What should I do during my rest periods?

Squeezing in a gym session around work and your weekend hangover is difficult. When you finally find the time you need to make the most of every minute. That means no chatting up the pilates class and absolutely no #gymselfies! It also means putting your rest periods to better use than sitting on the bench, swiping through Tinder

Rest periods should change in length depending on the aim of your session. If you’re storming through a circuit you only have 30-45secs between sets and need all of that to catch your breath. But if you’re doing strength training and your rep range rarely heads above five, you should be taking a full 3mins of rest. If you don’t, your CNS won’t recover and your subsequent lifts will suffer.

But 3min rests in a 45min workout eats into much needed gym time. Not what you want when you’ve already pushed back meetings and re-arranged date night to carve out a free hour. To help improve your workout's efficiency we've picked our perfect filler moves to supplement your exercises and help you become stronger, more flexible and injury proof.

Deadlifts

You would have thought this ultimate strength move required all of your effort, but a bit of extra abs work can bolster your future performance. “Working on anterior (front) core strength will help you maintain a flat back throughout the lift,” says Mans. Perfect form means you lift with the correct muscles and can squeeze out that final rep with ease. Perform 1min of front planks, side planks or deadbugs between each set for a side-order of six-pack abs and an extra 10kg on your PB.

Back squats

You won't pack any power into your lower body if your 'squats' involve little more than a slight bend at the knee “Poor hip flexibility means you’ll struggle squatting to the necessary depth,” says Mans. Loosening your muscles with flexibility exercises between sets increases your range of movement and therefore your lift's efficiency. Do 30secs of kneeling hip flexor stretches and psoas quad stretches during your breaks. Google them and thank us later.

Bench press

To get the most out of your time at the bench you need to work through your 'sticking point' – that reallly difficult phase of the move where the bar is 3-5 inches from your chest. Wall slides are the perfect stretch to open out your chest muscles, boosting your range of movement and helping ease the bar's journey. “Wall slides are essential, especially if you've been sat hunched over in front of a desk all day,” says Mans. Do 15 reps every time you break from the bench. They’ll work wonders for your posture and boost your bragging rights.

Shoulder press

Your shoulder is made up of more muscles than you might think. Shoulder stability exercises work the smaller muscles and are essential for overall strength and avoiding injury. “Try 90 degrees external rotation exercises using a cable machine,” says Mans. Set the pin to a light weight and do around 12 reps on each arm. Popping a weak shoulder at the top of a lift won't just hurt like hell, it'll keep you out of the gym for weeks. Don't forget the little guys.

How to Grow a Pair

The title says it all. Here’s how you grow a pair of biceps, hamstrings, shoulders, and quads, as well as a good hefty pair of mental muscles, too.

Grow a Pair of Biceps

Simple guidelines:

• Elbow flexion exercises (barbell, dumbbell, machine curl) done with extreme effort
• The best - seated incline dumbbell curl with the forearm supinated (palms turned up)
• The best - standing pronated grip bicep curl (palms turned down)
• Work each set to volitional muscle fatigue
• Perform a reasonable number of sets (one to three)
• Repetitions can vary from 6 to 20

Grow a Pair of Hamstrings

There are three hamstring muscles - the biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus. They flex the knee (heel to butt) and extend the hip (pushing the thigh back).

Simple guidelines:

• Perform lying, seated, and standing leg curls along with hip-extending stiff-leg deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, and glute/ham raises
• Work each set to volitional muscle fatigue
• Perform a reasonable number of sets (one to three)
• Repetitions can vary from 10 to 25

Grow a Pair of Shoulders

First, I am uncomfortable when the shoulder joint is discussed. Many believe the shoulder is only the visible top of that body part. This would be the medial deltoid. However, in reality we know the shoulder joint as a whole is comprised of a number of muscles that move the upper arm and scapula (shoulder blade) in various directions. Therefore, multiple-angle pushing and pulling exercises work the shoulder joint, strengthen it, and enhance its stability.

