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The Misfit
07-03-10, 5:53 am
DISCLAIMER: again another post that is not mine but is so very valuable and informative that I had share it and post the whole thing up!! Happy reading!


How to Design a Damn Good Program - by Christian Thibaudeau
How to Design a Damn Good Program, Part 1
by Christian Thibaudeau


Step 1: Determine your One Goal

Like the man says, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else." In other words, unless you're absolutely clear about the one thing you want to accomplish with your training, you'll end up selecting the wrong loading parameters and training methods, and you won't get to where you want to be.

Let me give you an example. I hear variations of this all the time: ''My goal is to become hyuuuuge, super strong, and ripped." Is this your goal? Well, sorry to piss in your cornflakes, pal, but that's not a goal, it's three goals, and conflicting ones to boot. You simply can't do three different things at the same time. For maximum progress in any of these areas you have to focus on one major goal.

Let's look at how these goals conflict.

Trying to get both big and ripped at the same time should be a no-brainer. Maximizing muscle growth requires a caloric surplus. How much of a surplus depends on factors such as your body type, metabolism and current condition, but the fact remains that you must consume more calories than you expend. On the other hand, losing fat requires the opposite: a caloric deficit. You must expend more energy than you consume.

Food is the X-factor in whatever training you do. You can have the best training regimen in the world, bolstered by the most precise and advanced supplement protocol known to man, but if your diet is wrong for your goals, you'll probably never attain them. Let's all say it together one more time: Increasing muscular size requires caloric surplus. Losing fat requires caloric deficit. It ain't rocket science.

I'll grudgingly admit that it's possible to gain some muscle while losing some fat, for a short period of time, if you do everything perfectly. I imagine it's also possible to masturbate while riding a bicycle. In either case, though, trying to do both at the same time only ensures that you'll do neither one very effectively.

Similarly, trying to gain a lot of strength while losing a ton of blubber is an uphill battle. Your strength is determined as much by your neural efficiency as by your muscular development, so this is actually a bit more reasonable than trying for the hyuuuuge/ripped combination, but still, it's not easy.

Elite powerlifters and Olympic lifters usually post higher totals when they move up a weight class, and lower totals when they move down a weight class. This should be telling you something. If you really want to make marked and rapid progress in the strength arena, don't expect to do so while slimming down.

Which leads us to our last combination, getting big and strong at the same time. Of the three, this is the most realistic. However, training to maximize hypertrophy is fundamentally different from training to maximize strength, which focuses on making the central nervous system more efficient through the use of heavy weights and low reps.

While strength training can lead to muscular growth, the point is that your gains will not be as pronounced as they would be if you had concentrated on training for size. Once again, you must decide what's mostimportant to you (ripped, strong, or hyuuuuge), then make that priority the backbone of your training plan.

Once you've selected your One Goal, you need to stick with it long enough to make decent progress. If, for example, you concentrate on gaining mass for four weeks, then shift gears and focus on fat loss for another four weeks, guess what? You have an excellent chance of going nowhere.

Building muscle is a slow process. You will realistically gain between 0.25 and 0.5 pounds of lean mass per week, which means that by the end of your four-week "mass cycle" you will have "packed on beef" totaling a pitiful two pounds at the most. At least you won't have to go shopping for new clothes.

Be prepared to commit to your One Goal for a minimum of eight weeks, and preferably twelve. This doesn't mean that you have to stick to the same program for that length of time, but all programs you design for those 8 to 12 weeks must be geared toward achieving your selected goal.


Step 2. Select the right training split

Your training frequency and bodypart split is determined by your One Goal, your recovery capacity, and of course your schedule. In the table below, notice that the dominant structure (the system that plays the biggest role during your training) is different for each goal.



Splits for Strength

Training for strength or power primarily involves the central nervous system. The CNS is the slowest of the three structures to recover from intensive training, so the more CNS-dominant a program is, the more recovery days you'll need to maintain an optimum rate of progress.

However, there's more to it than that. Strength is a learned skill. It is the process of learning how to make the most of the muscles you already have. The more you use your muscles, the better you will become at recruiting them, and the more rapid your strength gains will be.

