BodyBuilding

45 WAYS TO MUSCLE UP



BUILD STRENGTH + MUSCLE
#1 Incorporate stutter sets for bigger gains. Use a really heavy weight allowing for just 1–2 reps. Max out. Rack the weight, rest for 10 seconds and do another set with a weight that allows for 10 reps. The benefit: the “net” poundage you use for the (11–12) reps is far greater than you could use with straight sets, contributing to greater gains.
#2 Trick your nervous system. Superset opposing muscle groups to manipulate your body’s wiring and allow your muscles to lift heavier weights. This technique reduces the neural inhibition that normally governs how much force your muscles can produce. Try using an alternating priority sets scheme in which you perform a set of chest presses followed immediately by rows, then take a 60–90-second break. When 90 seconds is up, do the rows first, then move to chest presses. Make sure to complete an even number of sets (two, four, six) to maintain muscle balance. This also works for bi’s/tri’s and quads/hams.
#3 Add isometrics without lengthening your workout. Probably the most neglected kind of contraction is the isometric kind. Incorporate them into your routine between sets to add intensity. Once you complete a set of bench presses, for instance, immediately pick up a light dumbbell, place your palms flat against the outer plates and squeeze your hands together. Squeeze for 5–10 seconds, release and quickly repeat. You can also try this with a medicine ball.
#4 Plyos increase your max. Want to push up a big bench or a heavy max squat? Do a plyometric movement 30 seconds before your lift and you can immediately bump up your max 10–20 pounds. Before a max squat attempt, stand on a bench and drop down to the floor — as soon as your feet hit, explode off the floor as high as you can. Repeat twice. Before the bench, do two power push-ups (your hands should come off the floor a few inches at the end of the positive) with just your bodyweight.
#5 Use the ball for sissy-proof gains. Most serious bodybuilders eschew exercise-ball movements because you have to go so light due to the instability, while the targeted muscle doesn’t feel like it gets a good workout. Here’s how to get the benefit of ball training that enhances strengthening of stabiliser and core muscles (which, when developed, actually do increase overall strength on the exercise). Using the dumbbell bench press as an example, do a heavy set (6–8 reps) on a flat bench. Then immediately do a set of dumbbell bench presses on the ball with a weight with which you can get about 8–10 reps. Now that your chest is fatigued, the light weight used on the ball move will be sufficient to hit the pre-fatigued pecs and train your stabilisers.
[ SHAWN RAY ] IFBB PRO BODYBUILDER
#6 Develop a fierce attitude. For example, I view a training partner as an enemy, someone I have to defeat and demolish in the gym. It’s my job to be the best, and if that person can hang with me, I’m not doing my job. This attitude helps keep me on top of my game.
#7 Play to your weaknesses. When you’re feeling strong, attack the muscle groups you tend to shy away from. After a day’s rest, work these weaker bodyparts when you have all the energy needed to bring them up.
#8 Train like a powerlifter on a regular basis. Every few months, throw in two weeks of high-intensity, lower-volume training to bust through a plateau. Do 4–6 reps per set with heavy weights, taking three minutes of rest between each set. Focus on compound lifts (squats, presses, rows) for more sets (5–6) rather than isolation moves (extensions, curls, flyes).
#9 Pose down after each workout. Not for your ego, but for improved muscle density and quality over time. Plus, you’ll enhance your mind-muscle link, which will make it easier to target muscles with laser-like precision when training. Right after you finish your training session, get in front of the mirror and squeeze each muscle in a peak contraction for 15–30 seconds. Repeat 3–4 times.
#10 Try adding extreme sets. Increase your sets by 50% for three weeks twice a year. After the three weeks, take four days off and return to normal training. The added sets shock new growth, and the days off allow for full recovery. Example: If you typically perform 12 total sets for chest and 16 for back, go to 18 and 24 sets, respectively.
#11 Rest between reps. Can’t do multiple sets of pull-ups for reps? Instead of shooting for three sets of 10, aim for 30 reps total. Do as many sets as it takes and take a brief rest between each rep if necessary to complete your rep goal for the workout. This isn’t cheating, it’s a twist on the rest-pause principle. (And it worked for Arnold!)
[ RONNIE COLEMAN ] SIX-TIME MR. OLYMPIA
#12 I’ve been able to add size to my quads by using drop sets.Once I complete my heavy sets, I’ll finish with a drop set on the last set. I’ll do as many as I can, then strip the weight off one plate at a time until all that’s left is the bar, a slight feeling of nausea and a pair of quaking quads.
#13 Add variety by alternating two completely different workouts for a bodypart, rather than following just a single workout all the time. In my back training, for example, I alternate a workout that focuses on heavy deadlifts and rows with one that hits the lats harder with a variety of pull-up and pulldown movements. This gives you the benefit of hitting the back muscles from a variety of angles.
