Training

Sleepy gluteus, flat butt

Glutes all over the world have fallen asleep. You see it in men, you see it in women. Instead of contracting when called upon during lower body exercises, the gluteus ignores these people. At some point, their butt gets soft and misshapen. Then it becomes flat. Soon, these men and women begin to stumble when they run because their pants begin to slip.

Test your gluteus as follows

There is an easy way to find out if your gluteus is contracting adequately. Simply try to stand on one leg for 60 seconds with your eyes closed. If you can't do this, then you've either had too much tequila or your gluteus is on a permanent siesta.

The test is also the cure

Most of us have a set of fitness things we should be doing every day. We start with the best intentions, but soon forget to stretch, work with the foam roller, train the rotator cuff, do extra pull-ups or work our abs.

The solution to this fitness mindlessness is to integrate these daily tasks into our daily activities. Stretching and/or ab workouts can be pushed to commercial breaks while watching TV.

To perform additional pull-ups, you can hang a bar in the room you enter most often and not allow yourself to enter or leave the room without performing one or more pull-ups.

For an improperly contracting or dormant gluteus, you can simply stand on one leg with your eyes closed while brushing your teeth before going to bed. Spend at least 2 or 3 minutes in total doing this. You will be fighting tooth decay problems and gluteus problems at the same time.

Tip: Challenge yourself with a changeup

Baseball pitchers use a changeup to confuse and challenge the batter. Use the same strategy in your training and make the basics more brutal.

By Martin Rooney

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-challenge-yourself-with-a-changeup/

Interrupting the routine

Have you ever heard of the "changeup pitch" in baseball? This is designed to confuse the batter by changing the throwing pattern. Here, the pitcher uses the same type of pitch for a fastball, but changes the speed. And it is this speed that confuses the batter, which is exactly what the pitcher is trying to do.

Why not use a changeup like this in the gym? Instead of boring yourself with the same 5 sets of 8 reps, or doing a complete change of workout with single leg balance exercises on a vibration board, use what you know works and simply change the rest intervals and tempo.

When you have reached a plateau, don't abandon your basic exercises, but simply change their execution. Add a pause to your front squats or push-ups. Pull and push the weight sled. Use a lateral pull direction in pulling exercises instead of pulling straight forward. These types of changes will make familiar exercises harder and stress your motor units in a whole new way. Here are a few ways to do this.

Three-phase front squats and push-ups challenge

• The change: Take the classic exercises and add some rests. This will allow you to increase the time under tension, lengthen the duration of the eccentric phase and learn what the term pudding legs means.
• Instructions: For front squats and push-ups, go down and pause for a second at the lowest point of the movement. Then go halfway up, pause again, then move back down and pause again before moving all the way back up. This three pause sequence is one repetition. Do 5 sets of 5 repetitions per exercise. If you can do this in under 6 minutes, your confidence will grow almost as much as your quadriceps and triceps.

Push-pull sprint challenge

• The change: weight sleds are no longer just for pushing heavy weights. Instead of seeing how much weight you can load up, use this change to work your core and back. All you need is a weight sled and a rope.
• Instructions: Tie a rope 30 meters long to a weight sled. Start by pulling the sled the entire 30 meters back towards you. You can alternate between an overhand and underhand grip if you wish. Then push the sled back to the starting position and repeat. This is more about speed than weight. Keep the sled light depending on the surface of the floor and remember that the rope will make it harder if you are further away from the sled. Perform 8 sets in 10 minutes or less.
• Safety note: As there are different types of weight sleds and surfaces, it is important to choose an appropriate weight that you can move for the entire 10 minutes. The sled should feel relatively light to start with, but don't worry, it will feel heavier once you have been exercising for a few minutes.

Tip: Make progress without increasing the weight

These alternative ways to monitor progress provide variety, insight and results.

By Charles Staley

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-make-progress-without-adding-weight/

Progression is misunderstood

"Progression" is both the most necessary component and the most misunderstood. Many people believe that progression in strength training can be achieved solely by adding weight to the bar. They forget that there are numerous ways to increase the difficulty of a training session.

The more experienced we become, the more important it is to use as many of these methods as possible. The idea of "do more and do it harder" will only get a strength athlete so far before they reach a plateau that takes extra time and energy to overcome. Instead of putting more weight on the bar, use these other results-producing tactics.

