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	<title>strength &#8211; PowerliftingToWin</title>
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		<title>One Weird Programming Trick To Increase Your Strength!</title>
		<link>https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/one-weird-programming-trick-to-increase-your-strength/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Izzy T]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2014 21:23:59 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[coaching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[overtraining]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[powerlifting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[programming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strength]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[volume]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/?p=2934</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I’ve been wanting to write this article for a very, very long time. Despite the fact that I spent nearly a month reviewing dozens of programs, various methods of organizing training, and even several periodization schemes, to most of you, that stuff is hardly relevant minutiae. That’s right; I said it. Most discussions about optimal… <span class="read-more"><a href="https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/one-weird-programming-trick-to-increase-your-strength/">Read More &#187;</a></span>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I’ve been wanting to write this article for a very, very long time.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that I spent nearly a month <a title="Powerlifting Program Reviews" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-programs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reviewing dozens of programs</a>, <a title="More on Training Organization" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-training-organization" target="_blank" rel="noopener">various methods of organizing training</a>, and even several periodization schemes, to most of you, that stuff is hardly relevant minutiae. That’s right; I said it. Most discussions about <a title="Powerlifting Programming" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-programming" target="_blank" rel="noopener">optimal programming</a> amount to nothing more than mental masturbation.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d rather watch than read:<br />
<iframe title="The Dirty Secret of Programming That No One Wants You To Know..." width="665" height="374" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N5WhvFJ0Yj4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>The Programming of Champions</h2>
<p>Let’s consider one cold hard fact before we get into the meat and potatoes of this discussion: there are champions and world record holders from virtually every programming philosophy. Even if we stick to just raw lifters in the IPF, there are <a title="Sheiko Review" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/sheiko" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sheiko trained athletes</a> with medals, there are <a title="Westside Review" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/westside" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Westside athletes</a> with medals, there are <a title="5x5 Review" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/texas-method" target="_blank" rel="noopener">5&#215;5 athlete</a> with medals, there are people who train each lift once a week with medals, and there are even people who train every single day with medals (sometimes multiple times per day!).</p>
<p>So, am I reneging on my stance and just admitting that the “find what works for you” people are right? Hardly. That said, it is about damn time someone put an exclamation point on the forest so that you all stop looking at the trees.</p>
<h2>The Most Important Training Variable</h2>
<p>Once you have <a title="More on specificity" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-programming/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">specificity</a> handled, The single most important factor in making progress in your training is… doing more volume. Wait, that’s it? Yes, really that’s it. <a title="PTW Online Coaching" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-coaching" target="_blank" rel="noopener">As a coach</a>, the single most important thing that I can do for any client to get them past a plateau is to believe in a program that has them doing more volume than they’ve ever done before. If you’ve ever heard of the 80/20 rule, the 80% of programming success is doing more work and working harder than you have in the past.</p>
<p>I can hear a lot of you saying, “Duh!” from a mile way. And you know what? It is obvious. But if it is so obvious why does it seem so many of us have forgotten this simple truth? If you want to keep making progress as a trainee, you need to consistently raise your volume every time you stall. Year after year, your volume should be increasing.</p>
<p>Haven’t you ever wondered why there is that one “bro” at the gym who “doesn’t know anything about training” but is brutally strong? Did you just chalk it up to genetics? While that is probably a part of it, another big part of it is that he probably hasn’t been brainwashed by the “overtraining” police. He goes hard… every… single… day.</p>
<p>Here is the bottom line: the more volume you can do, and recover from, the more significant the adaptation will be. That’s it, guys. That’s really the bottom line.</p>
<h2>Understanding Volume via Sun Tanning</h2>
<p>Let’s bust out the sun tan analogy one more time. We all know that if you haven’t been in the sun for several months, your skin is going to be lighter than usual. We all also know that spending time in the sun results in some degree of tanning. If you spend 15 minutes in the sun, you’ll get one level of tan. If you spend 30 minutes in the sun, you’ll get another level of tan. The more time you can spend in the sun without burning, the darker you’re going to get. And, of course, the darker you get, the more time you can spend in the sun.</p>
<p>Well, training works exactly the same way and you should be working through the exact same process. If you want “optimal” progress, the first thing you should be considering is not how trendy the name of your next program is or even whether the program employs DUP vs. Block periodization; the first thing you need to be considering is are you going to be doing more volume than you have in the past? Are you going to be working harder than you ever have before? Every time you start to plateau, the first thing you should do is consider whether or not you’re ready to add more volume. Instead of looking for the program with the coolest name, start keeping track of training metrics like tonnage, total number of lifts performed, average intensity, and others that help you get a grip on how much work you’re doing and how hard it is.</p>
<h2>Bottom Line: Volume Is The Key</h2>