#14 Target smaller muscles within larger bodyparts. To deny certain muscles dedicated training time is to deny your body its full growth potential. Your inner and outer thigh muscles (adductors and abductors), for example, aren’t highly visible, but without specific training, your thighs will never reach their full potential. To get big arms, you also need to train the underlying muscle on the front of the arm — the brachialis. Include specific exercises — such as four sets of reverse preacher curls — for this muscle.
#15 Think Olympic. Try throwing in Olympic-type moves — the clean and jerk and/or the snatch — one workout a week, done with barbells or dumbbells. Concentrate the first few weeks on learning the technique, then use a weight with which you can get 6–8 reps but do only three sets of three reps and concentrate on moving explosively. Do this for 6–8 weeks to target the fast-twitch muscle fibres, which have the greatest potential for strength and mass gains.
#16 Try scapjacks. Next arm workout, try this: do a one-arm triceps pressdown with your right arm while you simultaneously perform a one-arm dumbbell curl with your left arm. You’ll be stronger on both lifts than normal. Although the exact mechanism isn’t known, it may be due to a neurological phenomenon. Switch arms and repeat. This can also be done for back and chest at the adjustable cable crossover. Stand with your back to one weight stack and grasp the pulley handle (set at shoulder height) with your left arm while holding the pulley handle from the weight stack in front of you (set at hip height) with your right arm. Simultaneously do a chest press with your left arm and a cable row with your right arm. Switch arms and repeat.
[ JAY CUTLER ] THREE-TIME ARNOLD CLASSIC CHAMP
#17 Stop your front delts from overpowering your shoulders and traps.Try doing certain exercises behind you, a technique I use with cable lateral raises and barbell shrugs.
#18 Bring out cross-striations in your inner chest and carve out your triceps horseshoe with bodyweight dips. I do dips on a parallel-bar apparatus with no added weight, going really deep at the bottom for a good stretch and locking out briefly at the top to really push my tri’s.
#19 Sport-specific training isn’t just for athletes. Everyone can benefit from agility drills and plyometrics training. Life is about multiplanar movements, and your training should reflect this. Become faster, stronger and have better balance, and you’ll improve all aspects of your physical being.
#20 Finish off on a machine. Free weights may form the backbone of your workout, but machines have a particularly good place either at the end of your routine or at the end of a compound set. Because of machines’ fixed range of motion and inherent stability, it’s much easier to rep to failure when using them. You can even take full advantage of the pre-exhaust technique by following an isolation move (like dumbbell laterals for the middle delt) with a compound machine move (like an overhead machine press) and rep out. By the end of that set, your delts will be screaming for mercy!
#21 Be a speed demon. Think of doing your reps as fast as you safely can. That’s right. If you’re using a sufficient weight, then “as fast as possible” won’t be very fast, relatively speaking. Many people think they should try to control the upward or positive movement in similar fashion to the eccentric portion, but that’s not the case. (If, in fact, you’re able to throw the weight up quickly, you’re likely lifting too light.)
#22 Do your arm workouts all by themselves. If you continue to train them after chest, back or shoulders, you’re probably not getting a really high-intensity arm workout. Separate them for a while and see what a difference it makes.
[ MIKE MATARAZZO ] IFBB pro bodybuilder
#23 Training and eating right when you’re on the road is extra tricky, so be prepared before you go. I’ll smoke 3 pounds of flank steak to carry with me so I’ll always have enough protein and won’t have to worry about finding a place to eat clean. I marinate the meat for a few hours in some smoke flavouring, a little beer and some light Italian dressing, then cook it in a “little smoker” grill on low heat for 4–5 hours. It comes out like jerky but more tender.
#24 Here’s a killer ab routine I do precontest. I start by doing as many crunches as I can with a plate on my chest, then I drop the plate and rep out to failure. I’ll follow that with negatives until I practically can’t breathe, then I’ll stand up and pose my abs as hard as possible in the mirror until I’m exhausted.
#25 Protect your low back with core movements. Before every workout, rep out a few sets of abs followed by two sets of back extensions. Stimulating your core will be a “wake-up call” to the intricate muscles surrounding your spinal cord, enabling you to more quickly produce the intra-abdominal pressure required for stabilisation in later exercises.
#26 Take a day off before your next heavy leg workout. Make sure you’re not expending a lot of energy doing extraneous physical activities, eat well and get a good night’s sleep. You’ll have an awesome workout!
#27 Once you’re bigger and stronger than your partner, get a new one. If you’ve passed your partner up, move on to someone who’s a bigger challenge. Most likely, the new one is further along and can push you harder, motivate you more and teach you a few new things.
GET LEAN
#28 Shred by squatting. When attempting to cut up, push your metabolism into overdrive at the end of 1–2 workouts each week with interval squats. Perform five sets of 25–50 reps with a very light weight, taking only 60 seconds rest between sets, then move on to your cardio.
