Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

HOW TO PERSONALIZE YOUR TRAINING PROGRAMS
during advanced specialization work, when multiple exercises for the same
body part in the same program can be productive.
Physique imbalance
13.96 Many people have a natural body structure that is imbalanced, possibly
exaggerated by a lifetime of activity. is needs to be considered when
fine-tuning a program. A not uncommon imbalance is a lower-body structure
and development that is considerably heavier than the upper-body. In
such a case, if you give the same focus to the squat and deadlift as you do
to your major upper-body exercises, you will make the situation even more
pronounced. Instead, do some maintenance squats and perhaps make it
challenging by performing very high reps once a week, adding a few pounds
to the bar once you hit 100 reps, dropping the reps and building up again.
Focus on your upper-body structure and substitute stiff-legged deadlifts for
bent-legged ones. Give it time, as in a year or two, and you will even out the
imbalances considerably, though your lower body will probably always easily
get ahead.
13.97 Keep in mind that if you want to exploit a natural strength or bias, especially
in a particular exercise, you need to live with imbalances, and even intentionally
exaggerate them.
Opinion bias
13.98 If you align yourself rigidly with one strand of training opinion you can get
so locked into it that you never apply yourself with zeal to any other line
of opinion. erefore the other opinions are never going to work for you.
On the other hand, you can argue that once you have found something that
works very well for you, why try anything else?
13.99 Some people rave over how well they do on a 5 × 5 program—two or three
progressive warmup sets followed by three or two work sets with a fixed
poundage. Others do not get much out of a 5 × 5 program, but sets of
10–12 work well. Some people like the cumulative-fatigue approach, which
involves holding back on the first few sets, but other people prefer to go fullbore
on all their work sets, and thus do fewer sets. And many people prosper
on advanced work in the power rack, whereas some advanced trainees do
not.
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