Ep. #948: Steve Hall on How to Program Effective Specialization Routines

Mike: Hey there and welcome to another episode of muscle for life. I am Mike Matthews. Thank you for joining me today for an interview. I did with Steve Hall about specialization routines, which are training routines to target lagging or weak muscle groups or targeting muscle groups that you just want to train a lot that you want to focus your efforts on.

And when that is the case, generally speaking, what you want to do is train the target muscle group or sometimes muscle groups, as you will learn in this interview, as much as you feasibly can while training everything else enough to at least maintain your muscle and strength. So you want to use Your time or the majority of your time and your energy to focus on the muscle group or groups you want to specialize on without neglecting everything else and falling behind.

Now, as you can imagine, there are many wrong ways of going about that, but there are also quite a few correct ways of going about it. And in this episode, my guest, Steve will offer tips and guidance that everyone can use in setting up effective specialization routines, including what these routines are and when They are appropriate when you should consider using one versus some other type of split or set up like a push pull legs routine or a body part routine or a full body routine and so forth.

Steve and I talk about how specialization routines might look like practically speaking when you are. programming them, how that can look, whether you can and should prioritize more than one muscle group at a time and more. And if you are not familiar with Steve, he is a competitive natural bodybuilder and the founder of Revive Stronger, where he uses his decade plus of experience in the gym to coach his athletes.

clients and he has a lot of success stories to his name. He knows how to get people into great shape. And Steve is also a fellow podcaster. He hosts the Revive Stronger podcast, which I have been on which he shares evidence based body building content. But first, many people think that if they just eat well, if they eat enough nutritious foods, they don’t need a multivitamin.

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Try Triumph risk free and see what you think. Hey Steve, welcome to my podcast. I guess it’s about time that I reciprocated. You had me on your podcast some time ago, and I don’t think I intentionally didn’t invite you. It probably just 

Steve: didn’t occur to me, but here we are. Thank you so much for having me on.

When you sent me the email, I was like, you’re one of the podcasts that, for me at least, when I got into the podcast game, I think you maybe were already in it, or were certainly very soon after, if not before me. I don’t actually know, but you were certainly one of the like, foundational people. Kind of fitness podcast out there.

So it was exciting to be invited on. And it’s great to see that you’ve been keeping going. Like as long as what I’ve been going with my one, you’ve still been going with yours because there’s so many out there now. So yeah, thank you so much for inviting me on Mike. It’s a big honor. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. My pleasure.

And good timing for, I think probably both of us. I don’t remember when I released the first episode and I do remember it might’ve been like 2016 ish or something like that, but I do remember I would just turn on my webcam. And just ramble until I ran out of rambling and then I would turn off the webcam and that was the beginning of the YouTube channel and I would just throw them on YouTube.

And then I was like, Oh, I guess I could take the audio and put it up as a podcast as well. And it was good timing that it wasn’t nearly as glutted as it is now and not nearly as professional 

Steve: as, there are some well produced shows now. If I look back to my first episodes that I put up I was this embarrassed little kid that didn’t really know what he was doing.

I had terrible internet, had just my laptop and headphones in, and yeah people have almost Joe Rogan style setups now, so there’s a lot of competition. Maybe not so much in our space, but I 

Mike: see, I always like to see the production values that some of these bigger media companies, some of them that just specialize in podcasts and they’re doing, I don’t even know what the really popular stuff is like serial.

Fiction or serial nonfiction crime and all that kind of stuff and yeah, it’s impressive to see the amount of work that is going into some of these shows it. I wouldn’t say it rivals. what we see in the streaming world, but it’s maybe comparable with 

Steve: audio only. Yeah. I see some like things that are like Netflix specials, like documentaries going on.

I’m like, Oh damn. So I was like, Oh, I can actually use my like DCLR camera as a webcam. And I was like learning about all these things. So I was like, I need to keep up with these kids who are like, let’s call them kids as if I’m old, or if they’re particularly young, but like these people who have these big gigs.

And yeah one day maybe I’ll be able to fly people in for a podcast and have a a round table type of setup, that’d be a lot of fun. 

Mike: Yeah, that would be fun. But I wanted to bring you on the show to talk about specialization routines, which is something that I’ve commented on here and there, but I have not produced I don’t think, yeah, I haven’t written or recorded anything long form on it and.

It’s something that I do get asked about fairly often. And so I wanted to get you to come on and us understand what specialization routines are. I think just as like I was saying offline if we treat this as a specialization one on one talk, I think that would be very useful to a lot of people listening who have heard about this, or maybe they haven’t and they’re going to learn about it now so they can understand what.

A specialization routine is and how it works and when to know if it’s right for them. Maybe we could talk a little bit about programming, how some of those routines could look like and see where that direction takes us. 

Steve: For sure. Yeah, I think it’s one of those topics that I guess, like you, like me, for the vast majority of like trainees and listeners, for me, at least I try as long as possible to grow everything.

So like specialization, I’m like, I don’t want to do it. Like I want to grow everything. 

Mike: It’s like deloading where you just, you have to begrudgingly get to the point where you’re like, all right, I actually will deload on schedule. I’m not going to wait until all. Yeah. 

Steve: I get sick or something, you 

Mike: know, 

Steve: and then so many, let’s say guys.

I guess girls are specializing very early to you see these girls now probably specializing on glutes and guys. Like we all specialize like chest and arms initially like not on purpose necessarily, but there’s definitely, there definitely can be a time and place. So I guess. If I was to define the way I see a specialization routine, I’m going to see them as like this kind of levels like there’s the most strict specialization routine where maybe you’re focusing on one muscle group and then everything else is on the back burner.

So you’re just trying to build up, say, the quads and then everything else is maybe a maintenance in around there. But then I see there is an entry level just when you’re on the cusp of needing to specialize where maybe you’re like, Oh I can still grow a lot of things, but maybe I can pick like a couple of muscle groups to prioritize and leave everything like it’s growing, but not at its best rate.

And so I’m just going to focus on these areas, for example, so that might be like, I don’t know, you get this intermediate bodybuilder who’s got judging feedback inside. You need to bring up your delts and like arms big time, but. Everything needs to improve. So you might end up putting those more on the front burner, leave some behind.

So I think there is some kind of levels to it, but yeah, the most strict form or I guess the most common definition is like a specialization routine is when you pick a muscle or so, and they’re the ones that you’re really trying to focus on to grow it, at least in the hypertrophy space, which I’m sure there’s like power lifting specialization routines and things, which I have, I probably can’t really speak too much because I’ve gone so down into the hypertrophy route.

That’s like my baby now. Yeah. And I guess, 

Mike: A question that is probably in some people’s minds as well. Why can’t you just grow everything maximally forever? What’s the point of because this sounds like we’re talking about body part routines aren’t isn’t that not a good way to 

Steve: train? Yeah, I think it’s a great question because I even find myself with so many of the people I end up working with and even myself.

It’s like you can do so many things. To allow yourself to keep growing everything before you need to specialize in that so many people have so many holes within their like lifestyle, the training, nutritional ready. It’s like their arms can’t grow, but they’re not really training their arms properly, or they’re leaving them towards the end of their session.

They don’t necessarily need to specialize, but they could do them earlier or four legs or something. So I think it’s so important that people come to the point where they’re like, okay, I’ve got every single duck in a row. So in terms of my lifestyle, my sleep, I’m getting eight hours almost consistently every night.

It’s not like I’m sleeping four hours every night and thinking, Oh, I’m going to have amazing training. I’m going to grow really well. And then stress levels. So if you’re like, I don’t know, you have exams and you’re just a very stressful person, you never take any time to chill out. Like you can’t expect to be growing particularly well.

