12 Unbreakable Training Rules
12 Unbreakable Training Rules!
So you want to get huge, do you? Of course you do, you’re logged on to musculardevelopment.com, bodybuilding’s number one multimedia destination filled with photos of some of the most freakishly muscular men alive! Chances are, you’re working hard in the gym, eating plenty of good food and taking various supplements. Yet even then, you are probably doing some things that unbeknownst to you are sabotaging your efforts. As someone who has been training for 31 years now and has been around more gyms and bodybuilders than I can even remember at this point, I’ve picked up on some of these violations that keep us from reaching our goals of being as big as we can be. Here are 12 rules you must not break!
1. Don’t copy the pros if you’re not a pro.
This will sound like blasphemy coming from a man who quite possibly has written more pro training articles than any other writer alive. But here’s the deal. The men I write about are genetic freaks who grow muscle very easily, recover better than the average bear, and also use items that drastically enhance muscle recovery and growth. They can do 30-40 sets per body part and train six days in a row and make progress. Many of them are sponsored athletes whose job is to eat, sleep and train. Unless all that sounds eerily like you and your life, you really need to make your workouts shorter and more efficient, and build in more rest days. Otherwise, you will only get horribly overtrained. Not only will you not grow, you might even shrink!
2. Don’t use perfect form all the time.
We preach perfect form, but the reality is that using very strict form 100 percent of the time will limit the amount of weight you are able to use. There is a time and place for perfect form, and movements that demand it for safety’s sake, such as squats and deadlifts, should be done strictly. But it’s also true that loosening up your form allows much heavier resistance to be used, thus providing maximum overload to the muscles. A little bit of “body English” goes a long way.
3. Don’t use shit form all the time.
On the other hand, using loose form exclusively will not provide the target muscle or muscles with sufficient TUT, or time under tension. You also don’t want to drop the weight, as a controlled negative is critical for optimal gains in both mass and strength. It’s also very tough on your joints and connective tissues. So, you can incorporate strict and loose in the same sets by starting off strict, then loosening up your form once you can’t complete any more strict reps. The bottom line with form is, you miss out if you never use strict form, and you also miss out if you never relax your form. Do both at various times to get the best results.
4. Don’t do the same exercises constantly.
Arguments against changing up your exercises often reference eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman, who hardly changed a thing about his training in all the years he competed. Let’s get this straight, though. Ronnie was a genetic freak even compared to almost every other pro. Assuming that what worked for him will work the same for you is beyond ludicrous. Your muscles adapt to doing the same exercises week after week. While switching up exercises too frequently means you never make much progress in terms of weight, you do want to rotate your exercises periodically. If you don’t, odds are excellent that you will hit a plateau eventually and your gains will grind to a halt.
5. Don’t shun machines.
Barbells and dumbbells are classic training tools that have stood the test of time for more than a century now. You should use them at every workout. At the same time, there are some very effective machines out there that will work your muscles from angles that would be nearly impossible to duplicate with free weights. And on leg day, machine movements like leg presses, hack squats and leg curls complement staples like squats, front squats and Romanian deadlifts. Using all free weights or all machines would be a mistake. Instead, incorporate both so you have all the best tools at your disposal.
6. Don’t fly solo.
Having a training partner isn’t an option for everyone. If you could have one but don’t, I strongly urge you to find one. Maybe you don’t need anyone yelling in your ear to motivate you. Neither do I. But there are certain movements you can’t go heavy on safely without a spotter, such as barbell bench presses, incline presses and military presses. Even if you have a power rack to squat in, a spotter gives you that extra confidence to push more weight and get more reps. The best training partners are ones you can have a friendly rivalry with. In those cases, neither man wants the other to outdo him, and you bring out the best in each other.