So when training for strength, you need to train each muscle group or movement pattern more often, while including more rest days (3 to 4) during the week. You can maximize your strength gains by using one of these splits:

A: Whole Body

Day 1: Whole body
Day 2: Recovery
Day 3: Whole body
Day 4: Recovery
Day 5: Whole body
Day 6: Recovery
Day 7: Recovery

B: Upper/Lower

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Upper body
Day 3: Recovery
Day 4: Lower body
Day 5: Recovery
Day 6: Upper body
Day 7: Recovery

C: Lower/Upper/Whole

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Recovery
Day 3: Upper body
Day 4: Recovery
Day 5: Whole body
Day 6: Recovery
Day 7: Recovery

D: Push/Pull

Day 1: Hamstrings + Pull
Day 2: Quads + Push
Day 3: Recovery
Day 4: Hamstrings + Pull
Day 5: Recovery
Day 6: Quads + Push
Day 7: Recovery


Splits for Size

When training for size, obviously the dominant structure is the muscular system. Because motor learning (learning to use your muscles) isn't as important here as it is for strength training, frequency per muscle group doesn't need to be as high, although each muscle can be hit twice a week. And because muscles recover faster than the CNS, you can get away with fewer recovery days: 2 to 3 per week is enough, provided that you carefully plan your training volume. The following splits are effective toward this aim:

E: Antagonist

Day 1: Chest/Back
Day 2: Recovery
Day 3: Biceps/Triceps
Day 4: Quads/Hamstrings
Day 5: Recovery
Day 6: Anterior and lateral delts/Rear delts
Day 7: Recovery

F: Pattern

Day 1: Quads dominant
Day 2: Horizontal push and pull
Day 3: Recovery
Day 4: Hips dominant
Day 5: Recovery
Day 6: Vertical push and pull
Day 7: Recovery

G: Synergistic

Day 1: Quads dominant
Day 2: Pull (back, biceps, rear deltoids)
Day 3: Recovery
Day 4: Hips dominant
Day 5: Recovery
Day 6: Push (chest, triceps, deltoids)
Day 7: Recovery

H: Upper/Lower

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Upper body
Day 3: Recovery
Day 4: Lower body
Day 5: Recovery
Day 6: Upper body
Day 7: Recovery

Splits for Fat Loss

When training for fat loss, you have much more leeway. Because you'll be including more metabolic work (lactate training like circuits, complexes, GPP work etc.), you won't need as much recovery time between training sessions. The tradeoff here is that you'll be consuming a caloric deficit, which impairs your ability to recover.

So while the number of recovery days you'll need is higher (3 to 4 per week), recovery in this case just means, "don't work too hard." You can still do some cardio or other low-intensity physical activity such as walking, to help your fat loss effort along.

As I said, it's hard to gain much strength when training to lose fat. However, you should still include 1 or 2 strength sessions per week during your fat-loss stage, just to hold onto as much muscular mass and strength as you can. Read my Destroying Fat article for more on designing a fat-loss program.


Step 3. Select the proper training zone

One of the key factors in stimulating the kind of gains you want is selecting the proper training intensity zone.

Your body adapts to the demands you place upon it. As long as you attempt to progressively add more weight to the bar, practically any training zone or method you use will lead to gains in both strength and size. However, because you want to concentrate only on size or strength, you need to select the training zone that will give you the most gains for your chosen goal. If your goal is strength, for example, you would select sets of 1-3 reps rather than sets of 12-15 reps.

Use the following table to select the proper training zone for each exercise, according to your One Goal. A properly designed fat loss program needs to include different approaches, which again are covered in Destroying Fat.


Step 4. Select the number of sets for each muscle group

The total number of sets in your program will vary depending on your work capacity, lifestyle, diet, and other factors. Generally speaking, you should be doing between 6 and 16 sets per muscle group, and in fact most trainees make good progress keeping to a range of 9 to 12 sets. If you're doing that many sets and still not properly stimulating your muscles, it may just mean that you're being a pussy, and should increase your intensity and effort.

You disagree? You say that you can bust your ass for more than 12 sets, and still recover from that volume? Well, maybe, maybe not. Some people can, but these folks are the rare exceptions, and you'd do well to assume that you're not one of them. I know, this can be a blow to your ego. We all like to believe that we are special and tough. Remember, though, that it's one thing to survive a brutal workout, and another thing to recover and grow from it.

Start in the 9 to 12 set range, stick with it for a while, and really give it all you've got in every set. Once you've given that volume an honest chance, evaluate how your body is responding. If you're positive that you can handle more volume, then you have my permission to increase it.

