Monster structure

Part 1

3 months on the road to personal bests and new muscle mass

Some time ago I said that I hate writing articles about specific programs. I feel that a better approach for me as a trainer is to explain concepts and techniques rather than simply show implementation.

Well, I'm going to contradict myself because this article is the first part of a mini-series that will transform you into a muscular, ferocious monster within 3 months. Prepare to need new t-shirts and more weight plates.

As an added bonus, the first part of this article series will cover a lot of interesting information so that even if you choose not to do this program right away, you'll still feel like you've learned something.

So without any further ado, let's get straight to the point.

Phase 1

The aim of this first phase is to prepare your body for the subsequent training phases. Basically, we want to increase the efficiency of your nervous system so that you will be much better at recruiting the all-important high threshold motor units (HTMUs), sometimes referred to as fast contracting fibers.

This phase also aims to strengthen your tendons. Tendon stability and integrity can be a limiting factor in your training. As the tendons are the structures through which your muscles are connected to your bones, weak tendons will usually prevent muscle growth beyond a certain level and also limit the amount of force you can produce. We should see this as a protective mechanism of the body that prevents injury.

Last but not least, we want to increase the activation threshold of the body's protective reflexes, which is especially true for the Golgi tendon organs. These inhibit the force production of a muscle when they determine that the amount of force produced exceeds what you can tolerate without harm. Unfortunately, this protective mechanism is somewhat overprotective, which is why the average person can only use about 30% of their strength potential.

Yes, it is important that you protect yourself from muscle tears due to excessive force production, but if the protective mechanism already intervenes in the safety zone, then you are giving away a large part of your strength potential.

So after this first phase, you should be able to expect rapid strength gains due to an improvement in the neural factors involved in strength production. When it comes to muscle mass, you should be aware that building muscle mass takes much longer than improving the function of the nervous system, as new structures need to be built. However, this phase will lead to increased muscle density and thickness, as well as increased myogenic tone.

In simple terms, you will look more like a brick wall than a flabby cup of goo.

Characteristics of the training phase

When I give seminars, I often tell people that the more emphasis you put on developing the central nervous system, the more often you need to train a muscle group. And the more emphasis you want to place on the development of a muscle group, the less often you should train each muscle.

The reason for this is simple: CNS development is similar to motor learning and not structural remodeling. In the area of strength training, CNS development can be described as learning how to use your muscles optimally.

If you want to become a better golfer, you need to train your swing. If you are allowed to hit 700 balls a week, then it is much more effective to hit 100 balls a day instead of 700 balls once a week. This is the first rule of motor learning: frequency of practice is the key to learning a skill.

You need to realize that activating your muscles, ensuring optimal recruitment patterns and optimizing intramuscular coordination is a skill, not a physical capacity. To improve this optimally, you need to treat it like the process of learning a skill - and this requires a high frequency of training.

Muscle development, on the other hand, requires eliciting significant amounts of muscle damage, as well as stimulating an increased release of anabolic hormones and growth factors. It takes time for this muscle damage to be repaired and the body's response, which is to make the muscle fibers stronger and larger, takes even more time. This is why you can't train your muscles as often.

Let's get back to the CNS. One of the principles of motor learning is to perform as many specific and technically correct repetitions with the target muscle as possible without significant accumulation of fatigue.

The former Soviet weightlifting coaches found that exercises performed at less than 80% of maximum weight have a different recruitment pattern than exercises performed at maximum weights. This means that if you want to maximize motor learning in the context of increasing strength, you need to work with 80% or more of your maximum weight on the respective exercises.

And to maximize motor learning, each repetition must be performed with as little accumulated fatigue as possible. This means that you should finish each set before reaching muscle failure. It is important to understand that choosing training methods that place an emphasis on the nervous system will already place a heavy load on the structures involved. Going to muscle failure, which by the way is unnecessary for optimal neural development, is just another stress factor for the CNS. In this specific case, training to muscle failure will make it much harder to progress during this phase.

Don't get me wrong, muscle failure doesn't always have to be avoided, but only when the focus is on CNS development.

The three types of torture

This phase includes three different training sessions, one of which is performed twice a week. The first is called 'motor skill acquisition' and revolves around performing a large number of repetitions at 80% or more of your maximum weight on a given exercise.

The second type of training is called isometric/explosive contrast training. Isometric and explosive exercises increase the activation of motor units through different mechanisms.

