[Will Smith transformed his body from the skinny teenager in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" to a muscular athlete for his powerful impersonation of the greatest boxer who has ever lived in Ali.]

The Worst Workout Program In The World Will Give Results If You Stick To It

That’s right, no matter how lousy or ‘unscientific’ your routine is, if you stick to it and don’t miss workouts, you will succeed. Mark McManus alluded to this in this post. Progressive overload, the key to muscle building success, is all about making continuous small incremental increases. Little by little, you are getting closer and closer to your goal.

Do you know the kind of bozos at the gym that lift with atrocious form and dismal selection of exercises? Well those ‘bozos’ will make bigger gains than you, if you miss workouts, because they won’t skip training. Who’s the bozo now?

When You Are Not Being Consistent, You Are Actually Regressing, Not Progressing

No wonder you don’t have the body you want if you have to start from scratch every time you restart your training. This is like the difference between TRAINING and WORKING OUT. People TRAIN for a specific outcome, a specific result or goal. It’s a plan spanning over a number of weeks or months. Even years. This consistent approach will give significant results when it comes to transforming your body. Now, WORKING OUT, on the other hand, means to me a sort of ‘in the moment’ approach. It’s like being on maintenance mode. Maintaining and gaining are obviously different and this inconsistent, on and off approach will simply not give long term results.

The More Advanced You Are, The Less You Can Progress

It’s simple really. We all have our genetic potential for physical development. The closer we get to fulfilling it, the harder it gets to progress forwards. This brings me to the last point.

Intensity, Hustling, And Busting Your Ass

[The whole vid is golden, but watch it after 4:00 - for these powerful words: "I will not be outworked. Period.”]

Things that are worth getting don’t come easy. When it comes to getting lean and muscular, this is also true. Listen, you have to be willing to push yourself. Make every rep, every set, every exercise, and every workout session count. The intensity of your workout – how much you bust your ass, is what can make a lousy program work for you. People have been getting results since forever. And their secret? The will to hustle in order to get what they want.

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[Smart and cute girls hate it when guys get fat and bulky LOL. No seriously, they hate it.]

Ellis details energy metabolism at a cellular level and offers a practical way to lose weight with a low carbohydrate diet (under 100g of carbohydrates per day), as well as some energy shortage from eating less and exercising a bit more. The author had interwoven his personal fitness story in between the dry biochemical background. So anyway, what reminded me of this book was the author’s physical culture journey. There are two types of people who develop a keen interest in the workings of the human body.

The First Kind Are Folks Who Are Natural Athletes

They have been always active and have always enjoyed sports. Their interest in the workings of the human physique is just a natural development from their love of all things athletic. Now, there is also another kind of people who become obsessed and fascinated by the way the human machine operates.

These Are The Ones That Didn’t Start Out As Naturals

[Bruce Lee used to have a big belly. The embarrassment for a young guy to look so bad pushed him to train hard and chisel probably the most famous six pack abs in history.]

Dr. Ellis was from the second group of fitness enthusiasts. I can say the asme holds true for me too.

You see, he was very overweight as a kid. Dr. Ellis put on a lot of weight after the situation at his home became extremely stressful. That led to his fascination with physical culture. He wanted to lose the weight that he had gained. Eating was probably for him a defense mechanism the way it is for so many vulnerable children or young women.

To the right – Dr. Ellis as an overweight kid. Emotional eating wrecked his body. He lost the weight and started lifting regularly to become better built. In his early 20s Gregory Ellis was following the popular method eating like a pig in order to gain some muscle mass along with the tons of fat that come with massive increases in weight. He acknowledges this as a big mistake.

New Fat Cells Are Permanent

When you gain weight, your fat cells grow in size. When you lose weight – they shrink. Now, past a certain level, you cannot gain more weight without getting some new fat cells.

Here is the catch. When you lose the fat once again, your newly formed fat cells will remain in your body. The truth is, unless you get a liposuction, you can’t get rid of those suckers – the new fat cells.

But here is more. The more fat cells you’ve got. The easier it is to get fat and the harder it is to lose that fat. So once you spawn yourself some new fat cells, you’re going to have them for life.

Fat Is Ugly

When you are fatter, you will always look worse. I mean, who would willingly spend large chunks of his life looking worse in order to supposedly maybe look better in the future. Crazy, I know. But that is what the practice of bulking up for muscle gain is.