Remember, too, that 9 to 12 sets for each muscle group is a general guideline. If you have a low work capacity, or a busy schedule, you may need to adjust this range downward to between 6 and 9 sets. On full body days, you should be doing even fewer sets per muscle group (as low as 4 to 6), because of the hefty demands such a workout places on your body.


Step 5. Select the right number of exercises for each muscle group

You can train hard, or you can train long. To gain as much strength or size as possible, you need to emphasize the quality of your training rather than the quantity, which means eliminating excess volume.

Of course you need a certain level of volume to stimulate growth and strength, but more is not always better. Training beyond your body's capacity to recover in a session, or continuing to exercise even when your fatigue level makes further training redundant and counterproductive: these are the fastest ways to halt your progress in its tracks.

Transforming your body is a highly emotional issue. Your gut feeling is that the more you train, the better you'll get. If you just add one more exercise, or two or three, then you can be sure to hit every area of every muscle in your body, and success is guaranteed. Nothing could be more wrong. Being driven to succeed is great, but if you are being driven by your emotions, you are on the high road to zero results.

Do between 4 to 6 exercises total per training session. If you're training two muscle groups in a session, this means you can do up to 3 movements for each muscle group. If you are training three muscle groups, you do 1 or 2 movements each, and if you are training the whole body, only one exercise per muscle group is allowed. Pretty simple math, right?

In some sessions you may need to perform more than 6 exercises (in circuit training, for example), and in some sessions you will perform as few as 2 or 3. But 90% of the time, between 4 and 6 exercises is the place you want to be.

When training for strength, you do more sets of each exercise to maximize neural adaptation. Conversely, when training for size and aesthetics you perform more exercises for balanced muscular development.

Strength = Fewer Exercises, More Sets

Size = More Exercises, Fewer Sets

Remember that we only have between 9 and 12 sets to spend on each muscle group. Use the table below to find the number of sets and exercises to use for your goal and training split. For example, if your goal is strength, and you're on a push/pull split training three muscle groups per session, then you would do 2 exercises per muscle group, for 4 to 6 sets per exercise.



*Note that you don't have to use the same number of sets for all the exercises in a training session. You may spread the volume in a variety of ways. Here is an example:

2 exercises per muscle group, 10 sets total:

First exercise: 5 sets
Second exercise: 5 sets
First exercise: 6 sets
Second exercise: 4 sets
First exercise: 7 sets
Second exercise: 3 sets

The first exercise should always have the same or higher volume as the other movements.


Step 6. Select the proper exercises

Exercises fall into one of four categories. You select exercises from each category, according to the training effect you want.

Primary exercises: This category includes a small number of multi-joint, multi-muscle, free-weight and preferably multi-plane movements. These movements allow you to use the most weight for each muscle group, and place the highest demand on the body and nervous system.



Secondary exercises: Similar to the above, except that the exercises in this category place a slightly lower demand on the body and CNS.

Auxiliary exercises: This very broad category includes the isolation movements and most machine exercises. These exercises allow the use of considerably less weight than exercises in the first two categories, and so place far less demand on the nervous system.

Remedial exercises: This category contains movements, mostly isolation, whose purpose is to correct problems such as muscle imbalances or a very specific weak points. Rotator cuff work, balance and proprioception drills also fall into this category.


When your One Goal is strength, you should stick mostly to primary and secondary exercises in your program: they will give you the most bang for your buck. You can include two primary movements per muscle in a training session, but I don't recommend it, as it can wreak havoc on the nervous system when working in the low rep/heavy weight zones. You would be better off with one primary and one secondary.

The downside of these big compound exercises is that they tend to play to your strengths, bypassing your weaknesses. When performing a movement involving several muscle groups, your body will find the most economical solution, shifting most of the workload onto the stronger, more dominant muscles.

The classic example is the bench press: if your shoulders are dominant, the bench press likely won't do much for your chest because your body will thriftily bypass your wimpy pectorals, shifting most of the workload onto the stronger front deltoids and triceps.

If you are training to build a good looking, complete physique, then you should be using plenty of auxiliary exercises to make sure that the targeted muscles have been fully stimulated. Still, be sure to include a primary and at least one secondary exercise in your program.


If you are training for strength, and have a specific weakness such as a rotator cuff problem, feel free to add a remedial exercise. Because its intensity will be low, you don't have to count it in your total.

