want my

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recommendation. •

Feet stance (width and flare) will differ from person to person, but for most people, feet directly under the shoulders seems to be a decent spot

•

Step up to the bar until it is above midfoot or against your shins

•

Toes generally pointed forward, but flared out a tad, depending on how wide your hips are going to be opening

•

When you’re ready to go down and grab the bar, remember to load up your hamstrings and glutes as you pivot your torso downard - essentially do a Romanian Deadlift down to the bar, if possible

•

Keep your back straight and neutral as you go down to grab the bar

•

Keep your weight at all times evenly distributed throughout the entire foot

•

Grab the bar wider than your feet, and wider than the degree at which your knees will be opening up

•

Your shoulders should be above and slightly forward from the bar

•

Pull slack against the bar, have the elbows locked out, as you pack the shoulders and lats down and raise the chest up

Execution •

Fill your diaphragm with air as you’re pulling tension from the bar and hold your breathe throughout at least the entire concentric (ascent/positive portion) - you can breathe out at the top but I recommend if possible holding your breath during the entire repitition, during both the ascent and the majority, if not all, of the descent

•

Through a combination of using the quads, the hamstrings, and

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glutes, (and not necessarily imagining using JUST the quads to initiate the lift) pull the bar off the floor •

I like to load the hell out of my hamstrings, and then imagine feeling and tensing the hell out of my glutes, thrusting them forward, as I’m pushing the ground down

•

Complete a full hip extension and don’t worry about shrugging the weight or over exaggerating the back extension. From the side it should look like you’re standing straight up with good posture.

•

Maintaining tightness and keeping your hamstrings loaded, reverse the moment by breaking and hinging at the hips, allowing the bar to go straight down against your thighs and then against (or just very close to) your shins

•

The speed of the descent is up to you, but I recommend at least maintaining control of the bar and weight

•

Reset - take a breath or multiple and get tense all over again, take a final deep breath while pulling slack and getting even tighter and execute another repetition

•

Head position is a widely debated topic. Some people believe it should be kept neutral (aligned with the spine) at all times and others don’t think it’s that big of the deal since there is no weight placed upon the neck or head. I’ve seen huge weights lifted by both camps, but in my observation, the majority of the biggest or most impressive deadlifts I’ve ever seen, done in many different weight categories, were done with the head not necessarily kept perfectly neutral

•

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Sumo Deadlift First and foremost, let’s clear some things up with the sumo deadlift. Despite popular belief, they are not “more hamstrings” than conventional deadlifts, and conventional deadlifts are not “more quads” than sumo deadlifts. It’s actually the opposite. Crazy, right? The wider your foot stance/knees/hips, the less you’re using your hamstrings and the more you’re doing a sumo squat, or a weird-looking wide-foot standing leg press involving holding a barbell. Also, there’s a popular idea that sumo deadlifts are for cheaters who eat butt. In my opinion, what someone does in the bedroom is completely their business. Who are we to judge? In fact, if sumo deadlift allows people to spend time in the gym moving big weights, with less occurrence of injury, I’m all for it. That said, the sumo deadlift requires less total work per repetition. If you’re looking for maximum muscle stimulation, I recommend just sticking with conventional deadlift. Most of the key concepts are the same as conventional deadlifts. Load the hell out of the posterior chain, pull slack from the bar, keep everything tight, and keep the movement efficient. The major difference between sumo and conventional is that with sumo, your legs are on the outside of your arms. This allows you to have your hands directly beneath your shoulders, which is the most efficient grip width for your sumo deadlift. There are no rules as to where your feet must be placed. The wider your feet are spread, the lower the ROM, and the less hamstring but more quads involved in the movement. The wider your feet, the wider your knees, the more open your hips must be, but the closer the hips are to the bars path. The narrower your feet, the closer to a conventional deadlift your sumo deadlift will be. Many people have hit

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huge weights in all forms of conventional and sumo deadlifts. The wider your feet are spread, the more flared out your toes must be, but be careful not to flare out your feet too much. You’ll know you’ve done this when you notice a decline in balance. If you’re new to sumo deadlifting, start with a feet placement that’s around double shoulder width apart. If you’re not sure what this means, stand with your feet beneath your shoulders, look at your feet, and then imagine doubling the distance between your feet. This will be a medium-ish foot width for most people. Over time feel free to open up the feet (and hips), little bit little, but only if it’s comfortable and only as much as your flexibility allows. You can also narrow in that foot width, just know the mechanics get closer to a conventional deadlift when you do so. The sumo deadlift helps a lot of people get rid of middle and lower “back rounding” for two main reasons; the torso is more vertical in the starting position and many people find they’re able to load up their posterior chain better with the sumo deadlift. Anyway, let’s talk about the setup and execution, once again, assuming that the bar is at the standard shin height which occurs using standard 45 lb gym plates. Setup •

