Advanced Cycles For Advanced Lifters (Part 1)
There may come a time in your training when you have achieved a high level of strength and development throughout your body and decide to specialise in one particular lift for a period of time. If you are a fairly advanced lifter with many years experience you may find that the weights you must lift to make progress actually hinder your recovery to the point where you are training extremely hard just to maintain your strength levels, with progress coming in almost immeasurable drops followed by long periods of stagnation.
One way around this is to focus on one or two lifts at a time whilst simply maintaining your other lifts. By doing this you are asking less of your body’s recuperative abilities, hence allowing your body to recover between training sessions and start making some progress again. From a bodybuilding perspective this same approach can be used to bring up a lagging bodypart and improve balance and symmetry. For most of you this will mean growing some feckin legs! The downside is that you can not expect progress in all lifts, but ask yourself this…would you rather make progress in some lifts or none?
Before you decide to take this approach to your training you need to make sure you are already doing all you can to enhance your recovery ability. How is your nutrition? Targeted supplementation? Physical means of restoration such as hydrotherapy and massage? Pedagogical means such as a well structured program of training including active rest where appropriate? Is everything already impeccable or are there improvements that you could make?
If you know you are slacking in your approach to restoration, or your training volume / frequency is inappropriate then sort it out before you go in for a specialised approach such as the one I am about to describe. However, if everything is perfect with your nutrition, restoration etc and you are simply no longer making progress, then give this a try.
Choose one lift in which you will specialise, and please bear in mind that cable crossovers and triceps kick backs are not “lifts”! A possible list of lifts commonly used by bodybuilders and their relating bodyparts would be something like this:
Squat: Posterior chain (erectors, glutes, hamstrings), Quads.
Deadlifts: Posteriors chain, quads, traps.
Stiff Leg deadlifts: Posterior chain, traps.
Standing Press: Deltoids, triceps.
Weighted Chins: Lats, teres, rhomboids, biceps, rear delts.
Bench Press: Pecs, front delts, triceps.
Part 2 coming soon…
Train Well Hard And God Bless You All.
For anyone considering steroid use” this is a must read…
Layman’s Guides to Steroids I and II
WARNING: Do not read this unless you are ready to gain some serious lean muscle…
Layman’s Guides to Steroids III (new)