Obviously, you readers of a publication of bodybuilding, are at least an iron sport enthusiast and I am convinced that largely you train trying to achieve the maximum development of your muscles. In a specialized magazine as this you not only look forward to know what happens in the scene and get the inspiration that the images of the big champions may produce, but also useful information that may help you improve.
The problem is that frequently the information spread is not the appropriate one and that does not mean it is false, but I would say it is not enough clarified. Unless you have many years in this sport, and even still, you may not know how to distinguish between the routines and programs of the big champions and the basic laws to activate the muscular hypertrophy.
I am amazed to see so many guys putting into practice allegedly advanced training methods and almost looking for elaborate programs by using sophisticated calculus, when the key to get a more than big size is training hard and doing the basic.
They make their lives too complicated.
Is like trying to start building your home with the windows. They forget that the muscle stars' routines are not worthy in their cases, but all the opposite. If instead of trying to imitate and copy the monsters of muscle they would properly use the basic principles that rule the muscular growing, they would be bigger and stronger.
Let's review those basic laws which constitute the abc of the muscular development.
1st Law: to train with progressive loads
The first law to make the muscles react and to gain greater levels of strength and also development is the progressive loads training.
It is the first step, in bodybuilding all the rest comes later. But, to avoid falling in the confusion of the information, let me say that all of us, before running, have to learn how to walk, and before that we learn how to crawl. Thereafter, the first is the first and if you are in the initial stages of this adventure with bodybuilding, you better start doing well.
In this case nothing better than to select an exercise for each part of the body and do four or five sets of about ten consecutive repetitions, resting a couple of minutes in between.
For instance, the squats for the legs, pulley pulls for the back, bench presses for the chest, dumbbell presses or raises for shoulders, and extensions and curls for the arms.
This type of stimulation must be repeated three times a week.
Here we have a basic routine for the first stages.
Beginners' routine (Monday-Wednesday-Friday)
Warming up
Abdominal work, 5 minutes
Squats 4-5 x 10
Pulley pulls 4-5 x 10
Bench presses 4-5 x 10
Dumbbell shoulder presses 4-5 x 10
Pulley arm extensions 4-5 x 10
Bar arm curl 4-5 x 10
After the first two to three months it is time to increase the intensity and the amount of work in one degree, doing more exercise per zone and spending then three or four days a week, but in return each group is trained twice every seven days.
Following, I have an example for you:
Beginners' routine (after the first three months)
Monday - Thursday
General warming up
Abdominal work, 5 minutes
Squats 4-5 x 10
Leg curl lying down 4-5 x 10
Heel raises 4-5 x 10
Bench press 4-5 x 10
Dumbbell flies 4x10
Dumbbell arm curl 4x10
Tuesday - Friday
Dorsal pulley pulls 4-5 x 10
Low pulley row 4-5 x 10
Dumbbell shoulder press 4-5 x 10
Lateral raises 4-5 x 10
Bar arm curl 4-5 x 10
After about six months of continuous and progressive training is when you can move on to a more advanced program, to produce greater muscular response, as the following:
Routine after the first six months
Monday (legs)
General warming up
Squats 4-5 x 10
Press 3x10
Leg extensions 3x10
Leg curls lying down 4x10
One-leg curl 3x10
Standing heel raises 3x10
Seated heel raises 3x10
Tuesday (arms and abdomen)
General warming up
Trunk raises 3x15
Trunk contractions 3x15
Leg raises 3x15
Hyperextensions 3x15
Arm curl on pulley 4x10
Bar arm curl lying down 4x10
Bar arm curl 4 x 8-10
Dumbbell arm curl 4 x 8-10
Thursday (back)
General warming up
Chin-ups 3 x 8-10
Dorsal pulls 4x10
Low pulley row 4x10
Dumbbell row 3x10
Friday (chest and shoulders)
General warming up
Bench press 4x10
Flies 4x10
Dumbbell inclined press 3x8
Shoulders press 4 x 8-10
Lateral raises 4x10
Inclined lateral raises 3x10
As you can see for the design of this routine prototype, as you gain experience and strength you apply more directed and focused work for each part of the body, in order to provoke a reaction of localized growth. But in the same time it limits to one of them when each zone is worked out every seven days to allow a total recovery, because you are now in conditions to erode more the muscular fibres, since not only more work is applied to each group, but you are stronger and move more weight.
