By this time in your training, you should have noticed some spectacular changes in both your health and physique. Your chest should be deeper, your back wider, your shoulders broader, and your arms and legs fuller—that is, if you’ve been following my instructions to the letter. If you haven’t yet realized these results, go back and reread the introductory parts carefully and run through the routines again. Believe me, they will work when applied properly! One of the biggest disappointments shared by many people, regardless of age, who take up the science of bodybuilding is that they never seem to gain “fast enough.”Almost everybody who has ever attended a Mr. Olympia contest wants to look— immediately —like the competitors seen on stage. To this end some people even copy the champions’ precontest training routines in a misguided effort to somehow hasten this transformational process. After all, it worked for the champions, right? Wrong! I’ve stated this before, but it bears repeating: the champions are the thoroughbreds of our species; it’s in their genes—or, more specifically, it’s in their muscle bellies—to be big musclemen.
Their physiques are inordinate due to their being genetically predisposed to carry a large musculature on their frames, and not because of any “magic” to be found within their training routines (e.g., triple split; push/pull; intensity or insanity—I love that one!; up and down the rack; twenty sets per bodypart) or their secret dietary methods.
It’s time we, as a group, woke up to the fact that it’s not in the genetic cards for all of us to be massively muscled. Nor can we alter our reality by simply aping the training routine of a certain champion. In fact, the champion’s training routine, particularly his precontest routine, would have about as much bearing on our attaining his muscle size as would our wearing the same shoes as he does.
Remember this point: the first rule of success in bodybuilding is to work within our genetic framework. Without this principle, most of the other rules have no application. Moreover, given the level of drugs that most of the champion bodybuilders take, probably very few of the rules that govern human physiology have much bearing on them. The drugs alter human physiology into something foreign to our species. Once these drugs enter the equation, and by drugs I specifically refer to steroids here, the act of emulating the training methods of the bodybuilder you see on stage becomes pointless. The muscles of steroid users no longer create the same amount of waste by-products, nor do they fatigue at the same rate; drugs have altered both processes beyond the confines of simple human physiology. Suffice it to say that unless you currently are on steroids, or are resolved to use them regardless of the potential consequences, you’ll experience little, if any, gains in muscle mass by training like the champions.
Natural muscular gains come when you train intelligently, which means observing and understanding the economics of growth and recovery.
DECEPTIVE CLAIMS
Bodybuilding, like most other human endeavors, has had and continues to have its share of bizarre and fantastic claims, generally made by people who are every bit as extraordinary as the claims they advance.
As you are now entering your third month, it’s important that you be informed of just what deception awaits you on your journey to physical “perfection” at this point in your training. Armed with this knowledge in advance, you will be better able to recognize and avoid fast-talkers who would have you believe and support baseless and potentially harmful training, nutritional, and, most important, cognitive practices.
The most common error that you’ll encounter is the “visualization” or cognitive “mind over matter” arguments, replete with similes that involve biceps like mountains, backs like manta rays, or similar nonsense. These are, in effect, mind-over-genetics arguments, or what the late philosophernovelist Ayn Rand would have called the “I Wish versus It Is” polemic. This premise, in essence, instructs you to ignore the fact that you are only five foot two and have brown eyes, because, by God, if you really want to be six foot six and have eyes of blue, then all you have to do is believe that it’s possible— and it will happen!
The proponents of such irrational gibberish have their own nomenclature that features constructs such as “mental imagery” and, of course, “visualization”—and it’s rampant throughout bodybuilding. Statements such as “Believe and Achieve” adorn the back of many a personally inscribed weight belt. This is chicanery straight out of The Flim-Flam
Likewise, if a bodybuilder of international repute should tell you that he has peaks on his biceps because he envisioned them as miniature mountains, and not because genetics put an egg on his biceps the day his DNA took hold, you should be equally suspect about his cognitive faculties.
Nevertheless, such claims are made almost daily regarding the mystical import of the “mind” in training. Sure, the mind is important; without it you couldn’t even tie your shoes, let alone engage in barbell training, but it’s not nearly as omnipotent as some “authorities” would have you believe.
The mind is important in keeping you motivated to get into the gym and train intensely enough to stimulate your muscles to grow. As I conceded earlier, this training routine is not an easy one to adopt for the long term. In fact, it’s downright uncomfortable—so much so that anyone who feels the inclination to engage in visualization or cognitive gymnastics involving mountain-peak biceps, manta-ray lats, or fluffy clouds really isn’t training.
The person is simply going through the motions and relaxing, because relaxation, or sleep, is the time we are best able to engage in such flights of fancy. (We just refer to them as dreams.) And if such people also exhibit impressive physiques, it’s only further testimony to the supreme role that genetics played in their physical development—as opposed to their mystical thought processes and ineffi cient training methods.
