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  1. #1
    TheGame826's Avatar
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    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.

  2. #2
    Beat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheGame826
    , Like Arnold once said his calves were lagging until he started doing 50 to 100 reps.
    i recently had the freakiest calf soreness due to training them right.. i workout calves in the smith machine now without bending my knees like before.. thing is.. it was so exhausting this way that i only could do max 10 reps! i would find it impossible to do 50-100reps.. will i be able to do more reps in the future or are my calves very weak?

    btw. great post

  3. #3
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    The Back is the next muscle group. The most important lift here is the Deadlift. I do deadlifts twice a week. Once with legs and once with back. When you are deadlifting with your legs you want to keep them as stiff as you can so it puts all the tension on the hamstrings. However since we will be working the back it is ok to bend you knees. Using wrist straps are good because they will enable you to work with alittle bit more weight since you will have better grips. Also always wear a belt when deadlifting. When lowering the bar you only need to lower to your knees, or right below your knees. Many people seem to think they have to make the plates touch the floor which is incorrect. Another lift i always do on back day is the power cling. For those who dont know, Powerclings are where you pick the bar up to your waste like in the deadlift, then pop it up to your shoulders and if you want into a military press. The power is an excellent way of building mass in your back as well as the rest of your body since it targets many major muscles. Since the deadlift and the powerclings tire me out more than anything I will usually save them for the last two exercises I do on back day. I usually start with seated rows, then lat pulldowns (infront of my face, because once again going behind the head is not a normal movement of your shoulders.), then lat pullups (wide as possible grip), then the deadlifts, then powerclings, then bentover barbell rows depending on how im feeling after the deadlifts and powerclings because they do make you nauteus.

    Now we come to Arms. The biceps and triceps have the ability to be shocked very easily. I do not usually train my forearms because I feel they get worked through other exercises, however if you are training your forearms treat them the same as you would cavles because they are fast twitching small fiber muscles. The more reps the better they will grow. For biceps I start with the dumbbells. I have found that by doing sets of 16 with relatively heavy weight works best. The first 8 of the 16 is curled normal and the second 8 are curled hammer style with no break in between. Biceps tend to react better to the negative. So curl up in about 1-2 seconds and decend down in about 3-5 seconds. Next when it comes to the curl bar or the straight bar, I always pick the straight bar simply because the curl is made to be easier. I do a few sets of preacher curling with the straight bar. Always descend all the way down because if your going half way, once again your only cheating yourself. Another very good shocker is the 7, 14, 21 curl, this one you can use the curl bar if you want. Pick up lighter weight do 7 reps and hold it then do 14 reps and hold it then do 21 reps and put it down. I do not suggest doing this ever week though because your muscle will become used to it and stop showing results over time because its main focus are the small fibers. Also another neat little trick ive read from mens health is supposed to gain 1 to 2 inches in your arm in a month no joke. You stand in a squat rack with the safety up to where your arms would be midcurl, then grab the bar and do a set of 8 curls but once you hit the safety bars hold it there for 8 seconds. Add weight as you go on. I usually stick with about 4 to 5 exercises for arms. if you want to do more thats fine. Like I said before, I workout my triceps with chest. For tri's I do the tricep pushdown machine, Dips, Overhead tricep extrensions with curl bar, and extensions with the rope.

    I will finish tonight with stomach and other beliefs and ideas.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Beat
    i recently had the freakiest calf soreness due to training them right.. i workout calves in the smith machine now without bending my knees like before.. thing is.. it was so exhausting this way that i only could do max 10 reps! i would find it impossible to do 50-100reps.. will i be able to do more reps in the future or are my calves very weak?

    btw. great post
    Keep training, your calves grow strong very fast. within a month if your hitting them hard enough you can have crazy gains. and no your calves arent weak just not as developed yet thats all.

  5. #5
    hoss827's Avatar
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    Great post bro, learned alot from it...maybe this will become a sticky

  6. #6
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    I would really like to see something else than a typical western periodization split, I truly think this is the wrong path to travel. There are many,many other systems that are extremely well thought out.

  7. #7
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    good read..

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by saboudian
    I would really like to see something else than a typical western periodization split, I truly think this is the wrong path to travel. There are many,many other systems that are extremely well thought out.

    I agree with you, My intention was not to have those muscles necessarily trained in that order or even in that split. I was simply just trying desribe how certain muscles should be trained and also give some examples.


    ----

    thanks for the comments to everyone else.

  9. #9
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    TTT on last time.

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