Base Building - Part 3 - Maintaining the base, improving the support to grow

In parts 1 and parts 2 of base building I outlined the reasons why you should be programming lighter than you may think you need to, and how to possibly rotate your heavy and light sessions in order to maximize recovery.

One of the key components of base building is that you sort of "train to maintain" which allows for the recovery out of fatigue, and into supercompensation.  

The issue becomes, like any other issue, how long can you do this and still improve?  

I don't have an answer.  

Everyone will be different.  However I do know that the human body will adapt to most training methods or styles or stimulus fairly quickly, so it's not like I'm preaching you can go in and train lazily forever, and get big and strong as fuck.  

At some point, you will have to switch gears and put some weight on the bar, and/or blast some new rep PR's.  At least for a 6 week cycle.  If you're feeling froggy after 6 weeks, run it for 3 more.

Since the base building principles are something done over a longer period, say 3-4 meso cycles, you will probably need to break up the rhythm a bit.  A good way to do this, without overworking the main lifts, is to use the 50% method, the 350 method, and 100 rep work to improve muscularly to improve the lifts.  

The seesaw effect of recovery and stimulus again - 

Since fatigue just isn't about intensity loads (% of 1RM) we still must be mindful of volume, if a perceived intensity effect is throw in.  Once you start doing forced reps or negatives or strip sets, you're once again introducing fatigue into the equation.  Now something must give in order to still make sure that the downward curve of fatigue is still met with a sharp up curve of recovery.  

This is something you saw in 365 in phase 1 using the strong-15.  That the assistance work has to take a sharp turn down once the intensity load starts to rise.  Likewise, now when you turn the perceived intensity up, the volume for the big lifts must take a down turn.  

Just to make it easy, you can simply cut the volume in half for the big lifts, and keep the percentages the same.  

So 6 sets of 8 become 3 sets of 8 on bench.  5 sets can be 2 or 3 by your own discretion.  

Time to grow - 

  This following is a fact of lifting.  At some point you will hit a ceiling for your strength potential at your current size.  At that point you have to make a choice to either be happy with that level of strength, or get muscularly bigger.  This requires reps, and food.  Food I am not writing about today.  That only leaves reps.

There are three methods I prefer to get more reps in for growth. 

The 50% method - Do a set to "failure" rest 60 seconds, then do another set and try to get half as many reps at the first set.  Use the big-15 programming to figure out how much to use here.  

350 method - Do 3 sets of max reps with the same weight, 2 minutes rest between, aiming for 50 total reps.

100 rep sets - Pretty straight forward.  

"This is f'n madness" split - 

After 10-12 weeks of some boring ass base building, or you reach a point where you know you need to grow, it will be time to plug in the "madness".  

I call it this because I can look at it on paper and tell you, it's going to be fucking hard.  It will hurt.  It will make you grow like a baby gorilla on 2 grams of tren a week if your eating and sleeping are good.

Ok so that's total embellishment for the sake of the article but if you make sleep and food the priorities outside of the gym, you will grow like crazy getting this much work in.  

One of the things this split will do, is rotate the emphasis on what musculature is being worked on a session to session basis, so that way over the 6 weeks everything gets extra treatment.  

Here is the breakdown - 

3 sessions rotated

4 days a week 

Rotation of what is being emphasized on for the day 

For example....

Benching - chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps

Squatting - quads, glutes, hams

Deadlifting - upperback, lowerback, lats

So for 6 weeks, your standards will be to drop volume on the big stuff, get some easy work in there, and then destroy the musculature involved in the big lifts.  

Let's lay this out.  

Week 1 - 

Day 1 - Squat - Quad emphasis 

Squat - base work

Front Squats - 50% method 

Hack Squats - 350 method

Leg Extentions - 100 reps

Day 2 - Bench - Shoulder Emphasis 

Bench - base work

Military Press/PBN - 50% method

Seated Db Press - 350 method

Front Raises - 100 reps

Day 3 - Deadlift - upperback emphasis 

Deadlift - base work

Db Rows - 50% method

Cable Rows - 350 method

Kirk Shrugs - 100 reps

Day 4 - Squat - Hamstring emphasis
Squat - base work 

Sumo leg press - 50% method

Romanian Deads - 350 method

Leg Curls - 100 reps

Week 2 -

Day 1 - Bench - Chest Emphasis
Bench Press - base work
Incline Press - 50% method
Db Bench Press - 350 method
Pec Deck or Flye - 100 reps

Day 2 - Deadlift - lower back ephasis
Deadlift - base work
Good Mornings - 50% method
Hypers - 350 method (bodyweight should be good here if you do them CORRECTLY)
Hanging Leg Raises - 100 total reps - this is to actually stretch the entire spine and sort of "unload" the lower back.

