Just 10 more pounds of muscle. You’ve been training for years and gained far more than that, so what’s 10 more pounds? If you’ve been stalled for any amount of time, it can be everything.

If you’re trying to break through this plateau, I have the ultimate solution. It’s a program so simple it can be described in a single sentence: Pick a functional movement, then move 10,000 pounds of weight as fast as you can.

Functional, as I define it, is quickly moving a large load over a long distance. Some functional lifts include squats, cleans, thrusters, the bench press, and the deadlift.

With all of these moves, you can bump up the weight and drop the reps, or lower the weight and raise the reps. The key is simply to get to 10,000 as fast as you can.

I’ve followed this program with all the exercises above. As a frame of reference, I used 405 while deadlifting—which works out to 25 reps (it adds up to a little more than 10,000, but round off). My score was right around two minutes. That’s a lot of work in a short time, but it can still produce the same kind of hormonal response as a session lasting 60 minutes.

Sample Workouts

Simply take the number 10,000 and divide it by the weight you’re using for the workout. That’s the total number of reps you need to complete. 

Workout 1:

Deadlift 350 x 29

Workout 2:

Bench Press 225 x 45

Workout 3:

Squat 315 x 32

Rob Orlando is the owner and head trainer of Hybrid Athletics in Stanford, CT.