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One of the biggest mistakes people make in their training is thinking that they need to jump to the
greatest extremes. Taking your body to the extremes of training stress too early can rob you of easy progress and create premature plateaus.

Most trainees in the first year of their training need little to no advanced training techniques. The most important thing you can develop as a young trainee is your ability to contract the muscle and have disciplined form. Once you do this, increasing your volume and frequency in small increments is enough of a change in stimulus to make consistent progress.

Most people jump to increasing their training volume and frequency and seek out advanced programs because they seek faster results. When in reality the reason they are not getting quality progress is they have not yet mastered the basic movements and contractions needed to make progress. Super-setting one exercise with another is pointless if you are not executing them properly and fully contracting the muscle. Adding increased sets and reps that are poorly performed will not drastically improve progress, and can actually set you back over time.

Training is an expensive endeavor nutritionally. The greater the volume, frequency, and intensity, the greater the cost. It’s in your best interest to get the most bang out of your nutritional buck so to speak. The body responds to very minimal stimulus when you first start training. As it adapts, greater stimulus must be applied, but slowly and progressively over time. There is no reason to go from doing 8 sets per bodypart to 20, when you could get great progress increasing to 10 or 12.

The key to progress is execution first. This is true for new and advanced trainees alike. Get the most out of the reps you are doing before you start increasing the amount of inflammation, acid, and cortisol you create. This is why the primer programs for MI40 & MI40-X for example are so crucial to the results you get. This is why it is so important that you watch and study the exercise videos and practice the contractions. Every rep you perform will either be reinforcing the mind muscle connection you want, or a recruitment pattern you do not want.

When do I start incorporating advanced training methods?

After you have mastered the muscular contraction, it is safe to start looking for ways to increase the stimulus of your training. The first step is to simply increase the number of sets in your training sessions. The second is to increase the frequency at which you train as your ability to recover improves. When your progress begins to slow with those type of adjustments, it’s time to start increasing the output of your training with advanced training methods.

Examples methods of increased output methods in progression are:

• Drop Sets
• Super-Sets
• NOS Sets
• Tri-Sets
• NOS-X Sets
• Giant Sets
• CS6-Sets

If you have been lifting for years and have a good athletic background, you may progress really fast. It may be a matter of weeks before you are ready to move into advanced training methods.  You may have already done some in the past, but were you really doing them optimally and contracting the target muscle? Be honest with yourself. If you are just starting to lift weights, take your time, many people still benefit from straight set methods for the first 6 months-year of training without slowing down. The goals of training are the results: the gains in strength, muscle mass, and performance. It is not a race to who is doing the hardest, sickest workout. There are a ton of guys doing ridiculously complicated and difficult workout programs, and making zero progress.

It may seem cool to post some gut wrenching workout routine on your Facebook page or Instagram, but you can not fool your body into progress with poor execution of difficult programs.  Your workouts are only as advanced as your execution, no matter how complex or grueling they may be. Progress through increasingly more difficult training methods only once you have mastered the previous.

Take steps back

Another important strategy is working backwards. It is important to progress in your training consistently, but also know that progress yis not always linear, and if you keep going up and up, eventually you will run out of room to grow fast. There comes a point where you just can’t increase the stimulus any more. This is why it is important to take steps back.

The best time to back down a few levels is after taking a some time off, or perhaps during a high stress or busy period. You will often find that your body actually adapts really well to going back to simple training every now and then. Your recovery will be very good, your contractions will stay strong and intense, and you will still make progress. There is no definitive way to cycle training, but it is important that you do. Change the type of stimulus you are going for and vary your advanced training methods with simple hard work, volume and frequency. Fight the egotistical need to always be doing the most advanced method and instead focus on quality of work. Earn and learn the right to use advanced methods. The results will come faster and more consistently over time, I promise.