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Strength & Size: Must Read

Cerberus

Member
I haven't read a lot of EliteFTS articles lately ... mainly because most are filled with nonsense. But, these two articles are very good and to the point about the need for strength protocols, the need for size protocols, and how they work together. This is a no brainer, but there is still a lot of people that need to re-think about why they are stuck (strength wise, or size wise), and usually it's either they need to get under the damn bar on add some more weight, or they need to do some volume training.

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Enjoy.
 
i cant believe no ones replied to this...so how would you go by doing this? is doing a heavy set for 8 reps not good for what hes saying? why not try and increase weight and keep reps up in the 8 range for bbing? how many reps should you do when trying to gain strength? 5 or less? how many sets? too many questions lol
 
TNASTYII said:
i cant believe no ones replied to this...so how would you go by doing this? is doing a heavy set for 8 reps not good for what hes saying? why not try and increase weight and keep reps up in the 8 range for bbing? how many reps should you do when trying to gain strength? 5 or less? how many sets? too many questions lol
Click to expand...

Quick suggestion, I can elaborate more if you need later.

  • You can either determine if you have a large maximal strength deficit or a small one.
  • You simply need to find the difference between maximal yielding strength and maximal sustaining strength is the strength deficit.
  • The greater the deficit, the more you need to work on getting stronger. The less, the more you need to work on putting on more muscle tissue. Rinse and repeat.
 
Example with what I posted earlier:

Time must be constant across both tests (eccentric & isometric tests). If you have been training using a balanced program (upper body and lower body), it's easiest to utilize the bench press with this test, then you can assume it universally (generally).

1) Find eccentric maximum. Lower the bar with the muscles until it touches your chest. Keep the rate of lowering constant as much as possible. Let a partner help lift it off your chest. Make sure you have someone time this for you as well. You can also simply use 6 seconds as a good time you want to lower a certain weight. If you cannot sustain a constant lowering under the 6 second requirement, then it's too heavy.

2) Rest 10-15 minutes. Stretch out lightly, keep warm, etc.

3) Re warm-up holding an isometric position at the 90' elbow flexion mark, or right at your sticking point in the bench. Keep loading up the weight until you cannot hold a weight at your sticking point for 6 seconds. When you get into the isometric position, you LOWER it into position. You do not apply a concentric contraction raising it to your sticking point.

4) Take your isometric strength load divided by your eccentric strength load. This is your deficit.

5) Example: Your eccentric strength load was 345lbs lowered at a constant rate of 6 seconds w/o any significant acceleration to the chest. Your isometric strength load was 275lbs held at your sticking point for 6 seconds. So, 275lbs/345lbs = .79%. That is your deficit.

The larger the percentage (the smaller the deficit), the activation capacity of the muscles is limited. Thus the athlete needs to increase muscle tissue to raise their potential to express an increased strength. The smaller the percentage (the larger the deficit), the activation capacity of the muscles not efficient. Thus the athlete needs to increase their strength via neural mechanisms (aka, lifting heavy).

Why is this important?

Say you need your biceps to grow. Say you currently can only perform 95lbs for 10 reps in the barbell curl. You've been hammering your biceps with stupid volumes because you think more is better. Well, you probably have tapped out your strength with the tissue (muscle) you have. So now you should try to increase the strength of your barbell curl exercise. So for 4-6 weeks, you increase it to 155lbs for 5 reps. Go back to doing 10 reps, and I bet you could probably do more than 95lbs. So as I've stated in threads before, load is the number one factor. Eventually you will have to use more weight on the bar, or heavier dumbbells. Yes volume, tonnage, frequency, etc are all important factors, but you can only grow so much if your muscles cannot produce any more force.
 
