Serge Nubret Workout Template For Lifting

I often see guys at the gym using way more weight than me. Some of them are bigger, but surprisingly, most of them are not. Last time I trained at the gym, I finished my workout with 35lbs barbell curls. In the meanwhile, there was a guy next to me curling double of my weight.

Serge Nubret's Workout Plan. To accomplish his classic physique Serge actually didn't lift heavy weights. He lifted moderate weights for higher reps and high volume. For example, he always did 6 or more sets of 12 reps, using a weight for the first set he could likely lift for 20 reps. The primary goal of his routine is to force as.

That guy was significantly smaller than me. This made me think about the first few years of my training where I believed that you can only grow by lifting heavy.

Back then, I would often be the guy at the gym who was deadlifting the most weight. When I saw ripped guys train next to me with half of my weight, I thought “he probably has great, since he can train with baby weights and look like that”. Then, one day, I looked at my progress pictures from my first few years of training and I was VERY disappointed., but I didn’t look any better. Therefore, it was time for a change in my training.

During my search for new ways to train I stumbled upon this fella called Serge Nubret Serge Nubret’s 3 Training Principles Serge Nubret was one of the top 3 bodybuilders in the world in 1972-1975. He had very wide shoulders and a narrow waist, weighing a shredded 200lbs at 6 feet of height. In 2006, Serge shared all his bodybuilding advice on the. The topic got almost 12,000 responses, and it’s a very interesting read. After reading through many of his comments, I found that he relied on 3 interesting training principles, which went completely against my beliefs at that time: • is overrated – your body can adapt to a lot more than you think.

Serge trained for +2 hours a day, 6 days a week and did abs every morning for cardio. • The amount of weight you lift doesn’t matter. What matters is how you lift the weight. Serge always used light weights and focused on contracting his muscles.

• Your muscles grow better from doing a lot of sets and reps with low rest between sets, because that enables you to keep a great pump throughout your whole training session. Serge would do 42-72 sets per training session with 30-60 seconds rest between sets.

In other words, he was an advocate of pump training done until your muscles are completely trashed, which was the exact opposite of what I was doing. His arm routine consisted of 32 sets and 384 reps! I have tried his several times, and I was forced to use 15 lbs dumbbells for biceps to complete it.

In the first few sets you think that his workout is a joke, but once you reach the end of the supersets, your arms will have such an intense burn, that you will want to quit. The only question is: will you give up, or keep going?

Oskar, Love that I found your site recently. I started lifting more seriously about seven years ago (I was 26 at the time). I did starting strength and saw noob gains, but I plateaued after a very short time. If I ate a ton of food, I could get my weights to go up, but then I’d find myself disappointed when two days later I’d have to drop the weight by 10 pounds!

Even worse, I injured my back on many occasions while trying to increase my squat. Every time that would happen I would reset to bar weight and focus heavily on form. Inevitably, I would injure myself again once I got close to my max weight.

Workouts started being just another stress to add to my life. I would literally sweat and get tense just thinking about going to the gym. Eventually, I moved over to 5-3-1 and had some moderate success with that, but once again I plateaued and injured myself. The worst part is that through all of this, I had little aesthetic development. Recently, I decided to start a new program based on a cycle of four weeks. Week 1: sets of 15 reps, low weight; Week 2: sets of 12 reps, med weight; Week 3: sets of 8 reps, mod weight; Week 4, sets of 5 reps, high weight. I liked this more than my previous routines and I saw some development, but there still wasn’t enough overall volume to get the mythical “pump” that we all hear so much about.

A couple of weeks ago I found your site while I was searching for ways to improve my lats. I’ve done the lat workout just a handful of times now and I can feel the pump each time and see a visual difference in size when I’m done working out. I also see my veins more clearly. Then I moved on to incorporating Serge’s routine into my workout, and that’s where my question comes in.

Currently, I do weight during my lunch break, and I either swim, bike or run at night. I’m able to fit in your full lat routine in a lunchtime workout, and I can fit in any ONE of Serge’s routines for a single muscle group. For example, today I did Serge’s chest routine. That leaves me training each body part just one a week, other than my lats which I train twice a week. My question is this: would I be better off cutting Serge’s routines in half and working each body part twice a week? Or is once a week OK with this level of volume?

I can tell you one thing–I’m more sore than I’ve been in a long time, but it’s in a good way! I need to make a funny comment on this thread.

Before I found this topic and when I would go to the Gym, I saw many well-developed guys lifting very little weight and I found it a bit funny, always thought -well, they must be warming up. I never saw any of them doing any extraneous heavy weight workout sessions and this started making no sense to me. Until I started reading about Serge N and landed on this “blog” and then it all started making sense.

