Programming Archives • Page 7 of 10 • Stronger by Science

The Complete Strength Training Guide

What does it take to reach your strength potential? And what do the steps to do so look like? I couldn’t find a complete, accessible overview anywhere, so I decided to make it myself. This complete strength training guide will be the anchor for the website. It’s a comprehensive framework, meant to get you caught up and ready to absorb the rest of the information on this site. Be aware that a more nuts-and-bolts guide is coming

Greg Nuckols June 10, 2015

The New Approach to Training Volume

What you’re getting yourself into: ~3500 words 12-24 minute read time Key Points 1. Studies across a variety of populations have demonstrated that muscles grow in a very broad variety of rep ranges. 2. When training protocols are matched for number of sets, even with very different training volumes, they generally result in similar levels of muscle growth. 3. Gains in strength and muscular endurance are still very much tied to the rep range used. 4.

Nathan Jones May 12, 2015

Why Cookie-Cutter Solutions Often Fail: Context

It can be hard to sieve through all the fitness information on the Internet. Picking out the wheat from the chaff is tough, and to make it worse, even a lot of the good information out there is misunderstood and misused by those who access it. The issue is that we are obsessed with content, what the information is saying, but rarely give any thought to the context in which the information is being given.

Tom Sheppard May 6, 2015

Avoiding Cardio Could Be Holding You Back

What you’re getting yourself into ~3100 words 8-12 minute read time Key Points Lifting heavy things is more metabolically taxing than most people realize. Most people think of weight training as a purely anaerobic enterprise, but the majority of the energy you use to train is produced by your aerobic energy system. Cardiovascular training can improve your recovery between sets and workouts, and won’t interfere with strength or muscle gains if you do it correctly.

Greg Nuckols March 25, 2015

The Bulgarian Method

The Bulgarian Method. Just the mention of it is apt to get a rise out of people. Some people argue that it’s the best training system ever devised (how else could a country as small as Bulgaria become a world powerhouse in weightlifting, they argue). Others say it’s a surefire way to bring about overtraining, injury, and death — unless you’re using a copious amount of drugs. In the summer of 2012, I wanted to

Greg Nuckols February 27, 2015

Powerlifters Should Train More Like Bodybuilders

For a MUCH more in-depth overview of training, check out this article instead. It includes all the essential information contained in this article, while going more in-depth and placing that information it its proper context. What You’re Getting Yourself Into: ~4200 words, 10-15 minute read time. Key Points 1. There are six key factors that largely determine how much you can lift. 2. Of these, muscle size is the only one that’s impacted strongly by

Greg Nuckols February 7, 2015

The Menstrual Cycle and Contraceptives: A Complete Guide for Athletes

What You’re Getting Yourself Into: ~6,100 words, 15-25 minute read time. However, it’s arranged topically, so if there are topics that don’t interest you, feel free to skip over them. Key Points: 1. Performance varies across the menstrual cycle in some women, related to severity of premenstrual and menstrual symptoms, while purely physiological variables are largely unaffected. 2. Contraceptives largely don’t impact performance or trainability, but can affect emotional and sexual well-being in some women

Greg Nuckols January 30, 2015

Sex Differences in Training and Metabolism

What you’re getting yourself into: 2700 words, 8-12 minute read time Key Points Most of the major differences in performance and metabolism between sexes can be explained by size and body composition, not biological sex itself. Of the true sex differences, the most important ones have to do with differences in sex hormones and fiber types. Additionally, females’ fat and muscle tissue is better equipped than males’ for handling both carbs and fat. All of

Greg Nuckols January 11, 2015

Benefits of Static Stretching Stretched out of Proportion?

When a single kilo on the bar or a hundredth of a second on the clock can mean the difference between first and second place, we want to be able to tease out the effects of every aspect of preparation. Of particular interest is stretching and whether or not it should be a part of athletes’ warm-up routines. For ages, we’ve been told to start our training sessions off with some light aerobic activity followed

Travis Pollen December 29, 2014

More is More

The most reliable way to get stronger is simply to do more. Stop worrying about overtraining, and you may surprise yourself.

Greg Nuckols December 28, 2014

In Defense of Program Hoppers; DUP Revisited

Ever since I wrote my article on Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP) a couple months ago, I’ve had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right, like something was a little bit off. (If you haven’t read the first article, or if you don’t know what DUP is, I’d suggest you check it out first) Physiologically, I’m not sure the rationale behind DUP totally makes sense of the situation. Not that it is entirely nonsensical, but

Greg Nuckols October 1, 2014

Making Sense of Strength

“The Map is not the Territory” -Alfred Korzybski For starters, I just want to be up front about the fact that the subjects covered in this post are very vast subjects. There are dozens of very long, technical books written about them, and this post is just a basic introduction. Actually, it’s more like an introduction to an introduction – I’m currently 20,000 words into a book talking about all of this stuff in much

Greg Nuckols September 9, 2014

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