Saturday, May 18, 2024

The Potpourri (single set) Routine

 



                                    Listening to this in its entirety before continuing is required, Sirs!
Slow Fried Baloney
Dutch Mason Band.
Want some . . . 
Get some! 



This method of training predates the set system. It can be traced all the way back to the old time strong men [from all parts of the world] who used it to build strength in all sorts of various lifts throughout time with all kinds of stuff that can be lifted. 



 
The routine consists of a series of 6 or more exercises for each muscle group. Each is performed for only one set. It equals the amount of work provided by 2 to 4 done for 3 or more sets. [I worked from one to three for five hours, ya dang number types]. 

The advantage is the variety of angles you are working each muscle, thoroughly activating all the muscle fibers. 

Exercise monotony is one of the major causes of progress slowdowns. This program is a slow fried baloney, no, a buffet, er, potpourri of exercises making your workout an interesting one. 


The Spirit-Nature of Massive Shoulders, Potpourri Style (Baloney pre-Workout)

Keeping with Spirit, being in, of, surrounded by and inhaling spirit, fish-and- water style, utilize different repetitions on each exercise. Use heavy weights with low reps on some, medium reps and high reps with lighter weights on others.

Begin with a set of 10 on the PBN. It has a nice rhyming sound to it. Keep the barbell moving, don't lock out overhead or bring the bar completely down. Partial range of motion, right? . . . leave out the very lower and most upper section. 

Follow with front presses, licking your elbows if flexible enough, and if not, locking your elbows out at the top of each rep. LOWER SLOWLY. 6 reps. 

Move on to side lateral raises. Start with the two D-bells held together in front of you  [d-bol d-bell joke here if you like, start with two d-bol etc.). Lift 'em out to your sides, keeping the fronts and backs of the dumbbells even, Steven. Your arms stay slightly bent throughout the movement. Bring them level, you devil, to the top of your head. Hold them in that position on this delt mission for one second and LOWER SLOWLY, Owen and Everly. Use light weight (Baby!) and do 15 reps, Darlene.

Okay, Dexter, next . . . hold a heavy barbell at arms' length . . . pull it up to your chest, raising your elbows high in an upright row. Do four reps. LOWER SLOWLY. 

Sit on a bench, John, you lousy Judy Dench wannabe with mousy shoulders-not-boulders . . . what is this . . . 50 ways to pump your delts, by Paul Simon . . .

Sit on a steady bench with two light dumbbells at your shoulders, Leopold (damnit!), palms forward, as shown by Norm in Illustration Minus Three. Without bending from side to side, press them alternately for a set of twenty reps, Henny. Do a set . . . have consciousness and is it a living thing? 




Do a hardish, noisy set, ahem, of alternate dumbbell front raises, palms down, twelve reps, Asa, oi vey.

With light-dumbbells, I mean light dumbbells, keep your arms straight, do a set of thumbs-up side laterals for a set of eight and stop trying to lick your elbows already, Freddy.

Conclude your shoulder workout with straight-arm barbell front raises. Hold it (hold what? my horses?) at the top position, head level, and LOWER SLOWLY. Do 6 reps. 

Isn't it amazing how pumped you get on one set per exercise?


Gains for the Whole Body Not Including the Privates

You can Dad-blast-it, the whole body with this method, or completely incinerate a specific bodypart Tokyo, March 1945-style with this method. 

To formulate a potpourri routine, the more exercises you're familiar with, the more selection you'll have to choose from, hint hint. 

Use this method in a split routine, doing half your body one day, and the rest (not that kind of rest) the other day. Or, do your whole amazing body three days a week, you crazy. 

Here's a routine I used to break through a training rut, and it's only one of the countless variations you can come up with on your own: 

Lower Back and Obliques

Hyperextensions, weighted, 10 reps
Reverse leg lifts, hanging upper body over Roamin' chair, 20 reps
Good mornings, 20 reps
Side bends, barbell across shoulders, 12 reps
Side bends with dumbbells, 30 reps

Shoulders and Traps

PBN, 10 reps
Front press, 6 reps
Side laterals, 15 reps
Upright row, 4 reps
Barbell high pull, 3 reps
Alt DB press, 20 not-so-so see-saw reps
Barbell front raise, 12 reps
Thumbs up laterals, a.k.a. Siskel & Eberts, 8 reps
Alternate DB front raises, 6 reps
DB shrugs, 12 reps

Upper Back and Rear Deltoids

Pullups to chest, 20 reps, want more than now, get more over time
Bentover DB row, 6 reps
45-degree row, 8 reps
Pulldown behind neck, 10 reps
Straightjacket, er, straight arm push(pull)down, 15 reps
Nautilus puke-all-over, 12 reps
Low cable row, 5 reps
Bentover laterals, 10 reps
Bentover DB row, elbows out, now well-licked, 6 reps
Bent arm pullovers, 8 reps

