Power Hit

For serious lifters’those who crave enormous strength and raw, explosive power over all else’there’s nothing more exciting than finding a workout they’ve never tried before. It gives the mind a break, and the body as well.

If you’re looking to generate new numbers on all your lifts, there are plenty of workouts designed to help. In the past I’ve written about high-set singles, explosive repetitions, plyometrics and planned periodization for boosting those bench presses, squats and deadlifts. One approach that powerlifters, Olympic lifters and other strength athletes don’t often use is high-intensity training, a.k.a. HIT.

Powerlifters and the like are concerned with generating strength above all else and don’t consider HIT workouts to be effective for that. They’ll tell you it’s good for little other than hypertrophy, or muscle growth, with strength being a very minor side effect. I disagree. Some lifters have become incredibly strong on HIT’in fact, much stronger than they look. The secret, though, is in how you perform the workouts. They’re not your typical bodybuilding-style HIT workouts’you gear them to strength and power.

Now, before all the hardcore powerlifters say, ‘No friggin’ way does high-intensity training build strength like high-volume does,’ consider some of the following athletes and the results they got with brief, infrequent but brutally hard training sessions.

Paul Brodeur. One of the few men in history to have squatted with more than 1,000 pounds, Paul is 320 pounds of sheer bulk. He performs each lift once a week for only one set to complete muscular failure.

Joey Almadovar. One of the top 165-pound lifters in the world, he’s squatted 705 pounds, deadlifted 650 and bench-pressed 405, all in competition. Almadovar uses Dr. Ken Leistner’s personal brand of HIT.

Karl Gray. Considered by many to be, pound for pound, the world’s strongest man, Gray trains every bodypart approximately once every 14 days. A sprinter, he boasts a 700-pound deadlift and 600-pound squats for reps, benches 400 pounds, shrugs 875 and does dips with 225. He weighs only 180 pounds.

Here are some keys to turning HIT into a highly effective program for building strength.

1) Train with extremely heavy weights. Most high-intensity trainees are just plain weak. The problem is, they use too light a workload. If it ain’t uncomfortable, it ain’t worth a damn for stacking plates on the bar.

2) Train explosively. Closely tied to item 1, this is probably the biggest mistake HITers make. That slo-mo, 20-seconds-up/20-seconds-down cadence has got to go. You’ll never learn how to lift a heavy weight really explosively if you train that way. All you’re doing is teaching your body to move the weight slowly.

Sure, it increases your time under load, but you should be moving the bar as quickly as possible. So always train explosively, except during warmups. 3) Train as hard as possible. Whether your goal is strength or size, that’s one rule you must always obey. If you don’t take each set to complete muscular failure, you’re not going to grow stronger, period. The low numbers of sets you use necessitates extremely hard training, and vice versa.

4) Train with basic free-weight exercises. Many HIT bodybuilders use machines exclusively in their workouts, and they often do lots of isolation movements as their sole exercise for a muscle, to preexhaust it. That’s a big mistake when you’re training for power on the core lifts. Stick with squats, deadlifts, bench presses and the free-weight movements that closely mimic them and rotate exercises, including incline presses, rack lockouts, deadlift lockouts, partial squats, close-grip benches, reverse-grip benches, among others, in the mix. Steer away from flyes, leg extensions, cable crossovers and other single-joint movements.

Now that you know the basic keys to making HIT workouts effective for power training, here are some sample programs. You’ll find them fantastic if you’ve been banging away at more volume-oriented routines for a long time.

Two-Days-a-Week Basic Strength Program

If you’re new to HIT, this is the workout to start with. You train just twice a week, taking at least two days between sessions. Most people like to work out on Mondays and Thursdays.

Monday
Squats 1 x 20

After performing a couple of light warmup sets, load the bar with what you normally use for 10 reps. Go for 20 and don’t stop until you reach utter muscular failure. If you don’t get 20, that’s fine. Just make sure the set is as hard as possible. Stop short of muscular failure and you won’t get the results you want’not even close.

