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View Full Version : Stan Efferding traning secrets... it's common sence!!



drtbear1967
10-10-2016, 09:43 AM
Awesomewrite up from Stan Efferding <o:p></o:p>

Over 90% of the questions I’m asked at the gym or via email are about the bestweight lifting routine to get huge and strong. How many sets, reps, drop sets,super sets, rest time, frequency, duration etc…?

My answer is always the same. It doesn’t matter You don’t grow in the gym, yougrow at the dinner table.

It’s never the training routine that’s limiting growth, it’s always therecovery phase, eating and sleeping. The vast majority of people who want toget bigger and stronger already train hard enough to grow, they just don’t eatand sleep enough to grow. They carry a notebook and want to show me every repand set of every workout and routine they’ve done for the past three years, butthere’s not one page with a record of their meals. I feel bad for them becauseI know they work hard in the gym and they rarely miss a workout, but thenotebook just documents all the muscle they’ve broken down and has no record ofwhat they’ve been doing to build it up. I know because I did it myself. When Istarted college nearly 30 years ago there was no Internet and few reliableresources to find information about getting big and strong. I started liftingtwo hours a day, six days a week, doing endless sets and reps of every exercisein Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding. I struggled to put onfive pounds a year until I finally came across an experienced lifter who toldme I was wasting my time with all that lifting and told me to go home and eat.By cutting my training back to an hour three days a week and hiking my caloriesup to over 5,000 a day, I was able to put on 20 pounds in less than a year!

In the book outliers, they speak of the 10,000 hour rule as the necessaryamount of time to become an expert at any given sport. It doesn’t apply tobodybuilding or powerlifting. PowerBuilding is not a skill like pitching abaseball, sinking a three pointer, hitting a golf ball or even playing thepiano. Those pursuits require thousands of hours of practice to perfect themotor skills necessary to become an expert. PowerBuilding is very different.Lifting weights is not a skill (Olympic lifting not withstanding), it is simplya stimulus for size and strength, and it doesn’t actually build muscle, it justbreaks down muscle. And lifting light weights that don’t force the body toadapt provide little to no stimulus at all for growth. Don’t get me wrong,walking around the neighborhood and doing a few curls with the pink rubber handweights is great for your mom to stay healthy, but you’ll never get huge andstrong doing her workout – I don’t care how many hours a day you do it!!

It really is this simple:

Lift heavy weights three times a week for an hour. Eat lots of food and sleepas much as you can.

That’s it. There’s nothing more to add. I’d love to be able to just stop thereand trust that the person asking the question will do exactly those two thingsand get huge and strong.

But, there’s always a million nit picky questions to follow, the answers towhich really make very little difference. People have become well informed andread everything they can about the sport, so they want to hear me confirm ornegate every last theory, belief, bias, research study, proposal, hunch,testimonial and Dr. Oz episode they’ve ever watched. The truth is, it doesn’tmatter. It’s always a good idea to educate yourself and keep track of yourtraining and diet, but there is no holy grail. Using a bunch of words nobodyunderstands and trying to explain to yourself or others every detail of theKrebs cycle has very little effect on your progress.

I’m as bad as anyone about trying to learn all the latest training andnutritional information, but I understand that 99% of progress comes from those2 simple rules: Lift heavy weights and eat and sleep a lot. Therefore, I don’tlet myself stray from the basics and I don’t waste half my time chasing the 1%,I spend most of my time and effort making sure I’m doing the 99% as hard and asconsistent as I can. Train heavy, eat and sleep. Repeat.

What is heavy? Don’t over complicate the answer. If its too easy, add moreweight. Repeat.

How much is enough food? If you’re not gaining muscle, eat more. Repeat.

Sure, if you try to lift too much weight with horrible technique, you’ll gethurt. Duh!

Sure, if you eat hot dogs and pizza all day, you’ll get fat. Duh!

