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Best Tips To Get Big And Strong


Rick Walker

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With the new year knocking o our doors, I thought it would be good to start a thread on best tips for size and strength. I am actually working on an ebook, "50 tips and tricks for size and strength" so if I dig your ideas, I will use them and give you credit. Lets not turn this into an argument, but a thread to share our years of trial and error and what works for you.

I am training in 30 mins so I will get back to the thread with some of my opinions.

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Big muscles/groups- heavy weight lower reps

Smaller muscles/groups- light weight high reps.

Work legs every work out

Beginning of October I was able to bench 315 a couple times with sling shot. Now I'm doing 5 sets of 5 with 315 raw. On a good day my max bench is 385-405 raw.

Edited by EJ Livesey
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managed to get my bench press from 85kg to 130kg in a two month period by making max attempts every session and increasing the weight of the max attempts every session. Keeping reps low 1-3 works best for me.

Bench, squats, deads,rows, OH presses.

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With my 30 years of experience the best advice for getting big and strong for somebody starting out is to follow the Starting Strength beginners progression and eat like recommended in the book. To get big you have to eat big! Don't worry to put on some fat. You can loose it later.

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Squats, deadlifts, pull ups, some kind of pressing. Track your workouts to measure progress and track your food to make sure you're eating enough.

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I'm not the best person to answer this question I'm sure as I've been skinny all my life. But I have one piece of advice that may be worthwhile. There are 168 hours in a week. Let's just say you workout 4 hours a week. That leaves 164 hours in that week that probably have something to do with your progress towards your goals. Sleeping, eating, other activities that you do - everything has some effect one way or another as to your progress gaining size and strength. Lots of people pay all kinds of attention to the 4 or so hours while they are working out and then stay out half the night drinking and chasing - eating junkie food - or adding in tons of calorie burning activities. Then they wonder why no progress is made.

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Here's a few of mine:

-Consistency is the key. A day off here or there leads to a wek off, then a month, then you stop all together. Pending a fsmily emergency you have to commit to what ever your schedule is and stick to it. I dont care if you are tired, sick, hungover, what ever it may be. Stay consistent to your regimen.

-Small micro goals over big goals. I dont worry about next week, month, or year. I focus soley on the next workout and hit a PR. You add up hundreds of small victories and come the end of the yesr you have reached that big goal.

-Embrace the grind. Training should not be fun. It should be brutal, painful, and excruciating. You want to get better, make your workouts brutal every single time you step into the weight room. Make them suck and embrace the suck. Smile through the pain because only a small percentage of people sre willing to go to no mans land when they train but the benefits come quickly.

-Always shock the body. Dont get stuck into a routine that leads you down the road of just going through the motions. Mix it up. Do time under tension for a few weeks, do rest-pause for a few weeks, add giant sets, tri-sets, drop sets, negatives, forced reps, do 20 reps sets, do heavy weights. Constan4ly challenge all the systems of the body so it has no choice but to adapt.

-Dont be afraid to die. Train like your life is on the line and work the exercise or muscle group to total exhaustion. Eat, sleep, repeat. No fear can be afforded.

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just posting so i can follow this. this year i plan to get overall strength up. id really like to hit a pr in all 3 core lifts this year and then some.

goals are 350+ bench raw. current is just over 300.

450+ squat raw. current best is 5 reps with 315 (never had the balls to go heavier)

500+ DO* raw deadlift. current best is 405 with a sumo stance and DO grip

and as an added bonus, id like to get 250+ on a log press with a full lift from the ground-up. current best is 205 and some change (i think.. it may be a tad higher) cant lock out 230 at this time.

my definition of raw is - no belt, no wrist or knee wraps, no suit, no straps. ideally, id like to be able to walk up with boots and jeans on and get all those lifts at any time.

and i have a feeling this is the right thread to follow to make it happen..

Good stuff Tommy. I don't know how fast you can make progress, and I don't know if you workout with structure right now, but that's some nice goals. Why not start a log here? Will be nice to follow and very motivational. Seeing your legstrength your DL number will be up soon enough. I have done 451lbs Trapbar DL this year and hope to push out 330lbs with the squat in the end of January. Then, switching to trapbar again.

Bench don't know, since I have this shoulder nag, that's why I concentrate more on shoulderwork to strengthen my stabilizers etc. And of course grippers.

On topic: for me the starting strength method didn't work despite I kept the program for a while (5x5), I saw little progress. My body seems to react much better to the 5,3,1 approach. Working in percentages of 90 - 95% of my 1RM keeps me from burning out. And it is much 'easier' to achieve mini pr's, whether it be in reps or getting a new 1rm. I can say it is working for my squatnumbers now and it really help me to bust the plateau in conv. deadlift.