#29 Get hormone support for cardio. Prompting your body to burn fat without burning muscle is the secret to successful aerobic work. While lots of cardio can be beneficial, long sessions can promote a decline in testosterone levels. Try a 200 mg caffeine tablet 30 minutes before a long cardio session. Caffeine on an empty stomach triggers the release of fat-burning catecholamines. At the 30-minute mark, stop your cardio, down 10 grams of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) and hit it hard for an additional 30–40 minutes. BCAAs not only prevent a drop in testosterone levels but inhibit the burning of lean body mass and can promote fat-burning.
#30 Support your hormones for “cutting up”. Extreme definition sometimes requires extreme methods. Try 6 grams of arginine and 400 mg of mucuna pruriens on an empty stomach, then head for the gym. The benefit: arginine and Mucuna pruriens boost GH levels and compound the natural GH release associated with training on an empty stomach. Spiking GH levels burns fat as fuel while sparing muscle breakdown. The extra benefit: arginine promotes a nitric oxide surge to enhance the “pump”. Post-workout, immediately consume a carbohydrate/whey protein drink to ensure recovery and repair.
#31 Top off your pec workout with a blast! Choose a ridiculously heavy weight on the pec-deck machine, but perform only partial reps over the top one-quarter of the range of motion. Bang out 12–15 partials for a full-blown burn. Be sure to use a spotter to get into the start position.
#32 Drop the water and look great! To shed extra water weight, increase your salt intake for six days and nearly double your water intake. The effect: your body’s chief water-retaining hormone, called aldosterone, drops. This in turn kicks extra excess fluid from the body. On the seventh, eighth and ninth days, drop the salt altogether and you’ll lose every possible bit of extra water weight, temporarily enhancing muscle detail and definition.
#33 Cycle your cardio to spur faster results. You’ve heard about cycling carbohydrates — going low and high to trick the body into fat loss. The same idea’s true with calorific expenditure when you’re trying to burn calories. Cycle your cardio: two days all-out for 30 minutes, two days of intervals for 45 minutes, and one day of 60 minutes at an easy pace. Then take two straight days off before repeating. This keeps your fat-burning machinery revved and off guard for plateau-free fat-loss and maximal calorie burn.
EXERCISE EXECUTION
#34 Do negative crunches. Instead of building muscular endurance, start going for maximal overload. From the crunch position, have your partner stand on your feet and push down on your shoulders (pushing you into the floor) while you continue to resist him/her. If he/she isn’t strong enough, grab a weight plate. Either way, your arms should be crossed.
#35 Do the Arnold Press. Okay, this one’s not new, but when talking about great inventors, this exercise comes to mind — it’s still one of the best at targeting the front delt, which is both an abductor and internal rotator. Both movements are strongly initiated by the anterior deltoid. Time to bring this bad boy back into the gym!
#36 Use the cable crossover for a wicked reverse lunge. Hook the bottom two cables together and place a squat bar pad in the middle where they attach. Position the pad across your upper back (not neck), then proceed to do reverse lunges, which work your muscles and balance simultaneously.
#37 Spread the floor. When you squat, you should force your knees out hard during the entire motion and push out on the sides of your shoes. This keeps the tension on the hips and helps you push more weight up.
#38 Try pulldown curls for biceps. Place a short bar with a rotating collar on the pulldown cable. Sit on the seat as if you were going to do pulldowns. Grasp the bar with an underhand grip and extend your arms directly overhead. Without moving at the shoulders, flex your arms only at the elbows, curling the bar behind your head.
#39 Use the jettison technique for super gains. Try this version of the drop set, using the biceps curl as an example. Find whatever weight you can curl for about 15 reps. Next, locate a set of elastic exercise bands that you can also curl for about 15 reps. On set one, do the barbell curl while holding the barbell and the rubber bands. Do as many reps as possible — usually about 7–8. Release the elastic bands and do as many reps as possible with just the weights. Remove about one-third of the weight and do as many reps as possible. Rest 2–3 minutes and repeat for a total of 2–3 total sets.
#40 Do your elbows flare out when doing lying French presses? If so, try this technique to help you better isolate your triceps: wrap your weight belt just above your elbows. Use a spotter to hand you the weight and fry those tri’s!
#41 Here’s a good way to reduce biceps involvement during back exercises. Start by contracting your back and pushing your chest out 100% before bending your elbows to pull the weight up.
#42 Work your chest with this amazing variation of an incline dumbbell press. Instead of pressing the weights up in a wide arc over your chest, press them up in a similar arc but with your hands closer to your chest. Then, when they meet, press them straight up another 6–10 inches and return along the same path. This one hits your inner pecs and your triceps, too.

