Modern Principles of mass and strength gain

By Gavin Laird- Author/strength and conditioning coach/Power lifter and Body builder.

Editors note: Gavin Laird is a true-leader in his field. Known for his fantastic work throughout his book “Ultimate Hypertrophy Training system” Gavin Laird has coached and overseen countless weight trainers, commonwealth games athletes and body builders. Through his unparalleled knowledge of weight training, strength-training and nutrition, Gavin has become a legend within the UK scene.
Gavin has been an adviser to many athletes throughout 2006-2007 yet he took time out of his hectic schedule to answer some of the many queries delivered through the PhD Nutrition website:

Question 1- “I have been training for 3 years now, and though gains came very fast in the first six months since then I have noticed a gradual slow-down to the point where I am barely making gains. My nutrition and training are solid, whats going on?”

The simple answer is that you are no longer providing your body with an adequate stimulus for muscle growth. Muscular growth is a product of the following factors...

- Intramuscular tension (altered by changing speed of movement with a given load or by changing the load).
- Metabolic "distress" (the BURN! Lactate buildup, oxygen shortage etc)
- Microtrauma (and subsequent DOMS)
- Protein degradation (the total amount of work done ie sets x reps x weight controls this).
- Training frequency.

When you first started training I'm willing to bet that you got substantially stronger in a short period of time. That means that tension or mechanical load was increasing all the time, providing a stimulus for muscle growth. Now that you have been training for a while these strength gains will have slowed down, and hence so has muscle growth. The key to escaping this is to focus on factors other than tension for a while, then come back to training for strength gains; that way you will always be growing, but for different reasons at different times. This is the basis of all periodisation routines including my own Ultimate Hypertrophy Training system. Try two to three weeks of lighter loads, short rest periods or supersets and moderate reps then two to three weeks of slowly increasing the loads used and increasing the rest periods until you are doing 3 x 8 with a weight that makes the last set challenging. Now with the same weights start a simple program of doing 5 sets of 5 with a fixed load, twice weekly for each lift / body part. Each week add the smallest possible amount of weight to the bar and work hard to get all 5 sets of 5 reps. This phase should last several weeks and by the end you should have made some decent strength gains and be noticeably bigger, providing you are eating enough calories and protein.

Question 2- "Is there an ideal number of reps for just building muscle size rather than strength? I'm not interested in being able to lift a house I just want big arms!"

There is no one "magic number" of reps that will result in hypertrophy (muscle growth) alone. This is because muscle tissue has many different internal structures that are capable of hypertrophy, and each one requires a different stimulus to do so. The 2 main types of muscular hypertrophy are myofibril hypertrophy and sacroplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrils are one of the contractile elements of muscle tissue - they actually do the moving when you lift a weight. The sacroplasm is the cellular space that holds the energy producing components of a cell. These components don’t actually contract to produce force when you move but without them the contractile elements would not be able to function. Outside of the muscle cell itself we also need to ensure adequate blood flow and oxygen supply to muscle tissues; this is determined by how many capillaries we have and how efficiently they are linked. From this you can see that getting big arms will require different rep ranges and loads to be used at different times in order to promote growth of the different elements of the muscle cell. Generally speaking rep ranges of 5-12 reps are best for hypertrophy, but you must move from higher reps and lighter weight, towards lower reps and heavier weights over time in order to progress at the fastest rate possible.

Question 3- “I've been reading your articles online and I understand I need to get stronger in order to get bigger, but your programs are sometimes a little complex for me as I am new to training theory! Is there a simple way to get strong in lifts like the squat, bench press and dead lift, without involving any periodisation or figuring out percentages etc?”

Yes, but it is brutal! Here is a simple program I have used with many different athletes for almost ten years now that, provided the willpower is there, will provide great gains in strength on the big lifts. The lifts may vary from one trainee to the next but the set and rep scheme is what really matters. On each lift perform as many light warm up sets as it takes to get close to your working poundage, then go to work!

The 5 sets of 5 on day one should be easy at first, but you MUST add weight every week, so after a month or so you will be fighting for the last set or two of five. If you do not get all five sets of 5 reps, use the same weight next week until you do.

Monday
Squat – 5 x 5, same weight for all sets.
Bench Press – 5 x 5, same weight for all sets.
Barbell Row – 5 x 5, same weight for all sets.
Sit-ups or crunches or similar – 2-3 sets.

Wednesday
Deadlift – 5,4,3,2,1 – easy set of 5, then add 5kg and do 4, then add 5kg and do 3 and so on down to one rep. Every week add 2.5 - 5Kg to the starting weight. First few weeks will be easy, but again after a month or so the last 2-3 sets will be very tough.
Military Press or Push Press – 3 x 3, then 2 x 8-12 lighter.
Chinups – 4 sets of max reps. If you can do more than 12 reps on the first set add weight with a
chinning / dipping belt.

Friday
Squats, belt squats or leg press – 1 x 20, rest pause. Take a few deep breaths and 5-10 seconds between each rep, but make sure and get all 20 reps, no matter what!
Close grip bench press – 2 x 8
Glute ham raises or leg curls – 4 x 6-10.
Calf raises – 2 x 8, then 1 x 20.
Sit-ups or crunches or similar - 2-3 sets.

This program is incredibly basic, and involves little in the way of fatigue management or periodisation BUT I have seen people make great gains with it, and similar programs, many times over the years. All that is required is an iron will to complete the scheduled sets and reps at every session, and an understanding that eventually fatigue will catch up with you and you will have to curtail the program and back off somewhat. This usually takes 8 – 16 weeks but they are often, especially for new trainees, the most result producing months of their training lives.

Anyone wanting to ask Gavin more about the above principles, or indeed find out more about Gavin’s work, please contact him through j.rickaby@phd-supplements.com