Bill Starr's Articles on Lumbar Exercises and the Olympic Press

Bill Starr's Articles From Iron Man Magazine
BackSeptember 12, 2013
Building Strong Lumbars

Bill Starr
Last month it was all about the almost-straight-legged deadlift, my 1

all-time-favorite lumbar exercise after good mornings. I covered the reasons for
including good mornings and almost-straight-legged deadlifts in every fitness
program; however, there are two more exercises for the lower back that should be a
part of every program: hyperextensions and reverse hypers.
I consider them to be auxiliary movements, yet I believe that they are extremely
valuable for young athletes who are striving to improve their strength so they can
become more proficient in their chosen sports and also for those who want to
maintain a high level of lower-back fitness, regardless of age.
One of the main reasons that I like hyperextensions and reverse hypers is that you
can do them just about anywhere and they do not require any special equipment.
Long before I ever saw a hyperextension bench and 50 years prior to the well-
engineered reverse hyper machines, competitive weightlifters and bodybuilders were
doing these exercises on a regular basis. It just took a bit of imagination.
The hypers required a partner. In just about every YMCA weight room there was a
leg extension machine. If not, a massage table served the same purpose. You would
lie across the leg extension machine or table, facedown, so that your upper body
was extended out over the side. Then a training mate would hold tightly to your
ankles while you knocked out a set of hypers.
Reverse hypers could be done solo. You’d just grip the sides of the leg extension
machine or table, let your lower body hang off the end and proceed to do a set of
reverse hypers, lifting your legs up and back.
With a bit of thought, anyone can figure out how to do one or the other of these
exercises in a motel or at home. When I’m visiting friends, I use the kitchen counter
to do reverse hypers or a narrow table that allows me to grip the sides. I place a
towel on the surface.
I currently do hyperextensions in my apartment by padding a small table and

hooking my h eels under the open space under my desk. That works just as well as
having a bench designed for that purpose.
Of course, having a hyperextension bench or a well-designed reverse-hyper machine

is more expedient. Still, it’s good to know that you can work your lumbars rather
thoroughly even when you’re on the road.
Both exercises can be done with added resistance. For hypers wrap a 10- or 25-
pound plate in a towel, and hold it firmly behind your head. More advanced strength 2
athletes can do them with an Olympic bar. That was one of the favorite exercises of
the foreign athletes at the ’68 Olympics in Mexico City, and I watched some handle
220 pounds for as many as 20 reps.
I recommend that you do both types of hypers with no added resistance until your
form is absolutely perfect and the number of reps you perform is quite high—as in
50 plus. While they are very simple and easy to learn, there is technique involved. I’ll
start with the back hypers.
You need to position your body on the padded area in such a way that you are able
to do a full-range motion. By that I mean you should be able to go low enough for
your head to touch the floor. Or if the bench is high, until your torso is completely
vertical.
The second form point: The full-range motion must be smooth and controlled. That
is the main reason I don’t want beginners to add any resistance. Whenever a weight
is fixed behind the head and the reps start getting really tough, there is always a
tendency to twist and turn to make those final reps. Don’t let that happen.
Twisting, even if it’s very slight, puts a great deal of stress on the lumbars, and it’s
not positive stress. Keep in mind that you can sustain an injury with a light weight
just as you can with a heavy poundage if your form is sloppy. So you must do each
and every rep precisely.
The biggest form mistake that most people make on hypers is that they come up
much too high. Women especially are flexible enough that they can arch their backs
until their upper bodies are almost vertical. That is a mistake—similar to bridging on
the bench press and lying back while doing overhead presses. The back is not
designed to lean back, and it’s potentially harmful to the lumbars. Bring your upper
body only to parallel on hyperextensions. You’ll get the same results without any risk
whatsoever.
The same idea applies to reverse hypers as well. Just lift your legs until your lower
body is parallel to the floor.
I encourage all of my athletes to do either of these movements prior to every

workout. They fit nicely with an ab exercise to warm up the entire midsection, and
the athletes begin their workouts in a higher state of preparation. I even have them
do a set of hypers or reverse hypers on the day they’re scheduled to do good
mornings or almost-straight-legged deadlifts. Again, it helps prepare the lower back 3
for the work ahead.
How many reps? The obvious answer is that it depends on your current strength
level. I start everyone at 20 reps on both exercises; then I have them steadily increase
reps. Some can add five reps a week for a couple of months, while others have to
proceed more slowly. I encourage them to do the same number of reps on both
exercises if possible. Keep in mind that you want the final few reps to be demanding.
In order to make the lower back stronger, you must push it, not pamper it.
Where is the limit? I can’t answer that, but I can relate a story about one athlete who
went to the extreme. At Johns Hopkins, John Saxe of Fair Haven, New Jersey, and I
had a contest to see who could do the most hypers. John was one of my favorite
athletes and was in fantastic shape. He was a three-sport athlete and an Academic
All-American. He was captain of the tennis team and a defensive standout in
football, and he competed in two National Collegiate Olympic Weightlifting
Championships.
We kept running up the reps week after week until we got to 150. He came in for the
next workout all fired up and knocked out 175. I conceded. You may be thinking,
“Yeah, but he was one of those gifted athletes.” Not so. Had that been the case, he
would have been competing at the D-I level and not D-III. What success he achieved
in academics, strength training and sports was due to his perseverance and
willingness to do the hard work. Genetics played, at best, a small role in his
accomplishments.
Keeping your lower back strong is a lifelong venture. Continue to give your lumbars
priority in your training, and you will be able to avoid the lower-back problems that
plague about 90 percent of the adult population. A strong set of lumbars allows you
to participate in a great many physical activities, which in turn lets you experience a
higher quality of life.
I’ll close with a truism: No one has ever gone to the doctor to complain that his
lumbars were too strong. —Bill Starr
Editor’s note: Bill Starr was a strength and conditioning coach at Johns Hopkins
University from 1989 to 2000. He’s the author of The Strongest Shall Survive—
Strength Training for Football, which is available for $20 plus shipping from Home
Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008, or visit www
.Home-Gym.com.
LatestJuly 11, 2014
The Olympic Press

Bill Starr
Strength athletes are always on the lookout for any exercise that
will make them stronger and also improve their other athletic skills—timing,
coordination, quickness and balance. Power cleans, power snatches, jerks and full
cleans and snatches serve that purpose nicely, yet few consider the overhead press
in the same way. That’s because the only pressing they have seen done—or done
themselves—is a rather slow, deliberate movement. They take the bar off a rack, fix it
across their front delts and steadily elevate it to arm’s length. Also, they don’t use
heavy weights. Ever since the press was eliminated from Olympic competition in
1972, those who do use it in their programs only press light weights and make it an
auxiliary exercise.
That slow version was the way nearly every Olympic lifter did the press up until the
early ’60, when a fast-rising middleweight representing the New York Barbell Club,
by way of El Paso, Texas, named Tony Garcy used his very inventive mind and turned
the press into an explosive, athletic lift. Garcy’s innovative method of pressing drew
immediate attention on the international stage and was quickly copied, especially by 5
the European competitors—so much so that it was soon known as the “European
press.” Many American lifters who had been in the sport for a long time were too set
in their ways to make the change, but the younger, up-and-coming athletes adopted
it eagerly. Joe Puleo, Phil Grippaldi, Frank Capsouras, Jack Hill, Bobby Hise III, Tom
Hirtz, Peter Rawluk and Rick Holbrook mastered the technique and rose to the top
of the sport.
Without anyone intending it, the new style became a death blow for the press.
Because it was done so fast, it was difficult to judge and soon became a political
lever in international competition. In 1972 the International Olympic Committee
threw in the towel, and the press was set aside as a viable strength exercise much as
the Zercher lift and bent press had been. Yet it is still one of the very best exercises
for improving shoulder girdle strength and athletic attributes—and the strength
gained in the shoulders and arms, not to mention back and legs, improves
performance in every sport more than any other upper-body movement. Heavy
presses done dynamically are an asset to spiking a volleyball, shooting a basketball
and rebounding, striking a tennis ball or firing a shot on goal in lacrosse.
Be forewarned, however: It’s not an easy lift to master. It is a high-skill movement
that requires months of drilling on the technique before you can begin to reap the
rewards for your efforts.
While learning this form of pressing, take the bar off a rack instead of cleaning it so
you can focus on the press itself. Stick with an empty Olympic bar until you get the
feel of what you’re trying to do.
Foot placement is very important. Plant your feet firmly at shoulder width, with your
toes straight ahead. Your feet must be in that position so your weight can be shifted
from the balls of your feet to your heels and back again in the blink of an eye.
The best grip for the press is a thumb length from the smooth center of an Olympic
bar on either side. Fix the bar across your front deltoids, with your elbows tucked in
tightly to your body and squeezed against your lats. Your wrists should be locked
and straight. If that’s a problem, wrap them with ace bandages or trainer’s tape. They
must stay absolutely straight throughout the lift. Tuck in your chin and set your eyes
directly ahead. Do not follow the flight of the bar with your eyes.
To ensure a rock-solid base, grip the floor with your toes. We used to use the
analogy of a bird perched on a tree limb. Now extend your pelvis forward, and
6
create a bow with your body. The bow starts at the back of your heels and ends at
the back of your head. Think of yourself as a powerful coil of steel. Every muscle in
your body must be extremely tight, especially your abs and lumbars.
Next comes the hardest part. Your legs must be straight but not completely locked.
That’s the way they teach you to stand for a long time in the military so you won’t
pass out. Locked legs impede circulation. Remember, if you let any part of your body
relax, it will have a negative effect on your start—and the start is critical.
Once you’re set in the right coil, explode the bar upward, and at that same instant
lock your knees. That will drive the bar skyward in a blue streak. Now comes the
move that takes a lot of practice to perfect. As soon as you hurl the bar off your
shoulders, drop back to the same position you assumed at the start, at the same
time pushing up into the ascending bar. That is the essence of the Olympic press. At
the start the weight is pushing forward on the balls of your feet. As you drive the bar
upward, the weight shifts to your heels, and when you move back into the bow, it
shifts once again to the balls of your feet. At the conclusion of the initial drive your
body will be completely erect, and eventually you’ll learn how to incorporate your
traps into the movement and add even more power to the start.
As you instantly move into the second bow, you must maintain a strong pressure up
against the bar. If you don’t, it will stall, and when the weight is heavy, you may not
be able to set it in motion again. At the finish the bar should be locked out overhead
in a line directly up from the back of your head.
Everyone quickly learns that balance is a major factor in this form of pressing, which
makes the start doubly important. That’s not the case with a slower style. Your drive
has to be extremely precise, or you won’t be able to move back into the coil
correctly. Timing is also critical. You must make that move instantly, or the bar will
just hang in thin air. What’s more, you must do the moves in a fluid, coordinated
manner. That’s the reason it takes a lot of practice to learn the Olympic press—
practice that you must do perfectly in order to master the form. When you do the
press right, the bar soars overhead almost effortlessly.
Remember, you don’t lean back. Rather, extend your pelvis forward until you’re
curled into a tight crunch, with the bar fixed directly over your power source. Then,
after you explode the bar upward and return to that coiled position, the bar is still
over your hips and lower back.
The Olympic press is harder to learn than it is to learn the snatch, clean or jerk, and I
include it in every athlete’s program. When performed correctly, it enhances every 7
valuable athletic attribute and strengthens all parts of your body—from your arms,
shoulders, back and legs right down to your feet.
Drill on the technique until you feel confident that you’re on the right track, and
then start loading on the plates. Set goals. That is what every competitive Olympic
lifter did when the press was a part of contests. Most started out trying to press their
bodyweight, as I did. When we achieved that, the next goal was the magical 200
pounds. That’s still a worthy goal because very few people these days can press that
much.
There’s something very satisfying about pressing heavy weights that’s unlike any
other exercise—a feeling of raw power and accomplishment. Take some time to
learn the form on the Olympic press, and make it a primary exercise in your strength
program. You’ll be glad you did it.
—Bill Starr
.Home-Gym.com.
LatestJune 25, 2014
Timed Squats
Bill Starr
8
When we were competing in Olympic lifting as members of the
York Barbell team, Tommy Suggs and I devised a program to enhance our
cardiorespiratory fitness by using weights. We were already playing racquetball,
volleyball and soccer with the York College teams at least once a week. We were
pleased with the results we were getting from those sports, which kept us in motion
for an hour plus, but we were still wanting a routine that we could do in the weight
room to improve our stamina.
Although it may not seem all that important to increase cardio fitness for
competitive weightlifting, we found that the better shape we were in, the better we
could perform at the very end of contests, which was when the winners were able to
do more than their opponents. There were some very long contests on the East
Coast during that time. At one Philly Open, there were 18 lifters in the 198-pound
class. I began my warmups at 4 p.m. for the presses and did my final clean and jerk
at 2 a.m. the following day. Stamina was essential in order to finish strongly.
Another reason we wanted a program that used weights was that all the so-called
authorities in the field of conditioning, including the guru of aerobics, Dr. Kenneth
Cooper, had insisted that it was not possible. Cooper wrote in his best-selling book
Aerobics, “There is no way I know of to lift a strict muscle-producing exercise into an
oxygen-demanding activity so that it produces a training effect.” Other authorities
had agreed with him, but we found that the tests they used were always done with
rather easy exercises and only light or moderate weights. A good many were done
with machines, like the leg extension.
We decided to use the one exercise that is the most demanding on the
cardiovascular-respiratory system and that builds the most strength in the body—
the full squat. We did our experiment in the summer, during the off-season for
Olympic-lifting. As I mentioned, we had already established a solid cardio base. We
were able to play a vigorous game of racquetball for more than an hour and were
handling heavy weights on squats in the York Gym. Both Tommy and I were capable
of a 500-pound single and could do 405 for five without any difficulty. That was
helpful, as it enabled us to use the same weights for our sets in the experiment,
which we called “timed squats.”
We would do five sets of 10. Nothing new about that, but the twist we added was
the time factor. We would time how long it took us to complete our sets each time
we did them, and then compress the time at the next session. To add another
element of pain, we would also increase the amount of weight used on the final two
sets.
9
At our first workout we did 135, 175, 205, 255 and 275. After 205 we didn’t change
weights, we just added more to the bar. That saved a bit of precious time. It took us
each 10 minutes to complete all of our sets. We were completely exhausted, huffing
and puffing like asthmatic rhinos. We flopped on the floor and put our feet up on a
bench to help drain the blood out of them. It took 15 seconds before we could get a
count on our pulse. When we did, we both got readings higher than 180. It took
another 10 minutes before we were breathing normally again.
So we proved that we could attack our cardiovascular and respiratory systems with
this routine, but we also wanted to find out if we could get stronger at the same
time.
The time started after the lifter stepped out of the squat rack and got set. Tommy
would do his set and quickly replace the bar on the rack, and I would step in and do
my set. When I finished, we would change the weights. After 205, we didn’t change
the weights any longer; we just added plates. That was faster. Neither of us sat down
during the first three sets; then we did, stretching our abused legs as best we could.
We did the first three sets in less than five minutes and then had to slow down for
the two heavier sets.
Those two work sets were brutal. It was like running up a hill where the incline
increases every 20 yards. I once ran a hill like that in Carmel Valley, and while it was
tough, it still wasn’t in the class of timed squats. We did this insane routine twice a
week, on Mondays and Thursdays, to give our legs a chance to recover. The rest of
our workouts during this stretch of time we did mostly in the power rack.
We stayed with it for a month, for a total of eight workouts. At our final session we
squatted 355 for 10 in seven minutes, an eighty-pound increase and a reduction of
three minutes.
The shrinking time factor was much more difficult than moving the numbers up.
There was no way we could change and add weight any faster than we did at the
first session, which meant we had to train faster in order to cut down on the time.
After four weeks we’d had enough. We had proved we could push our heart rates to
the max as well as improve our strength. It was just too mentally demanding to
continue. We were tapping into our nervous systems to a greater extent than we had
before. Total concentration was required on each set because it was essential that
we do each rep perfectly. No rebounding or allowing our form to waver even a tiny
bit. It was not possible to elevate our pulse rates to above 180 by running, swimming
or working out on any cardio machine. 10
Perhaps the most important thing we learned from the timed squats was that our
bodies could take a lot more stress than we thought. On the final two sets I could no
longer feel my legs and I was breathing so deeply, I was dizzy and seeing little white
spots in front of my eyes. Yet I was always able to complete my sets, and so was
Tommy. We were able to push our bodies beyond normal limits, dipping into that
huge reservoir of strength that we all have but rarely use except for physical
emergencies.
What we learned doing timed squats carried over to our other training and most
certainly helped us when we lifted in long, drawn-out contests. And should we have
to follow ourselves on platform, no problem. Compared to doing that final set of
timed squats, it was a piece of cake.
There is no doubt in my mind that cardiorespiratory fitness can be greatly improved