Barbell curls 1 x 5
That’s excluding warmups.
Power holds x 1

Get in the power rack and set a barbell at about knee height. Do a couple of light sets, just picking up the bar with an overhand grip. Load the bar with a heavy weight, then pick it up and hold it for as long as possible, until the bar slips out of your hands. It’s a fantastic grip builder.

Thursday
Bench presses 1 x 3-5
Deadlifts 1 x 20
Use the same style as described for squats in the Monday workout.

Three-Days-a-Week Workout
Here’s one for those who prefer to train one more day per week.

Monday
Squats 1 x 20
Barbell curls 1 x 3-5
Wednesday
Bench presses 1 x 3-5
Wide-grip chinups 1 x failure
If you can perform more than 20 reps with your bodyweight, add additional poundage.
Friday
Rack pulls 1 x 20
Power holds x 1

One-Workout-a-Week Program

If you’re the type of lifter who prefers to do even more work in each session than is used on the two-days-a-week program, this one just might be the Heavy Duty ticket. It’s similar to the approach Ken Leistner recommends. Just train on whatever day you choose and then wait an entire week before hitting the iron again.
Bench presses 2 x 3-5
Close-grip weighted
chinups 2 x 3-5
Bench press lockouts 1 x 3-5
Superset
Squats 1 x 20
Stiff-legged deadlifts 1 x 20
Power holds x 1

Advanced Strength Builders

Once you become more advanced, you might want to try taking more days off between bodypart hits. Remember, advanced lifters need more rest than beginners or intermediates.

Extra Rest Schedule
Day 1
Bench presses 1 x 3-5
Follow the above with a heavy negative. Use a weight that’s slightly heavier than your estimated one-rep maximum
Weighted chins 1 x failure
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Off
Day 4
Squats 1 x 5
Squat lockouts 1 x 3
Day 5: Off
Day 6
Barbell curls 1 x 3-5
Close-grip bench presses 1 x 3-5
Day 7: Off
Day 8
Rack pulls 1 x 3-5
Deadlifts 1 x 20
Day 9: Off Day 10 Cycle begins again

Some people like doing more work at each session. If that’s you, try the following program.

Extra Work Routine
Day 1
Bench presses 2 x 3-5
Close-grip bench
presses 1 x 10-15
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Off
Day 4
Bottom-position squats 2 x 3-5
Barbell curls 1 x 10-15
Squat lockouts 1 x 2-3
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Off
Day 7
Wide-grip chinups 1 x 3-5
Rack pulls 5 x 1

These are progressively heavier singles. The last set should be sheer torture. If you get it, take the weight back down in a slow negative so it’s impossible to perform another rep.

Stiff-legged deadlifts 1 x 20
Day 8: Off
Day 9: Off
Day 10 Cycle begins again

Speed Plus HIT

Once you’ve been using these routines for several months, you’ll probably be ready for a change. You might want to try a higher-volume, bodybuilding-style program or perhaps a power routine similar to what Louis Simmons recommends. If you don’t want such a large increase in volume, however, give this workout a try. It incorporates explosive-rep training along with high-intensity workouts and is very similar to the program IRONMAN editor in chief Steve Holman described in his February ’99 Critical Mass column.

Day 1: Speed day
Explosive-style pushups 2 x 5
Using your bodyweight, explode off the floor as hard as possible for five reps.
Explosive-rep bench presses 2 x 3
Use a weigh that’s no more than 70 percent of your one-rep max.
Day 2: Off
Day 3: HIT day
Squats 2 x 3-5
Rack pulls 2 x 3-5
Day 4: Off
Day 5: HIT day
Bench presses 1 x 3-5
Overhead presses 1 x 3-5
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Speed day
Squats 3 x 3
Use a weight that’s 70 percent of your one-rep max.
Day 8: Off
Day 9: Off
Day 10 Cycle begins again

Summing It Up

There you have it: high-intensity routines that will charge your strength and power. Give one of them a try for at least a month before moving on to the next, and you’re guaranteed to gain new strength on all your major lifts. You may not reach Karl Gray’s level, but you’ll be that much closer. IM