Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

BEYOND BRAWN
vation and training zeal, training supervision, demands of family and work,
sleep and rest habits, nutritional practices, discretionary income, time available
for training, training knowledge, and equipment availability. Because
of these variables, a program that works very well for one trainee can fail to
deliver the goods for another similar individual.
13.5 And what worked well for you when you were 25, unmarried, well rested,
well nourished and relatively stress free will probably fail to work now that,
for example, you are 35, married with children, cutting corners with your
diet, overworked, and highly stressed from many directions. As your circumstances
change, so must your training.
Personalizing Your Training Programs
13.6 ere are many factors you can manipulate to personalize any training
program you use. Intensity cycling has been covered in Chapter 7. Here are
other ways in which you can personalize a training program, to help maximize
your progress.
Training volume
13.7 Your individual level of “hardgainingness” determines the volume of training
you use. Generally speaking, the harder you find gaining to be, the less
training you should do.
13.8 My general recommendation for the average hard gainer is to use about 6–8
exercises per workout early on in a cycle (e.g., four major movements and
two accessory ones), while training twice a week but using a different set
of exercises each session. en, and only if necessary, reduce the number of
exercises during the very final stage of the cycle. But if you can keep gaining
on all the exercises without having to cut back on any of them, do so.
13.9 e cutting back on volume of weekly training can be done in at least three
ways:
a. Reduce the number of exercises in your training program.
b. Do the same number of exercises and training days, but spread the exercises
out more, e.g., train some exercises alternate weeks instead of each
week.
c. Do the same number of exercises and training days, but do fewer sets
per exercise.
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