If you focus part of your workouts on this kind of training you will experience very fat muscle growth, especially if you haven’t been training in this way before. As strength coach Charles Poliquin likes to say, the best workout is the one you haven’t been doing.

What he means is that we adapt to a certain kind of training so changing something in the workout every few weeks or months ensures continued progress.

Fast Muscle Growth with Cumulative Fatigue?

I first heard the term cumulative fatigue from my friend Rusty Moore, author of the Visual Impact Muscle Building workout. What this technique means is to gradually exhaust the muscle more and more throughout the workout by using relatively short rest periods.

Both bodybuilders and athletes use this kind of training to grow muscle fast. In fact, cumulative fatigue training was one of Vince Gironda’s (pictured below to the right) favorite techniques. He practically implemented it in almost all of the workout routines he created, including 6 sets of 6 reps, 8 sets of 8 reps and 10 sets of 10 reps – all done with relatively small rest periods.

Charles Poliquin (in the picture to the left) introduced this kind of training with what he called German volume training. This was essentially a workout of 10 sets of 10 reps of a single exercise with less than a minute of rest.

How to Train for Fast Muscle Growth

• Mind muscle connection – focus your mind on the muscle. Imagine it contracting and relaxing while you are lifting.
• Short rest periods – rest between 15 and 60 seconds. You will eventually get fitter and be able to rest less, even if 15 seconds seem too little time at first. And when you are able to rest less while lifting the same amount of weight, you’ll be bigger.
• First sets set the tone – with this kind of training the first set or two might feel too easy, but it just sets the tone for the series of sets. Think of cumulative fatigue training as one giant set done by doing a few smaller sets with very small rest periods.

The Big Picture

I just want to make this point clear, when it comes to fast muscle growth or any muscle growth, in the long run you got to get stronger. So whatever workout you are doing, if you want to get more muscle, you have to work with increasingly more challenging workouts.

Two workouts that feature a phase focused on fast muscle growth through cumulative fatigue are Visual Impact Muscle Building and Hollywood Physique.

Visual Impact is a more balanced workout focused on both size and strength gains. On the other hand, the Hollywood Physique is a program that dramatically changes your body in 13 weeks. It is for guys who are fed up by working out without seeing the results they were after and can devote a few weeks of their life to dramatically changing their body.

Related posts:

1. Building Muscle – The Top 7 Secrets of Gaining Lean Muscle Mass
2. Beginner Strength Training – Build Bigger Muscles Fast With The Strength And Size Full Body Workout
3. Mark McManus Interview, The Muscle Hacker Shares His Wisdom On Building Muscle And Carving Out A Six Pack

Before going further, here’s what you will miss if you don’t read the article. You won’t find out how to activate your pecs, the chest muscle, when doing trying to build it up with chest muscle exercises. What’s worse, you might hurt your shoulders from doing one of the most famous chest builders incorrectly.

If you read on, you will discover how to build square muscular pecs like the ones of a gladiator. Your chest muscles will be muscular but not bulky as if you had man boobs. The lower and outer part of the pecs will be clearly outlined, standing out in bold relief.

What Are the Best Chest Muscle Exercises

Before we discuss the best chest muscle exercise choices, we need to examine the different muscles that make up your chest. The chest is made up of two muscles – the pectoralis major and the pectoralis minor.

The pectoralis major is a large fan shaped muscle that is attached to your chest bone (down the middle of your chest) and to your collar bone. Take a look at the diagram below and you will see its muscle fibers. The important thing to understand here is that in order to work a muscle, we need to make it contract along the length of its muscle fibers.

So because the pec major is attached to both the sternum (bone down the middle of the chest) and the collar bone (clavicle), we need two types of chest muscle exercise in order to fully develop it. I will list the best exercises for both functions of the chest later in the post.

The thing to remember is that you need an exercise that makes the muscle contract towards the center of the chest and another one that makes it contract upwards toward the collar bone.

Many people are under the false impression that the upper portion of the chest is a different muscle (the pectoralis minor). In fact, this is completely untrue. As you can see from the diagram above however, the pec minor is a thin muscle situated beneath the big pectoralis major. Its main function is to bring your shoulder and upper arm down.

Why should you bother building the pec minor? It very quickly pushes the outside of the chest out, giving you a nice angular outline.

The Best Lower Chest Muscle Exercises

• Dips. By far the best chest build for the lower fibers because it allows the greatest amount of weight to be used. Check this post for tips on adding weight to make dips harder.
• Dumbbell bench press. Build up your strength with the barbell bench press before giving these a try.
• Barbell bench press. Don’t flare out your elbows to the sides. Instead point them at a 45 degree angle towards your feet. Your shoulders will thanks you. Read this post on pushup form which also applies to the bench press.
• Cable cross over. Those are only for advanced trainees because initially you can’t really flex the pecs.
• Dumbbell Fly Same as cable cross overs – do flies after getting strong with bench presses and dips.

