QUESTION OF STRENGTH

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by Charles Poliquin | October 8, 2007|Leave a Comment

Tags QUESTION OF STRENGTH, TRAINING

SHOULDER TRAINING: THE FINAL WORD?

Q: Some coaches say there's no need for direct shoulder training

because the delts are hit with other exercises. They say to do a few
lateral raises and that's it. Others recommend full delt specialization
workouts. What do you think?

A: I was one of the first to say that you don't really need direct
shoulder work. I've been saying that for twenty years. But there are
some exceptions, especially for cosmetic reasons.
If a guy has shoulders like pancakes, then I'd prescribe direct
shoulder work. In fact, for bodybuilding purposes, it's fairly hard to
get to the top without direct shoulder work.

The anterior and posterior deltoids usually do get enough work if

you do chins, rows, bench press, dips, etc. But a lot of people
neglect their back, so their posterior deltoids can be lacking.

What I find works best for shoulder hypertrophy is tri-sets. The

shoulders have intermediate-type fibers. They respond best to
multiple exercises with short rest intervals, eight to ten reps, varying
the motor resistance. For example, here's a quick fix for lagging
shoulders:

 A1. Seated Lateral Raise, 6 to 8 reps, 10 seconds rest

 A2. Machine Lateral Raise, 10 to 12 reps, 10 seconds rest
 A3. Double Cable Lateral Raise (single pictured below), 15 to
20 reps, 120 seconds rest, then start cycle over with A1
Now, the medial deltoid does seem to be the "missed" deltoid, but
it's a myth that there are only three deltoids (posterior, medial, and
anterior). French anatomists showed several years ago that there
are actually seven portions of the deltoid you can selectively
activate. That's why when you look at the sporting world, the best
shoulder development is seen in gymnasts – they apply force at
every angle you can think of!

Now, the shoulders actually recover very quickly. The delts are
slow-twitch, so recovery can be fast. Frequency is important here. If
you have a lack of shoulder development, you may need to train
delts three days per week.

ALL MUSCLE, NO "BULK BELLY"

Q: Is it necessary to gain fat in order to gain muscle? And can you

lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?

A: It's not necessary to gain body fat when trying to add muscle
mass. That's an antiquated idea. It's one of the dumbest things I see
– guys eating candy bars and fast food when trying to build muscle.

The problem in the weight training world is that people don't give a
shit about good health. I see weight training as being a lifelong
activity. The cleaner you eat the better. Bill Pearl and Dave Draper
are still lifting weights.
It's quite possible to gain muscle while losing fat. I've seen it
hundreds of times with my athletes. I have a kid from the University
of Southern California who was 25% body fat. I got him down to
12% in eight weeks, and he gained 25 pounds of muscle.

Now, a cheat day every five to seven days (depending on your

metabolism) is okay when you're trying to gain muscle. I think it's
hard to put muscle on when eating clean all the time. But there's a
difference between a cheat day every fifth day and eating crap
at every meal.

Even on cheat days however, I tell my athletes to avoid trans-fats,

which can do severe damage to the body. I'd rather see a skinny
guy who's trying to gain muscle wolf down a bunch of rice pudding
than eat French fries.

BCAA, PAM ANDERSON, AND THE DOMINICAN

REPUBLIC

Q: Is there a supplement-related trick to retaining muscle while on a

strict fat loss program?

A: Not only can you retain muscle while losing fat, but as I talked
about in the previous question, you can gain muscle. In fact,
you should gain muscle if you know how to train and eat properly!

One thing to remember: If you're on a fat loss diet, you must be

consuming a lot of good dietary fats. A lot of guys who don't retain
muscle when dieting are basically eating too lean – egg whites and
chicken breasts all day long. You need to add quality fats, and I'm
not talking about a burger from McDonalds.
Dr. Mauro DiPasquale taught me a long time ago that when you go
low carb to lose body fat, you still need to take in a lot of dietary fat
or you won't have any success. We're talking about smart fats here
like omega-3s, which can battle inflammation. You have to realize
that our DNA has only evolved about .02% in the last forty thousand
years, and the meat our caveman ancestors ate had much more
omega-3 than the meat we eat now.