The most important consideration in exercise selection is to avoid exercise redundancy. Your body has a limited capacity to recover from physical stress, so it would be stupid to piss away your precious recovery capacity on a redundant exercise.

Redundant exercises are those that work the same muscle group, using the same movement pattern, with the same grip. For example, the bench press, flat dumbbell press, flat machine bench press and Smith machine bench press are all just superficial variations of the same exercise. So are the standing barbell curl, standing supinated (palms up) dumbbell curl and standing cable curl. You get the idea, right? If you're going to select a number of exercises for one muscle group, then pick the ones that complement — not copy — one another.

One last point about exercise selection: avoid indirect overload. I see a lot of people designing lower body routines like this one:

A. Back squat
B. Good morning
C. Front squat
D. Dumbbell romanian deadlift
E. Leg extension
F. Reverse hyperextension

On paper this looks fine. All are pretty good movements and it seems that the emphasis is placed on the money exercises. However, this is a pretty stupid combination. Why? Because with the exception of the leg extension, every single one of these movements will significantly overload the lower back.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having a strong lower back. But think about what condition your lower back is going to be in once you've done your squats and good mornings. Completely fried, and it'll be nearly impossible to do the rest of the workout with any sort of quality. You won't be able to perform your front squats with an upright torso, and your Romanian deadlift and reverse hyper will both be crap, because the prime mover is dead tired.

A word to the wise should be enough. Choose your exercises carefully, with as little cross-over as possible, and maximize performance throughout your workout.

© 1998 — 2007 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


The Misfit
07-03-10, 5:55 am
B]How to Design a Damn Good Program, Part 2
by Christian Thibaudeau[/B]

Step 7. Select the proper exercise pattern

Exercise distribution within a workout has two components:

1. Basic structure (horizontal/straight sets, alternating, vertical/circuit)

2. Exercise order within a chosen structure

The basic structure of the program is how you perform each exercise or set in relationship to the others.


Horizontal/straight sets structure

This is your ''usual'' distribution pattern, whereby you perform all the sets of an exercise before moving on to the next. For example:

A. Bench press

4 x 10
90-second rest interval

B. T-bar row

4 x 10
90-second rest interval

In this routine, you'd perform all four sets of the bench press (with 90 seconds of rest between sets) before moving on to the T-bar row.


Alternating structure

This approach, popularized by coach Poliquin, has the advantage of letting you do more work with less rest, without sacrificing performance (I also like it because it lets me get out of the gym that much quicker!). In this distribution pattern, you alternate sets between a pair of exercises that target different muscle groups ideally an agonist/antagonist pair. For example:

A1. Bench press

4 x 10
45 sec. of rest

A2. T-bar rowing

4 x 10
45 sec. of rest

In this case you'd perform one set of A1 (bench press), rest for 45 seconds, perform one set of A2 (T-bar row), rest for 45 seconds, then go back to A1 and repeat until you've performed 4 sets of each exercise. The actual rest intervals between two sets of bench press are about the same as with straight sets, even though you're only resting for 45 seconds.


Vertical/Circuit structure

Here you perform one set of three or more exercises one after another, in a circuit, then repeating the circuit if necessary. For example:

A1. Dumbbell bench press

12 reps
30-second rest interval

A2. Dumbbell squat

12 reps
30-second rest interval

A3. Seated row

12 reps
30-second rest interval

A4. Dumbbell Romanian deadlift

12 reps
30-second rest interval

A5. Preacher curl

12 reps
30-second rest interval

Note that a circuit doesn't have to be composed of all the exercises in your workout. You can perform a circuit of four exercises, for example, then two normal exercises performed in either an alternating or straight set fashion.

Circuits are best suited for body composition/fat loss training where you keep your intervals down to as little as 10 seconds between stations. But circuit training is also a highly efficient way to train for strength and power as well by increasing the intervals to as much as 2 or 3 minutes. This allows you to perform far more work in less time than it would take for straight or alternate sets, while still having plenty of recovery time between sets of the same exercise.


Exercise order

Once you've chosen your training structure you need to arrange the exercises you've chosen in a logical and effective order.

The most important rule to remember is the most neurally demanding exercises for a muscle group should be performed before the less demanding ones. For example, you should perform the squat earlier in the workout than a leg extension. There are few exceptions to this rule, one being when you want to pre-fatigue a hard-to-recruit muscle by isolating it before a compound movement.