Here is a list of shoulder fortifying exercises:

• Wide or close grip pulldown
• Wide or close grip pull up
• Pullover machine
• High row
• Face pull
• Seated/Bent-over row
• Plate-load row
• Low row
• Upright row
• Rear delt machine/bent-over fly
• Rotator cuff internal and external rotation
• Overhead press
• Incline press
• Chest press
• Decline press
• Dip
• Lateral raise
• Chest fly

Simple guidelines:

• Incline and overhead press, upright row, face pull, lateral raise, rear delt/bent over fly
• Work each set to volitional muscle fatigue
• Perform a reasonable number of sets (one to three)
• Repetitions can vary from 8 to 20

Grow a Pair of Quadriceps

The four quadriceps - the vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis, and rectus femoris - make up the “quads.” The quads primarily extend the knee. To grow large quadriceps, it takes more than simple knee extensions on a knee extensions device. The quads, collectively, possess a lot of muscle mass. They need to be overloaded via heavier exercises that involve knee extension (squats, leg presses, and deadlifts).

Simple guidelines:

• When squatting, leg pressing, and deadlifting, work each set to volitional muscle fatigue. Yes, it's going to hurt, but that is how you stimulate your quads to grow.
• Perform a reasonable number of sets (one to three)
• Repetitions can vary from 10 to 30

Working the legs (and quads) can be discomforting. That is a good thing. Any exercise that is physically and mentally challenging is a productive exercise. Learn to love those exercises that manifest themselves in a lot of huffing and puffing.

And while we’re at it, let’s grow that pair.

Grow a Pair - Mentally

Ultra-high intensity 12-exercise circuit:

• Minimal (<:20) rest between exercises
• All exercises to volitional muscular fatigue at 10 to 14 repetitions
• Use four different upper body push, upper body pull, and multi-joint lower body exercises each
• Perform upper body push 1, upper body pull 1, multi-joint lower 1, upper push 2, upper pull 2, lower 2, upper push 3, and so forth until all 12 exercises are completed
• Remember, all-out effort on each set and minimal rest between exercises

Five rounds for time

• 10 dumbbell burpees with a plank row (right and left) and overhead press
• 20 dumbbell squats
• 10 chin ups (bodyweight or assisted)
• 30 mountain climbers
• Record the time of your initial workout. Attempt to better it in future workouts.

Fitness Gauntlet:

• Intervals (running or exercise machine) of :30 all out effort/:15 easy pace x 20 bouts
• 2:00 rest
• No more than one minute rest between these events:
• 50 bodyweight burpees
• 200 bicycle crunches
• 150 bodyweight squats
• 20 dumbbell bent-over rows + 20 dumbbell overhead presses x three rounds
• Push ups x maximum reps

Attempt to complete the following exercises in under 20 minutes:

• 300 bodyweight squats
• 150 push ups (males) 100 (females)
• 50 dumbbell burpees + one-arm plank row (R & L) + squat + overhead press

Why the Numbers on Weight Machines Are a Lie

For several decades now, the fitness game has been blessed with commercial fitness and “wellness” centers (whatever that means). The first thing you notice when you enter one is an endless supply of machines, most of which can only exercise one body part in one motion.

Now, I'm not going to do a long free-weights-versus-machines rant. That has been done many times and by much more articulate people. What I am going to explore is how the novice is slyly conned by the manufacturers of these machines.

The Problem of Mechanical Advantage

Whether we are novices or Olympic medalists, we all like to lift more weight. It satisfies the ego and is an innate part of the human condition. Nothing wrong with that. Strength athletes need something to measure their progress with and the amount of weight on the barbell or machine seems to be an objective way of doing this. Since this seems obvious, you are probably wondering how the manufacturers of weight machines (and by extension those who purchase them for their facilities) find a way of conning you.



Let's start with the weight stacks used in many of the machines. Most weight stacks are fairly accurate. Some have been discovered to be slightly lighter than advertised, but this is not the main way you will be fooled. Any variances of this type are not that significant enough to worry the prospective gym member.

Where the real problems occur is in the mechanical guts of the various machines. It is fact that the makers build in a certain amount of mechanical advantage to their wares. Do you remember this term from high school physics? You likely at least remember this is what makes a machine desirable in the first place. The whole idea is that a machine can move more resistance than the effort put into it.