I realize how anabolic food is every time I go teach in the Dominican

Republic. Last time I taught a Biosignature Modulation course in the
DR, the students took my body fat Monday morning. I was at 8%
and weighed 198 pounds.

Now, there's no such thing as grain-fed in the DR; they can't afford
it, so cows eat grass. And if you eat a mango over there you have to
eat it over a sink because it's so juicy. The eggs too are far more
anabolic. They're orange and full of omega-3s, like all eggs naturally
were thousands of years ago.

A DR avocado tastes like butter it's so rich in nutrients. Eating

avocados over here is like eating fiberglass once you've had a DR
avocado. It's like having sex with Pamela Anderson then having to
have sex with Rosie O'Donnell.

Anyway, five days later, after eating only Dominican Republic foods,
I weighed 209 at 6% body fat. My business partner came to finish
the seminar, took one look at me and said, "What happened to
you?!"

But when I work in the UK or Ireland, I lose muscle mass and put fat
on almost inevitably, even though I try to eat as cleanly as possible.
The quality of the food is just piss poor.
Back to your question. One of the most important supplements to
take when on a calorie restricted diet is BCAAs. You need about 50
grams a day. Take it between meals.

INCREDIBLE, EDIBLE, AND ANABOLIC?

Q: Are whole eggs okay or should I stick to only egg whites?

A: Only dorks eat egg whites. You see these diets in the muscle
magazines; they always list egg whites and oatmeal for their bullshit
breakfasts. Well, if you took four Sustanons between every meal
and seventeen Anadrols per hour, well, you could eat anything you
wanted!

A guy training naturally needs whole eggs. What about the reported
health concerns? Well, the studies that showed eating eggs raised
cholesterol were done by the cereal board. And back then they
didn't differentiate between the types of cholesterol, so the studies
were invalid. Eggs can raise cholesterol – HDL, the good
cholesterol.

The only caveat with eggs is that you can become allergic to them if
you eat two or three every day. I saw this when I used to run a lot of
food allergy tests. Stop eating eggs for six weeks and the allergy will
disappear, then you can eat twelve every five days. Hey, if you're
going to have them, don't be a pansy.

CARBS, HOT ASIANS, AND OATMEAL

Q: My Asian girlfriend eats all the carbs she wants and still has abs.
I can eat too much healthy oatmeal and lose my abs in a heartbeat!
What gives? Is this really a genetic or ethnic heritage difference?

A: Two things here. First, Asians are part of the 25% of the world
population that are carbohydrate adapted. Provided they're plain
carbs, they can eat them and still remain lean.

Asians can tolerate carbs more because their culture has had
agriculture longer than other cultures; they're adapted. (On that
same note, perhaps soy is bad for Caucasians but not so bad for
Asians. Think about it.) But, most Asians can't tolerate diary. It just
hasn't been around long in their diets.

Second, you're not Asian, and oatmeal is the most common food
allergen. It comes from the grass family after all.

In 2001 I ran blood work on every single one of my clients using six
different labs. Oatmeal always came out as the most frequent food
allergen. It can raise cortisol and lead to the storage of fat in the
abdominal area.

I'm anti-oatmeal, especially for Caucasians. Quinoa may be a better

choice.

RECRUIT MORE MOTOR UNITS

Q: It's been theorized that training a muscle where the exercise

provides a good stretch (such as incline biceps curls) leads to
greater hypertrophy. Is that true?
A: No. Well, it canlead to hypertrophy of course, but for a different
reason. It's like with my isometronic biceps routine where you use
isometrics by pushing or pulling a bar in a rack. It develops
hypertrophy, but for a different reason than traditional lifting
develops hypertrophy.

People are too dogmatic. An exercise is only as good as the time it

takes you to adapt to it. Provided you use enough load for enough
time, all exercises can build muscle. It's just that some are better at
it than others. It has to do with what German strength physiologists
call the Scale of Motor Unit Recruitment.

For example, cam exercises for a given number of reps recruit less
motor units than a pulley exercise. And that pulley exercise recruits
less motor units than a dumbbell exercise. The more you stick to
what we were designed for as animals – lifting rocks, carrying
carcasses, and generally just fighting against gravity – then the
better off you are. What that means is using free weights over
machines.

Now, some people argue that every exercise should be done

standing if possible. But if you look at research on motor unit
recruitment, the fewer muscles you involve in other parts of the
body, the better.