Chest

Incline barbell press, on incline, 10 reps

Bench press, do a search if you're not 100,000% sure of the correct technique, which, after researching the first 10,000 of the results should take you approximately point oh-oh one percent of the way through the mass of bench technique how-to's online, 8 reps

Lean-forward dips, weighted, 4 reps 
Decline barbell press, 8 reps
Incline flyes, 7 reps
Pulley crossover, 20 reps
Naughty-more-or-less chest machine, 30 reps, Delores 

Triceps

Cable pushdown, 20 reps
One dumbbell two-hands-on French press, 6 reps
Kickbacks, 15 reps
Reverse grip pushdown, 10 reps
45-degree pulley extensions, 8 reps
One hand DB triceps press, 12 reps
CLOSE GRIP PRESS BEHIND NECK [there's one I used long ago that you don't see in many routines!], 5 reps
Lying triceps extension with EZ curl bar, 7 reps
Decline two-DB triceps press, 10 reps
Nautilus tricep machine, 30 reps

Biceps

Wide grip barbell curl, 20 reps
Barbell curl over vertical bench, 6 reps
Preacher Scott bench angular curl, 10 mormonic reps
Curls lying on bench under lat machine, 12 reps
Reverse curl, 7 reps
Hammer curls, 5 reps
Close grip EZ bar curl, 6 reps
Concentration moon curls, 15 Zappa reps
Incline DB curl, 30 reps

Forearms

Barbell wrist curl, 20 reps
Barbell reverse wrist curl, 20 reps
Wrist roller, 3 foot cord
Wrist curl with floor pulley, 10 reps 
Reverse grip floor pulley wrist curl, 10 reps

Thighs

Leg extensions, 15 reps
Standing leg curl, 19 reps
Leg press, 8 reps
Lying leg curl, 6 reps, plus baby reps, forced reps, forced forced reps with exaggerated grimace, feces-filled cheeks style
Front squat, 12 reps
Ballet squat, 12 swan-leg lake reps, Jake
Hack lift, 7 reps
Leanback squats, 20 sissy reps, Gene, Jack, and then Chrissy, you twat
Lunges, 10 reps
French squat (full squat to halfway up, as if you didn't already know! 20 reps 

Calves

Standing calf raise, erect 4-H style, 20 reps
Seated calf raise, milkmaid style, 8 moist reps
Donkey calf raise on Nautilus, Johnny Wadd Wonderland style
Calf raise on leg press, 10 reps, Rex and/or Abel and Don (net-factual!)
 
Alternate calf holding dumbbell raise, 15 reps; Milo be warned, that bull's offspring have had it with you kicking sand in their faces when not being carried all over the goddamned place, their tits are in a wringer, revenge will be had! 

Calf raise, heels turning inward in shame, introspective of what they have done; time wounds all heels. 

Deep calf raise, no weight, 10 reps, Sandeep

Abdominals

Now-dry elbows-to-knees situps, wait a minute, what? (weighted), 10 reps

Leg raise on stand (by), almost bye now to this one, 50 reps, Isaiah, Micah, Genesis, Jude, Hosea and Zephaniah.
 
Crunches, 100 reps or four-20 horsemen of the Equinox and no, I don't smoke weed anymore, and it's been quite a while now. Not even for Lughnasadh anymore, I swear! 

Nautilus A.I. ab machine, 25 reps, eh, Ike.
V-ups, 20 reps, and finally, this is the way we
Roll-ups, 15 reps. 

Sorry for not including photos for each exercise. 

On the nutrition and diet side of this type of routine, I recommend slow-fried baloney as a pre-, inter- and post-workout (within that wealthy widow-of-opportunity) energy booster, pump enhancer, and musclebuilding nutrient-builder. Or, in luau of that, pinapple/pineapple blended into a generous serving of tomato/tomahto juice. Reg Park worked up to three galloons of this health drink, and so can you, regardless of your body type, genetic gifts or shortfallings, and appetite/digestion/assimilation situation.  

And there we have it! I do hope you are able to at some time take some worthwhile uncharred timber away from this burning Vaudevillian building presented, at some point and/or in some way. The single set-apiece, multiple exercise idea is an old one worth trying at some point in these modern times and . . . even though you may not know who wrote it, when it was written, or how much heft and import it should be given according to those knowns unknown.


Enjoy Your Lifting! 
 



















 


  

15 comments:

  1. Love the blob! I ain't no dummy . . . is this a setup for the next article, Mr. Giveitaname? Rumor has it you're accepting submissions from previously unpublished authors who have a hard time finding a home for their material.

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  2. There was an article on 10 different biceps curls one set each in Dan Lurie's Muscle Training Illustrated in the late 1960.s.