The Best Upper Chest Muscle Exercises

• Incline Barbell Bench Press. Just like a regular bench press, except done at an incline. Don’t lower the bar to your chest. Lower until upper arms are paralle to the ground. Don’t do less than 5-6 reps.
• Incline Dumbbell Bench Press Do these once you get stronger at incline barbell bench presses.
• Incline Dumbbell Flies Do these only after you get strong at incline dumbbell bench presses.

Action Plan

For pec minor, the best exercise is dips. It just so happens that dips also are one of the best choices for the lower fibers of the pec major. For the upper fibers your best bet is either a barbell or dumbbell incline bench press.

The Best Workout for Gladiator Pecs

The best workout I’ve found for building balanced chest muscles is Visual Impact. This is not a workout for somebody looking to get as big as a bouncer. Instead it teaches you how to get lean and muscular – like a Hollywood actor (Taylor Lautner, Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman, etc), a surfer dude or a male model.

One thing that is often missed when it comes to recommending exercises is that everybody has a different bone and muscle/ligament structure. So the best exercise for me might not be best for you. The cool thing about this workout though is that it lets you pick out your own chest muscle exercises based on what your body responds best to.

Related posts:

1. Bench Press More – Give Me 12 Days And I Will Make You Stronger
2. Sternum Pull-ups Will Make You Explosive and Prepare You for the Muscle-Up
3. Walking for Weight Loss – Effective or a Waste of Time?

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…

Even the worst workout will give you results if you stikc 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

Inconsistency brings regress, not progress. 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.

[Will Smith definitely knows how to achieve progress with consistency.]

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.

Workouts for Long Term Success

Even though the worst workout will give results, a solid routine will nevertheless always bring a better outcome. Here are two workouts that will give you long term results when it comes to building muscle.

• Adonis Effect. This workout mainly builds up the shoulders, chest, back and upper arms to build you that v-shape super here body. It achieves that by altenrating periods of strength training with periods of muscle building.
• Visual Impact. With this workout you will get a balanced physique: developed muscles that are also dense and hard. The cool thing is that with this workout you will also discover a trick to make your skin super tight around the muscles.

If You Are Advanced, This Means Less 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.

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.

Related posts:

1. Building Muscle – The Top 7 Secrets of Gaining Lean Muscle Mass
2. Building Muscle – Alternate Training for Size and Working for Strength And Never Hit a Plateau Again
3. Building Muscle – Get a Basic Strength Level First

“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.

Here are two workouts that use the principle of alternating strength and size training:

• Adonis Effect. This workout alternates low, medium and high reps to avoid a plateau. The focus is on creating a v-shaped body by burning the fat from the waist and building up the musculature of the shoulders, arms, upper back and chest.
• Visual Impact. This workout also alternates strength and size training not only to develop the muscles, but also to make them harder and denser. The great thing about this system is that one of its phases is dedicated to “shrink wrapping” the skin – making it super tight so your muscles “pop.”

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

Related posts:

1. Beginner Strength Training – Build Bigger Muscles Fast With The Strength And Size Full Body Workout
2. Building Muscle – Get a Basic Strength Level First
3. How to Squat Correctly for Size and Strength

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?

Related posts:

1. Building Muscle – Alternate Training for Size and Working for Strength And Never Hit a Plateau Again
2. Building Muscle – The Top 7 Secrets of Gaining Lean Muscle Mass
3. Building Muscle – Consistency And Intensity Are Key When It Comes To Gaining Muscle Mass

LL Cool J, on the photo above, works his ass off and consequently looks more than decent. One thing that can be learned about muscle building from the fit celebrities is their work ethic. It simply takes work to achieve anything worthwhile.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Note: Click on the picture above and watch the video (it's a cool technique)!]

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.

Related posts:

1. Building Muscle – Consistency And Intensity Are Key When It Comes To Gaining Muscle Mass
2. Building Muscle – Alternate Training for Size and Working for Strength And Never Hit a Plateau Again
3. Building Muscle – Get a Basic Strength Level First

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 – 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.

What’s Next?

So once you roughly reach the strength training milestones in this workout, the question is where to go from there? It is now time to start rotating the rep ranges in your workouts every 4 to 8 weeks. So you will do 3-6 reps for a few weeks, then 7-12 reps for a few weeks, then 13-20 reps and then you will start over with 3-5 reps. In this way you will ahieve bothmuscular sie and muscular density and hardness.

One workout that strategically incorporates different rep ranges in this way is Visual Impact Muscle Building. The cool thing about the workout that is in addition to the variation of rep ranges (for muscular size and for muscular hardness and density), it also has a definition phase built in so that if you want to lose fat while preserving your muscle size for a few months, you can do that too.

Related posts:

1. Building Muscle – Alternate Training for Size and Working for Strength And Never Hit a Plateau Again
2. Ja Rule’s Workout – How You Can Build a Body You Can Be Proud Of
3. How to Squat Correctly for Size and Strength