General Bodybuilding & Health Articles
Success for the Hardgainer I am of the opinion that the majority of what you read in the mainstream muscle magazines is not very helpful to the hardgainer. I've stopped buying them. Many hardgainers get frustrated with their lack of progress and result to steroids to get their coveted muscle mass.
Sleep Builds Strong Muscle Mass You and your training partner carefully measure the optimal protein intake for the "max" in muscle growth response. You both take the exact same anabolic state-of-the-art supplements and follow the same "perfect" workout dictated by your aggressive, but prominent personal trainer.
A Training Philosophy For Solid Mass Gain The biggest problem in natural bodybuilding is, in my opinion, the alarming number of people that screw up perfectly good training with poor nutrition. Based on my observations, the majority of serious and semi-serious trainees leave their workouts having done enough to stimulate growth,
Muscle Fiber Hypertrophy vs. Hyperplasia One of the fundamental questions in exercise physiology has been the mechanism of muscle adaptation to increased force demands (i.e. strength training). The simple and generally correct answer remains that muscles grow in size due to the growth of existing muscle fibers.
Demystifying Training We all get caught up in thinking that the next ‘new’ training system will be the one that brings it all together. Part of our constitution as humans is that we seek change and ultimately to make oneself better, so it’s not surprising we want something new.
Quotes from Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger “I was always dreaming about very powerful people. Dictators and things like that. I was always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years. Even like Jesus, being remembered for thousands of years.”
Deadlifts Very rarely do you ever see people deadlifting. Those that do are usually
powerlifters or someone who is actually performing a variation of a deadlift.
Often missing, the deadlift is an integral component of a strength building
program. That's not to say that everyone should be performing this movement or
one of its variations, but the benefits of the deadlift for a power or strength
building program are innumerable.
Teaching how to squat I have been going to Force Training Seminars, either to help Dave or to do
them on my own, for almost 3 years and one of the hardest things to do is get
someone to squat correctly. Every city has a different set of challenges. For
example, the mid-west is famous for the “The Advanced Hip Thrusters” while those
in the southern United States fall victim to the “Sit WAYYY Too Far Back”
syndrome. While each seminar poses a different set of problems, some of the
simplest things in squatting are often overlooked. Too many times people will
read an article and get confused at some of the terms or they will overemphasize
one small detail. I will try to break the squat down to help those that are
having problems or are having difficulty coaching their athletes
Dual Factor Training: How to Use Training Theory to Reach Your Physique and Performance Goals There are basically two accepted theories in the world of weight training (and
outlined in Zatsiorsky’s Science and Practice of Strength Training). One is
called Supercompensation (or Single Factor Theory), and the other is called Dual
Factor Theory. Bodybuilding tends to follow the Supercompensation way of
thinking, while virtually every field of strength and conditioning, athletics,
etc. follows the Dual Factor Theory. The reasoning that almost everyone involved
in strength training adheres to the Dual Factor Theory is because there is
scientific proof that it works, not to mention that the Eastern Bloc countries
that have adhered to this theory have killed the U.S. at every Olympics since
the 1950s. In the following paragraphs, I hope to prove to you why Dual Factor
Theory should be accepted, taught, and adhered to in the world of bodybuilding
as well as all other athletes concerned with strength and conditioning
Lifting to Fail
Most of us don’t go to the gym to fail, right? Of course not. We’re there to
succeed and reach our goals. At least, I hope that’s why—you guys there to pick
up chicks, get out of the power rack. Anyway, for the success-minded athlete,
the concept of failure sure is bandied about a lot by those “in the know.”
Muscular failure, if you haven’t guessed by now, is the issue at hand. Read more
Bulking for dummies
There are many reasons that bulking diets fail but here are a few of the most
common reasons:
1) Calories are not high enough and putting on muscle mass fails
2) Calories are too high and macros percentages are not in check. This in turn
leads to putting on sloppy weight (fat) as well as muscle.
3) You are BULKING, not CHEATING. Cheat days will be factored in, but your food
choices should still be healthy. All diets, whether cutting or bulking, need to
be monitored. This means that watching your insulin spikes and TYPE of carb
intake is still important.
4) You are what you eat. It’s just that simple. To simplify, you eat crap and
you will look like crap.
