Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

HOW TO DESIGN YOUR OWN TRAINING PROGRAMS
regular abbreviated training (e.g., Frameworks 2–4) with a cycle of superabbreviated
training, you are not going to produce any serious imbalances.
FR AMEWORK 6
Specialization program
12.44 Frameworks 1–5 are designed to produce strength gains and muscular
growth throughout the body. In a specialization program, focus is given
to a single body part or specific exercise. Progress is only targeted in the
focus body part or exercise. Good progress means a substantial increase in
strength relative to your recent personal bests in the exercises concerned—
not necessarily relative to the cycle’s starting poundages because they will
likely be less than your personal bests, especially if you have not done the
exercises concerned for a while.
12.45 e existing strength and development of the rest of your physique should
be maintained with the minimum of exercise and effort. Any effort to progress
in the rest of your physique must be temporarily suspended. en the
effort and recovery ability that is “saved” from easing back on the rest of your
physique can be channeled into the focus body part or exercise.
12.46 Specialization is not needed by beginners and intermediates. At those stages
you need overall growth and strength. Trying to produce a big increase in
size in a single body part, or poundage gain in a single exercise, without
first having the main structures of the body in impressive condition by the
standards of non-competitive bodybuilding and lifting, is to have made a
mockery of weight training.
12.47 To get big and strong you have to consider the body as a whole, not as a
collection of parts. e hard gainer can only tolerate and respond to a smallto-moderate
amount of training. Exceed this and you will get nowhere, or
perhaps even regress. Concentrate on your thighs, hips, back and upperbody
pushing structure. Hard gainers cannot be concerned with keeping
everything in perfect balance while building themselves up. Of course you
do not want to end up with a body way out of proportion, but if you concern
yourself with “perfect” balance right from early on in your training, you will
have to use so many exercises and train so much that you will lose your focus
upon the best exercises, and make overtraining and stagnation inevitable.
12.48 If instead of being concerned about biceps, delts, triceps, pecs and lats specialization
all hard gainers were concerned with getting stronger and stron-
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