Other progression tactics

• Rest shorter between sets
• Use a wider range of motion
• Add short pauses at or near the heaviest points of the movement
• Use better, stricter technique
• Use less supportive equipment (belts, bandages, grip aids)
• Train alone or without music
• Use fewer warm-up sets than usual
• Work harder than usual during the warm-up sets (pre-fatigue)

Of course, you shouldn't combine too many methods in one training session, but choose a few new ways to progress, work on them for a few weeks and then move on to something else. Even if you focus on just one unfamiliar approach for a period of time, this can help you achieve new results.

Tip: Train twice a day for maximum results

If you can find the time, two training sessions in one day can lead to very good results...if you plan it right.

By Charles Poliquin

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-twice-a-day-training-for-maximum-results/

If you're looking for the fastest and most effective way to build muscle mass and strength, then two workouts a day is the best plan. Do the following to plan it right:

1. Perform the heavier "neural" workout in the morning. In the evening, do a bodybuilding-style workout with more time under tension. For example, do most sets of 6 repetitions in the morning and work with 15 to 20 repetitions in the evening. Or you can do regular training in the morning and focus on eccentric training (negative reps only) in the evening.
2. The same muscle groups should be trained in both workouts. Train them heavy first and then lighter in the next training session.
3. If strength is your primary goal, use the same exercises for both workouts. If you are more focused on muscle hypertrophy, you should use different variations of the exercises, but continue to train the same muscle groups in both workouts. Powerlifters could train classic squats twice a day, while bodybuilders could train barbell bench presses in the morning and dumbbell incline bench presses in the afternoon.
4. There must be at least four to six hours between the two training sessions. This time gap is crucial. If the gap is less - like two or three hours - then you won't be able to recover sufficiently and cumulative fatigue will prevent progress.
5. Don't immediately switch to doing two of your normal workouts on the same day. Start with 20 minutes of exercise in the morning and 20 minutes of exercise in the afternoon. From here, gradually work your way up from training session to training session until you reach one hour per training session. You should give yourself about 11 weeks until you reach two full one-hour training sessions per day.
6. To prevent burn out, after every 10 day block of two daily workouts, you should do 5 days of standard once daily workouts to give your body a break. I recommend exercising for about 40 minutes in the morning on these days. After five days, you can go back to two daily workouts.
7. Don't forget that more training means that nutrition becomes even more important. In particular, without proper training nutrition, it is impossible to recover from this type of training.

Tip: How to achieve rapid strength gains in 4 weeks

Combine these two strength training methods and you'll consistently set new personal bests.

By John Fawkes

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-how-to-make-fast-strength-gains-in-4-weeks/

If you really want to get strong, then you need to go beyond 5 x 5 and start finding new ways to overload your muscles and nervous system to force further adaptations. You will also need gains in muscle mass even if strength is your primary goal.

Cluster sets and contrast training are two advanced training techniques you can use to give new muscle growth a boost. And by combining the two, even experienced exercisers can achieve massive strength gains in just a few weeks.

Cluster sets

Normally, training for strength means using heavy weights and low repetitions. However, if you're past the beginner stage, this means you'll build strength but not much muscle mass. Cluster sets allow you to train with heavy weights while working in a higher repetition range by incorporating short rest intervals in the middle of the set - a sort of pre-planned rest/pause.

For example, an exerciser primarily focused on strength would use a weight in the 90% range of their 1RM weight for 2 reps, place the weight on the rack, pause for 15 to 20 seconds, perform two more reps, pause for another 15 to 20 seconds, and finally perform one or two final reps. That's a total of 5 to 6 repetitions.

A trainee whose focus is more on muscle hypertrophy could use 80% of their 1RM weight, shorten their pauses to 10 seconds and perform three reps on each subset.

Contrast training

In contrast training, the exerciser performs a slow speed, high weight exercise followed by an explosive, light weight exercise, both training the same muscle and movement pattern.

For example, you could combine bench presses with plyometric push-ups. Or classic squats with jump squats. Typically, 4 to 6 repetitions of the heavy exercise and 8 to 12 repetitions of the explosive exercise are performed.

