For those of you who have read any of my writing you know that I am a big fan of the Heavy-Light-Medium system for strength training. For those of you who have not read my work….I’m a big fan of the Heavy-Light-Medium system for strength training.
I of course take no credit for the development of the method. Most of us in the industry are familiar with the system thanks to Bill Starr’s classic text, The Strongest Shall Survive. For those unfamiliar with the methodology, Starr’s original program called for 3 whole body workouts per week consisting of the Squat, Bench Press, and Power Clean. All 3 lifts were trained on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but with a fluctuating workload throughout the week. The Strongest Shall Survive was mainly targeting an audience of football players and football coaches, and for this purpose the program was fine. The program was simple and fairly easy to implement with a large group of athletes training in a small window of time.
While the exact original program itself may not be the best in the world for adding mass, the basic concept behind the program can be extremely effective when applied properly.
It has been my observation that many bodybuilders (and others training primarily for mass) over complicate their training, and do not spend nearly enough time hammering home the basics. By doing so they are leaving a lot of size on the table.
Let’s examine a typical “bodybuilding” type of split:
Monday: Chest/Biceps
Tuesday: Legs, Abs
Thursday: Shoulder/Triceps
Friday: Back
The primary problem with splits like these is that they tend to be very upper body focused. Legs are trained once per week, and the upper body is trained 3 times per week. You’ll never maximize the amount of muscle mass available to you by training this way.
An alternative method using Heavy-Light-Medium…..
Monday: Heavy Day
Squat, Bench Press, Deadlif
Wednesday: Light Day
Light Squats, Military Press, Pull Ups
Friday: Medium Day
Medium Squat, Incline Press, Barbell Rows
A full body split such as this keeps the focus on the big boys. Every workout the entire lower body, shoulder girdle, and upper back are trained with multi-joint exercises. Isolation exercises for biceps, triceps, abs, etc can be sprinkled in wherever, although it isn’t totally necessary to even do them.
If you have never trained in a full body fashion like this, you will grow in response to this amount of stimulus. Especially in your legs
Sets & Reps
This type of programming responds better to low repetition training in the 4-6 rep range. The soreness created by higher rep, higher volume training tends to inhibit the effectiveness of this style of programming. Aim for 4 sets of 4-6 reps on each exercise. You may want to do higher reps for some back exercises (like pulldowns and rows) and may want to venture a little heavier on some of your heavy day exercises like Bench Presses and Deadlifts. Remember, this is more of a methodology of training than a cookie cutter program. Exact sets and reps, and exercise selection are highly individual and goal dependent.
If this is your first introduction to squatting 3 times per week, I would suggest starting your light day with 20% less than your heavy day, and your medium day 10% lighter than your heavy day. It doesn’t matter that the squats aren’t to full capacity on these days….they are still going to yield more growth than repping out on the leg extension.
The upper body movements use exercises that are heavy-light-medium by nature and using percentages is not necessary. Bench Presses are always the heaviest pressing exercise, military is the lightest, and Inclines are somewhere in the middle. You aren’t limited to just these movements though. After a while you might decide to switch things up and do this for your pressing exercises:
Monday – Incline Press
Wednesday – DB Shoulder Presses
Friday – Weighted Dips
For Back training you could change the exercises I listed above to this:
Monday - Rack Pulls
Wednesday - V-Grip Pulldowns
Friday - T-Bar Rows
If you get bored with back squatting 3 days per week you might try something like this:
Monday – Back Squat
Wednesday – Front Squat (quad emphasis)
Friday – Paused Box Squat (ham, glute emphasis)
Feel free to select the exercises that work best for you for each category (legs, shoulders, back). As long as you adhere to the heavy-light-medium pattern it should work just fine. Just don’t get too carried away with exercise selection and wander too far away from the basics barbell movements.
For more information on the Heavy-Light-Medium system of training please visit Baker Strength Coaching.
With over 13 years of dedicated strength coaching experience, Andy Baker is one of the most sought after private strength coaches in the industry. Andy has provided strength & conditioning coaching to dozens of elite athletes and hundreds of clients who want to change their lives through his methods. Andy is the owner of Kingwood Strength & Conditioning, a private gym dedicated to training athletes and members of the general public. Andy has been a featured speaker at several prominent industry events, and is the co-author of the best-selling Practical Programming for Strength Training. Andy is a former U.S. Marine and while serving on active duty received his undergraduate degree in Health & Sport Science from the American Military University. Andy also holds the industry’s highest credentials available from the National Strength & Conditioning Association, USA Weightlifting, and is a certified Starting Strength Coach. Andy resides in Kingwood TX with his wife Laura, and 2 children.
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