in the weight room. While you may not be masochistic enough to subject yourself to
the torture of timed squats, if you use your imagination, you can come up with a
way to force your heart and lungs to work beyond their normal limits. Doing a very
fast-paced circuit of three exercises that hit the large muscle groups and staying in
motion for 20 or 30 minutes is an excellent way to challenge and increase your
stamina.
Enhancing cardiorespiratory fitness is certainly beneficial to strength athletes
because it helps them train longer and harder, but it may be even more important
for older athletes who are eligible to join AARP. Keeping the organs strong and
functional enables everyone to take part in a wide range of physical activities and
achieve a higher quality of life as we grow older. Building cardio into your fitness
program may not be something you enjoy, but it’s well worth the effort.
—Bill Starr
Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008, or visit www.Home-Gym.com.
11
LatestApril 17, 2014
How to Perfect Your Bench Press

Bill Starr
More athletes get injured while doing the bench press
than any other exercise. The two most popular exercises in weight training are bench
presses and curls. That’s because all who lift weights for whatever reason want to
build impressive upper bodies more than any other bodypart.
The bench press is indeed an essential part of every strength program for athletes,
but it wasn’t always that way. Up until the early ’70s, the lift that determined an
athlete’s overall level of strength was the military, or overhead, press. That changed
with the emergence of the sport of powerlifting, in which the bench was one of the
competitive events. 12
The military press was knocked out of the top spot mostly because of rumors that it
was harmful to the lower back and rather difficult to learn. While that may seem odd,
it isn’t because the form for doing a military press perfectly is much more difficult
than learning how to bench-press flawlessly.
The flat bench was selected also because it could be done with a minimum of
equipment, and countless high schools and some college teams used the benches in
locker rooms. Perhaps the main reason that coaches, who usually knew very little
about weight training, selected the flat bench over other options was that it was
easy to teach. Or so they thought. Certainly it was much easier to teach than any
other upper-body exercise.
So it didn’t take very long for the bench press to become the standard of upper-
body strength in competitive sports, especially football. The amount of weight an
athlete handled in the bench press was suddenly as important as his time in the 40-
yard dash. A full ride to a D-1 school is worth a small fortune, so the desire for a big
bench was now no longer just for bragging rights—it was the ticket to the future.
That, in turn, placed more pressure on high school coaches to make sure that a great
many players posted impressive bench numbers. It would raise their stock
considerably in the eyes of recruiters, and that resulted in an “anything goes”
philosophy—just get the bar locked out; how doesn’t matter. Excessive bridging,
rebounding the bar off the chest, squirming around like an electrified eel and
twisting into contortions were not only allowed but were encouraged by parents and
coaches. The thought that athletes might be harming themselves—with long-term
effects—was irrelevant. If it meant their suffering from a wide array of shoulder
injuries down the road, then so be it.
That end-justifies-the-means attitude has caused a lot of problems. Using improper

form on any exercise, even simple movements like curls or calf raises, will result in
injury eventually. The areas of the body that take the brunt of the abuse from a
sloppy bench press are the elbows, wrists, crowns of the shoulders and rotator cuffs.
Yet, when the flat-bench press is done correctly, it’s a useful and safe exercise. Bench
presses are one of the best exercises for improving strength in the chest, shoulders
and arms. As long as you put form first and don’t overtrain the lift, you should be
able to do it for the rest of your life without any problems.
The form points I’m about to make are aimed at those who are primarily interested
in doing benches to help them maintain a certain level of strength in their pecs,
deltoids and triceps. Their primary goal is not to elevate a huge amount of weight 13
but to stay fit and healthy.
Bench pressing starts with the feet. Sit on the edge of the bench and grind your feet
down into the floor. Now tighten every muscle in your body, lie back on the bench,
and squeeze down into it. Become part of the bench. That will enable you to
establish a solid base from which you can move the stubborn bar through the
sticking point.
I know that most coaches teach their athletes to use a wide grip on the bench, but
that places a great deal more stress on your shoulders and elbows, so I go with a
narrower grip. Extend your thumbs until they touch the smooth center of an Olympic
bar. That works for most, but wherever you grip the bar, it’s critical that your
forearms stay vertical during the exercise.
Always lock your thumbs around the bar—no false grip, where your thumbs stay
next to your fingers. It’s too risky. One slip, and you’re on your way to the E.R. Plus, if
the bar runs forward with a false grip, there’s no way to guide it back in the correct
line. Make sure your wrists stay locked throughout the lift. Twisting and turning
them works against you, as it diminishes the power that your chest, shoulders and
arms have generated. If that has become a habit, tape your wrists. It will remind you
and help you keep them straight.
This is one exercise for which it’s wise to have a spotter. Make sure you are in sync
with the spotter when he hands the weight off to you and when you rack it at the
end of the set. I use a count of three for the start and make absolutely sure the
spotter has the bar under control at the finish before I let go.
Take the bar from the rack with your spotter’s assistance, and then pause just a
moment to make sure that you’ve fixed it exactly where you want it to be. Take a
deep breath, and lower the bar in a controlled manner. Guide it down to your chest
so that it touches at the same spot every time. With practice you’ll find the spot
that’s not too low or too high and from which you can drive the bar upward with the
most thrust.
Pause the bar on your chest for a second. If you make yourself do that from the very
beginning, it will save you a lot of grief later on, and you’ll find that you can still
handle heavy weights with a pause because you have been making those muscle
groups that are responsible for setting the bar in motion much, much stronger.
After the short pause, drive the bar off your chest forcefully. As you’re learning the
form, the start can be more deliberate so that you can focus on hitting the desired
line of flight every time and making sure that your wrists always stay directly over
your elbows. The bar should come off your chest in a straight line, and then it should 14
glide back slightly so that when you lock out your arms, it ends up right over your
chin or neck. You don’t want it to wander farther back than that.
As soon as you lock out the bar, exhale and inhale. When to breathe is important. If
you’re knocking out 20 reps with a light weight, breathing isn’t a major factor, but
on heavy fives, triples, doubles and singles, it’s critical. Breathe only at the start of
the lift and at the finish. Even with heavy weights it takes only a couple of seconds to
do a bench press rep. Inhaling and exhaling while the bar is in motion forces your rib
cage to relax, which, in turn, unlocks your diaphragm. You want your diaphragm to
stay locked during any exertion, as that creates a positive intrathoracic pressure,
helping you maintain a solid foundation.
Concentrate on using not just good form but perfect form from the very
beginning—even with light warmup sets. If you haven’t been doing benches
because of some physical problem, you might give them a try again—but move
slowly and make form your number-one priority, even if you’re using light-to-
moderate poundages. Once you master the technique on this lift, the numbers will
take care of themselves. Even more important, all of your improvements will be
made safely. —Bill Starr
LatestMarch 3, 2014
Mastering the Full Squat

Bill Starr
15
All strength training starts with the full squat. Not the quarter- or
half-squat. Many instructors shun full squats, stating that they make the glutes too
big or, more typically, they’re bad for the knees. Total nonsense. While full squats
most certainly do involve the glutes, they do so in a good way, working them
proportionately so they stay in balance with all the other groups around them.
Strong glutes are important to all athletes because they’re a part of nearly every
movement made by the body..
As for the complaint about the knees, it has been proven again and again that the
full-range movement is less damaging to the knees than partial squats. The reason is
simple: When you stop a squat above parallel, the total responsibility of halting the
descending resistance falls on your knees; however, once the thighs go below
parallel, even slightly, the downward stress is handled by the very strong hips, quads,
adductors and hamstrings. So the more delicate knee joints are relieved of having to
withstand that downward pressure.
When done correctly, full squats are one of the safest exercises in all of strength
training. Athletes sustain at least 10 times more injuries to the shoulder girdle, most
of which are linked directly to the bench press, than they do from squats. Squatting
also happens to be one of the easiest exercises to learn. The reason? It’s a natural
movement. Just watch small children play. They’re continuously doing deep squats
and doing them perfectly. The main reason that older bodies have some difficulty
doing squats correctly in the beginning is that they have lost flexibility through the
years—but by squatting, they can regain much of what they have lost.
Full squats are the first lift I teach all beginners—young, old, male and female.
They’re the foundation lift for all other strength exercises, and because they’re so
essential for long-term progress, they need to be given priority in any strength
program. There are only a couple of situations in which I place another exercise first
in a routine: when an athlete is lagging far behind on another primary exercise—I
move the weaker lift to the front until the disparity of strength is rectified—and if an
athlete expresses a desire to learn the Olympic lifts. In that case I give priority to the
snatch and clean and jerk. High-skill lifts should always be done before more static
movements, such as squats.
Knowing how to fix the bar on your upper back is the first step in learning how to
squat. Because the bar causes pain in the back of the neck, many resort to wrapping
a towel around the bar or using a “Kotex,” a round piece of rubber that goes around
the bar. Not only do I discourage the practice, I do not allow it in any weight room I 16
am in charge of. When the weights start getting very heavy, that towel or piece of
rubber will twist and grind down into your upper back. Even without the protective
devices, the athletes usually pull away from the pain, which places even more
pressure on the spine.
The solution is simple. Just elevate your traps to create a ledge of muscle on which
to cushion the bar. Even youngsters and women can benefit by doing that. Keep
those traps elevated throughout the exercise, and you’ll be fine.
The closer your hands are on the bar, the better because that will let you grip the bar
more firmly and control it when it’s across your upper back. Pull the bar down into
your traps, and lock it in place so it doesn’t move at all.
Where you place your feet depends to a large extent on how tall you are. For most
athletes the ideal foot placement is shoulder width with the toes turned slightly
outward. Taller athletes, however, do better with a slightly wider stance. Think
basketball and volleyball players.
Some have difficulty keeping their heels flat on the floor when they squat low. That’s
due to a lack of flexibility, usually in the ankles. Put a small plate or block of wood
under your heels when you squat, but do it only for a short period of time. Elevating
your heels places your knees in a vulnerable position. Eventually, after doing many
reps, you will gain the needed flexibility, and you can eliminate the elevation device.
After you have locked the bar firmly on your back and stepped out of the squat rack,
take a moment to tighten every muscle in your body, from your feet to your neck.
Pull your shoulder blades together and tense your lumbars. Keep in mind that the
squat is as much a back exercise as it is a leg movement. Do not let your back relax
at all during the execution. If you do, the bar will move out of the proper line and
make the lift much harder to complete.
As you start the squat, think in terms of pulling the weight down with you as you
descend to the low position. Make the bar become part of your body. Go as low as
you can while staying extremely tight. While you may not be able to hit rock bottom
right away, make sure that you at least break parallel—so you’ll be working your
glutes, hips, hamstrings, abductors and adductors along with your quads.
While you’re learning the technique for the back squat, do each set deliberately so
you can pay attention to the various keys. Once you’re comfortable with your form,
it’s time to start exploding out of the bottom and driving the bar in the exact line
you’re seeking. If you drive the bar too far forward or backward, that attempt will be
lost. With practice it will look as if you’re squatting in a Smith machine, with every 17
rep being exactly the same.
Should you look up or down? Neither. Your head should be allowed to float freely
on the top of your spine. Some like to look up when they erupt out of the bottom,
and that’s fine—just as long as it isn’t extreme.
Stand up, take a couple of deep breaths, make sure the bar is where it should be and
your stance is correct; take another breath, and do the next rep. Hold your breath
throughout the lift. If you breathe, the muscles in your diaphragm will relax, and that
will reduce your power base.
I recommend five sets of five until you’ve established a solid strength foundation;
then you can start doing triples, doubles and singles along with the fives. Fives
enable you to widen your base and also let you concentrate on your form.
There are several things to avoid when squatting. The number-one no-no is
rebounding out of the bottom. That’s just common sense. If you continually bounce
out of the bottom, you’re going to aggravate not only your knees but your back,
hips and ankles as well. If this is a habit you have difficulty breaking, start doing
halting squats, where you pause at the bottom for a full second. You also must avoid
rounding your back. Some is okay, but excessive rounding will eventually prevent
you from handling heavy weights. Concentrate on keeping your torso erect and your
back extremely tight. Should you find that your knees are turning inward during a
heavy attempt, that’s telling you that your adductors are relatively week. Check out
this column in the October ’13 issue for more on that.
If you aren’t squatting, it’s time to start. Master the king of lifts, and all the other
parts of your body will get stronger. That’s not a conjecture, it’s an established fact.
—Bill Starr
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LatestJanuary 3, 2014
Singles for New Strength Increases