Contrasting training works according to the principle of post-activation potentiation. The first exercise briefly increases your strength by preparing your nervous system, allowing it to develop more power during the explosive exercise.

Let's put the two together

To push you to new heights, we'll use supersets like contrast training, but use a high weight cluster set as the first exercise of the superset. The whole thing will look like this:

For the legs, you could use front squats or classic squats plus jump squats and keep the sets, repetitions, rest and intensity the same. For the back, you could combine deadlifts with light dumbbell rowing.

Training program design

These ten sets will exhaust you completely and you would be well advised to make them a full training session. If you want, you can add some supportive training for smaller muscle groups, but limit this to 2 to 3 exercises with 2 to 3 sets each. If you want to add cardio training at the end, limit this to 15 minutes.

Since this program is only done three days a week and only focuses on 3 exercises, you should add one more training session during which you perform a few other multi-joint exercises to round out your body development and make sure you work every muscle group.

On this fourth day, forget about cluster sets and contrast training and just train as you normally would. This training session should be relatively light, as your body's ability to recover is already heavily challenged by the other three training sessions.

Example of a training split

• Monday: Bench press + plyometric push-ups. Then calves, abs and 15 minutes of jumping rope.
• Tuesday: classic squats + jump squats. Then biceps and forearms plus 10 minutes of cycling.
• Wednesday: No training
• Thursday: deadlift + dumbbell rowing bent over. Then shoulders, triceps and abs.
• Friday: No training
• Saturday: Barbell shoulder presses, pull-ups and other supportive training as required plus 15 minutes of cardio.
• Sunday: No training

This training split can produce rapid strength gains even in experienced exercisers. We're talking about 20 kilos in your powerlifting total within a month. However, this workout is also extremely demanding and most people should only follow it for 4 to 6 weeks.

For maximum long-term results, you should follow this training program for 4 weeks and then take an off-load week and then follow a less demanding program for 4 to 8 weeks. Repeat as often as necessary until you are a member of the 1000 Pound Club or your training goals change.

Tip: Use a so-called "false" grip when pressing overhead

The conventional grip ruins your exercise form and prevents you from developing real strength when overhead pressing.

By Lee Boyce

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-use-a-false-grip-on-overhead-presses/

Many exercisers make the mistake of placing the barbell too low in the palm of their hand during pressing exercises like overhead presses. What happens is that the bar rests too far back in the hand, often causing the wrist to bend so that the repetition is performed without the bar being supported by the rest of the arm.

With a conventional grip (where the thumbs are "wrapped" around the bar), it is difficult to correct this positioning and place the bar where it should be, especially when the training weight increases.

A so-called "false" grip (where you place your thumbs on the same side of the bar as your fingers) allows you to clutch the bar and place the weight over your wrist and forearm from the start.

False vs. conventional grip

The false grip is best reserved for slightly advanced to advanced exercisers, as they are strong and experienced enough not to drop the bar.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-work-glutes-while-brushing-your-teeth/

From TC Luoma

Terrible Tabata

This is a four-minute training session consisting of 20 seconds of very high-intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. The original six-week study compared the effects of this method to a traditional 60-minute aerobic workout. The results surprised a lot of people.

The four-minute group performed a Tabata program four days a week (a total of 16 minutes per week) plus a 30-minute cardio training session at the same intensity. The total training duration was 95 minutes per week, as each interval training session was preceded by 10 minutes of warm-up training. The aerobic group performed five 60-minute training sessions per week (totaling 300 minutes per week).

The result? The aerobic group showed less than 10% improvement in aerobic capacity and no improvement in anaerobic capacity. The Tabata group showed a 14% improvement in aerobic capacity and a 28% improvement in anaerobic capacity, which took the wind out of the sails of proponents of long, slow cardio workouts with consistent intensity.

How does this workout work?

Use an Airdyne Bike, an Assault Airbike, a spinning bike or any other form of cycle ergometer. You'll love the Airdyne Bike because it integrates the upper body into the workout and gives you increasing resistance - the faster you pedal, the greater the resistance.

