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Bodybuilding, Why Less Is Always More

When considering total training volume and frequency, there is always one rule that will universally hold true; less is more. This is not just something that I tell the girls in my life, it is a rule that I adhere to strictly with the training of all of my athletes.

It is always better to err on the side of doing too little than doing too much. Before you start conjuring up images of Mike Mentzer and think I am recommending that you do one extended drop set, once a month, let me explain how I came to follow this rule as gospel.

Growing up I was always the skinniest, weakest kid in school. When I started training I did the usual high volume bodybuilding stuff that everyone else did. Long story short, I never started making progress until I cut my volume and frequency to nearly a quarter of what it was.

Throughout the years I would stray from the path from time to time and during those periods my progress would usually come to a screeching halt. As soon as I returned to a lower volume and frequency approach my results would sky rocket again.

Of course I have the worst genetics in the world and you could argue that that is the only reason why this approach works for me. Anyone with better genetics could surely handle high volume training, you could argue. This is true, they could…for certain time periods. But the question is, is it really necessary and will it bring about better results?

Fortunately I have had the opportunity to test this theory on nearly 500 athletes over the last thirteen year s so I am pretty confident in my conclusions. With most beginners I set up a basic three day a week, full body template with the focus being on a few big, basic exercises.

The total set volume usually ranges from 18-25 per workout. Below is a sample beginner routine I use with most young kids: Note: This is their first weight training program which comes after a few months or even a year or so of bodyweight only training and basic beginner drills. Setting up this kind of training is beyond the scope of this article and is an article in itself.

For our purposes here we will skip that and take a sample program of a freshman in high school that is looking to get big and strong and has already gone through the prerequisite bodyweight only training.

Monday 1) Trap Bar Deadlift Sets: 4 Reps: 6 Rest: 120 2A) Bench Press Sets: 4 Reps: 6 Rest: 60 2B) Chin Up Sets: 4 Reps: 6 Rest: 60 3) Swiss Ball Crunch Sets: 2 Reps: 10 Rest: 90

Wednesday 1) Squat Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 120 2A) 1 Arm DB Row Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 60 2B) Incline DB Press Sets: 3 Reps: 10 Rest: 60 3A) Side Flexion on Swiss Ball Sets: 2 Reps: 15 Rest: 60 3B) 1 Arm DB Shrug Sets: 2 Reps: 15 Rest: 90

Friday 1A) DB Step Up Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 1B) Chain Suspended Pushup Sets: 2 Reps: amap (as many as possible) Rest: 90 2A) Back Extension or 45* Back Extension or Reverse Hyper Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 2B) Hanging Body Row aka Fat Man Pullup Sets: 3 Reps: amap Rest: 90 3A) Cable Woodchopper Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 3B) Decline Sit Up Sets: 2 Reps: 20 Rest: 90 4) Barbell Curl Sets: 2 Reps 15 Rest: 90

You will notice that this workout is a far cry from some of the typical bodybuilding crap that most kids do.

The volume is nowhere near what many high school kids do and training three days a week is very unusual for the avid high school lifter. The major difference, however, is the results this system will yield. This type of template works extremely well with beginners and never fails to pack on incredible amounts of size and strength.

After one to two years on this type of system I typically begin to split the workouts into upper/lower splits and introduce a fourth day to the training week. During these workouts the total set volume comes up a little and usually works out to be 12-18 sets per workout.

One of the biggest keys to my success, I feel, has been the use of the delayed transformation effect and the implementation of planned deload weeks. There is nothing new or revolutionary about how I do this as it has been done for years and written about several times by many different people.

The information that I used to come up with this system is readily available to anyone who wants it yet so many people do not choose to use it for some reason. It is well known that the body works best in three week cycles. It is also known that is difficult to make continued progress on the same program for much longer than three weeks.

To take advantage of this fact I have my athletes train at a high volume (12-20 sets) for three weeks straight.

During these three weeks the intensity increases steadily. On the fourth week we have a deload week where we cut the total set volume by 50%. The following week the athletes will come back refreshed and stronger.

This is the realization of the delayed transformation effect. With more inexperienced athletes I tend to cycle max effort work in four week waves where they will usually start the first week with sets of four to five reps and over the course of the next month steadily decrease the reps and finally hit a one rep max on the final week.