Do not forget development depends on the fully restoration of muscles, that is why three days, Wednesday, Saturday and Sundays, must be for absolute rest.
Here there are several general advices to be considered for all levels:
Move the load deliberately slow and without jerks or jolts.
Make a slight pause in the final part and at the beginning of the exercise.
Stop the set when you can not perform a repetition in a good way.
Try to increase weight slightly and on each set if possible, keeping the repetitions, or in the worst case doing one or two less in the last set.
No matter what they say and what you read, do not get confused, if you really want your muscles to get bigger and stronger, you will have to strive to move progressive heavier loads.
2nd Law: resting is essential for the muscular recovery and growth
If the progressive overload is the central pillar of the bodybuilder training, the rest is the equalizer that allows or forbid the growth.
Be cautious, do not rush or try to rush things. During the first weeks, train on three alternate days per week. That will be enough, Monday, Wednesday and Friday is a good example- Do not try to burn the stages.
When you advance in your physical condition move on to four days: Monday, Tuesday, rest on Wednesday and go back to the gym on Thursday and Friday, to rest then on the weekend. Do not train more than four days in any case, at least for the first years. However, let me point out that great bodybuilders as Mentzer, Dorian Yates, Labrada and many others have achieve competitive success and a great muscular development training only four days a week. Therefore if they reached the top doing that, it is clear it is efficient for two simple reasons: because it allows you to train very hard each group and at the same time to recover so that the body advances.
Try to sleep eight hours each night and, if possible, relax for another hour during the day, either reading a good book or taking a short nap. Growing processes are carried out only if the recovery from the physical exercise is complete, meanwhile the muscles will have to wait to grow.
3rd Law: feeding is essential to materialize the progresses
Feeding plays a determinant role on the result that can be achieved from any training program with weights.
Muscles obtain from the food the fuel they need to exercise, but also the materials to build new tissues, so it is easy to understand that the kind of diet is a key factor either to have an optimal performance at the gym as to achieve the maximum muscular hypertrophy.
There are several rules in the diet to promote the muscular increasing that you cannot pass over.
Eat every three hours in small quantities. A minimum of five times a day, respecting the eating times.
Reduce the intake of fats and sugars and increase the amount of proteins in each food.
Avoid processed foods, the proceedings from junk food and any other type of pastries or artificial manufacturing.
Make the breakfast an important meal, with lots of proteins and carbohydrates, and make the dinner more frugal, where the protein foods abound.
It is important for you to know the nutrients the foods provide you, in order to combine them in the right proportion on each case.
For instance, when we talk about proteins, you will find them in lean meats, fishes, eggs, birds, all of them including the chicken, the turkey and also the quail and ostrich. Skimmed lacteous products are also a good source of proteins, yoghurts, cud, etc.
This group of foods provides the raw material of which muscles are built of and therefore it must be considered the central axis of menus.
Carbohydrates are, of course, also important because they are the fuel for the body in general and especially for the muscles that use the glucose to make the contractions and save it as a reserve in the form of glycogen.
Through this nutrient it is possible to adjust the energy and also the body fat levels, because by reducing them we force the body to derive the energy that does not get from the carbohydrates from the subcutaneous fat, and so the general adiposity is gradually reduced.
On the other hand, by increasing the intake of them in your diet also makes easier to gain weight. In fact, playing with its levels we can rise or reduce the levels of weight gain.
You don't have to worry about the fat because, in general, they abound in lacteous, meats, egg yolks, and especially in the oils we use to cook our meals.
In any case we have to reduce saturated fats to the maximum limiting excessive fatty foods, as all kind of cold meats and canned foods, butters, as well as hamburgers, pizzas and all related to fast or junk food, but also meals excessively seasoned with sauces and dressings, fried and baked foods, etc. These are saturated fat sources thus harmful and we have to avoid them at all costs. As replacement to obtain unsaturated or beneficial fats, adding some nuts, blue fishes or some vegetable sources like avocados or virgin oils like olive and flax oils is enough.
4th Law: certain supplements may increase and accelerate the muscular development process.
When you look forward to achieving the maximum muscular hypertrophy it is possible that a diet based on conventional foods would be not enough, since the need of certain key substances is superior to what those foods can provide.