1. Set the timer to 14 minutes: 10 minutes at the same intensity to warm up and then 4 minutes for the sprint intervals.
2. Once you start the intervals, make sure you pedal as fast as you can for 20 seconds. The original study was conducted at 170% of VO2 max, which requires a substantial effort.
3. Pause for 10 seconds and then start the next 20 second sprint.
4. Complete 8 laps for a total of 4 minutes.

Think of it as 20 seconds of exercise and 10 seconds of rest. Repeat the whole thing eight times. If four minutes of Tabata isn't the hardest thing you've ever done, you're doing it wrong.

Tip: Don't do straight sets

Want to rev up your nervous system and stay strong from set to set? Then try this method

By Charles Poliquin

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-dont-do-straight-sets/

Serious exercisers always talk about the endocrine system, the muscular system and the cardiovascular system, but they rarely talk about the neurological system. This is a big mistake. Neural regeneration is often ignored.

How most people train

99 out of 100 exercisers perform multiple sets of a particular exercise in a row, also known as straight sets. For example, they will perform a set of bench presses, followed by another set of bench presses, followed by another set of bench presses. In between sets, they will "recover" while pretending to pull a loose thread out of their socks as they go through the playlist on their phone.

Scientific research tells us that they could recover much better by performing a set for an antagonist muscle group between sets.

A better way: antagonistic training

Here's how it works: Perform a set of dumbbell bench presses, a set of barbell rows for your latissimus in between, and then the next set of dumbbell bench presses. (And then alternate back and forth between the two exercises until you have performed the desired number of sets). You will notice a smaller decrease in strength from set to set compared to straight sets.

No one is sure why, but it certainly has something to do with the neurological system. That's why I started using the "A1" and "A2" division of my workouts, which has since been adopted by many others. Unfortunately, many trainers who use it don't understand why they are using it, or if they do understand it, they rarely explain it to their clients.

Other examples of antagonistic pairings of muscle groups:

• Bicep curl and tricep press
• Leg extensions and leg curls
• Overhead press and pull-ups

Tip: Perform pulldown crunches for abs

This could be the best exercise you've never tried.

By John Meadows

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-the-pulldown-crunch-for-abs/

Well-defined abs are common in bodybuilding circles, but few people have a truly toned "vacuum waist" - a waist that looks like a brick wall. Fortunately, there is one exercise that develops this look better than any other.

Pulldown crunches

1. Sit on a lat pulldown machine and grasp the bar overhead as if you were doing lat pulldowns.
2. Breathe in very deeply and pull your stomach in as hard as you can. Try to press your abdominal muscles against your spine.
3. Next, exhale all the air as you perform a downward crunch movement. Tighten your abdominal muscles really hard and try to really 'cramp' them. Hold the bottom position for 1 to 2 seconds and consciously tighten your abs hard. It's only a small movement, but if you do it right, your abs will burn like fire.
4. Do sets of 10 to 12 repetitions as often as you like.

This exercise is excellent for getting control of your abs.

Tip: The "healthy" practice that makes you chubby

It won't make you slim and it's not really healthy. And it definitely doesn't detoxify anything.

From TC Luoma

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-the-healthy-practice-that-makes-you-pudgy/

The unhealthy health fad

I can't watch it anymore. Chubby-cheeked women everywhere with rolls of insulin-resistant fat on their hips are lining up at some juice bar, palavering about how well detoxed their livers will be, how their chubby bodies will suddenly be Wonder Woman slim, and how Adele songs will magically blast from the iCloud as soon as they walk into a room when their juice fast is over.

Listen, juice fasting will detox absolutely nothing and it won't make you slim either - and it's not even as healthy as it's always claimed to be.

The detox myth

Somehow, people with no more scientific knowledge than a brown trout have started to believe that their bodies need to be detoxified and that this can be achieved through juice fasting. It's a nice idea, but there are absolutely no scientific facts to support this in any way.

That being said, your liver and kidneys were perfectly designed to do this on their own.

The health myth

These naïve people believe that juice fasting allows the body to absorb nutrients better. They think that all the unprocessed fiber in whole fruit will interfere with the digestive process. That's probably why a good percentage of these women haven't been to the bathroom since the last full moon.