You might find that you can’t grow everything. Whereas if you had that in check. Maybe that would open that Avenue. And then with nutrition, I think a big one for me is like surplus. I don’t know about you, Mike, but I’ve been there and done that in terms of trying to eat like maintenance and recomp.

And it’s just it’s you’re trying to cycle up calories. It’s you’re trying to cycle uphill with the break on at the same time. It’s just put that surplus there, release that kind of break, and you’ll likely see way better growth. So I think people hold themselves back because they don’t have those basics in place.

Then macros obviously prioritizing protein, carbohydrates, fats, nutrient timing, even that’s like a more advanced concept, which I think people think, Oh, it’s not important. Like I’ll just do calories and macros. If it fits your macros, it’s actually, if you prioritize carbohydrates around your training, that can actually be.

Leading to better training sessions, that sort of thing. So that’s important. And then, a big one, I think I think in the industry now it’s getting better, but in terms of training, like technique, I think at least when I started, it was just about more load to the bar. And if that meant less range of motion, like shittier form, whatever, it didn’t matter.

It’s just all about load on the bar. Or some people would even 

Mike: formalize it. A cheat rep, cheat sets. I’m doing, like I program in my cheat sets. 

Steve: And it’s a great way to get injured and not see great progress. I’ve definitely done that myself. Like I have long term shoulder injuries because I just was just had the ego and just thought pushing harder was better.

And when you’re kid teenage, you think the body is just unbreakable, but it’s really not. So having stellar technique, it just improves the stimulus that you’re going to generate through the muscle and reduces fatigue, which ultimately opens up the amount of volume you can do. And Which is probably like a key driver of hypertrophy.

So if you can get that all in place, that’s going to be so much better for you. So having that technique in place. And again, a lot of people think they have good technique until you like review their form or even like people are now filming their sets in the gym. Oh damn, like I thought I’m swinging that way more than I thought I was.

Whereas if you have great technique that helps. Training intensity 

Mike: too. I don’t know if this is really a common term, but I talk about intensity discipline. So how many reps in reserve was that 

Steve: really 

Mike: Was that really a one to two or was it 

Steve: more like a four if you really had to try, again, I work with people online, so I get like form videos in and they’re like, yeah, Steve, this was like, definitely.

I had no more reps left in the tank. And I look and the first rep looks, it’s great technique. It looks like, and that’s the thing. You can have great technique, but if you don’t have the intent there, like you said, that’s you need to meet a minimum threshold of relative intensity to provide a stress to be able to then grow.

So you’re completely right. Especially as like more newbies are the ones who maybe they, I don’t know. They listen to your podcast, my podcast. They’re like, Oh, I should be doing leaving reps and reserve because that’s probably a safer way. And maybe I can get just as good as stimulus. And then they’re not actually very good at rating it.

And they get scared of failure. It’s Oh no, sometimes you need to make sure you’re working really hard because if it’s not hard, it’s not overloading. You’re not going to stimulate growth. So I think lots of people don’t have that in check. And a big one I didn’t have in check as well was like deloading.

Like I would never. take even rest days, like seven days a week, just go at it. And I’d end up just regressing because my fatigue would just build up. And then again, try to risk injury, that sort of thing. So I think a lot of people unfortunately don’t have those like basic things in place. And I think you just get better over, over time.

Like I view bodybuilding is very much like a lifestyle. And at the start, when I tried to make it a lifestyle, it was very like extreme. It was very difficult for me. Whereas I’m sure you’re the same now, Mike, where like you get a lot of these ducks in a row, just because it’s just routines just have it.

You sleep well, you eat at the times you eat, you hit your protein, what have you, just like a second nature. If you were to try and do a technique, like that was bad, you’d be like, this just feels so wrong. I can’t do it. It feels like I’m doing something completely wrong. So once you’ve got all those ducks in a row, it’s just incredible how much better your training is and how you can actually therefore grow everything.

And I think for a lot of people, it doesn’t take, it takes them up to a decade to get to that point where now they’re like, Oh man, I’m doing everything right. But now I’m hitting that wall of. Nothing’s really progressing like it should be. That’s at least how I, why I see a lot of people not needing necessarily to go down that route, at least for a long time.

Yeah. Interesting. A 

Mike: decade. Cause there, there’s no, I would say conclusive, as definitive quote unquote settled answer to just how big and strong can you get given your genetics and your anatomy. I’ve written about this. I’ve spoken about this and based on my understanding of a lot of the material that is available, let’s just say your average guy is probably going to be able to gain 45 ish, maybe 40 to 45 pounds of muscle over the course of his lifetime, like kind of period, regardless of what he does.

Let’s see. Inside the gym and outside of the gym, and you will have some outliers who can gain a bit more than that. You have some people who are going to gain a bit less than that. If a guy’s 5’5 and has a small skeleton, obviously he’s going to gain less muscle than the dude who’s 6’5 and was like benching 225 at 14.

But again, if we just take an average and let’s say you took that guy and for women. Listening, you could probably cut that in about half is the rule of thumb is that most women are probably 25 to 30 pounds of muscle gain is gonna be about everything that they’re gonna be able to tack onto their skeleton.

And so if you started year one, either the man or the woman started year one and did everything mostly right. We don’t have to be perfect, of course, but started off with good nutrition, good training, good sleep. good recovery, blah, blah, blah, that it’ll take maybe five to seven years was my just backing into based on rates of muscle gain per year, five to seven years before that potential progress becomes.

So small, it’s hard to measure. Maybe a pound of muscle gain a year, something like that. In some people, they might be able to get a bit more out of that based on where they’re at. But I, yeah, I would say that certainly if somebody knows what they’re doing within a decade or so, they’re going to have more or less their best possible physique if they’ve been doing a lot of the 

Steve: correct things.

Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think that’s where theory and practice can sometimes differ. In theory, Absolutely. And I think there’s definitely some people that are fortunate enough to land into that position where they have so they get, they, I don’t know, they land onto your podcast and they’ve got, and they’re in year one of training.

It’s just wow. Or they pick up your books and it’s just wow. Like they’re just doing everything. So right from the get go, like they are in almost unfortunately, or fortunately they hit that peak or near that peak sooner than. The person who, 

Mike: because if you think of a guy who, let’s say he gains 20 pounds of muscle in his first year, which would be a great first year, but certainly doable.

And. You then we could probably expect about half of that in year two and then have halves as you know from each year throughout from there on. And then so again probably around five to seven years is now we’re pushing that 40 ish pounds of muscle 

Steve: gain. Yeah I think it’s there I just I see it so often in practice where people just like I don’t know maybe they’re on the path and then they step off it because they don’t know they see something that they like oh maybe I can recomp and do it this way and it’s and then they just end up getting more and more things right exactly so I can imagine even use myself an example.

Like in my, I was gained like 10 pounds stage weight from my 2017 to 2021 season. It was just like night and day body, different bodybuilder. But I just did so many things of what I listed out at the start. I was doing a lot of them right before there was just like a surplus one that I was like, ah ah, just like you get comfortable in your kind of off season and you’re like, I’m eating a lot of food.

It’s a bit uncomfortable to push it more, but without discomfort doesn’t come change. So I think that’s where maybe my experience with trainees and people I see out there and myself, it’s like taking a bit more time than what would ideally happen in practice. Like you say on paper, and I don’t know how you feel about it, Mike, but I like to have this limitless mindset almost to muscle gain in terms of like genetic ceilings, like theoretically, absolutely.