#43 Here’s a really tough exercise for your abdominals. Attach ankle cuffs to the lower cable pulley and a rope to the opposite lower cable. Place a mat underneath your glutes to lift you up a couple of inches; grasp the rope side and attach the ankle cuffs to your feet. Bend your knees, then in a reverse curl motion, bring your knees toward your chest while you crunch your shoulder blades off the mat. Try to touch your knees to your elbows, but get those glutes off the mat.
#44 Roll with it. When doing incline exercises, try putting a rolled towel under your neck to help increase your strength. The mechanism isn’t understood but is believed to be due to proper alignment of your spine, which could result in better neurological performance.
#45 Be a big dipper. You’re not counting reps on these dips; you’re just counting time. Take a full four seconds on the negative, counting out loud. To hit your chest, lean forward and let your elbows flare out; keep your body straight up and down and tuck your elbows in to your sides to focus more on your triceps. M&F

Top Ten Power Training Secrets

1. Do not let the amount of the weight you are going to lift scare you. Concentrate on what you are doing. Keep correct lifting form. Then go ahead and lift with full power. Be sure that all the muscles are warmed up first.

2. Remember that in power lifting several muscle groups are involved. Contract each muscle group and use them all in lifting. This will avoid injuries. never do any lifting unless you realize which muscles are involved, then use them all.

3. Before going to the gym avoid eating sugar, especially refined sugar products. Sugar gives only temporary energy. It is better to eat some natural carbohydrates with some fats as this body fuel. Your energy will last longer, and you will have increased power. Do not try to train when hungry or after a filling meal.

4. In my opinion, the best time to train is between 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. However, if you are working and unable to train at this time, it is better for you to eat a light meal, then rest for an hour before going to the gym. You will be refreshed and feel as though it is the next day.

5. The body has many cycles. When your energy level is low, don't force yourself during a training session. In a couple of days you will feel better, and then you will be able to train with full power even forcing yourself to do more.

6. It is best to have the muscles covered during a training session. They must be kept warm. Then they will correspond better to training. A sweat suit is good for this purpose. In power training it is not necessary to look at yourself. Just concentrate on how much you are lifting.

