Esoteric Meatheadry for the New Year
The new year is quickly approaching. I don’t believe in New Years resolutions, you should make such resolutions on random day like September 8th. But if you have proven track record of successful resolutions or just enjoy meatheadry, I have some training tips for you. On this substack I talk about whatever interests me. Training is passion of mine and I don’t talk about it enough. One day I plan to establish Ancient Rites Barbell Club where modern mindfucking can be undone with physical culture and the awakening of primordial wills.
This year has been a good training year and you should look at training on a yearly level. Have a purpose to your training. Early this year I suffered random back injury which I blamed on not doing enough squats and deadlifts. Correcting this became main focus of the year. To do this, I reimplemented strength program based on Reverse Pyramid Training. Squats and deadlifts can take their toll on the body, but they’re also invaluable in making you strong and resistant to injury when done for strength.
Reverse Pyramid Training(RPT) which I first learned from the leangains guy, involves doing your heaviest working set first and then doing a couple back off sets as necessary. If you want to injury-proof your body I recommend this protocol. Once a week have a squat day and a a deadlift day. 1-2 back off sets is all you need. Work in a rep range of 3-5 for your first set and take off 10-15% of weight for back off sets.
As you gain experience in lifting, volume becomes less important.
When it comes to building muscle, volume isn’t as important as you think it is. There’s been studies lately that have been put forth by Paul Carter(liftrunbang) showing this. It’s not how many sets and reps you do that determines whether you’re training for strength or mass, but the effort involved. Muscle growth starts when the reps start to hurt and slow down. When you’re going to failure, those last couple reps that you’re able to squeeze out is where the magic happens and if you do it right, you only need 1-2 sets.
I have my Barbaric Strength Program which is available for purchase on my Gumroad which I advertise as intermediate program, though perhaps it’s more “advanced beginner” program. It will bring this stimulus for muscle growth out of the nature of the program, but it’s main goal is getting you enough reps with the powerlifts to get you technical proficiency. As you get more efficient in your training, you will also taper down the sets. 2-3 per exercise is plenty when you know what you’re doing. If you’re in hypertrophy mode, sets of 8-15 reps for 1-2 sets is enough.
Technical proficiency is extremely important. When you first start lifting, you’re just going through the motions. Not thinking about gravity, not thinking about how the muscle works. The first step is learning how to resist gravity. Lower yourself into the squat, don’t let gravity push you down into position. The next step is learning how to make your muscles fire. Getting your chest to contract during a cable crossover by imagining yourself crushing a melon for example.
For the bros out there trying to get big forearms.
A lot of bodybuilders and athletes have big forearms and often their advice doesn’t help the bros trying to follow in their footsteps. Do heavy back work for example. Or just do curls. These do bring up your forearms, but there’s something missing that the bodybuilder knows but the bro doesn’t: technical proficiency. What do I mean by this?
When you do a reverse curl, are able to keep your wrist tight or do you have limp dick wrist? Are you able to flex the muscles of your forearms? What do your forearms do when you’re doing a DB Bench Press? Are they just there? Or are they stabilizing the DB? One way to learn how to use your forearms are by pulling on a towel. Put middle of towel under foot and pull the ends with your hands. Hold this for as long as possible while flexing forearm muscles.
Once you start feeling your forearm muscles, you can do heavy back workout and see your forearms get pumped. Or you can do cross body hammer curls(better then traditional hammer curl for forearms) and know how to get the right stimulus. Let me know if this solves your skinny forearm problems. Get to work, frens.