good info man that whole deficit thing sounds complicated lol. your example with the arms is almost eactly what im struggling with. i cannot get them to grow and im guessing that ive tapped into my max strength with the muscle i have on my arms. so now i need to train for strength...BUT how many reps so i need to do in order to train for strength? around 3-5? and also should i be doing 6 sec negatives like you said? ive been doing 6 sec negatives on every move for a few weeks now and everything is responding pretty well except my arms lol. im only doing around 4 sets for everything and the 6 sec negatives are crucial! they get everything so sore. and my reps have been from 6-8. should i train everything for str? or just keep doing what im doing and train the parts that are responding now the same and train the ones that arent responding for str.
thanks for helping
 
How much do you weight?
What is your body fat levels?
How large are your arms?
How many calories are you consuming?
Layout your macro breakdown.
What is the weight you use with say 10 reps w/ a barbell curl?
What is the weight you use with say 10 reps w/ a ez-bar / barbell tricep extension?
How strong are you in the ez-bar reverse curl in comparison to a ez-bar curl?
How much can you DB row?
How many chin-ups can you do?
What is your estimated 1RM in the barbell bench press?
How many reps and sets do you do with "back" exercises (do not include deadlifts)?
How many reps and sets do you do with "arms"?

Context is key ... answer these so I have a better picture of your diet/training/preparedness.
 
there are some very interesting concepts presented here. i'm going to have to give these a go!
 
Cerberus said:
How much do you weight?202
What is your body fat levels? no clue
How large are your arms?around 14.8"
How many calories are you consuming? no clue just eating like crazy
Layout your macro breakdown.
What is the weight you use with say 10 reps w/ a barbell curl? always do curls with the easy curl bar. 25 pound on each side for 10
What is the weight you use with say 10 reps w/ a ez-bar / barbell tricep extension? close grip bench prob 145 for 10
How strong are you in the ez-bar reverse curl in comparison to a ez-bar curl? havnt done reverse curls in a while, and when i did them i did them on a preacher bench
How much can you DB row? havnt done these in a while usually use bb
How many chin-ups can you do? not many like 2
What is your estimated 1RM in the barbell bench press?180
How many reps and sets do you do with "back" exercises (do not include deadlifts)? lat pulldown 3 sets at 6-10 reps, rows 2 sets of 8
How many reps and sets do you do with "arms"? 3 sets of bis and 4 sets of tri

Context is key ... answer these so I have a better picture of your diet/training/preparedness.
Click to expand...

if u have anymore questions pm me
 
This is a good article but most of what it says should be obvious to people. If you want to be both big and strong woth optimal overall athletic performance, then it's only logical that you need to vary your training over time. Everyone knows that the body adapts to repetition, be it repeated eating of the same foods, repeated ingestion of the same anti-biotics, repeated exposure to a particular climate, or repeated heavy (or high volume) weight-lifting.

Fundamentally, if you eat healthily, train with intensity, give yourself enough time to rest and recouperate, and vary your workouts to "keep your body on its toes", you will make gains.

I'm not exactly a champion lifter but I have manged to take a 148 lb. frame to a very lean 170-175 lbs over about 5 years training in this way. I'm also at near-competitive levels in my core lifts (squat, bench, dead). I regularly lift significantly more (especially on bench) than guys 50+ lbs. heavier than me in the gym. I don't say this to boast, just to back up some of the advice in the article. I DRAMATICALLY increased my strength over time (from barely being able to bench 100 lbs to benching 300 for reps) by blending bodybuilding-type training with power-lifting programs like the 5x5 program, as well as bodyweight exercises and martial-arts type cardio/free-motion training.

The only thing I would add to what was said, is that one should not neglect cardiovascular exercise, even when bulking. Moderate cardio training will make you eat more, will deliver more blood to your muscles, and, most importantly, will keep you healthy and energetic enough to continue to train hard and heavy. I've never understood people who just wanted to be big, or who just wanted to lift a ton of weight, even if they couldn't do a single pull-up. To me, this game is all about making yourself the strongest, fastest, most powerful, human you can be. To do that you need a multi-faceted approach to training and lots of discipline about diet, sleep, and scheduling.
 
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