<p>Look guys, again, whether you believe in <a title="Sheiko Review" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/sheiko" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sheiko style training</a>, <a title="Review of RTS Training" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/a-review-of-mike-tuchscherers-reactive-training-systems-rts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RTS style training</a>, <a title="PTW Programs" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/eBook-ProgrammingToWin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PTW style training</a>, linear periodization, bodybuilding, or whatever the hell else, programming is about figuring out how you can do the most volume possible while still recovering. In the novice stage, that mostly comes down to figuring out the maximum number of days you can train and the sets/reps you do on those days. In the intermediate stage, that mostly comes down to how you organize each individual training week. In the advanced stage, that mostly comes down to how you organize each block of training throughout your cycle. You just start dealing with longer time frames to manage the fatigue.</p>
<p>Make no mistake about it guys; if you’re stuck, and you want to get moving again, try adding more volume instead of hopping to a different program. That’s the dirty secret that no one wants you to know: the primary job of a coach is get you to do more volume while still being able to recover.</p>
<p>Do more work to get more results.</p>
<h2>Did You Enjoy The ProgrammingToWin Series?</h2>
<p>If so, you&#8217;ll absolutely love our eBook <a title="Get ProgrammingToWin" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/programmingtowin/">ProgrammingToWin</a>! The book contains over 100 pages of content, discusses each scientific principle of programming in-depth, and provides six different full programs for novice and intermediate lifters. <a title="Get ProgrammingToWin" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/programmingtowin/">Get your copy now</a>!</p>
<h2>Like this Article? Subscribe to our Newsletter!</h2>
<p>If you liked this articled, and you want instant updates whenever we put out new content, including exclusive subscriber articles and videos, <a title="Newsletter Sign-up" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/newsletter">sign up to our Newsletter</a>!</p>
<h2>Questions? Comments?</h2>
<p>For all business and personal coaching services related inqueries, please contact me:<br />
[contact-form-7 id=&#8221;3245&#8243; title=&#8221;Contact form 1&#8243;]</p>
]]></content:encoded>
					
		
		
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		<title>How to Gain Strength While Cutting</title>
		<link>https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/gain-strength-while-cutting/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Izzy T]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Jun 2014 19:05:14 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cut]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cutting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gain strength on a diet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gain strength while cutting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[powerlifting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[strength]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/?p=2441</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Recently, I’ve lost about 6-7kg of bodyweight while adding 40kg/90lbs to my powerlifting total. Because of this success, as you might expect, I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about how one should go about trying to make gains on a cut. Now, while I fully plan to address this question in much more depth… <span class="read-more"><a href="https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/gain-strength-while-cutting/">Read More &#187;</a></span>]]></description>
										<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Recently, I’ve lost about 6-7kg of bodyweight while adding 40kg/90lbs to my powerlifting total. Because of this success, as you might expect, I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about how one should go about trying to make gains on a cut. Now, while I fully plan to address this question in much more depth in the <a title="Powerlifting Nutrition Series" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-nutrition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PowerliftingToWin Nutrition Series</a>, I do want to give a brief overview of the strategy I use to increase strength on a diet.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d rather watch than read:<br />
<iframe title="How to Gain Strength on a Cut" width="665" height="374" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GWcu7zhY0sM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>Gaining Strength While Cutting</h2>
<p>First of all, is it even possible to make strength gains on a diet? Yes, yes it is! And that is honestly the first and biggest key to making strength gains on a cut. You have to believe that it is possible and you have to expect that you can do it. This is not some hippie nonsense. Plenty of people legitimately preach that this isn’t possible.</p>
<p>There are documented case studies of people being falsely diagnosed with cancer and then dying shortly thereafter with cancer symptoms. That is how strong the placebo effect can be. If you don’t think this same power will work against you if you go into your cut expecting to lose size and strength, you’re absolutely wrong.</p>
<p>Let me give you one famous example from athletics. For hundreds of years, human beings have been competing to see who can run the mile the fastest. No one had ever broken the four minute barrier. Scientists literally proclaimed that it was impossible. In the early 20th century, a man by the name of Roger Bannister finally broke the four minute barrier. And since Bannister did it? More than 20,000 athletes, including high school students, have managed to break the “impossible” four minute barrier.</p>
<div id="attachment_2595" style="width: 231px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/roger-bannister.jpg"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2595" class="size-medium wp-image-2595" src="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/roger-bannister-221x300.jpg" alt="Roger Bannister crossing the tape at the end of his record breaking mile run at Iffley Road, Oxford. He was the first person to run the mile in under four minutes, with a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)" width="221" height="300" srcset="https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/roger-bannister-221x300.jpg 221w, https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/roger-bannister-755x1024.jpg 755w, https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/roger-bannister-250x339.jpg 250w, https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/roger-bannister-665x901.jpg 665w" sizes="(max-width: 221px) 100vw, 221px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2595" class="wp-caption-text">Roger Bannister crossing the tape at the end of his record breaking mile run at Iffley Road, Oxford. He was the first person to run the mile in under four minutes, with a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)</p></div>