Levers, Pulleys, and Inclines

That works well in the industrial world, but in the gym things are a bit different. Trainees are told to keep track of their workout poundages in order to track progress. This makes the figures they enter into those little books very important. And as we've all been trained to be good little consumers, we like to think we are getting our money's worth.

"The whole idea is that a machine can move more resistance than the effort put into it."

In the gym, that means that our effort should equal the machine’s resistance, not that resistance be far greater than effort. We want that 1:1 ratio. What goes in must equal what comes out. But that is not what happens with many of these machines in gymnasiums today.

If you also remember from physics, machines can be divided into levers, pulleys, and inclines. The observant gym members will note that all of these can be used on various machines. If they are even more observant, the gym members will notice that seldom do they experience a 1:1 ratio of resistance to effort.

Almost all of the machines give the user a little bit of help, making the ratio anywhere from 2:1 to 5:1. Many machines utilize not just one such assistance device, but often two or even more, each with its own mechanical advantage. You must then multiply them all to get the total mechanical advantage. Let's look at each type of machine separately.

The Overhead Press Machine

This machine is based on a simple second-class lever. The fulcrum is at one end, the effort is at the other, and the resistance somewhere in the middle.

The trainee presses up on the ends of the lever while the weight is attached to somewhere closer to the fulcrum. Our mechanical advantage is simply the ratio of the distance the lifter’s hands are from the fulcrum (A+B in the graphic below) divided by the distance the weight/resistance (W) is from the fulcrum (A).



The machine in my gym has a 4:1 mechanical advantage. Let's say a trainee selects 200 pounds and rattles off a nice set of ten reps. If he forgets his high school physics, he is going to feel pretty strong. But should he? By now you should know that he shouldn’t. All he really did was fifty pounds for ten reps, nothing too impressive to someone who could do the same with a 200-pound free weight.

The Pulley Machines

Some of these are honest and some of them are not. How can you tell? Remember what your physics teacher said - and count the number of supporting cables.

More than one cable means you do have a mechanical advantage. Many machines have two supporting cables and some even have three, often hidden so that counting them is difficult. To be fair, some machines label the stacks to compensate for this.

In addition, some machines have not only an advantageous lever, but it is attached to a 2:1 pulley system. In that case, you feel very strong as you write down your day’s poundage.

The Incline Leg Press Machine

We all know that we can incline press a little more than we can military press, but not as much as we can bench or decline press. This is a good illustration of the effects of force vectors.

Left: Incline Press; Middle: Bench Press; Right: Decline Press

But there is another machine in the gym where this incline idea is used more insidiously. You all know what I'm talking about. It's the leg press machine, the favorite of squat dreaders everywhere. Some truly awesome poundages can be moved on this device and they are all very gratifying to the ego. Even former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright boasted of a 400-pound leg press, and she was in her seventies at the time.

But those who want to do leg presses instead of those nasty old squats should be aware of one thing. Most leg press machines made today are built with tracks moving at a 45-degree angle. Back in the 1950s, we leg pressed lying on our backs and resting a barbell across the bottoms of our feet. This was a stupid thing to do, of course, but it had one advantage. It at least gave us some honest reading of what we were pressing.

"This is more or less completely safe and you can move tremendous weights on it. The trouble is you are not lifting as much as you think you are."

But today we have something better - the leg press sled on a 45-degree angle track. This is more or less completely safe and you can move tremendous weights on it. The trouble is you are not lifting as much as you think you are.

  

To determine the actual weight, you have to take the cosine of the angle the machine deviates from the vertical. The gentler than angle, i.e., the more it deviates from the vertical, the easier it is to lift. Most leg press machines today are on 45-degree angles, although some are far gentler. The cosine of 45 degrees is about 0.71, giving a 1:1.4 mechanical advantage. This means that Ms. Albright's 400-pound leg press is really only 285 pounds if she did it on a 45-degree angle.

Look Past the Numbers

I'm not sure if the manufacturers were thinking of this, but I'm sure it occurred to somebody that a mechanical advantage could be turned into a financial advantage. People like to move big weights and most don't care about the engineering niceties.

The gym owners who buy these machines are well aware that progress is best proven with impressive figures. And maybe it doesn't bother the average trainee as long as they can see progress. Being able to lift eleven plates in the stack is still better than being able to lift ten. Whether it's 110 pounds or 110 “something-or-others” makes little difference since it's still more than 100.