The final type of training session is the overload and tendon strengthening day, where the goal is to slowly reduce the inhibitory response that prevents high levels of force production.

Training session 1 and 3 - Acquiring motor skills

This first type of training is performed twice a week. Ideally, these two days should be Monday and Thursday. The goal is to perform as many repetitions as possible with a weight of 80% or more of your maximum weight. However, this is done without causing significant accumulation of fatigue.

We will use what I call the giant cluster. Here you have a specific time window (in our case 20 minutes) and your goal is to perform as many repetitions as possible within this time window. The number of repetitions per set will vary depending on the load used.

Week 1:

You use 80% of your max weight and perform as many sets of 3 reps as possible within 20 minutes. I have found that sets of 3 repetitions at 80% of the maximum weight are optimal. More reps per set will result in faster accumulation of fatigue, which means you have to take longer rests between sets and can perform fewer total reps. Less than 3 repetitions will not contribute to a significant reduction in fatigue and generally will not increase the total number of repetitions performed (maybe the total number of sets, but not the total number of repetitions).

Week 2:

You increase the weight to 85% of your maximum weight and perform as many sets of 2 repetitions as possible within 20 minutes. Due to the increase in weight, it is necessary to reduce the number of repetitions to two in order to maintain a high quality of training with a high power release.

Week 3:

You increase the weight to 90% of your maximum weight and perform as many sets of 1 repetition as possible within 20 minutes. As these are near maximal efforts, performing more than one repetition per set would reduce the quality of exercise execution, which is unacceptable when the focus is on motor learning.

Week 4:

This is an unloading week. You keep the intensity high (90%), but instead of trying to perform as many sets as possible within 20 minutes, you simply perform half the repetitions you achieved in week 3. For example, if you were able to perform 12 sets in week three, perform 6 sets at 90% of your maximum weight in week 4. You can also use longer rests.

Exactly how many sets should you do? This depends on your condition, your work capacity and your muscle fiber composition, but anything between 8 to 12 sets within 20 minutes is the norm. Really efficient athletes will be able to achieve 12 to 15 sets. The most important thing, however, is that every repetition is performed perfectly.

As I mentioned earlier, you will perform two of these workouts per week. In each of these workouts, you use three primary exercises, resulting in a total workout time of 60 minutes. You have two options: either you use the same three exercises in each training session or you use different exercises.

The first option (same exercises during both workouts) is optimal if you are trying to maximize your strength with these three exercises. It's a bit like Bulgarian weightlifting - these athletes only train snatches, deadlifts and squats. The fewer exercises you have, the more practice you'll have with them and the more efficient you'll become. It's like someone who wants to become a good tennis player. He will get better at his sport if he concentrates only on tennis instead of playing tennis raquetball and squash.

The second option (different exercises) is more effective if you are more interested in a more general increase in strength. Most people are better off with the second option, while powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters are generally better off with the first option.

Regardless of which option you choose, the exercises you choose will remain the same for the four weeks of training:

If you choose the Three Exercises then you must choose the following exercises:

• One upper body press exercise
• One lower body exercise
• One upper body pull exercise

A good example would be:

1. Incline bench press
2. Sumo deadlift
3. Barbell rowing bent over

Yes, I am aware of the fact that barbell rowing bent over has gotten a bad reputation as a mass building exercise for the upper back. This is because the neural drive of the latissimus and rhomboid muscles is reduced as you also need to recruit the lower back to maintain good posture. This is a disadvantage for a muscle building phase, but for a phase involving CNS development this is an advantage as it leads to a stronger overall neural output.

Here is a list of excellent exercises to choose from:

Upper Body Press Exercises:

Bench Press, Incline Bench Press, Reverse Incline Bench Press, Standing Shoulder Press, Push Press, Dumbbell Bench Press, Dumbbell Incline Bench Press, Reverse Dumbbell Incline Bench Press.

Lateral incline bench presses are slightly inferior in this specific case because not as much total muscle mass is involved due to the relative inactivity of the shoulder muscles compared to other pressing exercises.

Lower body exercises:

Sumo deadlifts, snatch grip deadlifts, deadlifts standing on an elevation, conventional deadlifts, classic squats, front squats, overhead bar squats.

