Blending Size and Strength, Version 2.0
Developing the Best of Both Worlds
by Dr. Clay Hyght, DC, CSCS

There's no shortage of good programs designed to help you get stronger.
There are also some good programs aimed at helping you induce
hypertrophy and get your grow on. Unfortunately, you're usually left to
choose between these two goals, or at least severely compromise one of
them while focusing on the other. Well, I decided to try to
solve this dilemma. I put my thinking cap on and designed a program
specifically for those of us who want to get bigger and stronger at the same time. Blending
Size and Strength, Version 2.0 is the unparalleled, the supreme, the
incomparable, simply the most badass program ever developed. This
program will make all hypertrophy and strength-inducing programs
obsolete! You'll never do, or need, another training program... at
least until version 3.0 is released. Come on, now! I hope you
didn't think I was serious. I wouldn't try to blow sunshine up your
skirt like that. While the above paragraph is complete crap, Blending
Size and Strength, Version 2.0 really is a good, solid program that
works for the vast majority of people who diligently follow it.

The Size and Strength Conundrum Conventional
training wisdom tells us that training for size and training for
strength are two separate entities. Just take a look at the routines of
the top powerlifters and top bodybuilders. They differ like night and
day. So how do we solve this riddle of wanting to get big and strong
simultaneously? Heavy weight and low reps (1-5) are the undisputed king for producing maximal gains in strength. The key here is that high amounts of tension are placed on the muscle. High levels of tension are synonymous with strength gains. Getting
experts to agree on exactly what's best for inducing hypertrophy is a
bit more tricky. However, it's fairly well accepted that somewhere
between 10 and 20 reps work best for delivering skin-stretching gains
in size. This
is assuming that there are a significant number of sets to accompany
these reps. It's safe to say that the cornerstone of hypertrophy
training is to put the muscles through a high volume of training. But
let's not forget the 6-10 repetition range. Conventional experts say
this is a good rep range to use when you want to get stronger and
bigger. But the fact of the matter is this: if you were to only do 6-10
reps for all your sets, you would likely get a bit bigger and a bit
stronger. However, you'd be severely limiting the levels
of strength and hypertrophy that you could've ultimately attained if
you'd included other rep ranges too. The 6-10 rep range is great, but
it isn't a cure-all like many gym-goers seem to think.
Poor, poor misguided soul. Some
try to solve this problem with routines that have utilized
periodization. They have you train with heavy loads for a few weeks in
order to maximize strength. Then they'll have you switch gears for a
few weeks and do training designed for hypertrophy. One thing I
don't like about that approach is that strength tends to wane during
the hypertrophy phase, and gains in size often slow down during the
strength-only. On top of that, you have to wait many weeks (through at
least one phase of each cycle) to make decent progress in both realms.
Call me impatient, but I want to improve both at the same time. To
appease my impatience, and that of my clients, I designed this program.
It includes high levels of tension to optimize strength, like any good
powerlifting program would. It also uses higher volume and more reps to
maximize size gains, like most hypertrophy-producing workouts would. Both
of these parameters are covered each week, so you'll quickly be on your
way to achieving both goals. The program is elegantly simple, but don't
let that fool you. The results you'll achieve in strength and size will surprise you.
Big guy, strong guy. No coincidence.

Heavy Day, Light Day To
get downright strong, you're going to train each bodypart with one
heavy, low-rep day per week. To get your swole on, you're going to
train each bodypart with one light, high-rep day per week. That's
right... you're training each bodypart twice a week. Not three times,
as with most full body workouts. Not once a week, as is the norm for so
many pure bodybuilding workouts. But two times each week. This
frequency, and the varied stimuli with each workout, gives you the best
of both worlds. That's exactly what I set out to do, give you a great
strength-inducing workout and a great size-producing workout, all in
one neat little package.

The Program: Exercises, Sets, and Reps
Monday: Heavy Upper Body A1: Barbell bench press 6x3 (6 sets of 3 reps) A2: T-bar row 6x3 B1: Standing barbell shoulder press 5x5 B2: Pull-up 5x5 C1: Skullcrusher 3x5 C2: Barbell curl 3x5
Workout Notes Rest two to three minutes between sets of the same exercise. Keep your elbows from flaring way out to the sides on the bench press. Use the wide horizontal handles on the T-bar row. Your grip width should be about the same used in the bench press. Feel free to use your legs to spot you, like a push press, on the last rep or two of the shoulder press. You
may use an assisted pull-up machine, bands, or a spot from a friend if
you're not yet strong enough to do pull-ups with your bodyweight. Do
pulldowns only as a last resort.