There’s a genetic ceiling, but in practice, I’m like, I don’t know how many people actually get there. So I like to have this just growth mindset of just I’m just going to keep growing. It doesn’t matter. You can tell me that I’m not, but I’m going to keep trying to grow at my best rate. So yeah, like you said, anywhere between 5 to 10 years, I think absolutely is you’ve definitely done your due diligence of growing virtually all your muscle mass.

Now’s the time where maybe focusing a bit more on specialization is going to take you down the right route. Yep. Yep. 

Mike: That makes a lot of sense. So that could be one scenario just to summarize for people listening where you’ve put in the work you’ve you’ve gained, let’s just say it’s going to be at least most of the muscle and strength that is genetically available to you.

And there is a muscle group or muscle groups. And we’ll talk about obviously there’s a difference between saying, I really want to focus on my legs, my quads and my hamstrings. That’s different than, Oh, I would like more side delts okay, you can do a couple more, right? But we’ll get to that.

So that’s a scenario, or maybe it’s a muscle group. That you just really like to train and it sounds like it would be fun to do, or maybe it’s an exercise. Like I’d really like to bench three times per week and really train my chest really hard because I like it. Do you think that though, for people who have not gotten to that point yet, so they still could just follow a more balanced routine and continue gaining muscle and strength more or less all over on their body at a good rate.

Are there any scenarios where. You would suggest they consider doing a specialization routine again for example, I would say maybe if they, if it just seems like it might be fun that’s always a good reason, I think, to try things that so long as they’re not fundamentally flawed, because, of course, more fun we’re having in the gym, generally speaking, the better the 

Steve: results, right?

Yeah, I completely agree. I think it’s not you can’t specialize on something else in future if you want something else to grow. So like you’re like, I don’t know, dedicated to delts for life. Now you just have to specialize in those, nothing else. So you can layer them in and periodize them so that can be really fun.

Cause again Mike bodybuilding training, hypertrophy training there’s only so much you can do. It is the boring basics over and over again, rinse and repeat to some extent. So if it can, if it’s someone’s preference, they’re just like, Mike, Steve, I just want to have huge like delts.

It’s okay, we can make that happen. Let’s go for it. Let’s see what happens. And another one, I think, yeah, you said preference. And I think the only one that’s a bit more specific to my sort of areas, like if they’re bodybuilding category is dictating that. So if their men’s physique and They don’t really need that so much, which is a great position to be in.

Because like you said, some muscle groups really free up a lot of kind of extra volume and recovery for other areas. So you could bring those back or like a bikini athlete. Again, they could focus on the glutes a bit more. So yeah, absolutely. I think it doesn’t have to be that you’re at that point where you need to do it.

It could be a preference thing or maybe dictated by your bodybuilding goals. I’ve heard from some people over 

Mike: the years who liked to rotate from one. Kind of prioritization to another. So for a few months, they like to do extra chest volume, and they understood that meant they had to do maybe a little bit less for their shoulders, or they had to dial back a little bit to be able to do that in other muscle groups.

And then, though, after a couple of months of that, they would do some lower body prioritization. And then after that, they would do some back, some pole prioritization and. That seems like a reasonable approach as well. If they enjoy that more than just following Again, a more kind of standard balanced routine.

Yeah, I completely agree. Like the result in the end is probably about the 

Steve: same, right? It’s probably very similar because it’s probably going to grow more than it would have if you like focused on everything. But actually one that I just thought of was sometimes like if you get someone who ideally they’d be spreading their volume over four to six sessions or what have you.

And they’re like, they’re an advanced trainee, but they’re or intermediate to advance on that cusp of needing to do it anywhere. And then they’re like, I can only train three days a week. It’s you’ll be like, you’re not very lucky to grow everything at this point, because you’re just going to be quite fatigued.

And the total volume you’re going to have to do in every session is just going to be unrealistic. So maybe we should focus on the half your physique and put half on the back burner, such as that that sort of scenario, or I don’t know if they’re like a, like I said, Get your ducks in a row, but maybe some of them you just can’t like you have a very stressful job or you have kids and your sleep is just out of your control for a little bit.

Maybe you decide to write like, I’m not, I can’t push everything. So let’s pick and choose my battles here and just pick a few things maybe. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And for those intermediate and advanced trainees, again you might’ve already answered this, but I just want to make sure that we give people this answer.

And that is, so if they’re wondering, Why can’t I just again maximize growth of everything and that’s not to say that they have to follow a specialization like I don’t follow a specialization routine because I actually I like a more balanced routine personally and I’m not in bodybuilding so I don’t have to nitpick my physique and say, Oh I need to work on my lats more than anything else over the next six months or whatever.

But again, I, this is just a question that people ask me. And just going to give 

Steve: that to you. The easiest way I have to look at it is, I don’t know if you’ve had Mike Israel tell on your podcast, but he came through with the volume landmark. So he may have already spoke about those. And that’s my favorite way of explaining it because it just.

It makes it quite simple in that generally we’re trying to take muscle groups from their minimum effective volume up to their max recoverable volume. And that’s like their max adaptive volume is where they’re growing their best. So anyway, within there is great training. And so essentially the need for a specialization routine comes in when you can’t take Your every muscle group within your body to those MRV before your systemic MRV just kept you off.

So it’s just as you get more advanced, there’s only so much you can take on. So an analogy I I think works is as you’re studying to learn as a Basic like kid at school, you can take on so many different subjects as you get more advanced and you learn more and more advanced concepts.

You have to specialize more and more because you just don’t have the capacity to take on everything at that advanced level to the point of which you’re like in a masters in this really like specific area. It’s similar with when you’re a trainee, like you just don’t have the capacity systemically to grow everything at its maximum.

So you have to Pick and choose again, like maybe you reduce somewhere so you can open up that room for something else to grow. So it might be that in a kind of mezzocycle, if you’re going through a training block and you get to this point where you’re like, man, I feel just completely zonked. My sleep isn’t great.

My appetite sucks. My motivation to train is really terrible. All signs needing to deload systemically. But you’re like, These various muscle groups feel like fresh, but if I go in and do like my bicep feels fresh, but if I go and do a curl, I’m just like, I just don’t have it in me to give it to it.

So if you get into that stage with some of your training, like in that final week before you’re thinking, I need to pull back a little bit, that might be where you’re like, okay, maybe you’re not growing everything at its best. Maybe you need to pull some things back and Prioritize or you might decide very similar to myself, Mike, I don’t like specializing because I want everything to grow.

I I do pull back some areas, but not maybe as much as I should. You just accept slower rates of growth and have a more balanced routine. If that’s again your preference. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And just to put some hard numbers to it for people to think with. If you open up your Excel spreadsheet and you start fiddling with your program and you find that it’s hard, even if you are generous with indirect volume which for people listening.

So an exercise provides direct volume for muscle groups like the bench press, direct volume for the pecs, indirect for, say, the triceps, the front delts. Some people might say that it’s direct. I personally, in my training, we count that as indirect volume. But so even if you are taking that into account, it’s hard to get.

Past probably about 15 ish hard sets per major muscle group per week without spending an hour and a half, two hours plus in the gym, five days per week, or getting in there six days per week for maybe 60 to 70 minutes. And. You’re going to need just about, yeah, anybody, everybody gets to that point where that is, that’s really the minimum amount of volume that’s required just to continue growing at any rate.

