A question of strength Part 19
Should you do without classic squats?
Q: I've read that some strength coaches are now practically abandoning classic squats in favor of front squats. They believe that you can't do much wrong with front squats and that this exercise is less risky for the athlete. What do you think? And which variation of front squats do you think is the best?
A: Well, front squats correlate more strongly with performance in sports where the lower extremities are used more than with classic squats. In bobsledding, alpine skiing and speed skating, front squats can help to estimate and predict times. So front squats are a better predictor when it comes to testing.
Why? Because you will kill yourself if you cheat on front squats. For example, you can move more weight in classic squats if you lean slightly forward. You can't do this with front squats without hurting yourself.
But even if this is the case, you can't throw away all your other tools. While I partially agree with these trainers, I keep classic squats in my toolbox. I also use a lot of split squats. There are over 70 ways to perform squats. Saying you only need one variation of this is kind of like saying you only need a hammer to build a house.
The best front squat performances I've ever seen came from a 75 kilo weightlifter doing 240 kilos of front squats. And this wasn't one of those versions that college athletes use in American football - this guy went so far down with his butt that he left a stain on the carpet. The strongest athletes I've seen can move 3.3 times their body weight in front squats.
As for the style of front squats, I prefer the Olympic version to the crossed-arm version. If a trainee has arms that are too bulky or not flexible enough, then they can use bandages to wrap around the bar and hold the bar with.
One thing to remember when using front squats is to never perform more than 6 repetitions per set. This is because the rhomboids fatigue isometrically before the quadriceps fatigue concentrically. You should not train to the point where you are performing squats with a bent-over posture. This is the point where training accidents happen.
If you do sets of 6 reps, you will usually do between 5 and 10 sets. The guy with the 240 kilo front squats I mentioned above (an Olympic silver medalist) does 10 sets of front squats of 6 reps in the morning and 10 sets of classic squats of 10 reps in the evening.
Full body training vs. muscle group splits... once again
Q: Some trainers advocate training the whole body during a training session, while others usually use some kind of split program. The debate is endless, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
A: I'm the first to want to improve any training system, but I don't know of any successful strength coach who uses exclusively full-body training programs.
I have coached Olympic gold medalists in sixteen different sports from energy system sports like swimming to short explosive sports like shot put. With nearly every one of these athletes, I used split programs for 70% of the time and then switched to full body programs as the time of competition approached. Whether it was Adam Nelson winning the world championship in shot put or Dwight Phillips winning the world championship in long jump, I trained them all with split programs.
Training sessions need to be short and effective and if you're training for relative strength then you need to do a lot of sets. If you do a lot of sets, then you can't do a lot of exercises. Athletes need to break up their training to get sufficient recovery.
Adam Nelson's training split was as follows:
- Day 1: Chest/back
- Day 2: legs
- Day 3: no training
- Day 4: rotator cuff and arms
- Day 5: No training
Incidentally, Adam presses 240 kilos on the incline bench and uses a fat, 7.5 centimeter thick bar for this.
When it comes to bodybuilding, I don't think Ronnie Coleman did a full-body workout three days a week. I've never heard of a successful bodybuilder who used a full-body workout - and that's even true of guys like Dorian Yates, who trained with very few sets.
The key is to recruit as many motor units as possible and you also need to remember the law of exercise sequencing. There are a few good studies on this topic and here is the short version of them:
If you have one group of exercisers performing exercises A, B, C and D during a training session and you have another group performing the same exercises in reverse order (D, C, B and A), you'll find that the first group will make the most progress on exercise A, while the second group will make the most progress on exercise D. Basically, you will make the most progress on what you do first.
I've seen time and time again that when they reach an elite level, most athletes get the best results when they perform two primary exercises per training session using multiple sets (like 10 sets) and then train again 6 hours later.
Every single Olympic athlete I have coached has used split programs. I've been in this business for over 26 years as a coach and no one has ever managed to convince me through their results that full body training programs are the only way to go.
While training athletes for three different Olympic Games, I have had the opportunity to speak plainly with many successful colleagues. Whether they were from Norway, Germany or Finland, they all came to the conclusion that split programs have far more benefits than full-body programs.
Cardio training in the morning on an empty stomach: the last word?
Q: For a while we were told that cardio on an empty stomach after waking up was the best way to achieve our fat loss goals. Then we were told that this was a bad idea because it could be catabolic. Now we're told about cardio in a semi-fasting state. Which of these is really best?
A: I don't agree with any of it. We were made to throw a rock at a rabbit, not run after it. We are basically anaerobic animals. The fastest way to get lean is through diet.
If you look at the world of sports, you'll see that triathletes and marathon runners have a body fat percentage that ranges from 11 to 14%. 400 to 800 meter sprinters have a body fat percentage between 4 and 6%. Training intensity is the key - not training duration. Take a look at the fat girls on the ergometers at Golds Gym or World Gym. Come back next year and look at their progress: they're still fat or, more likely, even fatter.
The problem with exercise physiology is that people look at the world through a straw. If you look at the amount of energy burned during exercise, that's one thing, but you also have to look at the energy burned during recovery after exercise. This is where most people mess up. All cardio in the morning does is deplete the adrenal glands.
Many people are starting to agree with my German Body Comp principles: the best program for fat loss is the principles that increase lactate production. People from all over the world have told me that this is the best program they have used for their athletes or their clients.