A sample of this is provided below:

Incline Bench Press Sets: 5,6,4,1 Reps: 4,3,2,1RM Rest: 120

Note: Each number represents a week of training so you would do five sets of four on week one, six sets of three on week two, etc. There are several ways in which I cycle max effort work at this level, this is just one example.

Eventually when this four week wave starts to provide less than optimal results, I switch them over to a three week max effort wave which would look something like this:

Safety Bar Box Squat Sets: 3,5,1 Reps: 5@80-85%, 3@85-90%, 1RM Rest: 180 Or Trap Bar Deadlift Sets: 1,1,1 Reps: 5RM, 3RM, 1RM Rest:180

The fourth week would still be a deload week in which there would be no max effort work and instead the athlete would just do assistance work at a reduced set volume. There are better and more scientific or even more instinctive ways to monitor training volume but the problem is when you are dealing with overly eager high school or college athletes they will always be raring to go balls to the wall every day of the week.

Each day when a high school or college athlete arrives at my gym, I ask them how they are feeling that day. The response is almost always the same, “Great!” Unfortunately, at thirty years old, I am eight years past my prime and rather beat up so I can’t remember the last time I felt “great!” Actually that’s a lie, after an hour or so of drinking on a Saturday night I pretty much feel invincible but that’s a whole other story for me and my shrink to discuss.

So, while monitoring training volume based upon feel on a daily basis is really the optimal method, it is not always practical considering the population you may be working with. That is why I choose the planned deload weeks.

You also have to take into account that most athletes are not seasoned lifters who know how to listen to their bodies on a daily basis. They only know that they have to keep pushing themselves harder and harder and that turning it down seems like giving up. This is just the nature of the beast; completive, successful athletes are born with that attitude and it is hard to convince them sometimes that less is more.

After years of training a given athlete, one of the changes I will often make is to reduce his high to low volume ratio from three to one to two to one.

While he used to train at a high volume for three weeks followed by a one week unloading period, the stronger and more neurologically efficient he becomes, the less high volume training he will be able to tolerate.

When a situation like this arises and I see that progress is starting to slow down I will begin to switch the athlete over to two weeks of high volume followed by a one week deload. This method works extremely well with the more advanced athlete.

There are endless ways to manipulate volume of both max effort and assistance work but explaining every way I do this would turn this article into a book. Hopefully the examples above have provided some useful information for you to work with. As much as we may try to plan the optimal cycling of training volume, there is no way to account for the daily stresses of life.

Emotional stress is far more difficult to recover from than physical stress and has to be taken into account when planning training volume. During exams, job interview weeks, breakups or any other stressful times in life it is always necessary to lower your training volume. Even though the stress is not physical it will wreak havoc on your ability to recover from a normal training sessions and must be considered.

In an ideal world, with an experienced lifter, training volume is something that you don’t really even have to think about and should monitor itself. Some days you feel great, well… good at least, and will want to push it. Do those extra sets of dumbbell presses and curls if you want. Other days you will feel like death and only manage to get through six to ten sets before calling it a day.

This is known as cybernetic periodization and is an advanced method to be used by those with years of experience. It is the optimal way to monitor training volume. There is no fancy scientific formula to follow here; it’s all based on feel. Once you get to this level and know when to back off, when to turn it up, when to skip workouts, and when to take weeks off; you will truly have mastered the art of training.

No matter if you are an absolute beginner or an experienced veteran with twenty plus years of training experience under your belt, the rule of less is more will always hold true. Recently this has been proven to me on a routine basis through the results of some of my friends who train with me at my gym.

This is a group of guys who range in age from late twenties to early forties. They all work full time jobs and many have families. I had all of them training four days per week for a while but decided to cut them back to three days. Instantly their rates of progress went through the roof. Coincidentally, all of them just happened to be getting busier and busier in their professional and personal lives and began to miss workouts.

Twelve workouts per month had been reduced to an average of nine to ten. You know what happened? They got stronger! This is not just one guy either; this is true across the board for seven of my close friends. Two of them work together and were both promoted to new positions and basically put in charge of running the company they work for.

They trained once a week for a month straight and still came in at the end of the month and set new PR’s on the bench press!

With all of the newfound stress that they were under that was probably the optimal training volume for them at the time and all they could handle. Dave Tate explained to me, earlier this year, how he now only trains three days per week and is making better progress than ever.

