Ask Charles Staley #2

Dear Charles,

I’m on a split routine, working out each body part twice a week. My partner and I are trying a new exercise tempo, really emphasizing the the negative. When our second pec day came around, we were both too sore to get anything done. Do you need more rest after negatives?

Muscle soreness is almost always an indicator that your muscles are still repairing themselves. After exercise, the release of an amino acid called hydroxyproline is released to repair microtrauma in the muscle fibers. Being a very toxic substance, hydroxyproline irritates the nerve endings, causing tenderness (soreness is NOT caused by lactic acid, by the way). Re-training these unrecovered muscles will only damage them more – if you repeat this pattern habitually, you may very well end up with a traumatic injury.

Eccentric training is universally accepted as being more traumatizing than concentric training. If you’ve ever taken a long hike up a mountain, camped overnight, and then hiked back down the next day, you might have noticed that you woke up feeling relatively unscathed, only to find that you got very sore the next day. This is because the hike up is primarily concentric work for your quads, and the hike down is mostly eccentric.

As a rule, wait one entire day (some of my colleagues would say two) after your soreness has disappeared before training the same muscle(s) again. Don’t worry if it seems like your training frequency seems insufficient – the vast majority of people train too often.

Dear Charles,

When I was a college athlete, we had strength training programs that detailed just about every rep, set, and weight that we were going to try to accomplish in any particular workout. For the first time in my life, I’m training in a commercial gym and see no one using a program, or recording their results. I suspect this is why so few people make gains in commercial gym; would you agree?

I normally plan my athletes’ training more than ten weeks in advance. However, when I print up the workouts after ten weeks of training, the diary often shows significant deviations from the original plan. Much like preparing your favorite recipe, sometimes all the necessary ingredients are not present and have to be improvised upon. Unforeseen circumstances such as misjudgment of ability, injury, rescheduled workouts, sickness, etc. frequently force some restructuring of the original program.

A careful combination of planning and improvisation is necessary for success. When a workout schedule is planned, something magical happens: it allows the serious athlete to ponder the looming intensity for days prior to the battle. It’s hard, after all, to prepare yourself for what you have to do when you don’t know exactly what that is!

There is definitely a psychological edge for the bodybuilder or weightlifter who has mentally prepared himself to bench 300lbs for 5×5, compared to the bodybuilder who stumbles into the gym and thinks ‘Hmmm, I think I’ll hit pecs today.’ Additionally, athletes who plan their training do a better job of periodically increasing intensity, which is imperative for hypertrophy or strength gains, any way you look at it. Finally, those who plan their training are better able to track their results. I created the Myodynamics Training & Nutrition Manager software for just this purpose. If you don’t record what you’re doing in the gym, how do you know what’s worked, and just as importantly, what hasn’t worked? If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

Incidentally, my opinion of “instinctive training” is dependent on your definition. I don’t agree with a bodybuilder who walks in the gym and says “No one on the squat rack, guess it’s leg day.” I do however like to see an athlete say ‘my warm ups look miserable, I’ve obviously habituated to 4×8 and need to re-think the plan.’

To answer your question directly, there definitely should be a plan. However, when that plan is not working exactly the way it was intended, be prepared to change any variable whether it be longer breaks than planned, or seizing the opportunity to elevate the bar ten pounds after underestimating your strength on paper. Look at your training history and see what factors have helped you progress in the past. Have a plan, realizing that it’s OK to make modifications – in fact, it’s a given!

Dear Charles,

My favorite author said in a magazine that chin-ups were the best lat exercise, hands down. Do you think this is true,? and can I benefit from this exercise if I can only perform three or four repetitions per set?

I’m always hesitant to call anything ‘the best,’ but I will say chin-ups are pretty darn good. All rowing and pulldown motions innervate the lats, but I cannot think of an exercise that places such great demands on the musculature of the back the way that chins (and pull-ups) do. The results that this demanding exercise can produce is obvious in gymnasts and rock climbers, who tend to posses great lat development, despite the fact that they do not strength train in the way that you and I think of it.

The chin-up and it’s variations work the latissimus dorsi, teres major, deltoid, trapezius, bicep, brachialis, brachioradialis, and many other muscles. Adjustments in grip spacing, palm direction, and even plane of movement can influence where the emphasis is placed, so they possible variations are endless.

