Beyond-Brawn-2nd-Edition

BEYOND BRAWN
isfied with your size gains (though you have gained lots of strength), you
may need to switch from a total focus on manipulating training variables to
achieve more weight on the bar, to a focus on achieving weight on the bar
and size on your body. A moderate increase in training frequency, and/or a
change in set-rep format and style, may be all you need to turn weight on the bar
into weight on your body.
The genetic factor
21.61 If you have trained for many years, and are very strong (by all standards
except the really gifted folk), it is possible you are very close to your maximum
muscular size. But you can never know for sure, so I would say that
unless you have age or health limitations, and still want bigger muscles, you
should still target them. at said, you will eventually reach a point—whatever
that is—where you are very close to your natural limit for muscular
size. However, even when you do reach it, you may still be able to build a
good deal more strength (without much more size), so long as you are not
limited by age or health. ere is much more to training than building bigger
muscles, especially once you are already well developed.
How come the modified views?
21.62 I have been concerned that some trainees have taken the mentality of
reduced frequency of training too far (though, in general, most trainees train
too much). If you have found that you have been gaining strength steadily,
but without much if any accompanying size, it may be that you have been
training too infrequently. So experiment with increasing frequency, at least
in some exercises (if you want more size).
21.63 Higher frequency (“higher” being relative to hitting each exercise only once
every 7, 10 or even 14 days—which may still build strength) may promote
better size gains; but train too often and you will build neither strength nor
size. Here is where individual experimentation is needed. Please do not misinterpret
my views. I am saying, for example, that training a given exercise
three times every two weeks may increase size gains relative to training that
exercise just once per week. I am not saying, for example, that hitting each
exercise hard three times a week will give even better results—such a training
frequency is overkill for even many genetic phenomena.
21.64 How come I have modified my point of view on this matter? I have always
acknowledged individual variation, and the need (within reason) for indi-
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