I have recently started to spread my usual four day split out across 8-10 days instead of the usual seven and my progress has been better than ever even though I am in the height of my busy season training athletes twelve hours per day. I did this due to necessity because it is difficult for me to find any time at all to train during the summer, so I just get a workout in whenever I can.

I have many clients doing this split as well and their progress has improved since we implemented this method. As you get stronger, you will always have to reduce your total training volume.

These are results that you can’t argue with. I have seen it time and time again over the last ten years in my gym with close to 500 athletes and I have heard the sentiments echoed by my friends Dave Tate, Jim Wendler and many of the strongest lifters in the world.

The verdict is in and the gavel has been put down on this issue… less is ALWAYS more

Jason Ferruggia is a highly sought after professional fitness and performance coach. He has trained over 500 athletes and is currently the head training advisor for Men’s Fitness magazine. Jason has also authored two books; How to Get Jacked and Tap Out: Strength & Conditioning For Combat Sports For more information on Jason’s programs please visit www.J1Strength.com

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Strength Training For Climbing

In climbing, there is an old adage stating that “climbing is the best training for climbing,” an adage used by many to make excuses for not training outside of climbing. I personally disagree with this philosophy as I will explain.

When we are speaking of the exact skills needed in climbing, how and when to step, climbing techniques and mental skills, there is no substitute for the activity of climbing itself.

However, in order to develop strength levels specific to the sport of climbing such as improving grip strength and upper body strength and endurance climbing will produce very limited or even no results or improvements.

One of the main reasons climbing isn’t good for strength training is because in climbing failure is not an option. If you have muscular failure while climbing, it may very well prove fatal. So the goal while climbing id to avoid this completely.

Alternatively, when one is strength training for climbing, one wants to reach and even pass the point of muscular failure as it is this very act that causes the body to respond with an increase in strength to adapt to the stress being place on it. So the two methods are mutually exclusive and you will never achieve maximum strength by climbing alone.

Another example that reinforces the disparity between climbing and strength training for climbing is the way in which you grip the rock.

In climbing, the rock demands the climber to use a random variety of many different grip positions and, at times, you may even deliberately vary the way you grip the rock. As a result, it’s unlikely that any single grip position will ever get worked maximally and, therefore, the individual grip positions (e.g. crimp, open hand, pinch, etc.) are slow to increase strength.

This should help you understand why a full season of climbing may indeed improve your anaerobic endurance (i.e. endurance of strength), but do little to increase you absolute maximum grip strength.

Therefore, varying grip positions is a great strategy for maximizing endurance when climbing for performance, but it will never work for training maximum grip strength.

Effective finger strength training demands you target a specific grip position and work it until failure, which can only be done safely in a non climbing environment.

Finally, it could be better for some climbers to participate in cross training with other activities that are not particularly sport-specific. As an example someone who needs to lose weight should spend the majority of their non-climbing time performing aerobic activity to burn off the excess body fat as it is essential that a climber be as lean as possible for optimum performance.

If someone is totally devoid of at least some modicum of fitness, they would be better off doing some circuit training that will give them both strength and aerobic benefits.

In closing I will say that regardless of your experience level in climbing, you will see a huge improvement by including specialized strength training in your regimen.

Gregg Hall is a business consultant and has been involved in the fitness industry for over 25 years. Get your climbing gear at http://www.ruggedsportsgear.com

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Flaming Yoko’s Olympian Vaginal Muscles

Stripper’s blazing performance makes fans shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater

“From the time I was a little girl, I thought about doing something that would make people notice me, and enable me to tour the country,” says the woman, who is identified throughout only by her professional moniker “Honoo no Yoko” (Flaming Yoko).

As the curtain went up and the bump-and-grind music begins, Yoko would artfully peel her garments and proceed to a series of eight routines. All involved use of the highly developed muscles in her reproductive apparatus.

While not necessarily in the following order, she would make use of her vaginal sphincter to toot notes from a toy trumpet; click a toy clacker; twist the screw-off cap from a bottle of Oronamin C vitamin tonic; snap a wooden pencil in half; bend a metal spoon from a curry restaurant; inhale smoke from a cigarette and blow rings; and make like a blowgun, shooting darts to pop toy balloons.

If there were an Olympic event for this sort of thing, Japan would surely be in the running for a gold medal. A dart propelled from her nether blowgun was once measured at 180km per hour — as fast as one thrown by hand.