Serious trainees will not be fooled, but they're a minority anyway. And this is yet another reason why free weights have enjoyed a renaissance even as the machines have taken over in commercial gyms.

Why 10 x 3 Is Best for Strength and Size

One of the things that has always stuck in my head as far as training goes is to do the opposite of what most do. Breaking Muscle athlete and super-coach Charles Staley is the guy who said this. It’s a fairly simple concept. If you see people using machines, then do free weights. If you see people doing chest and biceps, then do legs.

But the biggest disconnect usually comes when we talk about volume. Everyone knows typical gym training begins with three sets of ten. There is actually some science behind that. Back in the 1960s, Dr. Thomas DeLorme found that people responded better to multiple sets than they did to a single exposure, both in terms of building muscle size and strength (which explains why high-intensity training doesn’t work long term).

While sets of ten will work to begin with, they do have some limitations, especially for the natural trainee. Sooner or later the decreasing intensity in these sets of ten will have you need to work fewer reps per set. To begin with, a set of ten may leave you out of breath and flushed, but it won’t stay that way. The best way to think about it is like going for a jog. At first it’s difficult to even get around the block, but if you keep running those relaxed runs, you will be covering more and more distance pretty quickly. And at that point the only way to get fitter is to run faster

 

It may seem like a strange analogy, but there are far more similarities than differences between strength and fitness training. Beginners usually find themselves training at around seventy percent of what they are ultimately capable of. In fact, there is even a table to work out how hard you are working based off how many reps per set you are doing called Prilepin’s Table. A single set that is the heaviest thing you can lift once and once only represents 100% of your maximum. Looking at Prilepin’s Table, you’ll see that it goes down and eventually ends up at sets of ten and a corresponding seventy percent effort.

 

One of the things people often lose sight of is how many total reps are in a session. There’s a real reason why top strength coaches record not just weight, but sets and reps in their students’ work, as it helps to calculate the total intensity for the session, and even the training cycle. When you look at successful training plans the majority have one big thing in common - they share a total number of reps between the mid twenties and low thirties.

 

Think about it:

 

• 3 x 10
• 3-4 x 8
• 5 x 5
• 4 x 6
• 6 x 4

 

But there’s one incredibly valuable scheme that is overlooked in these plans, and that is the flip side of the old three sets of ten. What happens when you do ten sets of three? Let’s look at some of the benefits of 10 x 3:

 

• In a lift like the deadlift, where the set up can often be half the battle, this gives a trainee more opportunities to learn how to set up properly.
• Fatigue per set is kept to a minimum, reducing the possibility of injury. It’s rare to hear of people hurting themselves on the first rep of a set, but far more common for people to push hard while fatigued and hurt themselves on the eight, ninth, or tenth rep.
• Instead of thirty reps done at seventy percent intensity, this is thirty reps done at around 85% intensity.

 

This style of training allows for much greater stimulus to be applied to the muscles, which will result in greater strength and hypertrophy along the way. This is a great tool to use with opposing muscle groups and big lifts. Good choices are:

 

• Front squats and Romanian deadlifts
• Front squats and power cleans
• Bench press and chins

 

It can also be used to good effect on its own, and Westside Barbell made the 10x3 workout famous when they started using it for speed work on their Dynamic Effort days. For people who have never tried it, the end result is similar to what Dan John had in mind when detailing the One Lift a Day program. Just know that ten genuinely hard sets of three in a big exercise will take some time to get through, and the rest needed to do all this properly will make what seems like a small workout push out to the hour mark.

 

I’d suggest scheduling no more than two workouts per week for the ten by three sessions and using lower intensity work on the other days. A good sample split would be:

 

• Monday: 10 x 3 front squat and power cleans
• Tuesday: 5 x 5 bench press and chins, 3-4 x 6-8 of another upper-body pair
• Wednesday: Rest or easy cardio
• Thursday: Same as Monday
• Friday: Rest or easy cardio
• Saturday: Same as Tuesday
• Sunday: Rest or easy cardio

 

Give it a try for six weeks and see how fast you grow in size and strength.