Beyond that, don’t get caught up with all the details spewed out of the mouthsof every card-carrying-weekend-online-personal-training certificate holdertrying to tell you that you HAVE to keep your elbows tucked to your sides, armsperpendicular to the floor, don’t go past ninety degrees, slightly bend at theknees, breathe in, now breathe out, don’t lock out, two seconds on the waydown, four seconds on the way up, 10 more, 9, 8, good, 7, 6 more, you can do it… Somebody shoot me in my “amp;@:/#” face so I don’t have to listen to that anymore!

Likewise, don’t stock up on bags of shiitake mushrooms, seaweed and fish eyesbecause you heard Japanese people eat it and they live longer. They live longerbecause they have 1/10 the obesity rate of Americans so the fish eyes aren’tthe answer, just stop being a fat ass and you won’t drop from a heart attackfour years before a Japanese person!

Don’t chase the 1%, there is no magic training routine or diet that’s going toprovide any measurable results over the basic principles for getting huge andstrong: Train heavy, eat and sleep more.

Again, I should stop there because I don’t care if I piss off the wanna-be’sand know-it-alls we hear advising everyone who mistakenly comes within earshotof these self proclaimed experts and perennial advisers of the masses, but Iknow there’s some very hard working and passionate lifters out there who arestruggling to get better results and need just a little more to chew on so theydon’t keep wasting endless hours in the gym and untold dollars on the latestworthless pill or potion at the store.

For them, I will peel back one more layer of this simple recipe for results,but don’t be disappointed when you see behind the curtain and find out theWizard of Oz has no magic powers. You’ll see it’s all common-sense stuff youalready know and it boils down to hard work, discipline and consistency.

1 Train heavy
Hypertrophy is best achieved in the 5-10 rep range. Lift the heaviest weightyou can handle for at least 5 reps and if you can lift it more than 10 times,increase the weight. Google “Dorian Yates Workouts” to learn all about “growthsets” so you understand that maximum intensity provides the stimulus formuscles to grow, not endless reps and sets. For example, If you’re doingincline dumbbell presses and you do 10 reps with the 60′s, then ten reps with the70′s, then 10 reps with the 80′s, then finally go to failure with seven repsplus two more assisted with the 100′s, you didn’t do four sets. The only setthat counts is the growth set. The set you put maximum effort into, the onewhere you failed and struggled through a couple more assisted reps. You did oneset. The rest of those “warm up” sets were a waste of time and only served toput unnecessary repetitive strain on your tendons and ligaments. Just do a fewreps of each lighter weight to warm up on your first exercise then even fewerwarm ups on subsequent exercises. Save your energy and your joints for the setsthat count, the growth sets.



2 Don’t sweat the small stuff
How many sets and exercises? It doesn’t matter. I can build an entire workout aroundone or two max effort growth sets and go home and grow. Volume doesn’t improveresults, intensity does. Don’t train for more than an hour and don’t count allthe warm ups. Do one or two Max effort sets of a couple multi-joint massbuilding exercises and go home. Don’t follow up a couple sets of 400 poundbench presses with cable crossovers and don’t do five reps of 500lb racklockouts for triceps then try to follow that with some cable push downs, it’s amonumental waste of time!! If you can’t grow from heavy squats, the legextension machine ain’t gonna help you one bit so skip it and do the squats!And quit doing curls in the squat rack simply because the lighting is betterand the mirror is full length!



3 Less can be more
How often? Three days a week is plenty. Push, pull, legs is still a great wayto grow. Chest, shoulders and triceps one day, back and biceps another and thenlegs. The basic movements like bench and dips work all the muscle groups in thepush chain so you don’t need a bunch of isolation exercises if any. Same istrue of T-bar rows and chins for the pull chain and squats for legs.

If you are powerlifting then transition from the hypertrophy phase into thepowerlifting phase about 8 weeks out from a meet and begin doing heavy doublesand triples on the powerlifting movements followed by maybe one or two sets ofone or two ancillary exercises afterwards. For example, work up to two or threesets of doubles or triples on flat bench then follow that up with a heavy setor two of rack lockouts or dips and go home.