Take all the exercises for one muscle group and arrange them in order of difficulty. For example, if you've selected the following exercises for your chest:

Cable crossover
Bench press
Dumbbell incline press

Then the correct order would become:

Bench press
Dumbbell incline press
Cable crossover

Rule of thumb: primary exercises before secondary, which go before auxiliary, which go before remedial ones. If you have two exercises from the same category (i.e. two primary or two secondary exercises), the exercise in which you use the most weight goes first.

Depending on the structure (horizontal, vertical, alternating) you use, the actual order of exercises might change.

If you're using straight sets you can either perform all exercises for the same muscle group one after the other, then move on to the next muscle group. In this case the order would be:

A. Chest primary
B. Chest secondary
C. Chest auxiliary
D. Triceps primary
E. Triceps secondary
F. Triceps auxiliary

This is okay if you're training one large muscle group (chest, back, or quads) and one or two small muscle groups in a workout. If you're training two large muscle groups (e.g. chest and back), it's not the best option, as the CNS will be fried by the time you get to the second muscle group.

If you're training two or more large muscle groups, or your whole body, then it's better to arrange all the exercises in order of difficulty, regardless of the muscle being trained. First group all of the exercises by category (primary, secondary etc.), and then order them so that the larger muscles are being worked first. In this example, you have chosen the following exercises for your full-body workout:

Bench press
Military press
Chin-up
Front squat
Romanian deadlift
Barbell curl

All of these are primary exercises, so they should be ordered according to the size of the muscle involved, like so:

A. Front squat
B. Romanian deadlift
C. Chin-up
D. Bench press
E. Military press
F. Barbell curl

If you've also selected secondary exercises, the same rule applies: group by category (primary before secondary), then order the exercises in each category according to the size of the muscle group involved. For example, say you choose to use:

Bench press (primary)
Leg press (secondary)
Bent-over barbell row (primary)
Seated DB press (secondary)
Snatch-grip deadlift (primary)
Hammer curl (secondary)

You first group the exercises by category:

Primary movements:

Snatch-grip deadlift
Bent-over barbell row
Bench press

Secondary movements:

Leg press
Seated DB press
Hammer curl

Then arrange by muscle group size:

A. Snatch-grip deadlift
B. Bent-over barbell row
C. Bench press
D. Leg press
E. Seated DB press
F. Hammer curl

If you're using the alternating structure (most often with an antagonist split), then your first step is to order the exercises for each muscle. For example, let's say that you're working chest and back and you select these exercises:

Chest

Decline dumbbell flies
Decline bench press
Incline dumbbell press

Back

Lat pulldown to front
Bent-over barbell row
Chest-supported rear deltoid raise

The correct order for each muscle becomes:

Chest

A. Decline bench press
B. Incline DB press
C. Decline DB flies

Back

A. Bent-over barbell row
B. Lat pulldown
C. Chest-supported rear deltoid raise

Since the workout calls for an alternating exercise structure, the workout looks like this:

First exercise pairing

A1. Decline bench press
A2. Bent-over barbell row

Second exercise pairing

B1. Incline DB press
B2. Lat pulldown

Third exercise pairing

C1. Decline DB flies
C2. Chest-supported rear deltoid raise

Finally, if you're doing a circuit structure, you have a number of options depending on your goal.

In a strength, size, or power circuit with relatively long rest intervals between stations, the same rule applies as for straight sets: group by category, then order by muscle group.

In a lactate-inducing circuit aimed at fat loss, which jumps from one exercise to the next with very little rest in between, you're taxing your metabolic system rather than your nervous system, so exercise order is somewhat less critical.

However, you should be careful to arrange the exercises in such a way that they don't interfere with each other, alternating exercises to minimize the cross-over effect. For example, if your first exercise is a seated dumbbell shoulder press, following it with a bench press variation would not be a very good idea because this exercise hits the same muscle groups.


Priority exercises

The Olympic lifts (snatch, clean and jerk) and their respective variations always precede every other exercise in your program.

These exercises, involving the whole body in a complex movement pattern that rely heavily on the CNS, must be prioritized whenever they are included in your program. This may seem obvious, but I've seen programs for professional sports teams that prescribed snatches afterdeadlifts, squats, bench presses and rows! Ouch!

Remember: when you're using the Olympic lifts in a program, always put them first. If you perform more than one lift, snatches should come before cleans, which should come before jerks. Here's a mnemonic to help you remember the correct order:


"My snatch is clean, you jerk!