7. Listen to your mind, and don't let the educated brain get in the way. You have an inner intelligence which always directs you in the right way. Learn to respect and listen to your inner self.

8. Have a specific routine for eating, sleeping and training. It is best to train at the same time each day. If you follow a regular routine during the week, you can rest and relax on the weekends. The body also needs to rejuvenate itself and cannot be forced constantly.

9. After training, rest a short time, then eat. It is best to eat a heavier high protein meal at this time. See my nutrition book for the proper diet.

10. During a training session stop and go outside the gym and breathe deeply for a few minutes. Then go back inside and complete training with renewed vigor.

For additional training information, get a Personalized Training and Nutrition Program designed by Franco.

Monday & Thursday

CHEST BACK ABS
Bench Presses Chinups (4 sets until failure) Leg Raises
Incline Presses Bent-over Rows
Pullovers Deadlifts (3 sets - 10,6,4)

Tuesday & Friday

SHOULDERS ARMS FOREARMS
Clean & Press Barbell Curls Wrist Curls
Lateral Raises Seated Dumbell Curls Reverse w.Curls
Heavy Upright Rows Narrow-grip Press ABS
Push Presses Barbell Tricep Extension Incline Situps

Wednesday & Saturday

THIGHS CALVES LOWER BACK ABS

Squats Standing Calf Raises Straight Leg Deadlifts Leg Raises
Lunges
Leg Curls

* Perform 5 sets - 8 to 12 reps for each movement.
* For ab exercises, do 5 sets of 25 reps each.

Bodybuilding Workout Technique Chart

This page was designed for you to have some different workout techniques at your disposal in order to increase exercise intensity. Increasing this intensity will make you stronger as well as bigger since you will keep your body guessing and growing all of the time. There are several simple ways to increase exercise intensity. One way is just taking less time with the workouts. Simply taking 30 seconds in between the sets as opposed to 1 minute will dramatically make the workout more intense. Another way is to time your workout and do more exercises in the same amount of time you were exercising before. This will also increase workout intensity. The second main way to increase intensity is by simply doing more weight during a workout with a given exercise. More weight means more intensity. Now I will go to the more advanced training principles:

Supersets Supersets are two or more exercises performed in a row without stopping. For extra intensity, you can even do three exercises without stopping known as tri-sets. It takes a while to build up the endurance necessary to do a lot of supersets, but this kind of conditioning develops in time if you keep working at it. You can use supersets to train two different body parts-Bench Presses combined with Chins, for example-or you can do a number of exercises in a row for the same body part. You will be surprised how a muscle which seems to be totally fatigued will still have a lot of strength remaining if you demand that it perform a slightly different movement. To do this, however, you need to start with the most difficult movement, with each succeeding exercise slightly less demanding-Bent-Over Rows, Seated Cable Rows, and One-Arm Rows are a good combination. Personally, I have always liked to use supersets to train opposite body parts simultaneously-chest and back, for example. This gives you a tremendous pump as you perform the alternating pushing and pulling movements, yet gives each muscle group involved the minimum chance to rest and recuperate. Other good parts to perform supersets on are the triceps. I like to do skull busters supersetted with close grip bench presses.