Edited by Geralt
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just posting so i can follow this. this year i plan to get overall strength up. id really like to hit a pr in all 3 core lifts this year and then some.

goals are 350+ bench raw. current is just over 300.

450+ squat raw. current best is 5 reps with 315 (never had the balls to go heavier)

500+ DO* raw deadlift. current best is 405 with a sumo stance and DO grip

and as an added bonus, id like to get 250+ on a log press with a full lift from the ground-up. current best is 205 and some change (i think.. it may be a tad higher) cant lock out 230 at this time.

my definition of raw is - no belt, no wrist or knee wraps, no suit, no straps. ideally, id like to be able to walk up with boots and jeans on and get all those lifts at any time.

and i have a feeling this is the right thread to follow to make it happen..

Good stuff Tommy. I don't know how fast you can make progress, and I don't know if you workout with structure right now, but that's some nice goals. Why not start a log here? Will be nice to follow and very motivational. Seeing your legstrength your DL number will be up soon enough. I have done 451lbs Trapbar DL this year and hope to push out 330lbs with the squat in the end of January. Then, switching to trapbar again.

Bench don't know, since I have this shoulder nag, that's why I concentrate more on shoulderwork to strengthen my stabilizers etc. And of course grippers.

On topic: for me the starting strength method didn't work despite I kept the program for a while (5x5), I saw little progress. My body seems to react much better to the 5,3,1 approach. Working in percentages of 90 - 95% of my 1RM keeps me from burning out. And it is much 'easier' to achieve mini pr's, whether it be in reps or getting a new 1rm. I can say it is working for my squatnumbers now and it really help me to bust the plateau in conv. deadlift.

It is a beginners program that you run as long as possible. 5/3/1 is very good as soon as you can't progress on Starting Strength beginners program any more. You probably started it too heavy Gerald. 5/3/1 is progressive enough for a beginner or somebody coming back from a lay off.

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I would also like to add:

The mind set is very important. My ear buds are in, metal is playing loud and now I'm in the "kill it" mindset. I want to be so sore on my way home it hurts to put my seatbelt on and is a chore to shift gears. I want to push so hard I puke in the parking lot. I want my body to be so beat, I sleep the entire next day. Because that is the mindset that yields big results. I go in the gym to work hard. I'm not there to socialize, make friends or talk to girls (<--- biggest problem I'm having so far). I see guys and teens that just shuffle around the gym, not lifting and just talking. They get in the way and expect people to move for them. It's irritating.

I have one or two "gym buddies". They spot me when I bench and spot them. We dont really talk, because we all have the same mind set. Now after the lifting and we are done we bull shit a little bit. I want to have three to four hard hours of lifting not two hours of decent lifting and two hours of making friends.

There is something else that I've found to be important. Decide why you lift. Do you lift to be pretty? To be strong? To be healthier? Gain functional strength? I lift to be as strong and big as possible. I don't care about seeing a six-pack or every individual muscle head. Don't care about the vascarity or the "grainy" look.

Edited by EJ Livesey
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Always try to improve. Never settle for what is.

And I was stuck in this old way of thinking "low reps for strength, high reps for size." And I was stuck on my bench for over 2 years, trying different programs but never improved.

All programs were sub-10 reps.

My shoulders, pecs and elbows started hurting.

I tried eating like 4 grown men, pushing everything to the limit.

Nothing worked.

Then I saw this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HLAax_IacdM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wAv7D71MRDA

Tried it and broke the 130kg barrier after only a few weeks.

Had been stuck at 125-130kg for two years.

Now Im past 140kg a couple of months later! Thank you George!

I thought I was disabled or something in bench press but now I know I just did it wrong!

I know he does steroids, I dont, never have and never will.

It works for natural lifters too tho!

Not only did I start this but two of my friends did too and they are also stronger than ever now :D

I turn 30 in the beginning if may and I hope to be past 150kg on bench til then!

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Find someone stronger than you to train with. One of my training partners is super strong in the upper body and he has me pushing my upper body to never before achieved heights. Its vice versa on legs...I push him. Its a perfect mix.

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Don't do assistance work unless you've determined that you actually have a weakness and that assistance work will actually be an effective solution. My bench was stagnant for a long time, and I was doing all sorts of BS assistance work to try to bring it up. Didn't work. Didn't need it. I cut all the unnecessary crap out and just focused on doing 5x5 bench and consistently adding a few pounds a week. Max bench shot right up in around 3-4 months time (395lb to 425lb).