Day 3 - Squat - Glute Emphasis
Squat - base work
Barbell Glute Bridges - 50% method
Speed Skater/Split Squats - 350 method
Glute Kickbacks - 100 reps

Day 4 - Bench - Tricep and Biceps Emphasis
Bench - base work
Close Grips - 50% method
Db Curls - 350 method
Curls - 100+ reps

Week 3 - 
Day 1 - Deadlift  - Lat emphasis
Deadlift - base work
Chins - 50% method
Lat Pulldowns - 350 method
Straight Arm Pulldowns - 100 reps

Day 2 - Squat - Quad emphasis (repeat)

Squat - base work

Front Squats - 50% method 

Hack Squats - 350 method

Leg Extentions - 100 reps

Day 3 - Bench - Shoulder Emphasis (repeat)

Bench - base work

Military Press/PBN - 50% method

Seated Db Press - 350 method

Front Raises - 100 reps

Day 4 - Deadlift - upperback emphasis (repeat)

Deadlift - base work

Db Rows - 50% method

Cable Rows - 350 method

Kirk Shrugs - 100 reps

Some notes and keys here to making this work - 

• This is HARD training.  If your eating is not good, and your rest is not of utmost importance, you will not get the most from this.  Read that again and again.
• If you are fat, do not do this.  Let me repeat.  You need to eat to make this kind of program work.  If you are fat, get your slop ass in shape first.  Base build on many long meso cycles as outlined in parts 1 and 2, and drop the slop.  I can't ever figure out why the hell fat guys keep asking me "should I train for mass."  Isn't that what you were doing to get fat?  Get lean first, so you can eat really well for the next 6-9 weeks.
• Eating means carbs.  No one is going to get massive or gain mass eating no carb.  If you want to do carb backloading, that's fine.  If you want to eat in a traditional manner, it will work as well.  Just eat carbs, but keep the diet clean.  Check the LRB diet if you have no idea what that means.  
• I have yet to figure out why people keep saying I'm a low volume guy.  Jesus tap dancing christ, if you want to do the math on the volume in these workouts.....it's going to be in the 200-300 rep range at times.  Then some guy that does 10 sets of 3 (30 reps) says some shit like "well yeah but he's low volume, and I don't get big or strong on that.  I need volume."  Thanks champ, math wasn't taught at your school I suppose.  VOLUME is about total workload done.  Not just sets.  Reps fucking count as volume for the love of salamanders and all that is unholy.  
• Don't ask "can I...?"  Fuck.  No.
• One week you bench twice, one week you squat twice, one week you deadlift twice.  Again, split the volume for the big lifts in half, and maybe even program down.  If I had to describe what you're doing here, use the big lifts as the initial movement as part of the workout "warm up".  So all of your energy should be poured into busting ass as hard as possible on the 50%, 350, and 100 methods work.  
• Cut the conditioning down to once a week for 45 minutes, twice a week for 30 at MOST.  
• Shoot for rep PR's each time that workout comes around.  This means again, to program a little light.
• Run through this 6-9 week cycle until you start getting crispy, AKA saying to yourself "fuck this rep shit!  I need a break!"  Kit-Kat time.  
• I also suggest throwing in a cheat MEAL (not day) twice a week.  These is a high calorie style training program, so you can dirty it up A LITTLE.  Again, another reason why you need to be LEAN going into this.  If you aren't (I have to always write this a few times because the fatties REALLY want to get bigger when they really need to understand they are fatties) then again, base build for months and months to find a set point with bodyfat and strength that compliments each other.  This requires time and you being patient.  Two things that most guys hate more than Keith Richards hates sobriety.  
• After you do get crispy, do a no-deload deload, and then start with more cycles of base building with the big lifts only for a while.  At this point you should be able to program quite a bit higher than you were previously if you had been stuck in a rut.