1RM Calculator, body transformation, Brad Schoenfeld, Building Muscle, Building Muscle mass, Building Strength, New Year's Resolution, New Year's Resolution Fail, strenght training, strength training cycle

2024 Strength Training Programs (FREE DOWNLOADs)

For 2024, I’ve created two workout cycles. The first is a 26-week cycle based on Brad Schoenfeld’s Max Muscle Plan, with some tweaks by yours truly. It is an excellent book; it is well-researched with practical guidelines and suggestions. This program is ideal for intermediate to advanced lifters looking to take a more systematic approach to their training and or looking to mix things up. … Continue reading 2024 Strength Training Programs (FREE DOWNLOADs)

Jeff EmblenJanuary 7, 2024January 14, 2024Leave a comment

Building Muscle and Strength, Building Muscle mass, Building Strength, mass training, Pyramid Training

How to Correctly Perform Pyramid Training

Pyramiding your weights is a great way to build muscle size and strength. Working up from relatively lightweight to a heavyweight over multiple sets ensures you stimulate your muscles with the right amount of volume to stimulate growth and at the right intensity to produce strength adaptations. It’s best used on compound barbell exercises, but it can be used with machines and dumbells as well.

Unfortunately, most programs don’t properly explain how to perform a pyramid correctly. I used Pyramid training when I was in high school bulking for football. I gained approximately 30 pounds of muscle during those years, despite performing them incorrectly. Like most people, I over-taxed myself on the early sets, and couldn’t progress in weight as well as I could have.

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Jeff EmblenMay 15, 2021May 16, 2021Leave a comment

Building Muscle, Building Muscle and Strength, Building Muscle mass, Building Strength, effective strength training, mass training, optimal strength trainining volume, Optimal Training Volume, strenght training, strength trainining volume, Uncategorized, Willpower is like a muscle

Optimal Training Volume Made Simple

“Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them.” Lee Haney

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Determining optimal training volume is not a straightforward proposition. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. I will simplify the process and provide some parameters, but you will have to discover what is optimal for YOU. Scientific studies should guide our training, but ultimately, we must decide what works best for us through trial and error. The primary factor to consider is your ability to recover.

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Jeff EmblenMay 7, 2018January 15, 2024Leave a comment

Building Muscle and Strength, Building Muscle mass, Building Strength, effective strength training, mass training, RPE, strenght training, strength training circuit, Strength Training Intensity, Strength training RPE, training to failure, Uncategorized

Strength Training Intensity – How Much is Optimal

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The latest issue of Muscle & Fiction and all the High-Intensity zealots would have you believe that if you don’t take a set to absolute muscular failure, you are wasting your time. That just isn’t true. On an effective strength training program for the natural lifter, most sets should stop 1 or 2 repetitions short of failure. We should avoid going to failure on all but the last set of each exercise. A simple, yet effective way to evaluate your rating of perceived exertion (RPE), is using this table developed by respected strength coach and competitive powerlifter Mike Tuchscherer.

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Jeff EmblenMay 1, 2018July 15, 2019Leave a comment

break a plateau, Building Muscle, Building Muscle and Strength, Building Muscle mass, Building Strength, fat loss, fat loss motivation, food log, food logging, goal, goal setting, logging, natural bodybuilding, strenght training, strength training circuit, Technology, training log, Uncategorized, workout log

5 Reasons To Keep A Training Log

“If you want it, measure it. If you can’t measure it, forget it.”

Peter Drucker

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If you want to improve your performance, you MUST track it. This sounds like common sense because it is, but how many people do you see in the gym keeping a training log? Do you keep a training log? The difference between exercising and training is a training log.