One common criticism of my training methodology is the fact that I lack “balance” in my program design.  People point in particular to the fact that I have a primary emphasis on quadriceps and deltoids, to the detriment of everything else.  It’s their contention, I suppose, that this creates muscular imbalances that will eventually manifest themselves in injuries.

Behold the awesome power of leg extensions. HAHAHAHA. 

Bullshit.  It’s these same dunderheaded, magazine-reading, bro-science dripping goofballs who will pontificate endlessly about dumbbell bench presses, the utility of which ranges between negligible and nonsensical for most people.  For whatever reason, they seem to think that every exercise has precisely the same effect on everyone,  regardless of size, shape, relative strength levels, and leverages.  Additionally, they think everyone wants to look like whomever’s in vogue on their ridiculous site that day, be it Francis Benefatto or Frank Zane or Steve Reeves or Arnold or whatever.  It’s rare that you’ll see strength training enthusiasts blather on about this, because they know better.

 
Stripper shoes + drinking + one arm deadlift with her tits out = always in vogue.  Probably what Valhalla would look like, only without the crossfitters. 

First and foremost, I take issue with the idea that any program should be based around bodyparts, and think it’s fucking ridiculous that anyone would attempt to parse the body into individual parts.  Planes, maybe, I can see, but parts?  What bodypart does the power clean work, primarily? Most people would say, unequivocally, back.  Well, not for me- my powerclean is all traps and legs.  Since the back and traps are all part of the same basic bodypart, this is mere quibbling, but I’m trying to illustrate a point, alright?  Settle the fuck down.  Now, given my relative strength disparity between my traps and every other part of my body, it would stand to reason that they can handle a greater workload, and they’ll take other nearby bodyparts out of the equation, wholly or in part, simply due to the fact that they’re able to do so.  This will occur with anyone who has a dominant bodypart.  As such, 6 sets of cleans will hit my body in a wildly different way than they would a tall guy with a swimmer’s build, leverages be damned.

Dmitri Klokov. 6′, 231, and actually has good form.  He and are aren’t hitting ANY of the same shit while doing snatches, or my amusing approximation thereof.

Which, of course, brings us to Biochemical Individuality.  You might think that one’s biochemistry doesn’t factor into this equation, but it’s one’s biochemistry and genetics that determines, by and large, bone length and density, one’s dominant muscle fiber types (at least initially), location of insertion points for muscles (and thereby determine that muscle’s length).  Given the massive disparity in organ size and placement, it stands to reason that one’s musculature would also differ from everyone else’s, as would their intramuscular production of ATP, rate of creatine utilization, neuromuscular efficiency, and the like.  Given that we know training alters the rate at which protein is absorbed in humans, and the rate of creatine utilization, we can thus derive further evidence of differentiation between the workload and the stress placed on a body by a given workload between individuals.  Thus, attempting to organize a program by bodypart seems like a remarkably simplistic systems, which could be described as insipid, ignorant, and lazy by anyone less inclined toward love for his fellow man than I.

Now that I’ve obliquely insulted virtually every person you’ve ever met, consider that athletes train exercises, by and large, and their physiques generally reflect the exercises they choose.  As the Bulgarians have insisted for decades, form follows function.  As such, it seems that the bodybuilders might be onto something, since they train ridiculously, and generally look ridiculous as well.  For anyone interested in moving weights in the gym, however, that sort of a methodology is patently absurd.  Certainly, training all of the same planes and movements would diminish one’s ability to successfully complete lifts at a high percentage of one’s 1RM, so maxing on bench, OHP, and BTN press in the same workout would be about as unproductive as something could be.  That’s not to state, however, that training all three exercises in a rotation over the course of the week would be, however.

Next time, way more BI shit, a hell of a lot of insulting the cumulative intellects of bodybuilders, and hopefully more chicks of reasonably hot broads in strippers shoes, drinking and lifting simultaneously..

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