Brawn – An Abbreviated, Minimalist Training Routine
In my opinion, of all that has ever been written on the topic of weight training, the most comprehensive and most useful overall to the the vast majority of the population comes from Stuart McRobert. His two major works are “Brawn” and “Beyond Brawn”, both of which are essential primers in the basics of weight training, detailing everything you need to know about gaining slabs of solid muscle. His ideas of abbreviated training using basic compound exercises using a few sets per exercise, at most, twice weekly would actually promote muscle growth! The principles found in Brawn and Beyond Brawn are not a fad, gimmick or dogma and don’t pretend to be and easy quick-fix “get ripped in 6 weeks” bs.
Those like myself, who believe that the old maxim “less is more” holds true when it comes to weight training (and many other things), will love the simplicity of the bare-bones minimalist routines laid out in his books as “frameworks”. The reasoning here, is that one seldom needs more than one exercise per bodypart and when using heavy compounds – squat, bench, rows, deadlifts, cleans, press etc. Using these types of movements you actually get the most efficient workout by hitting several muscle groups with one exercise. McRobert’s approach aims at using the most productive movements, using them as the core or your workout routine. The typical routine of his uses 2-3 compounds per workout, along with some “accessory” movements, few overall work sets, and sufficient rest between sessions – fortified with proper rest, nutrition and lifestyle management.
The approach presented by McRobert is contrary to the “conventional wisdom” promoted by routines in the major muscle magazines on shelves today: the obligatory 6 day per week “muscle building” workout. The training reality for the vast majority of the public is about as far as you can get from these sorts of workout routines. Sadly, go into any gym and you can see the vast majority of trainers who never progress from year to year, all because they are to afraid to go against this conventional thinking of the “bodypart-a-day” 5-6-7 day a week routines. They are slowly running their growth potential into the ground by following the advice of steroid flooded, genetically gifted bodybuilders. Sure, there are those who might benefit from a high volume, high frequency routine for a limited period of time – everything “works” for a while. And these routines might initially look like they work for a beginner, for whom, everything works due to their disuse atrophy, but even this progress will be short lived as the body adapts to the stress. Too many trainers have succumbed to the “more is better” propaganda that typifies so much of our culture today
the core compound exercises:
Squat
Bench Press
Chins
Seated shoulder press
Deadlift or stiff deadlift
Dips
add some accessory exercises for:
Calves
Core
Rotator Cuff
Bicep
Forearm/Grip
Neck
Put it all together and it looks like:
Monday
Squat – back or front 3×5
Bench press 3×5
Chins (preferably weighted) 3×8-10
Standing calf raises 2-3×10-12
Planks 2×60 second holds
Crunches 2×15
Neck plate raises and bridges
Thursday
Seated shoulder press or overhead BB press 3×5
Deadlift or Romanian deadlift or leg press 3×8-12
Dips (preferably weighted) 3×8-12
BB Curls 3 8-12
YTWL(rotator cuff)
Forearm/grip work
Note: add 2 days a week ofGPP, cardio, dynamic mobility, stretching to this and you will be looking at becoming the total package!
Upper-Lower Training Split
By far the most popular way people have split their routines is with a so-called “A/B” split. The most common of these is a classic “upper-lower” split with the shoulder girdle and arms being hit one day and then the lower body the next session. Some of the biggest advantages of training like this are that you have to most balanced routine as far as training the legs as much as the upper body. Even with the fabulous push/pull/legs split, you still devote only 1/3 of your training to legs. Another thing is that you have the option of hitting each bodypart twice a week should you choose to train 4x a week. Two of the most popular upper-lower splits are Lyle McDonald’s ‘Generic Bulking Routine” and Dante Trudel’s ‘Doggcrapp training“.
