Bodybuilding Boot Camp - Top Pros Show You Tricks of The Trade
Bodybuilding Boot Camp
Top Pros Show You Tricks of the Trade
Branch Warren
How I Stay Motivated
Motivation is not a problem for me. I love to train, I have a burning desire to be the best bodybuilder in the world, and this is how I make my living as a professional athlete. That being said, I do get sick at times, and there are days when I haven’t had enough sleep due to traveling or other commitments. If I don’t feel I’m up to giving it my all, I take a day off. I would much rather wait an extra day and come back firing on all cylinders than go in there and have a bad workout. I think too many bodybuilders are afraid to ever take a day off because they get so locked into a schedule they made, that for some reason they feel like they have to stick to. Says who? It’s your body and your training, so you make the rules! I don’t really believe in “overtraining” as long you are eating and resting enough, but a lot of guys get mentally burnt out if they go to the gym more than four days a week. If that’s what happens to you, don’t feel like you need to train five or six days a week just because that’s what the pros do. Listen to your own body and train according to your own needs and situation, and then the days you “feel like shit and don’t feel like training” should be pretty rare.
Dennis Wolf
Lat Pulldowns to the Front for Upper Back Width
For me, pull-ups never felt as good as lat pulldowns to the front. I started my back workouts with that exercise for almost 10 years, until people began saying how I needed more development in my lower lats. Then I switched to more reverse-grip movements. But if you want wide upper lats, I think your best bet is to work hard on lat pulldowns to the front, grabbing the bar right where it bends, and pulling all the way down to your upper chest. Squeeze the lats hard and crunch your shoulder blades together at the end of each rep, and also be sure to stretch. A really good stretch at the end of a back workout is to go right back to lat pulldowns and put a very heavy weight on the stack. Strap your hands in, get under the pad and try to hold a nice stretch for 30-60 seconds. I will leave you with a good back workout to follow:
Lat Pulldowns to Front 4 x 10-12
Barbell Rows 4 x 8-10
Seated Cable Rows (long bar) 4 x 10-12
Evan Centopani
Never Train on an Empty Tank
I think training first thing in the morning without eating is a terrible idea. You need fuel in your tank, and training first thing in the morning would be detrimental, in my opinion. Your body would definitely be in a highly catabolic mode and my best guess is that not only would you not make gains this way, you’d probably lose some muscle, too. Sometimes, going out of your way to make sure you get that meal in makes all the difference.
Hide Yamagishi
Get Out of Your Comfort Zone!
I have been training for over 20 years now— more than half my life— and competing in bodybuilding for 18 of those years. Throughout my career, I have met and seen so many guys and girls in the gym and at contests, trying to step up to the next level. Some of them reached their ultimate goal, but most of them never made it. What is the difference between these two groups? Genetics are part of it, but a lot of people who never achieved their goals had really good genetics and still didn’t go very far. I think if you want to achieve something exceptional, you need to get out your comfort zone!
I have seen many people doing the same workouts over and over, the same intensity of cardio over and over, and following the same diet for years. They just keep doing it because it’s what they know— it’s comfortable for them. But there is a very meaningful saying that goes something like, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”
If you are making progress, there is no need to change. But most people keep doing the same things forever, even long after they haven’t seen results for many months or even many years. Change is scary, and doing something you’re not sure about is not easy. Being in a comfort zone is easy, because it’s so familiar to you. But you have to break out of your comfort zone if it’s not working for you anymore. Change your exercises, your split, your rep scheme, your intensity, rest periods or your rep tempo. Try something new with your diet or try new supplements. The worst thing that can happen is that maybe you won’t get results, but you’ve lost nothing since you are already in a plateau. If you keep pushing outside your comfort zone, you are bound to find new methods that deliver results.
Victor Martinez
Training Chest and Shoulders Together – Bad Idea!
I only tried training chest and shoulders together a couple of times some years ago, and right away I could tell it was a bad idea. I wasn’t able to get anywhere near as good of a shoulder workout, and felt that if I kept doing them in the same workout, my shoulders would suffer badly. I also think that it’s too much strain on your rotator cuffs to do all that pressing in one session. For a little while, I also tried working chest one day and shoulders on the next day, but I found that my shoulder workout still was affected. There’s just too much overlap. One thing I would do for a little extra shoulder work was to add a few sets of lateral raises or front raises at the end of a chest workout. Ideally, I would have at least one full day in between chest and shoulders, like a Monday and a Wednesday. You could even go another day or two, and see if that works better for you.
Jose Raymond
Safe Arm Training With a Lower Back Injury
Triceps exercises really don’t put you at any risk of re-injuring your lower back, with the possible exception of overhead dumbbell extensions or overhead skull-crushers with a bar. Any time you allow your lower back to arch excessively with a load bearing down on your spine, there is a risk factor. As for biceps, you really need to stay away from standing barbell and dumbbell curls. Many guys have a tendency to start swinging and cheating when the weight starts feeling too heavy, recruiting the lower back to pitch in and help. Obviously, you don’t want that. So seated curling movements are your best bet. Here’s a good arm routine you can follow with all that in mind.
Biceps
Incline Dumbbell Curls 3 x 10-12
Preacher Curls 3 x 10-12
Machine Curls 3 x 10-12
Triceps
Cable Pushdowns 3 x 10-12
Skull-Crushers on Flat Bench 3 x 10-12
Close-Grip Bench Press 4 x 8-12
Jay Cutler
What Is Intensity?
First, it’s important to note that some people have a warped perception of what “intensity” means. To them, it involves yelling and screaming and throwing weights around like a madman. True intensity is applying maximum effort, and forcing the target muscle to work as hard as possible. To do that, you need to have developed a strong mind-muscle connection so you are able to apply the stress of any given exercise directly to the muscle you want to hit. That’s the key difference between lifting weights and training a muscle. If you throw up a lot of weight for curls but don’t feel much going on in the biceps, that was not an intense set— it was just wasted effort and energy. But if you curl using your biceps, squeeze the hell out of them and finish your set with a tight, swollen pump, then that was an intense set.
Jason Huh
My Instinctive Training Style
Every day I go in the gym, I’m just searching for the ultimate pump from relatively heavy weight with a rep range of six to 16, depending on the million variables that take place every day— from sleep to food to stress. Your muscles don’t give two shits about any style! I believe bodybuilding is about exploring oneself to find what is working best for that particular day, actually feeling the fibers working, and feeling the pump and watching your muscles engorge. Your muscles couldn’t care less about any particular style. The body is made to adapt, so who’s to say that one particular style works better than another? That’s why you have to constantly listen to your body and change things up. People need to stop wondering what style is going to make them bigger and better than the other, when all they need to do is stop being so damn lazy and to go figure out their own style. Look at Cutler, Branch, Victor, Ronnie, Flex, Shawn and Evan. They all train differently, but they all look awesome! I know for most it’s hard to hear, but your body will talk to you if you listen.
