We’ve cycled through a lot of mass-building concepts and techniques over the years—from 10×10 to Power/Rep Range/Shock to multirep rest/pause, which is also known as DC. That’s to be expected considering our mantra, which is, Change equals gains.
Plus, variety makes for more interesting workouts. Sometimes, however, it’s good to get back to boring basics. That’s why we recently took a trip down memory lane with the Size Surge program.
Not that it’s boring. It’s done great mass-building things for many trainees over the years. For those unfamiliar with the Size Surge regimen, following it added 20 pounds of muscle to Jonathan’s physique in 10 weeks with its two distinct mass phases. The first is known as the anabolic primer because it focuses on the big, compound movements with this split:
Monday: Legs, chest, back, delts
Wednesday: Deadlifts, calves, arms, abs
Friday: Legs, chest, back, delts, calves
Just a few all-out sets per bodypart gets the job done, due to the frequency of the hits. For example, notice that quads get jolted on all three days—deadlifts work your quads as well as your back and almost every other muscle on your body. Arms get trained directly on Wednesday but indirectly during chest, back and delt work on Monday and Friday.
After five weeks on the anabolic primer, going all out on every work set, you do a sixth week but at lower intensity—you stop all sets short of failure. That enables muscle and nervous system recovery to catapult you into the next phase fully charged. And believe us, after a week of subfailure training you’re raring to tear up the iron!
Phase 2 Review
The second Size Surge phase is a basic full-range Positions-of-Flexion attack for every major muscle done for four weeks. For example, a POF triceps routine would be close-grip bench presses for midrange work, overhead extensions for stretch and pushdowns to hit the contracted position. Here’s a quick review of why POF can help get you huge:
Midrange. You train the target muscle’s middle range of flexion first. For example, you would do bench presses for chest, chins for lats, some type of squat or leg press for quads and, as mentioned above, close-grip bench presses for triceps. They are all compound, or multijoint, moves, meaning that they bring in other muscle groups so you can generate maximum force. You drive up heavy weights to get significant overload and engage the most muscle fibers.
Stretch. Stretch-position exercises train the target muscle in the fully elongated, or stretch, position against resistance. That can trigger the myotatic reflex, which brings in extra muscle fibers, those that lie in reserve until an emergency—and stretch overload sets off the alarm big time. Stretch has also been linked to hyperplasia, or fiber splitting, and anabolic hormone release in muscle tissue. In fact, one animal study produced a 300 percent muscle increase with the equivalent of one month of stretch-overload “workouts.” That’s right—the muscle increased threefold with short stretch pulses done against a progressively heavier weight (Med Sci Sports Exerc. 25:1333-45; 1993).
Contracted. Last is the point, or position, at which the target muscle can be fully contracted, or flexed, against resistance with continuous tension. Constant muscle engagement throughout the set creates occlusion, a blockage of blood flow, which has been shown to increase muscle growth. We believe it does that because it affects the endurance side of the key fast-twitch 2A fibers and enhances growth in that often-neglected area. Occlusion also initiates growth in the capillary beds and mitochondria.
So with proper POF exercise selection, you thoroughly thrash every major muscle along three distinct pathways of growth. Plus, you get an inordinate number of growth fibers to fire—with only two to three exercises per bodypart, one or two sets of each.
You’ll see examples of POF for each bodypart in our phase 2 Size Surge program outlined on page 66. Now, that isn’t the program Jonathan used to gain 20 pounds of muscle in 10 weeks back in the ’90s. He opted for an every-other-day two-way split—which made for longer workouts. This one is a three-way split. That’s so we could keep our workouts at around an hour—plus we felt the need to experiment with more recovery time between bodypart hits (Steve is 50, which mandates more rest between workouts). Here’s our new three-way split:
Workout 1: Chest, triceps, abs
Workout 2: Quads, hamstrings, calves
Workout 3: Back, delts, biceps
In the beginning we simply followed the sequence of workouts, training Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. That meant whichever workout fell on Monday was repeated on Friday. Then we picked up with the next workout in the sequence on Monday.
Because our legs respond well when we work them only once every seven days, we eventually made workout 2 the one we used every Tuesday. Workouts 1 and 3 simply alternated around that:
Week 1
Monday: Chest, tri’s, abs
Tuesday: Quads, hams, calves
Wednesday: Back, delts, bi’s
Friday: Chest, tri’s, abs
Week 2
Monday: Back, delts, bi’s
Tuesday: Quads, hams, calves
Wednesday: Chest, tri’s, abs
Friday: Back, delts, bi’s
Week 3 would be a repeat of week 1, and so on. That’s how we’re doing it now. And because we train legs only once a week, we often add to the standard POF protocol for quads, hamstrings and/or calves. For example, sometimes we do an extra set of negative-accentuated leg presses for quads or a set of negative-accentuated hyperextensions for hamstrings. Calves might get drop sets or an extra N.A. set as well. The full week of recovery gives us that leeway for more work, and we really like N.A. sets, as they amplify the fat-to-muscle process.