Bill Starr
There are a great many strength coaches, personal trainers and fitness instructors in
this country who do not include singles in their athletes’ programs. They feel that
singles are too risky and that their charges and clients might sustain a serious injury
by attempting a max single. It’s just not worth it.
Even so, the notion that higher reps are safer than singles is a false one—except, of
course, for rank beginners, who really have no reason to be trying max attempts
anyway. With a max single you either make the lift or don’t. When there are spotters,
as there should always be for anyone going after a limit lift, there’s no problem. With
very high reps, however, which is the goal for testing currently, your technique starts
to deteriorate, and you become susceptible to some sort of injury—and it may not
reveal itself until the next day.
Singles are absolutely necessary for anyone who’s trying to get stronger. Having
stated that, though, I must add that there are a number of exercises that should only
be done with higher reps. They are anything for the lower back—good mornings,
almost-straight-legged deadlifts, hyperextensions and reverse hypers. I also think
that deadlifts don’t have to be tested with singles in training. Threes are better—
save the max single for contests.
I include singles in my strength programs for a number of reasons. For one thing,
they develop a different kind of strength than higher reps. A single rep brings the
tendons and ligaments into the movement more than higher reps. A basic tenet of
strength training is, the lower the reps, the more the attachments are involved. So
fives work the attachments more than eights, threes more than fives, doubles more
than triples and singles the most. Why is that important? The key to gaining 19
functional strength lies in the tendons and ligaments more than in the muscles.
Reason two: When you attempt a heavy single, your technique must be precise, or
you will fail. That’s not the case with higher reps. When you do fives, threes or even
doubles, your form can be a tad off, and you can still get all the reps in that set—but
not when you go after a max single, perhaps a personal record. Your groove must be
exact, your concentration 100 percent, and you must do every aspect of the lift
absolutely perfectly if you are to succeed.
So doing singles helps you improve your form—from making sure your grip and
foot placement are right and all your body mechanics from start to finish are
flawless. Better technique always translates to more productive workouts and better
performances in competitions.
Reason three: Singles help you find your weak points on an exercise. That’s critical to
long-term progress, and it’s not as easy as some believe to identify a weaker group
of muscles. For example, athletes who are extremely strong in their hips and legs can
often camouflage weak middle backs because they’re able to blow the weight up
through the weaker area. That’s when they do fives or triples. It’s an entirely different
story with singles, however. When they attempt a max single, that weak area will
show up immediately.
Knowing what muscles and attachments need to be strengthened and doing

something about it right away is imperative if you want to continue to make gains
on that lift. Then and only then will you be able to move up on the strength ladder.
Allowing a weak area to remain in that condition is simply stating that getting
stronger isn’t that much of a priority.
Reason four: One of the best things about having singles in a strength program is
that they enable you to break numerical barriers. Strength training is all about
numbers: sets, reps, amount of weight used, time spent training, bodyweight,
tonnage. And as everyone who has ever done any form of weightlifting knows, there
are some numbers that are much harder to deal with than others. When the
overhead press was still a vital part of every program, 200 was the first obstacle to
overcome. For the bench press and incline, 300 is the number to beat, and 400 is the
Mount Everest for squats and deadlifts.
In the final analysis, weightlifting is mastery of numbers. Whenever you succeed in

bettering one of those troublesome numbers, they are no longer a concern. That’s
where singles come in. 20
As an example, let’s say a lifter is stuck at doing 295 for three in the bench. He’s tried
300 a dozen times and always failed; however when he did a session at which he
limited his warmup sets and then did only singles, he was able to jump right over the
dreaded 300 and managed to do 305 and 310. Now, because he has conquered 300,
he can do it for reps. A great deal of this is mental, of course, but when it comes
right down to it, about 80 percent of strength training is mental.
First things first, however. Before adding singles to any program, you must spend a
considerable amount of time establishing a solid strength foundation—and an equal
amount of time mastering the technique on all the exercises in your program. If you
don’t, the singles will have little positive effect, which would make it a waste of time
to do them.
This is accomplished by systematically expanding the workload and honing the form
points on the exercises that you will eventually do for singles, which may include the
two Olympic lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk; the primary upper-body
movements—overhead, incline- and flat-bench presses and dips; and front and back
squats. The base work is best done for five sets of five. That sequence helps to
prepare the muscles and attachments for the greater stress of the singles, and it
gives you the opportunity to focus on this technique.
Building the foundation should take six to eight weeks—even longer if you have a
weak base to begin with. Once I see that someone’s base is solid and the form at
least good, I add triples to the routine. Jumping from fives to singles is too much of
a leap. The threes are ideal stepping-stones to the max singles. The final rep on a set
of triples acts much like a limit single, and when you learn how to finish the set with
a smoothly executed success, singles will come much more easily.
How often should you do singles? It depends entirely on your strength level. The top
Olympic lifers at the York Barbell Club in the ’60s did singles every week—usually
not on the same lift, although some did that as well. Intermediates and advanced
strength athletes can do singles every month. Very advanced, more frequent than
that. I have my athletes flip-flop the singles on the various primary exercises: back
squat one week, bench the next, then the power clean, ending the month with front
squats or inclines—or some variation of that idea.
Keep in mind that the more often you do singles, the better you’re going to do on
them. It takes a totally different mind-set and focus to execute them perfectly, so
don’t get discouraged the first few times you try.
Finally, there is the intangible benefit of setting a personal record with a single.
While it is indeed encouraging to increase the amount of weight used for any 21
number of reps, singles are the most motivational by far simply because you use the
most weight on them.
Bragging about doing 290 for three reps on the bench just doesn’t have the same
impact as being able to say, “I can bench 310 pounds.”
So if you’re serious about getting considerably stronger, figure out how to add
singles to your strength program. You’ll be glad you did.
—Bill Starr
LatestDecember 23, 2013
Maintaining Balanced Strength: The

Adductors
Bill Starr
The very first exercise I teach all my strength athletes is the full
squat. That one movement strengthens all the groups in the hips and legs: the
glutes, quads, hamstrings, abductors and adductors. In addition, all parts of the back
and even the shoulder girdle are involved. It forms the foundation that they will
build on. 22
When beginners are learning how to squat properly, I watch them with two things in
mind—one, if they are using good technique, and two, if there is any weakness
showing. It’s important to spot any groups that are lagging behind early on. The
sooner a weak area is identified, the better. A relative weakness will halt progress if it
isn’t given some attention, and, more important, an injury can occur if it falls too far
behind.
Of all the athletes I’ve started on a strength program, at least a third of them
displayed a weakness in their adductors. That includes both male and female
athletes. I was not surprised. Almost every sport involves a lot of running and
jumping, which work the quads, hamstrings and abductors to a much greater degree
than they do the adductors. So those athletes come to the weight room with weak
adductors.
The adductors are not obvious muscles like the hams and quads, so they’re often
neglected, but they play a vital role in lower-body strength. The adductors are made
up of four muscles: the adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus and
gracilis. They originate closely together high up in the groin, on the pubis bone, and
then swing down and arc over to attach to the various parts of the femur, running
from the top to the bottom of the long leg bone until the magnus finally attaches to
the medial condyle at the knee.
In a nutshell, that means the primary function of the adductors is to pull the upper
leg inward, and they play a role in stabilizing the knee joint. That’s extremely
important to all athletes, especially those who are engaged in a contact sport where
the knees take a great deal of punishment.
Here’s how to spot weak adductors. If an athlete’s knees turn inward while he or she
is squatting or pulling a heavy weight off the floor, it’s a sure sign that the adductors
are relatively weak. It’s easy to determine once you know what you’re looking for,
and the good part is that the adductors respond very quickly to specific
strengthening exercises.
First and foremost in that regard is the full squat. You must do full squats if you want
to strengthen your adductors. Partial squats do not. In fact, partial squats put a
much greater stress on the knee joints. When you do a partial squat, all the
downward pressure is placed on your knees, but when you perform a deep squat, all
the muscles and attachments that surround the knees take a burden off that
downward stress.
23
Next comes an exercise that’s specific for the adductors. An adductor machine is a
blessing. I recommend one set of 20 prior to squatting and two more sets of 20 at
the end of the workout. You can do the warmup sets with light-to-moderate
weights, but the two work sets at the end of the session should be very demanding.
On the 15th rep your adductors should be screaming for relief. The adductors are
potentially very strong muscles and must be pushed, not teased, in order to get
them considerably stronger.
I’ve trained athletes with glaring weaknesses in their adductors who brought them
up to par within a month. At that point, I cut them back to two sets of 20 on the
machine twice a week to help them maintain the balanced strength in their legs.
I’m aware, however, that not all weight rooms have adductor machines. Don’t be
dismayed—there are several ways to increase adductor strength with a barbell. The
best is to do squats with a wide stance. How wide? Just as wide as you can manage
and still be able to keep your balance. In other words, the wider the better. The key
to making these work is that you must go extremely low. The adductors do most of
their job after you get below parallel, and the deeper you go, the more they are
activated.
The wide-stance, or sumo-style, squat is more difficult to learn than the conventional
squat because of the balance required, so it’s smart to start out using moderate
poundages until you get the feel of the new movement.
The form is also quite different from a conventional squat. You must position your
feet straight ahead and not turn them outward, and place the pressure on the
outsides of your feet, not on your toes and heels. Most important, you must hold
your torso perfectly erect throughout the exercise. While it’s possible to get away
with leaning forward during a conventional squat, it isn’t when performing the wide-
stance version. Should you lean, you won’t be able to go low, and in most cases
you’ll lose your balance. When you do a wide-stance squat perfectly, it will appear as
if you’re in a Smith machine.
You can, of course, do wide-stance squats in a Smith machine, but having to balance
the heavy weights is a plus for athletes because that attribute is most useful in all
sports.
I recommend doing these for three sets of 20. Again, move the numbers up on those
final two sets and push to the limit. Some athletes find that they are actually
stronger on these than on conventional squats and stay with the wide-stance style
even after they have sufficiently strengthened their adductors. 24
Another exercise that I use to make the adductors strong is the sumo-style deadlift.
Use straps on these. Take a wide stance, and grip the bar between your legs. Again,
point your feet straight forward, and put pressure on the outsides. Tuck the bar snug
against your shins, eyes front, back very flat and tight. Now think about pushing
your feet down into the floor. The bar will glide right up your thighs. Keep it snug to
your body on both the up and down movements.
Do three sets of 20 while you’re making your weak adductors stronger, and then you
can switch to the basic strength formula of five sets of five and alternate the sumo
deads with conventional ones. Variety helps progress.
Ankle straps are another good way to strengthen weak adductors, although it will be
a much slower process than using the adductor machine or free weights. Do one leg
at a time and steadily increase the number of reps on two or three sets. Start with 50
and aim for 200. In most gyms there is some sort of Universal machine with cables
and ankle straps. These, too, can improve adductor strength if you’re willing to put
in the time and effort. If your adductors aren’t slightly sore the day after you worked
them, you need to hit them harder.
Another piece of equipment I like for improving adductor strength is the slide board.
These were developed for skaters, and they get the job done. The constant side-to-
side movement not only helps the adductors but also greatly enhances strength in
the abductors, which makes the knee joints more stable.
Relatively weak adductors have a negative effect on foot speed, leaping ability,
coordination, balance, lateral movement and endurance. They also greatly increase
the risk of knee injuries. As soon as a weakness in your adductors reveals itself, take
immediate action to remedy it.
—Bill Starr
25
LatestMarch 10, 2016
A Unique Look at Building Calves