Chains—Not Just for the Bedroom Anymore Suspended chain squats can be a very effective training tool, and they can be
implemented many different ways into your training. Here are a few that we at
Granite City Barbell have used effectively to increase the strength and form of
lifters of all strength and experience levels
Squat Theory and Execution The squat should be a standard exercise in any lifters program. Whether the goal
is strength, hypertrophy (increase in muscle size), increased accelerative
ability, or a heightened vertical jump, the squat is the tool for the task. In
addition to working the muscles of the legs, hips, lower back, abdomen, and
obliques, the demands of squatting should stimulate a growth response from the
body that will carry over into strength and size increases in other areas
Bodybuilding and weightlifting back exercises
Pulldowns, Pullovers, shrugs, rows
Tips for a better deadlift
Think back, actually think way
back. Do you remember trying to pick up heavy trees, adults and rocks in the
woods? Oh yeah, you would grab a tree that looked impossible to lift, and you
would find your inner strength to get the tree off of the ground. After lifting
the tree you felt like a freak that should be apart of Ripley\'s Believe it or
not. If you were one of the kids that liked picking up trees and rocks, it shows
that you have had the hardcore powerlifting mentality way before the gym and way
before you knew what weight lifting was. This mentality of pushing yourself in
the woods has stayed with you all of your life and is now being displayed in the
gyms up until this day. Maybe you are still using this mentality on the
deadlift, but it all started way back as a child, back when you were maxing out
in the wilderness.
10 tips on building a better sumo style deadlift
The first time I qualified for
the WPO and won best lifter was at the APF Florida State Meet on June 2, 2001,
held at Kieran Kidder’s old Huge Iron Gym in Daytona Beach, Florida. I remember
an amazing feeling of pride as I left the gym and headed for my truck in the
parking lot. Just then a woman said; “Good job, but you don’t have far to pull
the bar.” She was referring to my deadlift and the limited range of motion I
had. I thought about saying; “Shut up! If the other lifters learned to pull like
me they’d be better off!” But of course I didn’t, I just told her thanks.
Powerlifting is not only a sport of strength; it’s a sport of training, the
mastering of supportive gear, as well as finding optimal technique. Optimal
technique includes finding a way to limit the distance of the lift.
Fix your deadlift for fast size and strength gains!
These exercises yield some of the greatest size, strength and athletic
performance benefits of anything you can do in the weight room. Maximizing your
poundages on such lifts will take you to a whole new level, but as is the case
with anything in life, you're limited by your weaknesses. With that in mind,
let's diagnose and troubleshoot the most common deadlift weaknesses
No Bull When it Comes to the Pull
The deadlift is whats up in the world of powerlifting. It seals the deal after a
big squat and bench press and can make (or break) the total you set out to
obtain. On top of this, the deadlift is a total body exercise that is extremely
demanding on the central nervous system and, it just so happens that the
forefathers of powerlifting decided to put it last in what was already a really
long day. Because of these reasons, the deadlift has to be perfected and
thoroughly strengthened by means of a well devised program and forceful
execution. This article is for the full meet lifter who pulls with a
conventional stance. It starts with preparation, and ends with an outline of a
hardcore training program that brought my pull from 425 at 380lbs to 685 at
325lbs
Deadlifting To be able to
lift a lot, you have to be talented athlete. Most of the guys had long arms and
legs. You could see middleweights pulling over 200 kilos the first time they saw
a power bar. But that's only a good start. The best deadlifters in the late 70`s
and early 80´s had two things in common. Most of them had a background of hard
labor, like lumberjacks, construction workers, farmers or something similar.
They carried, lifted and dragged for their living. That laid a perfect
background for deadlift training and very often ensured a hard grip too. The
second thing was Olympic lifting background, they had pulled alot before their
powerlifting career. Raimo Välineva held Scandinavian records in Olympic lifting
and was able to clean 330 pounds with straight legs. He had World records of 688
in 148´s and 716 in 165´s in early 80`s. When weightlifting had the press it was
more a pure strength sport as now when speed and technique more critical.
Deadlifting 2 The deadlift has
become very popular over the past few years. It’s a relatively easy exercise to
understand. However, it’s not so easy to understand what style works best for
each individual for a max effort competition pull. No, I’m not talking about
sumo, semi-sumo, or conventional stances, although that’s certainly part of it.
Instead, I will focus on the advantages and disadvantages of leveraging yourself
with the bar to lift the most weight for competition purposes. This includes
issues such as head up or head down, straight legged or squat position, round
upper back or no round in the upper back, toes straight ahead or toes pointed
out, and bar against the shins or slightly out in front as well as how to get
the most out of your belt.
