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Iron Vic, What is your opinion of high rep sets? I know that Parrillo recommends them on occasion, particularly in conjunction with belt squats but what about regular training and regular body parts? Also, if I use high rep sets, how high, how often and are there any pitfalls? I am getting pretty burned out and bored with my training: I work up to one all-out set of 8-12 rep sets in the standard exercises then I move on to the next exercise. Perhaps a short blast of high rep training would shake me out of my funk-a-tude.

Bored to death, Detroit City

I don’t need to speak for John – Lord knows that he can speak for himself without any help from me. (JP:

when are you going to let me borrow that John Deere hat you keep promising?) John recommends that every trainee include high rep sets in every workout. In the Parrillo lexicon there are two types of muscle fiber and two types of progressive resistance training. The two fiber types require two distinct strategies. Muscular density refers to size and thickness of muscle fiber. To build muscle density requires heavy lifting. Lower reps using maximum poundage is ideal for improving muscle density. John actually prefers several ‘work sets’ for improving muscle density. Here is how it works: warm-up thoroughly then work to an all-out set of 12-repetitions.

For illustrative purposes let’s pick hypothetical poundage. After hitting say 220×12, John would advise adding more weight to the bar and then hit an all out set of 8-reps with perhaps 250. Rest for a few minutes; add even more weight and blast up 280×5. Finally perform a triple with 300. After pyramiding up to 300×3, Parrillo would advise dropping the poundage back to around 250 for 6-reps (you’ll lose a few reps from cumulative fatigue) and on this set have a training partner step in and administer an additional 2-3 forced reps. Now that’s a workout! But we’re not done. At this point it’s time to improve the target muscle’s cardiovascular density. Cardio density refers to actual size and sheer number of blood vessels within a muscle. Blood vessels carry oxygen and nutrients to a muscle and transport fatigue-inducing waste products away from it. High repetition progressive resistance training using 20 to 100- reps per set builds cardio density. In the Parrillo approach once the trainee finishes his muscular density sets it is time to follow up with a high rep cardio density set or two. Generally speaking cardio density sets range from 20 to 30- reps but every so often John will recommend a 50-100 rep set to shake things up. If I were recommending a cardiovascular density set for our hypothetical fellow who worked up to 300×3, I would suggest a final cardio density set with 185-pounds. Shoot for a 30-rep cardio density set but if I could squeeze out more than 30-reps I sure would.

Iron Victor, How would you set up a balanced bodybuilding routine? How much time should be allotted to each body part? I suspect I’ve been training my ‘beach muscles,’ arms, pecs, shoulders and abs too much while neglecting my back and legs.

Tanya, Los Angeles

Let’s approach this mathematically and allot training time in proportion to body mass. This requires some calculation. Put it this way, it makes no sense to spend 70% of your training time on arms and pectorals when these three muscles represent approximately 20-25% of overall body mass. Keeping in mind that all humans are constructed slightly differently, let’s hazard some rough guesses on body mass proportionality: neck 3%, pectorals 12%, deltoids 10%, trapezius/rhomboids/teres/lats/ erectors 25%, abdominal 8%, hamstrings/ quadriceps/glutes/calves 32%, biceps/triceps/forearms 10%. These are rough calculations to be sure but certainly in the ballpark. Assuming that our gross proportional calculations are accurate we can extrapolate how best to use available training time. If you have six cumulative hours per week (360-minutes) to devote to progressive resistance training, the breakout would be as follows: neck 10 minutes, pectorals 43 minutes, shoulders 35 minutes, back 90 minutes, abdominal 28 minutes, legs 115 minutes, arms 35 minutes. Now this is strictly a rough guide but obviously if you are spending 120-minutes a week training your pecs and 40-minutes a week training your back then things are going to end up disproportional. Get the idea?

Iron Vic, Salutations from the Big Easy. Remember me? You and Santana Hanna came by my shop a few years back. I’ve got to ask you a question. Recently I’ve been afflicted with pain, way harsh pain, after doing straight leg dead lifts. On day two and three after my hamstring straight leg deadlift training I’m hobbling around like an old man with moderate to severe lower back pain. I’ve been slowing down my leg curls using less weight and a purposefully slow start like you recently suggested - so I know the pain culprit must be the straight leg dead lifts. I think I’m doing every thing right: relaxed arms, bar close to the legs, butt back, head up, slight bend of the knees at the bottom, and back straight. What the hell is wrong? I’m only doing 5 sets with 185 to 225- pounds. You’d think I’d be smart enough to figure it out!?!? Please advise. Gotta get back to the heating pad!

