Having ditched Programming to Win’s Powerlifting specific program, I’ve chosen to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Eric Helms as he is well educated, articulate, evidence-based, and a drug free competitive bodybuilder and powerlifter. He is my height and while a young whippersnapper, closest to the goals I hope to achieve.
- Note: I will never, under any circumstances, step on a stage in a thong and pose.
I watched a video “lecture” he gave about training specifically for increases in muscle size and was impressed with his evolutionary take on the subject. In short, we are adaptive organisms built to survive. Functional adaptations throughout our evolutionary history have allowed us as a species to be fruitful and multiply. Larger muscles per se are not a functional adaptation. What are functional adaptations are improvements in muscular endurance and strength. Actual increases in the size of our skeletal muscle are a byproduct of those two functional adaptations. Our training therefore, should be focused on improving muscular endurance and strength, both of which are obtained through progressive overload with resistance training, manipulating volume, intensity and frequency of the exposure to that resistance. It’s a mindset that I think helps to clarify what we should actually be doing in the gym to achieve our goals.
His sample workouts are just guidelines to that end, and I started at the intermediate level with a focus on hypertrophy vs. strength because the hypertrophy focus uses more variety in lifts as well as rep ranges to improve, you guessed it, both muscular endurance and strength. The end result should be a stronger human with improved work capacity, with the aesthetically pleasing byproduct of being swole.
Ultimately I am in pursuit of a respectable powerlifting total because I do want to compete, but as I’ve discussed ad nauseum, I need to increase the amount of muscle mass I carry on my frame to be able to make any significant progress in my current strength levels, so I need to improve work capacity by doing more volume. The easiest way to accumulate more volume is by spending about 3/4 of my training time in higher rep ranges to allow me to get that volume without beating myself into the ground, which is what happens when I try to accumulate volume exclusively at higher intensity lifting.
Using a rather unique take on the upper/lower split, he nicely organizes the training week into 5 workouts with two emphasizing the higher intensity strength component, and the other 3 emphasizing the endurance component. It’s pretty slick.
Day One was lower body and I selected the power lifts as part of the exercise selection to not lose the progress I’ve made in improved technique and motor patterns.
- Low Bar Squat
247.5 x 5 x 3
- Sumo Deadlift
305 x 5 x 3
- SSB lunges
85 x 7 x 3
- Leg Extensions
1 my rep set of 90 x 17, followed by 4 sets of 4
- Calf raises, both straight leg and seated.
It was a good amount of volume, with the Squats and Deadlifts at roughly 80% of my 1RM. The goal was to use a weight that would let me to get all sets and reps completed at roughly an 8-9 RPE, so using my trusty training log, I took the last weight I got 6 reps with and used that as my starting point. Next week I will increase the weight to get sets of 4, and the following week increase it again to get sets of 3. After a deload week, I will increase the weight I used for my 5-rep sets and repeat the process.
He’s got good progression schemes outlined in his plan, with suggestions on what to do when stalled, including finally moving toward more advanced programming when I can’t keep making the increases and hitting the rep targets.
At my current stage of adaptation, I think I’ll end up in the advanced stages of programming fairly soon because I will hit my voluntary strength limits as I always do, and continuing to push for improvements in short time intervals just won’t be possible. I’ve never really done a fully periodized training plan, whether it be block periodization or some other method, but the idea is to lengthen the training period to allow progress to occur at a rate more suitable for a body that’s been trained to handle moving heavy loads and has thus built up a resistance to the stimulus. That’s how our bodies handle the stress of lifting heavy things: it improves our ability to handle the work again in the future, and also develops protection methods to prevent future endeavors from being stressful in the first place. That’s how training programs stop working. The body is prepared for the stress and no further adaptations are necessary.
Today’s Swole workout will be upper body, and while I am looking forward to it, the inflamed rotator cuff muscles in my right shoulder make me nervous. I may have to alter the movements I use to prevent further aggravation, but I’ll blow that bridge up when I get to it.
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