Bill Starr
Any athletes who are interested in getting stronger to become more proficient in
their chosen sport or sports understand the importance of having strong calves. Yet
many assume they can accomplish that through all the running and jumping they do
when they practice and compete. So when they weight train, they only work the
larger muscles of their legs and neglect the smaller groups. In many instances,
however, it’s the smaller muscles that make the difference between achieving at a
higher level and mediocrity.
Soccer is a good example. Seldom do soccer players bother doing any specialized
exercises for their calves. They reason that all the running they do is more than
enough to keep them plenty strong. That’s true, up to a point. One of the most
valuable skills in that sport is heading the ball. In order to gain the advantage over
an opponent, you must be able to outjump him or her. The ability to leap high is
directly dependent on leg strength, and it’s the calves that provide the extra few
inches of jump height.
Many sports rely heavily on strong calves. Basketball and volleyball are the two most
obvious, along with the long jump and high jump. In swimming, calves are
responsible for getting a powerful start off the blocks and when making turns. The
tennis players who can jump high and move around the court more quickly have a
definite advantage. Strong calves are assets in football, baseball, lacrosse, all the
throwing events and the pole vault.
They are also critical to strength athletes who include dynamic movements in their 26
programs as well as those who compete in Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting.
When doing explosive lifts—power cleans, power snatches, full snatches, full cleans
and push or split jerks—you must extend high on your toes for a strong finish.
Stronger calves, stronger finish.
Powerlifters usually avoid doing any specific calf exercises. As they don’t have to
extend high on their toes for any of the three contested lifts, they conclude that
there isn’t any reason to spend time working their calves directly.
What they fail to understand is that they need strong calves to establish a solid
foundation for every exercise done while standing, including squats and deadlifts.
I’ve convinced a number of powerlifters to add calf raises to their routines, and to
their delight and surprise, they increased their deadlifts by as much as 20 pounds in
a month.
We use our calves every day in a wide range of activities, from walking and climbing
stairs to a pickup game of basketball and lifting weights. We tend to take them for
granted. That is, until we injure one or both of them. Then we suddenly realize how
much we depend on them for all physical activities.
It’s important to understand the anatomy of the calf muscles in order to set up a
strength program for them. There are two groups that make up the calves: the
gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius is the larger of the two and the
one most associated with the calf. It has an inner and outer head and when
developed, gives the back of the lower leg a pleasing, round shape. The
gastrocnemius originates above the knee at the condyles of the femur, which is the
thighbone, and extends downward to help form the Achilles tendon.
The soleus is smaller and less well known than its bigger brother, but it’s equally as
important to overall calf strength. It lies directly behind the gastrocnemius,
originates below the knee at the posterior surfaces of the tibia and fibula, the two
bones of the lower leg, and extends downward also to become part of the Achilles
tendon.
The two muscles work in concert, not independent of one another, forming a
functional unit called the triceps surae. Even so, the key to strengthening the calves
is to know they have to be worked differently because of their places of origin. The
gastrocnemius is only worked effectively when the knees are locked, so you need to
exercise the gastrocs on a standing calf machine.
In contrast, the soleus is only worked when the knees are bent, so you must exercise 27
them on the seated calf machine. In other words, if you really want your calves to
get considerably stronger, you must do both forms of calf raises.
One thing that’s critical for everyone about doing calf raises: You have to push them
to the extreme. Staying in the comfort zone just doesn’t get it done. That’s because
the calves are weight-bearing muscles, so you have to work them strenuously to get
them to respond.
The program that I’ve used for years and give to my athletes is one I learned from
bodybuilders at the Muscle Beach Gym in Santa Monica in the early ’70s. A warmup
set followed by three sets of 30 reps. These are done in quick fashion with stretching
after every set.
The first time I did the program, I couldn’t walk properly for a week and knew I’d
found a good one.
The amount of weight you use for the work sets depends on your strength level, but
the rule for calf raises is the same for everyone. When you get to the 20th rep, your
calves should be screaming for you to stop. You must ignore them and knock out 10
more. That’s how you get your calves to grow and become much stronger. You must
abuse them.
The warmup set should be done with a moderate weight to prepare the muscles for
the upcoming demanding sets.
Form is critical. You must do each and every rep precisely. Both up and down
movements need to be full-range and done in a smooth, rhythmic manner. No
herky-jerky movements or rebounding out of the bottom. Keep in mind that when
you do standing calf raises, you must keep your knees locked. Otherwise, you’re
defeating the purpose of the exercise.
I’ve watched some show-offs who stacked as many plates as possible on the
machine, often with some added to the top, and proceeded to do a set of what
appeared to be quarter squats. If they wanted to work their quads, they would be
better off just squatting or using the leg press.
Some also cheat on the seated calf machine. They pull with all their might on the
handles to help them when the going gets tough. That’s counterproductive. If you
want your calves to get bigger and stronger, make the target muscle do all the work.
Be absolutely sure to stretch your calves immediately after each set—and that
includes the warmup. Stretching more at night after a calf workout is also a smart
idea. Another note: Always do calf raises at the very end of your program. After a
28
calf workout avoid any running or jumping. Before the workout is fine; after is not.
One final idea to help you maximize your gains. Change your foot positions on each
set. Do your exercises with toes straight forward, toes outward and toes inward. The
slight variation enables you to hit all parts of the muscles and results in more
complete development.
How often athletes do calf raises depends on what they’re trying to accomplish and
how important the calves are in their sport. During the off-season basketball and
volleyball players can benefit from doing calf raises three times a week. In season
once or twice a week is enough. Calves are like abs, they can take a great deal of
work. If your calves are not sore the day after you train them, you didn’t work them
hard enough. The often-used maxim “No pain, no gain” really does hold true when it
comes to training calves. —Bill Starr
LatestAugust 16, 2014
The Hepburn Routine

Bill Starr
In 1969, Wes Woo, the coach of the Canadian team that competed in the ’68
Olympics in Mexico City, invited Bob Bednarski and me to lift in a meet in
Vancouver, his hometown. Naturally, we jumped at the opportunity to visit one of
the most beautiful cities in North America and to lift with Aldo Roy and Paul
Bjarnason, who competed at the Games. Barski and I also hoped that we’d get to
meet Doug Hepburn, one of the legends in our sport, who also lived there.
Born with a club foot and a withered right leg, Doug was faced with many more
obstacles than the average teenager when he began lifting weights at 15. All he had
to work with was some crude equipment in his basement, but he was determined to
turn his weak body into a much stronger one. With no one to guide him on his
quest, he began formulating his own routines, and through trial and error he did
29
indeed begin to get stronger. When a routine failed to help him improve, he sat
down and devised another one—and another—until he was moving up the strength
ladder again.
He got some well-deserved recognition in the strength community when he

