If someone tells you that they can add 100lbs to your bench, squat, and deadlift in 3-weeks, you immediately think this person is ...
A) a liar
B) about to inject you with some high grade "roids"
C) the greatest coach on earth
After implementing "The Holy Grail of Strength" program, people thought I was all 3.
Unfortunately, I am none of the above.
(Except for maybe (C), but I am way too humble to actually put that in writing on the internet.)
Now that the sarcastic part is over, let's get right down to business.
The Holy Grail of Strength left you with questions.
This article should leave you with a few answers.
Question: How did a survey you sent out relate to the creation of the Holy Grail of Strength?
Answer: A few months ago I sent out a survey asking all former and present members of Advanced Training to stack rank what they felt was most important in a training program.
Despite their non-stop griping to me about early training times and lack of body building exercises, their #1 focus was really on getting strong. (Figure 1)
Once I saw this, I knew I needed to implement the Holy Grail of Strength.
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| Figure 1 |
Question: How did you know that people actually got so much stronger? Was there a pre-test and a post-test?
Answer: If you want to gauge success in anything, you must make it measurable. So yes, there was a pre-test and a post-test.
- The pre-test had each athlete find a weight they could bench, squat, and deadlift 10x.
- The post-test had each athlete find a weight they could bench, squat, and deadlift 10x.
If the tests seem the same, it's because they are. They are supposed to be.
The only difference was the weight used.
Here is an example of one of our athlete's (Nick Carroll) pre and post-test results.
Pre-test:
- Bench: 145 x 10 --> Estimated 195lb max
- Squat: 205 x 10 --> Estimated 275lb max
- Deadlift: 285 x 10 --> Estimated 380lb max
Post-test
- Bench: 160 x 10 --> Estimated 215lb max (20lb increase)
- Squat: 265 x 10 --> Estimated 355lb max (80lb increase)
- Deadlift: 315 x 10 --> Estimated 420lb max (40lb increase)
Because we have nothing to hide, I have provided a list of every athlete who completed their pre and post testing. (Figure 2).
These gains are nothing short of incredible ... You're welcome Winter Training Class of 2015.
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| Figure 2: |
For the haters, don't waste your time telling me a 10-rep max is not a true max.
I get it.
But we had to use the same rep-scheme before and after to ensure the testing was consistent.
Question: What tool did you use to calculate the max?
Answer: I used the same formula every other meat head in the nation uses, but debates when the results don't match their ego.
If you don't have access to the formula, just go to this site from BodyBuilding.Com
For those of you that are astute, you will see the irony here...
In the next article, I will answer the 3 remaining questions you had.
1. What was the exact program used for the experimental group?
2. Did anyone hit the wall early (Not get 2 sets of 5) and if so, what did you do?
3. How can you turn this 3 week program into a 16 week program?
Related Articles:
The Holy Grail of Strength
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