When you are stuck with a certain weight on a certain exercise but are progressing across the board with the rest of your program there are a few things you can do.
Sometimes making five pound weight jumps is too much for most people. The problem, however is that you have no other choice. Most gyms only carry 2.5 pound plates which amount to a five pound increase when you put one on each side of the bar. With dumbbells it’s even worse because they go up in five pound increments [...]
If you want to build muscle fast there are a few very important factors you need to be aware of. First of all, if you have less than Herculean genetics you need to be sure to avoid overtraining. There are several different ways to do this which are listed below.
• Don’t do more than 12-20 sets per workout.
• Don’t train for longer than an hour.
• Don’t train more than four days per week.
• Don’t train for more than 8-12 weeks without taking a week off.
• Don’t train with 90% or [...]
What is the single most important thing you can do at the gym to ensure that you will continually get bigger and stronger?
It’s very simple. The most important thing you can do each and every single time you go to the gym is try to set a PR (personal record) on every lift you do. That’s it.
What this means is that you should always be trying do either do more reps with the same weight (within reason, any sets above 12 on most upper body exercises and 15-20 reps on [...]
I enjoy all of your advice. Still, this “live to fight another day” piece came at just the right time. I too was deadlifting. With 495 on the bar and a plan to get a few at 585 I felt a twinge. Lucky I had checked my email earlier today. Your course is already helping me to put on more size with less time in the gym than I’ve experienced in a decade, so, there was no way I wasn’t going to listen to this tidbit. [...]
Last night I was at the gym doing deadlifts. I had planned on doing two sets but I went a little heavier than I should have on my first set. As I stripped a plate off each side to prepare for my back off set I felt a twinge in my back while bending over. I stood up and tried to stretch out but it didn’t help much.
“Whatever,” I thought. I have had this happen a hundred times and have always plowed through it. I put the plates back and [...]
Question: Just how big of a role do genetics play in the muscle building process? Are some people doomed from the word go, or is this nothing but a lame excuse?
Answer: Genetics definitely play a role in how big you can eventually get. Some guys can get absolutely jacked by eating three meals per day and doing a few sets of pushups and chin ups. These guys can also do workouts that would overtrain most of us into the ground and grow from them. This doesn’t mean you should compare [...]
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