Pay attention to your body signals, eat well, rest and exercise if you want to live a long and healthy life. This is my goal! Good luck everyone. The late Serge was a juicer and lifted fairly heavy weightshis best bench press was around 450lbs, as I recall, and his squat was in the 500s if I’m not mistaken.

There’s a picture of Nubret on Dave Draper’s site squatting over 400 in sweatpants and street shoes. There are rumors he moved to higher reps/volume training when he started having some injuries. Another so-called volume trainer was Johnny Fuller, but, again, he no-doubt used steroids and died of a massive heart attack. That being said, Mr. HIT Mike Mentzer, trained with volume prior to his conversion to Heavy Duty style training and he’d won multiple titles before then.

Thanks for sharing this P, I actually didn’t know that. I just studied the forum topic Serge Nubret made on bodybuilding.com before he passed away. I’m still doing high volume training now, 4 years after finding his advice and it’s still helping me add size to all my stubborn body-parts while staying 100% injury free so it’s working well for me.

My clients also get better results with high volume training compared to heavy weights so I believe that as long as you scale down his training advice to fit the non-enhanced lifter, it works very very well. Not dismissing the training recommended here, simply pointing out the myth around guys like Serge, Johnny Fuller, etc., regard their use of heavy and light weights.

When I’d started working out, a gentleman in his 40s at the gym focused on chins and dips. Around five or six sets, 12 – 15 reps, bodyweight squats and some light/moderate weights for a few sets of curls and shoulder work. Looked fantastic and he kept telling me this is all you need; there were a few other people following the same approach in the gym. Wish I’d listened as I probably would have avoided the injuries and wasted $$$$ buying programs and magazines advocating programs that were ghost written with impossible claims.

Totally agree it may not be specific to building strength or conventional to see in gyms but ofcourse there’s a lot more to pump training than just “visual improvements” The strength gains are there too even if it doesn’t target such as specifically. I never benched 225 for 10 reps in all the time i spent on low rep programs. I can now bench this despite having built up lifting no more than 120-150lbs on bench for high rep sets. Nothing impressive but proves the naysayers wrong that you need to lift heavy to build a strong bench. Brilliant article.

Your article literally started my journey to successfully transform my physique. I probably wouldn’t have taken this road with stumbling on this article so thank you! Serge Nubret’s training style has transformed my thinking not only in what is required to build an impressive physique but also what I can achieve with what I thought were trash can genetics.

Never did I think that at 31 years of age I could gain muscle as fast as I did in my early 20’s. Reason being I trained wrong for many years in the past. As recommended I have utilized an abbreviated routine of Serge’s pump program as I’m a natural trainee.

Keeping rest periods to 25-30 seconds max between sets I usually complete a workout in under an hour and that involves about 32-35 sets per muscle group. Often being too pumped causes me to fail to get my reps as opposed to muscle fatigue.

A great problem to have actually. Pumps are just unreal training like this.

I’m certain these extreme pumps make a significant contribution to muscle hypertrophy. After training for a few months and adapting to the volume and short rest intervals I’ve taken it up a level and incorporated super sets to cut down training time and further enhance the pump. I still train one muscle group each day 6 days a week. Chest day example dumbbell bench 8×12 superset with barbell bench 8×12 dumbbell incline bench 8×12 superset with incline barbell bench 8×12 Rest intervals between supersets are still kept to just 25-30 seconds so basically it’s a hurried attempt pulling weights off in your rest interval as this is basically one long drop set workout. Total training time to complete all 32 sets doesn’t exceed 30 minutes this way. Hey Michael, At the time I put out the training program, I only had experience transforming my own body and had no coaching experience, therefore I didn’t know about the huge importance of customising a training program, even when dealing with guys of the same body-type.

I edited out the training program because for optimal results, it has to be customised to an individuals’ goals and needs. A cookie cutter plan just won’t cut it. Going forward, the blog will only be used to share general lessons I learn coaching my clients that apply to almost every skinny-fat guy. However, I’m planning on using my coaching data to develop a software within the next 2 years that automatically adjusts people’s training programs and diet plans based on their weekly progression check ins and biofeedback. Fantastic read. I used to do some hardcore heavy weight lifting years ago, At first, it was great, but a couple years went by and got a severe lower back injure that lasted for years.

Still I tried to keep the weights up and up and up. After some time I decided to completely leave and forget the heavy weight lifting. My back was hurting, and well, I was not seeing any improvements. Got back to karate, which I have practiced for over 15 years but I kinda put my martial arts training on hold just to focus on getting a bulkier body at the gym. Martial arts require maximum flexibilty, speed and most of all a lean body.