Bulky Dudes Look Corny

Here is Dr. Ellis in all his bulky “glory.” When guys add muscle by eating tons of food, they get bigger, no doubt. But mostly they get fatter. Layers of goo cover their upper body and they look big as a wardrobe when in clothes. But at the beach or in bed with their girl, they have rolls of fat around their waist. It’s hypocrisy really, because other see them and consider them fit and strong when in reality they are fat and strong.

The Fatter And Heavier You Are, The More You Suck At Sports

Not that the huge fat guys care, really, but the bulked up build is a disaster when it comes to playing sports. It’s like trying to sprint with a backpack full of rocks. Except you can’t take the backpack off. Life’s too short not to cherish beautiful things like the joy of playing pickup basketball, beach volleyball or surfing, etc.

More Fat = More Estrogen

Because the female hormone estrogen feels excellent when there is lots of fat, the chubbier you get, the more estrogen for you. Bad news, because this means less muscle.

Hopefully I’ve discouraged you from gaining muscle by eating like a pig.

Note: I’ve discovered a great free podcast discussing muscle and weight gain. I highly recommend listening to it. ==> Gaining Weight vs Gaining Muscle

Image: macinate

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“The greatest art is to attain a balance, a balance between all opposites, a balance between all polarities. Imbalance is the disease and balance is health. Imbalance is neurosis, and balance is well-being.”
–Osho

The Olden Ways Of Bodybuilding

Bodybuilding split training was popularized with clever marketing tactics in the fitness magazines. Joe Weider, the original muscle mogul and number one physical culture entrepreneur of all time, used hi publishing empire as a means to dominate this niche. More often than not, what he published in his magazines was purely image-driven. It was completely different from the actual workouts of the bodybuilders that endorsed his products. My first contact with bodybuilding was through these same magazines. The PR-manufactured content brought confusion and lack of results in my training.

It wasn’t until I stumbled upon strength training with full body workouts and the principle of progressive overload that I started making gains. Many people have a similar experience with bodybuilding programs from the magazines.

Return Of The Strength

It was a time when the pendulum was swung completely in the direction of bodybuilding split training. The last few years the internet created a backlash against it and now the pendulum seems to be on the opposite side. The same marketing exploits once used by Weider’s magazines are now used by his opponents. Strength training and full body workouts are made out to be the holy grail.

Full Body Workouts Are The Best For Beginners

That actually was the big fallacy of the magazines – considering their readers are mainly novice adolescent boys, it was plain wrong to prescribe to them the workouts of professional bodybuilders with decades of experience.

Some Of The Strongest People On Earth Use Split Training

Walk in any gym and ask the strongest dude how he trains and no doubt his workout will have body part days. When you are trying to accomplish something and what you are doing isn’t working, the solution is not to start hammering your head against the wall HARDER. The solution is to find the thing that is going to take you to the next level. And do THAT thing.

The Body Is Like A Vessel

You can fill it up with a limited amount of strength for a given size.That’s why they have weight classes in sports. Now, the way to get past this is to train for size. Once you are bigger, you can then train for strength and fill up the new bigger vessel with more power. So, the way to go is choose the middle path between the two extremes.

Alternate Strength And Size For Continuous Progress

It’s the clever thing to do. Dogma doesn’t give you results. Smart training does. Proponents of both camps – bodybuilding and strength training, can learn a thing or two from each other. In fact, high level people of all walks of life don’t waste their time with such minutia. They don’t argue over theory. Let them PhD’s write their books trying to get a name for themselves and let us do what actually works. Here are just a few examples.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Got His Initial Size With Strength Training

His routine was inspired by his role model Reg Park. Park, pictured to the right, was an advocate for getting strong to get big. He was the father of training with 5 sets of 5 on the big basic exercises – squats, bench presses and deadlifts.

Arnold then polished his physique with high volume split training for size. Alternating training for strength and training for size clearly worked for him.

Lets swing the pendulum the other way. Here’s an extreme example – powerlifters. They are guys who care mostly for lifting as much weight as possible. The most successful ones alternate muscle building and strength training phases every 6-12 weeks.

Powerlifter Dave Tate Has Spent Years Dabbling In Both Powerlifting And Bodybuilding

“You can’t flex bone,” he likes to repeat. Strength is mostly neurological. It’s the ability to contract your muscles hard. It makes sense to be able to generate more force with a bigger muscle at your disposal. It just doesn’t work to train for strength only with a body that has hardly any muscle. If you are to contract your muscles harder and have barely any muscles, what are you going to contract?

Here Is Another Example – Bodybuilding Champion Ronnie Coleman.
He used to be a powerlifter and still trains with heavy weights for strength in addition to annihilating his muscles with size training.

