Training - Big Session #1 - Upperbody

Bodyweight - 242

Close Grip Bench -

barx40,20

185x5

225x4

275x3

315x2

365x1

315x13-x3 50% set

V-Bar Chins -

body x tons of singles and doubles to get warm

bodyx5

bodyx4

+25x3

+50x2

+75x1

bodyx15-x5 50% set

Clean and Press -

145x5

185x5

225x10

Notes - I won't lie........I have not been training this hard, and haven't trained this hard in a long time. I forgot what it's like to feel like every fiber has been torn apart and stimulated. This session took about 90 minutes because there were three of us, but we were toast after. And it feels pretty awesome.

BTW, I haven't done a clean and press in forever. That was 225x10 on a whim.

I have big plans for this template, and it has big plans for me.

Minor changes to spur on progress

If there is one constant the quest for bigger numbers or rep PR's or muscle mass, it's the ever present question of "what could I change to make things better?"

This question often causes more chaos than a room full of Charlie Sheen escorts on Ecstasy.

Guys will then scour the interwebs for every possible routine before they settle on something, and settle on something "because that dude is swole".  This is an excellent reason to pick a program.  Oh wait, it's fucking not.

The truth is, your lifting goodie bag already consists of all the movements you need to get as strong and as developed as you're ever going to get.

Squats - regular, front, safety bar
Deadlifts - regular, block, elevated, stiff legged
Chest Pressing - flat, incline, decline, db variations
Overhead Pressing - standing, seated, db and barbell variations
Support Work - chins, rows, curls, face pulls, various triceps

So that covers everything.  There's really no reason to venture out to find every exotic movement known to man in order to reach strength and development goals.

You don't need to make wholesales changes to a template or routine in order to get past plateaus.  Here are some of the things you can do to get past a sticking point once you become frustrated.........

Do bodybuilding - 

If you've been doing a ton of low rep work with higher rep work on the assistance, switch over to bodybuilding style workouts where you rep on every damn thing.  Do a bodypart split, and wear bright clown colored clothes.  Seriously, switching over to doing reps when you have been doing singles, doubles, and triples can be quite eye opening.  Most guys don't want to do this because they are lazy and out of shape.

Do powerlifting - 

If you have been doing higher rep work, switch gears and hit some singles, doubles, and triples for a while.

Drop a stubborn lift - 

If you love something, set it free.  If it comes back to you, kill it and eat it.  Ok I don't think it goes like that, but either way, sometimes when a lift is just being a pain in the ass the best thing to do is to drop it, and switch to a variation of it.  For example......

Deads - go to stiff legs
Bench - go to incline and overhead
Squat - go to front squats and hacks
Overhead Press - pick a new variation
Chins - go to heavy pulldowns

Drop the lift for 4-6 weeks then come back to it and start light again, and ramp back up.  Often times this will help you past a stubborn weight.

Fix bad technique - 

This generally helps a lift right away.  If you don't know how to fix bad technique, get a good coach.  Finding a good coach is usually the hard part.

Supercompensate that lift - 

Train a lift into the fucking ground over a two week span.  Train it three to four times a week for two weeks, then take a break for 8-10 days and come back and test it.

Change rep tempo - 

One thing guys don't use much when training for sheer muscle mass, is the negative portion of the rep.  The eccentric actually has more potential for growth than the concentric.  This is one reason Dante of DoggCrapp emphasized the negative portion so heavily in his training.  He had a great saying about this....paraphrased it was.........

"Think about getting the weight back up, just for the purpose of lowering it slowly again."

Best rep advice ever.

Explode as hard as possible on the positive, and use a controlled negative.  Yes, your lift will take a bit of a dive first, but it DOES come back.

