Muscle and joint aches and stiffness generally go away if you warm up properly, but genuine pains won’t (in fact, they’ll often get worse).
Therefore, when localized pain strikes and lingers, back off and rest the affected area(s) until the pain is completely gone.
Progress Gradually
One of the easiest ways to get hurt in weightlifting is getting greedy.
Maybe you’re feeling particularly strong one day, or you want to impress or one-up someone in the gym or just progress faster, so you load the bar with a weight that makes your spidey senses tingle.
This is almost always a bad idea. It increases the likelihood that your form will break down, it can place more stress on your joints and ligaments than they can safely handle, and it can make fully recovering from your training harder.
A much smarter, and ultimately more effective, approach to progression is one that’s slow and steady.
If you’re new to weightlifting and you can add 10 pounds to your big lifts every week or two for the first several months, you’re doing great.
If you’re an experienced weightlifter on a lean bulk, gaining just one rep per week on these exercises (and thus adding weight every few weeks) is good progress.
Be a Stickler for Good Form
Want to know one weird trick for immediately increasing your whole-body strength by at least 10 percent?
Use crappy form!
“Cheat reps” are an easy way to add weight to the bar, but they also reduce the quality of the training and increase the risk of injury.
Remember the goal in weightlifting isn’t to haphazardly lift as much weight as possible, but to carefully control heavy loads through a full range of motion.
This not only protects you from injury but also makes every rep, exercise, and workout more conducive to muscle and strength gain.
This is especially important with compound exercises like the squat, deadlift, and bench press because while they’re not inherently dangerous, they involve the heaviest weights and most technical skill.
There’s a big difference between cheating on the last rep or two of isolation exercises like the dumbbell curl and lateral raise versus a barbell pull or press.
So, don’t sacrifice form for the sake of progression. Instead, learn proper form for every exercise you do and stick to it.
•••
You now have in your possession a powerful blueprint for long-term strength-training success.
A lean and defined torso. A big and powerful chest. A strong and sculpted set of arms and shoulders. All this can be yours if you follow this plan.
In fact, this might be the last weightlifting strategy you ever need, because it has enough horsepower to radically transform your body.
Perhaps more importantly, it will also help you enjoy the process. With this approach, you get to do relatively short, invigorating workouts that you actually look forward to because they produce consistent results and never leave you feeling exhausted or burned out.
If you’ve ever had a falling-out with weightlifting or resistance training, here’s your chance to fall back in love with it. And if this is your first foray, you’re in for a good time.
Key Takeaways
You don’t need top-shelf genetics or a lifetime of training to look like a million bucks.
Bigger Leaner Stronger utilizes what’s known as a “push-pull-legs” or “PPL” split, which has you train two to three major muscle groups per workout.
At bottom, a push-pull-legs routine separates your major muscle groups into three different workouts: chest, shoulders, and triceps (push); back and biceps (pull); and legs (including calves, usually).
“Rep” is short for “repetition,” which is a single raising and lowering of a weight.
A “set” is a fixed number of repetitions of a particular exercise.
A “hard set” is a heavy, muscle- and strength-building set that’s taken close to technical failure (the point where you can no longer continue with proper form).
Bigger Leaner Stronger is going to have you work in the rep range of four to six reps, meaning that most of your hard sets are going to entail doing at least four reps but not more than six. For most men, this means working with weights that are around 80 to 85 percent of their one-rep max.
When you’re lifting heavy weights to gain muscle and strength, you want to rest around three minutes in between each hard set.
Training frequency isn’t nearly as important as how heavy the weights are and how many hard sets you perform each week.
I recommend no more than six days of serious exercise per week (resistance training and higher-intensity cardio), with one day of no intense physical activity whatsoever (very low-intensity cardio or sports, however, like swimming, walking, or golf is fine).
I recommend two days off resistance training per week when in a calorie deficit.
Another effective way to avoid symptoms related to overtraining is dialing back your workouts every so often.There are two easy ways to do this: periodically reduce your workout intensity or volume (known as deloading) and periodically take five to seven days off weightlifting.
In double progression, you work with a given weight in a given rep range, and once you hit the top of that rep range for a certain number of hard sets (one, two, or three, usually), you increase the weight.
If you want to get the most out of double progression, you want to end each of your hard sets one or two reps shy of technical failure.
Going to absolute muscle failure isn’t necessary for muscle and strength gain and often leads to a breakdown in form, especially in higher-rep ranges, which increases the risk of injury.
Slow-rep tempo training produces inferior results compared to normal tempo training.
I recommend that you follow the traditional “1–1–1” rep tempo for all weightlifting exercises.
To ensure that each of the major muscle groups you’re going to train in a workout is warmed up and primed for optimum performance, do several warm-up sets with the first exercises for each of those muscle groups.
A reasonable recommendation is to plan a deload week every 8 to 10 weeks of heavy, intense training. If you’re in a calorie deficit, make this once every 6 to 8 weeks due to the added physical stress and impaired recovery.