Then came the climax of her stage performance, the routine from she got the stage name “Flaming Yoko”: She would inject a quantity of alcohol into her vagina, part her thighs and spurt the liquid towards a waiting flame.

The great ball of fire at the climax of her performance was the source of considerable anticipation, and excited male fans often got into the act, counting down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1″ and then, in unison shouting “Fire!” as she let fly, causing an impressively large fireball to burst forth in mid-air.

Get Ripped Muscles On Demand In 5 Steps

The time is coming… you just turned 28 and your 10-year high school reunion is just around the corner. You’re going to Cabo in 2 months! Or maybe you just want to Get Ripped for summer? Who cares what the reason is! We’re all in the same boat and we need to Get Ripped FAST!

A wise man once told me that when a person won’t do something, it’s for one of 3 reasons.

1. They either don’t know how to do it,

2. Don’t know why they should do it, or

3. They simply just don’t care.

I’m going to assume that you don’t know how, or you would already be ripped to shreds. Be it to get the chicks, personal satisfaction, a reunion… everyone has their own reason why. But if your reason is the last one, you should just stop reading this right now. Because if you simply don’t care enough, you aren’t going to get anywhere. And there’s nothing I, or anyone else for that matter, can do to help!

I’m going to tell you how to Get Shredded Fast and explain why these 5 steps work! What you are about to read may or may not be news to you… I don’t know. But I do know this, if you follow these 5 steps… you won’t be disappointed!

1) Diet for metabolism!

I put this first on the list for a reason. It is the absolute most important part of any successfully shredded man or woman’s lifestyle. Your diet directly affects your metabolism and through it alone, you can totally change your physical appearance! But, whether you are a bodybuilder, a swimmer, a football player, or an every day average overweight American, keeping a consistently clean diet is as hard as it gets… and I’m sure we all can attest to that.

Eat 5-6 Meals per day:

It’s funny… I have this friend who swears this 5 or 6 meal-a-day rule is the “Catch” that all the diet companies are throwing out there. He says that no one can consistently eat 5 small meals a day and the nutrition companies know this – so they put this rule out there as a fail-safe to ensure that, if their diet program doesn’t work, they can blame its failure on the customer!

The ironic thing about it is if the customer had followed the rules of their diet program, they would have succeeded! And the reason they would have succeeded is because the “eat 5 small meals a day” rule works… just probably not in the way you think.

You see, it’s not really the 5 meals that does it… it’s the fact that you aren’t relying on 2 or 3 meals to fuel your body for a full 24-hour period. Think about it; your body uses a fairly steady stream of energy all day, so when you feed it in spurts, your body adjusts and begins to store energy instead of using it.

Eating 5-6 smaller meals throughout the day ultimately conditions your body to use the energy you provide it – and use it now – because it knows that more is coming soon. There is no need to store the energy (fat) for later… make sense?

Eat Low Glycemic Carbs:

Eating 5-6 small meals per day is a great start. But (there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there?) that’s not the only thing you have to do. Something else you’ve probably heard before but hasn’t been explained fully, is the benefit of low GI carbohydrates. Low GI carbs being carbs low on the Glycemic Index (GI). People usually confuse low GI Carbs with an ultra-low carb diet but its not! All you need to do is control the types of carbs you eat… not lose them altogether!

Approximately 40% of your total calories should come from low GI carbs. A low GI carb diet will regulate the insulin levels in your body.

This is important because your body uses insulin to burn the food you have for immediate energy. To explain it further, when you eat carbs, your body digests them and turns them into glucose. Then insulin is released to metabolize the glucose for energy. High GI carbs have a very fast glucose response, which tells your body to release a lot of insulin quickly.

The result is, you digest your food very fast… a bad thing! You want your food to digest slowly! And you can control this by eating low GI carbs. Knowing which carbs are low and high GI is pretty easy too. As a general rule, the more processed it is, the higher it is and the more natural (unprocessed) it is, the lower it is.

There is, however, one time when you want to digest your food fast! Immediately following a workout, your body is goes into a “need food now!” state and requires a lot of nutrients to begin repairing the muscle that has been broken down. This is the perfect time to ingest 40-50 grams of high GI carbs. Actually, if you don’t, you are taking a risk that your body will go into a catabolic state and start breaking down muscle for energy instead of fat. Timing is important!

