Muscle Group Specialization Cycles: Why and How – Part 2

In part 1 of this article I cover the why, as I went through the pertinent information as to when higher volumes might be necessary, and I hinted that logistically specialization cycles might be the best way to safely achieve them. As a brief recap, plateaued poor responders and plateaued advanced lifters might want to consider a higher volume approach (in opinion, defined as 20 sets per muscle group or higher) if everything else is in order (nutrition, technique, effort, exercise selection, sleep, stress etc.). Also, since I wrote Part 1, the soon-to-be-published study exploring very high volumes in trained lifters lead by Schoenfeld and colleagues that I referenced is now published for those interested. This article is all about the how: the process of constructing these cycles.

Now first to give credit where it’s due, this is by no means a new concept. Lyle McDonald suggested this approach long ago, Berto was successfully using this approach with our lifters nearly a decade ago, and James Krieger most recently suggested it based on the logistics of achieving the kind of volumes that might be necessary. I’m not claiming intellectual ownership of the concept, rather I just want to provide some creative program design solutions to this problem.

So first, let’s establish some basic guidelines. In my experience, practically it’s difficult to focus on more than two muscle groups at a time, while everything else is shifted to a lower volume/frequency. With that generality stated, I’ll show how someone with more or less average volume tolerances might adopt a specialization cycle.

First let’s start with a basic template using an upper lower split, 4 days per week, then let’s focus on 1 major upper body muscle group/action and one major lower body muscle group/action. Then, let’s set up three 3-week microcycles: 1) pushing and quads/glutes; 2) pulling and hams/glutes; 3) arms and calves. This ends up as a 9-week mesocycle after which you can adjust exercise selection, rep ranges here and there and evaluate how it went.

To preempt a few questions, the reason glutes are in both of the first two cycles is that every squat pattern (front, high bar, low bar, BSS, leg press, lunge etc.) primarily hits the glutes and quads as the hips and knees extend and the hams are only minimally involved so as to transfer force without opposing the quads. The nature of the human body is that the glutes are involved in a lot of movements. Also, I want to point out that the calves/arms cycle serves as a natural recovery/transition/deload period as all the compound lift, multi joint exercises volume is lowered while you perform more isolation work that is inherently less fatiguing.

Here’s what it looks like:

Push & Quad/Glute 3-week Microcycle – upper pulling sets: 9 upper pushing sets: 22 Biceps: 12 (25% direct) triceps: 18 (17% direct) Quad sets: 18 Glute sets: 14 Ham sets: 9 Calves: 6 sets

Pull & Glute/Ham 3-week Microcycle – upper pulling sets: 22 upper pushing sets: 9 Biceps: 17 (18% direct) triceps: 12 (25% direct) Quad sets: 9 Glute sets: 17 Ham sets: 18 Calves: 6 sets

Arms & Calves 3-week Microcycle – upper pulling sets: 12 upper pushing sets: 12 Biceps: 20 (40% direct) triceps: 20 (40% direct) Quad sets: 12 Glute sets: 12 Ham sets: 12 Calves: 16 sets

 Notes:

1. Choose movements that don’t cause pain, feel free to use different or the same movements when the same “slot” is listed on multiple days.
2. Choose any rep range for each slot in the 6-20 range, but appropriate for the movement. For example, probably not 6-8 on bent over barbell rows as you’ll cheat and do subpar reps and create lumbar fatigue that bleeds into leg day, and probably not 15-20 on squats as you’ll spend 20 minutes trying not to yack and the rest of session will be low quality.
3. Maintain the same rep range within the microcycle and try to just progress load at the same reps, or progress reps at the same load within the target range.
4. When carrying the same exercises into the next microcycle you can either keep the same rep range and try to make small incremental progress or change rep ranges to progress in.
5. Keep the same movements for the 9-week mesocycle (although some will go away when those target body parts aren’t being specialized) unless they cause pain, then swap out. Use BFR for Leg and arm isolation work if you get even hints of tendinitis.
6. If you know (from previous experience showing this level of volume was not producing progress, in a surplus, with great form, at an appropriate effort level, while sleeping 8+ hours a day) that you need more volume than this, you have three options of increasing severity:
   1. Add a few more sets to a few of the exercises for each specialized muscle group.
   2. Add a fifth day doing additional training for the two specialized muscle groups.
   3. Run this setup 6 days per week with 2 balanced days in the day 3-4 slot and specialized days in the 1-2 and 5-6 slots. WARNING THIS WILL CRUSH MOST MORTALS AND IS LIKELY NOT ONLY NOT NEEDED IN 90% OF CASES BUT MAY DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD. Only do this if advanced, have a high-volume tolerance, for a time restricted period and if you are robust to injury.

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