More From "Secrets of Strength and Development - Bob Hoffman (1940)

                                      

                                                 ADDITIONAL SUCCESSFUL TRAINING PRINCIPLES

In order to obtain proper results, great demands must be made upon the muscles at times. This we do on the York heavy or limit day of training -- a day, usually once a week, in which the ambitious body builder works up to or beyond his best in the past. 

We train very hard on this day at the York Bar Bell Gym. Strangely there is an exhilaration to training in this intensive manner. More glycogen is released by this hard training than is required; there is a surplus which accounts for the great feeling of strength, energy and well being that advanced barbell men feel on this hard day of training. 

It is not possible to train to the limit always, in spite of the rest period which is sandwiched between the training days. More than a single day of rest is required. That's why we usually do not train as severely on Monday as on other days as it is the first training day following the heavy Saturday training. With my preferred training system this is a lighter day, one of the exercise days. 

Variety is possible during these lighter days. It can consist of selecting the amount of weight which can be handled 10 repetitions. One day of the week it is desirable to select a weight which can be used 15 times; at other times it is wise to follow the York heavy and light system, or the 3 x 5 or the 5 x 5 system of training.

Irregular training has proven to be one of the main roads to your physical desires. Kindly remember that your muscles quickly become accustomed to a steady routine with about the same resistance always or even with gradual increases. You must jolt these muscles out of their familiar rut and this is done with irregular training. 

In many years of my own training and in coaching thousands of ambitious bar bell men, this system of irregular training has proven to be best. 

Once a week the athlete should work up to or beyond his limit. That is the night or the afternoon when you break your own records, handle poundages you never lifted before, or exceed the repetitions you have ever made with a certain poundage. 

The other training days you work out rather moderately. On the first of these, Monday, you could exercise about 80% of your limit, and two days later about 90% of your limit. 

Between these heavy days you can, if it suits your ambitions and the time available, have dumbbell days, or you can include these with the heavier days, as a partial rest between more vigorous movements or as additional exercises after the harder bar bell exercises. The moderate dumbbell days will develop your muscles from many different angles, make them more shapely and stronger. They will tone the muscles and prepare them for the harder days to come. 

In the dumbbell movements you will find that it is at times possible to handle heavy bells and in other exercises from 10 to 15 pound dumbbells are sufficient.  

The 5-day training system which I employed so successfully during my famous 20 weeks of training, the system with which I established a world's record in physical gains, gains which were more rapid than had ever been officially attained before, is one that I had used during my entire athletic career.

Note: This would be Bob Hoffman's earlier version of the Colorado Experiment or something along those lines.

In my athletic endeavors, with this system, at the age of sixteen I won my first national championship in open senior competition. During this period of my training, each Saturday I would have races or time trials in training. This of course was my limit day. Two other days I trained quite hard, and two days I took things easy striving for better form and better muscular coordination. 

This system of training will work well for you if you are one of those ambitious fellows who wish to gain the limit in strength and development. If you are one of the "keep fit" enthusiasts, one fairly hard barbell day will be sufficient, and two other moderate training days per week. 

In fact, if you are willing to work hard two days a week, you will not only manage to maintain your physique but improve it somewhat. We must remember though that a definite amount of work is necessary to make real gains. I often say that two training periods a week allow you to hold your own, to maintain your physique, three days permit you to gain slowly, but four days of training, at least, permit much more rapid gains. 

Concerning repetitions -- there are some who have managed to gain with rather high repetitions in some exercises -- deep knee bending for instance. I consider 10 sufficient in this movement with a heavy weight. 15 may not be too many with a more moderate weight and if a very heavy weight is employed I prefer the heavy and light system or a series of bends (deep knee bends) consisting of 5 repetitions each. 

But there are some like the young man who try to reach thirty. A weight must be light to begin or one would never get to thirty. While it is light, little results are obtained in strength and development. Some endurance is created, but usually so many movements leave a man shaken, tired, with "rubber legs," so that he is reluctant to train another day. 

We have worked out a system of training which does not make great demands upon your nervous energy; rather it builds up these internal qualities so that you have them when they are needed. 