Increase Protein Intake:

The final part of the diet is to increase your protein intake. Again this is something we have all heard before… but do we really know why? First of all, we all know protein is a crucial part of muscle growth. But what we all don’t know is that protein is a good fat burner too!

Protein digestion takes a lot of time and a lot of energy! You might be doing this already and if you are… don’t stop. A good rule of thumb is to consume 1 gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight. So if you are 200 pounds, you need 200 grams of protein.

2) Workout!

More cardio!

Increasing the number and intensity of your cardiovascular workouts will no doubt make a vast impact on your fat burning productivity. When it comes to burning fat, the more cardio the better. A lot of fitness trainers and other self proclaimed fitness guru’s will tell you to be careful not to over do the cardio. While there is no doubt that there is a point of diminishing returns, if you have your diet and supplementation in place, the chances of hitting cardio too hard are very low! But that’s just it… there isn’t one magic way to get shredded fast!

It’s not like you can just increase your cardio from 2 days a week to 4 days a week and expect to get shredded without adjusting your diet and the rest of your workout regimen too. Of course you will burn more calories and lose more weight, but burning fat to get shredded and losing more overall weight are two different things! Where should your cardio be? I think 4 days a week at 45minutes at 75-80% max heart rate is a good start. If you have a super high metabolism, start with less, if you have a super low metabolism, start higher. Adjust from there and remember, when it comes to cardio, more is better!

Intensify Your Resistance Training

Believe it or not… weight training actually burns more fat than strict cardio work! In fact there have been numerous studies to prove it. This doesn’t mean you should just drop cardio work altogether, but that you should have a balance between cardio and weight training.

Hopefully you are working out already. If you are… great! If you aren’t you really need to. Weight training is the only way to permanently raise your metabolism! You see… muscle burns fat. Not just when you are working out, but all the time – every day! One pound of muscle alone can burn up to 500 calories per week – that’s without doing anything! Lets put it this way: Without resistance training, the best you will ever be is “skinny fat.”

3) Get more sleep!

Sleep is probably the most overlooked factor in the quest to get shredded. Everyone knows the importance of getting a good night’s sleep but not many of us go out of our way to be sure we get it. I read somewhere that the average adult gets approximately 7 hours of sleep each night! Not bad… but if you’re anything like me; 7 hours of sleep would be a blessing!

And 7 hours is fine for the average adult, but if you’re an athlete you need more than normal!

How much do you need? Well… that’s something you’ll have to experiment with and find out on your own. 7 hours of sleep might be enough for you – but it likely isn’t! I do know this – if you don’t get enough sleep, you are limiting your potential to build muscle. Sleep is very anabolic and you need it in order to efficiently recover from grueling workouts and stressful days! Be sure you get enough… it could be the difference maker.

4) Supplements!

Getting Ripped To Shreds is not an easy task for most people. If it was easy then everyone would be ripped don’t you think? I know for sure that, at least for me, it would be virtually impossible without the benefit of supplements. There’s no denying that genetics plays a huge role in who is shredded and who isn’t, but that’s not the only thing. If you could take a behind-the-scenes look at just about any professional athletes’ supplement regimen, I guarantee they would be taking more than you could imagine!

Everyone who saw the Super Bowl got a good idea of what Bill Romanowski takes on a daily basis. He probably spends a good $2,000.00 a month on vitamins alone! And don’t forget that he almost certainly takes 2-3 MRP’s a day too! Getting ripped in 6 weeks without the benefit of great genetics is – for most – an unthinkable task.

Shoot… staying motivated for 6 weeks straight can be hard as hell! Then, not only do you have to stay motivated, you have to be dedicated too! You can’t be making excuses for missing workouts and cheating on your diet… if you find yourself doing that you’re on the way down that road to the same old “before picture”.

Back to the supplements… Getting “shredded” involves keeping (or gaining) muscle mass and losing fat at the same time, two things that are best done separately! So right off the bat the odds are against you. And if you’re anything like me, you’re going to need all the help you can get! I’m going to recommend 3 separate base supplements and 3 will-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-there supplements.

Base Supplements:

1. A balanced Meal Replacement (MRP)

An MRP is important for the obvious reasons. Diet is the number one key and with the way life is now, it’s pretty difficult to get 6 good meals in a day. However, if you alternate 3 small meals and 3 MRP’s throughout the day, you’ll be indeed setting yourself up for success. The reason I say “balanced” MRP is because too much protein is a waste, too little carbs will leave you energy-less, and you need to get your vitamins somewhere. Check the label and be sure it has around 30g of protein, 20g carbs, L-Glutamine, BCAA’s, EFA’s, and an array of multi vitamins.

