1) You have to make up your mind what you want from training. Image? Competition strength or bodybuilding shape. Weight gain or loss? General fitness? Enhanced athletic ability? There is nothing wrong with any of those goals and they often complement each other. Do you want to hang around the drive-in hamburger joint or the honky-tonk being impressive, or enter contests? Both?
The answers to the above determine the exercise and nutrition program you choose, NOT the choice of the gym (or website) owner with his own agenda or the secondhand opinion of the jerk at the gym with the legendary cousin who benches 700 in his basement.
2) You must try to reach your normal potential BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK OF DRUGS, 'cause that's what they are. A couple years basic, progressive training will allow you to analyze for yourself how far you may go in the game. Whatever your decision about continuing, you will have made permanent, safe improvement with lifetime benefits, whether you have the potential to become a champion or not.
3) You cannot hope to succeed with advanced routines until you have spent enough time in basic training. A rule of thumb for that might be when you can do a double bodyweight squat and deadlift and a 1-1/2 times bodyweight bench FOR REPS for powerlifters, or a 1-1/2 times bodyweight clean and jerk for weightlifters. Bodybuilding is hard to measure; maybe it's when your growth plateaus without drugs or when you think you're big enough and need to concentrate on balance among the parts, definition and other considerations.
If you don't understand and agree with those three rules, then you are training for the wrong reasons.
"What should I do," asked the beginner.
Do basic bodybuilding for the first six months or so before attempting any style of competition lift. Not to be confused with contest bodybuilding, this is a foundation for all iron sports and strength training. Work up to 3-4 sets of 6-10 reps for upper body moves, and 8-15 reps for lower body, drawn from 8 or 9 exercises such as the squat, bench, overhead press, deadlift, power clean or high pull, bentover rows or chins, curls, calves and waist work. I have listed these in the order of my personal preference or gaining both size and strength, with the first movement first.
1) Regular Squat, High Bar Style.
No board under heels unless needed for balance; power-style; trap bar on platform, low starts in the rack, front squat or hip belt for extra quad work .
2) Regular Bench Press.
Flat or incline close grip BP, DB bench, dips, bent-arm pullover and press are great in a bulk program.
3) Overhead Press.
Military or behind neck, strict DB press, push press and jerk. It has been my experience over the years that barbell presses of any kind with a wide hand spacing may not be good for the shoulders of people with relatively long upper arms. The same is true for pulldowns of chins behind the neck. Lanky frames, including mine, seem to add strength and muscle better with medium and close-spaced grips.)
4) High pulls From the floor, power cleans from the floor, or either from the hang position. Standing high pulls with the Trap Bar will develop deltoid and upper back mass, and I love the feel of it.
5) Bentover rows, palms-facing (curl grip) chins or pulldowns with 10- to 12-inch hand spacing, one-
DB rows, bent-arm pullovers. A little practiced but great movement for a short bulk program is the straight-arm pulldown from an overhead pulley.
6) Deadlifts, stiff-leg DL, deadlifts or stiff-legs with trap bar, partials in rack.
7) Barbell curl, alternate DB curl begun in "hammer" position, reverse grip bar curl for forearms. I do not think much of EZ Curl or preacher apparatus for anyone but competition bodybuilders.
8) donkey calf raises, one-DB raises, standing machine, seated machine.
9) All waist work, including regular situps, hanging leg raises, ab crunches, leg raise crunches on incline, controlled twisting movements.
10) Shrug variations, such as Kelso or lat shrug, bench shrug or any of such movements I have described elsewhere.
Some Full Body Split Training Layouts
Routine #1
First Day -
3-5 sets each:
Squat
Bench
High Pull or alternates
3 sets each:
Curls, Calves.
Second Day -
3-5 sets each:
Overhead Press
Deadlift or stiff-leg DL (2 sets of stiff-legs are enough)
Rows or Chins
Flat Bench DB Press
3 sets each:
Flat Bench DB Press
Waist Work
Third Day (optional) -
2 sets each:
Front Squat or Trap Bar LEG LIFT
Incline Close Grip Bench or Dips
Kelso Shrug
SDL
2 sets each:
Curls
Calves
Additional Waist Work done at home on off days.
Routine #2
First Day -
Squat
Incline Press
Row or Pulldown
Upright Row or Standing Press
Second Day -
Leg Press AND Deadlift, each for 2 x 12-15
Flat Bench Press, bar or DBs
Lat Shrugs
Heavy Curls
Both Days -
Calves and Waist Work, each 2 x reps
Unless stated otherwise, everything else 4 x 8-12 or the 5-set. What the hell is the 5-set? Simple stuff. Begin with a warmup of 8-10 with 60% of single max, another with around 70%, and then 3-5 sets with 80-85% using a constant weight.
A classic way to train is to take one movement from each of the above listings (that list of 10, remember? It's right up there.) and do them 3 x 10 in a full-body routine three times a week. Better would be to do the lower body moves for higher reps or 8-15 and the upper body moves 6-10. Perhaps millions have trained this way, myself when a teen, and made good gains despite two-hour workouts. This type of training is often too demanding for one workout and presupposes good recovery ability and youth.
To increase intensity and get enough rest so you can really gain. split these movements into two or more full body routines, with squat, bench, and cleans or high pulls one day, and deadlifts, overhead pressing, and rows or chins the other, using 3-5 sets of each exercise, with two days or rest between workouts. One or two sets each of curls, calves, and waist can be tucked on at the end. In this way, all body parts would be worked at least three times in two weeks. Splitting the work into upper body and lower body days, each done twice a week, is usually too much work for non-advanced trainees and for much older folk, unless on some kind of chemical support.
Note: Insert oily goofball flexing and ad for latest container of supplement crap here.
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