Humans have evolved to process fiber throughout our evolutionary history. This is why we have bacteria in our intestines. Apart from that, fiber is essential for health - and as already mentioned, also for bowel movements

The "juice fasting will make you slim" myth

Fruit and vegetables contain comparatively few calories, right? So what's the difference between eating whole fruits and whole vegetables and drinking their juices? Well, there is a big difference. You might eat one or at most two apples, oranges or mangoes at a time, but would you eat four, five or more? That's exactly what happens when you drink juice (one piece of fruit might make a quarter cup of juice).

Secondly, all the fiber is pulverized by the blades of the blender (or even completely removed in the case of pressed juice). This means that there is nothing left to slow down absorption. Blood sugar levels rise rapidly and the same applies to insulin levels. Insulin inhibits the breakdown of fats. In addition, if you juice fast often enough, your body will eventually become insulin resistant - and that's the first step on the road to type II diabetes.

Last but not least, the definition of a good diet includes protein and fat - not just finely chopped fruit and vegetable carbohydrates.

Recommendations

• If your diet is suboptimal, you may be able to have an occasional juice to increase your intake of fruits and vegetables. However, it would be better to eat whole fruits and vegetables.
• If possible, add a scoop or two of protein to your juice to slow down absorption and make the finished product a little more of a nutritionally acceptable meal.
• Never try to detox using a juice cleanse. It's just completely ridiculous.

Tip: Stop worrying about this "toxic" chemical

No need to panic. This dreaded compound won't turn you into a ballerina. Here's the real story.

By TC Luoma

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-stop-worrying-about-this-toxic-chemical/

BPA: Safe or not?

Avoid canned food. Don't drink from plastic containers. And for God's sake, don't hold that plastic phone up to your face. They all contain bisphenol A (BPA), the estrogen-mimicking chemical that can affect your brain, testicles and fetal prostate and possibly raise blood pressure.

Well, as it turns out, all of this advice, which I admit to spreading myself, is quite wrong. BPA won't feminize men and it won't do any of those other horrible things either. Honestly, it's pretty harmless.

The birth of a "monster"

People started freaking out a few years ago when it was reported that BPA is a powerful estrogen-mimicking compound and that it's in about 70% of all food can linings, as well as water bottles, medicine boxes, CDs, and pretty much anything made of plastic.

Unfortunately, hardly anyone has taken the time to look at the fine print of the research. Yes, BPA binds to the estrogen receptor and is indeed found in many plastic containers, but it binds poorly to the receptors.

Oestradiol binds perfectly to the oestrogen receptor. Its binding capacity is 1:1, whereas BPA has a binding capacity of 10,000:1. This means that for every 10,000 BPA molecules in your bloodstream, only one will bind to an oestrogen receptor.

Compare this to the soy isoflavone genistein, which has an estrogen binding ratio of 250:1. The irony is that genistein - which is naturally found in soy proteins - is sold as a healthy supplement that can supposedly treat prostate and breast cancer and fight heart disease.

If genistein - a powerful estrogen-mimicking product - is a "health supplement," why is BPA, which has a much weaker estrogen effect, somehow toxic?

More reasons not to fear BPA

1. The original study that led to the fear of BPA used doses far higher than what the average person is exposed to on a daily basis.
2. Even if BPA were a problem, the liver would break it down and prevent it from docking to estrogen receptors.
3. BPA is excreted in urine or bile acid 5 to 7 hours after consumption.

It's a good idea to avoid unnecessary chemicals of any kind, but let's focus on the chemicals that are truly problematic. BPA is not one of them.

Tip: Perform this instead of shrugs (shoulder raises) for a stronger trapezius

An exercise combined with a specific technique can be the key to increased trapezius strength and mass.

By Chris Colucci

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-for-stronger-traps-do-this-instead-of-shrugs/

Ask most exercisers where their trapezius is and they'll point to mountains of muscle between their neck and shoulders. But that's kind of like saying that the U.S. makes up the entire North American continent. It's only partly true.

The trapezius starts at the base of the skull, runs across the upper and middle back and runs laterally to the shoulder blades. To get a better mental picture of this, imagine the following: If the trapezius were on the front of your body, it would start near your mouth, run along your neck and down over both front shoulder muscle heads, covering most of your pecs and part of your upper abs.

