Don’t forget that some of the strongest people ever, had some very simple routines.
Isaac Nesser would do barbell curls 8 to 10 days in a row, with over 300 Ibs, and then take 3 days of from that exercise. He benched pressed over 800 Ibs. He had a very simple routine. He just lifts a lot of weghts, a lot. He, like many others, include strong man training, such as walkin whilst carrying a truck engine. Atlas stones and log press etc… is excellent training for strength, because there are less sticking points in strong man exercizes than with barbells. That would be the way to go, if one was really interested in strength. And because there are less sticking points in some exercises than others, it totally changes the apropriate frequancy of work-outs with certain exercises etc. All I’m saying is that a lot of the conventional wisdom gets turned on its head, by various athletes who have thought outside the box, and trained that way, with results.
You can’t be too anal about it, unless you want to make a career as a certified strength coach for a pro sports team or something.
A lot of routines are only designed to what facilities are available, and there is no gym in the world that has everything. I doubt ‘golds’ gym’ even comes close, and I don’t care if it has 5 floors and the size of a football pitch.
Frankly, the best strength training is strong man, by far. Tractor tire flips, atlas stones, truck or car pulling, conans’ wheel, super yoke, etc… And what gym has that?
Bruce Bursford built up 33 inch thighs, by riding a custom designed stationary bike with a front cog about 30 inches in diameter.
I could go on, but I couldn’t give a crap for conventional gym parameters, because all of them have been far surpassed, by the truly strong athletes.
There is no way of knowing how strong Westside powerlifters are. What is there leverage and build compared to yours? There technique? Their power shirts and their juice?
I don’t mean to be negative, about you wanting to readlots of books, but those strength books are only so that you can understand jargon and theory, and pass exams. If that is what you need,then absolutely reaed a load of books, if it helps you on your way to the spacific career that you want.
Just never forget, down the road, that some of the strongest monsters who ever lived, had very unusuall routines. Vasiley Alexeyev got in to arguments often with the national coaches. He would do a thousand jumps a day, and one thousand knee lifts in the corner of the swimming pool, for his morning work out.