An Extremely Low Volume Workout For The Hard Gainer

This is one of the most successful workout routines I have experienced in nearly 30 years of training. Like most people, the majority of the gains I made were in the first few years of training. After that, despite my best efforts, my workouts became more or less maintenance workouts. This one is different in that it finally takes into account the vast amount of recovery time that I seem to need, yet works the exercises often enough that (for me) I don't get totally detrained. I realize that other people don't retain their strength as long as I do. That's about the only genetic advantage I seem to have, weights-wise.

This is a low volume workout that consists of
three heavy, basic, compound exercises, once a week:
upper body push, upper body pull, and lower body.

I alternate between two forms of each exercise for variety:

• Upper Body Push - bench press or military press
• Upper Body Pull - rows or pulldowns, curl type grip on both
• Lower Body - squat or top deadlift

I add even more variety by alternating between:

• 2 rep levels, 10 and 20
• and (for recovery) 2 levels of intensity, hard (100%) and easy (80%).

I only hit the weights one day a week, and I work only one of the three exercises "hard" each week. So by design each area is only truly worked "hard" once every 3 weeks, and even then, I'm not training to failure - I'm just trying to do either the same number of reps (the "guide" reps, 10 or 20) as the previous time I did the exact same workout, with as small a weight increase as possible (2.5 or 5 pounds), or more reps if I didn't reach the guide number of reps the time before. I find that not going to failure is very important for recovery. On the easy days for an exercise, I do the same number of reps with 80% of the weight I use on a hard day.

With 1 workout per week and 2 variations of each exercise, there ends up being a basic 2 week block that works each exercise once. This block is worked at the 10 rep level, and then at the 20 rep level, so there is a 4 week long block that covers each exercise in each rep range.

Then, because it takes 3 weeks to cover working each bodypart hard, and I'm alternating between 2 exercises, and alternating between 2 rep ranges, the total training cycle to hit every exercise, at every rep range, at every intensity, takes a full 12 (3 x 2 x 2) weeks to complete. So as it turns out, all you really have to do is be able to increase the weight 2.5 or 5 pounds over a twelve week period and you're golden.

It might seem a little complicated, it is admittedly slow progress, and certainly not for a beginner (although it could well be adapted by working it 3 times a week instead of just once), but let's face it, a small amount of progress is progress, and for a middle aged man to be approaching (and exceeding) strength levels of his twenties is a good thing. I feel few can say that.

The entire 12-week workout cycle goes something like this, with intensity at either 100% for an exercise that is worked hard, and 80% for an easy day:

Week  Reps  Push  Pull  Legs  Exercises
 1     10    100    80    80    A (bench/pulldown/squat)
 2     10     80   100    80    B (military/row/deadlift)
 3     20     80    80   100    A
 4     20    100    80    80    B
 5     10     80   100    80    A
 6     10     80    80   100    B
 7     20    100    80    80    A
 8     20     80   100    80    B
 9     10     80    80   100    A
10     10    100    80    80    B
11     20     80   100    80    A
12     20     80    80   100    B

You could argue that this is a form of periodization. But with the forms of periodization I am familiar with you end up working everything at pretty much the same level of intensity, and on a high intensity day, my body doesn't seem to be able to take it. This workout is based more on spreading the intensity out. It includes a lot of variety, and ends up almost being a maintenance workout, but one that allows slow progress.

