Most elite bodybuilders repeat the topic that basic heavy movements develop muscular mass. Many champions boast of the intensity of their trainings and the truth is that's what pictures transmit, showing them making faces, silently screaming or fighting against the free weights. But here I am to tell you not all that shine is gold.

Basic movements and intensity are, certainly, good training techniques, but most of the champions do not follow their own advices. The truth is the vast majority of elite bodybuilders do not perform heavy sessions (with low repetitions) neither particularly intense.

During the last years, I have trained at Gold's Gym of Venice (California, USA), known as the bodybuilding Mecca, and I have seen hundreds of the best amateur and professional bodybuilders training both off-season as before a competition. I'm sorry to shatter the myth, but only few reputed Venice's champions can demonstrate a great intensity and none of them perform basic heavy movements. From my point of view, people train more intensively in the authentic gyms all over the world than within Mecca's walls. This way, how do champions really train and why? The time to reveal the truth has come. Here you have it, exclusively for you.

All over the World, legs are developed based on squats. I have trained at gyms where the squats supports become sanctuaries. The heavy low-repetitions squat sets powerlifter style constitute more than the half of many routines. Bodybuilders protect their knees, smear their hands with magnesium, breathe ammonia nitrate and scream like animals, all in pursuit of huge quadriceps.

However, the squats supports in Venice's Gold's tend to be empty. There's no need to wait to use the four in existence. If not for the visitors and people who have just arrived to the south of California, in Venice legs would be hardly trained with free weights. In eight years, I have only seen one professional doing bar squats, Shawn Ray, with an impeccable technique and feet together during several sets of 12 repetitions with 142 kilos. Having made this exception and despite all that can be said, champions do not do squats.

What do they do for quadriceps? A concrete type of inclined press is the favourite destination. Most of the professionals pile up discs, but the number of repetitions is still moderate. Generally, they equally load both sides of the carriage with 20 kilos discs and, following, they pile up some more with strange positions. There are many champions who are members of the leg-press club with 450 kilos; Paul Dillett, Flex Wheeler, Craig Titus, Aaron Baker...Also, most of them handle between 225 and 275 kilos in the hack squat. Dillet and Wheeler prefer doing reverse hack squats, facing the machine, with feet separated and on the ground, not in the platform for the lower extremities. Titus, Robby Robinson and the company do them traditional style. The number of repetitions is moderate; the resting time, long.

All elite bodybuilders of Gold's Gym of Venice train femorals and quadriceps separately, in a posterior session in the same day or in another day. The most frequent routine: 4 sets of sitting legs curl and 4 of laying legs curl. They also work the calves in different moments (most likely, in the evening session) and, like almost every bodybuilder, use to exercise the lower part of the legs: in machines and with low or moderate repetitions. 

In the same way, they train the back on apparatus almost exclusively. I have never seen an outstanding competitor from Venice's Gold's doing chin-ups or inclined bar rowing, the foundation of so many dorsal routines all over the world. When Charles Glass trained them, professionals like Paul Dillet or Flex Wheeler performed T-bar rowing, and Craig Titus tends to handle enough weight (about 80 kilos) in one-arm dumbbell rowing.

On contrary, back routines are composed by pulls with different grips, one machine with lever system, as well as rowing movements in several machines. Weights can seem high to the mortal's eyes (Dillet can move over 180 kilos in some rowing on machine movements), but if the number of repetitions is moderate, the intensity and the rhythm of the training are carefully controlled. The resting periods between sets are long. What about the authentic power movements: snatches or deadlifts? Forget it. The lower back is trained with low-repetitions hyperextension sets and the occasional work on a machine.

Professionals train chest with inclined presses and mechanical apparatus -press machines, pec-dek flies and pulleys. The best competitors love them. These machines are safe and outline the detail of pectorals which already present a remarkable size. The only non-mechanical exercise in which some champions pile up discs is the inclined bench press. Flex Wheeler, Chris Cormier and Craig Titus perform inclined bench press with around 140 and 180 kilos. Curtis Leffler goes even beyond. Paul Dillet and Mike Matarazzo are two of the professionals who workout with really heavy dumbbells -between 70 and 80 kilos. And what about the dumbbell flies, the bench press and the dips, pillars of the chest routine for so many amateurs? I have never seen any champion doing more than a couple of light sets of inclined flies, and this is an exceptional case. Regarding dips, conventional flies and the bench press, nothing. They don't do them.

The way elite bodybuilders train shoulders is more similar to the mid-level athletes way. A few champions, as Wheeler or Cormier, include the behind-nape bar press in their programs, generally around 100 kilos. Leffler surpasses the 140 in this motion (that is weight). Others do dumbbell press. Jim Quinn, Bill Smith, Lee Priest and Mike Matarazzo are among the one using really heavy dumbbells. Paul Dillet and Aaron Baker confine themselves to machines. Heavy weights can be considered a surprise in this case if we consider that shoulders are quite prone to injuries.

Professionals perform a variety of exercises with dumbbell, machines and pulley raises to workout the three heads of the deltoids. Dumbbell frontal raises, recommended by Charles Glass, are one of the Venice Gold's favourite movements. No one misses the posterior deltoid workout, which tends to be trained on machines. Most of advanced bodybuilders neither forget their trapezius. Machine shrugs are the kings on that sense. Lou Ferrigno prefers the upright rowing.