<p>Dr. Layne Norton has also said there is no reason you cannot make strength gains on a cut from to time to time as well.</p>
<h2>Optimize Your Nutrition</h2>
<p>Obviously, belief isn’t enough. If you want to gain strength on a cut, the second key is going to be optimizing your nutrition. Let’s break down some of the most important factors:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rate of Weight Loss: ~0.6-0.8% of BW per week</li>
</ul>
<p>For most of you this is going to work out to 1-1.5lbs or 0.5-0.75kg per week. For more information on cutting and bulking, <a title="Cutting and Bulking for Powerlifting" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/cutting-and-bulking-for-powerlifting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">see this article</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Refeed Days: x2 Per Week on your most important workout days</li>
</ul>
<p>If you train on Mon/Tue and Thu/Fri, like I do, you can copy my example. I do my refeed days on Monday and Thursday. This way, my Monday workout benefits from the higher intake, but so does my Tuesday workout because glycogen levels will remain elevated from the refeed going into the next workout. The same thing happens with my Thursday/Friday pairing. If you train Mon, Wed, and Fri, you’d opt for Monday and Friday for your refeed days. You’d probably make Wednesday a “light” or easier day compared to Monday and Friday.</p>
<div id="attachment_2570" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/chocolate-chip-cookies.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2570" class="size-medium wp-image-2570" src="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/chocolate-chip-cookies-300x199.jpg" alt="I don't know about you, but cookies make my refeed list most of the time." width="300" height="199" srcset="https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/chocolate-chip-cookies-300x199.jpg 300w, https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/chocolate-chip-cookies-250x166.jpg 250w, https://www.powerliftingtowin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/chocolate-chip-cookies.jpg 320w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-2570" class="wp-caption-text">I don&#8217;t know about you, but cookies make my refeed list most of the time.</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li>Conditioning: I recommend HIIT 1-2x per week</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Conditioning is the last recommendation I’d make. By including some conditioning once, preferably twice, a week, you’re going to increase metabolic rate, allow yourself to eat more, and improve your nutrient partitioning on the conditioning days. You’ll also build up work capacity and keep yourself in decent shape.</p>
<ul>
<li>Week to Week Changes: Don’t take calories away in big chunks</li>
</ul>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The last nutritional key that I want to discuss is the general overall diet strategy. Unlike a lot of people, I never slash my calories by 500 or some other arbitrary number when I hit a “plateau”. The most I will ever subtract in a single week is 100kcal worth of macronutrients. The reason that I do this is by slowly taking out macros, I can settle on the absolute highest intake that is possible while still rate at the weight that I want to lose. People often add 5lbs to set a PR, but they don’t take the same, slow gradual approach with nutrition. When you do take the gradual approach, you’ll see that you don’t have to take calories so low by the end of the diet and, on average, you eat way more from week to week during your cut which, of course, helps maintain performance.</p>
<h2>Optimize Your Programming</h2>
<p>If you have your psychology and <a title="More on Powerlifting Nutrition" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-nutrition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nutrition</a> dialed in, you’re still going to need to <a title="More on Powerlifting programming" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-programming" target="_blank" rel="noopener">optimize your programming</a> to account for your diminished recovery abilities while dieting.</p>
<p>What is the first thing that most people do when they start cutting? They slash their volume! The theory behind this is that because you’re not eating as much, you can’t recover from as much. While this may be true to some extent, necessarily dropping the volume almost necessarily ensures detraining. After all, if you were bulking, and you just randomly dropped volume long term, would you expect long term gains or long term losses? You’d expect losses.</p>
<p>Well the same principles apply when cutting. When we want to keep volume as high as is possible for us personally while still being able to recover. I actually make no attempt whatsoever to reduce volume while cutting. So how do I ensure recovery? Glad you asked: <a title="More on autoregulation" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/a-review-of-mike-tuchscherers-reactive-training-systems-rts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">autoregulation</a>. Because my volume is autoregulated, it stays as high as I can personally manage given my circumstances. This is very similar to the caloric intake principle. Rather than assuming you know what you can do or you know what you need, you let reality be your guide; you autoregulate based on real world results.</p>
<p>Keep your volume as high as you can while you cut! If you have all of your other factors dialed in: psychology, nutrition, sleep, effort, etc. you might actually be able to slightly increase volume through autoregulation while cutting. If you can do this, you’ll might make gains and, at the very least, you’ll maintain as much of your strength and muscle as is possible for you on that particular diet.</p>
<p>If you’d like help setting up an autoregulated program, or dialing in your nutrition so that you can attempt to make gains while you diet, I do offer coaching services here at PowerliftingToWin. You can shoot me an email:<br />
[contact-form-7 id=&#8221;3245&#8243; title=&#8221;Contact form 1&#8243;]</p>
<p>If you want to learn more about nutrition in general, check out the <a title="Powerlifting Nutrition Series" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/powerlifting-nutrition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PowerliftingToWin Nutrition Series</a>. Better yet, grab a copy of <a href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/EatingToWin-eBook">EatingToWin</a>. In the book, I break down literally every single relevant aspect of maximizing nutrition for powerlifting performance.</p>
<h2>Like this Article? Subscribe to our Newsletter!</h2>
<p>If you liked this articled, and you want instant updates whenever we put out new content, including exclusive subscriber articles and videos, <a title="Newsletter Sign-up" href="http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/newsletter">sign up to our Newsletter</a>!</p>
<h2>Questions? Comments?</h2>
<p>For all business and personal coaching services related inqueries, please contact me at [contact-form-7 id=&#8221;3245&#8243; title=&#8221;Contact form 1&#8243;]</p>
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