Tuesday: Light Lower Body and Abs Unilateral leg press 1x25 / 1x20 / 1x15 Dumbbell stiff leg deadlift 3x12-15 Barbell walking lunge 2x30 Seated calf raise 3x20 Crunch 3xfailure
Workout Notes Rest 60 seconds between sets. Rest 15-30 seconds between each leg on the leg press. Consciously
utilize your glutes when coming up in the stiff leg deadlift. Go up
until your torso is about 15 degrees from vertical to keep tension on
the targeted muscles. Take long strides in the walking lunge for a total of 30 steps/reps (15 each leg) per set. Add weight to the crunches, if needed, to keep the reps under 25.

Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Light Upper Body A1: Decline dumbbell bench press 1x15 / 1x12 / 1x20 A2: Dumbbell row 1x15 / 1x12 / 1x20 B1: Dumbbell lateral raise 3x15 B2: Pulldown to the front 3x15 C1: Preacher curl 2x15 C2: Overhead unilateral dumbbell extension 2x15
Workout Notes As with Tuesday's "light" workout, the rest intervals today should be 60 seconds. Avoid
shrugging your shoulders when doing lateral raises. Make sure to keep
the dumbbells level at the top, avoiding the tendency for the pinky to
go down and the thumb to go up. On dumbbell extensions, avoid
locking out at the top, which would take tension off the triceps. Make
sure to lower the dumbbell until your forearm is parallel to the
ground, with about a 70 degree bend in your elbow.

Friday: Heavy Lower Body and Abs Barbell squat 6x4 Rack deadlift 1x8 / 1x6 / 1x4 / 1x2 Lying leg curl 3x6 Standing calf raise 5x5 Hanging leg raise 3x8
Workout Notes Rest intervals should be two to three minutes, more for squats if needed. Be a real man and squat deep! If you are going to do a crappy-ass half squat, don't tell anyone you're doing my program. On
rack deads, set the pin so that you're starting three or four inches
below the knee, just below the tibial tuberosity (that bump just below
your kneecap.) Retract your scapulae at the top of the deadlift. Keep your feet plantar flexed (pointed down) when doing leg curls. Do a real
hanging leg raise by raising your feet up to your hands, tucking your
tailbone under, and really tilting your pelvis posteriorly. Don't just
flex your hips and raise your knees up.

Saturday and Sunday : Off

A Few Specifics The number of sets listed does notinclude
warm-up sets. Make sure to warm-up properly, but avoid fatiguing
yourself too much before your work sets. One or two light sets will do
the trick, especially if you've done some mobility work before getting
started.
Never forget the importance of mobility and flexibility. To
reduce the risk of overtraining, you'll only train four days per week.
To further reduce the risk of overdoing it, make sure to not do any
forced repetitions. On the heavy day, you should be able to complete
your last rep with good form and not have enough left for another rep. On
the light day, stop a rep or two short of failure. Holding back from
going absolutely all out is something that's tough for me to do, and it
may be for you, too. But your patience will pay off with steady muscle
gains. One of the most important, yet simplest, ways to ensure
your steady progress is to keep a training log. Keeping meticulous
records allows you to intelligently plan the progression in your
workout. As a general rule, try to improve a particular
exercise with either five more pounds or one more rep every-other
workout or two out of three workouts. Trying to improve every single
workout would lead to stagnation or even regression, both of which you
want to avoid like Britney Spears avoids responsibility.
Come back, original Britney, come back. The
rest intervals I suggested are general guidelines. Rest longer on the
low-rep stuff and keep a faster pace on the higher-rep stuff. Use your
recovery between sets as the ultimate guide, not the clock.

A Little Leeway Can
you switch the exercises in this routine? Sure you can, but then it
won't be this routine. Seriously, if you make sensible changes like
doing an incline dumbbell press instead of decline, then you won't be
bastardizing the program. But if you start taking out the
squats and deadlifts to replace them with easier exercises, or you add
more sets for arms, then you're doing your own thing which may or may
not work. If you do switch exercises, make sure to replace them with
something that's comparable. I've picked them for a reason.
Heavy benching should be heavy. You
can feel free to add a pre-hab exercise or two, like Cuban rotations or
the push-up plus. These don't typically compromise recovery and they
can go a long way in helping you become bulletproof. Due to
the nature of this plan, I think it can and should be done longer than
most. I'd say 10 to 12 weeks is optimal. If you find yourself getting
worn down, take a recovery break around week 6 or 7, and only do about
70-80% of what you're capable on each set. You'll come back stronger
the following week.

To Sum It Up While
this is a very good routine, it's not the Holy Grail of training, nor
is any other program. However, if you were to change the exercises
regularly and tweak the rep schemes a bit, this four day routine,
alternating heavy and light days, could work for a long time. So don't
do this exact routine for too long, but feel free to use the template for months and months, as long as it's working.

About the Author
Clay
Hyght, DC, CSCS, CISSN has been a competitive bodybuilder for 16 years
and an NPC Judge for many of those. Residing in Danville, CA, Dr. Clay
practices and serves as a training and nutrition consultant. To contact
or read more about the author, go to www.DrClay.com . To learn more about his private training facility, visit www.THRiveTraining.net.



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