For example, there's more motor unit recruitment in incline curls and
Scott curls than standing curls. When you stand and curl, your
whole posture changes so you don't fall. When you're seated doing
curls you can send all your neural drive to those motor units and get
better recruitment.

EMG studies at the University of York showed that the more you
can isolate the exercise with a free weight (in a single-joint
movement) the more motor units are recruited. Now if you measure
motor unit recruitment in the quadriceps on a leg extension vs. a
squat for a given number of reps, you'll always get more motor unit
recruitment in the squat. But when we're talking about single-joint
exercises, the more you can isolate your neural drive for the
targeted muscle, the better recruitment you'll get. So, Scott curls will
recruit more motor units in the elbow flexors than standing barbell
curls.

Eliciting survival fibers will cause you to recruit more motor units as
well. If you do a split jerk, there's additional recruitment of the
triceps because if there wasn't you'd drop the bar on your head. The
snatch or power snatch will recruit more motor units than the power
clean because there's more risk with those exercises. Risk equals
more motor unit recruitment.

There are actually seven levels of muscle activation. One of the

keys in strength training is to choose the right exercise, what I refer
to as the "most bang for your buck" exercise. Here's a modification
of Dietmar Schmidtbleicher's chart on levels of activation. My
Swedish colleague Riccard Nillson and I added the seventh level.
You should devote your training to mostly level five and above
exercises:

COMPOUND VS. ISOLATION EXERCISES

NEUROMUSCULAR ACTIVITY – NMA
1. Isolation exercise on variable resistance machine, i.e. leg
extension on cam type machine: Cybex leg extension, DAVID
leg curl
2. Complex exercise on variable resistance machine, i.e. leg
press on Nautilus machine, LifeFitness incline press machine
3. Isolation exercise with constant resistance machine, i.e. Scott
pulley curls, triceps pressdown on pulley machine
4. Complex exercise with constant resistance machine, i.e. leg
press on standard machine
5. Isolation exercise with free weights, i.e. Scott barbell curls,
lying flyes
6. Complex exercise with free weights, i.e. snatch pulls, power
cleans
7. Complex exercise with free weights, i.e. power snatch, dips on
rings, rope climbing, split jerks
ANOTHER DUMB "ADVANCED" EXERCISE
Q: Got any new observations on dumb exercises you've seen
promoted in the strength training community?

A: A consistent problem I've seen in budding strength coaches is

that they're so preoccupied with being original that they invent the
dumbest exercises. One of the dumbest fucking "innovations" I've
seen on record is the seated good morning where the trainee holds
the bar in front of himself while completing the exercise. Here's a
proper seated good morning (bar on back):
But this "innovative" trainer decided that the bar should be held
in front of the body. Here's the story: Recently, a very qualified
colleague of mine, a former Mr. Universe winner, a PICP level three
with over 20 years experience in the field, designed a lower back
rehab program. It required that the client complete a seated good
morning to commence with their rehabilitation. This was an
excellent choice, as it allows the trainee to build up the erector
spinae without compromising the spinal structure.

My colleague had to leave his gym for a week to attend the

Biosignature Level 2 in Scottsdale, Arizona. As a result, he asked
one of his employees to demonstrate the program for the client.
Unfortunately, this dimwitted employee, wanting to show off to the
client, said that it would be better to do the seated good mornings
holding the bar on the clavicles, as it would be "safer" on the
shoulders.

What kind of moron comes up with that one? Someone with very
poor understanding of physics, that's for sure.

This approach begs many questions. What about the effects of

gravity when the torso comes parallel to the floor? What kind of
strain occurs on the rhomboids and rotator cuff while struggling to
retain the bar on the clavicles?

My colleague's blood pressure was going through the roof as he

was relating the story to a bunch of coaches over dinner. I was
laughing so hard I had to put manual pressure on my spleen so it
wouldn't rupture. All of us present at dinner emphatically
recommended that our friend sack his employee immediately upon
his return. God forbid that he should recommend lean-away squats
on the Bosu ball.

Some of these coaches really think they're on to something, too.

They act like they've discovered a new planet that's going to be
named after them. Listen, eccentric training and fat-bar training
were first discussed in 1908! I own a fairly extensive library in
multiple languages on strength training, and frankly, there's nothing
much new under the sun.