And you think that simple barbell shoulder raises (shrugs) are enough to train a muscle of this size? Wrong. A muscle that covers such a large area and crosses several joints can never be trained efficiently with just one exercise.

Since the trapezius crosses the upper back and shoulder blades, it must be trained with a horizontal movement - and not just with shoulder raises, which primarily train the upper part of the trapezius.

And since the main function of the shoulder blade joint is to stabilize the upper body and control posture, training specifically for this purpose is the best way to achieve strength and health of this joint, which is often the basis for training for muscle mass.

Train face pulls

One of the best ways to achieve this level of stability is to train the lower trapezius with paused repetitions, longer contractions or an overall increase in time under tension. For the next few weeks, start each back and shoulder workout with 2 to 3 sets of face pulls of 8 to 10 repetitions.

To really get the most out of this exercise, the top pulley of the cable pull should be at eye level or slightly higher so that the direction of movement is slightly downward, which will further minimize upper trapezius involvement.

Exaggerate the movement of the shoulder blades during the extension and hold each maximum contraction for 3 to 5 seconds. This makes this exercise particularly efficient at building static strength, endurance and stability.

And don't be surprised if that underlying shoulder pain you've been trying to ignore disappears thanks to a stronger and healthier upper back.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-the-14-minute-fat-incinerator/

Terrible Tabata

A Mukelpump helps build muscle (and it looks great too, of course). Here are two ways to get the best pump of your life.

We call it a pump, scientists call it hyperanemia or cell swelling. Aside from feeling great, the pump also has significant muscle-building effects. A hydrated cell stimulates protein synthesis and inhibits protein breakdown. Chasing the pump also increases the activity of the satellite cells and the ability of the cells to expand further.

Simply using a muscle leads to increased local blood flow, but there are also specific training techniques that can create a pump that literally bursts through the skin.

Tension and speed

The formula for generating hyperanemia is simple yet effective. As part of your workout, use lighter weights, higher reps and tempos that increase time under tension.

Try the following

Load a SZ bar with your 12 to 15 RM weight for curls (your max weight for 12 to 15 reps). Perform 12 to 15 reps at this tempo: Lower the weight over a 3-second period and then take three seconds to lift again. Avoid lowering the weight to the fully extended position and tense your biceps hard for one second in the contracted position. Your biceps will be pumped up with blood.

Example for the lower body: On a leg curl machine, use a weight with which you can perform 15 repetitions. Perform 10 to 12 repetitions without lowering the weight completely to maintain tension in the leg flexors. Take 4 seconds to lower, pause briefly at the lowest position and move the weight up within 2 to 3 seconds.

Prepare for an almost obscene flow of blood to your hamstrings. Yes, you will do fewer reps than you normally could with this weight, but doing the exercise slowly and keeping the muscle under tension instead of breaking the tension at the highest and lowest point will make your muscles ache. Exercising in this way will not only increase blood flow to the muscles you are training, but will also generate a powerful occlusion effect.

The occlusion effect

Occlusion refers to the reduction in the availability of oxygen to the target muscles. If you've ever seen someone training with a bandage around their upper arm or thigh, that's exactly what they were trying to achieve.

However, you can also achieve this without bandaging your limbs, which is helpful if you're training a muscle that you can't bandage, such as pecs, shoulders or back. By manipulating the tempo and range of motion in a given exercise, you can achieve a similar effect.

Try the following

Start your chest workout with dumbbell incline bench presses with a slight incline. To achieve an occlusion effect in your chest and pump a lot of blood into this area, try using the following rules for tempo, form and range of motion.

Allow 3 to 4 seconds to lower the weight until your elbows are exactly parallel to the floor. Pause in this position for 1 to 2 seconds. Move the weight up in 3 seconds. Rotate your hands as you press so that your palms are facing each other at the highest point of the movement. Stop the movement about 5 centimetres before your arms are fully extended. This maintains tension in the chest muscles and creates an occlusion effect.

Tip: 3 squat and deadlift challenges

Build strength. Develop endurance. Show power. Does that sound good? See if you can survive these tough tests and workouts.

By Eric Bach

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-3-squat-and-deadlift-challenges/

Barbell squats with your bodyweight x 50

The 50 repetition set is mental and physical warfare. Performed once or twice a month, this test will break through training plateaus and build serious muscle mass on your legs.