I generally prefer deadlifts to squats as more muscle groups - especially lower body muscle groups - are involved. In this case, sumo deadlifts, snatch grip deadlifts and deadlifts on an elevation are better choices as they work the lower body more than other variations of deadlifts. This is not to say that squats are not a good choice, quite the opposite. For example, you could do deadlifts on Monday and squats on Thursday.

Upper body pulling exercises:

Barbell rowing bent over, one-arm dumbbell rowing, T-bar rowing, rowing bent over with dumbbells, rowing with supported chest, T-bar rowing with supported chest, pull-ups with additional weight.

Normally you choose a pulling exercise that trains the antagonists of the chosen pushing exercise. If you have chosen a horizontal pressing exercise (bench press), then you are better off with a horizontal pulling exercise (bent-over rowing). Similarly, it is best to combine a vertical pressing exercise (standing shoulder press) with a vertical pulling exercise (pull-ups). If you choose a push exercise on an incline bench, then both types of pulling exercises are acceptable.

A special note on frequency

Motor skill training is not overly demanding because none of the sets are demanding. That is the goal. Since it is not a very demanding training session, you can even do such a workout twice a day if there are 6 hours between the two training sessions.

However, do not add extra training days as this would disrupt the design of the training week.

Benefits of isometric exercises

Since our second type of training session involves the use of isometric exercises, we'll first look at the science behind their effectiveness. Here's an excerpt from my latest book, High Threshold Muscle Building:

• Isometric strength, or the capacity to produce force during a static muscle action, turns out to be higher than concentric (lifting) strength. For most people, isometric strength is 10 to 15% higher than concentric strength (Schmidtbleicher, 1995). This force production can be used to stimulate positive neural adaptations that can lead to a significant increase in strength. Remember that the more force you produce, the more high threshold motor units are recruited.

• For most people, more high threshold motor units are recruited during a maximal isometric action than during a regular exercise movement. This is especially true for beginners. In this regard, isometric training can be used to develop the nervous system's capacity to recruit these high threshold motor units. As your CNS becomes more efficient at recruiting more high threshold motor units during isometric actions, the overall capacity for using these powerful fibers also increases. As a result, you will ultimately become more efficient at recruiting high threshold motor units during regular muscle actions. More recruited high threshold motor units equate to greater muscle growth and strength gains.

• Isometric exercises can be used as a potentiating method. Potentiation in this context is the process of making an exercise more efficient by combining it with a previous activity. Potentiation can be stimulated either by an explosive movement or by a maximum contraction. The latter is also known as post-tetanic potentiation. Tetanic refers to a state of muscle activation that occurs during a prolonged or very intense muscle contraction. The tetanic contraction can be explained as the summation of all available motor units.

It has been found that the contractile force of a muscle fiber increases after a short maximal isometric contraction. This effect is still present 5 minutes after the contraction (O'Leary et al. 1997, Gullich and Schmidtbleicher 1995). During a maximal isometric contraction lasting seven seconds, the ability to exert force decreases by 15%, whereas this capacity is increased by 28% one minute after the contraction, by 33% two minutes later and by 25% five minutes later (O'Leary et al. 1997). The capacity to produce force thus appears to be higher two to three minutes after the end of the isometric contraction.

This increase in the capacity to produce force following a particular stimulation is referred to as post-tetanic potentiation (PTP). The most effective way to promote a strong PTP is to stimulate a muscle intensely through a maximal effort/maximal contraction of 5 to 10 seconds duration (Brown and von Euler, 1938, Vandervoort et al. 1983).

PTP can increase contractile force, which is particularly true for rapidly contracting muscle fibers (Bowman et al. 1969, Standeart, 1964). PTO also improves the rate of force development (Abbate et al, 2000). It can therefore be used to potentiate both heavy training and explosive movements (Gullich and Schmidtbleicher 1997).

PTP works by increasing the phosphorylation of myosin light chains, which makes the actin-myosin junctions more sensitive to calcium during subsequent contraction (Grange et al. 1993, Palmer and Moore 1989, O'Leary et al. 1997). It's not so important that you know all the details, but if you're interested, you can find more on the filament glide theory of muscle contraction in the scientific literature to see how this can increase the capacity of force production.

