EVOLUTION OF MODERN TRAINING

Bodybuilders have continued to get bigger harder and more cut over the decades and they have figured out over time by trial and error, better ways of training and more effective methods of dieting as bodybuilding techniques have become more widely known and adopted.

In old days bodybuilders still use to train largely like weightlifters and tended to work the whole body three times a week. Bodybuilding training is much more sophisticated than that today. Bodybuilders train each body part more intensely , hit all the muscles from different angles , use a wider variety of exercises and equipment and are much more aware of the need to train hard in relatively short bursts and allow the body to rest , recuperate and grow. In old days the only goal was to get big but today bodybuilders try to achieve quality creating a physique with spectacular shape and symmetry with every muscle defined and separated.

As bodybuilders developed new techniques the tools used to shape their bodies also changed. In the early sixties the introduction of exercise machines made a greater variety of exercises possible. 

Bodybuilders have also learned the right way of diet and nutrition. Lean muscularity was not always the important factor in bodybuilding , pure muscle mass was considered more important but bodybuilders have now realized the bulk produced by the body fat had no place in quality physique . 

There is no longer much difference in the equipment available in a hardcore bodybuilding gym or a health spa . People have learned that muscle is muscle and you need the same range of equipment whether you are training to stay fit and healthy or to get big.

IMPORTANCE OF RESTING BETWEEN SETS

It is very important to pace yourself properly through a workout. If you try to train too fast , you risk cardiovascular failure or injury before you have worked the muscle enough. Also by training fast you may have a tendency to get sloppy and start throwing the weights around instead of training with proper technique.

On the other hand training too slowly is also bad. If you take 5 minutes rest between each set , your heart rate slows down , you loose your pump , the muscles get cold and your level of intensity drops down to nothing.

So you should always keep the rest between sets for a minute or less. In the first minute minute after a weight training exercise you recover 72 % of your strength and by 3 minutes you have recovered all you are going to recover without extended rest. Always remember that this point of training is to stimulate and fatigue the maximum number of muscle fiber possible and this happens only when the body is forced to recruit the additional muscle fibers to replace what is already fatigued. So you don't want your muscles to recover too much between sets but just enough to be able to continue your workout and keep forcing the body to recruit more and more muscle tissue.

The stronger you are the more times you can lift a submaximal amount of weight. This means the more you push yourself to develop muscular endurance the stronger you become. So maintaining a regular pace in your training actually leads to an increase in overall strength.

OVERTRAINING AND RECUPERATION

The harder you work your body , the more time it takes to recover and recuperate from that training. Rest and recuperation is very important because although you stimulate growth by training but it is during the subsequent period of recuperation that actual growth and adaption take place. That's why most bodybuilders frequently overcome sticking points by resting more rather than training hard or more often.

Overtraining occurs when train a muscle too often to allow it to fully recuperate. You hear bodybuilders talk about tearing the muscle down and then letting it rebuild itself but this is not physiologically accurate. There can be small amount of tissue damage during heavy exercise and it is this damage that is associated with the residual muscular soreness. But the soreness is a side effect and not the primary reasons the muscles need to recuperate after heavy training.

A number of complex biochemical process accompany strenuous muscular contraction. The process of fueling the muscular contraction results the build up of toxic waste such as lactic acid. And during the exercise the energy stored in the muscle in form of glycogen is used up.

The body requires time to restore the chemical balance of the muscle cells , clear out the residual waste products and restock the depleted stores of glycogen. But another factor is even more important : Time is needed for the cells to the stimulus of the exercise and to grow. After all bodybuilders is all about making muscles grow. If you overtrain a muscle forcing it to work too hard and too quickly then you are not giving it a chance to grow and your progress will be slow.

Different muscles recover from exercise at different rates. The biceps recover the fastest. The lower back muscles recover the slowest taking about a hundred hours to completely recuperate after a heavy workout. In most cases giving a muscle rest of 48 hours is very important which means skipping a day after training a muscle before training it again.

Basic training involves only medium levels of intensity , so the time needed for recuperation is shorter. Once you move on to advanced training the higher amount of intensity will be needed in order to overcome the greater resistance of the body to change and growth. There is one other factor : Trained muscles recover faster than the untrained muscles. So the better you get at bodybuilding , the faster your recovery will be and more intense your training program will become.

