PTC NEWSLETTER
# 140
INDIVIDUALS
In issue 139, I set down some rules as to why you’re not growing. Now I’ll show you why some rules are made to be broken.
All of you would have read about Fat Dave, either on forums, newsletter or maybe you are unlucky enough to have met him. For those of you that have trained with him, I’m sorry.
Now Fat Dave made excellent progress when he first started, he worked hard, never missed sessions. He is the kind of guy that needs lots of training. He thrives in it. When he starts missing sessions, his focus drops, as do his lifts. He is one who definitely does well with lots of training. It’s why I get on his back about missing sessions.
After the Vics, where I was disappointed with his results, he missed some sessions, so I kicked him off our team. He trained alone. That is the second biggest punishment I can give him, the biggest is booting him out of PTC. After a few sessions training alone, I let him back in and explained to him that if he doesn’t train when he’s supposed to, he’ll regress, and he pays too much money to not improve.
He has knuckled down and only missed a few Saturday sessions of late, due to work according to him. The Saturday sessions for him are speed work on the bench and general repetition work.
Mondays he does PPP squat program, Tuesday he does high rep squatting, usually 20 reppers going up to 120kg, this week he did 160kg x 8. Wednesday its PPP bench press, Thursday he does Olympic lifting with Max, front squats, cleans, push press, jerks and hang cleans. Friday its PPP deadlift day, and Saturdays its speed bench and repetition work.
In the last issue I explained that training too often is bad. Here is why there is no “one size fits all”. At the Vics, Dave totalled 485kg. He squatted 175kg, benched 100kg and deadlifted 210kg. Respectable lifts, but he is capable of much more. He was 25kg heavier than Max and totalled less, that’s not acceptable.
So with his training back on line, he is approaching far more respectable numbers. This week alone, he has squatted 180kg easily, benched 110kg and deadlifted 220kg, thats 510kg, a 25kg increase. He will do more than this on the day, if he keeps up his training. I can see him doing 520kg at least. His squat and dead aren’t maxed yet, his bench maybe.
I’ll report later on about how he goes, but a 30kg increase will please me. Nutrition and weight loss is a waste of time with Dave, that’s how he’s going to look as long as his ass points to the ground, I don’t even discuss it with him anymore.
Now will this approach work with James. Absolutely not, he is 61 years old and simply would never recover. I even have James doing little assistance work, his gains will come from improving form. His assistance work is simply more of the same lifts, just with lighter weights and higher reps. He drops the weight on the squat, and just does another 5-10 sets of squats, and so on. For deadlifts he does a few sets standing on a block. This approach led to James deadlifting a really easy 200kg last week.
Dim is another who couldn’t train like Dave. Dim’s issue is eating enough food to recover. He is slighter than Dave, a Hippo is slighter than Dave, so he basically sticks to the PPP template for work and assistance work. We did really overload him on Monday, really heavy work, and he got crook. It may not be related, his immune system may have been down, but the workout was so hard, it wouldn’t surprise me if it played a role. Dims squat PB is 140kg, and I had him squatting 170kg for reps, with my assistance. It’s the first time I tried this with Dim, as it’s very taxing.
Max can train every day, but exercise selection needs to be carefully monitored, as does weight/reps. Max has a strong work ethic and can easily overdo it. We save this deliberate overloading to early on in a program, and stick to 3-4 days a week as the contest approaches.
Nina enjoys twice a day training, and is doing KB cardio sessions before lunch with a group of girls I have training. She still only lifts 4 days a week, but may do 6 sessions. She needs the full day off to recover.
Sean is one who definitely does better with every day training. Sean has no plans to compete at powerlifting, he simply wants to be hard and fit. His goal requires moderate weights done very often, he simply doesn’t thrive on 3 days a week powerlifting training.
So as you can see by these few examples, everybody is different and may need to alter their training to achieve their best results. You still need to focus on basic compound exercises, that’s a non negotiable, but frequency, intensity and assistance work will vary.
How do you know how much work you can do? Experiment. Use the mirror or strength progression to judge.
For a competing powerlifter, a 40-50kg progression each year means you’re going okay. If that doesn’t sound like much to you, consider this. If Max was to add 40kg per year to his first total of 467.5kg done in May 2010, by the time he hits the open section of age 24, his total will be 667.5kg as a junior. That’s 77.5kg higher than the current Australian record, 67.5kg higher than the Men’s Open World Record. Small steps equals big totals.
If you were to only gain 5kg of muscle each year, with a starting weight of 85kg, in 5 years you would be the biggest muscular guy you know, regardless of your current size. If you doubt me, go and buy 25kg of lean mince, now pack it on your body, watch how much muscle that is.
Finding how often you can lift, and what you can recover from and grow, is the best thing you can do for yourself in the gym.
Remember though, this will keep changing. At one point Max could squat 3-5 times week, as the weight was much lighter. Once or twice a week is now tops.
If you truly want to speed up your progress, and train more often, you simply need to do everything outside the gym perfectly. Every champion lifter I read about, the thing they all have in common is discipline. They don’t miss meals, they don’t miss training sessions.
Eat 6-8 small meals a day, get 8 hours sleep, and don’t drink alcohol. Do this, and you’ll find you can maybe add another session a week. Even if you can’t, you’ll at least know that you’re giving yourself every opportunity to progress at the fastest rate possible for you.
To all you wanna be bodybuilders that are just starting out, stick to the basics and throw your mags out. I have an interesting story to tell from a current mag I just finished reading, maybe next week.
Stay strong, stay raw
Markos