TRAINING
If genetics, then, is the be-all and end-all of bodybuilding, and you’re not the spitting image of Conan the Barbarian at the moment, should you just throw in the towel and write it off to a bad deal of the genetic cards? By no means! The fact that you don’t have the muscle bellies of an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Mike Mentzer doesn’t mean that you don’t have the genetics of an equally impressive you when developed to the uppermost limits of your potential. After all, Steve Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mike Mentzer, Lou Ferrigno, Bruce Lee, Mike Tyson, and Lee Labrada didn’t have identical genetics, and yet all went on to develop very impressive (and very muscular) physiques.
If you train properly, you can realize your own unique physiological potential, which may even supersede any of the competitors on the Mr. Olympia stage today! What, then, is “proper” training? Simply put, proper training involves stimulating muscle growth and then allowing your body sufficient time to realize that growth once it’s been stimulated.
To accomplish this, your workouts must be intense, and since intensity and duration exist in inverse proportion to one another, your workouts must also be brief. The more intense the workouts, the greater the muscle stimulation, and the briefer the workouts must be. One other factor that enters into this workout equation is recovery. This falls into the “off” time you have in between your workouts. My staff and I have conducted a series of tests and studies regarding this phenomenon at our Nautilus North fitness center and have concluded that once you get stronger, it will take you approximately three days to recover the energy you expended during your workout. It will then take you another three to four days to over compensate, or grow bigger. In other words, as you grow stronger, you will require a full seven days off between workouts to allow the muscle you stimulated in your workout to grow.
As explained in Part 1, while you are still a beginner, you must have at least two days of rest between high-intensity training sessions, and more if you’re exceptionally strong. With any less than this amount, you’ll not progress at all, and you may even begin to regress. So, first train hard to stimulate growth, which means that your workouts must be of brief duration (no more than thirty to forty-five minutes per workout), and rest afterward for a minimum of forty-eight hours. If these precepts are followed, you will grow progressively larger muscles with every visit to the gym.
1. Barbell squats: 1 _ 20 reps
2. Chin-ups: 1 _ maximum reps
3. Seated barbell presses: 1 _ 12 reps
4. Bent-over barbell rows: 1 _ 12 reps
5. Dumbbell flyes: 1 _ 12 reps
6. Upright barbell rows: 1 _ 12 reps
7. Incline dumbbell curls: 1 _ 12 reps
8. Seated French presses: 1 _ 12 reps
9. Stiff-legged dead lifts: 1 _ 20 reps
10. Crunches: 1 _ 15 reps
11. Wrist curls: 1 _ 15 reps
12. Hammer curls: 1 _ 12 reps
The Routine Explained
1. Barbell squats: Stand erect with a barbell across your shoulders and take a deep breath. Now, with your lungs full, bend your knees and lower your body until you are in a full squat position; you should be slightly below a ninety-degree angle to your shins. As soon as you reach the bottom position, rise immediately—but under control—while at the same time expelling the air from your lungs, so that you will be ready for another intake of oxygen at the completion of the movement. Breathe in, and down you go for your second repetition, and so on until the required number of repetitions have been completed. See Part 1 for a full description of this exercise and its benefits.
2. Chin-ups: Chin-ups, like squats, also work several muscle groups, thereby stimulating significant overall muscle growth. To begin, grasp the chin-up bar with a palmsup grip. (You may require straps to reinforce your grip for the required number of repetitions.) Slowly begin to contract the muscles in your arms, and try to touch the bar to your lower chest when you have reached the apex of your ascent. Hold this contracted position for a two-count, and then lower yourself slowly (four seconds) back to the starting position, all the while making sure that the latissimus dorsi muscles are constantly contracted. Repeat this procedure until at least eight repetitions have been completed. If you can’t perform a chin-up on your own, you may either use an assisted chinup machine, if your local gym has one, or do a negative-only set. We’ll discuss negatives further in the next Part, but for now, here’s what to do: Stand on a chair facing the chin-up bar, grab the bar, and step off. Under full muscle control, lower yourself to a stretched position as slowly as you can. Repeat to exhaustion. When you can complete ten negatives, you should be able to perform at least three or four regular chin-ups.
3. Seated barbell presses: This exercise is performed in the same manner as the standing barbell presses described in Part 1. This time you will perform them seated. Some gyms have a special bench with supports to take the weight from. If you do not have access to such a bench, simply clean the barbell to your shoulders and sit down on a flat bench and begin the exercise.
4. Bent-over barbell rows: To perform the barbell row, bend at the waist so that your torso is at a right angle (ninety degrees) to your legs. Grab hold of the bar so that your palms are facing your shins. Your hand spacing should be between two and two and a half feet. Slowly pull the bar up toward your torso until it touches your lower chest. From this fully contracted position, slowly lower the resistance back to the starting position (your arms should be fully extended), and repeat for the required number of repetitions. Rest briefly, and then perform your next exercise. See Part 1 for a full description and the benefits of this exercise.
5. Dumbbell flyes: Grab two fairly heavy dumbbells (remember that “heavy” is relative) and lie faceup on a bench. Slowly lower the dumbbells from an overhead position in an outward arc until they are a bit below chest level. Pause for one or two seconds, and then begin to slowly raise the dumbbells back to the starting overhead position in the same outward arc. (The movement should resemble your hugging a barrel.)
