PART ONE

If you are like most people I see in gyms who are seeking to increase muscle mass you
will have done so by attempting to increase load in a linear manner. In other words you
will have put a little more weight on the bar (or attempted to) every week and waited for
your body to grow. That's all well in good to an extent but if you have stuck with this for
more than about 6 weeks you will have watched as progress slowed dramatically or even
screeched to a halt. At this point your local bodybuilding guru will have told you to
"switch up" your exercises and then begin again to add a little weight each week once
again. And that readers is popular bodybuilding training in a nutshell.

The only factors taken in to account by most trainees are;

1. How many sets performed per exercise. (This is usually a constant).

2. How many reps performed per set. (This changes sometimes in a random manner, or
according to fatigue levels).

3. The weight on the bar. (most trainees try to increase this all the time).

4. The exercises performed. (This typically changes when progress halts).

Now, lets have a look at what other factors might come in to play if trainees took the
blinkers off:

5. Total volume of work.

6. Rest periods between sets.

7. The density of work. i.e. how many lifts at what % of a maximum divided by the time
taken to perform the lifts including rest periods.

8. The speed of the movements performed, including the amortization phase, concentric
phase, and eccentric phase.

9. The order in which exercises are performed.

10. Frequency of training the same muscle groups / movements.

There are many others, I merely intend to show that in attempting to treat the load and
exercise choice as the only variables in bodybuilding training is inadequate as it prevents
maximal levels of hypertrophy and encourages staleness. Taking other factors in to account
and training them sequentially will lead to much greater progress over time than merely
attempting to increase the load in a linear fashion.

To give an example of how looking at other factors can increase hypertrophy envisage the
following situation. If you can do 6 sets of 6 squats with 315lbs with 5 minute rest periods
between sets but you work up over time to 6 sets of 6 with 45 second rests, you will get
bigger, despite having done no more TOTAL work.
You will not have increased the volume of your workload, or the weight on the bar, but I
can guarantee you will be bigger.

My thinking is "why don't bodybuilders apply this concept over the long term too?" "Why
do bodybuilders focus on increases in weight while ignoring all other factors responsible
for growth?"
"How about using volume and density as the key measures of progress at an advanced
level instead of load?"

The Need For Volume.

The average number of reps per year in elite Weightlifters has increased EVERY Olympic
cycle without fail, from 5000 - 6000 lifts per year in the 1960's to 19000 - 22000 in the
mid 80's to up to 30,000 per year now. 30,000 lifts per year is around 85 lifts per day.
Most of these lifts are singles, doubles or triples. Now consider that these are WORKING
lifts typically above 85% of competition maximums - warm ups are not counted - that's a
pretty high workload. Around 55 sets a day. Every day.

Now, a bodybuilder is not going to work at such a high intensity as a Weightlifter
(intensity is a % of a maximum lift, NOT how "hard" you work). A bodybuilder will
usually train at 55 - 85% of a maximum lift for greater repetitions than a Weightlifter
would utilise.
Neither would a bodybuilder be able to train as often as a Weightlifter. Training for neural
factors (Weightlifting) allows for 24 - 48 hr rests, bodybuilding requires 48 - 72hrs
between training the same muscle group to allow for recovery and tissue healing. That's 48
- 72 hours, not 7 - 10 days as some people seem to think!

I will digress a little here to discuss frequency of training. I am convinced that the vast
majority of people who say they can't train a lift or body part more than once every 7 - 10
days are simply not in sufficient condition. That is to say that they are leaving so long
between sessions that they never actually adapt to their training so they find that when they
do train they are extremely sore afterwards and feel "wiped out" for days. These guys need
to work on their work capacity and increase their training frequency till they adapt to
training instead of taking a holiday between sessions!

Anyway, back to the program.

We all know training increases testosterone levels, and is generally "anabolic". We all
know training for more than about 45 mins to an hour leads to a drop in testosterone also,
so our objectives should include training as often as possible for a given total load with
each session lasting 45 mins to an hour. Considering not many of you live / work in a gym
you will probably be limited to training once a day for up to 6 days per week.

