Flex Australia – June-July 2017

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TRAINING STYLES LIFT

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- to

eight-rep range. Strength is the

POWER

BODYBUILDING

BACK ROUTINE

EXERCISE SETS REPS

Deadlift 5 10–4

Barbell row 4 6–8

T-bar row 4 6–8

Front pulldown 4 6–8

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-bar

curls and close-grip bench