Step 8. Selecting rest intervals

The amount of rest between sets is directly dependent on your One Goal. Remember these rules:

1. The nervous system takes longer to recover than the muscles and metabolic processes.

2. Incomplete recovery of the metabolic processes can increase growth hormone production and might have significant body composition effects. Incomplete recovery can also force the body to recruit more motor units, although they might be of the slow-twitch variety. If all you're after is size, though, this could be interesting.

3. Complete CNS recovery is necessary for optimal strength performance. So if you're training for strength, you'll need to take longer rest periods to maximize the quality of your lifting efforts.

The right interval length depends on the intensity of your efforts, as well as on the exercise performed (you recover faster from a set of triceps kickbacks than from a set of squats). The following table illustrates the impact of various rest intervals:




Depending on your One Goal and the intensity zone you select, the ideal rest intervals would be:

Relative strength zone (1-3 reps): 3-4 minutes*

Absolute strength zone (3-5 reps): 2-3 minutes*

Functional hypertrophy zone (6-8 reps): 90-120 seconds*

Hypertrophy zone I (9-10 reps): 60-90 seconds*

Hypertrophy zone II (11-12 reps): 45-60 seconds*

Strength-endurance zone (13-20 reps): 30-45 seconds*

Endurance-strength zone (more than 20 reps): 30 seconds or less

* between sets of a single exercise

Again, these are guidelines. Some people need less rest while others need more. For the great majority, this will work fine, so start there and adjust as needed.

Notice that I say "between sets of a single exercise." This means that if, for example, you're working in the hypertrophy zone you'd need to take 60 to 90 seconds of rest before performing a second set of the same exercise. For straight sets, this is quite straightforward:

A. Bench press

4 x 10 reps
90-second rest interval

Four sets of ten reps each, resting 90 seconds between each set. Piece of cake (or steak, if you prefer).

If you're doing alternating sets, it's a bit more complicated, but not much. Let's alternate bench press with T-bar row:

A1. Bench press

4 x 10

A2. T-bar row

4 x 10

We still need 90 seconds of rest (time spent not exercising) before starting a second set of the same exercise. We can get this by putting a 45-second rest interval between exercises.

A1. Bench press

4 x 10
45 seconds of rest

A2. T-bar rowing

4 x 10
45 seconds of rest

Now we have 90 seconds between each set of bench press, and 90 seconds between each set of rows. But our workout density is higher, which gives the session a more profound metabolic (fat loss and body composition) effect.

If you're circuit training for fat loss, you'll be working in the strength-endurance zone. If so, simply use the interval length specified above 10-45 seconds) between each station. Lactate-inducing circuit training should be considered energy system work (cardio) with weights, rather than "weight lifting."

The Misfit
07-03-10, 5:56 am
Step 9. About recovery days

I don't care how tough you think you are, or how hardcore you fancy yourself to be. The basic rules of physiology still apply to you. One of those rules is that muscular growth does not occur in the gym. In the history of mankind, nobody has ever packed on a pound of beef while training.

When you stagger home from the gym after your workout, you're actually worse off then you were before you started: you damaged your muscles, depleted your energy stores, and fatigued your nervous system. It's only when you let your body recover that progress of any kind starts to happen.

During the recovery period, your body will rebuild its muscle tissue bigger and stronger (muscle hypertrophy or tissue remodeling), it will restore and even over-replenish its energy stores (surcompensation) and the nervous system will become more efficient at recruiting motor units (neural efficiency). In other words, all the good stuff happens when you're not training.

However, a lot of people don't give their bodies enough recovery days to let that progress set in.

I have a theory about why this is, and once again, it goes back to the fact that training is an emotionally-charged activity. We can be so impatient when it comes to building the body of our dreams. We want to be big and ripped with superhuman strength, and we want it now!

The more passionate we are about our dream, the more irrational we become, and the more work we're willing to do in the gym. We can't help it, we were raised to believe that the more time we spend on something, and the harder we work on it, the better the results will be.

Our parents and teachers exhorted us to exert ourselves at our studies until exhausted. Our coaches filled our ears with pithy slogans like, "success only comes before work in the dictionary!" And when we went off to work, we soon learned that the longer hours we put in, the fatter our paychecks became. Who can blame us for thinking that the same would apply to training?