According to recent scientific research, growth hormone production correlates directly with a drop in blood pH. If your body produces lactate (lactic acid), as is the case with German Body Comp training, then your blood pH will drop and your growth hormone levels will rise. When people need to lose a lot of fat quickly and don't have a lot of time for training, we use this type of training for four hours a week.
British scientists have emphasized the importance of the caloric cost of recovery from such training. This has as much to do with the hours following the workout as the actual workout itself.
And by the way, training with weights in the morning is not ideal either. The nervous system does not reach its maximum capacity until three hours after waking up. The good news, however, is that the body will adapt to pretty much anything, which means that you will eventually adapt to early morning workouts.
The muscle burn and mass gains
Q: Is muscle burning or pumping necessary for hypertrophy?
A: There are a lot of ways to increase hypertrophy. Look at Olympic weightlifters who never get a pump. Look at Strongman competition athletes. They hypertrophy anyway.
The best studies on hypertrophy have been done in Finland. Researchers there have found that wrestlers, bodybuilders, powerlifters and weightlifters all hypertrophy...but for different reasons. The most important thing for hypertrophy training is to perform a varied workout. Look at Ronnie Coleman. He used to train as a powerlifter and then as a bodybuilder: varied training.
Look at the bodybuilders before the eighties, when they didn't use the amounts of steroids they do today. Back then, they trained as part of a subculture along with weightlifters and powerlifters. Back then, people who trained with weights were seen as oddballs by society. All these people trained in the same weight rooms and shared their training methodologies.
I saw Robbie Robinson in Norway training together with a Norwegian powerlifting and bodybuilding champion. Robbie is a strong guy, especially for his age. He showed the young guy where the hammer hangs. You could clearly see that these guys came from a culture where you learned to move more weight to become more muscular. Today, you see bodybuilders doing curls with 15 kilo dumbbells - and they still achieve a high degree of hypertrophy,
The forgotten element of hypertrophy training is the overload principle. People no longer try to move heavier weights - they double their steroid dosages instead. Training for a muscle burn is one way to hypertrophy, but it's not the only way. For example, I have you do eccentric squats and eccentric pull-ups. You will build weight, but you will not achieve muscle burning.
Hypertrophy is a function of load vs. time under tension. Since it's a product of both, you can work one end or the other - or both ends. Let's say you can do 10 reps of squats with 65 kilos. Now, if you can do 30 reps with 65 kilos, your legs will grow. Even if you do 10 repetitions of squats with 100 kilos, your legs will grow - but for a different reason. And if you can do 50 reps with 100 kilos, your legs will become really muscular.
Both systems work.
The control of insulin
Q: You once wrote that 68% of Americans are prediabetic. You said that insulin is a hormone of aging and inflammation and you said that controlling insulin is the best way to promote health and longevity. Okay, what is by far the best thing you can do to achieve this?
A: Take fish oil. Scientific research has shown that if you take three grams of fish oil with a high-sugar meal, the insulin response is much weaker.
I've seen some people recommend that you take your daily dose of fish oil all at once, but anyone who knows what they're doing when it comes to functional medicine will tell you to spread your fish oil out throughout the day. Or would you eat all your protein for the day at once?
Best exercise by far?
Q: If you look around most gyms, what do you think is the most useful but most neglected exercise?
A: That would be deadlifts with a very wide grip - and specifically deadlifts with a very wide grip performed from a platform 10 centimeters off the ground. The idea here is to increase the range of motion by standing on an elevation AND using a very wide grip.
If you told me you had to go to prison and only had a barbell and didn't want to get raped in the shower and could only do one exercise to build strength and muscle mass, I would tell you to do deadlifts with a very wide grip from a platform.
This exercise alone makes people build muscle mass like crazy. Whenever I have someone who needs to build weight quickly but doesn't have a lot of time, I have them do this exercise. For deadlifts with a wide grip, grip aids are fine because you'll be doing more than three reps, but don't use them up until you've reached your working weight.
If you think about it, this exercise is the opposite of the sumo deadlift, which shortens the range of motion. Some powerlifters train with ballet shoes to shorten the range of motion. However, we want to increase the range of motion here - and deadlifts with a very wide grip from an elevation will make this possible.
Exercises for the lateral abdominal muscles (obliques) = wide waist?
Q: Some bodybuilders say that direct training for the side abs should be avoided to prevent developing a wide midsection. Should we really be worried about this?
A: You'll mainly see this type of hypertrophy in throwers. The average exerciser should not worry about this. There is some scientific research that shows that the lateral abdominal muscles have very low potential for strength development. It has been shown that the lateral abdominal muscles have one of the lowest potentials for hypertrophy and strength development.
This is the reason why I am against those tornado balls and other things recommended by trainers that can't really make anyone strong. The core is recruited the most by squats and deadlifts, even though no rotation comes into play here.
The average exerciser and the 1RM weight
Q: Is there any reason for the average trainee who is not training for powerlifting to perform exercises with the 1RM weight?
A: Absolutely. Remember that hypertrophy is a function of a certain load and volume and time under tension. The fact is that if a trainee is stuck doing sets of 10 reps with 100 kilos and hasn't improved since Jimmy Carter was in office, some maximal strength training is probably needed to change that.
So if he performs 10 reps of bench press with 100 kilos, he will probably do a single repetition with 125 kilos plus minus 5 kilos. If he then completes a training cycle in which he increases his maximum bench press weight to 140 kilos, he will probably be able to complete ten repetitions at 115 kilos and see new muscle growth.
However, he does not necessarily have to perform heavy single repetitions. A safer way for the average exerciser is to work with six sets of three repetitions.
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-36
By Charles Poliquin