I dont see any big muscular guy on the dojo, guess there is a correlation on this. So, lifting light, lots of reps, doing body strenght training, and martial arts are what are keeping me healthy right now. If I add a good diet, who knows how far can I go?

Thanks a lot for all your articles, Ive been reading you for over a year and it has been a total eye opener. Former skinny-fat here, now an average looking guy with a bit of muscle but far from the biggest guy in the gym. I should stress here, as I was also once very skinny-fat, that Oskar is fundamentally correct to state that such training is going to be more effective once you’re strong and lean and can impress in terms of bodyweight exercises.

Easily completing 12-15 pull-ups regularly, and 20+ diamond push-ups in a row is something you could do most days of the week and so on. If you’re lucky, you may also get some early stage newbie gains from that. Perhaps not enough to show through clothes without a concurrent fat loss, but it’s a small possibility if you’ve been sedentary. The problem with heavy training for guys with less than optimal genetics, hormonal balance and recovery ability is that they’re usually set up as 3x per week programs, or maybe even more.

A lot of guys fitting the skinny-fat stereotype would probably do far better from just 2 barbell strength sessions per week when lifting heavy, including overhead pressing as a focus to build around, rather than endless squatting. Progression with such high frequency on squatting and deadlifting makes you too hungry to narrow your waist from an overweight base if genetics and hormones are going against you. When the weights get heavy on a 3x per week program, the skinny-fat guy needs to eat a lot to progress and he doesn’t lose his fat. Training heavy on a Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, etc is pretty much the only way someone fitting such a recovery level is going to build a good base of strength with heavy barbell training. This is what I did once I figured it out (after much wheel spinning and actually getting weaker and fatter), but if I had my time again I’d probably have gone with a straight push-up progression and chin-up progression, with abs, bridging and lower body work designed to iron out/eliminate any pelvic tilt and toughen the resting tone of the abs to keep them tight. This probably opens up another talking point about the training regimen of the skinny-fat guy looking to chisel out a physique: posture!

Pelvic tilt is something that can make a belly stick out even at 10% bodyfat, but fortunately there is good free info online showing exercises and progressions to toughen the abdominal wall and correct pelvic tilt (as a lot of skinny-fat guys seem to be shy and less sporty naturally, sit down a lot, etc). Note that Oskar talks a lot about strategically building key areas of muscle, and this strategy may also apply to ironing out postural kinks in some guys. I actually think this site has a lot to offer to skinny-fat guys about to give up. As I say, I wouldn’t have done a 3x or 4x per week barbell strength program had I come across a site like this in the beginning. They’re murder on the CNS and send your appetite through the roof which is only any good if you’re really, really lean and athletic already.

And even then, such programs have a shortish shelf life. Great comment James. I like your insights about posture. I spend 20 minutes daily stretching my hips, hamstrings, neck, ankles, calves, chest and lats.

Doing this has a massive effect on my mobility and posture. I feel my torso gets more straight after the hip openers and I can squat ass to grass rather than a half squat.

I’ve gradually been expanding my stretching regimen for about 2 years now and I have all my clients do stretches too. Besides the stretches I’ve also added a quick ab workout which helped make my abs more defined despite being at the same body fat level. Hey Oskar, I thought you must have been doing something as you’re not recognisably skinny-fat in any way.

More like a long-time athletic guy who pumps iron and runs hills. So it’s a big testament to the volume methods you’ve built up to, alongside tightening and rebalancing areas of your body as required.

I also find that I just feel happier and handle stress better after a period of doing posture and mobility stuff as it’s never exhaustive and can be done every day, even if not hitting the gym or the bodyweight. I think there’s something in all that ancient wisdom!:). Thank you for this. I was just at the gym today, running Greyskull LP, wondering why the guy next to me was 5x as jacked as me, yet deadlifting 200lbs (half my max), and wondering why after 3 years of “training”, I still look like SHIT. Much like yourself, I always thought that jacked dudes that lifted light weights had great genetics, while I was on my 3rd set of squats with 300lbs, still looking like I barely even lift. Rather than take my scheduled rest day tomorrow, I’m going to go in and annihilate certain body parts with light weight and endless sets.

Overtraining be damned. Thanks again bro. Great to see someone who gets that heavy weights don’t always equal size. I see lots of guys who do all that 5×5 and while it is good for strength, it’s not really that great for pure muscle mass. I read Serge Nubrets comments on various forums he was engaged in before he died and took note that higher reps with short rest periods is a great way to build muscle mass. Arnold would incorporate this method into his workouts at times.