2. Creatine

No matter what you think about creatine, you can’t deny the facts. Creatine promotes muscle growth and muscle contraction energy. And even though it is thought of as a staple to only muscle building programs, it’s an effective addition to almost any program… no matter what the goal is! Just get some and take it as directed.

3. ZMA

ZMA is a formula of Zinc and Magnesium Aspartate that has been proven to increase muscle strength, stamina, and recovery. But the main reason I added it to the list is because it will help you relax and sleep better. Like I said before, sleep could be the difference maker. And ZMA’s a lot less damaging than taking a shot of tequila or cough medicine!

Will-Do-Whatever-It-Takes-To-Get-There Supplements:

1. An ephedrine based fat burner (ECA)

Even with all the bad things reported about using ephedrine-based products, they continue to reign in the fat loss supplement world. Why? Because they work! Believe me when I say this. No non-ephedrine based supplement will ever be able to take the fat off like a high quality ECA… ever!

Not that there aren’t any effective non-ephedrine fat burners… just none that are as effective as an ECA. Another cool thing about ECA’s is that they are great pre-workout stimulants. You get up in the morning and you are feeling groggy on the way to the gym… pop an ECA and you’ll be churning out reps with ease! Just be careful to not become dependant on them. If you find yourself taking over 50mg of ephedrine before you ‘feel’ it kick in, you are taking it too often. Take some time off.

2. Anabolic Hardening Agent:

By anabolic hardening agent I mean – a pro-hormone. Pro-hormones are precursors to anabolic steroids and can be a huge benefit in more ways than one. First of all, they can be very anabolic and promote muscle growth. Second of all, they can be very androgenic and promote a harder more vascular muscle that is indicative of the word shredded! Third, they can be very anti-catabolic!

This means that they help prevent the breakdown of lean muscle tissue; an important feature to anyone who is putting their body through a 6-week “Try To Get Ripped As Fast As I Can” schedule. You want to lose fat, remember… not muscle!

3. Site Specific Fat Loss:

Yes. I’m talking about fat loss creams. Say what you will, but just as creatine, pro-hormones, and ephedrine have their clinical studies, so do topical fat loss creams. The difference is the expectation. You cant rub in a dime sized drop of fat loss cream once a day and lose 10 pounds a week without doing some serious exercise and dieting!

On the other hand, when used correctly, in a calculated program, fat loss creams can produce some substantial results! Call me crazy but it’s true. The reason I put them in the “Will-Do-Whatever-It-Takes-To-Get-There Supplement” section is because they can be expensive! It’s not uncommon for people to spend $200.00 a month just on an effective fat loss cream! They have their benefits though. Being able to target a specific spot for fat loss can go along way!

4) Know what not to do!

Now that I have explained all the tools you need to get ripped in 6 weeks, I feel obligated to address some of the most common mistakes people make when trying to lose fat fast! First of all you have to steer clear of the “Fab Diets” that claim you can drop 10 pounds in 48 hours. Even though these claims are true, you don’t want to do it. The weight you lose will be temporary at best! And because these diets help you lose weight, not fat, they wont get you shredded.

Fasting is another common mistake. You have to eat and eat consistently. As I pointed out before, it’s imperative that you don’t put your body in a “lets save the food for later” state. Remember, even though you are reducing your overall calories, your body will store more fat!

About the Author: Dane Fletcher is the world’s foremost training authority. He writes exclusively for GetAnabolics.com, a leading online provider of clenbuterol and testosterone cypionate. For more information, please visit http://www.GetAnabolics.com.

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2007 01 17 Sports and Fitness
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Use Your Mind (Music and Tears) To Build Muscle

What I would like to cover in this article is an often overlooked aspect of bodybuilding and that is the “How to generate the necessary intensity to achieve the results you desire.”

Intensity is a buzzword used recklessly in muscle magazines, and most bodybuilders have no idea what it means. And it is not their fault either. After all we see the term being used in articles that advocate high volume and high intensity (which is an impossibility) and we see advocates of high intensity training use it as well. So most of us have a vague idea of what it is but our idea is often clouded by misinformation and myths.