POWER TRAINING

There are various ways of assessing strength. For example , If I can lift 300 pounds and you can lift only 250 pounds , I'm stronger than you in one rep strength. However if you can lift 250 pounds ten times and I can lift it only eight times , this is a different kind of strength , you would be surpassing me in muscular endurance , the ability to continue to be strong over a series of movements.

To shape and develop the body , it is necessary to do a lot of endurance training that is - the appropriate number of sets and reps. But I think the fact is , unless you do low rep training you will never achieve the hardness and density you want a truly first class physique.

In old days all bodybuilders trained for power. Being strong was considered as important as having a physique that looked good. But there were then and now are different kind of strength. 

Including some power sets in your training also helps to make you stronger for the rest of your training. You will be able to move up to heavy weights easy and fast so your muscles will grow that much faster. It also toughens and strengthen your tendons as well as your muscles so you will be much likely to strain them while doing light weight training with more reps even if you lose concentration at some point and handle the weight with less than perfect technique.

Heavy training strengthens the attachment of the tendon to bone. Separating the tendon from bone is called a avulsion fracture and the right kind of power training minimizes the possibility of this occurring.

Muscle size and density that is created by heavy training are easier to maintain for a long period of time , even with minimum of maintenance training. With high rep training only much of the growth is the result of transient factors such as fluid retention and glycogen storage but muscle made as hard as a granite wall comes with an actual increase in muscle fiber size. The muscle cells walls themselves grow thicker and tougher so they tend to resist shrinking.

When you do power training you find out what your body can really do how much weight you can really move and this gives you a mental edge over someone who never does power training.

Modern bodybuilders need to master many sophisticated techniques but you can't forget that the basis of bodybuilding is developing muscle mass by lifting heavy weights. This does not mean that I believe bodybuilders should train like weight lifters. I recommend a program of total development that includes a certain number of power moves to give you the advantage of both kinds of training.

WARMING UP

Often people talk about warming up , they don't understand how literally that should be taken. Remember oxidation in the muscle is actually a form of burning. Because of this when you use a muscle the temperature in the area rises and the ability of the muscle to contract forcefully becomes greater. 

Warming up also pumps fresh , oxygenated blood to the area , raises the blood pressure and increases the heart rate. This provides a maximum oxygen supply to the body and helps to eliminate the waste products of exercise from the working muscles.

Finally warming up properly helps to protect the body of getting overstressed , prepares it for the demand of heavy training , and reduces the chance of injury such as sprain or strain.

There are lots of ways to warm up. Some do a short session of cardio vascular training prior to  their workout -treadmill,arc trainer etc.- enough to get the heart going but not enough to deplete the body of energy. Calisthenics and other light exercises also give you a warm up without putting a great stress on the body. But the most popular method of warming up is with the weights themselves. First do some stretching then do some moderately light movements with barbell or dumbbells hitting each body part until the body is ready for something more strenuous.

Then for each different exercise during your workout you begin with one light warm up set in order to get those specific muscles for that specific movement.

When you do a set or two with higher reps and less than maximum weight your muscles are then prepared to deal with the greater intensity generated by heavier weights and 6 rep sets.

Warming up is even more important before heavy training sessions because you are about to subject the body to still greater stress. The best idea is not to do really heavy movements until the body gets into gear by doing the less stressful bodybuilding sets first.

The time of day is also a factor is also a factor how much warming up you need. If you are training at 8 o clock in the morning you are likely to be tighter and more in need of stretching and warming up than 8 o clock at night.

Always take care that you warm up thoroughly. If you are about to do heavy shoulder press for example remember that you are going to involve more than the deltoids and triceps. The muscles of the neck and trapezius will also contract in the movement and they should be given time to get ready.

Injuries in the gym generally happen for two primary reasons : Either the person used too much weight or failed to keep the weight totally under control or didn't stretch and warm up properly.

I should also point out the affect of age on the physique and athletic ability. It is commonly known that the older you are the more important protecting your body with stretching and warm up becomes. Young athletes can get away with the things that the older can't. Nonetheless , learning proper technique , stretching , warming up are good for all bodybuilders regardless of age and the soon you make it a lifelong habit the better off you will be in the long run.

