Dan Bell has a Back and Biceps Day

A letter to myself…

Dan Bell trains Back and Biceps every Monday.  Let that roll around your head for the week. 

You think you understand powerlifting.  You have been lifting weights consistently since you were 13 years old.  You have been competing in powerlifting for 12 years, coaching powerlifting for 8 years, and you’ve read as many books on programming, training, coaching as you could.  You’ve been watching powerlifting on YouTube since 2011, the Gods know if you listen to another powerlifting podcaster tell you “It Depends”, and carry on discussing the manipulation of training variables, you’ll probably smash your headphones.   Heck, you even spent 3.5 years trying to teach Helms’ THE Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid to your college students.  

Dan Bell has a Back and Biceps Day, and it’s on Monday, of all the days to train Back and Biceps, blasphemously doing so on International Chest Day.     

You used to preach Big Back = Big Lifts.  You still do, but it never occurred to you that having a back and biceps day was an optimal option for powerlifting.  How could it be optimal if it isn’t training one of the Big 3?  With all your beliefs on the benefits of specific sport practice, how could it be?  Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to spread that Back and Biceps work over the training week?  That way you could use that time on Monday for some of your SBD work, in theory putting more space, time, physical recovery, psychological rest, food, sleep, etc., in between your practice sessions, therefore improving the quality of all that work. This has been applied in your own training and with your clients by telling them to train their upper back every single training session, if nothing else, you will have a big back at the end of the day. 

But, Dan Bell has a Back and Biceps Day, and Dan Bell has a 2606 total. 

Clearly there is a hole in my thinking.  If all your upper back work is coming at the end of the training session, how can you be sure that the same amount of energy, and focused intent, is going into that work?  Heck, you already know that people skip this stuff all the time.  If people are completing it, you have probably already smashed them with SBD volume.  You have even told clients “You just need to get it in.” 

Let’s dive into that a little bit.  Research would support that, if number of hard sets per week are matched, the outcomes of having a specific day to train back and biceps, verses spreading all your back and biceps work over the week at the end of your Squat, Bench, and/or Deadlift sessions, should yield very similar or the same training outcomes.  One can argue, and I have, that spreading all the work out over the training week would be more effective because in between each individual exercise there is more rest, food, sleep, recovery, and hopefully adaptation.  Now that I have written this out, I think the research supports similar if not the same hypertrophy outcomes, and I probably misapplied and assumed it would yield similar strength outcomes.  But strength is intensity dependant.  The weight on the bar matters when it comes to creating a stimulus that will illicit strength adaptations.  So, if all your direct upper back training comes at the end of your training sessions, there is more mental and physical fatigue, lower focus, and lower intent.  If this leads to lower weights on the bar over time.  Strength outcomes will be negatively impacted.

You remember Bill Kaz talking about how he could tell how strong someone was just by looking at the size of their back.  You remember watching Konstantin Konstantinovs rock out 50+ pullups as a 125kgs competitor. 

You remember watching Kroc Single Arm Row 250lbs for 15+ reps. 

Who can forget Big Ronnie doing Barbell Rows with every plate in MetroFlex. 

Well, of course Dan Bell has a Back and Biceps Day…

That is this year’s niche secret to all the powerlifting gainz.  I know what I am adding to all my client training next week.  I’ve already created the buy-in needed by rambling out this blog.  Barndoor Back Season. 

Queue more Yates Rows.