Work harder - 

This one isn't as easy or as straight forward as you think.  For example, lots of guys doing 5x5 think they are working hard.  Then I have then take weight off and do a set of max reps in the squat and they writhe around on the floor for the next 20 minutes in agony.  Sometimes the key is just forcing the body to do shit it hasn't been doing.  Remember, you're trying to get the body to do something it doesn't really want to do.  Building huge amounts of strength and muscle mass is something it does slowly because it's not in the best interest of survival to do so.  Often times, you need to do shit that is just flat out puke bucket hard for a while to get where you want to be.  You have to get out of your comfort zone and work harder than you have ever worked before.




 

Training - Small workout #2

Upright Rows - 95x4x20

Bent Laterals - 20's x 4x20

That's it. Minimal rest between sets.

New big-15 templates

Because I'm a nice guy and I want everyone to benefit from all the years of my fucking up, here's the new big-15 templates and overall layout.  I will be writing more about it in the book, but I'm going to cover some of the templates and splits to be used and why.

Layout 1 - 3 big / 3 small

This is the main template I will implore most guys to use.

Basically, you have three big workouts with all of the multi-joint big movements, and ball busting sets.  For the big stuff you'll employ 50% sets and try to beat not only your previous weeks rep total, but that days 50% total.  This means that if you're having an off day and can't beat last weeks total reps, you can still try to beat the 50%.

And you will have three "small" workouts during the week that cover things like biceps, triceps, delts, traps, and abs.  These workouts will be high in volume, lighter in poundage with short rest periods.  For those that did the 65 pound barbell challenge, you get the idea.

There will be a rotation of workouts.  So on the 3 big/3small template you'll actually have 4 big workouts but they are split out over 7 total days.

Week 1
Day 1 - big 1 - upper #1
Day 2 - small 1 - bicep/triceps
Day 3 - big 2 - lower #1
Day 4 - small 2 - delts/traps
Day 5 - big 3 - upper #2
Day 6 - small 3 - biceps/triceps
Day 7 - off

Week 2
Day 1 - big 1 - lower #2
Day 2 - small 1 - delts/traps
Day 3 - big 2 - upper #1
Day 4 - small 2 - biceps/triceps
Day 5 - big 3 - lower #1 (from week 1)
Day 6 - small 3 - delt/traps


The other templates that will be outlined will be a 2 big/4 small and a 2 big/2 small.  These would look like so......

2 big / 4 small
Day 1 - small 1
Day 2 - small 2
Day 3 - big 1 - upperbody
Day 4 - small 3
Day 5 - small 4
Day 6 - big 2 - lowerbody
Day 7 - off

2 big / 2 small
Day 1 - big 1 - upperbody
Day 2 - small 1 - combine biceps/triceps/delt/traps
Day 3 - off
Day 4 - big 2 - lowerbody
Day 5 - small 2 - combine biceps/triceps/delt/traps
Day 6 - off
Day 7 - off

These templates will be designed to have you moving big ass weights through high reps.  Which is exactly what is needed for fast mass gain.  You will do high intensity with low volume on the big stuff, and high volume with lighter weights and short rest periods on the small stuff.  I go into great detail about the benefits of each and why this split will put mass on you faster than anything else you've probably tried.  I have used all of these various training ideas but never have really been able to piece them together.  The LRB template was the initial start of that, but I've been able to take this to a new level.

I'm still fine tuning all the little pieces but I'm excited to start this template myself and I have no doubt the results are going to be fucking phenomenal.

Training - Small workout #1

Barbell Curls - bar x 5 sets of 30, 95x2x10

Db SKulls - 7 sets of 20 with the 40's

Crunch - 3 sets of 25

Notes - This is part of the new big-15 which I believe is going to work un-fucking-real for building mass, and setting rep PR's. I'm going to be writing about it this week.

Decisions......

So I had to sit down and make a choice Saturday.

After hobbling in pain after squatting 365, I sat down and decided I would withdraw from this meet.  With everything I have going on personally in my life, and my leg in constant pain, I felt like it was the right decision.  It wasn't an easy decision to make because me and my daughter have been training in preparation for it for months now.