To cut a long story short, maximal isometric contractions seem to be the best way to use the PTP phenomenon to your advantage for a number of reasons:

1. Force production is higher during an isometric action. More force produced equals more potentiation.
2. Isometric exercises are less exhausting than regular concentric exercises. As a result, potentiation (which improves performance) is increased, while exhaustion (which reduces performance) is not significantly increased. The end result is a greater improvement in the potential to produce power.
   To use this method to your advantage, you should perform 5 to 10 seconds of maximal isometric action about two to three minutes before a heavy (or explosive) set of a regular exercise. This potentiating effect can be used to further increase gains in strength, speed and muscle mass.
3. Isometric exercises can be used to get stronger at a weak point in an exercise. The strength you build through an isometric exercise is position specific, meaning that you increase strength primarily at the position you are training (there is a carryover of about 15 degrees). This can be seen as both a limitation and an advantage. It is a limitation because you have to train at least three positions of the movement isometrically in order to increase the strength over the entire range of motion. The advantage, on the other hand, is that isometric exercises can be used to increase strength at a specific weak point in the movement.
   For example, if your weak point in the bench press is in the mid-range of concentric motion, then you can perform isometric training in that specific position to strengthen your weak point without increasing fatigue or significantly extending the necessary recovery time after training.
4. Isometric strength is important for several athletic actions. Any movement that requires an athlete to hold a predetermined position (e.g. the bent-knee position for alpine skiers) requires high isometric strength. Actions that involve a rapid reversal from eccentric to concentric movement (running, changing direction) also require isometric strength, as the corresponding resistance must be overcome before this reversal can take place, which requires both eccentric and isometric strength.
5. In dynamic exercises, maximum intramuscular tension is only achieved for a short period of time. This is mainly due to the fact that the resistance includes a speed and acceleration component. With isometric exercises, however, you can maintain this maximum tension over a longer period of time.
   For example, instead of maintaining a maximum intramuscular tension for 0.25 to 0.5 seconds during the concentric part of a dynamic movement, you can maintain this tension for 3 to 6 seconds during an isometric exercise. Strength is strongly influenced by the time under tension. If you can add ten to twenty seconds of maximum intramuscular tension per training session, you will increase your potential for strength and especially mass gains.

Training session 2 - Isometric/explosive contrast

Let's get back to our training program. By using isometric exercises, you can increase the recruitment of motor units and your strength in the subsequent exercises.

This training session with isometric/explosive contrast is performed either the day after the first training session (Tuesday) or two days later. In the latter case, you have a rest day between the two training sessions. I only recommend doing this workout the day after the first workout of the week if you only did one workout the day before. If you did two training sessions on the first training day, then you should wait until Wednesday to do this training session.

The weekly training plan could look like this:

• Monday: Learning motor skills (one training session)
• Tuesday: Isometric/explosive contrast
• Wednesday: No training
• Thursday: Learning motor skills
• Friday: No training
• Saturday: Overload
• Sunday: No training

Or like this:

• Monday: Learning motor skills (two training sessions)
• Tuesday: No training
• Wednesday: Isometric/explosive contrast
• Thursday: Learning motor skills
• Friday: No training
• Saturday: Overload
• Sunday: No training

It should be noted that the isometric/explosive contrast workouts do not cause muscle damage, so they can be performed the day before or the day after another workout.

In these workouts we will use a combination of two exercises - one isometric and one explosive exercise per movement pattern. The first exercise (isometric) is used to increase the recruitment of the motor units and to increase performance in the following explosive exercise. The explosive exercise is used to develop strength and neural efficiency.

Ideally, you would incorporate the following movement patterns into your training session:

• Upper body press exercise
• Lower body exercise
• Upper body pull exercise

However, with this sequence, it can be quite difficult to perform a correct explosive exercise after an isometric exercise. In reality, I would therefore recommend the following scheme:

• Full body exercise
• Lower body exercise
• Upper body press exercise

The full body section requires you to be able to perform the Olympic weightlifting exercises at least reasonably efficiently. If you are not able to do this you can use dumbbell swings.

Some of my favorite exercise pairings are:

• Conventional deadlift as an isometric hold and power deadlift from the hanging position
• Squats as an isometric hold and jump squats with 20 to 30% of your maximum weight in squats
• Bench press as an isometric hold and speed bench press with 45 to 55% of your maximum bench press weight

If you prefer a vertical press exercise, you can also do the following:

• Standing shoulder press as an isometric hold and Push Press (standing shoulder press with some momentum from the legs) with 65 to 75% of your maximum weight on standing shoulder press

Sets of the isometric exercise are performed for 6 to 9 seconds, pushing as hard as humanly possible. Do not go beyond the 10 second threshold as the ATP-CP stores will be quite depleted after 10 to 12 seconds, which will lead to a drop in maximal force production. This is bad for neuronal development. However, longer phases of isometric holding can be used during hypertrophy phases.