Some Notes

• I find that it takes me about 5 seconds to complete a rep, maybe 2 seconds up and 3 seconds down. It's slower than most people do reps. I'm not necessarily trying to follow any specific Nautilus dogma, for example, but I am trying to feel the weight and demonstrate pure strength rather than throwing ability. When I timed myself the other day, I was a little surprised it was that slow.
• I'm also going slow in order to avoid injury. This workout evolved from a light, 20 rep only workout I started after getting over some rotator cuff problems, which were probably caused by going too deep on dips. [The lesson there is that a reasonable range of motion beats a full (or excessive) range of motion every time. The full range of motion nazis gave me some bad advice.] Additionally, I have had some non-weight-training related lower back and knee problems here and there. I find that doing squats and deadlifts in perfect form actually seems to keep me from having any lower back problems. Knee-wise, the only thing I have found is that in legwork purposefully angling my toes out a little wider than I normal would (really, probably just more in line with the legs that are already angled out slightly), seems to help.
• By the way, speaking of injuries, I offer the following: Most chiropractors are quacks - if they help you, cool, but beware. I also saw an A.R.T. (active release therapy) practitioner for many years. He was highly regarded, worked with the local NFL football team and many athletes (I've seen him on TV several times), and my first visit with him helped a great deal, but not so much after that. Eventually a massage therapist recommended me to a guy that is listed as doing "orthopedic massage" and has an NCTMB certification. What he did was not pleasant (yes, worse than A.R.T.), but he completely fixed my shoulder, one that the A.R.T. guy had been working on forever. It was similar to A.R.T. but not restricted to specific motions and number of "reps". Basically, he just did what needed to be done, and kept at it until he was finished. A.R.T. seems very limited that way.
• I make sure that all "easy" work is performed flawlessly, in absolutely perfect form, which gives me a little room to loosen up on hard days.
• The 20 rep days are brutal. All the exercises burn, even the lower intensity ones, and when the rotation falls on legs for a hard workout of 20 reps, it's really brutal, and frankly, these are becoming a bit rest-pause. Eventually I will plateau. When I do, the next change I'm contemplating is to introduce a week off after every four week block, which would take the total cycle up to 15 weeks. I have also tried lowering the 80% figure on easy days, but based on a few trials it seems to make the next hard workout too hard.
• I have always tended to get really wiped out after workouts, and this particular routine seems to alleviate a lot of that, as it is very abbreviated and only one exercise is worked hard.
• Nutritionally, one thing that seems to have helped is moving the traditional post-workout protein shake to immediately before the workout instead. It seems to be giving my body what it needs before it gets depleted.
• I have also found over the years that when I do get sick, it is often a day or so after a hard workout. I have always taken an insanely comprehensive multi-vitamin/mineral supplement on a daily basis, spread over all meals. But for the past couple of years I also have assembled a whole boxful of various supplements that have been shown in at least some study or another to be helpful with the immune system, or against bacteria, viruses, etc., and I take these before each workout, and whenever I feel run down, and I seem to get sick less. Call it placebo effect, call it insane, but hey, it's my hobby. All the herbs are standardized extracts and currently include:

  extra zinc
  echinacea
  golden seal
  astragalus
  panax ginseng
  lactoferrin
  shark liver oil
  elderberry
  mushroom, etc. [MGC-6]
  Relora (generic anti-cortisol product similar to Relacore and others)
  thymic immune factors
  garlic
  cat's claw
  Ergopharm 1-AD [stockpiled before the ban]
  

• I rarely do specific warmup sets, except for legs. If I do, it is for something on the order of maybe 3 reps with about 50% of the weight I'm going to use in the set. I'm just trying to tell my body what's coming, and check the joints for movement, again, particularly with legs and lower back.
• I do 5 minutes of cardio as a general warmup, to get my heart rate over 100, and my body temperature up if it's cold out. I also do 5 minutes of walking on a treadmill between exercises, and after the last exercise, as a kind of active recovery while my heart rate gets down a bit, and also to give me something to do rather than just sitting around. (I always hated waiting around between sets on multiple set workouts). After doing legs, by the time I get to the treadmill and get the heartrate monitor going (maybe 30 secs), my heart rate is sometimes as high as 175 (and falling rapidly).
• I do the hard exercise for that day first.
• I also do cardio for an hour on one (sometimes two) other day a week, generally at about 140-150 bpm. I took to this once a week thing for several reasons; one, it made my schedule easier, two, I had a girlfriend who kept remarkably fit by running 5 miles just once a week, and three, based on Clarence Bass's experience.
• Some people, including me, are loathe to give up direct arm work, etc. But my arms have actually grown a bit on this routine, and I notice that my biceps and triceps still get some soreness from the compound work.
• Finally, I think you could argue that this routine is too complex. That's probably a legitimate comment. I think we humans tend to overcomplicate and overanalyze things. But it just takes a few seconds to refer to my little worksheet before every workout, and then I just go and do it. (I only have to remember three numbers!) Anyway, it works, and I suspect the amount of variety in the routine is part of its success.

Background

When I first started working out back in the late '70s, we trained whole-body, three times a week, 2 hours or more per workout, multiple sets per bodypart, generally to failure or beyond. This, or something fairly similar but split, was what everyone believed you must do. Being 18 helped.

Back in college, we were die-hard gym rats. I remember being regularly "forced" to take a week off due to spring break or other holidays, and much to my amazement, each time I would come back stronger after a week of no training. Somehow the importance of this phenomenon didn't fully register with me, despite my familiarity with the concepts of Arthur Jones and others. I would go right back into my usual workouts and soon be plateaued.

Within a few years, though, I began to wise up. Some of my best results came when I stopped training to failure for a while. If I was doing multiple sets, all the first sets became actual warm-ups, and on the final set I would simply try to do a rep or two more than the previous workout. I would never do more than that, though. If I had more left in me, I would just save it for the next workout. My current workout expands on this idea.

After this success, we ended up trying working out full body only 2 days a week, and of course the desire to train led to up this to a 4 day split, and soon I was plateaued again.

After many years, I eventually settled on training each bodypart once a week, generally split into two days. Once again the increased recovery and desire for gains led me to use higher intensity methods again. This eventually led me to more problems, and finally, to this current routine.

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