Well today. I am going to tell you what it is and how to use it and you will no longer be confused when you read the term anywhere.

Intensity can be defined is simply generating the most amount of stress on a body part or muscle in the shortest period of time. It can also be defined as the percentage of momentary muscular expenditure. In terms of lifting weights, it simply means that you have to lift to the point where completing another rep is physically impossible!

This is the only way you grow and to do that you must have developed mental powers because the pain (lactic acid build up) often deludes you into believing that you have reached failure when you have not. I call this the “little voice” and in my book, I show you 12 methods of eliminating it.

This “little voice” is the major obstacle to progress because it is very difficult to beat.

When you train past the point of full muscular failure the body has to grow to adapt to the stress. It has to, as a self defense mechanism even though it does not want to do it. To prevent you from doing such damage to it, it uses lactic acid build up (physical) and mental obstruction (little voice) to fool and force you or stop you. Ironically your mind is the only weapon you have to beat this “fooling mechanism”. Beat it and you have got a physique to be proud of in record time.

What exactly is the “little voice”, the little voice is actually your voice that you hear inside your own mind. And in bodybuilding you can recognize it because it tells you, when the pain gets unbearable that you should quit, because you have taken the set to positive failure already. It is the voice that convinces you that enough is enough, when in actuality you have fallen short of giving 100% on your set. That said, how do we get past this little voice? Or another way we could put it is “how do we generate the required intensity, needed to allow fast muscle growth to occur?

Forced reps, negatives? No! No! No! Dear reader, these principles are all great principles but they will not help you gain the mass you require…not in the least-especially if you are a natural bodybuilder. Why? Because as I always say, if you can perform 3-5 forced repetitions after a set, you have not taken the set to full positive muscular failure. The little voice has deluded you into believing that you reached failure but you did not…

You see, because if you did, you would be nauseated and performing another positive repetition, let alone another forced rep would be impossibility… believe me very few people can perform a true forced rep….

And so dear faithful subscriber so you are telling me “how do we train like this Rob?”
Well I am getting there…to train like this, you have to be focused and honed in like a laser targeted missile aiming for Saddams Office… and that requires great mental fortitude which can be accomplished with several mental techniques explained in my book The MindnMuscle program (go to www.mindnmuscle.com), these are simple and effective techniques you can use at a moments notice. But for this newsletter I am going to tell you how you can get focused by using our ageless friend “Music.”

“Music?” You say, and I say “yes! Music”. But not just any music. No it has to be music that makes you cry! You say you are a man and you don’t cry. And I say that it is time to put your ego aside and admit that you are human. Because real men cry. So lets get on…

What you have to do is find music that elicits passion, hatred, anger and love …music that gets your blood running and your heart racing and your mind honed in on a mental picture that elicits all this passion…

Then you use all this “passion” to generate the required mental focus and intensity to take the set to full muscular failure… you see what all this does is send a flood of adrenaline to your system, and boy that is a great feeling. It is the same feeling you get when you are in a fight or diving off a 100 ft cliff. That stuff is magic …

Here is how it works on a chemical level…when we experience life threatening, risky or heart breaking situations, the nervous system is stimulated. This causes the adrenal glands to release the hormone adrenaline-the correct terms is Epinephrine . Once this happens, the hormone affects our body’s other systems, including the cardiovascular system via increased heart rate, the respiratory system via the dilation of bronchial passages permitting higher absorption of oxygen and finally the nervous system (pupils dilate to allow more light to enter).

Adrenaline also has the bodybuilding related need to cause a release of glucose into the bloodstream, which generates extra energy by raising the blood sugar. This is where the devil in you comes alive … these are all great effects, but nature likes to balance itself in perfect harmony and so it throws in some negatives, like visual exclusion (“tunnel vision”), auditory exclusion (blocking of audible input), and the misperception of the slower or faster passage of time.

Please note that all these “Negatives” are great for bodybuilding because that is exactly what we need. We need tunnel vision and we use it on the weight-to take the set to full muscular failure, it blocks off audible input-in other words we are all action -no words, no shouts or yells and we have no concept of time. Oh no! All we care is getting back at that which annoyed us, and it may be a person or a situation …So now that we have this pure priceless energy how do we channel it through to the weights.