Another great bodybuilder who training day in this way and still does is Danny Padilla. He did 5 sets of 12 reps per exercise. His chest routine was this: bench press, incline press, flys and pullovers all for 5 sets of 12. I did his workouts and they only lasted about an hour due to not being as high volume as serge’s. I did chest/back one day, shoulders arms the next followed by legs and abs. What is so good about this way of training is less stress to the joints, growth hormone is released in the body which is good for building muscle and losing fat, yes you can eat more as well.

Vince Gironda even advocated this way of training as well. It worked for him and he was drug free. Thank you for this website:) I am in my second month of my transformation (this is all very new to me). I’m cutting by eating clean, keeping caloric deficit moderate, balanced macros, etc I’m at the early stage of getting strong enough to do 1 chin up or 1 pull up. I’m 182cm and weigh 65kg.

Negatives feel very muscle rippy to me, and scary Like I’m going to hurt myself. Doing a pull up seems so far away to me! I feel like my arms are unusually weak, and wonder if it’s my age (35). So for now I’ve stopped with the negatives and I’m doing the lat pull down machine and trying to work up to 1x body weight (which is basically a pull up).

I’m not too far off now, at 55kg single rep max, but progress is slow. Muscles are not developing, I’m pretty sure it’s all just neuro adaptation (which is fine and normal, I think). This brings me to my question: Given that I’m older, do you think it’s wise/possible to work up to pull-up strength while on the initial caloric deficit stage of the transformation?

One thing I need to add to this If you have love handles like me there are only two things that you can do to get rid off them or modify your body so they are not that apparent. The first one, To Get Rid Off, you have to bring your BMI to almost nothing which is very hard to do unless you are very dedicated and have a very strict diet.

The second option “modify your body so they are not that apparent” is the easiest one. Like Oskar mentions you need to make your back and arms bigger that way your upper body looks bigger giving you a more triangle look and the love handles are not as obvious any more:) This routine works great the only part I have difficulty with is the leg curls, too many reps for me but I already have nice legs so I just do 8 reps. Good luck everyone! Nubret looks like he was composed in photoshop.

No human can be muscular and ripped at the same time naturally! You know that!!! Roids + good genetics = his body! Any routine would make him grow!! If a natural goes hi volume with supersets + dropsets + hyper-mega-sets etc. He will look fuller, more muscular thanks to pump, but that’s alll, only sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

You know that too! Stop working out for a week or two and start seeing “water muscle” disappear! Naturals cant go so high volume like him, 6 days/week and hi volume is not injury free! Who said that? Felipe, You’re right, no natural will ever look like he does. And yes, any routine would make him grow.

However, I have used his training principles for the past few years and I’ve made better gains than I ever did following a low volume approach. I’ve had a 2 week break from training now and I haven’t lost any noticeable size. The Carter 4 Download Zip here. (Maybe half an inch here or there just like I would otherwise). You do know that +70% of muscle consists of water? I’m 100% injury free and I trained hard +5 years.

I don’t even have any joint aches or anything and I have very skinny bones and get injured easily. How many ectomorphs who lift heavy for 5 years can say they’ve never had any injuries with no joint aches?

The key to stay injury free with this approach is to use light-moderate weights – I often do 10 pound dumbbells. It’s very difficult to get injured with 10 pound dumbbells. Hello, my PRs now x5 are BP 54kg, Squats 40kg, DL 60kg. Started lifting like 14months ago, but with 1 month break, sick for 15days, and at the start I was in a very bad shape, my max chin ups were 2x in that time I was doing a torso – leg routine, 4 days week, mixing some 4×8 and 5×5, day A torso BP 4×8 and day B torso BP 5×5.

Now I was thinking about do something like madcow 5×5 for 2 months, maybe 1 reset and one more month (so I can progress in strenght), and after do 1 month in high rep-sets and see what happens. You think is a good idea?

I am confusedthe guy who wrote this article is really small, as though he has never worked out before, or has only just started doing some cardio. His size should be easily attainable within only a few months even for those with poor genetics – I kept looking around the site for the after photos, only to realize those were the after photos.

Clearly whatever routine this guy is using is not working very well – I’d advise people to check out bodybuilding.com and read through the forums there, as you can find some people who are actually knowledgeable on the subject. Serge Nubret used to post there himself and we spoke frequently before he passed away.