SETS

Generally in the Basic Training Program I recommend doing 4 sets of each bodybuilding exercise except where otherwise specified. I believe this is the best system for several reasons :

1. You need to do at least 4 sets in order to have the volume of training necessary to fully stimulate all the available muscle fiber. If you do more sets per exercise your total training volume will be so great that you risk over training.

2. Doing 4 sets per exercise for a total of 12 sets per body part in the Basic Training Program and 20 sets in Advance Training enables you to do a sufficient variety of exercises to work all the areas of a body part .

3. The experience of five decades of bodybuilders has proved that the maximum amount of weight you can handle that allows you to just make it through 4 sets of an exercise will stimulate the muscles and make them grow.

There is a difference in how much training small muscles require compared to large muscles or muscle groups. For example, If I'm training my back that doesn't involve just one muscle , there are many different muscles in the back , such as lats , rhomboids , traps , spinal erectors of the lower back and each of these areas has to be trained specifically. The same is true for the thighs. The thighs consist of four powerful quadriceps muscles as well as the adductors at thre inside of the upper leg. To fully train this area , you need both power and isolation movements , you have to hit the different heads at different angles and you aren't going to accomplish this with just a few sets.

In training smaller muscles like the biceps and triceps , on the other hand , fewer total sets are needed because those muscles are just not that complex. You can get a complete biceps workout doing a total of about 9 to 12 sets. For example, whereas most bodybuilders would do 16 to 20 total sets to work the thighs. The rear deltoid is even smaller muscle and generally 4 to 5 sets for the posterior deltoid head is enough. However muscle phsyiology also comes into play. The biceps are the fastest recuperating muscles so if you feel like training them using higher sets they are still able to recover. And the calf muscles which are relatively small are designed to do virtually endless repetitions when you walk or run so you can get great results training them with a relatively high number of sets.

But don't worry about trying to remember exactly which muscle should be trained with how many sets right off the bat. I've taken all of this into consideration in the exercise program recommendation coming up in my later posts.

TRAINING TO FAILURE

Training to failure in bodybuilding doesn't mean training to a point of complete exhaustion. It simply means continuing a set until you can't do any more repetitions with that weight without stopping to rest. Failure results from the gradual fatiguing of the muscle fibers involved and the inability of the muscle to recruit any more fibers to take their place. The process of contracting a muscle involves the process of oxidation-in effect,a form of burning which is why we say you burn calories as it creates heat with the release of energy when you exercise. Oxidation requires both a source of fuel in the muscle and oxygen. Whenever fuel or oxygen is in too short supply the muscle fibers can't contract until they are replenished as you rest and recuperate.

Another limiting factor is the buildup of waste products that result from the release of energy due to muscular contraction. The burning sensation you feel in a muscle as you continue to pump out reps is due to the accumulation of lactic acid in the area. When you stop to rest , the body removes the lactic acid from the area and you are able to do more reps.

Aerobic exercise which means with oxygen involves high repetition effort at sufficiently low intensity so that the body can pump enough blood and oxygen to the area to keep the muscle supplied running a marathon. Weight training is anaerobic without oxygen and the muscular contraction involved is just too intense for the oxygen supply to keep pace. So your muscles run out of oxygen , you fatigue and have to rest while the body pumps more blood and oxygen to the fatigued area.

Why is training to failure important ? When you are doing reps with a weight less than your one-rep maximum all the muscle fibers available don't come into play at once. You use some they become fatigued and the body recruits others to take their place. Continuing a set to a failure is a way of demanding that all the fibers available to be recruited at the same time. At what point failure occurs depends on the weight you use in a particular exercise. If you are doing an upper body exercise and want the muscles to fail at say 8-12 reps , you pick a weight that causes this to happen. If you find you are able to do 15 reps in the weight so you put more weight in the next set to bring it to failure point into the desired range. If you can do only 5 reps you know you need the lighten the weight so you can do few more reps before your muscles reach the failure point. But you never just stop the set because you have counted off a certain number of reps. 

One of the ways you gauge your bodybuilding progress is the change in where the failure occurs during your training. As your individual  muscle fibers get stronger you are able to recruit more of them and your body increases its ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles during exercise. As a result you will find you can do many more reps with the same weight before hitting the failure point. This is the sign you need to use more weight.

Of course you aren't a machine , so the way you actually do your sets is not that mechanical. Some sets need to be more demanding and more intense than others. Here is a perfect way to perform your workout to bring strength,shape and power to your body.

