Beyond Bodybuilding: Muscle and Strength Training Secrets for The Renaissance Man

Instead of grinding out 200x5x5 sets try something like 185x5, 205x5, 195x5, 210x5, 190x5, 200x5, 185x5.

Adaptation occurs mainly when a retaining or detraining load is used after a stimulating load.”

The inverse relationship between the loading volume and intensity (’you can’t sprint a marathon’) is a myth. All volume/intensity combos serve their purposes.

Since different rep ranges have a specific effect on the muscles – low power reps increase the muscle density, medium reps build the contractile proteins, and high reps develop mitochondria, sarcoplasm, and capillaries -the obvious implication of this discovery on bodybuilding is not to spread your workout over a large rep range.

Indeed, many variables, from sunlight to your recent argument with your boss, affect your performance and it is difficult to map out a rigid twenty-week plan and follow it rep for rep.

apply the 60% Rule to your load planning. According to this experimentally calculated formula, the volume of the lowest load training unit (a workout, a microcycle/week, a mesocycle/month) should equal approximately 60% of the highest load unit, provided they are of the same length.

Expert performers use full body tension as a lens to focus their energy into the primary muscles responsible for the job. So feel all your muscles, not just one.

“Ideal training involves changing just one of many variables, until that variable reaches a constant,” writes Dr. Laurence Morehouse. “Then you change another, and then another until you reach your goal.”

do not train to failure and have patience.