OK, What If I Just Want To Look Good

Not strong as a crane and not big as a barn. Here is the deal – bulkiness comes from taking steroids and having layers of fat covering your body. An ordinary guy will find it hard to pack enough lean muscle mass to look bulky. Just stay lean and don’t worry about getting too big. But here is another example.

Actor Hugh Jackman Also Uses This Approach In His Training

[Hugh Jackman is definitely jacked.]

His trainer Steve Ramsbottom has him work for size with slower lifting speed and high volume (lots of sets and reps) for 6 – 12 weeks. When his progress comes to a halt, he switches to a strength training phase where he lifts heavy with lots of rest between exercises. And because he stays lean, he definitely doesn’t look bulky.

So train smart. Do what works and recognize dogma and marketing exploits, no matter which camp they come from, for what they are.

Image: chaojikazu

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Almost all fitness authors talk about the importance of establishing a solid foundation of strength for folks that are new to training. One of the best explanation I’ve read was by Arthur Jones – a talented pioneer of bodybuilding. He revolutionized the way training is perceived by the general public by introducing the Nautilus machine.

This post is inspired by his writings where he advises new trainees to progress as quickly as possible in a simple but solid full body routine. With brief workouts and hard work, within a short few months significant progress is achieved.

He stresses that newbies and intermediate trainees should strive to perform better on each workout in order to reach their goals faster.

Mark Rippetoe Is Another Author That Shares This Mindset

In his excellent guide Practical Programming for Strength Traininghe classifies a trainee’s development by how fast she can progress.

• Rookies get stronger each workout.
• Intermediates can expect to have weekly progress.
• Finally, advanced trainees plan their progress in monthly blocks.

Rippetoe also discusses top level athletes who plan their progress annually or even in four-year cycles for the Olympics.

Here is the Important Part.

People are novices longer than they think they are. Listen, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been going to the gym for 2 years. If you’ve not achieved a basic strength level, you are wasting your time training with advanced techniques.

Both authors agree your time is way too valuable to waste it without progressing. Push hard on the basics and get a head start fast.

How advanced do you think you are? Have you reached the basic strength levels? Do you progress on each workout, weekly, or monthly?

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1. Progressive Overload

This is probably the most important thing to do in order to build muscle over time – you have to gradually increase the difficulty of your training. You see, if you don’t change things up, if you don’t make things harder, your body won’t have a reason to adapt. Muscle growth is just an adaptation reaction to the external stress caused by the workout.

2. Don’t Miss Workouts

I think it goes without saying – if you miss workouts you are shooting yourself in the foot. Many people quit training because of the lack of progress. Well, there is a reason for the absence of results. When you miss a workout, you are back to the baseline levels from 2-3 workouts ago.

3. Take it Easy Once Every 3 to 4 Weeks

When you train diligently, your body and mind gradually become more and more fatigued. Yup – your mind too. Your will power takes a beating from the burden of having to adhere to a strict schedule and having to blast past previous achievement almost every time you are in the gym. The tissues of your body – muscles, ligaments, joints, bones, glands, liver, etc. all fatigue too. So what do you do? Once every 3 to 4 weeks train a little bit lighter. Maybe do half the planned sets, pump less weight or, if super tired, take a week off from training.

4. Go to Bed on Time Before Workouts

Hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t stay up late once in a while or go out for that matter. Every now and then it’s OK to pull an all-nighter. But if you go to bed after 2 am – your next training day is screwed. Also, while you sleep human growth hormone (HGH) is secreted. HGH is important for the growth and recovery and you don’t want to mess with it. But if you interrupt your sleep pattern, you are also interrupting HGH release as it works in cycles – it gets secreted once every few hours while you sleep.

5. Get a Basic Strength Level First

Building a great body is somewhat like carving a statue except it works in reverse – you will be building a rock first and the statue – after that. You need a to follow a beginner strength training routine first because this is the foundation you’ll be working with. You know, you can’t carve a big statue out of a small rock. Similarly, you need some basic strength and size before you can start worrying about development of the details and the small muscles such as arms, shoulders, chest and calves.

6. Get Lean First

Just lose the excess fat to begin with. It should be your number one priority when starting to workout. You will look good naked year round. You can eat more carbs without getting fatter and you will prime your body for muscle building. This is so because the leaner you are, the less estrogen from fat storage you have.