THE TRUTH ABOUT BAR SPEED

Q: I've read recently that you should end the set when the bar
speed slows down. True?

A: That fucking kills me. It's just plain stupid.

Name me one athlete who's set a world record doing that. Go to any
international training hall and see the Bulgarians, Turks, Ukrainians,
etc. train. Watch them do front squats for sets of three. Their
spleens shoot through their left eyes on the last rep. Is the bar going
slow? Yeah, it is. Is the intent to go fast? Certainly. Intent and
velocity aren't the same thing.

Go back in time and implement this stupid idea in the weightrooms

across the world. You know what you'd see today? A world record
bench press of 135 pounds.

STRESS REDUCTION FOR REAL MEN

Q: Everyone talks about reducing stress to remain healthy. Got any

practical tips for actually doing that?

A: The first thing to do to relieve world levels of stress is shoot all

lawyers. But on a more practical note, I found some interesting
things about this when I recently consulted a professional English
soccer team.

It turned out that when they played a game on Saturday it took them
until Wednesday for their sleep patterns to return to normal. In other
words, they're jet lagged once per week, even when playing at
home!

I told the athletes that when they go back to their hotel rooms they
should unplug everything – TV, alarm clock, etc., and turn off their
cell phones. Get rid of the electrical magnetic fields. Then make the
room as dark as possible and wear an eye mask. The next day I
thought the guys were going to kiss me. They said it was the first
time they felt they'd really slept.

We're designed to live in caves. It should be pitch dark. And cell

phones emit radiation. Get rid of these things and you'll reduce
stress and sleep better. Making your bedroom the Bat Cave alone
will increase the amount of melatonin and GH you produce when
you're asleep. That alone will make you grow.

Another thing to do to relieve stress is to take a time management

course. I only answer emails twice per day for example. There are
many small things like this that can really add up to reduce stress,
and that's important. The best time management course out there
can be found on www.missioncontrol.com.

We experience one hundred times more stress than our

grandfathers. Stress accounts for as much as 90% of all primary
care physician visits. With anxiety disorders, insomnia, depression,
ulcers, etc., each affecting millions of Americans, stress and its
effects could be considered an epidemic.
Stress increases heart disease, diabetes, mental disorders, sexual
dysfunction, and gastrointestinal disorders. It suppresses the
immune system and lowers Testosterone. Stress can lead to
muscle loss and fat gain.

Everyone is under stress. This is the norm, not the exception. As a

result, our bodies tend to run on adrenalin and cortisol. That can be
great if you're being chased by a lion or a linebacker, but not so
useful if you're just going about your daily activities.

So, take actions to control stress. Improving sleep and learning time
management are the first steps.

MELATONIN... BETWEEN YOUR LEGS

Q: What do you think of supplemental melatonin for sleep?

A: It's often warranted for people after the age of 31. You don't need
a high dose, about 3 mg, and the best way to take it is through
cream form. You rub it inside your thighs where your skin in thin.
Because it doesn't come out of a bolus in your GI tract, you won't
wake up groggy.

I take it oversees with me and people wonder why I don't have

jetlag. Well, the first night I'm there I stay up as late as I can, then I
put on the melatonin cream. No jetlag.

Another thing that's good for natural melatonin production is to dim

the lights after dark. Starting as soon as the sun goes down, dim the
lights or don't have lights on in the house as you're watching TV.
Your body will naturally make more melatonin in the darkness.
By the way, know why men are compelled to channel surf? It's in
our genetic code. We were programmed by watching the constantly
flickering fire outside of the cave. Tell your wife or girlfriend that the
next time you're driving her nuts flipping through the channels!

NEW SUPPLEMENT EXCITEMENT

Q: Any new supplement or area of supplementation that has you

excited right now?

A: Anything that helps support acetylcholine production by blocking

the acetylcholinesterase enzyme is great for older athletes.
Huperzine, for example, contained in a product I make called Fast
Brain, helps you regain strength lost due to aging.

People get boners looking at the muscle physiology, but they forget
what actually drives the muscle. So anything that has to do with
eliciting more motor units is even more interesting. No use spending
your time only on the motor if you don't get the transmission right!