15 years ago I would have said it was impossible to gain more than 10 pounds of muscle in a year! This is certainly no longer the case. In fact, it’s proven!

Based on a 35 year learning curve in bodybuilding competitions and what I know about anaerobic exercise and diet now, this would certainly seem impossible from where I was back then. However, as the saying goes… “If I knew then what I know now!”

Back in the ’70s, he trained comparatively much less than anyone else on the scene, except for a man named Mike Mentzer and his brother Ray. He was training 3 days a week doing half body one workout and half the other! He was doing maybe 7-8 sets per workout while everyone else was doing 20-30 sets and doing those sets twice a day, 6 days a week. He kept training way too much even with the 7 sets he was doing! More is not better when building muscle.

It was very refreshing to see how Mike had changed the way bodybuilders go about their business, that is, building muscle. Mike approached it from a scientific point of view. With the help and time spent with his mentor Arthur Jones, who is the creator of Nautilus, Mike became known at that time as the Thinking Man Bodybuilder. Although Mike is no longer with us, due to an undetected condition he Related to bodybuilding, I still consider him one of the greatest minds in bodybuilding science, and moreover, in this era.

In the early to mid 90’s, I had the pleasure of knowing Mike first hand. I contacted him for phone consultations for myself and in that we developed a friendship where he helped shape my thought process, which has allowed me to guide my clients’ progress without guessing or expecting them to progress. They just do it! At the time, Mike had been building his own personal training business (and he helped me with mine) and was doing a lot of research on how to build muscle. He admitted as I did, even though he was training less than anyone else, he was still training too much!

GENETICS

Like all human beings, physically we are not that different. If we were, doctors would not be able to treat symptoms, perform surgeries, and help us cure our diseases if they are present. A good example is with an anesthesiologist. This doctor knows exactly how much anesthesia to give you when he performs his job. He doesn’t guess! It is a science Being a science very similar to any other science that has exact disciplines, there are certain proven theories. If this were not the case, NASA would never have been able to send an astronaut into space and return it safely. That would be a fucking shot! But is not.

Genetics is a factor in the mix. Just as there are different individuals who have tolerance to sunlight, that is, albinos at one end of the spectrum and blacks at the other, there are those who have different exercise tolerances within a specific spectrum. That is, they can only BE EXPOSED at a certain volume and frequency. I have a good friend who is a Negro who has no problem being in the August sun for an hour or more, however his wife, who is redheaded, blonde, and freckled, can’t stand a fraction of it. that he. she can, without incurring a nasty burn.

There is no doubt that high intensity training, like the sun, is nothing more than stress that pushes the body to adapt and compensate for that stress. Once you compensate for the extra stress, you overcompensate for it. The overcompensation that occurs with intense training is the buildup of extra muscle, and the overcompensation that occurs from being in the August sun is the skin-darkening tan.

Here’s a great analogy… like gardening and getting a callus on your hands, you never get a callus on your hands from setting the table.

THE BACKSIDE

You can train hard or you can train long, but you can’t train hard and long. The more you train, the shorter the duration should be! It is specific to the result.

No one really knows how much intensity it takes to activate the body’s growth mechanism. Is it 50, is it 70, is it 85, or is it 100%? Nobody knows. So the most logical place to start is 100%. Some promote cycling training or periodization, where you cycle the intensity up and down. This is a bullshit! All they are doing is trying to offset the exhausting effects of the training. If done correctly, this is not necessary!

SYSTEMIC RECOVERY FIRST

The body doesn’t recover based on your body parts… I mean, if you train chest and arms today it doesn’t mean your system has recovered to train shoulders and back tomorrow, wait one day, train legs, then eyebrows and nails (just kidding) etc. The body recovers systematically. It recovers as a whole. If you short-circuit the process in the meantime by training again before you’ve compensated and then overcompensate, you’ll experience very little, if any, gain and quite possibly regress or lose muscle in the long run.

Have you ever noticed that as a beginning bodybuilder you make gains right from the start no matter what you do? However, as you get bigger and stronger, do your gains slow down? Once your progress slows, the usual response is the theory of more is better. Those trying to build a more muscular body go to the nearest guru muscle magazine, look through all the workouts to find out what the latest Mr. Olympia is doing, and then switch to that workout! REDICTURE! Then they flip through to see the latest magic potion that will help them gain muscle while they train! STOP WASTING PRECIOUS TIME!