Feet placement makes a huge difference in muscles worked, the mechanics of the lift, and the total range of motion as well as total work required per repetition - there is no right or wrong, just know that this stuff makes a difference. Be conscious of where your feet are

•

Step up close to the bar and while standing straight up, make sure the bar is in place against your shins

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•

Let your feet flare to the degree in which your feet are widened, more wide = more foot flare, less wide = less foot flare; experiment with foot flare

•

You want your knees to track with your toes and to never cave inside of them

•

Since the feet are wider, you’re able to keep your hips closer to the bar path at all times. The wider your feet are and the more open your hips are, the more you can practically “drop in place” versus having to set your butt back like with a conventional deadlift

•

As you descend to grab the bar, keep your knees above your feet/ heels by really opening your hips

•

During the descent, try to keep the core relatively tight, back neutral, chest up and shoulders down, torso relatively vertical but not trying so hard that you’re overspending energy

•

Grab the bar straight down from the shoulders (grips explained later)

•

Head position can be kept neutral or level with the floor and gaze stuck on a fixed object in front of you

•

Take a final breath into the diaphragm as you are pulling slack and positioning the torso as vertical as possible, the hips as wide as necessary, shoulders down and lats packed…

•

Initiate the lift

Execution •

Exerting outward pressure with the feet, pull the bar off the floor and violently thrust your hips as the bar passes your knees

•

Squeeze the glutes and I recommend staying locked for at least a split second or up to 1-2 seconds before descending again

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•

The descent is the opposite motion of the ascent - in a fluid motion break the hips and then immediately the knees while maintaining complain tension throughout your entire body, the same tension you had during the ascent

•

The speed of the descent is up to you, but I recommend at least maintaining control of the bar and weight

•

Reset - Breathe out (if you were holding your breath) and get tense all over again, take a final deep breath while pulling slack and getting even tighter and execute another repetition

Deadlift Grips Normal Grip: No explanation necessary, I hope. I can usually handle 50-60% of my 1RM for sets of 5+ but once it goes over that, I choose to or have to do hook grip. Over/Under Grip: One hand goes over (pronated), one hand goes under (supinated). Most people deadlift this way. If you do over/under, I recommend even doing your work up sets over/under. Which hand goes over or under is up to you. Feel it out. Just be careful that both arms are completely locked out when deadlifting at all times. Jerking the bar or deadlifting in general with an over-under grip where the supinated arm is flexed can be very risky to your biceps. There’s always the element of risk involved, minimize it by keeping that supinated arm extended and not bent while deadlifting. Be aware of possible mechanical imbalances that over-under grip can pose when gone unnoticed. Use your proprioception to help you feel that both of your shoulders are in equal positions, and that your upper back musculature the left side and the right side - are in equal positions. Hook Grip: Hook grip is more common on sumo deadlift than

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conventional deadlift. It basically exchanges pain, for a “locked in” kind of hold over the barbell. If you do it right, it can be even better than an overunder grip, with a decreased risk of bicep tear and better left to right symmetry. The only problem is that it hurts like hell. If you don’t know what it is, make a fist but with your thumb inside your fist. That’s what hook grip looks like. Let’s take it to the next level. Put a pencil, pen, or a stick in the meat of your palm and then make that same fist. Now that’s hook grip. Hook grip can feel like hell on earth to your thumbs. It usually gets less painful over time and the less you think about deadlifting like this. Straps: Use them if you want, but I recommend that you don’t. Chalk: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Overhead Press: In the world of benchpressers, the OHP’er is King. Many of the fundamentals of OHP’ing are similar to benchpressing. Proper shoulder/ upper body warmups are very helpful, wall slides, elbows underneath wrists, chest up, etc. Let’s get to it. Setup •

Set the bar or J-hooks so that the bar is at or around your collar bone before unracking

•

Grip will be extremely individual, from just outside shoulders to 6 or more inches outside shoulders ⁃

The wider your grip, the more you’ll feel your shoulders doing the work

⁃

I recommend a grip that is a middle ground between comfort, safety, and power

⁃

Rest the bar on top the meat of your palm with the weight

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evenly distributed and not just all on the meat under your thumb •

A thumbs around grip is recommended, even though suicide grip may feel better

•

Wrists cocked back just slightly, but not to the extent they are when you are doing pusups

•

Shoulders down and back, and chest up

•

The Unrack can be done with a staggered stance, or both feet under the bar - I recommend the one foot forward unrack

Unrack •

Squat the weight up and step away from the rack and let the weight settle ⁃

Over time you may want to replicate the same walkout every single set. I usually do: right foot forward, squat weight up, right foot back, adjust left foot back slightly, and I’m ready

•

Keep the shoulders down and back, upper back tight, chest up ⁃

This helps get the bar above your center of gravity so that you can produce more force against it

•

From a side angle looking at yourself, the elbows should be tucked forward slightly - this also keeps the shoulders in a healthier position

•

Although the elbows are tucked forward slightly, the forearms are actually vertical, which is what you want - the under belly of your forearm will seem to be at an angle due to its shape and musculature, but when you look at yourself from a side angle, the front side of your forearms and your wrists should be above your elbows and perpendicular to the floor.