First set : a warm up set with a lighter weight 15 reps or slightly more.

Second set : Add weight so that the muscles fail at about 10 to 12 reps.

Third set : Add more weight to bring the failure point down to 8 to 10 reps.

Fourth set : For maximum strength add enough weight so your muscles fail after only 6 reps , this is a power set.

REPS

A rep is a one complete cycle of an exercise movement - a contraction of a muscle followed by an extension - that is , lifting a weight and lowering it again. A set is a group of these repetitions. How many reps you include in a set clearly depends on what kind of exercise you are doing. Both research and experience have shown that bodybuilders get the most results using a weight in each exercise that represents about 70 to 75 % of their one rep maximum - that is, the amount of weight they could use doing one full out repetition of that one particular exercise. If  you use this amount of weight you will generally find you can do sets of :

8-12 repetitions for upper body muscles 
12-16 repetitions for the major leg muscles

These figures are just approximations but they will work well as general guidelines and specially for beginners.

Why can you do more repetitions for the legs than the upper body ?

Simply because the fall off in strength over the course of a set is slower in the legs than in the upper body  -  upper body muscles just don't have the same kind of endurance as leg muscles. But in both cases the amount of weight used represents the same 70-75% of the one rep maximum ability of the muscles involved.

Occasionally, there are reasons for using less weight than this and doing therefore more reps and some very useful types of sets which involve heavier weight and fewer reps such as low rep sets for maximum strength and power. But these guidelines represent the majority of training bodybuilders do - and especially true for beginners. Some bodybuilders also do heavy weight for full power and strength and few reps such as 4-6 reps but in these workouts the risk of injury increases.

PROGRESSIVE TRAINING

Your muscles will grow only when they are subjected to an overload. They will not respond to anything less. Muscles will grow bigger and stronger only if you force them to. Making your muscles contract against a level of resistance they are not used to will eventually cause them to adapt and grow stronger. But once they have adapted sufficiently , this progress will stop. When this happens , the only way to make your muscles continue to grow is by further increasing the amount of overload to which you subject them. And the primary way of doing this is to add weight to your exercises.

Of course , this increase in resistance has to be done gradually. Using too much weight too soon usually makes it impossible for you to perform your sets using the proper technique and can also increase the risk of injury.

STRENGTH TRAINING

Strength training is a type of physical exercise specializing in the use of resistance to induce muscular contraction which builds the strength,anaerobic endurance and the size of skeleton muscles.

Before performing any strength training workout you should know how to properly perform as if not performed in the proper way its meant to be , the workout will not benefit your body instead the chances of harming yourself and the harm can be permanent. So you really need to know understand the proper way of performing the workout to stay fit and get the desired built.

Many men also take up weight training to improve their physical attractiveness that is broad shoulders and narrow waist and this type of body can be achieved with strength training but only if you are training in a right and proper way. No knowledge of "how to perform it" can be very bad for your body posture. 

When it comes to building strength there are 2 rules : lift heavy and use multijoint lifts with great technique. There are hundreds of exercises that can help you get bigger and stronger but if you are limited of time or equipment , there are four monster lifts with the help of which you can make your whole body stronger.8

Your body is comprised of muscles that help you push and pull , you have to work all to maximize strength. For the upper body you can perform the king of lifts : squat and you can couple it with deadlift and the upper body training is complete. For the lower body you can perform bench press and couple it with barbell row.

Shoot for 5-8 reps and 3-5 sets per exercise and you should be performing enough weight that can take you too near failure in each set. When performing strength training a bit more rest is recommended. Aim for 2-3 minutes rest between sets and increase the weight if you are having an easy time getting to 8 reps on each set. All big strength lifts should come early in your workout routine if you are using them with conjuction with other lifts for a specific muscle group. If you build your program around the following major lifts you can minimize the use of finishing exercises for your arms,calves and abdominals.

So if strength is your aim in the gym , try to perform all four major lifts atleast twice a week so you have 3-4 days in between for maximal strength. Try the following full body workout twice a week for a month or as needed and see the strength in you.

Exercise              sets      reps
Squat                                        5          6
Deadlift                                     4          6
Barbell row                               5          6
Bench press                             5          6
Triceps pressdown                   3          8
Barbell curl                               3          8
Calf raise                                  3          8