The program is split in to three microcycles (short phases) each lasting 2 weeks.
Assuming you are following the training frequency recommendations I made above this
will mean training a given body part or movement 4 - 6 times per phase. All sets are
between 5 and 12 reps. All weights are 55 - 85% of your 1 rep maximum for each
movement. The total number of sets will be determined by the time limits prescribed. For
example in Phase 1 the first workout will last 45 mins and have rest periods of 2 minutes
between sets. A set will typically last up to 1 minute, so each set + rest period will take 3
minutes. Therefore you will perform 15 total sets in Phase 1 workouts in order to get done
in 45 minutes or less. This entails using 3 - 5 exercises for 3 - 5 sets each per body part.

PHASE 1.

In Phase 1 no attempt will be made to increase load or total volume. You will NOT add
weight to the bar. You will NOT add reps to any set. Instead you will reduce rest times
between sets by 15 - 30 seconds each session, aiming to get your rests down to 45 seconds
by the end of the 2 weeks. In order to accomplish this you will have to start with loads that
enable you to complete each set quite easily. At no point in Phase 1 should you go
anywhere failure or miss any reps. By the end of Phase 1 workout duration will be around
27 minutes, assuming you obtain your goal of 45 seconds rest between sets.

PHASE 1 Summary

2 weeks duration.

3 - 5 sets each of 3 - 5 exercises.

Increase Density with fixed load / volume.

Same weights, same reps, same sets, less rest.

Start with rest of around 2 minutes.

Aim for 45 second rests by the end of first phase.

PHASE 2

In Phase 2 you will add 2 - 3 sets to each movement, still with a fixed load. Keep rest
periods at 45 seconds. This increase in volume will bring your workout time up to around
50 minutes to 1 hour. By this point fatigue may cause you to miss reps and reach failure on
later sets, this is ok. You must attempt to get as many reps as possible on all sets if you can
not reach the scheduled number of reps due to fatigue.

PHASE 2 Summary.

Increase Volume by 2 - 3 sets per exercise.

Allow an increase in workout time to 1 hour max.

Keep rest periods as low as they were at the end of phase 1.

If you can't reach your target reps on the extra sets, do as many reps as you can in each set.

PHASE 3.

In Phase 3 you will increase load for as long as you can while maintaining the number of
sets performed and rest periods. Add weight to the bar at every workout until you are
working to failure on every set and not making your scheduled reps on any set. This may
take several weeks.

Phase 3 Summary.

Add Weight!

Keep rest periods and volume the same for as long as possible.

Go to failure whenever necessary.

Well, there you have it. A six week (or more!) mesocycle alternating density, volume and
load increases in two week microcycles without changing exercises. Why push load all the
time as the only means of increasing hypertrophy?

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Last edited by Conan21 : 10-05-2004 at 03:23 AM.


PART 2

Designing Workouts For Bodybuilding.

My article "Bodybuilding - A Sample Program" dealt with some of the differing stimulus' that a bodybuilder can apply to his / her muscles in order to ensure continuous adaptation. This article will go in to more detail on how to arrange your bodypart workouts according to the differing recovery abilities of each body part. As a general rule, the more poundage you can utilise when working a bodypart the longer the recovery time you will need before working that bodypart again. To treat each bodypart as having the same recovery ability makes no sense simply because you can not provide an equal amount of stress to each bodypart in the first place. Therefore traditional training splits that allow for training each bodypart once per week or once every 5 days are not the most efficient way to structure your training for bodybuilding.

