Intermediate/Advanced Routine

[Borche]

This routine seems awesome. Started it today, D1, after a 2 month break post surgery (inguinal hernia). Also been reading a lot in the thread in general, about nutrition, supplement, cholesterol etc. Damn one can get stuck here when one should be doing other things.

A question: For a person whose left pec has a tendency to grow faster/more than his right pec, what does a brother normally do to keep the pecs at equal size? Been using a lot of barbells in my training. Maybe it's time to try the dumbbells for pressing exercises?

Hypothesis: I think my left arm is a little shorter and thus has to "reach out" more at the top of the barbell bench press. This "reaching out" movement at the top is the left pec responsible for. The right arm, which is maybe 1cm longer (just a guess, maybe smaller difference) doesn't need to reach as much and hence the right pec ain't gettin' the same stimulation. Maybe?

Another hypothesis: Some weak point (tricep? shoulder?) could force the left pec to take on more of the weight while the right tricep/shoulder can handle more weight, thus relieving the right pec from some of the weight. Read this somewhere, but I have no idea. Perhaps?

[Jartie]

From now till the end of september, I won't be able to train in my usual gym (during summer I live at home, and not in the city of my university). These 3 months, I can use the so called "powertraining room" from my athletics club. The problem is that they don't have alot of cable equipment, most of the stuff is free weights. Because of that, I won't be able to do leg curls and leg extensions.

Should I just do 100 reps Romanian Dl and 100 reps front squat to replace those exercices? I know that I actually need a leg curl to fully develop my hamstrings, but I don't have much of a choice...

Glute-ham raises

[landus123]

You can perform external rotations during your overreach. Reducing pull-ups volume is important because the lats and pecs are the primary internal rotators, you need to reduce internal roation and increase external rotation until your shoulder problem goes away. Stick with the plan I gave you.

It's very important that everyone stretches their pecs and lats regularly, this is the best possible way to keep your shoulders and rotator cuff healthy, performing external rotations is also a good idea as it helps to counterbalance all the internal rotation during chest/lat training. AD posted my stretching routine a few pages back, I include external rotations as part of my stretching routine but when I rewrite the routine I'm going to add external rotations to D2.

Thanks again for this. I'm going to ask, can external rotations help with shoulder mass in anyway? I could swear my side delts were starting to feel it.

One of my work colleagues suggested the reasoning for my shoulder drooping forward is because the tendons/muscles have lost elasticity (through not holding it, damage) and by strengthening the muscles (through rear delt flyes) this will mean my muscles will become tighter, pulling the shoulder back (I know this is obviously very caveman but is it sort of right, I'm just trying to better understand how what I'm doing will help, although I am still doing it).

[AD1984]

Do you have any idea how many people are on your routine?

That's a very good question. I think there are a lot more people on this routine that don't even post in this thread, and they pop in after a few months with their progress, which is really cool to see.

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

[fabiomoser]

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

good idea AD!

<-- I'm in =)

[ddoyon92]

It's a pretty good idea. That way we can look at many more logs for this routine.

Repped.

[eriquee]

GO Team Kelei <--

[Nic1]

Just started, really like this routine so far. I had grown complacent on Layne Norton's PHAT, the 30 sec rests really push me!

Kelei, a question: You said that for an equivalent total weekly volume, a higher frequency is always more beneficial. According to that logic, why are you not suggesting full-body workouts 6 days a week? While we need to train the muscles from different angles, nothing prevents us to alternate exercises every day, e.g. chin-ups first day, pull-ups second day, chest supported rows third day, etc., and still train the whole body every day.

[jasonfodor]

what kind of progress did you guys make (bench and squat) on this program? ex. added 10 lbs to bench every month or added 50 lbs to bench and been on it for 6 months, etc.

also comment on aesthetic gains good/bad?

[sepandee]

Hi folks,

So I started doing this program sometime in mid-April. I was active on this thread at the beginning but then just started doing my own thing and kept going with the program. It's been fun. I haven't been consistant with the number of reps--sometimes I do 30, sometimes 40, sometimes 50, but most of the time 40--and I haven't been eating as much as I used to when I was doing Starting Strength or Growth Stimulus Training, but I'm extremely happy with my progress in terms of both aesthetics and strength even though it's only been 2 months.