And if you really wanted to get to that maximum recoverable, you probably are going to push closer to 20. You go beyond that. It gets real hard to, maybe you could do that for your biceps, but go try to do 25 to 30 hard sets for your lower body a week using 70 plus percent of one rep max. And you only can do that for maybe four or five, six weeks until you tap out.

Yeah. You just tap out. But so the point is that just to give some hard numbers to what you were saying is okay, you’re, if you get into that 15 to 20 hard sets, Per week range, that’s appropriate for an intermediate slash advanced weightlifter, right? Who wants to continue growing really any major muscle group at this point, if they have trained in a at least a balanced fashion up into this point and to then look at that practically are.

Okay. You can’t do that for every major muscle group. Like you said, eventually it just runs you into the ground. And so then you have to pick and choose. So you might be able to say, all right, I am going to take my lower body up to 20 hard sets per week. That’s not going to be 20 sets of squats, but we’re going to be doing a lot of lower body training.

And the question is then how much upper body training can I do? without the wheels falling off, right? 

Steve: Yeah, that’s when you have to choose I guess the initial move into specialization would be like, maybe it would be like half your body. You look to grow in the other half you take back and maybe you select actually, I’m just going to leave it not a maintenance because actually, if if you really want to open up a lot of recoverability, the amount of volume you need to maintain is so pitifully low versus how much you need to grow, you could maybe you need 10 sets to grow your quads a week, just minimum volume, but maybe it’s four to maintain and then you’re doing four sets across the week.

where you were previously taking them like 10 to 15 sets, like the amount of recoverability you open up is huge. But for that person just getting into it, they might just decide I’m going to leave muscle groups around an amount of volume, like 10 sets, for example, I know it’s going to, it’s going to grow very slowly and I’m going to prioritize these other ones and put them closer to 10 to 15 and see how I go with that.

And if I start seeing good response via that, you can run that for a while. And then you might slowly take more muscles to like that minimum growth point. And then you might find off. I’m not that probably a lot of people get here because I think you need to probably be very advanced, but then you start being like, okay, I actually need to take some of these to maintenance completely to free up space for other areas.

Or if you are like, anyone could be like this, but for me as like a bodybuilder, I don’t really need bigger biceps. It’s probably blasphemy for a lot of people, but my biceps are just like, the ridiculous genetic point at this point. So I’m just like, alright, just leave them way on the back burner. You don’t want to grow that anymore.

Let’s leave that maintenance and then I can push things like side delts. No one can have big enough side delts. Let’s bring it in more there and that’s it. This is where I find auto regulation really helps for me. So I’m looking at like within sessions and then across sessions, how’s their recovery in terms of when are they seeing that fatigue and soreness, if they do get sore drop off, are they ready for their next session?

And then also within a session, are they finding that they’re getting good local muscular fatigue, the muscles getting tired, it’s maybe getting tight, potentially pumps and things like this. So they’re getting good cell swelling within the muscle and just dictating. Okay, if you’re recovering on time and you’re getting like medium, okay, pumps, disruption, fatigue, maybe we can push a little bit more.

See how you respond. And then just every week tinker with it a little bit. But it does need to be small changes because otherwise people will just end up like ramping up. Adding an extra five sets a week and they’re fine, depending on the muscle group. But they’ll probably be sore for two weeks and just can’t get back into the gym.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Let’s, 

Mike: let’s now talk about how a specialization routine might look. Maybe we can give some specific examples of how it might be programmed and I’ll leave it up to you. You’ve worked a lot of people. You can pick whatever muscle groups, give some examples that Would be relevant to.

I think we have very similar crowds. So 

Steve: yeah, if it was something like, let’s say you’re intermediate to advanced bodybuilder who he wants bigger side delts might decide that. Okay. Typically, like you said, I can take these from 10 to 20 sets. And that means that I can get that done over the course of maybe two sessions normally, like I can spread that volume.

But if I’m looking, if I can ramp these up a little bit higher to maybe up to that, like 20 plus mark to see if I can recover from that much, because I’m holding other things back, maybe you decide I’m going to start off with a higher frequency. It doesn’t mean you have to start with that high end level of volume.

We’re starting, hopefully everything at minimum effective volume, at least that’s the way I tend to program. So that’s the kind of early intermediate who’s just getting into it. 

Mike: Yeah, that’s actually a good point. If I can jump in quickly, just to get you to clarify. So for people where they’re from, they’re doing whatever they’re doing right now, what is your general recommendation on increasing volume?

Like you just said, okay, doubling the amount of volume that you’re doing just one week to the next, 

Steve: not a great idea. So I would say generally for my guys, I’m looking in that first week of training, like a good, feedback or biofeedback in terms of, to know you’re achieving around minimum effective volume is first of all, looking at the science, which tends to say in around 10 sets for muscle group tends to be like the average for a muscle group.

And again, that includes indirect sets. So for something like arms, you don’t need 10 sets of direct work for your biceps, for example, you might be getting virtually all of it from your rowing and pulling and things. So I would start in around there. And I would ask for their feedback in terms of, like I said, those kind of in session feedback tools.

So in terms of pump do you feel like you’ve got anything there? Or do you feel like you didn’t train or was it high? Like the best pumps you’ve ever had. And in that first week, I’m looking for you’ve done something, you’ve overloaded that muscle group. Same for disruption. I call it where you’re getting that local muscle fatigue.

So it feels tired. It feels a bit tight. Some muscle groups feel more disruption versus pump. Don’t know about you, Mike, but a hamstring pump. I don’t really get my pumped hamstrings, but they should. Like tight and like I’m going to cramp or something. They hurt. Yeah, exactly. That’s what hamstrings do.

They just hurt. So whereas quads like they can feel like full and like that. So I try and get that semblance of stimulus within that session. Have you got a good stimulus within that session for that muscle group? After you’ve done all the sets? for it. And I’m looking for that like low to medium stimulus in week one.

And then I get them to rate their recovery. So I get a readiness score when they come to train that muscle group again. How ready are they? Are they fresh? They have no soreness, no fatigue. They’re feeling good to go. Or are they like just okay. Like it’s a bit tender to touch or they’re a bit tired going in there.

They don’t feel amazing. Or is it fatigued? So they’re actually a definition of fatigue is basically underperforming to where they’d expect. Or they’re going in there and they’re just like, I’m trashed. So I’m hoping in that first week, They’re pretty fresh for everything because you’re just in the minimum effective and you’re just getting like a good stimulus.

You’ve got more to give in future. So I use that as a baseline for assessing minimum effective volume. And then from there, I’m like, okay, so you’re recovering now. If we’re looking at specialization, I’m being, I’m picking that muscle group and being like maybe we add to a set to this session here.

See how you recover from that. Maybe we add one to this one as well. I don’t tend to add more than about two sets to a muscle group. per week, even two is quite a lot. But one to two tends to be where I go or leave it at nought. So if even in week one, if they were like, man, I got high pumps, disruption, my in session stimulus was just out of this world.

Sometimes I get this with people who for hamstrings, for example, they do two sets of RDLs. They’re just like, They’re like blown off the bone completely. I’m like, okay, I wish I had your hamstrings. So then you maybe just leave it there knowing that they’re getting a really good stimulus.

And then I’ll keep assessing that in session stimulus and then their recovery rate in terms of readiness and then auto regulate their set volume to decide, should I add a little bit more here or should I not? And again, that’s a great way for people just to set up their program, minimum effective volume, and then they can pick and choose where they want The muscle wise to grow the best because it tends to be that the more volume you can do and recover from tends to lead to more hypertrophy.