Except in some easy movements such as rise on toes, shoulder shrug, straddle hop, the pullover breathing exercise and similar dumbbell movements at which up to 20 counts are permissible, 15 should be the maximum number of movements. 

If you want to specialize on a movement, practice it 3 x 10, or 5 x 10 if you are especially anxious to build that particular part. This way you can use sufficient weight to build muscular power and shapeliness of the muscles. 

Occasionally there is a superman like Weldon Bullock, the first 17 year old boy in the history of the world to successfully clean and jerk 300 pounds, or like Louis Abele who has made the sensational lifting total of 940, who can perform more heavy deep knee bends. But these men are the exception, who merely prove that the average man should not attempt what they do. 

Abele has tremendous stores of vital energy; he will sleep ten or even twelve hours, after a hard workout, soundly and well. But these men take several breaths between each bend when the going get hard so their apparently high repetitions in the deep knee bend are really a series of strength feats. Far better to be satisfied with the weight that you can handle from 10-15 movements. 

Even 10 movements (repetitions) start out easily for the first 5 or 6; they become really hard at 8 or 9, so that the last one or two are very difficult to perform and are done with a great expenditure of nerve force. This is good for you at times, but not more than once a week. It will cause exhaustion for some rather than rapid progression. Yet it is necessary that heavy weights be used to strengthen muscles, tendons and ligaments, to build the maximum of muscular strength and development, so this is why the York heavy and light system was offered to the strength and development seeking public. 

We must remember that at least 10 movements are required to bring the blood to the working muscle. Tissue must be broken down, demands must be made, oxygen and, later, more solid food must be required by the working muscle before the blood comes to the rescue. To combine this physiological fact with the need at times to handle very heavy poundages, we need the heavy and light system . . . 

With this method a weight is selected which permits 7 or 8 repetitions. Almost immediately some of this weight is removed, 10-20%, and the same movement is performed with this lesser weight for 7 to 8 repetitions. We try to reach 15 in all with this system. 

You will find that the second series even with a lesser weight is hard or harder than the first series. 

There is another way to practice this heavy and light system. Using a really heavy weight, one that will permit only 3-5 repetitions, continue until the aggregate number of repetitions reaches 15. This would be 3 x 5 or 5 x 3 reps. 

The heavy and light system is normally practiced but once per week although a host of men have received good results by practicing it every training day. Added strength, development and weight are the usual result of handling these heavy poundages. It is a good way to exercise when you are tired and lack pep. 

Many men have had good success by practicing one day only those movements for the upper body and another only those for the lower. In the York courses the exercises are arranged so that they will be as time saving and easy as possible while still bringing the desired results. Usually an upper body movement is alternated with one for the midsection or the lower body. 

Tony Terlazzo, in particular, has trained with only upper body movements one day and only lower body movements another day. The theory of course is that the major portion of the body's blood will be kept in the part of the body in which the muscles are involved and that better all-around results will be had. 

The chief objection to this system is the very fatiguing effect it has upon the muscles so that longer and more frequent rest periods with a greater expenditure of time are required to consummate the training program. 

It is necessary in order to obtain all around benefit strength and development to include in the training program exercises which come under the classifications of paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. 

1) Exercises for building muscles and strength. Exercises to develop the ligaments, cartilage, tendons, and even add to the size and thickness of the bones. 

2) Exercises to build vital force, strengthen the internal organs, improve the process of elimination, improve circulation, develop the endurance of the lungs which is commonly called wind.

3) Exercises to increase speed, prevent possible slowness, stiffness or sluggishness which might be the result of following too many slow exercises in a training program. 

4) Stretching exercises -- those which make the body more supple, flexible, and keep it constantly youthful.

5) Exercises which develop timing or coordination, which develop control and command of the muscles, balance and exactness in all movements. 

A variety of good result-producing exercises and routines of exercise are possible while following the proven York principles of training. There is a definite course to fit your condition; therefore you will progress best and succeed most if you have qualified personal instruction. Lacking this, the next best form of training for the majority of physical aims is to follow the four York courses exactly as they are offered: 

Exercise movements Monday and Thursday, lifting and lifting motion exercises Wednesday and Saturday.

Enjoy Your Lifting!