Arms are usually trained in the afternoon on the champion's divided routines. Since I am just a mortal who trains only once a day, I must admit I have seen less congested world-class mazes than any other part of the body. Nevertheless, I have seen enough to being able to generalize, since the routines of dozens of high-level bodybuilders have remarkable similarities.

They barely use bars to crush the arms. Dumbbells and mechanical machines are the tools of choice. Outstanding athletes train biceps mainly with sitting or inclined dumbbell curls and different machines. The preacher curl on pulley is one of Paul Dillett's favourites, among others.

Triceps are trained principally with pulley extensions, one-arm pulley extensions (behind head and sitting or crossing the chest and lying) and with machines.

I have seen Lee Priest and Mike Matarazzo using 30 kilos dumbbells in one-arm extensions behind head. Under the instructions of Charles Glass, a few champions perform relatively light bar triceps extensions occasionally. Matarazzo is the only champion I have seen training forearms regularily.

It is possible they give some time to abdominals along the year, maybe before acting as a guest poser or in a photo session, but most of the champions ignore these muscles out of season. However, before a competition, they crush them on different machines several times a week. Dillet is the unique champion I have seen working out obliques directly (with stick twists).

What does all this mean? In the first place, that the weights used by elite bodybuilders can be amazing. Doing 10 repetitions with 100 kilos or more on the behind-nape press or 10 repetitions with 500 kilos in the legs press it's serious business. In the second place, most of the champions do some free weights exercises, especially with dumbbells.

Having clarified these two facts, I have to say the truth is champions rarely complete sets with a number of repetitions lower than 10 and that these sets are, when performed intensively, the heavy component, not the weights. Moreover, there is no doubt the routine of a professional bodybuilder -at least of the one who trains in the south of California- consist on less basic movements than the staunch average bodybuilder. Most of the professionals don't do squats, bench press, dips, flies, chin-ups, inclined rowing, military press or bar curl, and this is a considerable list of exercises.

This doesn't mean that bodybuilding champions have not developed great part of it muscular mass using basic, intense and heavy movements based on free weights. Plenty of them have done thousands of bench presses and squats sets in their early years of training. There are three reasons to explain why they have turned their backs to them: 

1. Heavy basic movements with free weights involve a higher risk of injury than the lighter exercises, mechanicals and meant to sculpt the muscle. People who make their living with their bodies have to reduce the possibility of injury to the minimum. A torn pectoral (as the one the bench press can cause) can disfigure a physique for ever, and there is evidence that steroids increase the probability of suffering tears and muscular cracks. Professional bodybuilders and the ones one step away from being professionals are conscious that they must keep away from injuries. 

2. Elite bodybuilders usually have enough muscular mass in the zones the basic movements develop, perhaps for the years they spent doing these exercises. For instance, most of the professionals have wonderful lower pectorals. They don't need to do bench press neither dips. Instead of that, they need to develop the upper part of these muscles using inclined movements, sculpt them and keep what they already have by working on machines. This same principle can be applied to squats, which may cause an excessive development of the gluteus and the upper part of quadriceps. There are basic exercises than can be to much efficient and, therefore, damage the symmetry. 

3. After gaining a considerable amount of muscle, many professionals agree that congestion and light movements get better results than heavy basic movements. You can move lots of blood in some 55cm biceps. Achieving congestion becomes an absorbent goal. There is no doubt that the improvements provided by steroids and other drugs also contribute to this passion for congestion.

Next question: why don't champions train as hard as the typical gym rat? Because they don't need to. The regular client of the local gym never gets the amount neither the quality of the muscle we find in a professional physique. Elite bodybuilders develop without problem. They don't need to vomit, pass out or risk an injury to grow up. These acts are not of their interest, specially when most of them follow a divided routine of two daily sessions, which means they go back to the gym a few hours after the first round and need more energies to perform the second training. Genetic and chemical advantages can stimulate the development capacity of one person with less intensity and fewer repetitions. The case is this approach works.

The most important question is the following: what does all this mean to the average bodybuilder, who struggles to reach the next level? Knowing that most of the champions -but not all of them- trained intensively when they set the foundations of their actual physique and that policy can be the best advantage for you. Each person is different. There is no reason to believe that a 76 kilos beginner should train in the same way to develop back than a world-class champion above the 100 kilos when the last one can separate the trapezius and dorsals from romboids.

It is possible that champions don't do efficient basic movements, but this doesn't mean that you should do the same. Train intensively, focus on compound movements and free weights to establish the base of your physique, complete relatively heavy sets occasionally (between 4 and 8 repetitions) and perhaps, if the rest of the factors are in order, you may become a professional bodybuilder. Then, you will be able to use most of your time on machines. Besides, it may be a good idea that professional bodybuilders say they do free weight exercises as if they were possessed, despite the truth would be different. Surely, with this approach they gained most of the muscle they have before entering the professional category, and it is likely the approach you should try out. Maybe it is better you think all champions do squats and bench press until their eyes fall from their orbits. Once again, faith moves mountains. Perhaps you should believe all that it's said.