Philosphy - Training for Results
This thread consist of my beliefs and views of bodybuilding.
I was up most of the night thinking ways to put this whole thread together. My goal is for this thread to be read by most of the newer members of our board who are always asking the same inexperienced questions.
I am going to start by briefly describing the different types of muscles. Your body consist of two different types of muscles per muscle group. There are the small fiber muscle tissues and the big fiber muscle tissues. The average male has about an even distrubution of these fibers in his body. This means that the average male has about 50% of each. Small muscle fibers are muscles that work with light weight. For example, if you are curling 20lb dumbbells for 8 reps you are using the small fibers. However if you are curling say 50lb dumbbells then you are not only using the big fibers, but also the small fibers. This is why it is important to train heavy. No matter how many reps you perform, if you arent using enough weight then chances are that only 50% of the muscle you are working is being used. Where as if you are using heavy weight then 100% of muscle is being used.
To understand how these muscles work a good example is like the sport of boxing. Lightweight boxers only fight lightweights. And heavyweights only fight heavyweights. However when it comes to working out, If your a heavyweight fighting a heavyweight, you will have a lightweight helping you out so it is basically 2 on 1.
Next I would like to briefly describe the mentallity that I feel is the best to have. Those people who lie about working out are only lying to themselves. When you go to work out, you are lifting for yourself. Not for the girl you want to impress or for the guy you want to show up. While those are good motivators they are not the reason your working out. In addition, Always be confident, tell yourself that you will be able to do it before you pick up the weight. Because even if you fail today, one day you will be doing it. Set big goals. Like in my sig. it says "The problem isn't that people set goals to high and fail, the problem is that people set goals to low and succeed." Also, learn to work through the pain because pain is just a temporary thing and it can be ignored.
Ok so the training part, lets start with legs. For those of you who do not even train legs I strongly recommend you start. Every time you train a muscle GH is released into your blood. When you train legs, more GH is released then from any other muscle group. So in theory by training legs the rest of your body will grow. A simple leg workout would consist of squats, leg press, leg curls, and leg extensions. Squats ofcourse is the most important exercise of them all. Personally I have found better results by going as far down as I possibly can while doing squats. On a normal squat I can press over 400, however even since I began going all the way down past the parallel line I have had much better results even though I can not press more than 275. I would recommend doing every leg exercise you can, and not just doing those four of five lifts. A big part of legs is calves. The Calf muscles consist mainly of those small fibers which mean high reps. Like Arnold once said his calves were lagging until he started doing 50 to 100 reps. For a good leg workout I would recommend talking to Big Ol' Legs or me.
Next is Chest. Train heavy so that your work all the fibers, I cannot stress how important this is. When it comes to chest the most important Lift is the Incline Press whether it be with the barbell or dumbbells. Dips are also a crucial exercise. Despite the fact that you are training heavy you should not let your reps decrease in number. For instance lets say normally you do 3 sets of 8 reps that equals a total of 24 reps. However, since you started going heavy your doing 3 sets of 8 then 6 then 4, this only equals 18. So now you've lost six reps. So I would suggest doing atleast 4 sets of 8, 6,6, and 4 which would equal 24. I train triceps with my chest however I will cover the triceps in the Arms section. My chest workout looks like this, Bench press barbell, Incline press Barbell, Decline with dumbbells, and flys, Dips, Tricep pushdowns, overhead tricep extensions. For bench I do reps of 8, 8, 6, 4, 2 which equals 30 total, for incline i do 10, 8, 6, 4 which equals 24. You get the idea, Heavy weight and alot reps will equal gains.
Next is shoulders. Many people train shoulders wrong. The most crucial exercise here is the military press. I feel more of a burn when doing this standing up. However I am going to educate you on this exercise for sitting down. Simply because I hate seeing people injuring themselves. On most military press benches the bar is sitting behind your head. Always have a spotter help you lift it up because when you stretch your arms that far behind your head you are putting alot of stress on your shoulders rotator cuff. Secondly always lower the bar in front of your face to about the top of your nose or when your arms are about parallel to the floor. The reason you do not lower the bar behind your head is because that movement is not natural. For example try touching the middle of your back with your hand, and notice all the excess stress on your shoulder, now imagine how much stress your shoulder must have when its holding up 205 pounds. The behind the head movement causes the cartilage in your shoulder to become worn down which will cause extreme pain over time. For shoulders my workout looks like this. Military with Barbell, Military with Dumbbells, Lying shoulder flys, shrugs, and standing Military.
I will finish the rest of this once i return from class.