So that’s the route I’m going down with that. And then eventually you’ll hit your systemic. I’m RV as you keep progressing in terms of adding a bit of load or an extra rep and things like that. 

Mike: Yeah, that makes me think of an endurance training. I know a general rule of thumb is to not increase your volume by more than 10%.

I think I believe it’s per week. Endurance training is I was just reading some stuff on this. Anyway, it was every week or every two weeks, something like that. And just to that point for people who, let’s say somebody, they go for a run every day and now they want to train for a marathon to make sure that they don’t just go from Relatively low volume to a lot of volume.

Same principle applies in lifting. Hey there. If you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even?

who might want to learn something new. Word of Mouth helps really bigly in growing the show, so if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. And what about pairing muscle groups up? So let’s say somebody says, yeah, I would to I would like to work on my side delts.

But can I do more than that? Can I quote unquote specialize or can I prioritize, let’s see, I’d love to do my side delts and my biceps and 

Steve: my triceps. Especially for people just getting into it. I think you’d be silly not to pick a few muscle groups, especially if like you said, if you’re wanting to do like hamstrings and quads, like they’re two big muscle groups that are very fatiguing, especially like systemically fatiguing.

So full body, whereas like side delts, I don’t know. I don’t know they’re just, for me, they’re such a small muscle group, and I know from personal experience. It’s like training abs, it’s just annoying. Abs for me are like, they’re way worse, but side delts, at least they get like a bit of a pump. I don’t 

Mike: even, I don’t even bother anymore, because I’m like, yeah, I, my, my squatting, my dead lifting, my overhead pressing keeps my, Yeah, my core looks fine.

Good enough. 

Steve: So for sure if there’s some smaller muscle groups like you could do delts and arms Absolutely, that would be no problem But if you’re picking large ones like your back as a whole like that’s quite a big muscle group So you probably wouldn’t be able to do Or it depends on the person like if they’re just getting into it.

They might just Pick one thing to leave on the back burner and then everything else they try and grow, but they’re probably not going to open up much recoverability if they pick like biceps or delts because realistically, they’re just not going to be fatiguing the rest of your physique to a large degree.

So you might want to, if you are to do that, you might pick like biceps, triceps and delts and then try and grow everything else. I don’t think there’s like a perfect formula. It’s probably one of those things that you need to go in there and try for yourself and see how much it opens up. But I’d say like legs, if you like, if you’re in that lucky position, I have some clients like this where they have just like huge legs and like awesome.

We can leave those on maintenance, do F all sets on those and we can just plow on with upper body. They don’t love it because they like always the people love like hard leg training. Yeah, it’s their strength. 

Mike: Yeah, 

Steve: exactly. It just opens up so much recoverability for them though. So yeah, that’s always nice in my experience 

Mike: with my own training and just having heard from their work.

With many people over the years, lower body, like you said, that seems to be its own. That’s it. If you’re going to prioritize your lower body that’s what you’re going to be pushing toward. Let’s say that 15 to 20 hard sets. For your lower body per week. And, I would argue that if you could still grow on 10 sets per week or 12 sets per week, you probably could just stick with a balanced routine then because you can get 10 to 12 sets for everything, every week, and probably four or five hours per week, really, if you’re on the clock and not wasting time.

And then you could do some prioritization again, if You just want to, if it just sounds like fun, something different, something interesting, understandable. But if we’re just talking about results, it’s probably worth considering just sticking to balanced training if that’s all you need to grow. But I don’t know about you.

I’ve found that in my training, 10 to 12 sets, it’s really maintenance. I know it’s more than what is needed. For maintenance, but I don’t see much or any progression in muscle groups that are only getting 10 to 12 hard sets per week. And I would say I probably do a pretty good job with the basics that you mentioned earlier in the interview.

It’s just not enough volume for anything at this point. And I found that the muscle groups that do progress and it’s slow, like I’m not. In a regular surplus, for example, so I understand that a win for me is if I’m adding five to 10 pounds to my squat in four to six months on, cause I do some AMRAPs every four months or so just to test my strength.

And I’m happy with that. And it’s slow progress, but I also understand that. I’m paying a price for having abs. It just is what it is. And I understand that. But for me, I need to get into that 15 to 20 hard sets per week range to, to really notice progress, even in my numbers to, to notice over the course of several months that my reps and reserve are going up on that exercise and getting stronger.

Oh, look at that. I finally am able to add a little bit of weight to that exercise. Yeah. And so in my experience, and again, this is I’ve seen this with many other people, lower body is, if I’m going to prioritize that, I really, I just don’t have it in me to prioritize anything else. I have to keep everything else probably around that maybe eight to 10 hard sets range.

So I can do, three lower body sessions or two really difficult lower body sessions per week. And then if we look at the upper body back and maybe pecs, depending on the exercise, if I wanted to do it that way, I probably wouldn’t be doing a whole bunch of. Bench pressing and dumbbell pressing.

I would do some of that, but I would include some isolation work for pecs, maybe some pec deck and some other things that allow me to add volume to the pecs without beating up my shoulders and without heavily recruiting my triceps and my shoulders. And then, like you said, arms and delts all together.

Has also worked well for me if I just look at what it took to program that and I don’t know about you, but I didn’t, I’ve never really noticed too much systemic fatigue that comes with that additional, there’s maybe a little bit arms and delts. I’d say that’s probably the easiest in my experience that I just, of the three that I laid out.

And it’s more just additional localized fatigue, which then makes some of that other training. a bit more difficult, or it just reduces your performance. Like your bench press is not where it normally is because your triceps are just a lot more sore than they normally are because you’re doing, 30 to 50 percent more volume, direct volume for your triceps than you normally do.

Steve: Yeah. It makes just to touch on kind of the amount you need to even see like progress. I imagine you’ve been training now for way over a decade. Am I right? 20? No, 20 years, 20 years. I’m 38. So yeah, okay. You’re looking great for 38, Mike. Doing very well. I’m not far behind you. I’ve been going for 15, 16 years now, and I’m 32.

So I’ll be getting there at the same time. And I, but it makes sense in theory, your kind of minimum effective volume just to meet a threshold to just grow. creeps up over time because the body is just, you end up getting that kind of anabolic resistance, which is like completely sucks. 

Mike: And genetically, I was really not made to be big and strong.

I have small wrists. I was, I was I was like an endurance guy. I played hockey and I was good at cardio. But. I have a small skeleton. I’m a little bit taller than average. So that works to my favor to some degree. And I took a genetic test some time ago. And I think there were two things. One was a gene, a polymorphism that was associated with higher than average testosterone levels, which I’ve never even done blood work.

So I couldn’t tell you what my testosterone is, but I just remember this from a genetic test. And then there was another one that was associated with recovery. And apparently they had seen that one in a lot of high level athletes. And it just, my body apparently, yeah, apparently is good at recovering. So maybe those genetic advantages.

have compensated some for what I lack anatomically because I do not have big bones. I was never a big strong guy. I was like, again, as a skinny fast kid who got into weightlifting. 

Steve: I find the topic of genetics like completely fascinating, especially in relation to bodybuilding because you just brought up a great point.

I call it like genetics top trumps because you’re going to score well somewhere. There’s so many things that influence genetics and That and genetics is a huge part of bodybuilding and how big you’re going to be, but they impact everything from like mindset to like the things you mentioned in terms of frame size and muscle fiber type and recovery rates and injury proclivity, that sort of thing.

So yeah, people don’t realize how much that can impact. But yeah, one thing you mentioned was I thought very interesting about exercise selection, which needs to be. Definitely brought in, I think, for specialization in that, like you don’t want to, if you specialize legs, you don’t want to just plow everything through like back squats.

