pulled weights from the floor yet
also worked to widen his back.
But with the 14-Olympia-win
string (1992–2005) of Dorian
Yates followed by Ronnie
Coleman, both of whom included
deads in their workouts and had
arguably the two greatest backs
ever to unfurl, deadlifts became
very much a bodybuilder thing.
And so they have been ever
since. Following Yates’ lead, some
bodybuilders do deads last in
their back routines, so they don’t
need to go so heavy. But a
power-bodybuilding routine
places a premium on increasing
strength in the three power lifts,
and thus schedules each of
them—squats for legs, bench
press for chest, and deadlifts for
back—first in their respective
workouts.POWER GRAB
In addition to focusing on
the three power lifts, the other
thing that distinguishes power-
bodybuilding is its emphasis on
heavy sets of relatively low reps.
Most sets should be in the six- toPOWER
BODYBUILDING BODYBUILDING
BACK ROUTINE
EXERCISE SETSSETS REPSREPS
DeadliftDeadlift 5 10–410–4
4 6–86–8
4 6–86–8
6–86–8eight-rep range. Strength is the
goal, not the pump, so skip
techniques like dropsets and
supersets. Instead, rely on
forced reps or cheating to eke
out another rep or two. Watch
power bodybuilders Branch
Warren and Johnnie Jackson
charge through a brutal session,
and you’ll quickly understand
that—on exercises like pulldowns,
dumbbell laterals, and EZ-bar
curls—they’d rather loosen their
form to keep a set going than stay
strict and miss out on that extra
rep. After all, it’s those extra reps
over the course of a workout that
are crucial to growth.
Pyramid at least one exercise
in each routine, progressing to an
apex set of 4–6 reps. The three
power lifts are ideal candidates
for pyramids, as are military
presses, barbell shrugs, EZ-barFLEXONLINE.COM 67BY GREG MERRITT