For the upper-body muscle groups, however, we do straight Positions of Flexion. The only variation in the beginning was slightly higher reps on the contracted-position exercise to get longer tension times. That provided the density effect we explained in last month’s installment of TEG.
Why the Size Surge Program Works
The Size Surge program can build loads of muscle if you train hard with it, and there are a number of reasons for that:
1) Change. As we explained, you do a basic anabolic-primer routine for the first six weeks, then switch to full-range POF for the last four. The key get-bigger trigger in phase 2 is the addition of moves that create stretch overload, like one-arm dumbbell rows for midback. Plus, hitting each muscle with a full-range attack gets at a lot of growth fibers.
2) Recovery. Notice that in phase 1 you train a lot of muscle mass at each workout with the big exercises; however, you also get a day of rest after each session and weekends off. In phase 2 you get three days of rest each week—and a better strategy that we are using is a Monday-Tuesday-Thursday-Friday setup, where you don’t train three days in a row.
3) Downshift. Speaking of recovery, week 6 is a downshift week, and those lower-intensity workouts are mandatory if you want to get the most growth possible. In fact, most trainees notice appreciable muscle increases while using subfailure workouts during the midpoint week. That’s because your body is able to supercompensate for the previous five weeks of anabolic-primer workouts. Your muscles and nervous system get a chance to fully recharge, making them ready for the full-range POF assaults in phase 2 and another size surge.
Next month we’ll discuss some Size Surge variations, but we suggest you get on the program—in other words, try it on for size!
IRON MAN Training & Research Center Muscle-Training Program 127
Workout 1
Bench presses 2 x 9, 7
Low cable flyes 1 x 10-12
Incline dumbbell presses 2 x 7-9
Incline cable flyes 1 x 10-12
Lying dumbbell extensions 2 x 9, 7
Overhead dumbbell extensions 1 x 7-9
Pushdowns or kickbacks 1-2 x 10-12
Incline kneeups 1 x 10-15
Ab Bench crunches 2 x 10-15Workout 2
Machine hack squats 2 x 10, 8
Sissy squats 1 x 10-12
Leg extensions 2 x 10, 8
Stiff-legged deadlifts 1 x 9-12
Leg curls 2 x 10, 8
Knee-extension leg press calf raises 1 x 12-15
Machine donkey calf raises 2 x 12-15
Standing calf raises 2 x 12-15Workout 3
Pulldowns 2 x 7-9
Machine pullovers 2 x 10-12
Behind-the-neck pulldowns 1 x 9-12
One-arm dumbbell rows 1 x 9
Machine rows 2 x 10-12
Rack pulls 2 x 7-9
Incline one-arm lateral raises 1 x 7-9
Standing lateral raises 1 x 10-12
Dumbbell presses 1 x 8-10
Dumbbell curls 2 x 7-9
Incline curls 1 x 7-9
Concentration curls 1-2 x 10-12
IRON MAN Training & Research Center Home-Gym Program 127
Workout 1
Bench presses 2 x 9, 7
Decline flyes 1 x 10-12
Incline dumbbell presses 2 x 7-9
Incline flyes 1 x 10-12
Lying dumbbell extensions 2 x 9, 7
Overhead dumbbell extensions 1 x 7-9
Kickbacks 1-2 x 10-12
Incline kneeups 1 x 10-15
Ab Bench crunches or full-range crunches 2 x 10-15Workout 2
Squats, front squats or old-style hack squats 2 x 10, 8
Sissy squats 1 x 10-12
Leg extensions or old-style nonlock hack squats 2 x 10, 8
Stiff-legged deadlifts 1 x 9-12
Leg curls 2 x 10, 8
Donkey calf raises 3 x 12-15
Standing calf raises 2 x 12-15Workout 3
Chins 2 x 7-9
Dumbbell pullovers 1 x 10-12
Undergrip rows 1 x 10-12
One-arm dumbbell rows 2 x 9
Bent-arm bent-over rows 1 x 10-12
Rack pulls 2 x 7-9
Incline one-arm lateral raises 1 x 7-9
Standing lateral raises 1 x 10-12
Dumbbell presses 1 x 8-10
Dumbbell curls 2 x 7-9
Incline curls 1 x 7-9
Concentration curls 1-2 x 10-12
source:ironmanmagazine.com