In explosive exercise, the goal is to achieve a very high degree of acceleration with each repetition. For this reason, you should limit the number of repetitions to the following values:

• 3 to 5 for the variations of Olympic weightlifting exercises and the speed versions of traditional weightlifting exercises (bench press, squats, etc.)
• 6 to 8 for jumping exercises with additional weight (jump squats, jump lunges, etc.)
• 8 to 10 for regular jumping exercises, medicine ball throws and plyometric push-ups

Each exercise pairing is called a "complex" and is performed with 90 to 120 seconds rest between the first and second exercise. Here is an example:

• A1. isometric bench press Hold
  maximum force for 6 to 9 seconds, 90 to 120 seconds rest
• A2. Speed bench press
  3 to 5 repetitions with maximum acceleration, 90 to 120 seconds rest

Each complex is performed 6 to 8 times

Training session 4 - Overload and tendon strengthening

The third type of training session of the week is also the most challenging. This is because this training session is performed after a rest day and you should take another rest day afterwards. This means that this training session is performed between two rest days.

The aim of this training session is to use heavier weights than you would normally use when training basic movement patterns. This is achieved by performing partial repetitions and emphasized eccentric repetitions.

Another method used on this day is super high repetition sets. The tendons can be strengthened by a supramaximal load, but they require a very high number of repetitions to adapt optimally to the training. This is due to the fact that the tendons are supplied with very little blood. Eastern European athletes have been using super high repetition sets (100 to 200) for decades to improve the structural integrity and recovery of their tendons.

All in all, this training session will desensitize your inhibitory reflexes, which will allow you to use a higher percentage of your strength. It will also improve the structural integrity of your tendons, as well as the efficiency of your nervous system.

The first part of the training session is the actual overload training. Just like learning motor skills, you will train these basic movement patterns:

• Upper body press
• Lower body
• Upper body pull

This time, however, we will use two exercises per movement pattern. The two exercises must be from the same movement pattern (e.g. horizontal press: bench press), where the first exercise is trained with partial repetition, while the second exercise emphasizes the eccentric movement. Both exercises are performed alternately (i.e. one set of exercise A1, two minutes rest, one set of exercise A2, two minutes rest, one set of exercise A1, etc.)

Good exercise pairings include:

Upper body press:

Partial bench press in the power rack (the bar is above the critical point of the movement at the beginning of the movement) plus manual eccentric bench press

In the manual eccentric technique, you use 70 to 80% of your maximum weight. Your training partner exerts pressure on the bar during the eccentric/lowering phase of the movement. The aim is to lower the bar within 5 seconds. As long as you can lower the bar in 5 seconds, your partner can apply pressure. If the bar moves down faster, they should reduce the pressure. At the end of the eccentric phase, your training partner lets go and you push it back to the starting position. For manual eccentric repetitions, three sets of 5 repetitions are performed. Your training partner adjusts the resistance depending on your level of fatigue.

Lower body:

Partial sumo deadlift in the power rack (the bar can be anywhere from the middle of the shin to just above the knee at the starting point of the movement) plus pure eccentric repetitions deadlift

The pure eccentric repetitions in the deadlift were one of Olympic weightlifting coach Pierre Roy's favorite exercises. Use a weight in the range of 90 to 110% of your maximum weight when deadlifting. Heavier weights are dangerous and not more productive. Take the bar from a pair of blocks (so that you barely have to lift the bar to get it into the starting position of the movement) and take two steps backwards to get away from the blocks. Then lower the bar to the floor as slowly as humanly possible. Aim for an eccentric movement lasting at least 5 seconds, although seven to ten seconds is better. It is very important that you lower the bar using perfect body position and technique - arched lower back, chest out, hips back and down. You can use either a sumo stand or a conventional stand. In this type of exercise, only one repetition is performed.

Upper body pull up:

Partial pull-ups and negative pull-ups

For partial pull-ups, start in the lowest position and pull yourself up as far as you can. Choose a weight (if you are working with additional weight) that only allows you to pull yourself half way up.