Understanding the deadlift
In our series, “Overcoming Lousy Leverages,” Eric Cressey and I covered all
three power lifts and discussed how smart training can lead to bigger totals. In
this series, we will discuss the biomechanics behind each lift as well as
several strategies to destroy any sticking points you may have. We will
examine:
* how your personal biomechanics influence lift performance
* how to train the specific muscles that were weak when you missed a lift
* how to train the specific joint angles that were weak when you missed a lift
* how each part of the lift is affected by the force-velocity and speed-strength
continuums
* how powerlifting gear can influence the performance of each respective lift
Beyond Failure Training Part 1
It seems every day someone comes along with a new and improved system of weight
training scientifically designed to stimulate the muscle fibers unlike any other
program ever could. I am so amazed that people are that stupid as to buy into
this bullcrap. The magazines don't help matters either. One month you read a
fake training article on how your bodybuilding hero built his biceps. Hopefully
you realize all these articles are Ghost-Written? The next month you get another
routine from another Pro that is even better. Those of you who save your
magazines need only go back and glance at the last few years of your collection
to realize that it is all the same crap with minor changes. Let's face it, a
truly informative magazine that had unique articles each month would be about 25
pages max, so the editors feel compelled to go for quantity instead of quality
Beyond Failure Training Part 2
O.k. let's get right into it and pick up where we last left off. Remember this
is a rather different way of training and even for people that are used to
training in an intense manner it will be a shock to the system as there is
intensity and then there is I N T E N S I T Y
Now some of the basic rules of thumb with this style of training are:
1.You will tend to need an hour or so to recover from the workout so that you
can perform daily functions.
2.You cannot train in this manner for more than 6 weeks if you are doing it
properly
3.You can only train once a day for a maximum of 4 times per week.
4.You can only spend a maximum of 45 minutes in the gym per session
5. It is EXTREMELY painful and you will tend to have anxiety before your
workouts
6. You must keep all other physical activities to a bare minimum during your
6-week training cycle to insure maximum recovery and energy available for the
workouts
Beyond Failure Training Part 3
O.K. Let's hop right into a Beyond Failure Workout (a.k.a. Demon Training) for
the chest and the calves
Now it is important that you first understand the problems that can occur while
training certain muscle groups. In this case we will be talking about the pecs
so let's get right to it. How many times have you noticed that people rarely
have both great arms and shoulders AND a superb chest? Conversely, how many
times have you noticed someone with a great chest that had great shoulders and
arms? There are lots of pros out there that come to mind with this strange
phenomenon. Dorian and Lee Haney both had superb upper torsos, back and chest.
But left a little to be desired in the arms and even the shoulders department to
some extent. Gary Strydom had a great pair of delts and a great set of pecs, but
sub-par arms. Guys like Dennis Newman have very poor pecs and over-powering
delts. Now genetics play a large part in this to a certain extent, but the thing
I have discovered about BEYOND FAILURE TRAINING Demon Training is that is cuts
through all the genetic predisposition's because it completely annihilates the
muscle group worked and does not allow for any one group to over compensate for
the other
22 steps to a bigger bench
1. Time 2. SACRIFICE- 3. SHIRTS- 4.GAINING
WEIGHT- 5. STEROIDS- 6. GUTS- 7. GENETICS- 8. FORM-
9. REST- 10. MAKE WHAT'S WEAK STRONG- 11. MUSCLE CONFUSION-
12. BACK WORK- 13.
EVERYBODY IS DIFFERENT- 14. WORKOUT PARTNERS- 15. TRAIN SMART- 16. SQUATS-
17.
ATTITUDE- 18. TRAIN WITH HEAVY WEIGHTS AND LOW REPS- 19. SPECIAL EXERCISES FOR A
BIGGER BENCH- 20. TRAINING TO GET PRETTY WON'T MAKE YOU THE KING OF THE BENCH
PRESS- 21. MIND- 22. BEING THE STRONGEST-
Deadlifts 
The forgotten exercise
Teaching how to squat
Correcting your improper squatting stance
Chains—Not Just for the Bedroom Anymore
Using Chains and bands with squats
Anabolic Aerobics - Part 1
new techniques in training, diet and supplementation
Anabolic Aerobics - Part 1
new techniques in training, diet and supplementation
Hardcore Bulking Part I - Diet
Harcdcore bulking through proper diet
Hardcore Bulking Part II – Training
Harcdcore bulking with intense training
Hardcore Bulking Part III – Cycles
Harcdcore bulking with anabolic steroids
Squat Theory and Execution
The squat should be a standard exercise in any lifters program
Training for size and strength
Getting more from your bench routine
Bodybuilding and weightlifting back exercises
Tips for a better deadlift
Deadlifting
Deadlifting 2
Understanding the deadlift
No Bull When it Comes to the Pull
10 tips for building a better sumo style deadlift
Fix your deadlift for fast size and strength gains!
What I've learned in 25 years of Bodt building
Wait until Genetic potential is met
BodyBuilding & the Endocrine System
Joint Repair Guide
Powerpoints
What Happens to your Muscles Overnight?
The Arobic Myth
Weightlifting and workout facts
Feel free to discuss this article here.
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