That would be real old school. Every person I knew who was a serious lifter trained some kind of a split starting in 1971 and going forward through 1997.
I will admit that from 1968 (when I first started lifting weights) until 1970 that most everyone in college trained the same every workout. I must not suggest that anyone did leg training with weights to what anyone would call “training legs.”
Reg Park era onwards… 5 x 5… still love that one. Gironda had his 8 x 8… I do a hybrid strength / conditioning style one and still do grappling / mma stuff. Always trying to find the balance… The Grail !
I like volume. And I like Reg Park and his methods.
I was never concerned about “the balance.” The Grail was being the best I could be on stage with absolutely no regard how imbalanced my life became (within certain constraints that were financially necessary to achieving the best I could be.)
I know that sounds irresponsible, but it was what it was. To deny that, would be a lie.
Ha… I actually respect that attitude. My life has no balance… anger, rage, training, misanthropy and feeding my cats salmon as my only good deed
This will be the exact story of how I tear all the ligaments in my knee.
Well, to be clear, I don’t know what bro-science is either. I never heard the word until I joined T-Nation.
We all knew there was no science to support anything we tried to get bigger, stronger, or better body composition. We never pretended that there was. I never even heard anyone say “bro.”
I now regret using a word that I assumed that I knew what it meant.
Bahahaha…
Here’s my definition per Google and exactly in the context I use it
Broscience involves sharing anecdotes or advice, presented as facts but with no scientific basis . The term is most common in the body-building community, associated with muscular men imparting unproven and untrue tactics about training and eating to bicep wannabes.
So we were both right. Cheers.
I wouldn’t sweat it. In a bit of irony, much like how broscience is based upon non-scientifically backed evidence, the word itself is not an officially defined word, and is often just used to slander the opposition in a debate.
Often, I find “bro science” means “science I don’t agree with”
Bro science to me hypothesizing what might work, testing things out, measuring results, sharing and watching duplication. It’s not a double blind, placebo controlled environment with clinical outcome measurement so it’s bro, but still science really.
And often times, science has studied results and reverse engineered the why vs leading it.
I disagree about the untrue part being applied to all of bro-science. Some of it works despite the lack of scientific rigour. Much of it is, however, unadulterated bullshy^te.
Like I said earlier… at times the bro’s were…ironically…correct… but not for reasons they thought. Even some of the most respected pro’s…Dorian, Ronnie, Jay… were unequivocally wrong in their training approaches.
I wish that I could have pulled off “wrong” as well as they did.
DB bench press, flat
Lateral raises, all styles
Neutral chin up (or slight supination if you have the diagonal handle)
DB row (even if I didnt do them for quite a long time)
DB hammer curls (even if I do them less now because of tendonitis)
Barbell skull crushers
Zercher squats (I fill the rest of my leg days with machines that dont get me injured)
The question “if you could choose only one” always come back but choosing one single exercise for a body part doesnt make sense to me.
I think your two best exercises for a muscle group would be the most important, you could do very well with two but not with one. It would always be very subpar whatever your pick is.
I would be 100% comfortable to do a routine with only these two exercises per body part, and the gains would probably be almost as good (but I wouldnt try it out just to see)
DB flat bench press, Incline barbell bench
Lateral raises, DB shoulder press
Neutral chin up, straight arm cable rope pushdown
DB rows, bent over barbell row
DB hammer curls, heavy standing barbell curls
Barbell skull crushers, cable rope pushdown
Zercher squats, lunges
Leg curls, romanian deadlifts
Of course this question has been asked before, but I did it since the last time was 2018 and things change. The first time this was asked in 2001, the answers were very “meat and potatoes power lifts” and did not include machines and especially the much derided Smith.
I agree one exercise per part is never optimal. Two well chosen probably approaches maximum benefit. But I enjoy trying new things and a variety of stuff.
Several of my faves are just things I started doing over the last few months after over two decades of lifting.
And no one has mentioned the log viper press. Those folks go to a better gym than I do.
Freak genetics… drugs… did enough right…
I suppose what rubs me most is the hyperbole you use to make a point. “Unequivocally” means in a way that leaves no doubt. You pick three of some of the most successful professional bodybuilders and convincingly state that there is no doubt that they took the wrong approach to training. “No doubt?” By what standard? By the best science? You can be sure that there will be a time when the best science of today will look far from scientific fact. And you can be assured that we have not arrived.
And later you added that they did enough right training to become at the very top of the most prestigious bodybuilding contest in the world. They did enough right, but they were unequivocally wrong in their training approaches. It would seem to me that they did far more right than they did wrong. Sure leaves some doubt to me that they were wrong in their training approaches.
If by wrong you mean that they should have trained any other way for better results, like some reg park shit for example, then you are delusional
Body parts respond differently to different rep set schemes, that depends on many factors
One of the first way a lifter will evolve is gradually steer away from the same blanket uniform set and rep scheme prescription for all exercise like 5x5 and 3x8 and do what he feels works better for each exercise (because it does work better as a part of whatever he’s doing globally)
I am not talking about the scientific theory and anatomy/physiology of muscle fibers which I dont care about and for which I suspect would be different anyway for each body part, like a calve is obviously different, denser and stiffer than a tricep. I am talking about how to work your muscle in reality
Honestly you seem like the kind of guy whose career was lifting here and there mixed with lots grappling and conditioning (this is mutually exclusive)
Probably reliant on AAS without ever becoming a pro bodybuilder (what AAS are meant for, not for reaching an average level with it instead of going nowhere as a natural because your overall execution was not good enough like most) so you wouldnt have a real clue in reality and that is just how you sound.
Not qualified to say how Donnie, Ronnie and Jay are wrong because it’s not even what you do, and even if you did they would still know better because they did it the best
Keep in mind science, for decades, told us extremely inaccurate things about protein intake, around both volume and timing.
People would set alarm clocks to wake up and drink protein around the clock in an effort to keep up, lol.
Turns out the ranchers and farmers moving heavy shit around all day and eating 3 massive meals were on to the something.
The Tom Haviland motherfuckers out there who don’t have a social media presence.
If anything, science would record gym data and draw observed conclusions. So in a sense bros are acting like scientists, just not as structured and without the whole double blind, placebo control set ups.
It’s possible what we have now as official science has done this and consolidated all available info in to best practice but I doubt it.
The fitness industry has a knack for making an amazing new discovery or angle on an old one to market every few years, and the next batch of “best of the best” will work too, but it doesn’t erase the success of plans preceding.
It’s just supplement companies and fitness experts finding a way to keep making money, with a different promise for best results. And the manipulation of science for marketing is unfortunate. Who do I believe more, a company selling training plans for profit in a competitive market or the guy who has the end results and shares how he got there?
And what happens if methodologies conflict?
I personally prefer results to theory.
Science also progresses as it slowly acknowledges, or discards, previously assumed information.
Keep in mind we didn’t have a definition or scientific working knowledge of gravity at one point. Doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. If an apple fell on your head pre-scientific definition, it still fell on your head, and you knew to avoid falling things through experience.
Now we learn how to do that through fairly complicated mathematical computations of why the apple falls, and for 99% of us that doesn’t matter. It just falls. We aren’t physicists. Just people trying to keep things from falling on our heads.