However, if you can count the number of chins you can do on one hand, I have a few tricks in my bag for you:

1) Improve your absolute strength. Since traditionally this is done using between 85 and 100 percent of maximal ability, you’ll need to use additional weight in the form of a dumbbell between the calves or a weight plate on a belt specially make for this purpose. Choosing a weight (it might be only your bodyweight, of course) you can comfortably get 6 sets of 2 reps with, try this great three week program, which is an abbreviated version of something called the “Soviet Squat Routine.” Just don’t tell your Ruskie workout buddies that you’ve perverted it for your own upper body objectives! You’ll use the same weight for every workout:

After you complete this program, rest about 4-5 days, and then after a proper warm-up, perform one, all-out set of chins. You’ll completely freak out at how strong you’ve gotten, and wherever there’s strength, size isn¹t far behind!

2) On days I run into a personality conflict with my athletes, I love to prescribe a drill I call “intermittent sets.” Here’s how it works: you simply perform as many chins as possible within 60 seconds. It doesn’t matter how you arrange the reps – for example, you might do 3 reps, then rest 20 seconds, then another 2 reps, then rest another 15 seconds, and then another 2 reps. When 60 seconds is up, you’ve done one set. Three sets of these and you’ll still have a lat pump when you wake up the next morning!

3) The supine ball pull was introduced to me by my colleague, Lorne Goldenberg, strength coach for the Ottawa Senators. I really love this exercise because of the ease in which you can vary the intensity, and because it takes so little in the way of equipment. Place a bar low on the power rack, just high enough so your back would clear the floor if you were hanging with your torso parallel to the floor (see Photo #1).

Then place a Swiss ball (please use only the ABS ball by Sissel USA – never compromise on safety) somewhere between your knees and your feet (the former is easier, the latter is harder), resting both legs on top of the ball. The more proficient you become with the exercise the further the ball should be placed toward the feet. Creating an imaginary straight line through your spine down to your feet, pull yourself toward the bar, while maintaining balance on the ball (see photo#2).

At the top, really arch your back and hold for a full second; at the bottom, be sure to allow your shoulder blades to completely retract (pull apart). This exercise is the exact antagonist to bench pressing of course, and the tow exercises can be performed together during workouts.

Dear Charles,

What exactly is a “Jefferson Clean?”

OK–first, I think you’re referring to a “Jefferson lift.” Jefferson cleans are used for gender reassignment, as you’ll soon appreciate.

To perform the Jefferson lift, you straddle a loaded barbell, grabbing the bar with one hand behind you and one hand in front of you. Then, you simply lift the bar in deadlift fashion. Your feet will be perpendicular to each other – kind of like a fencing stance. Of course, make sure your knees track directly over your feet.

On the other hand, if you continue this motion up into a shrug, Mr. Happy will have to change his name to “Mr. Dead.” So always remember this important rule: when you do cleans, always start with both feet on the SAME SIDE of the bar!

Dear Charles,

I occasionally hear you make reference to something called “Tellekinetics.” What the heck are you talking about?!

As I flip through some of the current muscle mags, I usually think to myself “Same article, different author.” Since bodybuilding magazines have been on the newsstands since the 1930’s you have to wonder if it’s all been said and done. I recently attended a seminar conducted by noted exercise scientist, Jerry Telle, where he described a system he developed, which to my great surprise, was completely original, and as I found out later, painfully effective.

Tellekinetics is based on two factors that are the basis of all systems of exercise – biomechanics (or exercise technique) and loading parameters. The biomechanical basis of this program is extremely innovative and exciting. Jerry offers a gamut of exercises you’ve never seen before, cleverly optimizing the tension on the target muscle throughout the entire exercise.

Ever done preacher curls? If you have, you’ve obviously discovered that as you come to the top of the concentric phase, then tension is reduced faster than I can eat a pint of ice cream on cheat day. Now try it Tellekinetics style: perform a normal concentric preacher curl on a Scott curl bench. As soon as the weight reaches the top, lean forward, maintaining the same angle at the elbow, until the forearm is parallel to the floor. Now, keep your forearms parallel to the floor as you lean back and return to the starting position.

Now, to really augment the effect of the improved biomechanics, you’ve got to perform the exercise using Telle’s proprietary drop set system. Bodybuilders have been utilizing drop sets for decades with good results, but Tellekinetics features a unique variant called a “wide-spectrum, varied-tempo” drop set. Here’s how it works:

As you warm-up, you do just enough to prepare yourself without becoming fatigued in the process. Your last warmup will be a 1-2 rep “post-tetanic twitch potentiation” set, or in plain English, a neural preparation set. Really, what you’re doing is:

a) getting the central nervous system jacked up for the ensuing set, and
b) determining your working weight to start with.

After this, you rest a bout a minute, and begin your WSVT drop set. You’ll start with a weight which allows 2-4 reps

Having ranted in several other articles about the value of variety, I can enthusiastically recommend Tellekinetics to anyone looking for an effective program, different from anything they have ever tried. Try one of Jerry’s drop sets on your next bicep session and e-mail me with your impressions!