Drop Sets/Strip Sets When I was first learning about bodybuilding training it was obvious to me that when you come to the end of a set and seemingly cannot do another repetition, that doesn't necessarily mean the muscles involved are totally fatigued, only that they are too tired to lift that amount of weight. If a plate or two is removed, you can do more repetitions. Take another plate off, and you can keep going even longer. Each time you do this, you are forcing the muscles to recruit more muscle fiber. This training principle is called the Stripping Method. You should never use the Stripping Method at the beginning of an exercise when you are fresh and strong, but only for your last set. Since the changes in weight must be made quickly so that the muscles don't have time to recuperate, it helps to have a workout partner ready to slip plates off the bar or move the pin in a machine weight stack. For example, you might do Bench Presses with the heaviest weight on the bar you can handle for six reps. Say that weight is 300 pounds. After you have failed, your partner would quickly strip off weight so that you could do more reps with 250 pounds. I don't recommend going too low, however, unless you are training for maximum definition, because you won't grow by handling weights that are too light. Many bodybuilders use this principle in a different way by working their way down a dumbbell rack as they do more sets of an exercise and get more and more tired.
Drop sets are another of my favorite ways to shock the body. It involves doing an exercise with say a set of dumbbells, putting them down, picking up the next lighter weight, and doing another set without stopping. This is actually a dumbbell variation of the Stripping Method. For example, I would do Dumbbell Presses starting with 100-pound weights and going to failure, then immediately setting them down and continuing with 90-pound dumbbells. My muscles were too tired at this point to press 100 pounds, but the remaining unused fiber could still lift the slightly lighter weight. Again, when the 90-pound weights got too heavy, I would go down to the 80s, then the 70s, and so on. Each time I went down the rack I reached a little deeper into the available muscle tissue to shock and innervate the muscle more thoroughly. There are a number of ways of varying this technique; for example, using the dumbbells on a rest/pause basis-doing the exercise until exhausted, putting down the weights for ten seconds, then forcing out additional reps-or working your way up the rack as high as you can, then back down, doing fewer reps with the heavier weights and more reps with the lighter ones. Another good exercise to use drop sets on is the leg extension machine. I sometimes do triple drop sets on this exercise. I would start by doing a set of 10 on leg extensions with 130 lbs. then immediately drop the weight to 110 lbs. and do another set of 10 then immediately drop the weight to 90 lbs. and rep out as many as I can. You can bet that this will kick your ass. Try it if you don't believe me. You will be sore for at least 3 days to the bone after doing this one.


Negatives Whenever you lift a weight using the contractile force of your muscles you perform what is defined as a "positive" movement; when you lower the weight, uncontracting the working muscle, you perform "negative" movement. Negative repetitions actually put more stress on the tendons and supportive structures than on the muscles themselves. This is beneficial because you want tendon strength to increase along with muscular strength. To get the full benefit of negatives in your normal workouts, always lower the weights slowly and under control, rather than letting them drop. To work harder at negatives, first try cheating a weight up that would otherwise be too heavy to lift strictly and then lower it slowly and deliberately. Your muscles can lower a heavy weight under control more than they would actually be able to lift in the first place. At the end of a set, when your muscles are very tired, you can have your workout partner give you a little assistance in lifting the weight, and then do strict negatives on your own. Negatives are excellent to add strength to a weak bench press. You can also use negatives for adding size to biceps by emphasizing the downward movement. Raise the barbell at a normal pace, then take a five count to lower the weight emphasizing the negative portion of the movement.

Isotension/Flexing During your one-minute rest period between sets, don't just sit around watching your training partner do a set. Continue to flex and contract the muscles you are training. This not only keeps them pumped and ready for more action, but is in itself a very beneficial kind of exercise. Flexing is a form of isometric exercise, and isometrics involve very intense muscle contractions. Bodybuilders who are posing, flexing, watching himself in the mirror, are not doing so out of vanity. They are engaged in a very important part of the workout. You get the same kind of benefits from really hard sessions of posing. John Parillo is a big proponant of stretching after a set on given exercises. He calls his method fascial stretching. The purpose of this stretch is to stretch the skin as to allow more room for muscle growth. It also keeps the muscles warm in between sets. I personally think this is a great way to achieve some new growth if you are stuck on a plateau for a while.

Instinctive Training If you are a beginner bodybuilder and are attempting to master exercise fundimentals and create a basically sound muscle structure, it pays to follow a set program. But after you have been training for a longer period, you will find that your progress will increase if you learn to perceive and understand your body's individual responses to training and vary your workouts accordingly. If you usually began a back workout with Wide-Grip Chins, you might decide instead to begin with Bent-Over Rows and finish off with Chins. This is trusting your instincts to help guide you through a workout. Occasionally, you might abandon your normal workout and do something entirely different: instead of German Volume Training for chest; for example; do fewer, very heavy sets or a lot of sets done rapidly. Your body has its own rhythms. It is different from day to day, and that the more advanced you become, the more you need to be aware of these variations and cycles. Let me caution you, however, that this awareness does not come overnight; a year or more of training is usually needed before you can begin to profit from making these occasional instinctive adjustments in your program.