Well, stop thinking it right now, because it's wrong, wrong, wrong. The cold fact is, no matter how long or hard you train, without proper recovery you will never optimize your progress. In fact, you may even begin to regress, if you work out so much that you exceed your recovery capacity.

The sad thing is, when people see their hard-earned gains slipping away through over-work and under-recovery, what's the first thing they do? They do even morefrigging work! They think their problem is that they just weren't training hard enough. I'll say it one more time. You must get rid of the notion that "lack of results = lack of work." In most cases, especially among highly motivated individuals, lack of results = improper work/recovery ratio.

If you're not making progress, chances are you're not recovering enough.

The point of this diatribe is to give you a forceful reminder that when designing a program, you should always include enough recovery days to allow your body to adapt, rebuild and improve.

Understand, however, that "recovery day" is not always just a day off. There are three levels of recovery. Let's look at each.

Active recovery

This means performing some physical activity that isn't stressful on the system. It could be playing a sport, taking a walk, doing some low-intensity cardio or even low-intensity weight training. This type of recovery can be helpful as it increases blood flow to the muscles and keeps the metabolism running high.

Just resist the temptation to overdo it. Many people are stimulus junkies who turn even a light recovery session into an intense workout! This is especially true if weight training is used as an active recovery tool. Let me repeat myself: active recovery work must not constitute a stress on the system.

So when recovering with weights, we're talking high reps (12-20 or even more), not going anywhere near failure. Some people will also make the mistake of performing a high-intensity activity like intervals training of sprints on their recovery days. Intervals, sprints, plyos and such represent a pretty considerable stress on the body, either on the CNS or on the metabolic processes. As a result they do not allow the body to recover optimally from training.

Bottom line: any activity that is physically demanding should not be done on an active recovery day.


Passive recovery

This is your "day off," meaning that you avoid physical activity. But let's not be stupid about this. You're allowed to walk, climb stairs and carry things. You don't have to ride around on one of those little electric carts that fat people use, and if your wife asks you to take out the trash, don't try to dodge it by saying, "But Thibs said no physical activity." A passive recovery day is nothing more or less than a day on which you don't train. And that's all I have to say about that.

Just don't make every day a passive recovery day.


Assisted recovery

This third level involves using methods that enhance the body's capacity to recover from training stress. It may take the form of massages, epsom salt baths, contrast showers, and other such techniques. I suggest that you read 7 Secrets to Rapid recovery for more information.

This type of recovery day is especially useful if for some reason (too much stress, excessive training, improper recovery, etc.) you find yourself starting to accumulate fatigue and have problems recovering from your workouts.

In most cases the following applies:


Active recovery

Use mainly when you are focusing on CNS-based training (heavy weights, explosive movements with relatively low volume); with this type of training the muscles and metabolic processes are not severely taxed but the CNS takes a beating. Low-intensity work (not neurally demanding) can thus be successfully used without fear of over-stressing the metabolic processes. Do not use when undergoing a high-volume phase as the muscles and metabolic processes are already severely taxed.


Passive recovery

These days can be used with all types of training.


Assisted recovery

You may be tempted to use these methods all the time, to become a "recovery machine." However, as with training, the body adapts to recovery methods and if you use them all the time they lose their effectiveness. They are better kept for when your body is under severe stress. They are especially useful when the muscles are under tremendous strain (high volume of relatively intense work).


Step 10. About special methods

As I said before, training is a highly emotional endeavor.

In our frenzy to transform ourselves, we want maximum results in minimum time, so when we read about a special training method (e.g. Cluster sets, rest/pause, pre-fatigue supersets, post-fatigue supersets, drop sets, chains, bands, weight releasers, etc.), our first irrational instinct is to throw them right into our training programs, expecting them to work miracles for us.

Yes,these methods will help stimulate more gains. No, they shouldn't be used all the time. Most people actually don't need these methods at all to progress optimally: beginners and most intermediate lifters can maximize their progress simply by focusing on the basics performed with effort and dedication.

It is those more advanced individuals, those for whom every micron of progress seems to take eons to occur, that really need these methods. The more advanced you are, the better adapted your body is to physical stress. As a result, it takes a much bigger physiological stimulus to trigger appreciable gains.

This is where advanced methods really shine. You should include them in your program onlywhen they are needed, to keep your progress going at a satisfactory rate. Using these methods too soon (when you don't really need them) can actually impair your long-term progress.

Fact 1. While advanced individuals need advanced techniques and techniques for optimal growth, beginning and intermediate trainees do not.