7. Don’t favor strong body parts.
It’s only human nature to put more work into things that pay off with visible rewards, and to put less effort into things that seem to be pointless. Many guys fall into the trap of spending more time and energy on the body parts that respond well, while giving short shrift to stubborn body parts. Over time, this leads to greater and greater physique imbalances, with some areas overdeveloped and others painfully lagging behind. Assuming you don’t want that, just do enough to maintain your stronger areas and no more, while you prioritize weaker body parts with extra work. Your strong body parts certainly won’t fade away, but if you give your lagging areas a fighting chance, you might be surprised to find they are capable of growing after all!
8. Don’t skimp on leg and back training.
Many would-be bodybuilders have complained to me that they can’t break past a certain bodyweight. Then I notice that their legs and backs are far less developed than everything else on their bodies. Since those are the two biggest muscle groups in your body, it only stands to reason that building them would give you significantly more lean muscle mass and therefore, additional bodyweight. Far too often, leg and back workouts are short and perfunctory. Don’t slack on those training days. Put equal effort into your back and legs that you do for everything else, and your physique will be bigger, heavier and more impressive— with a look of power it lacks without strong development in the legs and back.
9. Do take occasional breaks.
Even a car can’t be driven at redline for too long before the engine goes. Your body can’t be pushed at high intensity indefinitely, either. If you’re lucky, the worst thing that will happen is you get overtrained and lose enthusiasm for the gym, start having trouble sleeping and get low-grade infections like a cold or sore throat. If you’re less fortunate, you’ll get injured from the constant beating on your tendons and ligaments. Even the great Dorian Yates, who has few regrets about his training days, would have taken more downtime if he could go back and do things differently. You can either take a solid week off every couple of months, or alternate periods of high intensity with a week or two of going lighter, not training to failure and throwing in extra rest days. As Dorian likes to point out often, your muscles might be recovering if you are hitting different body parts every day, but your CNS (central nervous system) is getting pounded hard every time you turn on your beast mode in the gym.
10. Don’t ignore odd pains.
Very rarely do injuries truly “come out of nowhere.” In most cases, your body does send signals, typically in the form of pain in weird areas like your elbows or lower back that precipitate getting hurt. Dexter Jackson has made it to age 45 and nearly 30 years of training without a major injury by paying close attention to those signals and backing off on any exercises that cause such pain. Training “through the pain” might sound like the macho or “hardcore” thing to do, but rest assured that a serious training injury will take you out of action for a while and cause you untold frustration and regret. Few things are worse for a bodybuilder than being unable to train and watching your body grow smaller and weaker by the day.
11. Don’t do exercises that are worthless or dangerous for you.
I confess to being partly responsible for drilling it into your heads that certain exercises absolutely must be performed or else you are doomed to a life of no gains: movements like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, military presses and barbell rows. But due to individual structures and leverages, there will be many cases when one or more of those simply doesn’t fit you and won’t be productive. And if you have already hurt an area like your lower back or shoulders, you will also find that some exercises are going to put you at too much of a risk for re-injury that they aren’t worth it. For instance, I haven’t deadlifted in years, and I no longer go heavy on squats, both due to lower back issues. I’ve continued to make gains by working hard on other exercises, and so can you.
12. Don’t train like a powerlifter.
Numerous studies have confirmed that training very heavy in the one to five rep range is superior for building strength, while muscles need more time under tension, which typically equates to eight to 12 or more reps, to stimulate actual muscle growth. Yet I still see tons of guys who are supposedly training to get bigger doing very low reps— usually on ego lifts like bench presses and squats. Not only is training that heavy putting you at greater risk of injury (since few have mastered perfect technique for heavy lifts as actual powerlifters have), but you are doing nothing to force your muscles to become larger. Would you rather have quads that look like they could squat 600 pounds even though you stick with 315-405 for sets of 10-20, or would you prefer to actually squat 600 and have legs that are nothing special? Trust me, I have competed against guys who could squat a lot more than I could, but my quads blew theirs away. Make up your mind. If you are trying to look like a bodybuilder, train like one!