It’s probably going to ruin you. 

Mike: Remember the old 10 by 10 by 10s. Did you ever do that? 

Steve: Oh I don’t think I actually did that. I go into five through one and things like this. So I luckily I didn’t get into the German volume training. 

Mike: Yeah, I distinctly remember the 10 by 10 squats, although it might’ve been, yeah, it might’ve been on a Smith machine.

This was a long time ago. But I remember for days after, cause the gym I was going to was upstairs and I had to hobble down the stairs. I had to brace myself and hobble sideways down the stairs 

Steve: for days after that. I thought that 

Mike: was 

Steve: cool at the time. I think to probably a lot of the audience, that sounds quite cool.

It sounds a bit cool to me still. I’m like, I’d be like, yes, Mike. Nice one. That’s awesome. So at least if you were deloading the next week, maybe not if you had like legs in a couple of days, I was like, no chance, but yeah, it’s a case of when you are specializing on a muscle group, you probably want to.

really be careful with your exercise selection to at least have some movements in there that are less systemically fatiguing. They don’t beat up the joints and ligaments and tissues like that so much. So like for quads, you would definitely want to be having a leg extension in there. And you might just want to have more variation in general, the more volume you’re putting through a muscle group.

You probably want to spread that probably over higher frequencies, but also then probably more variation, whether that at least be exercise rep range, but also probably exercise selection as well. So like quads, you certainly want to have more than like a backscore on a leg press. You probably want to have a leg extension in there as well.

And maybe even like a lunge pattern, even for the side delts, at least two variants in there. You don’t want to just be done by a lateral raising like four or five times a week doing 30 sets or something. You’re just like the wear and tear on those joints and things won’t be great. And that’s one of the benefits of.

like daily undulating periodization when that was huge. Like one of the biggest things is just you get to provide a stimulus and wear and tear in one area and then it gets to recover and you can use a similar area but slightly different area of that kind of muscle tissue because you’re using different muscle fiber types and things by using a different rep range, for example.

So yeah, I just wanted to touch on that because I think that’s important. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good 

Mike: point. And I’d be curious as to your thoughts on it, but I’ve always said that I don’t think there is like a simple kind of one size fits all approach to that exercise selection. I think it really depends on the person and how much abuse their body can take but I think that it’s definitely clear, yes, that if you’re going to be doing 20 hard sets per week for your lower body, that is not going to be 20 sets of squats.

It’s just not unless those final five sets are going to be with like 135 on the bar. If you’re a guy or if you’re a gal, like the bar or something or 50, 50 pounds on either side or 25 on either side or 

Steve: something like that. That’s something again, from Mike is retail brilliantly termed.

I think a lot of us inherently experienced with exercises is that stimulus to fatigue ratio. How much of the stimulus factors are we getting in terms of pump disruption, my muscle connection versus joint and connective tissue fatigue and like systemic fatigue where we just feel wiped.

And there are some exercises like barbell back squats. You probably get a lot of both. They normally go hand in hand a little bit, but like a deadlift, that’s always the joker in the pack, like huge, like stimulus within there. But the fatigue cost, you probably don’t want that in a specialization routine full stop.

So you have to be careful with these things. And like you said, it’s going to differ person to person. Cause we’re all built slightly differently. Like a back squat could be perfect for someone. Whereas like someone else might want it to be doing the hack squat. Likewise, exercises. So I like that stimulus fatigue ratio to individualize exercises and even like down to how they perform them.

In some ways, you might perform it like within the realms of principled, good technique, but it looks slightly different to someone else because everyone’s n equals one, like you have to individualize on that level once you’re that advanced. Yeah, 

Mike: it’s a good point with the deadlift, too, that I think it’s a great exercise.

I do. I deadlift every week, generally speaking, and I like it because it is a time efficient way to train basically everything on the backside of your body. So I do like it for that reason. And I don’t agree With people who say that it has no place in a hypertrophy routine. I understand why some people don’t do it.

I get that. But I think some sort of hip hinge, some sort of variation has many uses. Maybe it’s not always just a conventional deadlift. Maybe sometimes it’s a rack pull. Maybe it’s an RDL. Maybe it’s a trap bar. However, to your point, in a specialization routine, the amount of fatigue that comes with the deadlift has to be taken into account, and I would say I have pretty good cardio.

I have pretty good recovery, but the hardest shit I do period is at the beginning of of my macro cycle. It’s sets of 10 on all the big exercises. And so I’m doing four sets of 10 on the deadlift. And, pretty heavy for me. I might be my last round, it might’ve been 350 or so, something like that.

And so by that fourth set, I’m probably at a true RAR of maybe two, one or two. I could get one or two more, but they’re going to be grinders. And by the end of that fourth set, I could just leave, go home and take a nap. I could, I don’t, but that’s how fatiguing it is. Just worth mentioning because a lot of people listening probably also are dev lifting often.

And if they are going to try some specialization, you can either drop it or maybe if you really like it, maybe drop down to one set per 

Steve: week. Yeah. Yeah. It’s surprising. Even one set. You’ll stop the set and you’ll be like, if you’re reasonably strong, you’ve done a good amount of stimulus just from one set.

It’ll feel wrong to do one set, but sometimes that’s enough for some exercises. And I think it’s very well said I don’t even, I don’t like to think any exercises, as long as they’re not stupid, like a bozel ball squat for quad hypertrophy. It’s that’s not, it’s too unstable. We’re not doing that.

But They’re like under the knowledge of just like decent exercises, none that are bad, like deadlift isn’t bad necessarily. It’s just needs to be in the right context and thought about because you do have that high fatigue cost. So I think that’s well, like you said, you can step it back or you might move to a Romanian deadlift, straight leg deadlift that it’s probably you’re using less loads, less axial fatigue.

So you can maybe get away with. Like still specializing on something else within that routine, but it’s very time efficient. I can say that’s for sure. Like it’s not very time efficient when you’re trying to do all these machines and isolate muscle groups. And that’s one of the problems becoming advanced.

Mike: It’s also fun, right? There aren’t that many exercises where you get to that primal kind of rage and you 

Steve: get to move a lot of weight, yeah. I’m not sure if when I retire from Competitive bodybuilding. I think I’ll just I’m going to have so much, not that my training isn’t fun, but there’s an element of just I need to do this.

I want to do this, but I should do this. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. There’s the discipline it takes to do what you need to do versus what you want to do. That’s like deloading for me. It takes discipline. I’m deloading this week. It’s just boring. I’d much rather train and I have to force myself to not do those extra few reps, not do come on, your four instead of your six or seven reps and do your three sets instead of four, but I’m pretty good with it.

I do literally four weeks now, and maybe that’s a little bit conservative, so to speak. I might be able to push a bit further than that, but I have noticed some significant benefits on the recovery side of things just by being really quote unquote, good with my deloading, as opposed to previously, I would just go and go until.

Either everything was hurting or sleep was no longer good, or I would just get sick. Not that it was because of that, but, I would eventually after months and months get a cold or something and be like, all right, fine. I guess I’m out of the gym for a few days. I’m better with it now. 

Steve: It’s so funny that on paper, the easier thing to do is quite often the harder thing to do for a lot of us.

It’s if you’re dieting, I should Take a, I don’t know, a diet break or what have you, a refeed or what have you. If you’re in contest prep, I don’t want to do it. That’s the hard thing to be small food. It should be easier. It’s this is the hard thing for me to have to do. So I completely relate to that.

