And and Dan continue their exploration of the fundamentals of physique training and muscle growth, discussing the types of exercises best suited to stimulate hypertrophy.

 

The mindset of the lifter is equally important. A lifter that can develop a mind-muscle connection between the movement his is executing and the muscle mass being stimulated will grow more than the lifter just going through the motions. As Andy points out, it's not just about accumulating sets and reps. It's about accumulating stress, and how the lifter executes the set has a big impact on how much stress is accumulated during the set.

 

Check out Andy's Upper/Lower Hypertrophy Split Program here:

https://www.andybaker.com/product/the-baker-barbell-upper-lower-hypertrophy/

 

Branch Warren and Johnnie Jackson - Back Training

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85CIoZaXwW4

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Are you looking to move beyond a simple strength program and focus on building more muscle, shoring up weak points in your physique, or just try something new? Many lifters complete a novice linear progression and some form of early intermediate strength training (such as Texas Method or HLM) only to find themselves lost as to what to do next. Others are simply burnt out by all the compond lifting and are looking to bring some fun back into their training. Andy lays out a road map for learnign how to train specifcally for hypertrophy.

 

Andy often starts out lifters new to the concept of training for hypertrophy and physique with a four-day upper/lower body split. This allows for enough exericse "slots" to generate a high amount of muscle fatigue and time under tension (some of the key factors in making muscles bigger), while also leaving room to continue getting stronger on the big compound lifts.

 

Andy's Upper/Lower Hypertophy Program:

https://www.andybaker.com/product/the-baker-barbell-upper-lower-hypertrophy/

 

The Evolution of the Training Split for Hypertrophy:

https://www.andybaker.com/the-evolution-of-the-training-split-for-hypertrophy/

 

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Coach Andy and Dan share their favorite accessory exercises for building muscle and driving strength in the main lifts.

 

Dorian Yates "Blood and Guts"

https://youtu.be/9SwG3BbvC9I

 

Andy Baker on Paused High Bar Squats

https://www.andybaker.com/why-i-like-paused-high-bar-squats-for-quad-hypertrophy/

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Coach Andy and Coach Dan discuss the proper use of accessory lifts for the post-novice lifter, and how they can be an important tool for building muscle mass. Many lifters use accessories improperly, however, by either failing to progressively overload them over time or not performing them in a manner that produces hypertophy stimulus.

 

As Andy points out, all lifters can learn a lot about hypertrophy by thinking like bodybuilders and obtaining a strong mind-muscle connection, an intuitive understanding of how to stimulate the target muscle using appropriate ROM, tension, and angles.

 

Andy's article on Rest-Pause Sets:

https://www.andybaker.com/rest-pause-sets-more-muscle-in-less-time/

 

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

 

Andy and Dan continue their outline of intermediate programming with an exploration of the various training splits lifters can use to organize their training after the novice phase. While Andy advocates a three-day full body split for novice lifters, he also encourages most lifters who can to adopt a four-day upper/lower split when they tranisiton into the intermediate phase. The reasons for this are many, but one big advantage of the four-day split is the ability to accumulate more volume in a single workout while keeping the workouts fairly short.

 

However, there are many ways to slice and dice the four-day split beyond a simple upper/lower split, and ways to make a three-day split work for intermediate lifters as well.

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Much ink has been spilled about the so-called novice linear progression, the basic starter program for new lifters outlined in Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training 3rd Edition as well Practical Programming for Strength Training (co-written by Andy Baker). And as Dan points out, the novice linear progression contains everything you really need to know about programming -- a series of submaximal yet challenging workouts (progressive overload) accumulated over time will yield lasting strength adaptations.

 

The same is true of intermediate programming, however the landscape looks much different. There is a brief initial phase sometimes referred to as "early intermediate," in which a lifter can set weekly PR's. That phase does not last long, however, and soon the lifter finds himself frequently retreading the same weights and rep ranges before a PR can be found. This is normal, Andy reminds us, and the focus of training must change to reflect the fact that all-time PR's won't happen frequently anymore.

 

Instead, Andy says, we should focus on moving our floor up over time. Every lifter has a floor and a ceiling for each lift. Lifters, especially powerlifters, typically think of their ceiling as their all-time PR, usually set at a meet or during a phase in their training in which they have peaked for maximum 1RM performance. While we do want those 1RM's to move up over time, it's impossible for a lifter to stay peaked for more than a very short period of time -- a week at most. Instead, intermediate lifters can work to increase their floor, the amount of weight they can lift on their worst day, as a more reliably and sustainable measure of progress.

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Andy and Dan wrap up their discussion of training for athletes with a deep dive into why strength is the most important thing an athlete should train for... but not the ONLY thing.

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Andy and Dan continue their mini-series on strength training for competitive athletes with a discussion about the realities and challenges of dealing with the sport world. Athletes, especially student athletes, have many competing priorities for their attention, training time, and recovery resources. Thus coaches often have to make compromises with their programming to fit within the athlete's demanding schedule, carefully select loads to minimize fatigue around games, meets, and competitions, and keep things simple and flexible enough that the athlete can see measurable results without needing to fully understand the method.

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

Andy and Dan discuss the role of barbell training for athletes in sports ranging from power-based contact sports (football, hockey) to agility and high kill sports (baseball, soccer, golf). As detailed in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Mark Rippetoe, strength is the basis of all human performance. Thus, getting an athlete stronger will have a positive impact, usually a big impact, on their performance.

 

Nevertheless, the athlete is NOT a powerlifter or weightlifter. Their sport doesn't consist of lifting barbells. Therefore, their training probably won't look much like the powerlifter's training beyond the novice phase of programming. After the basic barbell movements have been introduced, there may be sport-specific needs for variants of the big lifts as well as accessories.  Andy and Dan break down how you can better use barbells to train sport athletes.

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com

The other unique element of the conjugate method is the "Dynamic Effort" day, essentially a volume day used to accumulate a bunch of reps in a short period of time. Uniquely, in the conjugate method the dynamic effort day involves a primary lift performed explosively, with short rest times between sets (usually only 60-90s). Weights are typically light, between 60-70% of 1RM for a given movement.

 

The idea behind dynamic effort is that because the reps are done with maximum speed, the workout constitutes a sufficient stress for driving muscle growth, without necessarily loading the bar heavy and incurring higher systemic stress. The act of volitonally exploding the weight during the concentric also helps train the lifter to build momentum that will carry him through the common sticking points on the lift. As with Max Effort day, the primary dynamic effort movement is followed by accessory work to fill out the necessary volume and hypertrophy stimulus needed to continue driving strength gains.

 

Andy and Dan break down dynamic effort day  for both upper and lower body movements, common sets and reps and loading schemes during the cycle, and discuss the wide variety of variant lifts that can be used.

 

Andy Baker

Blog: www.AndyBaker.com

IG: @bakerbarbell

Owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning

Co-author of Practical Programming for Strength Training

Co-author of The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40

 

Dan Flanick

IG: @coachdanflanick

Gym: https://www.skaneatelesstrength.com