Now two things. First, an unstructured report on my progress. I'm going away next week for a month and I thought for leg day (D3), I'll go back to doing back squats, front squats, and lunges. Now, I hadn't back squatted in two months, and I think my max at that point was 285 x 5 and 290 x 3. Three days ago I tried 245 x 8/8/8, which wasn't too difficult. Today I did 255 x 8/7/7, which again wasn't bad at all. So pretty cool: I've been front squatting and haven't done any back squats for two months, and I think I can manage to back squat the weight I was squatting more than two months ago.

I was also doing chinups at BW (around 161lb consistently) + 5lb initially, and now I'm doing +30lb. The only thing is that at +5lb, I managed to do 10/5/4/4/4/3/etc. At +30lb, it looks more like 10 or 11/3/3/3/2/2/2/2... So takes a lot longer to finish.

Pullups I still don't dare add any weight to it after doing all those chinups. No sir.

Front squats I've managed to add +15lb in these two months (working weight is 195lb right now).

Bench press is... the only one I'm not happy with. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. Whatever. My chest is definitely getting bigger though.

And that's my progress.

The other thing is what to do while traveling. Any suggestions? Usually when I go on a summer vacation, I stay put in one place or two and so manage to sign up at a gym. This time, however, I'll be moving every 3 days or so and won't be able to go to the gym. I wouldn't even want to go to the gym even if I could. But let's say if I put aside 20-30 minutes every day to do something, other than doing sh*t loads of pushups and lunges and wall squats (and if possible, dips) at bodyweight, what else can I do?

[davo26]

That's a very good question. I think there are a lot more people on this routine that don't even post in this thread, and they pop in after a few months with their progress, which is really cool to see.

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

<----- great idea AD!! :-)

[Kelei]

Do you have any idea how many people are on your routine?

I've got no idea lol, there's the people in this thread, there's perhaps 60 regulars who only contact me via PM, there's probably quite a few lurkers who can't be bothered signing up to BB.com to post and from what I can tell there's plenty of people from other forums using the routine.

So I can't even really guess. I'm starting to run out of time to keep up with it all lol, people are always offering me money to train/coach them 1 on 1 so I'm considering actually doing it, I spend so much time helping people out it's basically like a job already haha. If I were to train people 1 on 1 I could be far more specific with my recommendations, I'd be able to customise everything exactly to the individual rather than always having to generalise as I am now.

From now till the end of september, I won't be able to train in my usual gym (during summer I live at home, and not in the city of my university). These 3 months, I can use the so called "powertraining room" from my athletics club. The problem is that they don't have alot of cable equipment, most of the stuff is free weights. Because of that, I won't be able to do leg curls and leg extensions.

Should I just do 100 reps Romanian Dl and 100 reps front squat to replace those exercices? I know that I actually need a leg curl to fully develop my hamstrings, but I don't have much of a choice...

Improvised GHR instead of leg curls, perform leg press instead of leg extensions, if you can't perform leg press try high bar back squats, it doesn't really matter what you pick, just pick a quad exercise that you have the equipment for and feel comfortable with, if all else fails just perform extra front squats.

This routine seems awesome. Started it today, D1, after a 2 month break post surgery (inguinal hernia). Also been reading a lot in the thread in general, about nutrition, supplement, cholesterol etc. Damn one can get stuck here when one should be doing other things.

A question: For a person whose left pec has a tendency to grow faster/more than his right pec, what does a brother normally do to keep the pecs at equal size? Been using a lot of barbells in my training. Maybe it's time to try the dumbbells for pressing exercises?

Hypothesis: I think my left arm is a little shorter and thus has to "reach out" more at the top of the barbell bench press. This "reaching out" movement at the top is the left pec responsible for. The right arm, which is maybe 1cm longer (just a guess, maybe smaller difference) doesn't need to reach as much and hence the right pec ain't gettin' the same stimulation. Maybe?

Another hypothesis: Some weak point (tricep? shoulder?) could force the left pec to take on more of the weight while the right tricep/shoulder can handle more weight, thus relieving the right pec from some of the weight. Read this somewhere, but I have no idea. Perhaps?

Use dumbbells/cables for your chest exercises until your weak side catches up. Your dominant arm is simply taking over during barbell bench press. Another alternative is to concentrate harder on making sure your weak arm is pushing just as hard as your strong arm, if you concentrate hard enough you can make it happen.

Thanks again for this. I'm going to ask, can external rotations help with shoulder mass in anyway? I could swear my side delts were starting to feel it.

One of my work colleagues suggested the reasoning for my shoulder drooping forward is because the tendons/muscles have lost elasticity (through not holding it, damage) and by strengthening the muscles (through rear delt flyes) this will mean my muscles will become tighter, pulling the shoulder back (I know this is obviously very caveman but is it sort of right, I'm just trying to better understand how what I'm doing will help, although I am still doing it).