But yeah, I do load normally every six weeks. So I normally have five weeks and then I come off and go into a de load and then go through a cycle again. But every de load I’m I don’t want to do it though. You, I call it earning a de load. Like I have to do it. Like I couldn’t go for another week of hard training.

So it’s like you mentioned, either you’ll deload or your body will deload for you, like you’ll be forced into a corner at some point if you’re training hard enough. Exactly. 

Mike: Yeah. Let’s talk about rep rangers. So in the context of specialization, and so let’s say somebody is going to be doing 15 to 20 hard sets per week.

This is an intermediate or an advanced weightlifter. What are your thoughts on? Rep ranges for that 

Steve: volume. So I tend to use like a 5 to 30 repetition rep range in practice. I tend with the literature is basically, it seems to be as long as you’re close enough to failure, you could use any kind of rep range, I think probably much past 30.

And not as quite as good returns in terms of hypertrophy. And Also, who would ever want to do that? In practice, do I really use much above 20? No. So I normally use 10 to 20s. Like my core of my work is done in the 10 to 20 rep range that tends to provide again, the best stimulus fatigue ratio, less than five reps.

I think you just Find yourself getting so fatigued from that style of training and it is more strength focused. I would say it’s not that it can’t cause hypertrophy. I think you could include some into a program that was smartly made, but I think generally you’ll get more bang from your buck from five plus.

So I tend to use that spectrum. And then I think Some exercises are just inherently better in certain rep ranges. So like a leg extension, I don’t really program that less than 10 reps. I tend to find that just to be pretty unproductive and like you just feel it all through the knees. Whereas that can work really well in that 10 to 20 rep range.

Whereas something like a barbell back squat, I’m not doing that for more than 15 reps. Maybe 15 is the highest I probably normally go. You said to 15? I haven’t barbell back squat for a while. I’ve been doing the hack squat, but maybe I’d go up to 15 at most, but normally it’s going to be in that five to 10 rep range.

It’s more suited to that or deadlifts, as you say, like deadlifts off the floor, actually any hip hinge. I’m not going above 12 reps, maybe up to 12, but normally they’re in the lower rep range. Those are big compound lifts. They tend to favor those lower rep ranges. Then the isolation lifts where you need to use a lighter load just for like stability purposes and to be able to properly isolate a muscle.

So then that kind of already selects itself in a way when you have your exercises there. And then I tend to find some people just. feel certain rep ranges better than others. Some people go into a rep range and they’re just like, I just feel like I’m going through the motions with this. I feel tired and I don’t really feel anything in the muscle particularly.

So you might be able to pick it via that. But I would undulate through the week. So I might have Probably normally I start a bit heavier at the start of the week when you’re a bit more fresh normally after a weekend where maybe there’s been one rest day or maybe two, and it’s the start of your week.

So normally start a bit heavier there. And then as you fatigue through the week, I tend to find I use a bit more of the higher rep ranges through the latter half of the week where you don’t need to necessarily be as fresh to do like a set of 15 reps on a leg press versus like you need to be quite fresh for your set of five on a back squat, for example.

So I tend to undulate it through the week like that. So I might have If it was a three day per week frequency for quads, say it might be something like a five to 10 rep range for the barbell back squat. Normally I’d probably have more than one exercise, but if I’m just using one exercise in a session, it might then be like a 10 to 15 on the leg press and then like a 15 to 20 on a leg extension.

I tend to find that kind of undulation pattern and that kind of heavy through to light. Tends to work really nicely in terms of allowing someone to still get a good chunk of volume done, but not just like squats, five to 10 squats, five to 10 squats. Five to 10 is probably a bit unmanageable. That’s interesting 

Mike: because I find in my training that it’s the other way around.

I find that the higher rep and you could say higher volume, but volume can mean different things depending on, okay, are we talking about sets, are we talking about reps? Are we talking about poundage? But I find in general. With the more difficult exercises, if it’s a biceps curl, but that might even be the case still.

I’m now I’m thinking about doing heavier biceps curls versus lighter. So when I’m pushing close to failure, which is all of my working sets, I’m always trying to, stay in that one to two good reps left range. Maybe my first set is like a three, but by the time I’m in the set four, I want it to be pretty hard.

And I find that the higher rep training is a lot more fatiguing both. Systemically and peripherally, and it just drains me more. For example, if I’m starting with a set of. If I’m doing four sets of 10 on the back squat, and then I’m gonna move on to do a leg press or some other lower body exercise, maybe a lunge or whatever.

And then maybe there’s going to be some hamstring work in there as well. And I’ve seen this now a number of times, even in my sheets, tracking all of my training that my performance falls off more. Actually, in those subsequent exercises, when I start with that, with those sets of 10 versus sets of even two, I, I do twos even in my trainings toward the end of a macro cycle and because I like to do it and, it’s I think that there’s an argument to be made, maybe not so much for bodybuilding specifically, but for general physique, I think there’s an argument to be made to combine some strength training with some bodybuilding.

But regardless, what I find is that heavier. Training is harder on my joints. I’ll feel that more in my knees. I feel it more in my back and my hips, but it is significantly less fatiguing. So I’ll see, for example, I’ll do those sets of two, maybe four sets of two with, 95 percent on the bar, pretty heavy.

And then I’ll move on to those other exercises. My performance will be significantly better on those exercises. Subsequent exercises anyway, I’ve just yeah, 

Steve: That’s how it plays out for me. Just thinking wonder if it’s because I tend to bias the higher rep ranges to quote unquote easier exercises.

So they don’t fatigue you quite as much. Whereas if I was doing them with, like you said, like those harder lifts, the bigger compound lifts, then they probably would just like completely wreck me. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I can say, for example I haven’t discussed this with anybody. I’d be curious.

I’m gonna keep this in mind when I have random discussions, but those four sets of 10 like I said, on the deadlift is the absolute hardest 15 minutes of any of my workouts that I do. And again, I’ll see that in my numbers in the following exercises versus doing. Four sets of two or four sets of four with significantly more weight, which might seem like that must be harder because the weight is higher.

But again for me, what I’ve found is, and I do believe there’s some research on this as well, that it’s the number of reps. If we look at it volume that way, that’s what really drives fatigue for me with those more difficult exercises. I might not notice it yet with a set of 10 reps of a biceps curl or something, but if I would suspect if I really paid attention to it, it probably would be the same.

Again, that’s just how At least my body responds to training. 

Steve: Yeah, four sets of, I would pick four sets of two reps versus four sets of 10. If I was going for the easier workout, but like for sure, like four sets, especially on a deadlift, man. But even a squat, like I definitely picked that. It’s 

Mike: cardio 

Steve: by set 

Mike: three or set four.

It’s cardio. 

Steve: You do 15 minutes. I’d be like, man, that’d take me like an hour session. I just feel it doesn’t account. 

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I’m resting probably about three and a half minutes in between those sets. And I don’t certainly by set three or four. I don’t want to do it. And but I know that like by three and a half max four minutes, I’m recovered and I don’t want to do it.

But it’s not because I need more time. You just got to gut it out. So coming back to rep ranges with specialization. There would be a, there’d be a number of rep ranges and it sounds and this makes sense that you would stick with as a baseline, stick with the rep ranges that are best suited to the exercises that you’re doing that, that produce the best training stimulus for you.

Steve: No, yeah, totally. And then you might decide, right? I want to have a spectrum of rep ranges because I believe that has benefits, but then you might decide, right? Especially if you’re intermediate or advanced, right? For sure. And then you might decide this exercise in rep range just seems to be like producing way less fatigue and way more stimulus.

