Bomb AND Blitz!
Anyone who has trouble gaining mass using the techniques that have appeared in bodybuilding magazines, hang on . . . I love the term "bomb and blitz." It keeps everything about lifting so wonderfully in perspective. Yeah! Fun!!! Duh.
Anyhow, who has trouble gaining mass using the techniques that have appeared in bodybuilding magazines or who wants to accelerate growth as never before should try the Blitz Training method. It's one that I have devised and used successfully.
Because of my unusual work schedule I was training on a two-day split on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Even though I was making gains I wanted to gain faster still, especially in the area of my chest and back.
While thinking about the way the human body responds to weight training, I recalled that plateaus occur whenever the body fully adapts to the stress placed on it.
Since making changes to one's routine during a plateau can help you to resume making gains, I reasoned that making small changes in one's routine between plateaus should accelerate gains. I also knew that by adding, rather than substituting set to a routine, thereby increasing intensity, I would accelerate gains further. These three ideas form the basis of my blitz training method.
My routine looked like this:
Monday/Wednesday
Chest -
Bench Press, 5 sets of 8-12 reps
Incline Press, 5 x 8-12
Pullover, 5 x 8-12
Back -
Pulldown, 5 x 8-12
Bentover Row, 5 x 8-12
Thighs -
Squat, 5 x 8-12
Lunge, 5 x 8-12
Leg Curl, 5 x 8-12
Calves -
Standing Calf Raise, 5 x 15
Abs -
Leg Raise, 5 x 25.
Tuesday/Thursday
Shoulders -
Barbell Clean and Press, 5 x 8-12
Lateral Raise, 5 x 8-12
Lower Back -
Stiff Legged Deadlift, 3 x 10, 6, 4 to failure
Good Morning, 3 x 10, 8, 6 to failure
Upper Arms -
Barbell Curl, 5 x 8-12
Seated DB Curl, 5 x 8-12
Close Grip Bench Press, 5 x 8-12
Triceps Pushdown, 5 x 8-12
Forearms -
Wrist Curl, 5 x 8-12
Reverse Wrist Curl, 5 x 8-12
Abs -
Crunch, 5 x 25.
All that "blitz" requires is a good knowledge of various finishing exercises for the different bodyparts. By "finishing" exercises I mean any exercise for a bodypart that is NOT a basic mass building movement. Our next task is to determine how often to use the blitz method.
A blitz cycle is as long as the number of days that you take to work the entire body once. If you operate on a three-day split, then a cycle is three days long. You blitz one bodypart each day of a cycle. If you use a three on, one off split your cycles for one week are Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, followed by Friday/Saturday/Sunday. You would blitz one bodypart on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday for the first three-day cycle, and then a different three on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the second cycle of the week.
The bodypart you select is based on what bodyparts you work that day, and how you currently prefer to divide the body for training purposes. For example, I divide the body into chest, back, thighs, calves, abs, shoulders, lower back, upper arms, and forearms. If you want greater precision, think in terms of trapezius, anterior deltoids, medial deltoids, posterior deltoids, hamstrings, and quadriceps, each as separate bodyparts. Also, for example, if your Friday workout consists of working the chest and back areas, and you are also blitzing on Friday, then you would choose EITHER the chest or back as the bodypart that you would blitz, not both.
After the bodypart is randomly selected, you must pick a finishing exercise for that bodypart. Remember, you must not pick exercises like squats, bench press, upright rows, or deadlifts as these are all basic mass building movements. Continuing with our chest/back day example, select exercises like pec deck flyes, cable crossovers or some type of dumbbell flye.
Let's say as an example that you are blitzing your biceps on your Thursday workout, and that lying dumbbell curls are randomly chosen for the biceps.
Once you are at this stage, you select an advanced training principle to use on ALL sets to perform along with the blitz method. Some advanced principles that work very well here are pyramiding, flushing, iso-tension, cheating, and pre-exhaust, descending sets, etc.
Let's say you have chosen descending sets as an advanced principle to use this time. Next, you determine the number of sets to be used for the exercise. I advise you to pick numbers in the area of three to eight sets, as this has worked for me. Now the only thing left is to select the number of reps for each set, assuming that we are not using an advanced principle that would contradict this such as pyramiding or cheating. The number of reps that should be used is from 4 to 25. Let's assume that you select 7 sets of 4 to 6 repetitions each. Let's take a look at my upper arm workout routine for Thursday, with out blitz example added and underlined.
Upper Arms -
Barbell Curl, 5 x 8-12
Seated DB Curl, 5 x 8-12
Lying DB Curl, 7 x 4-6 (using descending sets)
Close Grip Bench Press, 5 x 8-12
Triceps Pushdown, 5 x 8-12.
As the blitz method is entirely random, your muscles will never totally adapt to your workout. by adding sets to your existing routine, you will build even more intensity into your workouts. This will increase your lean body mass even faster than ever. In the time since I started using this blitz method for my own workouts I have gained approximately five pounds of muscle, added about 3/4 of an inch on my upper arms, a full inch on my chest, and 1/2 inch on my calves. This is significantly more than I was gaining without the blitz method. It has really done wonders for me.
Even though you are adding exercises to your existing routine and may be training with maximum intensity already, over-training is virtually impossible with the blitz method. You are only applying it to probably three or four bodyparts per week at maximum. As these bodyparts are selected randomly, the same ones may not see the technique again for weeks at a time. If you suspect you are over-training, cut down on the number of blitz sets to a number that causes you to cease felling over-trained while your system catches up with your new intensity level. Make sure diet isn't the culprit. Eat appropriately for the added intensity of your training.
Be careful NOT to use a finishing exercise for blitzing that is already in your routine without changing it in some way. Change the position, angle, or speed in which the exercise is done. For example, if you already doing incline flyes at a 45 degree angle, you would pick flyes at a flat or decline angle, or another exercise other than incline flyes.
Don't alter the rest of your routine though. This in turn makes the blitz unique, preventing the body from totally adapting to the routine, which is, after all, the entire point of doing it.
But enough of all this talk. You've learned how to do it. Now do it.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
Highly Recommended Film -
And a doc . . .
And A two-season television series . . .
Did I mention Enjoy Your Lifting?
No comments:
Post a Comment