Fact 2. The body is very adaptable, and can get used to any training method. Once this happens, the effectiveness of the technique is greatly diminished.

Fact 3. By using your most advanced techniques from the beginning, when you don't need them, you can limit your long term progress by rendering these techniques ineffective when you do need them.

I'm not saying you have to include advanced techniques in your program. Start by learning how to plan the basics. When you're good at that, you can gradually add in more advanced stuff. But do it gradually, first to avoid overloading the system, second to be able to assess the individual effect of each method; if you throw in 3 or 4 advanced methods at a time, it'll be hard to tell for sure which one was responsible for your gains.


Conclusion

If you have carefully read this entire article, then right now you're probably thinking, "Damn, that was a long article!"

But hopefully you weren't overwhelmed, and are just raring to give this method of program design an honest go. After you've written a few programs "by the numbers," the steps will become second nature for you, and writing new programs will be a breeze.

One caveat, however, before we close. I imagine that one or two of you are just chomping at the bit to look up every training program I (or Chad, or Coach Poliquin, or any of the other Testosterone coaches) have written, and gleefully post in the forums somewhere, "ah-ha!! I found a program that isn't exactly like the one that Thibs' Program Design article recommends!

Well, duh.

This article shows you how to design basic and effective programs. The coaches here at Testosterone tend to present you with slightly more advanced programs, and in order to do that, we sometimes bend the rules a bit.

Realize, though, that in order to bend the rules (without ruining the efficacy of the program), you must first understandthe rules. If you want to write advanced programs, do what we all had to do: put in the time and effort to become really efficient at designing basic programs, then learn to add in more advanced techniques as needed.

In other words, you really need to graduate from high school before thinking about writing your doctoral dissertation. Just take it slowly, progress step by step, and before you know it you'll be designing your own sound, efficient and effective training programs.

And if you post those programs in the Locker Room for my evaluation, the chances are excellent that I will not cringe.

Happy designing!


Christian Thibaudeau is an Olympic lifter, bodybuilder, strength coach and program designer extraordinaire. He cringes when people mispronounce his last name (tee-bow-doh), mistake him for Vin Diesel, and ask him to evaluate their idiotic training programs. Luckily for you, you'll never make these mistakes.

© 1998 — 2007 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Joe J
07-04-10, 5:41 pm
Although this article is very informative and detailed, I think it may have a tendancy to overcomplicate matters for many and end up causing a lot of confusion. Remember people, it is all well and good to take and use information from sources like this, but dont let it confuse the basic: Lift Hard - Eat Hard - Sleep Hard concept of bodybuilding.

Legacy
07-04-10, 11:26 pm
Although this article is very informative and detailed, I think it may have a tendancy to overcomplicate matters for many and end up causing a lot of confusion. Remember people, it is all well and good to take and use information from sources like this, but dont let it confuse the basic: Lift Hard - Eat Hard - Sleep Hard concept of bodybuilding.

Agreed. I have seen this article before and although it is a good read, I believe there is nothing better than instinctive training. Sometimes you just gotta go and do it and not put a lot of thought into it.

The Misfit
07-05-10, 2:14 am
Although this article is very informative and detailed, I think it may have a tendancy to overcomplicate matters for many and end up causing a lot of confusion. Remember people, it is all well and good to take and use information from sources like this, but dont let it confuse the basic: Lift Hard - Eat Hard - Sleep Hard concept of bodybuilding.


Agreed. I have seen this article before and although it is a good read, I believe there is nothing better than instinctive training. Sometimes you just gotta go and do it and not put a lot of thought into it.

As far as the complexity of this design, it is overcomplicated, I personally wouldn't plan a program this way BUT I don't believe in INSTINCTIVE training, moreover there has to be a reason as to why I am doing such an exercise. For myself, there in lies two things: picking certain exercises and progressing in those exercises, which is why I am a big believer in SL 5x5 and DC (training schemes incorporating selection and progression). Then again such is just one end of the spectrum and many other methods do work. I felt a certain attachment to the article due it conveying principles similar to which I follow/prefer. Probably not one of the best articles so in future I will be more careful before posting articles as such, that being said, although it's an unorthodox approach to things, it sure is an interesting one.

Goliathus
07-05-10, 12:43 pm
It made a lot of good points, valid points, such as If you're trying to bulk, don't try and cut.

This read certainly isn't for beginners.