When I squatted 905 lbs raw in training, I was only squatting every OTHER week.Twice a month! I deadlifted on the alternate weeks and benched once a week. Youheard correctly, I trained twice a week when I hit my 2,303 pound raw total andset the all-time world record. I would bench on Mondays and squat OR deadlifton Saturdays. Wednesdays was stretching, balance and core work. That’s it!

It’s about recovery. I didn’t do any “light” days, waste of time. I have noidea what’s suppose to be accomplished by doing a few reps with 60% of yourmax. What about “Speed work?”. What about it? Waste of time!! If I don’t benchheavy on a Monday night then I sure as hell don’t do some really fast lightreps or a bunch of push ups. I load up the incline press with 500 pounds orgrab the 200-pound dumbbells and knock out as many reps as I can or behind theneck press 315 for reps. I try to take my body somewhere it hasnt been beforeso it will adapt and grow when I eat and sleep.

The only reason to lift weights is to stimulate a growth response. Lifting halfwhat you’re capable of isn’t going to stimulate anything.

I really have come to believe that all these fancy machines and “cutting edge”routines are designed BY lazy people FOR lazy people who can’t or don’t want todo the hard work necessary to get results. How many years have you been goingto gyms and see the same people lifting the same weights and looking the sameas they did when they started?

Don’t let that be you. Take your body somewhere it hasn’t been before then giveit enough food and rest so it can adapt and grow!!! I know it’s difficult tolook yourself in the mirror and admit that it’s your own fault if you’re notgetting results. It’s not because you don’t know something someone else knowsor haven’t figured out the right set and rep scheme or bought the right blendof supplements, it’s because you need to get back to the basics and train heavythen eat and sleep with the kind of consistency and intensity that will create results.



4Eat lots of food and sleep as much as you can

The sleep part doesn’t need any explanation. Don’t run if you can walk, don’tstand if you can sit and don’t stay awake if you can sleep. Done.

What do you eat? The answer to this question has been made more confusing andcomplicated by everyone trying to sell you their version of the latest greatestdiet or supplement program but it’s not rocket science either.

Eat numerous meals a day, each one consisting of a quality animal proteinsource (eggs, lean red meat, fish, chicken, milk) along with some complex carbs(rice, oatmeal, bread, pasta, vege’s). It’s that simple.

If you insist on percentages then go with 33/33/33 for fats/protein/carbs. Ifyou’re gaining too much fat, reduce the calories. If you’re not gaining weight,increase the calories. Easy enough.

There’s your 99%. All the other stuff combined (meal timing, ratios,supplements, high carb, low carb, no carb, high fat, low fat, Atkins, Paleo,Zone, etc…) doesn’t add up to 1%. Most of the time, going to one extreme oranother sets you back instead of improving your results.

I told you – it’s common sense. Problem is, executing a successful plan everyday, every week, every month and every year is the stumbling block. It’s easyto understand, but are you doing it?

Every time I’ve reached a “plateau” in my results, I’ve never been able tosolve the problem by implementing some new training routine or diet. I’vealways had to admit to myself that I wasn’t executing the 99% plan. You have tobe honest with yourself about wasted workouts, missed meals or a few shortnights of sleep. That’s always where the problem is. So if you see me at thegym or a show, just tell me you already know what the problem is and you’regonna train harder and eat and sleep better. That way we can skip all theworthless postulation about the 1% and talk about something more meaningfullike your family or your business.<o:p></o:p>

drtbear1967
10-14-2016, 10:24 AM
bump

BEASTZ6
10-18-2016, 02:46 PM
Stan knows his shit. Nice read.

pgb
10-18-2016, 03:55 PM
dang good, and pretty much the way i keep things. remember KISS- keep it simple stupid! .

drtbear1967
05-31-2017, 04:21 PM
Good information for anyone.