Beyond Brawn - The Insider's Encyclopedia on How to Build Muscle && Might

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properly performed, and especially when done with a Trap Bar, is a won-

derfully productive exercise. For people who do not squat well, the Trap

Bar bent-legged deadlift is likely to be a more productive exercise. If you do

not have a Trap Bar, then the sumo-style bent-legged deadlift may be safer,

easier to perform, and more productive than the conventional-style deadlift.

But the sumo deadlift is not the equal of the Trap Bar deadlift.

. My mentor would have taught me that bodybuilding is not about individu-

ally hitting all the bits and pieces of the physique to ensure complete and

balanced development. Only by applying myself to getting stronger and

stronger still in the big exercises would I have gotten big all over. Even the

little areas would have come along. Once I was big and strong then I could

have focused on fixing the relatively minor imbalances.

. My training life should have revolved around adding a little more iron to

each exercise every week or two. “A little” would have meant  or  pounds,

except very early in a cycle when I could have added a larger increment each

week. Bigger but less frequent poundage jumps could have been applied if

I was working with a rep range where, for example, I built up the reps from

say  to  in the squat. en, I would have increased the poundage by 

pounds, dropped back down to  reps, and worked up to  again over seve-

ral weeks. Both progression methods work well.

. Focus and progression, focus and progression,   -

—these are the watchwords I should have lived by. All that irrelevance

Trap Bar