Consider the poundage that you utilise with a given bodypart over a given range of motion and organise your body in hierarchical order from largest poundage / bodypart size down to smallest. For most people this list will look something like this:

Quads

Lower Back

Hamstrings

Lats

Pectorals

Traps

Delts

Triceps

Biceps

Calves

Forearms

This list should correlate quite closely with the recovery ability of each bodypart and therefore dictates the frequency with which you should train each one. For me quads and lower back will take 96 hours to recover between workouts, hams, lats, pecs, traps and delts take 72 hours and I can train triceps, biceps, calves and forearms every 48 hours. Now, the trick here is to take in to account what bodyparts get a secondary training effect when another bodypart is the targeted one. For example when you train the lats and upper back you inevitably also provide some stress to the biceps, when you train chest you also stress the deltoids and the triceps. For this reason you don't have to DIRECTLY train the smaller bodyparts every 48 hours - they get plenty of indirect stimulation from your other workouts. A sample bodybuilding split built around these principles of frequency and using a mixture of direct and indirect stimulation of smaller body parts would look like this. Bodyparts that receive secondary stimulation are notated in brackets.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7

Delts (triceps)
Quads
Lats (biceps)
Delts (triceps)

Quads
Lats (biceps)
Traps

Biceps
Hamstrings
Chest (delts, triceps)
Calves
Hamstrings
Chest (delts, triceps)
Hamstrings

Forearms
Calves
Grip

Forearms
Calves

Traps

Traps
Triceps

Obviously each of you will have your own preferences for certain exercises and certain volumes of work but I have laid out an example below that ties in with the concepts outlined in the article "Bodybuilding - A sample program" of 3 - 5 exercises for 3 to 5 sets per session.

Day 1. Day 4.

1. Overhead Press 4 x 10 1. Overhead Press 4 x 10

2. Close Grip Preacher Curls 4 x 10 2. Seated Calve raise 4 x 10

3. Cable laterals 4 x 10 3. Dumbbell Laterals 4 x 10

4. Seated Dbell Curls 4 x 10 4. Standing Calf 4 x 10

5. Reverse Curls 2 x 15

Day 2. Day 5.

1. Leg Extensions 4 x 10 1. Leg Extensions 4 x 10

2. Hamstring Curls 4 x 10 2. Leg Curls 4 x 10

3. Leg Press 4 x 10 3. Squat 4 x 15

4. Standing Leg Curl 4 x 10 4. Snatch grip shrug 4 x 10

5. Standing Calve Raise 2 x 15 5. Reverse Curls 2 x 15

Day 3. Day 6.

1.Wide Grip Chins 4 x 10 1. Wide Pulldowns 4 x 10

2. Bench Press 4 x 10 2. Incline Dbell Press 4 x 10

3.Machine Rows 4 x 10 3. Cable Rows 4 x10

4. Dumbbell Flyes 4 x 10 4. Pushdowns 4 x 10

5. Thick bar Shrugs 2 x 15 5. Standing Calve Raise 2 x 15

Day 7.

1. Shrugs 4 x 10

2. Leg Curls 4 x 10

Whether you choose to follow this program as outlined or substitute your own favoured exercises and set / rep schemes please do get in touch with any feedback you might have. For those of you who like a day off here and there, go ahead and take one if you feel your performance drops when training every day. I'd be especially interested to hear from anyone who ties the above program in with the 6 week progression in my "Sample Program" article.

Conan21


PART 3

Hypertrophy Training - Are we missing something here?

It is generally accepted amongst forward thinking bodybuilders that the key factors behind hypertrophy are the load, the accruement of waste products and the damage of muscle fibres (microtrauma). The complexities of training arise when the time comes to decide how best to induce these factors, and how often. I have written about training frequency and loading in my other "bodybuilding" articles so I will leave that alone here. What I wish to discuss is how best to cause microtrauma, and how best to cause waste products to accumulate.

When we lift weights there are 2 distinct actions, concentric action and eccentric action. All of us are approximately 40% stronger in eccentric actions than concentric actions, so it is eccentric actions that allow for the greatest possible mechanical load. It has also been noted both anecdotally and in controlled studies that training with eccentric movements creates greater microtrauma than training with concentric movements and causes greater muscle growth. So, it is pretty obvious that if hypertrophy is your goal then you had better pay attention to the "negative" portion of your reps.

