You don’t need to spend your life in the gym to achieve a great physique.
But you need to train in a manner that will give you the right adaptive stimulus if you’re going to get the desired result.
Don’t guess at this. These guides will teach you how to select a program, customize it to minimize injury risk, and keep yourself progressing.
I want to share a fundamental truth of training. One that’s as true of the athletes I coached at the Under Armor Performance Center ten years ago, as it is for the recreational trainees I coach now. Chasing novelty is the fastest way to sabotage your progress and spin your…
Do Ab Workouts Burn Belly Fat? You can do ab-specific exercises at any body-fat level. But should you? I’d argue that most people should not. Only two things will get you ripped abs. 👉 First, you must be lean enough to see them. 👉 Second, you need abs developed enough…
What RPE is and why you should care about it Hi, it’s Eric Helms here. Andy helped me create The Muscle and Strength Pyramid books and I’m happy to have this opportunity to talk about something I studied for my PhD and is close to my heart – Rating Perceived…
If you can’t get to the gym, you don’t need a new training program, you just need to know how to adapt your current program to train at home. This guide will show you how.
The first thing to understand is that there are no “training plans for over the 40s / 50s / 60s” (or diet plans for that matter). You might see things advertised as such, but this is just marketing BS — advertisers preying on fears people have that they are doing…
It is absolutely possible to gain strength while cutting. However, in this article, I argue that focusing on strength alone can lead to poor training decisions, I explain why true progress becomes increasingly difficult the leaner we get, and I give guidelines on what to expect. Dieting, cutting, shredding the…
In bodybuilding, middle deltoid development is important to make you appear wider and tapered. Due to this, I often see emphasis placed on lateral raise variations and hear the concern that without their inclusion, delt development will lack. While I don’t dispute the importance of lateral raises (you will even…
We all find ourselves struggling at a specific point of lift, at some time or another. Addressing sticking points might be a more efficient way to attack the weakest link in the chain of a movement, and therefore a faster way to increase strength. If you have stalled with traditional…
Everyone starts their journey by taking a pre-built training program and trying it out. I made my first program choice after a three-minute perusal of my local supermarket’s magazine rack. That month’s copy of Men’s Health advertised a program promising 10 pounds of gains in 6 weeks, which was exactly…
This is possibly one of the most important articles I have ever published. It addresses how to break through a training plateau, which is probably one of the most commonly asked questions on the internet, along with, “How do I break through a bench press plateau?” — The principles, whether…
A caloric deficit doesn’t have to come entirely from the diet, and you probably guessed that adding some cardiovascular work to expend more energy rather than restricting your energy intake alone, could also be useful. A simple way to estimate energy expenditure during cardio requires you to determine a rating…
Some people really overcomplicate their warm-ups. Do ALL the people I see on the stretch mats have issues that require a 30-minute complex of body pretzeling before hitting the weights? I think not. The majority are just mimicking others, avoiding getting the real work done…
I’d like to share some of those longer-term client success stories today from the past year and I thank them for giving their permission to do so. In 2016 I started working with people for longer than a three month period. It has enabled me to get to know my…
If looking like The Hulk, Wolverine, or Batman is your primary goal, then a training program with a bodybuilding focus is what you need. If you have been struggling to grow, this program may help by giving some balance to your routine. Don’t make the mistake of training your chest,…
If getting strong as hell is your primary goal, knowing that size and symmetry will mostly come along for the ride anyway, then you need a strength training program that will emphasize that for you. This Novice Powerlifting Program taken from our Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid book is a…
This is a sample bodybuilding program from our Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid book. The explanation section in the book is fairly detailed, so I have cut it down to give just the overview, relevant notation and exercise selection explanations. This, the Intermediate Powerlifting Program, and the Detailed Guide to…
This is a sample powerlifting program from our Muscle and Strength Pyramid training book. The explanation section there is fairly detailed, so I have cut it down to give just the overview, relevant notation, and exercise selection explanations. This, along with the Intermediate Bodybuilding Sample Program and Detailed Guide to Training Progression…