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-Embrace the grind. Training should not be fun. It should be brutal, painful, and excruciating. You want to get better, make your workouts brutal every single time you step into the weight room. Make them suck and embrace the suck. Smile through the pain because only a small percentage of people sre willing to go to no mans land when they train but the benefits come quickly.

Rick - here is a problem - the different ways that people look at what they call "intensity". Now this was years ago, back when I did kind of work out hard. I had a young guy - maybe 25 - say he wanted to work out with our little group. He kept talking about how crazy hard he went - how he buried all his friends - and about how he was gonna this, and gonna that, and how he hoped we all could keep up and on and on. Well you can probably guess what happened - he made it about half way though with a bunch of 40 year old's and puked his way through the second half of the workout. His idea of "hard" wasn't quite the same as ours and we never saw him again. I'm sure many others could and would have done the same to me over the years. The best workout of my life is probably a good warmup for a navy Seal. What you are saying may be right but everyone probably doesn't have the same idea as you do when you say intensity. The only thing I disagree with you on is I think working out should be fun - no matter how hard I ever worked I always thought it was fun - maybe a different kind of fun - but still fun. A climbing friend and I had just come down off a "big wall" climb (a few days spent on the same climb), buried under a hundred pound haulbag etc when some young girls came up and asked us what it was like. My partner's response was "it's like having fun, only different" - this is sort of how I view what you express above. :)

I have reached the point where I no longer desire to work that hard - and if I do I pay the price for it. I am now into working out to "feel good" so to speak - and that requires a very different mind set. I always figured going easier would be well "easy" to do. It really isn't - not mentally at least.

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Master the form of the lifts you consider important in your training. Record your training, and strive to set personal bests wether they are volume, rep, weight, speed, time/density PRs. Learn to enjoy training and lifting, and if you truly want to succeed then structure your life to accommodate training. This includes sleeping, eating, flexibility, managing stress and everything in between. Educate yourself, and don't believe everything you read.

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Pretty much what has already been said. Compound movements for at least 3-days a week, add weight every 2 to 4 weeks, eat. Basically pick things up and put them down.

No offense to the OP. But it's been written about time and time again;I would try a new angle.

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No offense to the OP. But it's been written about time and time again;I would try a new angle.

i sort of see what your saying, but i would have to disagree..

Basically, if being big and strong were as easy as some claim, then everyone would be big and strong.

There's not anything much new out there that hasn't been said for years if you're not new to the game. It's fun to talk about but I haven't seen anything lately I didn't see 30 years ago.

Edited by climber511
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There is no denying that Ricks content has been around for a long time and pitched by many. Everyone most certainly understands that and doesnt need to be presented that little gem like we dont have a clue. An important point of focus though, is that athletes today are bigger, stronger, and faster than the ones in the past. So maybe its only in the last decade or so that people are actually listening?

But more importantly, there really is no need to come in and (in a way) discredit what hes saying by playing it down with a statement like "so what? This has been around forever" etc.

to me that represents the mindset of someone who "knows" it all and wants to focus more on getting the point accross to everyone that they "know" what their talking about rather than simply teaching it.

My dad wasnt an overly wise man. But he said something once about an asshole coach my brother had in high school that still sticks with me today. And i see it in people from time to time.

He said to my brother "dont worry about what he says. The guy that walks around at 60 trying to convince everyone how much he knows was the same guy who was trying to convince everyone how much he knew when he was 18."

So in my eyes, unless someone literally has physically been as strong, or stronger than i would like to be, then what they say will have little to no meaning for me or my goals. No matter how long they have been around. And i have no trouble in identifying the guy i need to get with if i want to get better at something. Who is quite simply the guy who is better than me at it.

It's been fun.

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Chris,

My training isnt fun. Its brutal and agonizing and I am often left in such a state of lactic acid build up that I could literally cry. This isnt fun, it makes me conjure up all kinds of evil thoughts and once buried demons, but I have learned this is what it takes for me to grow. Laser like focus and going until the muscle literally quits on me, resting a min tops and going again. Rest pause, drop sets, etc. Whatever it takes to grow. I hate every second of it, but I feed off the hate and push further. The proof is in the pudding. Since 10/22/14 -once I was cleared to train again i habe done 50 weight room workouts, went from 217 bdyweight to 232 and 18.25" arms to 20". Bigger than they have ever been in my life...even when I was 245+.