6. Upright barbell rows: Place your hands about six inches apart on a bar
bell with an overhand grip (your palms should be facing your thighs). Keeping your body straight and stationary, slowly pull the weight up to your clavicles (collar bone). Keep the barbell in close, and then slowly, in four seconds, lower it back to the starting position. See Part 2 for a full description and the benefits of this exercise.
7. Incline dumbbell curls: Take hold of two dumbbells and sit down on an incline bench (preferably an incline of 45 degrees). With your arms extended and your palms facing each other, slowly curl your arms up until your biceps are fully contracted, making sure to turn both palms up at the top of the curl. Pause briefly, and then lower both arms back to the start position. Repeat for 12 repetitions.
8. Seated French presses: While dips are arguably the best triceps exercise, your chest and delts may be too fatigued at this stage to allow you to train your triceps adequately. Not to worry. The seated French press is a great triceps-isolation exercise. To perform this exercise properly, grab hold of a Triceps Blaster (I know, I hate the name too!) or an E-Z curl bar. Press the weight overhead as if you were about to perform the press behind the neck. Now, instead of lowering your elbows, keep them stationary (beside your ears) and lower only your forearms, until they are as far down toward the center of your back as they can go. The time structure is the same with this exercise: two seconds up and four seconds down. Repeat for 12 repetitions.
9. Stiff-legged dead lifts: Using an over-under grip whereby one palm is facing your thighs while the other palm is facing away, grab hold of a moderately weighted barbell and, with your arms straight, stand upright so that the bar is resting across the front of your thighs and your back is straight. From this position, slowly, in four seconds, lower the resistance to the floor, making sure to keep your legs locked straight. See Pa
rts 1 and 2 for variations on this exercise.
10. Crunches: To perform crunches effectively, lie face up on the floor with your hands behind your head. Try to keep your chin on your chest throughout the movement. Keep your feet on the floor, with your knees slightly open. From this starting position, slowly curl your trunk upward toward a sitting position. You’ll find that you can accomplish a third of the required sit-up in this fashion, which is fine, because that is all the range of motion that your abdominals require to be stimulated into maximum growth. Once you have ascended to a fully contracted position, hold the position for a two-count, and then lower yourself slowly back to the starting position. See Part 1 for a full description of this exercise.
11. Wrist curls: Take hold of a barbell in both hands, with your palms facing forward (as you would if performing a standing barbell curl), and sit on the end of a bench. Lift the barbell so that your forearms are resting across the tops of your thighs and the barbell is over the ends of your knees. Slowly lower your wrists until they are fully extended. From this position, slowly curl your wrists upward as far as they can go. Pause briefly in this fully contracted position, and then lower the bar back down until your wrists are fully extended again.
12. Hammer curls: While standing, grab a pair of dumbbells and hold them at your sides. Your palms should be facing in toward your hips. Slowly, making sure to maintain the same palm position, curl one dumbbell up toward your shoulder, while the other stays at your side. Pause briefly in the position of full contraction, and then slowly lower the dumbbell back to the starting position. As soon as that dumbbell is back in the starting position, slowly curl the dumbbell in the opposite arm up to a position of full contraction, while the other arm is held down at your side.
SETS
The question of what is the “ideal” number of sets to perform for a bodypart is an area of bodybuilding that is a gray fog at the best of times. Certainly, twenty sets per bodypart, regardless of the bodypart, is not only unnecessary but also counterproductive.
Reducing that number to half—ten sets—would seem to be a step in the right direction. However, an examination of the available literature in the world of science reveals that maximum strength and muscle-mass increases can be obtained from one set of an exercise and that additional sets yield no appreciable difference. You can do additional sets if you like, but don’t for a minute believe that you’re stimulating greater size and strength gains by doing so.
The proviso with the one-set method is that the set has to be taken to the point of “failure”—the point in a set at which an additional rep is impossible despite your greatest effort. Your training up until now has involved two sets during specialization periods, and you’ve made progress. That progress is exactly the reason why you must now reduce your training volume if you hope to progress further.
It’s a well-documented fact that the average individual has the potential to increase his or her starting level of strength by at least 300 percent. However, that same individual’s recovery ability has the potential to increase by only 50 percent. This means that the stronger you become, the greater the likelihood of over training becomes, unless you taper off the volume of your training sessions accordingly.
This routine will consist of reducing your training volume by approximately two-thirds. Don’t be misled into thinking that briefer training is easier. Remember the nature of intensity: the harder you train, the briefer must be the duration of your workout. This workout will be hard— brutally so—and you’ll progress as at no other time in your training career as a result of it. The repetition guidelines are the upper end of the scale; when you can successfully reach these integers, increase the resistance by 5 percent and try to reach these repetitions all over again. Also remember to take each set to muscular failure, and lift the weight in perfect form. That is, take two to five seconds to raise the resistance and four seconds to lower it.
Utilize this program on a two-day-per week basis (for example, Mondays and Thursdays), and use your off days for rest and recovery—and watch yourself grow!
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