Doctor John, The Night Tripper

PS – it is my understanding that the arrest warrant on you and Santana Hanna is no longer in effect in New Orleans – maybe we could hook up at the Madi Gras this year like we did in 1995?

Maybe not. This freak is another voice from the past…still into that Haitian Santeria voodoo stuff? Dr. John dresses like a psychedelic nightmare. He is a “doctor” of herbal medicines and owns a weird little voodoo shop straight out of Little House of Horrors on the Corner of Saint Claude and Explainade. I was introduced to this certifiable weirdo by my old Cajun buddy, Santana Hanna, the world butterfly knife combat fighting champion. I rolled down to Red Stick (Baton Rouge) for the 1995 national powerlifting championships and afterwards we decided to head to New Orleans.

We met Dr. John in his shop and though I’ve seen a lot of strange people in my travels this guy ranked at the tiptop of the weirdo list. We walked into this dank musty shop stuffed with old timey dolls, shrunken heads (real ones) and burning incense. Water moccasin and rattlesnake skins hung on the walls and strange charms sat on dusty antique furniture while ritualistic voodoo music played on an ancient Victrola. Picture a big dude with 19-inch arms. Doctor John (“call me the Night Tripper”) wore a tuxedo with tails and the sleeves had been ripped out to expose his guns. He had on a formal top hat and his face was painted like some football loser at an Oakland Raider game. Hanna told me he dressed up like this all the time.

He had a ‘lazy eye’ that never moved and wore a bunch of charm necklaces. He kept shaking a rattle at me to see if I ‘was spellbound.’ The guy talked in some kind of Creole patois that I couldn’t understand and within ten minutes of meeting me asked if I wanted to ‘eat some peyote.’ I demurred and we proceeded to walk over to Antoine’s for some oysters Rockefeller. He strode down the sidewalk carrying a giant walking stick with a shrunken head on top and proceeded to get into a fight with a street musician sitting less than a block from his creepy store. Out of nowhere he starts bashing this hippie folk singer with his stick, accusing the poor guitar player of “Trying to put some gris-gris (a hex) on me!” Hanna and I are pulling Dr. John off the guy when the cops showed up. A full fledged street brawl broke out that ended with me running through back alleyways, leaping fences and running through back yards while being chased by a K-9 unit. I escaped and haven’t been back since. Thanks for the freaking invite but no thanks. Out of a sense of professionalism I will answer your question… You are performing the deadlifts incorrectly.

The poundage is WAY heavy. I would suggest you start by holding a 35 or 45-pound plate in your two hands. Set your feet 18-24 inches apart and allow the toes to flare outward. Stand erect and as you lower the plate let the arms hang loose and allow the weight to swing AWAY from the body. The back is kept flexed and the only movement is in the hip joint. As you lower the poundage the butt will want to push rearward so let it.

Exhale as you lower and at the low point of the descent forcibly exhale again thereby forcing all the air out of the lungs. In conjunction with the ‘second exhale’ relax and allow the weight to pull you down further. Now comes the tricky part: at the turnaround where decent becomes ascent, raise your head and power upward but do this SLOWLY!

Use the hamstrings and only the hamstrings to power erect. Do this correctly and you’ll feel it in the hamstrings as it actually occurs. Think of this exercise as a stretching exercise done with some added weight. The relatively heavy poundage (185 to 225) and the fact that you allow the barbell to contact the thighs as you pull upward makes the movement an erector exercise, not a hamstring exercise. You likely explode at the bottom to get the poundage moving. If you are flexible you might need to stand on a block or a hundred pound plate laid flat on the floor in order to allow the poundage to dip below the surface. If the plate feels awkward try using two 20-pound dumbbells. Really let the weight stretch you at the start. The key to hamstring deadlifting is to use light poundage and start the upward pull from a huge initial stretch. Allow the weight to stray forward away from the body and use a super slow ascent. Start with 2-3 sets of 10-12 reps and don’t bother writing back, you freaking creep.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 12:42 pm and is filed under General Training and Workout. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.