squatted 500 reps, push-pressed 400 and benched 450 in a single workout at the
New York City Gym in 1951—unheard of numbers in those days. Then he set a
world record in the press with 345 1/2 and shocked the weightlifting world when he
defeated the great John Davis to become the heavyweight champion of the world in
1953 in Stockholm. In just 10 years he had gone from being a puny teenager to the
strongest man on the globe.
Barski and I were nicely surprised when Doug contacted us and came over to our
hotel. We spent the afternoon talking with him. He showed us the incredible
portable isometric machine that he’d invented, told stories, asked us about his
friends at York Barbell and answered our many questions. I was most interested in
the routines he devised because I knew he possessed one of the most creative
minds in all of physical culture.
That’s how I learned about the following routine, which I call simply Hepburns. I’ve
used it myself through the years and have taught countless athletes in a wide range
of sports how to do it. The very first thing to understand about this program is that
it only helps those who have established a rock-solid foundation. Beginners and
intermediates are better off doing a less demanding routine. Second, it works best
on the static movements—squat, deadlift, flat-bench press and incline—much more
than on dynamic exercises. Finally, in order to do the routine correctly, you must
budget at least an hour in your workouts for just one exercise.
Here’s the routine: You do several warmup sets, followed by five singles, followed by
five sets of five. There’s no way to hurry through it because it’s those final few sets
on the singles and fives that enable you to get the results you’re after.
Since just about every strength program includes the bench press, I will use that for
my example. Let’s say that you are currently benching 335. At your initial workout
you will be using 325 for your work sets with singles. Some choose to start with less
than 10 pounds under their best effort, and that’s all right. It’s smarter to start
conservatively, since, as everyone quickly discovers, Hepburns are a test of
endurance as much as pure strength.
Begin with two warmup sets of five, then two more done for triples and doubles, and
you will be ready for the singles. You don’t want to do too many warmup sets
because that will tap into your reserve. Do five sets of singles with 325, then lower 30
the weight to 50 pounds less, 275, and do five sets of five.
Here’s a numerical picture of what I just outlined. Warmup sets of 135×5, 225×5,
275×3, 295×2; five singles with 325 followed by five sets of five with 275. That is very
doable for any athlete with a solid background in heavy lifting, but, if it proves to be
too much right away, use a modified version of three singles and three sets of fives.
That will help you get the feel of the program, and once you can do those sets
without difficulty, move to four and five sets on the singles and back-off work sets.
The key to getting stronger on this routine is making every set of singles and fives. If
you miss even one of the required reps, you must stay with the same numbers the
next time you do the routine. Should you attempt to jump ahead when you failed to
make all the planned lifts the time before, you will hit a sticking point or become
overtrained. When you are successful with all the sets, move only your singles and
fives up by five pounds for the next session. While it may not seem like much of an
increase, it is because you’re pushing up the intensity and stamina factors
considerably. Plus, your nervous system is being put under a new form of stress and
will need time to adapt to the additional load. Keep in mind that your nervous
system takes a lot longer to recover than your muscular and skeletal systems. So
take baby steps, and you’ll end up being ahead in the long run.
Let’s say you were able to make every rep at your inaugural workout, so the next
time you do Hepburns, your routine will look like this: warmups at 135×5, 225×5,
275×3 and 300×2; five singles with 330 and five sets of five with 280. Again, very
doable. Pace is important. Move through the warmups and knock out the first
couple of singles rather quickly. Then slow down so you can concentrate fully on the
final sets of singles. Follow that same procedure with the fives. If you find that you’re
running out of gas on the final sets of singles or fives, switch to the modified version
for a while.
You need to set aside an hour for the modified Hepburns and an hour and a half for
the full program. There’s no way to hurry through this routine. You must have
energy left for those last money sets, and you must be rested and ready when you
come to the gym. If you’re not, forget it—you’re going to fail. This routine also
teaches you how to focus 100 percent on every rep of every set, which is a valuable
lesson because it carries over to other exercises and sports.
There are very few programs where you have to maintain your concentration for 10
sets in a row, but once you hone the skill of being able to lock into using perfect
technique on every set, you’ve taken a giant step toward becoming stronger.
Mondays are the best day to do Hepburns, when you have the most energy. Only do 31
them once a week for a specific bodypart. The most devout fan of Hepburn’s was
George Hechter, who started training with me when he was still in high school. He
did Hepburns three times a week—benches on Monday, squats on Wednesday and
deadlifts on Friday. They made up his entire week’s workouts. George was a
heavyweight who used very heavy weights on all three competitive lifts, so he
moved at a slow pace, often taking 2 1/2 hours to complete a session. The Hepburns
helped lay the foundation for him to win a world title in powerlifting and to take part
in the World’s Strongest Man contests.
As Hepburns are so demanding, I recommend doing them for only six weeks and
then taking a few months off before doing them again. The strength you’ve gained
will carry over immediately to all the other exercises in your program. This routine
works so well because it attacks the tendons and ligaments with the singles and also
expands the volume of your workload with the fives. It’s a perfect combination that
was formulated by one of the greatest strongmen in the history of weightlifting and
certainly one of the most creative minds in all of strength training.
If you’re looking for a new way to increase your overall strength, give Hepburns a
try. You’ll enjoy the results.
.Home-Gym.com.
LatestSeptember 16, 2014
Railroading
Bill Starr
This month’s topic is an exercise technique that’s not for the faint of heart. It is also
one that shouldn’t be used too often, as it will cause the muscles and attachment
involved to become overtrained. It is, however, a technique that will bring fast results 32
by jarring target muscles out of complacency and making them stronger. It also
improves stamina and mental fortitude because if you do it correctly, you’re going
to see the White Buffalo.
I call it “railroading,” as that’s what most athletes called it when I first saw it done in
the ’50s. While it was popular mostly with aspiring bodybuilders, a number of
Olympic lifters and strength athletes included it in their programs as well. It is also
called “stacking” and, when performed with dumbbell exercises, “up and down the
rack.”
The last time I saw anyone use this technique was in the early ’70s, when I trained at
the hardcore, black iron Muscle Beach Gym in Santa Monica, California. Now it is a
relic of the past, much like the Zercher lift and one-hand lifts. Few know how to do it,
and even more want no part of it because it requires reaching deep in the strength
and endurance reserves.
Yet it is a very effective way to improve strength and stamina if you’re willing to put
in the effort. Railroading isn’t the least bit complicated and requires a minimum of
equipment: a barbell—it doesn’t have to be an Olympic bar—and plates. It can be
done in an apartment or any other small space. What it does require is to have two
people available to load and unload plates during the execution of the exercise.
That’s necessary because moving very rapidly through the sets is the key to making
the exercise work.
Railroading can be used to strengthen any bodypart, but it works best on the larger
muscle groups and is particularly beneficial for the back. The exercise that I use to
teach athletes how to railroad is the bent-over row and for a couple of reasons. For
one thing it’s a simple movement to perform, and, also, your form doesn’t have to
be as exact as it does on many other dynamic exercises, such as power cleans and
high pulls. Once you learn how to do railroading with the rows, you can use it on
other exercises, even for the smaller groups.
This is a three-person deal, consisting of the lifter and two others to serve as loaders.
Weights need to be stacked close to the ends of the bar, so the loaders can slap
them on the bar and remove them quickly. For most, having a stack of fives, 10s and
25s is enough. The loaders have to be on the ball—like a pit crew in auto racing. As
soon as the bar hits the floor after a set, they should be in action. Loaders have a
second duty as well-—to urge you to maintain a rapid pace.
Use straps for any pulling exercise. Doing all those reps and sets quickly will
invariably cause your grip to slip a bit, especially when you get to the top-end sets.
The straps will help you stay locked onto the bar and enable you to pull the weights 33
higher. Higher means more muscles get involved, and that’s a good thing.
It’s a 10-set sequence. Your goal on the bent-over rows, railroading-style, is to use
about 40 pounds less on your last set than you can handle on conventional bent-
over rows. Say you can do 305×5 on bent-over rows. Your goal, then, is to get to
265×5 in your first railroading workout. You start with 135 and then jump to 185,
225, 245 and finish with 265, all done for five reps. The instant you finish each set,
your loaders add plates. There are no rest periods from start to finish.
Once you’ve done your final set with 265, everything reverses. Though you do not
handle the 265 twice, you still need five steps down to make the required 10 sets, so
you add a drop. With the loaders quickly stripping plates after each down set, you
use 245, 225, 205, 185 and, lastly, 135, again all for five reps.
When you’re finished, you’ll likely flop on the floor to catch your breath and try to
relax your abused muscles. That’s how it should be. If you’re not exhausted, you
either moved too slowly or didn’t handle enough weight. You can easily rectify that
the next time you railroad the exercise. If you are unable to do all 10 sets, you need
to lower the top-end weights, but you should never slow the pace. Only by moving
through the sets in rapid fashion will you achieve the desired results.
I have noted that your form doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect, yet it cannot be
sloppy or you will run the risk of dinging yourself. Try to focus on doing every rep as
correctly as you can, and that will take your mind off of your screaming muscles.
Also, on the final two top-end sets you can cheat just a tad. By cheating, I mean
allowing your upper body to elevate at the end of the rowing motion instead of
maintaining a very flat back. That is permissible because you’re still hitting the target
muscles. Doing bent-over rows using the railroading technique hits the lats and
middle back the way no other exercise does, something everyone finds out right
away.
When you do these for the first time, you do only one full set. That’s enough to let
you know how they feel and exactly what groups are involved—as well as which
groups are relatively weak. As your body and mind adapt to the new form of stress,
you can add another full set. Most think that once they finish with the top-end set,
they can cruise. That’s not the case because at that point your body is exhausted and
there are still five sets to go—and you must pay close attention to every set.
What other exercises can be railroaded? Lots. The bodybuilders at Muscle Beach
especially liked to use it on barbell curls. A couple did three full rounds—and got
immediate results. Railroading is beneficial for nearly every back exercise: high pulls,
shrugs inside the power rack and deadlifts—not so much for benches or inclines, 34
though, since the bar travels up over your face, and that can be risky.
Machines are well suited to this form of strength training. Railroading leg extensions
and leg curls can help bring the quads and hams up to par quickly. Triceps
pushdowns and lat pulldowns are also great. The good thing about using machines
for railroading is that you can change the resistance very quickly, enabling you to
move through the set superfast.
I don’t recommend them for any high-skill lifts because most people break form
when the going gets tough, and you don’t want to do that. Practicing bad habits will
form a pattern that’s difficult to break.
Do a couple of warmup sets before starting your railroading sequence. That’s only
common sense. Many overlook it, however, believing that using light weights for the
first few sets is enough. Better to be safe than sorry.
Put any railroading exercise at the end of your routine. I have my athletes do it on
Fridays. That gives them two full days to recover. Also, do railroading on any specific
bodypart only once every two or three weeks. That will keep you from overtraining
the groups involved in the exercises and also keep you from dreading them. A little
goes a long way when it comes to railroading. It’s one of those techniques for which
less is better than more.
If there are some muscle groups that you know are lagging behind in strength, stun
them with a full sequence of railroading. While it certainly does not qualify as a “fun”
exercise, when done correctly and pushed to the limit, railroading brings fast and
positive results—and to me, that’s worth a bit of discomfort.
.Home-Gym.com.
LatestNovember 19, 2014
The Conventional Deadlift 35
Bill Starr
In the beginning—in the world before Universal Gyms, Nautilus and personal
trainers—everyone who wanted to get stronger did deadlifts. Oddly enough, not all
of those early strongmen did squats, yet they always did deadlifts. It was considered
the one lift that showed who were the strongest overall, and some of those old-
timers were extremely strong in that lift. Bob Peoples did 700 pounds in the early
’40s, and the great John Davis deadlifted 705 pounds while weighing only 193 in the
’50s.
Then, in the late ’60s, powerlifting became an official AAU sport. Deadlifts were a
part of the competitions, and, almost immediately, those who did not participate in
the new sport-—i.e., Olympic lifters, bodybuilders, aspiring strength athletes—
stopped doing this basic, primary exercise. It became the exclusive property of the
powerlifters.
I have always been a fan of deadlifts. I did them early on, using a standard bar and
smaller plates, so I was pulling them from a lower position than I would with an
Olympic bar and big plates. I knew they were helping because I could feel the
soreness throughout my back on the day following a session when I worked the
deadlifts hard—and also because the pulls on my snatches and cleans were stronger
as well.
Many coaches shun deadlifts, saying that they are too risky. Those who do the
Olympic lifts avoid them because they feel the slow, static movement is a hindrance
when you’re performing the more dynamic pulling motions required in the two
quick lifts. The truth is, deadlifts are just like any other exercise in strength training.
Done incorrectly, they can result in an injury. Done right, they greatly improve leg,
hip and back strength. As far as the slow motion being a negative in terms of doing
snatches, cleans and jerks, that is simply illogical. By practicing the competitive lifts
and making the muscles involved in the quick lifts appreciably stronger, you ensure 36
that those muscles and attachments will react more quickly. Strength is the basis of
all physical movement. Deadlifts make you stronger.
They certainly didn’t slow Davis down. He snatched 330 1/2, clean and jerked 402
and threw in a 375 1/2 press for good measure. The deadlifts helped him get
stronger and move faster.
Whenever I start people, male or female, young or old, on a strength program, I

teach them how to deadlift. In my mind it is very important for everyone, in all walks
of life, to know how to lift a heavy object off of the floor correctly. Every human will
be faced with the problem of lifting a heavy bag of groceries, a case of motor oil, a
box of books or a heavy sack of mulch off of the floor. Knowing how to do it
correctly can save a lot of pain and misery.
What a lot of coaches don’t understand about this lift is that you don’t have to use
really heavy weights and low reps to get the benefit. Done in higher reps—20s, for
example—it is an excellent strength builder for older athletes who want to keep their
backs strong. It’s also a great exercise for rehabbing any sort of injury to the back—
again, with high reps, to flush blood into the damaged area.
Deadlifts are a great substitute exercise for back squats for older lifters who cannot
fix the bar behind their heads, for whatever reason. After full squats they’re the
single best exercise for strengthening the body because every part of your body is
involved in the movement.
Let’s start by reviewing the technique for the conventional deadlift. To find the ideal
grip, extend your thumbs on an Olympic bar until they touch the smooth center. If
you have a standard bar, use a shoulder-width grip. Use straps and an overhand
grip, which will enable you to use more weight and do more reps. Should you decide
to test yourself in a power meet, simply use a hook grip.
You can set your feet a bit closer than you do for cleans. Your toes should be
pointed straight ahead. To find your strongest thrusting stance, close your eyes and
get in position to do a standing broad jump. That’s where your feet should be for
the deadlift. Tuck in the bar snug to your shins. The bar must stay close to your body
from start to finish. Whenever you allow it to stray, you will lose valuable leverage,
and if it moves too far away from the correct line, you will not be able to finish the
lift.
Tighten every muscle from your neck to your feet. Lower your hips, and fix your eyes
straight ahead. Make sure your front deltoids are out in front of the bar. If your back 37
and legs are very strong, you can set your back as high as parallel. That will provide
you with a longer lever, but most trainees are unable to do it because their hips
come up too fast. A key point on all pulling exercises: Your hips must come up at the
exact same speed as the bar—no exceptions. If your hips come up too fast, you will
not be in a solid position to complete the lift. Your back must stay flat throughout
the exercise.
To accomplish that, lock your shoulder blades together, and keep them locked for
both the up and down movements of the deadlift. If you concentrate on your lower
back instead, the middle and upper parts will round when the going gets tough.
When you squeeze your shoulder blades tightly together, however, the rest of your
back will stay tight and flat.
Once you’re in the set position and are about to put the bar in motion, think about
pushing your feet down through the floor rather than pulling the bar upward. That
more positive action will enable you to stay extremely tight and guide the bar in the
correct line. Staying rigidly tight is extremely important, especially when the weights
get heavy and you’re knocking out those final reps on a work set. Whenever any part
of your body relaxes, even slightly, the bar will try to run forward. By staying tight,
you’ll be able to guide it in the perfect line.
Your arms play a very minor role in the deadlift. They’re no more than connecting
links, and you must hold them straight, like powerful chains. If you bend your arms
at all, your upward thrust is greatly reduced.
When the bar comes to midthigh, contract your traps dynamically. Most wait until
they’re almost completely erect before involving their traps, which generally leads to
their hitching and jerking the bar around to finish the lift. There’s no reason to wait
that long to bring the powerful traps into the mix. Contract them early, and it’s
simply a matter of bringing your hips forward—and, like magic, the lift is complete.
Lower the bar in a controlled fashion. Do not let it crash to the floor. That works
against you in two ways. One, it can irritate your shoulders and elbows. Two, it will
throw you far out of position for your next rep. Lowering the bar deliberately works
like a negative and will enable you to gain more strength in the groups responsible
for the exercise. Plus, the same rule applies to lowering the weight as it did for
elevating it—your hips should move at the same speed as the bar.
Do not get in the habit of rebounding the plates off the floor. You need to start
every rep from a dead stop in order to build the muscles and attachments that work
in that part of the lift.
38
Unless you’re planning on entering a power meet, do deadlifts only every couple of
weeks, and vary your set-and-rep formula each time you do them. For example, you
can do four sets of eight, five sets of five, two sets of five and three sets of three.
Every couple of months go after a max single.
Next time, I’ll go over several variations of the deadlift that are most useful to all
serious strength athletes.
.Home-Gym.com.
LatestMay 2, 2015
Part 2: The Light, Heavy and Medium System
Bill Starr
Last month I described a beginning program for the light, heavy and medium
system. After athletes have been doing it for six to eight weeks, they’re ready to start
adding exercises. If they have applied themselves, they will have improved their
technique on the three basic movements—the bench press, power clean and back
squat—and established solid strength in the process. During that time the disparity 39
between the heavy, light and medium days is marked and for a good reason. One
heavy day is sufficient per week. The other two days are opportunities to hone your
form on the three lifts and rest the muscles and attachments after this new form of
stress.
Of the three days of the system it’s usually the light day that is abused the most
frequently. Many beginners, anxious to make fast gains, cannot understand why they
can’t use more weight on this day. I tell them that it will change soon, but for the
time being they need to learn how to concentrate on doing every rep perfectly.
What they learn in the way of technique now will carry over for many years. I remind
them that practice does not make perfect; practice makes permanent. Only perfect
practice makes perfect. Get the technique down perfectly, and the gains will come.
For those who complain that the light day is too easy, I make some changes. I have
them go through the program at a very fast pace, and if there is ample equipment
available, I set up a three-station circuit and have them move through the circuits
quickly. They can do the fast workouts in 20 minutes. When they finish, they are no
longer grumbling about the session being too easy. If their form starts to falter, I
have them slow down.
I mentioned last month that many beginners abuse the light day concept by slipping
in auxiliary exercises after they have done the Big Three—always for the arms and
chest. Small-muscle exercises can wait. You should put all the energy into the three
primary lifts. Another way athletes corrupt the light day is to add reps to the three
lifts. Instead of doing just five reps, they do twice that number. I spotted a freshman
football player knocking out 10 reps on his final set of squats. When I asked him why
he wasn’t following the program I gave him, he replied that five reps with 195 was
just too easy. I explained that by doing double reps, he had done more work on the
squat than he had on his heavy day.
Actually, at that stage of development it really doesn’t matter that much. What does
matter is maintaining the discipline to stick with the program, because everything
you do at each of the three workouts during the week has a direct influence on the
others, and it’s a bad habit to pick up and start freelancing in the early stages of
strength training.
Once athletes begin using good form and making improvement on the three
primary lifts, I start adding exercises. That changes the complexity of the heavy, light
and medium system. No longer are the numbers used on the light and medium days
based on what was done on the heavy day. Rather, they are based on what exercises
fit into the system on the three days. Basically, the primary exercises for the three 40
major muscle groups—shoulder girdle, back, and hips and legs—that you do on the
heavy day are the ones on which you handle the most weight. The moves you do on
the light day are those on which you handle the least weight, and the medium day is
in between. Yet that’s not carved in stone.
The three back exercises I insert into the program are power cleans, good mornings
and shrugs. Even though the amount of weight used for the shrugs is considerably
higher than for the other two exercises, I still put them on Friday, the medium day—
for two reasons. One, although you can shrug a lot of weight, the exercise is not as
demanding as the other two lifts in terms of actual energy expenditure because it’s a
short-stoke movement. Two, when you do it, your traps are going to be sore to the
touch, and as large muscles they need the two days of rest to recover.
Now the light day is no longer an easy workout, mostly due to good mornings. They
are never easy. The shoulder girdle exercise that I use is overhead presses, and since
I push my athletes to add to the last set every week, they aren’t easy when done
together. The squat workout is less demanding than on the heavy and light days, but
it needs to be because the other two squat sessions are very tough.
On the light squat day the athletes do five sets of five, finishing with 50 pounds less
than their best squat for five. That works okay until they reach 400×5, and then I
limit them to using just 315 for three sets of five. I want the workload to be relatively
low because of the two hard squat days, yet I don’t want to make it so easy that they
don’t have to pay attention. What I do is have them do two warmup sets, 135 and
225, and then jump right to the work weight of 315 and do three sets. After they’re
comfortable with that, I throw in a twist. I have them do the three work sets using
different foot placements—regular stance; feet wide apart, as in Sumo-style squats;
and, finally, with their feet close together. How close? Eventually the heels should be
touching. This is an effective way to involve all the groups responsible for squatting,
and it helps maintain balance in all the muscles and attachments.
On the heavy squat day they do five sets of five to limit. On Friday they do three sets
of five, followed by two sets of three, and the final triple should be more than the
final set on the heavy day. You may be thinking, but that makes Friday a heavier
workout than Monday. In intensity, yes. In workload, no. It fits, as the Wednesday
session is lighter and the athletes have two days to recover.
My upgraded program looks like this: Heavy day: back squats, power cleans and
bench presses, all done for five sets of five reps and pushed to limit. Light day: back
squats for five sets of five using 50 pounds less than what was handled at the heavy 41
workout; good mornings, alternating four sets of 10 with five sets of eight; overhead
presses for three sets of five plus three sets of three. Medium day: back squats for
three sets of five and then two sets of three; incline-bench presses for five sets of
five and shrugs for five sets of five. As with the heavy day, all lifts are to max.
After they have been doing this for a couple of weeks, I add in back-off sets for all
shoulder girdle exercises and for the squats on the heavy day. I wait a few more
weeks, when the athletes are ready to handle extra work, before including a back-off
set for the Friday workout. I do not include back-off sets for any of the back
exercises. If athletes go all out on the power cleans, good mornings, and shrugs,
they are inviting problems to put more work on those fatigued muscles. There are
other ways to increase the workload on the back.
Do back-off sets for eight or 10 reps. If you do fewer reps, use a bit more weight.
One set is sufficient, and they are not that difficult because, while you’ve handled
much more, they add very nicely to the overall volume, and that’s one of the keys to
making steady progress in strength training.
At the same time that I add the back-off sets, I also have my athletes start doing
auxiliary exercises at the end of each workout. Heavy day: incline dumbbell presses
for two sets of 20. Light day: alternate chins with dips, using no weight, for two sets
of as many as you can do. Medium day: straight-arm pullovers for two sets of 20.
Eventually, the ancillary movements are determined by an athlete’s individual needs.
If the adductors are lagging, they do additional work on the adductor machine both
before and after the workout. An obvious weakness in the lower back will have them
doing hyperextensions prior to every weight session.
Next time I’ll go over how advanced strength athletes can use the heavy, light and
medium system, including adding a fourth day of training and dealing with multiple
sessions on the same day. Getting stronger is a never-ending process of gently
pushing the volume of work and the intensity higher and higher without becoming
overtrained. Using the heavy, light and medium system sensibly enables you to do
just that.
Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008, or visit www.Home-Gym.com. IM
42
LatestApril 1, 2015
The Light, Heavy and Medium System