How to Use the Front Squat to Improve Strength and Performance

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The front squat is hands-down my favorite exercise. Whenever I say this, it tends to start a front squat versus back squat debate. Which is crazy, as it’s not an either-or situation. 

But I will say that for an athlete who wants to get all-around strong, steer clear of injury, and maximize carry over into strength sports, the front squat offers a number of advantages.

Why Do Front Squats

In my article When in Doubt, Do Front Squats: 25 Tips for Better Front Squats, I explain:

• From a coaching perspective - Front squats are easier to teach, more self-correcting, and promote better depth. 
• From an injury prevention perspective - Front squats are kinder on the shoulders, and incur less shear forces and compressive forces.
• From an athletic perspective - Front squats facilitate awesome core strength and have incredible carry over into other strength movements. This is not just strength-wise, but in terms of position and mechanics, too.

 

For Olympic weightlifters, the front squat is the best movement for learning the squat clean bottom position. Weightlifting coach Bob Takano explains why in his article Hitting Bottom: 3 Tools to Perfect Your Olympic Lifts:

The best movement for learning the squat clean bottom position is the traditional front squat. This movement performed with an optimal amount of weight will force the body into the bottom position, while simultaneously stretching the tendons and ligaments involved in achieving the position. At this point the front squat is not a strengthening exercise, but a positioning and stretching exercise.

 

For powerlifters, the front squat can be valuable as an assistance exercise to the back squat. For strongmen, the front squat ties in very well to positions within the sport, such as sitting with a Atlas stone on your lap, ready to drive the stone up and onto the platform (pictured below). For CrossFitters, it also has carryover to other movements within the sport, such as thrusters and wall balls.



So let’s take a deeper look at the movement itself, why you might want to perform it, and variations on the standard barbell front squat.

 

How to Perform the Front Squat

For those less familiar with this movement, strength and conditioning coach Traver H. Boehm provides a demonstration and basic explanation in his video on the front squat.

If you prefer a written format, read through this great basic skill review by Breaking Muscle founder, Mindith Rahmat from her article Deconstructing the Front Squat:

• Take time to find your starting position.
• Find your natural foot stance width your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart and your toes slightly out so your toes can follow the path of your knees.
• Find your grip on the barbell slightly wider than shoulder width.
• Receive the bar from the rack on the front of the shoulders and step back onto the platform.
• Keep chest up and raise the elbows high.
• Stabilize the midline taking in a deep breath.
• Keep the feet flat on the ground pushing down through the heels.
• Squat down until the thighs are below parallel.
• Keep the chest up, back tight, and the elbows high when coming out the squat aggressively drive the elbows up to come out of the hole.

 

How to Improve the Front Squat

When people ask me how they can improve their front squat, they are disappointed when I don’t reply with something secret and Russian. Rather, I’ll ask to have a look at their front squat. The first place to look for improvement is within the movement, every time.

I’ve written two articles to specifically help you with this. For technical tips on the front squat, check out When in Doubt, Do Front Squats: 25 Tips for Better Front Squats – and I’m only half joking about the “when in doubt do front squats” bit.

"The first place to look for improvement is within the movement, every time."

Another way of creating improvement within the movement is to regress the movement down to even simpler forms. In this light, take a look at Squat Therapy: 4 Drills for a Better Squat. Squat therapy will improve your squats through the fact it is formed of four self-correcting movement drills. You are grooving good movement simply by performing the drills.



From regressions, we can move onto variations. Let's take a look at two variations of the movement, and how they compare to the clean grip barbell front squat.

Crossed Arm Grip

Strength coach Jesse Fernandez explains how this variation works in his article A Primer on Front and Back Squats: Crossed-Arm, Clean Grip, Low Bar, and High Bar:

Place the bar in front of your shoulders, resting it directly on top of your deltoids, just as you with clean grip version. You then will cross your hands over the bar, making an “X” when looked at from up above. Elbows will face forward and arms will be parallel to the ground

Why would you vary the grip? It’s a great question. There is less carryover to the clean with crossed arms. Also it’s not actually that easy to secure the weight like this. However, if you or your client has wrist issues, or other mobility or injury issues restricting him or her from performing a standard front squat rack, this is a useful way of facilitating the benefits of the front squat without rack position being the limiting factor in terms of weight.