One of the major (but not only) shifts that occurs with working out in your 40s and beyond is that while you can probably train just as hard as the boys and girls in their 20s, you probably can’t recover as quickly.
As you learn more about how your body responds to training, you’ll begin to recognize the need for a deload—the most common signs being that your progress is stalling, your body is extra achy, your sleep quality has declined, you have less motivation to train, and your workouts feel much harder than they should.
Once an RSI has set in, you must avoid the activity that caused it (and will continue to aggravate it), along with any other activities that will prolong it.
When you hit pain, stop, rest for a couple of minutes, and try the exercise again.
If you’re new to weightlifting and you can add 10 pounds to your big lifts every week or two for the first several months, you’re doing great.
If you’re an experienced weightlifter on a lean bulk, gaining just one rep per week on your key exercises (and thus adding weight every few weeks) is good progress.
Don’t sacrifice form for the sake of progression.
Schoenfeld BJ, Ratamess NA, Peterson MD, Contreras B, Sonmez GT, Alvar BA. Effects of Different Volume-Equated Resistance Training Loading Strategies on Muscular Adaptations in Well-Trained Men. J Strength Cond Res. 2014;28(10):2909-2918. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000000480.
Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load R
esistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2017;31(12):3508-3523. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000002200.
Matthews M. Research Review: What’s the Best Rep Range for Building Muscle? Muscle for Life Website. https://www.muscleforlife.com/rep-range-podcast/. June 27, 2018. Accessed September 12, 2018.
Souza-Junior TP, Willardson JM, Bloomer R, et al. Strength and hypertrophy responses to constant and decreasing rest intervals in trained men using creatine supplementation. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2011;8(1):17. doi:10.1186/1550-2783-8-17.
Radaelli R, Fleck SJ, Leite T, et al. Dose-Response of 1, 3, and 5 Sets of Resistance Exercise on Strength, Local Muscular Endurance, and Hypertrophy. J Strength Cond Res. 2015;29(5):1349-1358. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000000758; Robbins DW, Marshall PW, McEwen M. The Effect of Training Volume on Lower-Body Strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2012;26(1):34-39. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e31821d5cc4.
De Salles BF, Simão R, Miranda F, da Silva Novaes J, Lemos A, Willardson JM. Rest Interval between Sets in Strength Training. Sport Med. 2009;39(9):765-777. doi:10.2165/11315230-000000000-00000.
Willardson JM, Burkett LN. The Effect of Different Rest Intervals Between Sets on Volume Components and Strength Gains. J Strength Cond Res. 2008;22(1):146-152. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e31815f912d.
Robbins DW, Marshall PW, McEwen M. The Effect of Training Volume on Lower-Body Strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2012;26(1):34-39. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e31821d5cc4.
Gomes GK, Franco CM, Nunes PRP, Orsatti FL. High-frequency resistance training is not more effective than low-frequency resistance training in increasing muscle mass and strength in well-trained men. J Strength Cond Res. February 2018:1. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000002559; Colquhoun RJ, Gai CM, Aguilar D, et al. Training Volume, Not Frequency, Indicative of Maximal Strength Adaptations to Resistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2018;32(5):1207-1213. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000002414.
Kreher JB, Schwartz JB. Overtraining syndrome: a practical guide. Sports Health. 2012;4(2):128-138. doi:10.1177/1941738111434406.
Halson SL, Jeukendrup AE. Does overtraining exist? An analysis of overreaching and overtraining research. Sports Med. 2004;34(14):967-981.
Kreher JB. Diagnosis and prevention of overtraining syndrome: an opinion on education strategies. Open access J Sport Med. 2016;7:115-122. doi:10.2147/OAJSM.S91657.
Finn HT, Brennan SL, Gonano BM, et al. Muscle Activation Does Not Increase After a Fatigue Plateau Is Reached During 8 Sets of Resistance Exercise in Trained Individuals. J Strength Cond Res. 2014;28(5):1226-1234. doi:10.1097/JSC.0000000000000226; Hooper DR, Szivak TK, Comstock BA, et al. Effects of Fatigue From Resistance Training on Barbell Back Squat Biomechanics. J Strength Cond Res. 2014;28(4):1127-1134. doi:10.1097/JSC.0000000000000237.
Rozzi SL, Lephart SM, Fu FH. Effects of muscular fatigue on knee joint laxity and neuromuscular characteristics of male and female athletes. J Athl Train. 1999;34(2):106-114.
Headley SA, Henry K, Nindl BC, Thompson BA, Kraemer WJ, Jones MT. Effects of Lifting Tempo on One Repetition Maximum and Hormonal Responses to a Bench Press Protocol. J Strength Cond Res. 2011;25(2):406-413. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181bf053b.
Radaelli R, Fleck SJ, Leite T, et al. Dose-Response of 1, 3, and 5 Sets of Resistance Exercise on Strength, Local Muscular Endurance, and Hypertrophy. J Strength Cond Res. 2015;29(5):1349-1358. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000000758.
