It is important to have a goal while hitting the weight pile, but the hard part is having the knowledge and tools to achieve that goal. You can go in and train balls out for two hours, but if you don’t have a well thought out plan you will never reach your size and strength goals. Having a plan is the difference between “exercising” and “training.”
Holistic Training
The idea of holistic training is nothing new. And despite its name, it is not some new-age crystal waving approach to training. Holistic training simply means that you train all different parts of the muscle cell.
The muscle cell is a very intricate unit. No single mode of training can adequately force adaptive developments in all parts of the muscle cell. If only one element of the muscle cell is trained (ex. Hypertrophy) other parts of the cell remain unchanged after training. Therefore, in order to maximize cell size a host of different stressors must be thrown at the muscle cell. This is the basic idea of holistic training. Holistic training looks at the whole cell rather than just parts of it.
Holistic training is not some cockamamie scheme thought up by a skinny-fat TV trainer. This is science folks. Dr. Fred Hatfield’s seminal bodybuilding book “Bodybuilding: A Scientific Approach” is a great reference for those who want to know more about effective training approach.
How To Train Holistically
A trained bodybuilder’s muscle cells are around 50% bigger than they were prior to training. But with holistic training you can increase that number to 70%! That means a lot of lifters are leaving a lot of size “on the table.” With holistic training, the parts of the muscle cell that contribute most to overall size are trained the most. But one must remember that all parts of the cell contribute to greater overall size.
To holistically train the cell you must throw different stimuli at it to sufficiently activate the entire cell. If you go in every workout and do 4 sets of 12, only one component of the cell is being trained.
You must train high reps, low reps, long slow reps, and fast explosive reps. The idea of holistic training is both a long-term and short-term concept. Meaning, throughout the entire training year this concept should be applied. But it also means that we have “holistic workouts” where we work all components of the muscle cell in one workout.
Training for strength, size, and explosive power must all be woven together to create a holistic training program that will culminate in a bigger, stronger you.
Sample Holistic Workout for Upper Body
The holistic training day is ultra high intensity. For this reason, only perform a holistic workout every 7-10 days. This workout is performed straight through from exercise to exercise in one big giant set consisting of 10-12 sets, with no rest. Rest 3-5 minutes in between giant sets, perform two giant sets. Weights can be lowered 5-10 pounds for each set to compensate for the fatigue induced.