• The execution: After warming up, load a barbell with approximately your body weight, put on some music and perform as many squats as you can. A good target would be 50. This test is brutal. Use a safety rack, get a training partner to help you and plan extra recovery afterwards.
• How to get better: This test is easier for smaller exercisers. It's simple physics. But regardless of your height, the best way to increase your endurance and relative strength is to get brutally strong. Focus on increasing your max weight for one repetition and then add one or two descending sets of high reps with your bodyweight every other week to give your legs a workout.

Front squats with your 5RM weight for classic squats

Front squats are just as good as classic squats at building a steel hard body and amazing lower body strength. Front squats improve posture and build upper body mass as your elbows stay elevated and your thoracic extensors push double shifts to maintain position.

With classic squats, we've all seen what happens when someone rounds their back, yelps like a kicked puppy and ruins their back. There are no such problems with front squats. When you round your back, the bar falls forward and the exercise ends without any damage to your lower back.

The problem is that we are all naturally stronger in classic squats, but most exercisers are embarrassingly weak in front squats due to a lack of strength in the front core and thoracic extensors.

A good goal is to perform a single front squat with the same amount of weight that you can perform 5 classic squats with. Here's the simple math: take your max weight for classic squats and multiply it by 0.85. This equals - or at least comes close to - your 5RM weight.

For example, if your maximum weight for classic squats is 200 kilos and you multiply this value by 0.85, you will end up with 170 kilos. Your goal is then to perform a front squat with 170 kilos or to work towards this weight.

Sadiv sets for deadlifts

Sadiv sets are an advanced training method designed to increase your deadlift performance, test your mental willpower and build massive amounts of muscle mass in your posterior chain. Sadiv sets are a high-volume, high-intensity monster of a deadlift training session. Beginners or the timid need not even attempt this. (Don't try this until you're able to deadlift 1.5 to 2 times your bodyweight.

Here's what you should do:

• Set a timer for 12 minutes and load the bar with 60% of your 1RM weight.
• Perform as many reps as you can during the 12 minute time period, aiming for at least 20 reps. If you can't do 20 clean reps, reduce the weight.
• Perform each repetition as a single repetition, putting the weight down after each repetition and pulling with perfect form. This means keeping your hips back, your back flat and your chin down, pressing your heels into the floor.
• Perform each repetition with maximum speed from the floor - propulsion from the legs is key.

Once exhaustion sets in, it's important to treat each repetition as a max attempt and keep your core engaged. Can you hit 20 reps with good form?

Tip: Never do this with your bottled water

A common practice turns relatively safe plastic bottled water into a chemical time bomb. Here's what you need to know.

By TC Luoma

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-dont-ever-do-this-with-your-bottled-water/

It's no secret that the plastic used to make water bottles is packed with chemicals, most of which stay trapped inside the bottle. However, when you expose these bottles to sunlight or heat, chemicals start to leach into the water. This is not good - which is especially true for those exercisers who keep their water bottles in the bottle cage of their car during scorching hot summer days.

The problem

Phthalates are chemicals that first attracted attention in Puerto Rico when scientists began observing strange sexual abnormalities in wildlife. It became even more concerning when a larger number of Puerto Rican girls under the age of 8 began to develop breasts and other signs of puberty.

As it turned out, these phthalates are compounds that mimic the effects of estrogen. They are found in garden hoses, children's toys, medical tubing and many other plastic items. They are also found in vinyl flooring, solvents, lubricating oils, raincoats, soaps, shampoos, hairspray, nail polish and possibly even water bottles.

In other words, they are everywhere.

Phthalates may not be too much of a problem in water bottles, as public agencies do not believe that bottles are made with phthalates. However, there is a concern that the chemical could enter the water through some route in bottling plants. When phthalates enter the human body, they are also converted into metabolites and excreted in the urine and bile. Regardless, you could look at what happened in Puerto Rico and decide to play it safe - especially since the plastic used in water bottles is also filled with other chemicals, many of which may have unknown effects.