But my goal for a while has been to go 1800 beltless.  My bench is there, my deadlift is there, and the one lift I've always been able to count on isn't.  But that's life sometimes.  I don't see a need to go spend a bunch of money for travel, room, and food to go 1700 or what not.

So I talked to Bill Carpenter and asked if he would use my entry fee as credit towards another meet.  This would give me time to get the leg healthy, and boost my bench and dead even more.  It would also give me the chance to fly home and spend some time with my mom and dad in the next few weeks.  And that's something I really need to do.

Overall I feel like it's the right choice.  Hannah is also excited about training for muscle mass over the summer so she can go back to school looking jacked.

My goal is still the same as it was before the meet.  To become a bigger 242.  That means I need to lean up and add 5 pounds or so.  This will require some hard ass training.  I will be implementing my new mass template for this and I'm excited as hell about that.  I also plan on switching gears and hitting some big time rep PR's in the next couple of months.

This situation is kinda like sex with a chic not on birth control.  Sucks to have to pull out, but it's the right thing to do.  

More inspiration..........

I got this e-mail the other day, and I wanted to share.  I really can't believe it when I get these kinds of e-mails because I see what I do as such a nothing.  So when I get them, I'm really blown away.

Dear Paul,

I´m sure you´re busy as hell and probably get a thousand e-mails form readers daily, but I wish you have the chance to read through this one.

I usually tend to keep stuff to myself, but I honestly feel the need to thank you.

My story starts on october 2010. I was 21 years old, sitting at a chubby 175, zero muscle mass and not a single care about it. Life was good, and I was happy.

Everything changed that month, tho. I lost a loved one, developed a severe depression and, all of sudden, life didn´t make sense anymore.

As a way to clear my mind, I decided I would go back to regular exercising and get in shape again.

It started well, I cleaned my diet and slowly started to run 3x a week. Phisically I was improving, but my mind was still fucked and getting worse.

Long story short, my depression was killing me. I started to run 10km a day for 6 days a week and was eating something like 1000kcal a day.

Not surprinsingly, I dropped to a malnourished and unhealthy 121 pounder at 5´10´´ in july 2011.

That same month, I completed a half marathon in 1h44min. Funny thing is I hated running. I only did it because I was afraid to regain weight.

One week after the half marathon, I was training in the treadmill and almost passed out. I was weak, sick and needed help.

That day, I decided I would turn my life around again.

I seeked medical aid, quit running and decided to go back to lifting weights, something I loved to do as a teenager.

As a compulsive reader, I started to research all I could on weighlifting. That was the time I came across your blog.

On August 2011 I was a little better, so I started `lifting´. I was doing the typical BB body part split you see on commercial gyms.

But as I dug deeper into your writings and learned about the compound lifts, I thought: Hey, that makes sense.

I slowly started to incorporate frequent squatting to my training. Then benching, chinning, deadlifting, OHPing...

Not surprinsingly, I was hearing crap from the `personal trainers´ at the gym, because the stuff I was doing was dangerous and I should just stick to cable flies and curls.

I didn´t trust them, tho. I trusted you.

So I didn´t care about all the crap I heard and all the laughs from the bros looking at me squatting the bar. I kept at it. I worked my ass off.

I was already disregarding isolation movements, but when I read your post from January 3rd I decided that 2012 was gonna be dedicated to smash the compounds and get as strong as I can.

Fast forward to today.

I´m sitting at a lean 158lbs, looking good and as healthy as possible.

People are complementing me daily, and life is awesome.

I´m currently squatting 240x3, deadlifting 355x3, benching 180x3 and OHPing 120x3.

The same bros that used to laugh at me now are coming to the squat rack to tell me I´m strong.

I can honestly say that your writings changed my life.

I can´t thank you enough for that.

Just make sure to remember that you are a role model to a lot of people, myself included.

Thank you for everything.