What follows are the exact initial guidelines on training progression that I give to clients. They are an abbreviated version of the guidelines in The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid book that I co-authored with Eric Helms and Andrea Valdez. They are exceptionally logical and structured, the antithesis to the approach of…
When putting together a training program for yourself, exercise selection is an area where there is a lot of confusion. This guide will take you through how to choose exercises and incorporate them into your routine based on your training experience. There are some things that novices need to be…
Not long ago, I found myself getting grilled on Facebook over the concept of hypertrophy training. “Strength and hypertrophy training are the same thing,” my critic wrote, with all the passionate intensity of someone who spends a lot of time on social media but not a whole lot else. While…
“It depends.” I hate giving this answer, but in so many cases that’s the only one that can be given. Unlike with the coaching, when people ask questions in the comments I don’t know the person and their situation, so in order to be helpful I need to either ask a…
Chin-ups are a great upper-back exercise. You know it, and I’m not going to waffle on with an unnecessary paragraph explaining why. They’re hard, which is why most gym bros avoid doing them, well, at least with anything approaching good form. Most people stay the hell away from them and…
Cardio is a poor time investment, it’s not necessary for most men to get shredded, it can steal recovery capacity, serve as a distraction, and the level of fitness most people will be happy with for their weekend warrior activities can be achieved by simply getting leaner and stronger. If physique change…
This article ties together the threads that link the training program suggestions on this site. It shows you the big picture: what routine is going to be most suitable for yourself and when, what to expect, and suggestions on when it’s suitable to modify things to chase progress. We start off by filling in the broad strokes that will…
If you have exhausted the gains from your beginner program and are looking for what to do to push your physique to the next level then this guest article by Greg Nuckols, one of the top drug-free powerlifters in the world, could be for you. Friendly, smart, and humble we got along well…
I’d argue that it’s program hopping. We all know someone that does it – they start a new training routine with bounding enthusiasm, give it 2-3 weeks, then read some conflicting information elsewhere and decide that they need to switch things up. This programming ADHD – the search for the…
noun Disease where an individual (usually male) suffers deluded notions that the enormous amounts of weight gained due to purposeful overeating combined with weight training in the winter months is actually mostly muscle, that they can remove the ‘few pounds’ of fat gained with a quick cut in the spring, and…
If I had a dollar for every time a client or athlete has asked me why they have to do heavy squats and can’t they just do lunges instead, or the same question phrased slightly differently and with a different alternative exercise, I’d probably have enough money to equip the…
So you’ve built up a good physique or are looking your best; have you ever thought twice before booking a vacation? Did you double-check that the place had a gym, perhaps even turned down the opportunity of travel because you didn’t want to ruin it? I can relate to that.…
I don’t have a problem with cardio, just wasted time. For those that enjoy cardio then this is time well spent; everyone has their own preferences, live and let live. Let’s not pretend though that most people aren’t solely doing cardio because they wish to lose fat. Cardio as a tool…
There are two linear progression training templates introduced on this site, ‘The Big 3 Routine’ and the ‘Three Day Split Routine’. The questions often arise, “Which training program is for me?” or, “When and how should I progress from one to the other?” This article covers the latter question with…
There are fundamental principles that training programs must follow if they are going to be effective. I don’t want you to waste years of your life, as I did, before finding out what really works. This article covers those principles and explains the reasons behind the training recommendations made on this site.…
As a look at weight category competition, powerlifters will show you, the Squat, Bench, Deadlift, and their variants will develop a big, strong, and ripped body. I neglected the Squat and Deadlift for years, not realizing the fantastic all-over-body training effects. Don’t make that mistake. What is The Big 3…
This article tells you how to train when the time comes to split your strength training into a three-day split. The primary focus is reverse pyramid training (RPT), but I have also included advice for other set-rep patterns (5×5 for example) to be used with a three-day split, as this…