I would guess this comment will be removed by the creator of the website, but to Oskar, please try out some other techniques, use proper nutrition, build yourself more muscle before attempting to teach others your own highly inefficient methods. Best of luck to you. I won’t remove your comment, but I’ll take my time to respond to it. First, “small” is a relative word. Simatic Prosave V10 Download Youtube. If you compare me to competitive bodybuilders, I’m small.

If you compare me to other guys who work out, I’m definitely bigger than average. Where I come from, being around 200lbs. At close to 10% body-fat is impressive size. I get called “big” by most of my friends who lift/do calisthenics so you clearly have a distorted image of what big is.

Perhaps you should read about muscle dysmorphia and make sure you don’t have it: For your record, my “crappy” routine enabled me to gain over 4 inches on my chest during the past 2 months while staying below 12% body-fat and gaining just 2 lbs. I’m aware that Serge posted there.

I read his topic and implemented many of his ideas with success. Thanks for this article; my lifts had gotten pretty stagnant over the last year or so of doing heavy lifts, and after just a month of using this set rep scheme I’m seeing gains. It’s also a lot less grueling than my previous routine, and my CNS and joints are appreciating me giving them a break for once. My question is this: what sort of progression scheme do you recommend when going high volume like this? My plan was to add a rep or two every workout, then maybe up the weight by 2-5 lbs depending on the lift once I hit 15 reps. Also, does deloading factor into a routine like this? After following your bodyweight routine I can do about 13 chin ups and 20 perfect form diamond push ups in the first set.

(I have been doing 5 supersets with 3 min rest) I have been stuck in my chin ups for a while so I guess it’s time to do something. Im a skinny fat guy who is 20 years old. Currenty im about 82 kg (22% bf) and 174 cm.

I have been training for 4 years soon with basically no results to my body. When I bulk hard I see some strength gains but I see that my body getting to much fat. I’m thinking about cutting down to a lower bodyfat percetange due to what I have been reading on this website. Would you suggest this Beginner Pump Routine for a skinny fat guy like me or should I stick to the bodyweight movements like suggested if Im gonna do a cut. By the way great post Greetings, Tommy.

I am currently doing a similar routine to yours but ı do back-chest-arms first day and leg-shoulders second day 4 times a week since leg training drains me so much.my lifts are going up the fastest ever.normally ı do A-B-OFF-A-B-OFF-OFF but ı go by feel like you about off days. I have a question for you.ı dont get hungry so much on workout days and ı have to use sugary foods to keep the calories up or ı get bloated.on rest days ı get really hungry but everyone suggest my calorie intake must be lower on rest days.whats your opinion about this? Btw,keep it up bro,your articles are getting even better:D. Here’s a great bicep workout my friend and I used to doI’m sure we didn’t invent it, but it was the best thing I ever did for pumping up my biceps. Bicep Ladder of Death Stand facing each other. Start with a straight bar with about 40 lbs, 50 if you’re in good shape.

Do 1 curl, hand it off. He does 1 curl, hands it back. Do 2 curls, hand it off.

He does 2, hands it back. Do this up until 12, then immediately go to 12 again, and go back down. The only rest you get is the time it takes your buddy to finish his set. You will be dying on the trip down. Also, you’re friend is there to spot you should you start to lose power at the end. Your arms will pumped as hell after this routine.

Thanks for this website. I was losing motivation to continue my cut. Im currently 5’9 167. I need to get down to 145 to have that lean look. I have been comparing my progress to others and it’s wrong. It gets frustrating man I have been lifting for 2.5 years and im basically going through what u went through.

I was going to bulk this week, but I decided to come to this site and it changed my mind. I need to accept the fact that there is no other way out of this and cutting is the only option.

Anyways, im deciding to do 3 full body workouts during the week now, and 2 days dedicated to chinups/pushups. I can do about 10 chins, how could I get that to 15-20? Im gonna work on my diamond pushups at home too. Is 10 sets of chinups and pushups too much too do before a fullbody workout? Im gonna train hard as I can while leaning down. Thanks Oskar.

I bookmarked this site and will be coming here daily for motivation. Hi Oskar, Another excellent article! Thanks Unfortunately I still don’t have the strength to start with this pump routine.

I’m currently doing the basic bodyweight routine you recommended, (with some deadlifts and military presses, ones a week). Then, three or four times a week, I finish my sessions, with some pump exercises, like biceps curls, db shoulder presses, lateral raises, dips, etc. In these exercises i do 3×12 with 60s rest between sets. I’d like to know your opinion on this. Is this type of routine ok? Or should i make my strength base first (without pump exercises) and then start doing some bodybuilding exercises?? Thanks again Oskar and best regards!