Bill Starr
Knowing how to use the heavy, light and medium system is extremely important to
long-term success in strength training and bodybuilding.
The concept is rather simple — a heavy session in the weight room should be
followed by a lighter one, and the next workout should be somewhere in between
the two—and makes perfect sense. The body needs time to recover after a tough
workout. Yet there is more confusion over this concept than any other in strength
training.
It’s not a new idea, not by a long shot. In the early 1930s Mark Berry wrote about the
system in his book Physical Training Simplified. Around that same time Alan Calvert
wrote on the subject in his magazine, Strength. But Strength went under, and Berry’s
book wasn’t reprinted, so when I became interested in weight training, those
resources weren’t available. The people who were now publishing training
information—Bob Hoffman, Joe Weider, Peary Rader and Dan Lurie—didn’t include
any articles on this concept. Over time it was lost to aspiring bodybuilders and
strength athletes.
In fact, the heavy, light and medium system did make it back into mainstream
training. A number of lifters and bodybuilders figured it out, mostly by accident
rather than intent. That’s how I stumbled onto it—or at least part of it. At the time I
was training alone at the gym on the Air Force base at West Palm Beach, Florida. I
trained at noon three days a week because the gym closed at 4 p.m., and I was on
duty at the emergency room until that hour. Everything I learned was by trial and 43
error—and I should mention that this was the case for every other novice
weightlifter in the country.
I worked the hardest on Mondays, since I’d had two days of rest. On this particular
day I lifted more weight overhead in the clean and jerk than I ever had before—175
pounds. I left the standard bar and six 25-pound plates on the floor. I wanted
someone to come in the gym and wonder what strong individual had handled that
much iron. It turned out to be one of those “Be careful what you wish for” moments.
When I arrived for my Wednesday workout, the loaded bar was right where I had left
it. As I started my warmups, a kid of about 14 rode his bike into the gym, pulled to a
stop next to me, looked over at the loaded bar, and asked, “Who lifted that?”
With pride in my voice, I said, “I did.”
He looked me over, and I could tell from his expression that he didn’t believe me.
“Let me see you do it,” he challenged.
“Okay,” I said, full of confidence. I striped the plates off and did warmup sets with 75,
125 and 150. Then I put three 25s back on each end of the bar. I must have tried to
lift that weight a dozen times, but I never did it. If I cleaned it, I failed with the jerk,
and after more failures I was too spent to clean the weight. Finally, the youngster
had seen enough. “Yeah, sure you did,” he said sarcastically and rode away laughing.
I was so upset that I grabbed my gym bag and left. That was the first time I ever cut
my workout short. For two days I stewed, wondering why I had been unable to lift a
poundage that I had handled rather easily at the previous workout. By Friday I was
determined to redeem myself. I focused on every attempt and to my surprise
discovered that clean and jerking that weight was easier than it had been on
Monday.
Now I was even more confused. What was the difference between Monday and
Wednesday? Or for that matter Friday? After considering all the facts, I concluded
that I must have been fatigued on Wednesday from my very hard workout on
Monday, and because I did little training on Wednesday, I had more energy on
Friday. Like most beginners I had been going as heavy as I possibly could at every
session. I thought it was necessary in order to make progress. I altered that theory
and started doing a less-strenuous workout on Wednesday. Right away I knew I was
on the right track because all my lifts started moving upward.
Still, I didn’t learn the finer points of the heavy, light and medium system until I
started training under the guidance of Sid Henry at the Downtown Dallas YMCA 44
when I attended Southern Methodist University. Yet that slight change in my
program enabled me to progress enough to compete in three Olympic meets before
Sid started coaching me. The concept has been an integral part of my own training
and the programs I’ve given to my athletes ever since. I’ve studied systems used by
the Bulgarians and Russians, and by reading between the lines, I’ve found that it is
very much a vital part of all their training programs.
There are several ways that coaches incorporate the heavy, light and medium
concept into their routines. Some like to use strict percentages: 70 to 80 for the light
days and 80 to 90 for the medium days. If a coach is dealing with a large number of
athletes, that can involve a great deal of math. At the University of Hawaii and Johns
Hopkins, I dealt with all sports, and some weeks I worked with as many as 250
students. So I came up with a simple method to use.
I started them all, male and female, on the Big Three: the bench press, back squat
and power clean. Five sets of five is the routine, and Monday is the heavy day. On
Monday I’d have them push the numbers on the final sets a bit higher every week.
On Wednesday, the light day, they’d still do five sets, but they’d go no higher than
what they’d handled for their third set on Monday. On Friday, medium day, they’d
do their final set with what they’d used for their fourth set on Monday. There’s
nothing complicated about that program, and it meets the qualifications nicely.
Here’s an example of how it works. On Monday an athlete squatted 135, 175, 225,
255 and 275 for five reps each. On Wednesday he did 135, 175, 195 and 215 and
finished with 225, again for five reps. On Friday his squat routine looked like this:
135, 175, 215, 235 and 255. As the numbers on the final set on Monday move up, so
will those on the light and medium days.
You can see where this simplified method makes things easy when you’re dealing
with a large group of athletes. I make copies of the program from a page in The
Strongest Shall Survive and have them fill in the numbers. That gives them a visual
goal for the next couple of workouts and also what they’re expected to lift on their
next heavy day.
Another way to incorporate the system into weekly workouts is to go heavy on just
one exercise at each session. That’s helpful for those who have not yet built up
enough of a strength base to improve all three exercises one heavy day. Let’s say our
lifter goes heavy on his squats on Monday but stays light on his power cleans and
medium on his bench presses. Then on Wednesday he gives the benches priority
and works them heavy, while his squats get a light day and power cleans a medium 45
day. On Friday power cleans move to the front of the session, and he goes heavy,
followed by a light day for the benches and a medium day for the squats.
Many beginners like that format because they can concentrate more fully on just
one exercise. One trap that many fall into, however, is adding more work on the light
day. They have plenty of energy left at the end of the workout, so they slip in some
arm work. Then a bit more. While the auxiliary movements are not as demanding as
the primary exercises, they still tap into energy levels. If you do too much small-
muscle work, it will have an adverse effect on the medium day, and that, in turn, will
have a negative influence on the next heavy day. The light day is really the key to
making consistent progress in any strength program.
Next time I’ll explain how to use the heavy, light and medium system when you add
more exercises as you move into the intermediate stage. It’s a tad more complicated,
because many new elements come into play, but it’s doable if you understand the
system.
BodypartMay 17, 2015
Build Some Variety Into Your Shoulder Work

Bill Starr
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When I first got interested in getting bigger and stronger, my influences were Steve
Stanko and John Grimek. I met them and watched them train at the original York
Gym on Broad Street. I also greatly admired the awesome physiques of Jack
Dellinger, Bill Pearl and Steve Reeves. What attracted me the most were their wide,
muscular shoulders. They simply exuded power, and I firmly believed that strength
was equally as important as shape in a physique.
Part of the reason that all the old-time bodybuilding champions displayed such
amazing shoulder development was that they did overhead presses. Before the
Weider brothers took control of physique competition from the AAU, bodybuilders
were awarded athletic points at major contests. Since they were going to compete
after a weightlifting meet anyway, they simply took part in the contests and did the
three Olympic lifts: the press, snatch and clean and jerk.
So they had to train hard on the press, and as a result they ended up with
cannonball deltoids, which greatly enhanced their physiques and helped them place
higher in contests. Then three things happened about the same time that changed
the way bodybuilders and strength athletes trained. First, the Weiders gained
domination over physique competition and eliminated the athletic points. Second,
the sport of Olympic lifting dropped the press, and, lastly, powerlifting emerged as
an AAU sport. So almost overnight the overhead press practically disappeared from
weight rooms, except when it was done as an auxiliary movement.
Wide, powerful shoulders were no longer the main focus of bodybuilders. Now it
was big chests and arms. That attitude also carried over into strength training, but
it’s a mistake. Strong deltoids play a major role in every athletic activity, and they
help protect the rather delicate shoulder joints and prevent them from being injured
during falls and violent collisions.
The two best deltoid exercises, in my opinion, are overhead presses and weighted
dips—followed by incline and flat-bench presses. By pressing bars or dumbbells at
different angles and including weighted dips, you strengthen the three heads of the
deltoid—the front, lateral and rear heads. Front and lateral raises done with
dumbbells are also good for increasing size and strength in the shoulders.
What I’m going to do here, however, is present some exercises that hit the deltoids
in a slightly different manner. The change usually stimulates a nice surge in strength.
I’ll start with dumbbell cleans. “But that’s a pulling movement,” you may be thinking.
Bear with me. They are prerequisites for the next exercise I’m recommending. Also,
dumbbell cleans help build stronger deltoids on their own. When you clean a bar,
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momentum allows you to rack it across your shoulders, but dumbbells force the
muscles and attachments to control the line of pull and turn the weights over to fix
them on the shoulders. That forces the delts to work harder. Harder is good.
Use straps on these so you can handle more weight. Strap onto the dumbbells,
stand up, and hold the dumbbells on the outsides of your thighs. Now bend your
knees and lower the weights to just above your knees, and then pull the dumbbells
up and rack them on your shoulders. Make sure that all of your muscles are very
tight before you commence the clean, and make sure your upper body remains
absolutely erect.
Lower the dumbbells carefully, and then do the next rep. Do these in sets of five
reps, and keep using heavier weights until you’ve found your limit. Then do a couple
more work sets with that poundage. Once you have mastered the technique of hang
cleaning the dumbbells, you’re ready for an even better deltoid movement—
dumbbell presses. You will be able to handle more weight while standing, so that’s
what I recommend. No straps, however, as they get in the way.
Clean the weight strongly, either from the hang or from the floor. Then tighten every
muscle in your body and grip the floor with your feet. Everyone quickly discovers
that pressing dumbbells is very different from pressing a barbell. You have to control
the dumbbells from the very beginning to lockout and not let them run forward,
backward or to either side. That’s exactly why they’re so beneficial. Your weaker arm
will reveal itself right away, but over time and with lots of reps, it will catch up with
the stronger arm—which will have direct carryover value to every upper-body and
back exercise.
Until you get the form down perfectly, you need to do dumbbell presses in a
deliberate, more-slow-than-fast fashion. If you attempt to explode the dumbbells off
of your shoulders, they will invariably run out of the correct line quickly. This is a
pure power movement, unlike any other for the shoulders. Being able to clean and
press 100-pound dumbbells was proof positive that athletes were extremely strong
in the upper body. It still is. I like to vary the sets and reps on these—five sets of five,
six sets of three and, after warmups, doubles or singles to max.
When you finish each set, be sure to lower the dumbbells with care. Ease them from
your shoulders down to the floor. Never let them crash down. That can be very
stressful to your elbows and shoulders.
Another way to jolt your delts is an exercise I learned about in the training hall at the
’68 Olympics. I was watching Kaarlo Kangasniemi, the great 198-pounder from
Finland, doing hang snatches, and he was pressing the bar out for the final four or 48
five inches. Pressing out a snatch is cause for disqualification, so I asked him why he
was doing it. He replied, “Make shoulders strong.” Ah! Now I understood. Later on I
tried a few myself and found out how right he was.
Use straps and start the bar from the hang, using a wide or snatch grip. Dip as you
did for the dumbbell cleans, and pull the bar up over your head—but not all the way
to lockout. With your knees locked, press the bar those final few inches, and then
lower it back to your thighs and do another rep. On your final rep hold the bar
overhead for a six-to-eight-second count. That will cause your delts to scream for
relief. Do five or six sets.
Finally, one of my favorite deltoid movements—Bradford presses. I’m glad to see