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Pretty much what has already been said. Compound movements for at least 3-days a week, add weight every 2 to 4 weeks, eat. Basically pick things up and put them down.

No offense to the OP. But it's been written about time and time again;I would try a new angle.

If it truly were that easy we'd all be 250 ripped with 2000 pound raw totals.

I dont train 3 times a week. I dont add weight every 2 to 4 weeks. I train 4 on 1 off. I back squat every 11 days and deadlift every 11 days. I do a combination of high reps, rest pause, super sets, time under tension, etc. I add weight or reps EVERY workout hence the reason for keeping a detailed journal.

I used to think I knew it all. Having to stop for a year plus due to medical issues allowed me to come back and look at training from a different angle. This has lead to gains that are unprecedented for me. Pending my health holding up I forsee me passing my best raw numbers ever sooner than later...

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All this talk about brutal painful workouts reminds me of the way I thought when I was in my early to mid 20s. Now with a family, career and bills working out is not so serious to me anymore. I still enjoy the fight with the iron but it's not my #1 priority. Not even close.

I still like to maintain what I've done but being closer to 40 than 30, I just don't have the desire to be a Mr O or top powerlifter. I'm happy to be over 1250 total life long natural and I usually keep my training from 30-45min tops 3 days a week. Sometimes 4.

When I have a lil more desire to lift 5 days for a couple mo I get my total to over 1350.

EJ, putting 100lb on your bench in a few months seems impossible. How did you do that man. That's awesome. Unless a guy was doing over 400 and had a layoff but if you had never been at 400 before I've never seen that type of increase. Give us your routine.

Edited by king crusher
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Mark for me it was simple. I have no family, mortgage or real bills. I work nights so my social life isn't what it used to be. I hit chest and tris hard every other day. And by hard I mean hard. 135x15 225x10 265x7 315x3 325x3 365x1 315x3 275x5 275x5 225x5 185x7 135x15 135x10 135x10 135x5. Then bent arm flies. That was yesterday I was feeling good. This takes me roughly 45mins to an hour. And most chest workouts look close to this unless I use DBs. I also switched my eating up so I'm eating less per serving but way more often. I also sleep at least 8 hours. Stopped drinking and am staying away from women and distractions. I now also have my test and estro at great levels so I just keep getting stronger. Plus before I got hurt and took that year off I was around 385-400 max. I agree some is muscle memory but I'm also busting my ass to get past that.

Edited by EJ Livesey
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That's excellent EJ. You do do a lot of sets that's good. And have a lot of time to dedicate to increase your skill set. It makes sense now seeing you were at 400 before too.

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EJ ... glad to hear your bench is going up. Those are some sick numbers!

As far as what has worked for me (getting bigger and stronger): A quick primer on my size/gains/cuts ... through most of my 20's and early 30's, I was a "natural bodybuilder," and weighed around 180-190 and trained high-volume. The total focus was on physique. I trained all-out using 80-95% of max weight with descending reps, with low-reps (3-5) on squats and higher on most everything else. In my early 30s, I decided I wanted to get bigger and did my first PL meet around 32-33. I also did my first deadlift at this time. All of those years, and I never really did a deadlift (aside from stiff-legged)! It was when I started working in deadlifts in the 2-5 rep range that I started putting on weight. That first 6-month period before my first meet, I went from 185 to about 205, if I remember correctly. I increased my calories from 2200-2500/day to 3700-4200/day. IMO, the biggest things that forced growth (for me) were including weekly, heavy conventional deadlifts in my routine, increasing daily calories (lots of protien) and eliminating a lot of bodypart-specific training. The majority of my sessions consisted of the major compond lifts.

Throughout my 30s, I continued to put on weight, training heavy and eating (on average) 4000 calories/day. At 36, I weighed 237 at 5'9". I would've kept gaining as much as I was able, but the doctor said my BP was too high and I decided to begin the long process of losing all of the weight I had gained. (This morning, the scale read 195.)

I also have trouble dialing things back in training. When training as a bodybuilder, it was always trying to get that extra rep, despite the muscle feeling like glue. Nowadays, it is about lifting the most weight possible, and putting in 100% effort. As I enter my 40s, I know I am going to have to scale things back in my training, as I am already experiencing a lot of training-related issues from 28 years of continuous training, and am very aware of the difference in how I feel at 40 compared to 30 and 35, and wonder what 45 and 50 will be like. That will be the most difficult thing for me in the future. That is also why I love training grip ... I can go all-out in training, and it doesn't kill me as much as a lot of the other PL-related things (and bending!) do.

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