Primary by definition means something that is first or highest in rank, quality, or importance. Hypertrophy is primary to me as a bodybuilder, provided the additional mass maintains my symmetry. This is my personal narrative of how I learned the value of secondary workouts.
My appetite for massive, dense muscle led me to HIT. I grew up a disciple of Dorian Yates and his High Intensity Training philosophy. It served me well for over a decade, but muscle tears and joint pain grew to the point I thought competitive dart throwing sounded appealing. I think that is a sport?
I’m formally educated in things that impact a balance sheet more than things that impact body composition. However, I do have 24 years of experience pushing iron, seasoned with 21 years of competitive bodybuilding. Educated by trial and error, I’ve amassed a bit of knowledge along the way. Nearly two years ago, much of this knowledge was turned on its head by my coach John Meadows and a collaboration of Biotest products.
John challenged my comfort zone – short, intense, infrequent training sessions. Workouts started to last longer than 60 minutes, sometimes much longer. Before long, he pushed me to increase my workouts from four to seven per week. I considered reminding him of my age, but he’s older than me so the age argument wouldn’t work.
Initially, I broke down. I was unable to get past muscle soreness lasting upwards of four days on things like legs. That’s when Biotest graciously stepped in and put me on a protocol of Plazma, Mag-10 and Indigo-3G. John assured me of liquid-metal, terminator-like recovery ability and within two weeks that’s exactly what happened. Brutal leg workouts that once left me sore for four days now left me sore for maybe one day – at most!
With increased work capacity and the ability to recover I settled into a seven-day-a-week training schedule, which looked like this:
Monday – Heavy Legs
Tuesday – Heavy Chest & Shoulders
Wednesday – Heavy Back
Thursday – Pump/Explosive Legs
Friday – Pump/Explosive Chest & Shoulders
Saturday – Arms
Sunday – Pump Back
I broke up with my old girlfriend (cardio) because I simply lacked the time to devote to the relationship. Happiness ensued: I much preferred iron to an elliptical; anabolism over catabolism. Okay, okay…I still walk on the treadmill occasionally in 20-30 minute bouts, but only so I can listen to my favorite preacher Matt Chandler on my MP3 player. 1.5 miles/hour doesn’t really count as cardio does it?
The beauty of Plazma, Mag-10, Indigo-3G and now Micro-PA is they afford additional opportunities to grow in the gym. I guess some guys would like to take a pill, lift for 30 minutes once a week and get huge, but I’m not one of them. I like to train and enjoy putting in the work. It’s just how I’m wired. Increased recovery leads to the ability to increase training frequency. I found secondary workouts, labeled Pump/Explosive in the previously listed schedule, vital to the point of becoming borderline primary for the following reasons:
- Explosive work tends to quickly recover the nervous system. I once thought, “What does the nervous system have to do with hypertrophy?” Well, burn yours out with too many heavy, grinding sets and you will soon learn its importance. A fried central nervous system will stop you in your tracks.
- Pumping as much blood into the muscle while leaving reps in the tank floods it with nutrients, significantly aiding recovery.
- Fast paced workouts that border on lactate-induced training trigger a cascade of hormones which aid not only recovery but also body composition.
The secondary workouts soon became some of my favorite training sessions. I feel they contribute as much to hypertrophy as the primary workouts. I liken secondary, relationally, to primary workouts much like the often asked question of which is most important – nutrition or training? The answer is that you can’t have one without the other. If you’re not utilizing secondary workouts you’re missing a huge opportunity to progress.
Here are the basics for setting up a secondary pump/explosive workout:
- Eliminate all intensity techniques. No drop sets, forces reps, partials, giant sets, iso-holds, etc.
- Leave reps in the tank. Stop sets short of failure.
- Keep reps high. Perform sets of 10-30 reps on exercises unless focusing on explosiveness.
- Include one explosive exercise in the workout. Perform lower reps (5-6) on one exercise using lighter weight. Focus on moving it as explosively as possible during the concentric portion of the rep.
- Keep total sets to 12 or less.
Coming off competitions in Slovakia, the UK and Canada every one of my workouts followed the secondary basics for the past four weeks. I trained seven days per week, but I approached every workout like a secondary. It was a great way to train while re-charging mentally and physically after a long diet, travel and competition schedule. Fully refreshed, I kick off my Olympia prep next week along with a new program by John: Carnage. Follow along on my training log as I lay waste to iron for the next 12 weeks!