Lyle McDonald’s “Generic Bulking Routine” is a classic approach that combines strength with hypertrophy, using compound movements with a moderate overall volume per session and reps that fall in the middle between training for strength and for size. According to McDonald, the routine is “trying to strike a volume between the issues of frequency (for gene expression and protein synthesis), recovery (failure training can burn people out) and progression (I want to see the poundages going up consistently over the cycle). ”
Lyle McDonald’s ‘Generic Bulking Routine
Mon: Lower
Squat: 3-4X6-8/3′ (3-4 sets of 6-8 with a 3′ rest)
SLDL or leg curl: 3-4X6-8/3′
Leg press: 2-3X10-12/2′
Another leg curl: 2-3X10-12/2′
Calf raise: 3-4X6-8/3′
Seated calf: 2-3X10-12/2′
Tue: Upper
Flat bench: 3-4X6-8/3′
Row: 3-4X6-8/3′
Incline bench or shoulder press: 2-3X10-12/2′
Pulldown/chin: 2-3X10-12/2′
Triceps: 1-2X12-15/1.5′
Biceps: 1-2X12-15/1.5′
Thu/Fri the workouts are to be repeated with substitutions for some of the exercises. As far as volume, if you are an older trainer or do not have the recovery, he recommends to cut the volume back to 2-3X6-8 and 1-2X10-12, or consider making this a 3 day a week routine, M/W/F: week 1 (upper Mon+Fri, lower Wed) and week 2 (lower Mon+Fri, upper Wed), thus A-B-A, B-A-B etc. One thing that McDonald argues that makes this routine so effective for both gene expression and protein synthesis is that each muscle group is hit every 5th day, which is optimum. The big advantage that this routine over the one below is that it is a heck of a lot easier on the nervous system and also, the idea of training the biceps with upper body makes more sense than it does in DC training, where he has you do biceps with lower body. Problem with that is that when you add in all the rowing and chins/pulldowns on upper day, and then factor in hitting biceps on legs day, those little bicep muscles get pounded 4x a week. Not good for my epicondylitis!
DoggCrapp Training
Dante Trudel’s routine uses a similar split, with some differences, the key ones being extreme fascial stretching and using rest-pause. It is really a program for advanced trainers. Beginners and intermediates will do better on Lyle McDonald’s generic bulking routine. DC training hits each bodypart with more frequency than the average once a week bodypart split, but uses less volume, with only one max set per each exercise.
The key principles of DC training are
§ Maximal weights
§ Multiple set rest pausing, with 2-3 drop sets on the final, heavy set per bodypart
§ Low volume higher frequency, hitting each bodypart every fifth day
§ Extreme fascial stretching
§ Carb restriction
§ Low intensity cardio
§ High protein diet with between 1.5 to 2.0 grams per pound of body weight
§ Dual factor “blasting” and “cruising” phases
Dual factor cycling is also built into the routine with “blast” (intensification for 6-12 weeks) and “cruise” (accumulation for 7-14 days) phases. In the first phase you essentially go all out, which is very hard on the nervous system and then deload for two weeks to allow for recovery. Trudel has you pick three of your best compound exercises for each bodypart and cycle between them through each workout, doing a different one of each of the 3 exercises you’ve chosen per workout. Workout three times a week in A-B-A, B-A-B fashion. The structure of the split is:
Workout A
chest
shoulders
triceps
back width – chins, pull downs
back thickness – rows, rack deadlifts
Workout B
biceps
forearms
calves
hams
quads
Friday: repeat of Monday (different exercises)
Monday: repeat of Wednesday (different exercises)
Rest-Pause Training
“Rest-pause” training is a brutal method of training to failure popularized my the lateMike Mentzer25 years or so ago (FWIW, Mentzer wasn’t the first to speak of rest-pause,Peary Radertalked about rest pause training in one of his Iron Man editorials in the late 40s). it is essentially a way of training beyond failure with weights about 85% 1RM like this
Set 1 x 6 reps
Rack the weight or lockout and rest 15-30 seconds, breathe deeply and slowly
Set 2 x 4 reps
Rack the weight or lockout and rest 15-30 seconds, breathe deeply and slowly
Set 3 x 3 reps
Extreme Stretching
After each rest pause set you perform a weighted stretch for each muscle group with resistance for a minute or so, ie, using a heavy dumbbell held behind the head in the bottom position of a dumbbell extension, after doing triceps – or holding a heavy pair of dumbbells in a flye position after hitting chest. It hurts and its brutally effective for recovery and stretching the thick fascia that surrounds the muscle, arguably allowing it more room to grow inside it.