Oh faithful reader, there is a trick to all of this, you see we want to channel all this energy because without doing that it is useless, that is when we use some mental techniques taught in the Mindnmuscle program called “the confidence builder” which shows you how to channel all this raw energy into your workouts.

And once you do channel all this energy, once heavy weights, now become light and you have all the mental focus to take your one and only set to full positive failure and then assuming you allow sufficient recovery, you will soon be enjoying the best gains of your life from one powerful set and the right music.

I will not discuss the “Confidence builder ” because I would need pages to do that! So I will assume you will just use this raw energy in its unrefined form…and lift weights when you are all charged up…training like this means that you are basically using all this energy but without focus… much like a dirty bomb as opposed to a laser guided missile.

Nevertheless it is better having a “dirty” bomb than having any at all…the confidence builder is TECHNIQUE is like a missile, it contains the raw energy which arose from pure emotion and it prevents it from being used aimlessly…. and it delivers it with precision…

What music do I choose?

Chose one that makes you tick. One that sets the juice flowing and it will vary for everyone because everyone has music that takes them to a place in time, which was filled with passion… Here are just a few of my favorites. They affect me emotionally and mentally and They set all the juices flowing when I want them too.

November Rain–Guns N’Roses Open your Heart- Europe The Final Countdown- Europe Please Don’t leave me- Pretty Maids Poison- Alice Cooper.

Yes I know what you are saying “he must be stuck in the eighties.” What can I say, except great music never dies? Never mind that, Here is how I use the music…

I practice mentally (use visualization) for my sets of squats (using the confidence builder), it takes me a good 1-2 minutes rehearsing my one true set -after a warm-up and then I begin to play these “emotional” tracks. I keep the remote control by my side, ready to set the music to the exact spot, which cranks my dial and makes my adrenaline flow. Once I reach this peak and I am all fired up I then begin to perform those reps with mind-boggling focus and devotion. With this mindset, I eliminate the little voice and take my sets to full positive failure.

Does it work?

Listen, I do not train legs often, I train them once every 4-6 weeks, and when that day comes along, I cannot afford to take my sets for granted…because that one set I perform is the only set I perform until the next 4-6 weeks. So I cannot mess up. Above all else I must be stronger than the previous leg workout, or else I will quit… that is how I make wild gains, and that is why I can lift 605lbs on the squat.

It is not because of my genes (I have lousy genes) or the way I eat (I usually have 3 meals a day and I do not take supplements of any kind). My training is precise and it is calculated-I know why I am at the gym and exactly what I am doing. Nothing is left for instinct or guesswork!

Remember bodybuilding is a science not an art (subjective). Sometimes I yell with anger as I grill that last impossible set…(mind you I train at home, so I can shout as much as I like-I would never do that a public gym)

But you may ask. What has this got to do with Big Boys crying? And I say plenty, because as you will soon learn, it is tears that can unleash the adrenaline and man within you. The man who knows no limitation or fear…KNOWS HOW TO CRY

When I speak of crying, I am not referring to those guys you see at the gym, who grunt and shout to get the attention of the ladies…. little do they know the ladies are saying “What wrong with that Jerk of a gorilla?”

You see because intensity has noting to do with shouting or grunting, and it has very little to do with sweat or the pump. Rather it is how hard one trains, it is how one takes each and every set to the point where completing another positive reps is physically impossible .It is the point at the end of a preacher curl, where you are out of breath and nausea comes in. It is the point where you cry as you scream through the pain zone. Yes, it is at this point where you cry tears of effort and pain.

So after reading this entire article I ask you have you ever felt sick after a single set of any exercise?

“No! You say”, well friend that is one of the tiny but important reasons why you still look the same year round. Day in day out you slave at the gym and you don’t look much different than last year and still you go to the gym…. you know a wise man once said that “Ignorance was man’s greatest foe” and I think the wise man was partly right, what he forgot to add, was that mans greatest enemy is himself, his ego!

His inability to see that “maybe what he is doing is wrong even though everyone else is doing it”

What I am saying to you is that in bodybuilding you have to understand that bodybuilding is a science, and that every action in the gym should produce a result and if it is not the result you want, then you should stop doing that “action” and find a different action that produces the results you seek.

And unlike Art, in bodybuilding there are not many ways of training! No.there is only one-way of doing it.

Rob Maraby is the author of the fastmuscles program and many other.how to gain weight and build muscle mass articles. Read more at http://www.mindnmuscle.com

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