other writers recommending this exercise because it is one of the very best. I got to
meet the legendary weightlifting champion Jim Bradford in York, but it was John
Grimek who taught me how to do the exercise that was named after Jim. John said
he had used it throughout his career in bodybuilding and Olympic lifting.
Fix the bar across your front delts just as you would to press it. Push press the
weight to just over the top of your head and hold it in that position for five or six
seconds, then lower the bar to the back of your head and rest it on your traps. Take
a breath or two, then push press it back up to the same spot directly over your head
and hold it for another five or six count. Lower the bar to your front delts, and get
ready for the next rep. Over and back counts as one rep. Do all your breathing while
the bar is at rest. You must hold your breath while you’re resisting the weight when
it’s over your head, or you will not be able to apply your full effort.
This exercise is effective because it has a built-in motivational device. It’s amazing
how much harder you can push up against the weight when it’s perched directly
over your skull. Five sets of five is usually enough, and increase the weight on each
set.
Make sure your shoulders are thoroughly warmed up before you do these. Also,
once you drive the bar to above your head, lock your legs and tighten every muscle
in your body so you can apply maximum pressure up into the bar.
All of these exercises will help you build bigger, stronger shoulders, and as the
saying goes, “Shoulders make the man.”
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LatestJune 16, 2015
Learning How to Squat Snatch Part 1

Bill Starr
The reason that so many athletes who lift weights regularly do not try the Olympic
lifts is that they believe the lifts are far too complicated to learn on their own. While
it’s true that both the snatch and clean and jerk are high-skill movements and
require a great deal of work to master, there’s really no reason that an athlete can’t
learn the required technique.
All the lifters I trained and lifted with and against in the ’50s and ’60s had taught
themselves how to do not only snatches and clean and jerks but also the Olympic-
style press, which is a high-skill movement as well. What’s more, I competed in
contests for almost three years before receiving any instruction on the lifts. 50
All it takes is instruction, which I’m about to provide, plus patience and sweat. Even if
you have no desire to enter an Olympic weightlifting meet, the two contested lifts
can be most useful. By learning to snatch and clean and jerk, you greatly improve
foot speed, timing, coordination, quickness, flexibility and mental concentration—
and those are attributes you use in any sport.
This is the first of a two-part series on how to squat snatch. You can also do snatches
in the split style, but I’ll cover that at a future date. This installment focuses on the
preparation phase. Before actually trying to squat snatch a weight, you must be able
to do two exercises: the power snatch and the overhead squat. Both are great for
building overall leg, back and shoulder strength.
I’ll start with the power snatch. If you have already been doing power cleans, which
are a part of most scholastic and collegiate strength programs, you will be able to
move right into power snatches easily.
In order to do either power snatches or overhead squats, you must have sufficient
shoulder girdle flexibility to lock a bar overhead comfortably. Women and younger
athletes seldom have any problem with shoulder flexibility, but many older athletes
do—mostly because they have spent much too much time working their upper
bodies and concentrating on the flat bench.
Most Olympic lifters carry a broomstick with them and are constantly stretching out
their shoulders. You can do it with a towel or piece of rope. Just work the stick or
towel back and forth over your head until you feel your shoulders loosen up a bit,
and then bring your grip in slightly and do it some more.
The grip you use for power snatches depends on several factors: height, body size
and degree of flexibility. An Olympic bar has a score on each side, six inches from
the collars. Wrap your ring fingers around that score. Then, after doing a few reps
with just the bar, make any adjustments that are necessary. You need to be able to
hold the bar overhead so that it’s right above the back of your head, with your arms
locked.
Step up to the bar so that your shins are touching it. Shut your eyes and imagine
that you’re about to do a standing broad jump. That’s your ideal foot position for
pulling. Grip the bar firmly, flatten your back, lower your hips, and, after making sure
your front deltoids are slightly in front of the bar, look straight ahead. You’re now
ready to pull.
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Most beginners have a tendency to jerk the bar off the floor, but that causes it to
run forward and the back to round. Do this instead: Get set, tighten every muscle in
your body from toes to neck, and think about pushing your feet down into the floor;
then guide the bar upward in a controlled manner with your arms straight and your
back extremely flat. If you pull your shoulder blades together, that will help you
maintain a flat back throughout the pull.
As the bar passes midthigh, drive your hips forward explosively and, with your arms
still straight, contract your traps. All the while, the bar must stay tight to your body.
Once the bar passes your navel, bend your arms and climb high on your toes. The
combination of involving the traps, biceps and calves will make the bar leap upward.
One of the most important form points for the power snatch is that at the very
conclusion of the pull, when you bend your arms, they must be turned up and out,
not back. Once your elbows turn backward, you no longer have any upward thrust
on the bar.
When the bar passes your head, dip under it by bending your knees a bit, and lock it
out with straight arms. Don’t merely catch the bar and hold it overhead; rather, push
up against it and stretch it outward. That will enable you to position it exactly where
it should be, which is on a line directly up from the back of your head.
If you find that you’re having difficulty locking your arms at the end of your power
snatches, lower the weight. You’re not going to be able to hold a heavy weight
overhead with bent arms, and it’s cause for disqualification in competition.
While holding the bar overhead, continue to exert pressure up against it, and on the
final rep of the set push against it for five or six seconds. That builds a different and
very valuable kind of strength in your shoulders, back and legs.
You lower the bar in two steps: Bring it from overhead to the top of your thighs,
bending your knees to help cushion the impact; then, while maintaining a very flat
back, ease the bar down to the floor.
Reset, and do the next rep. The bar should resemble a whip, moving slowly at first,
picking up speed through the middle and becoming a blur at the top. Doing five
reps is fine for the warmup sets, but once the weights get demanding, do only
triples and do as many sets as you can handle while maintaining good form.
When you’re learning how to power snatch, don’t skip your feet to the side. You
want to concentrate fully on pulling the bar in the precise line and finishing the
motion strongly, and not skipping your feet will help with that.
Once you’ve learned how to power snatch, overhead squats will not be a problem. 52
Power-snatch the weight, lock it solidly overhead, and then go into a deep squat.
You will probably have to shift your feet around a bit to find the ideal foot position
for going into a deep squat.
You’ll quickly discover that this form of squatting is quite different from front or
back squats. The bar must travel in a tight up-and-down line. Should you allow it to
waver too far out front or too far back, you will not be able to control it.
You must maintain complete control of the bar throughout the up-and-down
movement by keeping your arms locked and exerting pressure up into the bar. In
the event that it does stray too far out of the proper position, you can just push it
away from your body.
One final point: Don’t attempt to explode out of the bottom of an overhead squat
the way you would on a front or back squat. That will invariably drive the bar out of
the correct line. You must squeeze out of the deep bottom in a controlled fashion
and learn to lower the bar in a deliberate manner as well. Because you do them
more slowly than other forms of squats, overhead squats hit new muscles and
attachments in your shoulders, back, hips and legs.
Triples also work best for these. The lower reps enable you to focus on the various
form points, which you’re going to need for the squat snatch. I’ll discuss that in the
next installment.
November 13, 2015
Stronger Wrists and Forearms With These

Exercises
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Iron Man Magazine
Having strong wrists and forearms is extremely valuable in many sports. Wrestling
heads the list, of course, but also baseball, lacrosse, tennis, football, bowling,
volleyball and strongman events as well as the shot put, hammer throw, discus,
javelin, pole vault and many more. Strong wrists and forearms are assets in the
weight room as well, for they help you handle heavier weights on a great many
exercises, from power cleaning and snatching to benching and inclining. If your
wrists and forearms are weak, the power generated by your chest, shoulders and
arms will not be transferred adequately into the bar.
Most people believe that they need an extra-strong grip in order to move heavy
weights on the two Olympic lifts, the clean and the snatch, and on the deadlift, but
that isn’t true. By using a hook grip, you can lock onto a bar as tightly as you can
when using straps. Even so, keeping your wrists and forearms strong will help
prevent them from being injured, which is a good thing, as the list of exercises that
can be done drops drastically with that kind of injury. A hurt wrist usually means
dropping all free-weight exercises and switching to machines.
The good thing about working the wrists and forearms is that it doesn’t require
much in the way of equipment. A barbell and dumbbells will get the job done. These
exercises can be worked separately, at night or on the days that you don’t train.
I’ll start with an apparatus that you can make rather easily and is very the best
exercise for improving strength in your wrists and forearms—the wrist roller. All you
need is a length of round wood, about a foot and a half. A thick broomstick will work
or a fat dowel. Drill a hole in the center, insert the end of a piece of clothesline
through it, and tie a knot to secure the rope. The clothesline must be long enough
that when you extend your arms straight forward, it will touch the floor. Attach a
five- or 10-pound plate or a dumbbell to the end of the clothesline, and you’re good
to go,
Using an overhand shoulder-width grip, hold the piece of wood directly out in front
of you. Lock your elbows. The weight should be touching the floor. Now roll the 54
weight upward until it touches the wood, then slowly roll it back down to the floor.
Repeat without any hesitation. Do not allow your arms to drop, and do not jerk the
weight around. Both the up and down movements must be done in a smooth,
controlled manner.
The first time people try these, they typically can manage two ups and two downs.
That’s okay. As with any other exercise it doesn’t matter where you start; it’s where
you end up that counts.
The most that I’ve seen done is six ups and downs. You can do these often, and
they’re only productive when you push them hard. Working the wrists and forearms
is much like working the calves. You have to abuse them to make them stronger. I
recommend doing wrist rolls three times a week, at night or on nontraining days.
You’ll never consider them a fun exercise, but if you work them hard enough, they’ll
get the job done.
There are several other exercises that are specific for the wrists and forearms and
work very well. Hammer curls and reverse curls are two of the best and favored by
bodybuilders because they add size to the forearms. Hammer curls are performed
with your thumbs up, so you must do them with dumbbells. Reverse curls, on the
other hand, can be done with dumbbells, a straight bar, or an EZ-curl bar. I prefer a
bar because you can use more weight.
Wrist curls are another favorite of strongmen and bodybuilders and have been since
Milo lifted that calf. There are two ways to do them—palms up and palms down. You
can do them one arm at a time with a dumbbell or together with a straight or EZ-
curl bar.
I’ll start with the straight bar. Sit on the edge of a chair or bench with your palms up.
Place your forearms on top of your quads with your wrists extended over your
knees. Grip the bar tightly and bend your wrists as far down as you can while
keeping your forearms snug to your thighs. From there curl the bar upward as high
as you can. Keep doing this motion until your wrists and forearms are screaming for
you to stop.
Now switch so that your palms are down, and do the same up-and-down motion.
Do three sets, to limit, and either add weight or increase your reps each time you do
them. Don’t increase it by much, however. Five more pounds and/or a couple of reps
is enough.
After you’ve been doing the palms-up version for a few weeks, try this: Instead of
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maintaining a tight grip on the bar, let your fingers open, and roll the bar down
them until you can just barely hold on. Then curl your fingers back together, and
complete the curling motion. This subtle, extra move forces your wrists and forearms
to work even harder, which in return results in more strength.
If you choose to use dumbbells for wrist curls, set your elbow on one knee and your
palm on the other to form a bridge. Hold the dumbbell across the back of your
bracing hand and commence to do the exercise. Then switch over and do the palms-
down version of the movement. By doing these with dumbbells, you will quickly
discover which wrist is the weakest. Add a couple of extra reps or even another set
for the weaker wrist, and in a few months it will be up to par.
Another productive exercise for your wrists and forearms involves locking a weight
to the end of a short bar. An adjustable dumbbell bar is okay for starters, but as you
get stronger, a longer bar works better. Hold the bar by the side of your leg with the
weight hanging straight down. Elevate the bar upward with your wrist and forearm
until it’s pointing up, and then slowly lower it to the starting position. Repeat until
you’re no longer able to raise the weight vertically.
A variation of that exercise is to let your arm move freely and bring the weight
upward in a few different angles. That works the muscles of your forearm and wrist a
bit more than when your arm stays snug to your side. Try both versions, and see
which makes you work harder. Harder is always a good thing.
Do these for three sets per arm, and slowly but steadily add reps and/or resistance.
A popular wrist and forearm exercise in the York Gym was the weaver stick. It was
also a test of strength. The weaver stick is a six-foot length of broomstick, with a
short piece of clothesline and a weight attached at the other end. Just as in the
previous exercise, you lock your arm next to your leg, and bring the stick up to a
horizontal position.
Vern Weaver, Val Vasilef, Ernie Pickett, Bob Bednarski, Bill March and John Grimek
were all exceptionally strong, but no one could match Steve Stanko. Whatever a
challenger did, Steve always did five or 10 pounds more.
Hand grippers used to be very popular with those wanting greater gripping
strength, and they still work—as does the old tried-and-true method of squeezing a
rubber ball. I found that a ball of trainer’s tape works as well. The nice thing about
squeezing a rubber something is that you can do it just about anywhere—while
driving, or waiting in the dentist’s office, or watching TV or even while reading.
So there are plenty of exercises for you to choose from if you want to improve your 56
wrist and forearm strength. Pick out one or two, and work them hard. Keep in mind
that some laborers work their forearms for eight hours a day, and the results are very
obvious.
LatestMarch 10, 2016
A Unique Look at Building Calves

