The second installment of my blogs geared toward the hypertrophy-challenged (read part 1 on how to grow your legs here) focuses on the beloved pectorals. Or chest, if you’re anatomically-challenged. Even though almost everyone prioritizes their chest by training it first in the week (Monday is international bench press day every week, after all), few …
When most people complain about a lack of muscle growth, they talk about their arms or their chest. MAYBE their shoulders. Typical beach muscle stuff. But if someone complains that their legs won’t grow, you know they’re a real one. That they truly care about training hard and pushing themselves. Because growing tree trunk legs …
Having long arms may put you at a disadvantage for benching pressing big weights, but with hard work and smart training, you can still develop elite-level pressing power. Kate (shown below benching 150×3) is a great example: long arms and built to deadlift, but has worked incredibly hard to become a strong bencher. These tips …
Here’s a fun little triceps finisher I like to use with my lifters on bench press day. We snagged this one from some of Joe DeFranco’s old NFL combine prep videos and our lifters love (to hate) it. After your main bench press work, take a weight you could lift for 6-10 reps, and then perform: …
“Tuck your elbows” is the bench press equivalent to “knees out” in the squat – not technically incorrect, but a pretty useless cue overall. It’s not actually tucked elbows we’re looking for, but rather a vertical forearm with elbows directly under the bar the whole time. Over-cueing a lifter to tuck the elbows can create …
Powerlifters are known for using supplementary exercises to target weak points in their competition lifts. If you struggle with a hard sticking point in your squat, bench press and deadlift, it’s not as simple as continuing to practice those movements; it’s often best to use a close variation of the competition lift that further increases …
So whether you’re a novice, intermediate or advanced lifter, there’s a productive way to implement open-ended sets in your training. A simple rule: if you’re a rookie, stay lighter with any sets approaching failure, and if you’re more experienced, you can push a bit closer to failure with heavier weights.
Like any sport, powerlifting lends itself to arguing about methods and principles. It’s a sport where many methods work, some work better than others, and coaches and lifters will fight to the death to defend their preferred methods. That said, block periodization, a specific style of strength training planning, has both its super fans and …
Core training for powerlifters should be just like anything else you do in training: specific to the athlete’s goal. In this case, the goal of powerlifting is to lift as much weight as possible for 1 rep in the squat, bench press and deadlift. So should a powerlifter’s core training regimen be similar to that …
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DELOAD Most lifters know you SHOULD deload, but few understand what actually happens when you back off the throttle. It helps to understand the relationship between fitness, fatigue and performance. Fitness: An athlete’s ability to perform a specific physical task (i.e., a powerlifter is “fit” to lift heavy weights for low …
