A veteran lifter weighs in on building bigger arms, how to assess your weak points, and overcoming the tyranny of bad advice.

Jack Reape painted all his 2.5 and 5-pound plates pink. Is he light in the loafers, or does he have a more serious intent in mind?

Three weeks of hard training and then a back-off is advocated by many experts. At the most, you can go five or six weeks before you need to back off if you're training very hard. Train your upper body once and your lower body once on a back-off week at about 60% of your normal single workout volume and about 60% of your normal intensity. You can also do some fun and different things. For example, I like to do the NFL bench press combine (225 for max reps), Bulgarian squats, and any lat movement I haven't done lately on back-off weeks.

There's an old saying that goes, "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but tell him about periodization, and confuse him for the rest of his life."

Many athletes constantly search for the newest exercises, but some of the best variations available are simple and come from changing your grip on the bar or changing your foot spacing. The bench press is a very different movement when done with a close grip, pinky on the ring, and even index finger outside the max legal bench press grip ring. In the squat, going to a wider or narrower stance changes the movement and what muscles it involves. I'm aware of the theory that none of these changes effect muscle action, but move your squat stance in or out on your next workout and consider the theory yourself when you wake up and feel your legs the next day.

I've come to the realization that not everybody is interested in entering powerlifting competitions, but they are interested in improving their training by using powerlifting concepts. So here are a few things I picked up in the powerlifting pits that you can use to reach whatever lifting goals you may have.

The idea that abs need higher reps is nonsense. They need heavy work like everything else, both in moving the sternum toward the pelvis and in the isometric stabilization of the spine. If you want ripped abs do some push-aways: push yourself away from the dinner table. If you want strong abs, lift, push, or stabilize some heavy weights. Doing bodyweight crunches to strengthen your abs is like doing jumping jacks to increase your military press!

Two of the hardest things about competing are sending in the entry fee for a competition and then not pulling out the last few weeks. Some of you don't compete and are just training for self-actualization, self-esteem, and to be healthier and more whole in your daily interactions in the journey we call a life experience.

Are you just getting involved in powerlifting with hopes of setting a new record or two? Or are you just a regular guy looking to increase your bench press? Whichever, the ten tips below will put you on the path to strength!

Some of you might have enjoyed the Diary of a Steroid User series as much as I did. It was an interesting, unapologetic, honest portrait of what it's like when an average Joe uses steroids. But however much I enjoyed it, I cringed when I read some of the "pyramid" workouts outlined by the anonymous author.

The Hard Way Let me say right off that I'm not a great bencher. I never benched 315 until after college. I didn't bench 400 until I was 38 years old and didn't reach 500 until I was 42. I did 400 and 500 weighing about 230 pounds in a single ply shirt. I reached 500 the hard way, but if you pay attention then you might hit that mark much sooner than I did.

The Most Important Thing I Know About Training When I got the opportunity to write an article for T-Nation, I asked myself, "Self, what's the most important thing you could talk about?" The answer was clear: back-off weeks!