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  3. I saw a man do single-set training of this style at the first public gym I went to, thinking it would be better than my home layout. Mid-sixties . . . he was mainly a gymnast and a damn fine one. Back then, and at this location, there wasn't much gear to worry about, not enough to agonize over as some do today. He did upper body work only, I imagine to keep his legs at a lighter weight in order to facilitate his gymnastic stuff. He would do some handstand pushups (no wall needed, he was a fine gymnast), press a bar (they were all plate loading regular bars there, except for the one oil bath bar, oops, Oly bar) . . . do a few one-arm pushups . . . press the same bar in a different way . . . do some pushups with his feet up on a bench . . . press the one roundhead DB that was available . . . and go on like this until he'd had enough. Then, he and the large guy who more or less ran the place and had contributed the gear on his own out of pocket would stand around chatting while the big guy did some easy BB curls and maybe some light triceps work. He was already happy with his size at that point, I guess.

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  4. Now we come to the moral of the story, one that applies nicely to this particular author-not-stated, date not given article. I saw several guys do different kinds of lifting back then and there. Being more or less still a child in my worldview, I fell for the fool's view. I read the mags then, voraciously. The two Weiders and both York publications. Being such a stooge at that age, I considered the mags to contain "better" information than what was right in front of my face being done by "unknowns" . . . even though what the "nobodies" put themselves through in various ways were pretty much identical to the "champs" and what the "learned men called mag writers" presented.

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  5. We can be extremely stupid. We. Is. Human! To believe that simply because information is written by someone who happens to have a contract with a magazine, or has been published in various books is of more worth than what a well-seasoned, experience lifter has to offer is buffoonery. To take advice from some champeen, a Reg Park, Doug Hepburn over that of some "unknown" is nonsense in my view . . . but again, I was just a kid back then, little more than child-level in my worldview. I don't give two pity fucks who wrote what, where it wound up, or how many degrees the author has, how much he can or could press over his head. There's a small army of guys who have very much to offer us, men unknown for the most part, having no desire to peddle their hard-earned experiential for 20 pieces of silver or a shiny car-toy. It sickens me no end to see otherwise intelligent lifters get so hung up on placing such great import on how Steve Reeves, Alexeev, Wendler and/or Cutler train or trained. The name means nothing, the info and chance to try things on myself are all that matter. Also, this idiocy of believing we are not singular beings gifted in different ways physically is laughable. I mean, perhaps we should find out how King Kong trained for his role in that first film he was in. Hint hint.

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  6. It's fucking Don Ross, a Rader-era article, '80s, four or nine, boring as shite and presented in the usual kindergarten level style of writing. The one before that, "Be Fully Prepared" is Brad Steiner, maybe '84, I can't be bothered with that, doing his usual redundant, preachy routine and presenting the same thing over and over and over again and again in the same low-creativity tiresome fashion, once more in a writing style that's stiffer than the limbs on a horse with rigor mortis. No story, no song, no humor, no appeal to me.

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  7. Hopefully, we here at TTSDB will have the opportunity to somewhat "up" the level of training article writing somehow in the near future. The usual drill will most certainly keep you pleased and will absolutely conitune, but I would like to attempt to raise the bar creatively in some small way with this.

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  8. I see you are on a crusade, Mr. Giveitaname. Your Potpourri training advice may be overdoing it. Then again, maybe not! John Grimek believed that single sets of several exercises for low to medium reps gave a better type of muscular development (gee, he had a magazine of that same name) than a bunch of sets of a single exercise. Note, that was bodybuilding advice, not for Olympic or powerlifting proficiency.

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    Replies
    1. Hello again, Jan! Always a treat to hear from you here. The Potpourri article's a setup for the next one I'm working on over here. Single-set training for b-building, and I've tried it a few times over enough time to see it was for me, sure can give a different kind of pump! Plus, there's a sense of "freshness" to it . . . wonderful stuff. I'd like to possibly present in a mildly different way something similar for strength-building, written nothing at all like that PP thing. Hopefully, some will find an idea they may find useful. The "rotating" variation of lifts, currently named "conjugate" something-or-other in the popular lifting press is a great strength-building tool. This single set method applied to strength-building may have its merits as well. Man, Jan, did I drop a load with that last article-joke or what! Low level stuff, but at least (and at best in this case) it kept me in the game, and that's always something fun.

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    2. Hey Giveitaname, I'm excited to read your next article regarding this single set training. I tried it today with legs, arms and abs. It was fun and quick! Keep up the good work.

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  9. I believe I've heard that John Grimek suggested this in Strength and Health.

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    1. Many lifters have used this form of one-set per exercise, the famous as well as the lesser-knowns. It's cool, a great variation, one that reached and still reaches far beyond the scope of just the mags and their champs. I wonder who Mr. Grimek saw using it and then chose to follow that example? And earlier, who that individual J.C.G. observed doing it saw. and then tried it on for size himelf . . . which brings me to the possibility of using it for strength in a modified way. The speed from one movement to another would have to be different from the b-building deal of course, but there's something there that merits experimentation in my view.

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  10. Hey, is there a way to modify this for home gym users? Throwing in bodyweight exercises as well? Is there anywhere where i can read more about this type of training? I find it fascinating and fun non boring way to train

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    Replies
    1. Use your head, experiment . . . if something works for you be proud that you found it out for yourself.

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