And that’s the one that you prioritize adding and maybe set volume to, like the other ones, you maybe keep a bit more behind and that’s how you can pick and choose your battles a little bit there. 

Mike: Yeah, I think also you just needed to keep in mind how your joints are faring, right?

Because again those heavy sets, particularly with the compound exercises are tough on the joints. It’s not that it’s quote unquote bad for your joints, but There’s, you would not be able to, if you, let’s say you just wanted to do a lot of squatting for whatever reason you wanted to do 15 to 20 sets of squatting per week, there’s no way you’re going to be able to do sets of fives for like your your knees and your hips and your back is just going to Give out.

So I think there’s the muscular fatigue. There’s the systemic fatigue, but probably something to be said also for just keep, yeah, just keeping your joints jointing and not getting to a point where it’s now painful and you can’t even do. The additional volume you need to do because it hurts.

Steve: Yeah. And that’s where I think even especially for a squat, you could modify it to try and improve. If you’re like, I’m using squats to build my quads, then use a weightlifting shoe, maybe even pause at the bottom in the hole a little bit to make it like less risky on the joints and things.

So you can do little things like that. Yeah, because then you 

Mike: can take weight off the bar, right for people. If you don’t know if people have never done pause squats, those are also used in strength training, like pure strength training as well. Those are nice and that you can get a really good training stimulus with a bit less weight, which is now a bit easier on your joints, 

Steve: right?

100%. And then I think actually a good point with the joint and connective tissue is the fact that you might not be able to just like Prioritize on that muscle group for like ever, because like when you do run high volume routines, that’s one of the things that ends up like you can only do it for a certain period of time before that all catches up is the duration.

What are your thoughts on duration? So I tend to find I actually haven’t, like I said, actually in practice. I haven’t ran that many with people. When I do, it’s not normally to like a large extreme in terms of we’re absolutely specializing on this. But if I was to do it, I like to think that there’s some kind of, I would call it like directed adaptation in that there’s you get the ball rolling and you see a bit of a snowball effect.

So I like to at least run two mezzocycles worth. Cause I think one is like. You just getting that momentum going. So I’d like at least two, maybe up to four. And I think after that period of time, that’s quite a lot already. So I would probably rotate it after that. How long would that be?

Because mesocycles that the length can be different. It sounds like you have a six week from what we were saying. Yeah, I tend to have five weeks of accumulation, one week deload, and that’s how I tend to go about things. But for my Kind of that intermediate to advanced trainee, they might find their four to six to maybe actually four to eight weeks, even depending like a female who’s less advanced, they might be able to extend that a little bit more.

But in general, like that would be then if you’re doing it for at least two, so 10 weeks up to doing it for 20 weeks. That would probably be where I’d look to do it for. Yeah, that, that makes 

Mike: sense to me. I three to four months seem to be a sweet spot for me personally. And that’s what my, I have four month macro cycles right now.

And other things can work, of course. But I find that to be. Workable for me where it’s four weeks, four months of these four week mezzo cycles, three weeks of hard training, one week of deload, do that for four months, progressing from lighter weights and more reps. So more volume in that sense to.

Heavier weights and fewer reps and then ending with some amrap unless I’ve been cutting, which I was cutting for probably about six to eight weeks. So there’s no point to amrap. Yeah, I’m weak. I know I don’t need to amrap to, for it to tell me I’m weak, but if I’m at least around maintenance calories, then it’s fun to end with, put some heavyweight on the bar and see what I can do, at least for the big exercises.

Steve: Yeah. And I think that the AMRAPs is great because especially as you’re an advanced trainee, which anyone who’s most people who are listening to this and going to specialization are going to be, performance is our key indicator for whether or not we’re actually growing and gaining muscle tissue.

Because like you said, at this stage, like a pound or so, like a year, we’re pretty decent. So can you see that visually in the mirror? It’s pretty hard. So especially when you’re in the thick of a surplus. Probably you’re gaining more fat tissue than you are muscle. Yeah, 

Mike: you just look a little bit fatter.

Exactly. You don’t know why. Did I get fatter or is that muscle? I don’t know. 

Steve: Exactly. Performance is great. Then you can see, okay, so I think I’ve been doing a good job with this specialization routine. Let’s pick a, whatever, if we’re doing quads, let’s look at my AMRAP for my back squat. That should probably be improving in that deload.

And as I’m doing that AMRAP so I can compare performance over time. So I think that’s a great example. Yeah, exactly. And 

Mike: That’s what I use it for. I use it to gauge progress and then to recalibrate my training weights up or down. Again, depending on mostly for me, it’s depending on nutrition and sleep and the nutrition is just calories, just energy balance.

In a deficit or am I maintaining, but maintenance, as to stay lean. Unfortunately, really what that means is you’re just in a deficit, even if it’s a slight deficit more often than you’re in a slight surplus. If you want to stay pretty lean, you can never eat exactly the amount of calories, of course, that you’re burning.

And so you have to err on the side of under eating, not overeating, and then compensate for that by occasional bouts of overeating. If you just notice that you’ve lost a little bit of weight. You do it the other way. I guess you can do it the other way, but it’s just not what most of us tend to do, right?

Most of us tend to just if we want to stay lean, we’re going to err on the side of eating too little, 

Steve: not 

Mike: too 

Steve: much, right? Yeah, I think it’s Just human nature to tend to eat a little bit too much. And especially in like our modern society with all the palatable food, it’s just way too easy. So you keep a lot of those like diet habits.

So you eat lean proteins, lots of fruit and veg, and then yeah, you just feel like, Oh, like I seem to have lost a chunk of weight here. I almost have that refeed to get you back up. And yeah, that’s a different, I guess that’s a point of which you may be sacrifices when you want that. six pack year round.

And I can see why you might want to have that. 

Mike: Yeah. Again for me, I guess I just like it and you could say maybe it’s good for my work to some degree and I don’t compete. And on the whole, I’m pretty happy with my physique. And so I don’t know, it just that 10 ish percent body fat range for me.

Is a nice spot to maintain and I can enjoy my lifestyle too. I don’t have to make any major sacrifices. I don’t have to be neurotic about my food. I don’t have to weigh and measure everything. I can just eat the stuff I like. I know the portions and make little adjustments here and there.

Depending on what I see in the mirror. And so 

Steve: that’s why I do it. I can see the absolute appeal, especially the position I’m in right now, where it’s like you said, the kind of the diminishing returns are absolutely real at this stage of your, like your bodybuilding career. Once you’re like 15 years in the amount of effort you have to put forth to gain the smallest amount is like ludicrous.

But. I’m a competitor and I want to do my best and I still have some more years in me. So we’ll see how we go. But I’m very tempted by the like maintenance, more comfortable eating and being a bit leaner. That’d be 

Mike: like your retirement. Basically, that’s retirement. 

Steve: Yeah, I can enjoy that for a little bit.

Mike: This was this was a great discussion, Steve. I really appreciate you taking the time to do it. And why don’t we wrap up with where people can find you and find your work. If there’s anything in particular you want them to know about, let’s let them know. 

Steve: For sure. Yeah. Thank you so much again, Mike.

It’s been a great chance. Yeah. I appreciate being invited on. I’m mostly present on Instagram. So I’m revive stronger over on Instagram and our website is revived stronger. com. There you can find everything from online coaching to the podcast and things like this. Yeah, if people want to look over there, that’d be amazing.

And again, thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, my pleasure. 

Mike: I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes. And it also helps me. Because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you.

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I read everything myself. I’m always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.