For What its Worth
I have made the best gains on these sorts of upper-lower splits, going back and forth between them 4x a week and push-pull-legs 3-4x a week. The routine below is the one that has always worked best for me:
Workout A
chest – flat bench
shoulders – overhead barbell press
triceps – weighted dips
back – 45 degree chest supported rows
biceps – barbell body drag curls
Workout B
hams – Romanian deadlift
quads – back squats
calves – Standing calf raises
forearms – grip machine
core – planks, crunches and roman chair side bends
The parameters I use which suit my recovery best at the moment are (not counting warmup sets, which total about 3 progressive ones on each exercise): 2-3X6-8/3′
Anthony Ditillo Training Routines
Even before Stuart McRobert, there was physcial culture writer Anthony Ditillo, who was most known for his articles in Peary Rader’s original Ironman magazine from 1968 to 1985. More proof that there is nothing new under the sun is to be found in his sagely writings, things like the importance of high fat diets in cutting, the dangers of overtraining, using compound muti-joint exercises etc.Charles Poliquin, one of the world’s premier strength coaches, fromtestosteroneclaimed the book, ‘The Development of Physical Strength’, (a classic that was published in 1982) “I bought it from Iron Man magazine after reading several of his articles. I thought his approach was logical and full of common sense; and more importantly, it worked! It is the only book I have read more than once, and I actually bought a second copy after I misplaced my original one. I always tell my interns to get their own copy. It is a gem.” And this is coming from one of the greatest trainers around today!
Sadly, Anthony Ditillo passed away almost a decade ago, but his writings and routines live on. A few of them have been collected below.
Anthony Ditillo Training Routines
Routine #1
This full schedule should be repeated 2 times per week. However, if you want, you could increase it to three times per week, but this is up to your ability to handle work.
Monday and Thursday:
a.) Squat – One set of 10 reps, as a warmup, followed by five sets of five reps using all the weight possible for each set.
b.) Deadlift – Same as Squat.
c.) Bench Press – Same as Squat.
d.) Bentover Row – Same as Squat.
Routine No. 2.
This kind of training routine is more severe and that is why you only do 2 movements per training day. You will be working these 2 movements quite hard and this will cause you to gain.
Monday:
a.) Squat – 1×10; 1×8; 1×6; 1×4; 1×2 and then 5 sets of 3-5 reps using all the weight possible.
b.) Bench Press – Same as squat.
Thursday:
a.) Deadlift – same sets and reps as Monday.
b.) Bentover Row – same sets and reps as Monday.
Routine No. 3.
This would be he ordinary every other day schedule for the ambitious, underweight trainee.
Monday, Wednesday and Friday:
a.) Squat – 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps using all the weight possible.
b.) Bench Press – same as Squat.
c.) Deadlift – same as Squat.
d.) Bentover Row – same as Squat.
Routine No. 4.
This type of routine would enable you to concentrate on one movement per workout for power and the other two for added muscular bulk. However, you will positively have to be sure to eat enough of the complete protein foods and get more than enough calories in order to grow.
Monday:
a.)Squat – 1 set of 10 for a warmup, and then 8-10 sets of 3 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle for each set.
b.) Bench Press – 2 sets of 10 for a warmup and then 3 sets of 5 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle.
c.) Bentover Row – 2 sets of 10 for a warmup and then 3 sets of 5 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle.
Thursday:
a.) Deadlift – 1 set of 10 for a warmup, and then 8-10 sets of 3 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle for each set.
b.) Bench Press – 2 sets of 10 reps, and then 3 sets of 5 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle.
c.) Bentover Row – 2 sets of 10 reps, and then 3 sets of 5 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle.
Bulk And Power Routine No. 1
In this routine you will be performing the three basic power lifts. In it you use both low and high repetitions. This will allow you to gain in both muscular power and muscular size.