The Russian Bear 2r656

The Russian Bear Another effective high volume program is the "Russian Bear" program I learned from Pavel Tsatsouline. Here's how it works: Start off by doing ahard set of five on an exercise. Don't pick your five-rep max. Pick a weight that you could do six to seven times with good form and stop at five reps. Wait five minutes after the first set and do another set of five with 90% of the first set. After that set, wait 30-60 seconds and do aset of 5 with 80% of the first set. Keep doing sets of five with 80% of the first set and take one-minute breaks between each set. When you can no longer do five reps with good form, call it a day. This may happen after four sets or as many as fifteen. It really varies with the individual. Since you're not training to failure and are using relatively light weights for most of the sets, you can do the Russian Bear program more often. For example, you could do it three times a week. Just take aday off between each workout. Unlike GVT, the Russian Bear program consists of full body workouts. Here's a sample program: Monday A-1: Military Press A-2: Pull-up B-1: Deadlift Wednesday A-1: Bench Press A-2: Bent-over row B-1: Squat Friday A-1: Military Press A-2: Pull-up B-1: Deadlift Alternate between the two workouts each time. Each workout is a full body workout that hits all of the major muscle groups. Do A-1 and A-2 in antagonistic fashion. Take two-minute breaks between the first two sets of each exercise and thirty second breaks between the working sets with 80% of the first set. On B-1 follow the program as stated previously. Take two days off for every three workouts that you do. Now let's personalize the Russian Bear program for specific muscle fiber types. If you're fast twitch fiber dominant, keep the rep range between three and five per set. If you're slow twitch fiber dominant, keep the rep range between ten and twelve.