Use about 10% more weight for the negative pull-ups than for the partial pull-ups. Use a bench to get into the top position of a pull-up and lower yourself as slowly as humanly possible into the bottom position of pull-ups. As this exercise is technically easier than eccentric deadlifts, you should aim to lower yourself in at least ten seconds, with 15 seconds being better. If you can lower yourself in a controlled manner in 15 seconds, then use more weight. Again, only one repetition is performed. In the partial exercise, you perform sets of 3 to 5 repetitions with as much weight as possible. Then rest for 90 to 120 seconds before moving on to the eccentric exercise.

You perform four to five sets of each pairing (complex).

The second part of the training session is much easier. You choose an exercise for the above movement patterns and perform 100 to 200 total repetitions. That is all.

These repetitions do not necessarily have to be performed without rest. You can allow yourself short breaks of five to ten repetitions during the set. You should choose a very light weight for these exercises. The aim is not to achieve muscle failure, as this is not a muscle-building exercise. The purpose of the exercise is simply to increase blood flow and improve the integrity of the tendons.

You could choose the following exercises:

• Upper body press exercise: bench press, reverse incline bench press, dumbbell press, dumbbell incline bench press, chest machine press (choose one exercise)
• Lower body: squats without additional weight, leg presses, Hackenschmidt squats, squats without additional weight with feet wide apart (choose one exercise)
• Upper body pull exercise: seated rowing on cable, rowing on machine, T-bar rowing with supported chest, dumbbell rowing with supported chest, lat pulldown (choose one exercise)

What about isolation training?

It's pretty easy to see how this first phase of training will build a lot of strength. It's also fairly obvious to most that this increase in strength will also lead to gains in overall muscle thickness and density. But what about the arms? Sure, there's no isolation training for the biceps (or other muscle groups), but fear not, isolation exercises will make a comeback in Phase II and especially Phase III.

In the meantime, you won't lose any mass on your arms on this program. Heck, you'll be pulling and pressing heavy weights four times a week! Is that enough to make your arms grow? For some people, yes, for others, no. But one thing is for sure, it's enough to maintain your arm mass for the duration of this phase.

However, if you're one of those people who goes crazy if they don't get their curls, feel free to add 10 to 15 minutes of "beach training" to the end of the second motor skills training session.

The plan would then look like this:

• Monday: Learning motor skills (one training session)
• Tuesday: Isometric/explosive contrast
• Wednesday: No training
• Thursday: Learning motor skills plus 10 to 15 minutes of beach training
• Friday: No training
• Saturday: Overload
• Sunday: No training

Or

• Monday: Learning motor skills (two training sessions)
• Tuesday: No training
• Wednesday: Isometric/explosive contrast
• Thursday: Learning motor skills plus 10 to 15 minutes of beach training
• Friday: No training
• Saturday :Overload
• Sunday: No training

During this time you can use any exercise or training technique that suits your goals. However, you must not extend this period under any circumstances (yes, use a timer). If you overdo it with isolation training, it will reduce the efficiency of this first phase.

Supplements to support this phase of training

This phase of training relies heavily on the nervous system and heavy training puts stress on your joints. For this reason, the best supplements for this phase are the following:

• A pre-workout supplement with fast-digesting protein or amino acids and fast-digesting carbohydrates before and during your workout to provide your muscles with key nutrients
• Acetyl-L-tyrosine before training to stimulate your nervous system
• A fish oil supplement to support the reduction of inflammation
• Quickly digestible protein and carbohydrates after training to support recovery
• Creatine to increase the rate of ATP-CP recovery. Creatine is particularly effective on training days aimed at improving motor skills, as this supplement will allow you to perform more quality sets.

It must be said

I know someone will ask if this is a good program for a definition and diet phase. My answer is "Do you think you can run faster than the buckshot I'm going to shoot up your ass?"

This would probably be the dumbest thing you could do. This three-month program is designed with the goal of turning you into a walking brick wall. To achieve this, you need to move mountains of weights and provide your body with enough nutrients to grow. Simply put, this program cannot be used for a diet phase.

Until next time

As you will see in the next part of this article series, each phase is the step to the next phase. And this first phase is the foundation of the entire program - your end result will depend on how well this phase went.

By Christian Thibaudeau

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/beast-building-1