Short/tight pecs and lats cause the shoulders to go forward.Your rhomboids, mid traps and rotator cuff are all lengthened. What you need to do is lengthen your pecs/lats (via stretching) and shorten your rhomboids, mid traps and rotator cuff (via forcing them to perform more work than usual).

- Stretch your pecs/lats
- Temporarily reduce your chest exercise volume and your chin/pull-up volume
- Increase your chest-supported row volume (make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades togther in the fully contracted position)
- Add external rotations to your D2 workouts and perform isometric external rotations during your stretching routine

Just started, really like this routine so far. I had grown complacent on Layne Norton's PHAT, the 30 sec rests really push me!

Kelei, a question: You said that for an equivalent total weekly volume, a higher frequency is always more beneficial. According to that logic, why are you not suggesting full-body workouts 6 days a week? While we need to train the muscles from different angles, nothing prevents us to alternate exercises every day, e.g. chin-ups first day, pull-ups second day, chest supported rows third day, etc., and still train the whole body every day.

I've recommened high frequency (daily) full body routines in this thread several times, such routines are reserved for the more serious lifters (with more time to devote to their training).

Alternating exercises from workout to workout isn't ideal. Training muscles is the wrong way to look at things, training exercises/movements is more important. High frequency training is effective because it allows more frequent practise of a particular exercise. If you train your chest 7 days per week with a different exercise for each day of the week you're training your chest 7 days per week but each exercise is only being trained once per week.

As far as your nervous system is concerned it's the actual exercises that matter most, not what muscle group you happen to be training.

In other words what I'm trying to say is that it's more important to practise your exercises/movements frequently. I explained this earlier in the thread:

Bare in mind that the following also applies to different exercises in the same way it applies to different RM ranges.

It's better to add variety within a single workout rather than varying your workouts, let's say you're training 3 times per week, compare the following:

1. A little bit of X, Y and Z all within the same workout (X, Y and Z are all trained 3 times per week)
2. First workout of the week = X, second workout = Y, third workout = Z (X, Y and Z are trained only once per week)
3. 1 week of X followed by 1 week of Y followed by 1 week of Z (X, Y and Z and trained 3 times per week for 1 week each followed by 2 weeks off)

I've listed them in order of most effective to least effective. I'll give you another example that's hopefully more clear. Let's say you want to train with a 5RM, a 10RM and a 15 RM, it would look like:

1. Train your 5RM, 10RM and 15RM all within the same workout, perform this workout 3 times per week
2. First workout of the week = 5RM, second workout of the week = 10RM, third workout of the week = 15RM
3. 1 week of 5RM (3 workouts) followed by 1 week of 10RM (3 workouts) followed by 1 week of 15RM (3 workouts)

Once again I've listed them in order of most effective to least effective. Personally I believe that your body adapts to the average of all stimuli so I'm not a fan of changing rep ranges, in the above example your average RM is 10 so you may as well train with a 10RM exclusively.

The only periodization I recommend is volume/frequency periodization. I don't believe in periodizing intensity and I don't believe in rotating exercises, it's better to train with a variety of exercises within a single workout rather than alternating between exercises from workout to workout.

The other thing is what to do while traveling. Any suggestions? Usually when I go on a summer vacation, I stay put in one place or two and so manage to sign up at a gym. This time, however, I'll be moving every 3 days or so and won't be able to go to the gym. I wouldn't even want to go to the gym even if I could. But let's say if I put aside 20-30 minutes every day to do something, other than doing sh*t loads of pushups and lunges and wall squats (and if possible, dips) at bodyweight, what else can I do?

There's not much you can do without proper equipment, at the very least you could try to find somewhere to perform chin/pull-ups, you can also perform push-ups, pistol squats and improvised glute-ham raises. Get yourself a heavy duty backpack and fill it with heavy stuff (rocks etc) for extra resistance.

[wickedsushi]

As ordered, I got started. First workout today. That was an entirely different beast. The amount of volume covered - 250 reps in 45 minutes - is unthinkable any other way I've trained. Five exercises, full steam ahead with each one. I also felt - with a reduction in no. of exercises for me - each exercise got a fair go. So often I would sit there on a rep scheme of 4-8, taking my 90 sec rest thinking "there must be a better way". I think with my rest pause experience I handled the intensity alright. I can already see I need to ramp the weight up a bit more on triceps - hit 12 on both. The whole concept seems such a full proof way of monitoring your intensity and progression.