Usually this is accomplished by prescribing at Time Under Tension protocol, for example allocating a fixed time to the eccentric, amortization and eccentric phases of each repetition like "take 4 seconds to lower the bar, pause at the bottom for 1 second, then raise the bar as fast as you can". This is all well and good but it does have a simple limitation in that it forces the lifter to utilise a poundage on the the eccentric portion of the rep that is way less than his maximal eccentric poundage. Remember, eccentric strength is up to 40% greater than concentric strength, so if you are using a weight of between 55 and 85% of your maximal concentric strength for sets of 5 - 12 reps (a typical bodybuilding protocol) then you are only working with 40 - 60% of your maximal poundage during the eccentric portion of your reps. Even if you emphasise the negative portion of the reps or perform a further negative rep after concentric "failure" has been reached you are still only using a tiny poundage!

My thinking is that if we wish to maximise microtrauma then we should be using a greater load on the negative portion of our reps but this of course means that we will NOT be able to perform the concentric portion of the rep as the weight will be to heavy. There are several ways around this problem, perhaps the best of which is to utilise machines or racks that allow you to begin each repetition at the lockout position and then simply lower the weight to the bottom position. Many pressing type machines allow you to use your legs to push the weight out to lockout before beginning the rep, and a power rack will allow you to start a rep from the top and then lower the weight to the safety pins. You can then strip off some of the weight and return the bar to the top position before reloading the bar and starting your next rep.

I suggest that if you wish to try eccentric reps you start with a poundage of about 90% of your maximal concentric poundage for sets of 5 - 12 negative reps. In order to prepare for handling such a poundage I suggest you go through a standard warm up of full (concentric + eccentric) reps up to 85% or so of your concentric maximum. For example if you can press 100Kg you would go:

20Kg x 15 reps 40kg x 5 60kg x 3 80kg x 2

and then start your concentric reps with 90Kg for 5 - 8 eccentric only reps. Lower the weight as slowly as you can, each concentric rep will take 4 - 8 seconds. If the weight is coming crashing down IT IS TOO HEAVY! As this will be the heaviest thing you do all day you should do it first thing in your workout after warm-ups.

Moving on to more standard fare the workout continues with 3 - 6 standard sets of 5 - 12 reps with 90 seconds - 3 minutes rest between sets. The load here will be around 70% of your concentric maximum. The final set of the day will be utilised to maximise the build up of lactic acid and waste products within the muscles. We will accomplish this by the "stripping" or drop set method. This involves performing a set to concentric failure with around 55% of max and then immediately removing some weight from the bar and continuing the set for further reps with the now lighter load. You can perform 1 to 3 drops in this final set. Remember your goal is to maximise the build up of lactic acid and waste products so be prepared for some serious discomfort during this set.

Well, that's it! You have now maximised eccentric stress and muscle fibre microtrauma, performed regular sets to ensure sufficient volume of work and maximised waste product buildup through the use of a drop set. Obviously this approach does not allow for the use of multiple exercises per body part as you will be too fatigued to perform further eccentric work upon completion of your drop set. If you utilise this method then your training split will have to reflect the fact that you volume of work will be moderately low, so your training frequency can be quite high, for instance training most body parts every 2 or 3 days. An example split is shown below.

1. Back, rear deltoids. (Chin-ups, hyperextensions, rear delt raise).

2. Chest. (Press)

3. Legs, biceps. (Squats, stiff leg deadlifts, preacher curls)

4. Shoulders, back. (overhead press, barbell row)

5. Chest. (Flyes)

6. Legs, triceps. (Lunge, triceps extension)

Well, no doubt you are thinking this would be tough to implement and you are right but as I am always saying if being big and strong was easy then everyone would be doing it. Enjoy your training and as always Email me with any feedback.

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