If clean grip was the ultimate goal, then the root causes of the inability to get into a clean grip rack position must be addressed in parallel.

Left: Clean grip; Right: Crossed arm grip.

Two-Kettlebell Front Squat

This is an incredibly humbling movement. Strength and conditioning coach James Cerbie gives us an example of his client’s experiences with this movement in his article The 2-Kettlebell Front Squat: The Best Exercise You're Not Doing

“Well, that sucked.” My client un-racked the kettlebells and put them on the ground, still contemplating how in the world he got crushed by such little weight (comparatively speaking of course).

 

Here I was taking this guy who considered himself to be pretty strong (and to his credit he was - he could do a mid-300lb front squat relatively easily), and putting him on the struggle-bus with a pair of 24kg kettlebells.

James also lists some key reasons for performing this movement:

• Lower body strength – The increased instability of the kettlebells compensates for the lack of load.
• Core stability – This exercise puts your core on overdrive and forces you to maintain position.
• Grooving the pattern - The previous two points combine to make this movement an effective variation for grooving the squat pattern.
• Breathing into your back - By biasing a little flexion in the bottom of the squat, we can work on good breathing technique.

The article goes on to list how to perform the movement, possible technique flaws, modifications, and even programming – it’s well worth a read.

I hope this article has also been well worth your read. Now, read it again, pick out some points to practice, go do some front squats. Then come come back here and let me know how you got on.

The 20-Rep Squat Routine: Old School Strength Training

For all neophytes who have no clue how to train hard, I suggest you heed some practical lore from the past. Back in the day when they had no sophisticated equipment, no Internet recommendations, and no super-duper nutritional supplements, those who sought to get stronger and grow muscle had to bust their butts with plain old hard work to achieve strength and size gains. They had only the basic means of stimulating muscle tissue - known as barbells and dumbbells - and the smarts to allow for proper rest and recovery following their training.

Surprise! They achieved results. And it still works today in this information-overload environment in which we reside. But the simplicity of hard work has either been blurred or completely lost from all the fancy stuff that pervades our current training culture. So, if it still works, why don't you try "old school" and give it a go? Working hard is still the way to go, no matter how you slice it.

With credit given to Randall Strossen outlining John McCallum's 20-rep squat routine in his book Super Squats, let me tell you about a simple but very difficult program for increasing lower body strength and facilitating weight gain. The 20-rep barbell squat routine. It works. It truly does. But it is brutally difficult.

It goes like this:

Train your lower body twice per week. One session is the 20-rep squat routine and the other is something different like deadlifts, leg presses, or whatever blows your skirt up.

For the 20-rep assault, select a resistance that you would normally use for a tough set of 12 repetitions. With that resistance, perform 20 repetitions. Yes, it's going to be challenging but find a way to squeeze out 8 more reps to get to the 20-rep goal. You can do it if you focus on the task at hand. Hang in there. Catch your breath between reps. Concentrate on getting one rep at a time.

Once you achieve 20 repetitions, it's mission accomplished.

Now that you have gutted it out to achieve the 20-rep goal, rejoice in the moment, and then it's time to move forward. It's now time to do more. Given proper recovery time, your body will have adapted to the previous 20-rep overload stress and can now tolerate more. It is the biological phenomena called the principle of recovery-adaptation. You did it, your body adapted to it, now you are physically able to do even more.

For the next 20-rep squat workout add at least five pounds to the bar (10 pounds maximum). Your goal again is 20-repetitions. You're stronger as a result of the previous 20-rep "death march," so you are capable of achieving 20-repetitions with slightly more resistance.

If you attack it with all-out effort you'll accomplish it. Remember, you only added a few more pounds from the previous successful session so be confident you will achieve the 20-rep goal. Yes, it will be physically and mentally disgusting, but if you want to improve you'll find a way to get it done.

Why am I so confident you can do this? I did it back in the day. In the summer of 1990 at a body weight of 185 pounds, I took the 20-rep squat challenge.

My initial squat session was a demanding (for me) 245 pounds for 20 repetitions a la NO-NO-NO (no belt, no wraps, and no lifting suit). It was simply body against the resistance with zero help from supporting equipment, but I did it.