7. Don’t Get Fat When Gaining Muscle

This goes along the lines of the previous point. Bulking up by eating like a pig sucks. You’ll look fat. OK, you will look big in clothes but this is one huge hypocrisy that many people who workout share. Other people think they are fit and muscular looking at them in clothes, when in fact they have some muscle and quite a bit of fat on top. Also, bulking up with fat gain cause a permanent increase in the number of fat cells. Those fat cells will be with you forever unless you have a lipo. And from then on it will be always easier to get fat. So just don’t bulk.

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Beginner, Intermediate Or Advanced?

This may shock some people who have been training for many years and have achieved a certain degree of success, but you just don’t get to be advanced only because you started training a certain number of years ago. If you have roughly achieved the strength goals that I will list below, you can consider yourself advanced. If not, you are either a beginner, or an intermediate trainee.

Beginner Strength Training Milestones

You can stay on the Strength and Size Full Body workout until you reach these numbers:

• Barbell Squat – 15 reps with 200lbs/90kg.
• One legged calf raise – 15 reps with a 30lbs/14kg dumbbell.
• Military Press – 10 reps with 120lbs/55 kg or with 60lbs/27kg dumbbells
• Pull-ups and Chin-ups – 10 reps with 25lbs/12kg
• Dips (video)- 10 reps with 50lbs/24kg
• Barbell Biceps Curls – 10 reps with 100lbs/45kg or with 50lbs/22kg dumbbells
• Barbell Deadlift – 15 reps with 200lbs/90kg

Here is the good part though – if you are a beginner or an intermediate, I have good news for you. Following the Strength and Size Full Body program, you will achieve your goals. And fast!

The Schedule

You will be training 3 days per week – Monday-Wednesday-Friday, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, Saturday-Monday-Wednesday (I personally train on these days) – just pick one schedule according to how busy your life is and how tired you are each day. Ideally you should train on days you feel you have the most energy.

Save Additional Stress For Off Days

If you are on the eat stop eat diet, I highly recommend to do it on days you don’t train with weights. You should strive to make each workout as productive as possible in order to progress the fastest. The same goes if you are trying to lose a bit of fat with jumping rope or turbulence training style workouts. Do these on off days. The Strength and Size program gives fast results but in order to do that it needs all your energy and your full commitment on each workout, each exercise, each set and each repetition.

Beginner Strength Training – Sets and Reps

• Barbell Squat – 1 set – 8 to 20 reps. When you can do more than 20 reps, add 10-20lbs/5-10kg
• One legged calf raise – 1 set – 8 to 20 reps. When you can do more than 20 reps, add a 5 10lb/5kg dumbbell. Next, choose the next heavier dumbbell, etc.
• Military Press – 2 sets of 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, add more weight to the bar (the smallest possible increment) or go for the next heavier dumbbells.
• Alternate the Military Press with Chin-ups or Pull-ups – again 2 sets, 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, choose a heavier dumbbell to hold between your feet.
• Dips (video)- 2 sets of 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, add more weight
• Alternate the dips with Barbell Curls or Dumbbell Curls – 2 sets of 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, add more weight
• Barbell Deadlift – 1 set 8 to 15 reps – when you can comfortably do 15 reps (each rep starts on the floor as if it was the first one) add more weight.

Note: you must choose a weight that you can do at least 8 reps for all designated sets. In other words, if on the first set you do 9 reps, but on the second – only 7, then the weight has been too big.

Here Is How the Workout Would Look Like

Barbell Squat – 8-20 reps
Calf raise – 8-20 reps
Dumbbell Shoulder Press or Military Press – 8-14 reps
Chin-ups or Pull-ups – 8-14 reps
Dumbbell Shoulder Press or Military Press – 8-12 reps
Chin ups or Pull-ups - 8-12 reps
Dips – 8-14 reps
Barbell Biceps Curls or Alternating Dumbbell Biceps Curls 8-14 reps
Dips – 8-12 reps
Barbell Biceps Curls or Alternating Dumbbell Biceps Curls 8-12 reps
Barbell Deadlift – 8-15 reps

The Fastest Way to Grow Muscle

To get bigger you have to get stronger. The gird or cross-section area of the muscle corresponds to its strength. That fastest way to get stronger is to progress on each workout. So if you train your shoulders for example with shoulder presses and train 3 times per week, this would give better results than if you just trained them (and progressed) once a week. The ultimate goal here is to reach the strength training milestones as fast as possible. Why waste your time in the gym?

Give the program a shot if your strength is below the stats listed here. This is the fastest way for beginners to reach decent strength and size levels.

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