Can't wait for tomorrow!

[FabulaActaEst]

Improvised GHR instead of leg curls, perform leg press instead of leg extensions, if you can't perform leg press try high bar back squats, it doesn't really matter what you pick, just pick a quad exercise that you have the equipment for and feel comfortable with, if all else fails just perform extra front squats.

I have the equipment to do leg press, so that won't be a problem. I've never done GHR before, but I'm sure I can find a location where I can do GHR. Thanks for the help .

[BeadyEye]

Since starting this programme, after every chest session i develop stretch marks in and around my armpit area. I am currently on a calorie defecit and losing weight so what could be the reason for these stretch marks ocurring?

I thought sretch marks ocurred due to increasing muscle mass so could it be as well as losing fat i'm gaining muscle at the same time?

[Jartie]

That's a very good question. I think there are a lot more people on this routine that don't even post in this thread, and they pop in after a few months with their progress, which is really cool to see.

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

Great idea, after all a social identity of being together as a group is a great motivator and a ode to Kelei's great help and inspiration as well. My member title has changed.

[EdgeDS]

That's a very good question. I think there are a lot more people on this routine that don't even post in this thread, and they pop in after a few months with their progress, which is really cool to see.

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

New to the program but yeah, I'm in

[RGA8]

That's a very good question. I think there are a lot more people on this routine that don't even post in this thread, and they pop in after a few months with their progress, which is really cool to see.

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

Good idea. In!!

[litljay]

<-- In.

[Phuntm109]

Good idea. In!!

Also in!

[Kelei]

Team Kelei haha, you guys/girls are awesome. I never imagined this thread would still be going after all this time.

Since starting this programme, after every chest session i develop stretch marks in and around my armpit area. I am currently on a calorie defecit and losing weight so what could be the reason for these stretch marks ocurring?

I thought sretch marks ocurred due to increasing muscle mass so could it be as well as losing fat i'm gaining muscle at the same time?

Stretch marks are caused by either rapid weight loss or rapid weight gain.

[timrye1019]

What do you recommend to work your abs and to add cardio to the program. HIIT?

[Kelei]

What do you recommend to work your abs and to add cardio to the program. HIIT?

I perform ab wheel rollouts and lying leg raises. I don't perform cardio and I don't recommend it, reduce your calorie intake if you want to lose weight, it produces the same result without the extra time/effort that cardio requires.

[timrye1019]

I perform ab wheel rollouts and lying leg raises. I don't perform cardio and I don't recommend it, reduce your calorie intake if you want to lose weight, it produces the same result without the extra time/effort that cardio requires.

Sounds good starting today much appreciated!

[swatk00w]

Stretch marks are caused by either rapid weight loss or rapid weight gain.

I can attest they are caused by rapid weight gain but why does weight loss cause them?

[Kelei]

I can attest they are caused by rapid weight gain but why does weight loss cause them?

When you lose weight rapidly your excess skin sags which can cause stretch marks. Running and jumping makes things worse, all the bouncing causes the skin to stretch more.

[swatk00w]

When you lose weight rapidly your excess skin sags which can cause stretch marks. Running and jumping makes things worse, all the bouncing causes the skin to stretch more.

Never thought about it that way, but makes sense now. On a side note my wife constantly freaks out about saggy skin she has around her stomach from having kids. I know time helps but it's been 4 years since the last one. Other than surgery does she have any options? It sucks because she has a 6pack under there but can't ever show it off because of her crappy skin elasticity.

[landus123]

That's a very good question. I think there are a lot more people on this routine that don't even post in this thread, and they pop in after a few months with their progress, which is really cool to see.

We need a way to identify ourselves, so I'm suggesting that we use something like Team Kelei, either underneath our screen name or in our signatures. It'll be a great way to show our appreciation and support for Kelei and all the help he has provided us all insofar, as well as our love for this routine and type of training. And if we cross paths in other sections of the forum with other members, we'll know he/she is one of us.

<- 1st


Do it.

hahaha love this, in.

[Kelei]

Never thought about it that way, but makes sense now. On a side note my wife constantly freaks out about saggy skin she has around her stomach from having kids. I know time helps but it's been 4 years since the last one. Other than surgery does she have any options? It sucks because she has a 6pack under there but can't ever show it off because of her crappy skin elasticity.

Surgery is the only real option.

[swatk00w]

Yup I figured that's what you were gonna say.