Each week I added ten pounds to the bar and achieved 20 reps as follows:

• Week 2 = 255 x 20 (ouch!)
• Week 3 = 265 x 20 (yikes!)
• Week 4 = 275 x 20 (ugh!)
• Week 5 = 285 x 20 (yowza!)
• Week 6 = 295 x 20 (!%$@*!)
• Week 7 = 305 x 16 (I couldn't go further. I was done!)

The inevitable wall was hit and so it will be for you, too. Eventually you will reach a point where you cannot keep progressing. At that point you will have pushed it to the limit both physically and mentally. But savor the moment because you obviously moved up. In my case, I went from 245 pounds x 20 reps to 295 pounds x 20 reps. For me - being a genetic trash bag - that was outstanding progress.

If you have the intestinal fortitude to attempt a new challenge to for the purpose of improving your strength and/or weight gain, try the 20-rep squat routine. Understand it will be both physically and mentally demanding, yet it will be simple to implement.

The 20-rep squat routine in review:

1. Train the lower body twice per week, once with the 20-rep barbell squat routine and the other with something without squats.
2. With the 20-rep squat routine, perform the first workout with a resistance that normally challenges you for 12 repetitions. Get 20 reps.
3. For each succeeding 20-rep squat workout add five to 10 pounds on the bar and find a way to accomplish 20 reps.
4. Make sure you are completely recovered prior to attempting the 20-rep workout. It will take everything you have to achieve the 20-rep goal.
5. When you inevitably hit the wall and are unable to achieve 20 reps after weeks of progressive training, at that point you should have made exceptional progress and achieved measurable results.

The 20-rep squat routine is a time-proven means of becoming stronger and larger (all other factors being equal). It should be used sparingly because it is extremely demanding. Old school works if you are willing to work.

Research Provides New Insights Into Preventing Shoulder Impingement

Your shoulder is a complex joint. Think of how many ways your shoulder can move and how we ask it to support loads in all those positions. And your shoulder is only connected to your skeleton in one place - the clavicle (collar bone). Compared to simpler and sturdier joints like elbows, knees, and hips, the shoulder is already at risk for mischief. So it’s no surprise that up to 36% of injuries that occur in the weight training population involve the shoulder.


One of the most common shoulder problems is impingement. This is when the bony structures of the shoulder move slightly out of place (usually through years of neglect and desk-sitting) and begin to rub against the delicate tendons and ligaments that move the shoulder. Over time these soft tissues become inflamed and even torn.

An upcoming study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined shoulder impingement in recreational weight trainees. Researchers asked, “Can we identify any common movements done by athletes with shoulder impingement? Can we identify movements done by the healthy athletes that could prevent shoulder impingement?” They examined 77 men between the ages of 19 and 56. They quizzed these men about their exercise programs and whether they suffered from shoulder impingement.

The researchers identified two exercises tightly correlated with shoulder impingement. First, lateral deltoid raises accompanied the group with shoulder impingement. Upright rows (a high pull with a narrow grip) were also a staple of the group with shoulder impingement. Both of these exercises involve pulling the elbows to shoulder height with the shoulders internally rotated.

But the researchers also found one group of exercises that may prevent shoulder impingement - strengthening the external rotators of the shoulder. These are the muscles that hold your shoulder blades in place and keep them from rolling forward and causing problems. This means performing band pull-aparts, seated rows, Kroc rows, active hangs, and even overhead squats if they can be done with correct technique. Stretching the internal rotators through the sleeper stretch should also provide a nice addition. Here's how to do the sleeper stretch correctly:

 

 

But before we completely poo-poo shoulder raises and high pulls, let’s remember that these exercises didn’t necessarily cause shoulder problems, but rather everyone with shoulder problems was doing those exercises. Indeed, if you have terrible shoulder mobility and you high pull heavy loads with internal rotation, then you’re asking for trouble. Someone with excellent shoulder mobility and scapular stability can probably do those exercises with zero problems, but is that you?

Talk with your coach about shoulder exercises that are appropriate for you. Hold your shoulder blades back and down (think about trying to put them in your back pocket) when you pull anything in the gym. Most importantly, never perform an exercise that is going to set you back because it’s not right for your ability level right now.