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•

The bar should be resting near your neck, above your collar bone, such that you have to cock your head back or else you’ll hit yourself in the chin

Execution •

Keep your knees extended and straight but not completely locked out, this is not push pressing so no bouncing, please.

•

Similar to the other big exercises, take a solid deep breath and keep it until the repitition is over or almost over

•

Keeping the shoulders down and back, core braced, press the weight straight up (film yourself from the side to see)

•

As the bar begins to clear your head, allow your head to drift back into neutral position

•

Naturally the elbows flare out the higher you press and the concentric is complete when the elbows are fully extended and the bar is above center of gravity

•

Whether your shoulders are to be shrugged up at the top or not is up to you, and I’ve seen this topic debated quite a bit. I generally keep my shoulders down and back. I imagine keeping them packed and sofar so good.

•

I recommend allowing the weight to come to a dead stop for a split second before initiating the eccentric/descent.

•

Reverse the movement, controlling the weight down back to the starting position with elbows tucked a bit, shoulders down and back, chest up

•

Maintain a fair amount of flex in the glutes during the entire set to protect your back, not completely locked-in, but not completely loose, which unknowingly occurs often during the concentric for many people, myself included

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You do not need a spotter for this exercise. If you think you do, you’re probably not doing it right

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Chapter 4: Warming Up/Injury Prevention A solid warmup drill before each and every workout can save you a lot of future heartache, even if it’s just a quick one. Here are some links to my warmup drills, showing several warmups that you can incorporate into your everyday training. Pick and choose whichever serve you, discard what you find unnecessary. My Upper Body Mobility Warmup Routine: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=EBbSV-ZndRs Matt Ogus - Lower Body Mobility Warmup: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=eoSqYMaOOAI

Chapter 5: A Quick Word on Nutrition, Cutting, and Bulking This program was made mainly for bulking. You can handle and recover from higher volumes when in a caloric surplus than when in a caloric deficit. For those using this to build muscle and strength, I'd recommend a 300-500 calorie surplus per day as well as 0.8-1.0 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. Sure, you can use this program during cutting too, but you'd want to adjust things like volume, if and when necessary. The simplest option I can think of would just be to take a training max reset going into your cut, and then again if and whenever necessary. You'd also want to decrease volume slightly via the number of total works sets in your "more work". You don't have to do as much volume to retain muscle as you do to build it. Then, after you've shedded the body fat that you wanted to, you could go back to normal "More Work" volume levels, and continue to increase your training max from cycle to cycle.

For some more information on calories and macronutrients, check out the

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following videos:

Nutrition 101: Macronutrient Set Up Guide (5 Minutes or Less): https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkCT-hAP8SU Nutrition 101: Calories, Maintenance, Cutting, Bulking - Matt Versus 3.1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UabqqP-XPqo Nutrition 101: Refeeds, Carb Cycling, Cheat Days, Diet Breaks https://www.youtube.com/my_videos?o=U&sq=nutrition+101 The 7/5/3 Excel Workbook Included with your purchase of #Ogus753 is an excel workbook with 6 spreadsheets. Two are dedicated to Original 753, two are for 753 Mayhem, and two are for Simple 753. After you’ve picked which kind of 753 you’re doing, you can hide or delete the other worksheets. If you have microsoft excel, you should be good to go and be able to easily open the file. If you don’t, I recommend installing a program called “OpenOffice” on your computer. You can get that at http://OpenOffice.org . There are a handful of other programs that can open up excel sheets too. I’m not necessarily an excel wizard, which is why there are two sheets per style of program and not just one. I’ll clean everything up one day, but for now let me explain. You have a Maxes CHART and a training sheet. The maxes chart will help you get started and find your training maxes, as well as show you, based on those training maxes, what weights you’ll be hitting in each and every mesocycle, assuming you make non-stop progress. We know that won’t/can’t happen forever, so I made it such that on any max chart, if you change your training max for a given lift in a given mesocycle, it will

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affect all of the following mesocycles accordingly. You can also change the weight increment in which you raise your maxes, if you change the weight increment in a given mesocycle it affects all future mesocycles. Basically, the maxes chart will act as a signpost and show you which way to go. The tracking sheet is where you write down the weights you lift on each given day, and the maxes chart is where you can always go back and see what you were supposed to hit. Just remember to adjust the maxes chart accordingly, if and when you need to change your training max.

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