Bill Starr
Any athletes who are interested in getting stronger to become more proficient in
their chosen sport or sports understand the importance of having strong calves. Yet
many assume they can accomplish that through all the running and jumping they do
when they practice and compete. So when they weight train, they only work the
larger muscles of their legs and neglect the smaller groups. In many instances,
however, it’s the smaller muscles that make the difference between achieving at a
higher level and mediocrity.
Soccer is a good example. Seldom do soccer players bother doing any specialized
exercises for their calves. They reason that all the running they do is more than
enough to keep them plenty strong. That’s true, up to a point. One of the most
valuable skills in that sport is heading the ball. In order to gain the advantage over
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an opponent, you must be able to outjump him or her. The ability to leap high is
directly dependent on leg strength, and it’s the calves that provide the extra few
inches of jump height.
Many sports rely heavily on strong calves. Basketball and volleyball are the two most
obvious, along with the long jump and high jump. In swimming, calves are
responsible for getting a powerful start off the blocks and when making turns. The
tennis players who can jump high and move around the court more quickly have a
definite advantage. Strong calves are assets in football, baseball, lacrosse, all the
throwing events and the pole vault.
They are also critical to strength athletes who include dynamic movements in their
programs as well as those who compete in Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting.
When doing explosive lifts—power cleans, power snatches, full snatches, full cleans
and push or split jerks—you must extend high on your toes for a strong finish.
Stronger calves, stronger finish.
Powerlifters usually avoid doing any specific calf exercises. As they don’t have to
extend high on their toes for any of the three contested lifts, they conclude that
there isn’t any reason to spend time working their calves directly.
What they fail to understand is that they need strong calves to establish a solid
foundation for every exercise done while standing, including squats and deadlifts.
I’ve convinced a number of powerlifters to add calf raises to their routines, and to
their delight and surprise, they increased their deadlifts by as much as 20 pounds in
a month.
We use our calves every day in a wide range of activities, from walking and climbing
stairs to a pickup game of basketball and lifting weights. We tend to take them for
granted. That is, until we injure one or both of them. Then we suddenly realize how
much we depend on them for all physical activities.
It’s important to understand the anatomy of the calf muscles in order to set up a
strength program for them. There are two groups that make up the calves: the
gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius is the larger of the two and the
one most associated with the calf. It has an inner and outer head and when
developed, gives the back of the lower leg a pleasing, round shape. The
gastrocnemius originates above the knee at the condyles of the femur, which is the
thighbone, and extends downward to help form the Achilles tendon.
The soleus is smaller and less well known than its bigger brother, but it’s equally as
important to overall calf strength. It lies directly behind the gastrocnemius, 58
originates below the knee at the posterior surfaces of the tibia and fibula, the two
bones of the lower leg, and extends downward also to become part of the Achilles
tendon.
The two muscles work in concert, not independent of one another, forming a
functional unit called the triceps surae. Even so, the key to strengthening the calves
is to know they have to be worked differently because of their places of origin. The
gastrocnemius is only worked effectively when the knees are locked, so you need to
exercise the gastrocs on a standing calf machine.
In contrast, the soleus is only worked when the knees are bent, so you must exercise
them on the seated calf machine. In other words, if you really want your calves to
get considerably stronger, you must do both forms of calf raises.
One thing that’s critical for everyone about doing calf raises: You have to push them
to the extreme. Staying in the comfort zone just doesn’t get it done. That’s because
the calves are weight-bearing muscles, so you have to work them strenuously to get
them to respond.
The program that I’ve used for years and give to my athletes is one I learned from
bodybuilders at the Muscle Beach Gym in Santa Monica in the early ’70s. A warmup
set followed by three sets of 30 reps. These are done in quick fashion with stretching
after every set.
The first time I did the program, I couldn’t walk properly for a week and knew I’d
found a good one.
The amount of weight you use for the work sets depends on your strength level, but
the rule for calf raises is the same for everyone. When you get to the 20th rep, your
calves should be screaming for you to stop. You must ignore them and knock out 10
more. That’s how you get your calves to grow and become much stronger. You must
abuse them.
The warmup set should be done with a moderate weight to prepare the muscles for
the upcoming demanding sets.
Form is critical. You must do each and every rep precisely. Both up and down
movements need to be full-range and done in a smooth, rhythmic manner. No
herky-jerky movements or rebounding out of the bottom. Keep in mind that when
you do standing calf raises, you must keep your knees locked. Otherwise, you’re
defeating the purpose of the exercise.
I’ve watched some show-offs who stacked as many plates as possible on the 59
machine, often with some added to the top, and proceeded to do a set of what
appeared to be quarter squats. If they wanted to work their quads, they would be
better off just squatting or using the leg press.
Some also cheat on the seated calf machine. They pull with all their might on the
handles to help them when the going gets tough. That’s counterproductive. If you
want your calves to get bigger and stronger, make the target muscle do all the work.
Be absolutely sure to stretch your calves immediately after each set—and that
includes the warmup. Stretching more at night after a calf workout is also a smart
idea. Another note: Always do calf raises at the very end of your program. After a
calf workout avoid any running or jumping. Before the workout is fine; after is not.
One final idea to help you maximize your gains. Change your foot positions on each
set. Do your exercises with toes straight forward, toes outward and toes inward. The
slight variation enables you to hit all parts of the muscles and results in more
complete development.
How often athletes do calf raises depends on what they’re trying to accomplish and
how important the calves are in their sport. During the off-season basketball and
volleyball players can benefit from doing calf raises three times a week. In season
once or twice a week is enough. Calves are like abs, they can take a great deal of
work. If your calves are not sore the day after you train them, you didn’t work them
hard enough. The often-used maxim “No pain, no gain” really does hold true when it
comes to training calves. —Bill Starr
March 31, 2016
Hammer Your Hamstrings

60
Bill Starr
I’ve often talked about the importance of maintaining a balance of strength among
the various muscle groups. That means paying attention to how all the muscles in
your body are responding to the exercises in your program. This article deals with
the relationship between the quadriceps and the hamstrings, also known as the leg
biceps.
The hamstrings form the rear of the upper leg and consist of a long and short
head—the magnus, semitendinosus and semimembranosus. The long head is also
called the biceps femoris. It splits into two branches and inserts at the tibia and the
fibula, the two bones that make up the lower leg. That tells us that the hamstrings
overlap the knee joint, which in turn means they are responsible for stabilizing the
back of the knee.
While hamstring development is beneficial to all athletes, it is absolutely essential to

those who play contact sports. Powerful hamstrings help to protect the knees when
they are hit hard, and they are needed for lateral, forward and backward quickness,
applying a burst of speed and also for endurance. The ability to leap higher is
dependant on having strong hamstrings, and the power created by the calves and
other muscles of the lower legs must pass up through the hamstrings. If the
hamstrings are relatively weak, that upward thrust will be hampered.
In order to protect the knees and to keep from pulling the hamstrings, you want to
make sure that they never fall too far behind the quads in terms of strength.
Neglecting the hamstrings can have dire consequences. If any antagonistic muscle 61
group falls too far behind its opposite number and that group is placed under undo
stress, an injury will occur. Pulled hamstrings are one of the most common injuries in
sports. They are not only very painful to endure but also very difficult to rehabilitate.
I only hurt my hamstrings once during my lifting career, but it took forever to bring
that leg back to normal.
The ideal strength ratio between antagonistic muscles is often vague, but in the case
of the hamstrings and the quads, it’s exact. It was determined a long time ago by
those who studied applied anatomy that the hamstring should be at least 50 percent
as strong as the quads. I believe it’s smart to make them even stronger than that. An
ounce of prevention.
Few can meet that requirement, especially those just starting out on a strength
program. Even those who have been training for some time often display relatively
weak hamstrings. Hamstrings are, in fact, a generally neglected group. Why is that?
Several reasons.
One is that they are located in the rear of the leg, so they’re not nearly as visible as
the other parts. Out of sight, out of mind. People respond favorably when they can
see the muscles work during an exercise. They can check out their quads while
squatting, lunging and when they’re working them on a leg extension machine. Not
so with the hams. Even when they do include an exercise aimed at the hams, they
usually do it with lighter weights as an auxiliary movement.
The disparity in strength between the two groups occurs in nearly all beginners
because they have developed their quads to a much higher degree than their hams
from the running and jumping they’ve done in other sports and activities. The only
group of athletes who come to the weight room with well-developed hams are
volleyball players—a direct result of all the squatting they do when setting, digging
and leaping.
For those who have been training for some time, the primary reason that their hams
do not meet the standard of being 50 percent as strong as their quads is that they
do not go low enough on squats. Doing partial squats increases the strength
disparity between the two groups since the quads do 80 percent of the work.
How can you determine if your hams are half as strong as your quads? Do a set of
leg extensions for 20 reps with as much weight as you can handle. Now do a set of
leg curls with half that resistance. Few can do 20 reps. Some only manage eight or
10. Time to start hammering hamstrings.
If you haven’t been going low on squats, start doing so right away. At the same time
62
add either good mornings or almost-straight-legged deadlifts to your routine.
They’re the two best exercises for strengthening your hams. In the May and June
’13 issues of IRON MAN, I went into detail on the specifics of technique and
programming. Now I just want to emphasize the importance of really learning one of
those two exercises. That’s the only way to bring up your hams to where they’re in
balance with the quads.
Almost-straight-legged deadlifts will help you build more strength in your hams
than good mornings simply because you can use more weight, but you must
hammer them. To achieve and maintain proportionate strength between the two
groups, you must use 75 percent of what you squat for eight reps on almost-
straight-legged deadlifts. So someone who squats 400 pounds is looking at doing
300 for eight. While that may seem unrealistic, it isn’t. Keep in mind that this is a
goal to strive for and not something that’s done in the first month of training. It
might take six to eight months to accomplish, but from that point on, it’s rather easy
to maintain the percentage of using 75 percent of what you squat on this exercise.
For good mornings the formula is one-half of your best squat for eight reps. So our
400-pound squatter will finish his workout doing good mornings with 200 pounds
for eight. As the squat moves up, so does the good morning.
Lunges are another excellent exercise for strengthening the hams. I really like them
for athletes because they force both legs to work equally hard. That isn’t always the
case for squats. Many lifters have adapted to shifting more of the load to their
stronger leg when the going gets tough on squats. You can’t do that on lunges. As
with the squats, however, you must do lunges fully. The trailing leg should be
straight and almost touching the floor. Plus, you need to do them as a primary
exercise, not an ancillary movement. That means working them hard and heavy.
Leg curls, on the other hand, are an ancillary exercise, and they can be most
beneficial in helping to strengthen the hamstrings. Do the leg curls at the end of
your workout, and vary the reps each time you do them: three sets of 20, three sets
of 15 and three sets of 10. Push the final set to the absolute max. If your hams aren’t
screaming for relief, you didn’t work hard enough. If you know that one leg is
weaker than the other, do six extra reps for that leg on every set.
When you make your hamstrings stronger, you will improve on all your lifts that use
the legs. You will also greatly increase your foot speed, endurance and leaping
ability. Perhaps most important of all, you will reduce the risk of injuring your
hams—and avoid a lot of pain and time spent rebuilding them. —Bill Starr
63

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Bill Starr's Articles From Iron Man Magazine

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