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Getting stronger, more aesthetic and improving your performance doesn’t have to come from slogging it out day in day out. In fact, high volume “muscle magazine” training can actually be detrimental to your goals and a minimalist style of training can be extremely beneficial.

Wave loading is a training technique that originates from Eastern Europe. It varies the loading to allow adaptation to the stimulus and thus; improves performance. It can be used during a session, over the course of the week and long-term as well. This article will give examples of all three methods of wave loading.

I often get asked what are the best sets and reps for strength training. And although I think you can do any number of set and rep schemes and get good results (it’s more about how use them and how you progress those schemes) so here are the ones that I find myself coming back to the most!

The Texas Method is a great program created by Mark Rippetoe for intermediate lifters who need more variation on their loading to make progress. It is aimed at improving your 5RM on the Squat, Bench Press and Military Press and uses a hard, easy and medium weekly cycle to allow progression.

Yes its true, gone are the days when your coach writes on the board 5×5 or 3×10. Now its all about AMRAPs and EMOMs! But there is a reason, so long as you are lifting a moderately heavy weight, use a decent total volume and there is a progression model built in you will adapt and get stronger or bigger.

In my recent interview with strength coach Dan John he said that “if all you had were rings, kettlebells and barbells you could do amazing things and bring your athletes up to a pretty high level faster”. Thanks to the popularity of CrossFit all of that equipment is available easily and affordably and has lead to an increase in garage gyms.

Here is some classic old school strength advice that I stumbled upon. I don’t remember where I first saw these?! I think it was an article with Jim Wendler or Dave Tate. But anyway, it doesn’t matter its some excellent and simple training recommendations that would be a great start for any lifter.

In last weeks blog post where I spoke about simplifying how we program and train, my aim was to do just that. Unfortunately it may have confused people! I’ve had a few questions about how to put this in place and for specific examples. So, here is a quick example of simple periodisation for you to think about!

I often get asked what are the best sets and reps for strength training. And although I think you can do any number of set and rep schemes and get good results (it’s more about how use them and how you progress those schemes) so here are the ones that I find myself coming back to the most!