First of all, the Mr. Olympias of today and of yesteryear use and use enormous amounts of drugs like growth hormone, insulin, and steroids to name a few. All of these drugs intensify the body’s recovery systems and place them in hyperspace. The problem is twofold, they are very expensive and they are illegal. Now there are questions about whether I agree with their legality, since I believe in free choice, but the fact is that they help in the recovery of warp speed. Most of us choose to gain muscle based on our genetic ability and not with drugs.

Building muscle is a lot like building a mountain. When you train, the stimulation or stress, as long as it’s intense enough to activate the body’s growth mechanism, is a lot like digging a ditch. Before you can build a mountain, you must first fill in the trench. Once the trench is filled, then and only then can you put more soil on top of the filled hole to create the mountain. OK, here’s the clincher!!

Your body only has 100 full shovels or points (I’ll call it that) of recovery ability. It doesn’t matter if you have a 12-inch arm or an 18-inch arm… that’s all you’ve got no matter what level of development you’re at. If you use them during your workout, there is nothing left for recovery or growth.

The problem is that an 18-inch arm that can curl 200 lbs. can contract more intensely than a 12-inch arm that can curl 50 lbs. THIS MEANS that the more intense contraction of the 18-inch arm uses more of those 100 full paddles and more resilience than the 12-inch arm. REMEMBER, training is always negative. If we could stimulate muscle growth without training… this would be perfect as we could use those 100 full scoops in the compensation (or recovery) stage and then the overcompensation stage which is muscle growth. To reiterate again, the body must first recover from the exhausting effects of training or compensate, fill the ditch, then whatever is left over compensates or builds muscle, builds the mountain. Recovery can take several days, if not weeks!

VOLUME AND FREQUENCY MANAGEMENT

Have you ever noticed that after a layoff, whether forced or voluntary, you always come back even stronger? I have realized this throughout my bodybuilding career and with my clients. These are the findings…

1. We know that it is the intensity of the effort that stimulates the body to activate the growth mechanism. We also know that as you get bigger and stronger, the contraction needs to be more intense to stimulate further growth.

2. We know that working hard and long is the opposite, so our workouts should be short.

3. We know that a well designed bodybuilding program is really a strength program. As you get stronger, you will experience muscle gain. Strength gains precede body weight gains.

4. We know that the body recovers and grows systematically

5. We know that the body has limited resources, and as we grow older and stronger, those resources become even more taxed.

THE PERFECT TRAINING

We talked about various things so far, let me give you an example that will interest you…

Peter, who is an avid RU Serious student, started with a training I prescribed to him over the phone 13 weeks ago. He was doing 3 sets, 2 separate workouts, training once every 7-8 days for about 15 minutes. Peter has been a bodybuilder, but until recently he hasn’t had a desire to develop an extreme amount of lean body tissue. Furthermore, he tells me that he is planning, with my revised routine, to double his earnings thus far. We will see! His stats are below.

****Client – Peter

****Occupancy – LMT

****Age – 41 years

**** Height – 5’6″

****Starting Body Weight – 159 – 10% Body Fat

****Body Weight 13 weeks later – 190 – 10% body fat

****Lean Muscle Gain 13 weeks – 31lbs

****Target Body Weight – 220 – 10% Body Fat

As you can see, it doesn’t take a lot of bulk to stimulate muscle growth. In fact, the stronger you get, the less frequent and less volume you should implement with regards to your workouts.

In fact, I am going to recommend that Peter reduce his sets from 3 per workout to 2 per workout and train every 8-10 days to reach his stated goal. Until my change in his routine 13 weeks ago, Peter had not experienced this kind of growth. Again, genetics, volume, frequency, exercise tolerance. Bodybuilding is a science if you adhere to certain principles and theories. The trick is being able to handle a higher intensity and a decrease in volume and frequency.

My clients’ experience wins out in each and every workout and they don’t have to wonder if they are making progress or not. If you’re doing it right, you should make progress in each and every training session and reach your genetic potential in a year and at most two.

If you would like more information on how to achieve your bodybuilding, muscle building, fat loss, or personal goals, please visit me on my website at http://www.ruserious.info