Hatfield DL, Kraemer WJ, Spiering BA, et al. The Impact of Velocity of Movement on Performance Factors in Resistance Exercise. J Strength Cond Res. 2006;20(4):760. doi:10.1519/R-155552.1; Goldberg AL, Etlinger JD, Goldspink DF, Jablecki C. Mechanism of work-induced hypertrophy of skeletal muscle. Med Sci Sports. 1975;7(3):185-198.
Munn J, Herbert RD, Hancock MJ, Gandevia SC. Resistance training for strength: effect of number of sets and contraction speed. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2005;37(9):1622-1626.
Neils CM, Udermann BE, Brice GA, Winchester JB, McGuigan MR. Influence of Contraction Velocity in Untrained Individuals Over the Initial Early Phase of Resistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2005;19(4):883. doi:10.1519/R-15794.1.
Kim E, Dear A, Ferguson SL, Seo D, Bemben MG. Effects of 4 Weeks of Traditional Resistance Training vs. Superslow Strength Training on Early Phase Adaptations in Strength, Flexibility, and Aerobic Capacity in College-Aged Women. J Strength Cond Res. 2011;25(11):3006-3013. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e318212e3a2.
Woods K, Bishop P, Jones E. Warm-up and stretching in the prevention of muscular injury. Sports Med. 2007;37(12):1089-1099.
Fradkin AJ, Gabbe BJ, Cameron PA. Does warming up prevent injury in sport? J Sci Med Sport. 2006;9(3):214-220. doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2006.03.026.
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Fradkin AJ, Zazryn TR, Smoliga JM. Effects of warming-up on physical performance: a systematic review with meta-analysis. J strength Cond Res. 2010;24(1):140-148. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181c643a0.
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22
The Ultimate Workout Plan for Men – Cardio
If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
—KATHARINE HEPBURN
When it comes to working out, most people assume more is always better.
If you want more muscle, you should spend more time lifting heavy things, right? And if you want more definition, you should spend more time on the Stairmaster, no?
Not quite.
That mentality has some relevance to resistance training because you do have to continue overloading your muscles to keep improving, but it can easily lead to overtraining if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Cardio is different, though. The only reason to do a lot of cardio is to improve your cardiovascular endurance. If you just want to build muscle, lose fat, and be healthy, however, cardio is far less important than you might realize.
You’re going to learn why in this chapter and get answers to all your most pressing cardio questions, like:
How much cardio should you do to lose weight?
What about building muscle? Is cardio good or bad for this?
How much cardio is too much? What happens when you do too much?
What type of cardio is best and why?
And by the end of this chapter, you’re going to know how to create the perfect cardio routine for you and your goals.
How Much Cardio Should You Do to Lose Weight?
For decades, we’ve been taught that we should all be running, stepping, and biking our way to being fit.
This, combined with a low-fat diet, was the mission statement and prevailing practice of the nineties. Fatty foods were sinful and anything less than an hour per day on the treadmill was just plain lazy.
It didn’t work out so well. Obesity rates have continued to soar and people are more confused than ever about what it really takes to “shift” fat and get in shape.
Thanks mainly to the scientific advances and the efforts of the evidence-based fitness community to d
isseminate the research, we now know better.
We know, for example, that eating fat doesn’t necessarily make us fat and that pounding the pavement doesn’t necessarily make us lean.
And that’s why my position on cardio is this:
If you don’t particularly enjoy cardio, you should do as much as it takes to achieve your goals and no more.
And if you do enjoy it, then you do you, but not so much that it impairs your strength training, recovery, or health.
The Best Type of Cardio for Losing Fat Faster
What would you rather do: four to six 30-second sprints with 4-minute rest periods or 60 minutes of incline walking?
I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the sprints. Give me short and hard over long and boring any day. (Wait, that didn’t sound right . . .)
Now the more important question: Which of those workouts do you think would burn more fat? Most people would say the walking, and they’re wrong.
Research conducted by scientists at the University of Western Ontario shows that the sprinting burns significantly more fat.1 This wasn’t a one-off occurrence, either. These results have been replicated in a number of other studies as well.2
If you do the math here, that’s pretty impressive. A 17-to-27-minute session of high-intensity cardio, which mostly consists of low-intensity cooldown periods, burns more fat than 60 minutes of traditional bodybuilding cardio.
Research also shows that this style of cardio is particularly good for getting rid of abdominal fat, including visceral fat—fat covering your organs, which can be particularly dangerous to your health.3
This high-intensity style of cardio is known as high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, and the science is clear: it’s significantly more time effective for losing fat than traditional low-intensity steady-state cardio (LISS).
HIIT involves alternating between periods of (almost) all-out-intensity sprinting and low-intensity recovery. The idea is simple: during your high-intensity bouts, you’re pushing yourself almost as hard as you can, and during your low-intensity intervals, you’re catching your breath to prepare for the next dash.
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