A few sensible precautions

Most water bottles appear to be made of polyethylene terephthalate, which you can recognize by the PET or PETE label on the bottom of the bottle. (Although the chemical name has the word "phthalates" in it, this material does not contain phthalates.) These bottles are probably safe as long as they are not stored in warm or hot temperatures such as in your car's bottle cage on hot summer days.

In these circumstances, chemicals such as antimony could leach into the water, which is a potentially toxic material. No one is really sure what the effects of these chemicals could be in the long term. These unanswered questions call for a few precautions:

• Transport water in glass or metal containers.
• Store your water away from heat.
• Consider tap water, which is probably safer and definitely much cleaner.

Tip: Don't neglect light weights for muscle building

There's a good chance you're not training light enough to build muscle at an optimal rate. Excuse me? Check out this hotly debated new study.

By Mitch Calvert

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-dont-neglect-light-weights-for-muscle-growth/

New study: Training with light weights leads to big gains

When it comes to building muscle mass, conventional wisdom suggests that you should train with heavy weights. However, a new Canadian study claims that you can achieve the same effects by moving lighter weights with more repetitions. Scientists at McMaster University say that your muscles will gain strength and mass as long as you train to the point of muscle failure.

"It's time to forget the section in your exercise physiology textbook that says moving light weights only leads to more endurance and that you need to move heavy weights to become more muscular," says Dr. Stuart Phillips, one of the study's co-authors, who says this study disproves both of those widely held beliefs.

"Even with a lighter weight, you can reach exhaustion...all your muscle knows is that it's hard to recruit all those muscle fibers to generate that force. Your muscle can't interpret the difference between fatigue induced by heavy vs. light weights differently," Phillips adds.

The study

In his previous work, Phillips came to the same conclusions but with untrained men, leading critics to argue that untrained subjects would build muscle regardless of their training program.

This time, Phillips and his co-author Robert Morton recruited 49 healthy, strong men. They had been training with weights for at least four years and had consistently attended the gym three times a week beforehand.

These subjects were divided into two groups. One group trained with 50% of their 1RM weight and sets of 20 to 25 repetitions. The second group used heavier weights in the range of 90% of their 1RM weight for sets of 8 to 12 repetitions. The result after 12 weeks? Both groups had achieved nearly identical gains in muscle mass and muscle fiber size, which are key markers of strength.

Don't get this wrong: sets of 25 reps to muscle failure are no joke. The study doesn't suggest that you can do as many reps as possible with the pink lady dumbbells and achieve similar results to heavy squats with sets of 8 reps. But training with low weights and high reps could be a balm for your aching joints - and your muscles won't melt away like you once thought.

And what about hormones?

West and Phillips previously concluded that endogenous increases in levels of anabolic hormones such as growth hormone, IGF-1 and testosterone have little or no correlation with hypertrophy and strength gains. The present study seems to support this conclusion, as no such correlation was found when comparing the hormonal responses of both groups.

What about motor unit activation?

As Brad Schoenfeld has previously written, Henneman's size principle, which states that motor units are recruited in a specific order based on their size - small motor units are recruited under conditions of low force demands and larger motor units come into play when force demands increase (heavy weights) - does not appear to be the factor here.

Like Schoenfeld, the argument for heavy weights does not account for the fact that fatigue could stimulate growth and that its onset can directly affect motor unit recruitment. If you move a relatively light weight, motor unit recruitment is lower at the beginning of the set than if you start with a heavier weight, but this evens out towards the end of the set.

In addition, Dr. Jim Potvin's model of motor unit recruitment provides evidence that fast contracting motor units are recruited even during low intensity efforts as you approach exhaustion.

What about strength gains?

The study suggests that if an increase in 1RM strength is the primary goal, training with a focus on heavier weights either consistently or periodically may be necessary for optimal strength gains, which is consistent with the general opinion of the strength sports community. So if you're trying to increase your max weight on the bench press, then you should definitely keep training heavy bench presses.

The truth lies in the middle

Training with high and low repetitions (and low and high weights respectively) provides a comparable stimulus for hypertrophy and strength when resistance training is performed to muscle failure.

The study suggests that training with heavier and lighter weights should not be mutually exclusive, but that both variations should be used during different training blocks.

Sourcey: t-nation.com/training/tip-2-ways-to-get-a-skin-splitting-pump/

By Alex Mullan