BEST TIPS IN THIS PAGE ARE:
- The Power Look
- The Hardgainer Mindset
- Muscle Building Secrets
- The Magic Number for Building Muscle
- Less Time Equals Better Results
The Power Look
By Jason Ferruggia, MuscleGainingSecrets
Nothing says power like a big set of traps and a thick neck. Think about it. When you’re out somewhere and you see a guy with massive traps and huge neck you automatically know he’s the last guy in the joint that you’d ever want to mess with. Maybe he’s an ex wrestler. Maybe he competes in MMA. Or maybe he played football. You don’t know but you definitely don’t want to find out.No other muscle groups instill fear in and command respect from all those around you like the traps and neck do.
Plenty of pumped up pretty boys walk around with decent sized arms weighing all of 169 pounds. An equal amount of guys have built up a pretty good sized chest since it’s the only muscle they ever train. But big arms and a big set of pecs do nothing to command respect. In fact, if all you have going for you are big arms you are more likely to get laughed at then be looked at in fear.
“Look at the pencil neck pretty boy showing off his guns.”
If you really want to look powerful, athletic and intimidating you need to develop the traps and neck aka “the yoke.”
When it comes to achieving the power look the first exercise you need to be concerned with is the deadlift. The deadlift packs size on the traps like nothing else. You are going to want to deadlift at least once per week for 1-3 sets of 3-12 reps. Be sure to use the heaviest weights you can handle with good form and don’t be afraid to use straps if your grip is weak.
Next on the list come Olympic lifting variations such as hang cleans, power cleans, high pulls, and shrug pulls. These Olympic lifts build up huge traps and can be done more frequently than deadlifts. If you are really trying to build up the traps rapidly I recommend that you do some sort of Olympic lift variation at least once per week, if not three times for 3-5 sets of 1-6 reps.
Another great trap building exercise is the shrug. Shrugs can be done with barbells or dumbbells and with heavy weight for low reps and a partial range of motion or lighter reps for high reps with a full range of motion. I recommend that you use both approaches for full trap development once or twice a week after your deadlifts or Olympic lifts.
With the traps taken care of you need to move on to your neck. You simply can’t beat an old school neck harness with a plate attached to it for neck development. Other great neck exercises are manual resistance flexion and extension exercises with a partner or isometric supports against a stability ball. To do the partner resisted exercises simply lie down on a flat bench with your head hanging off and have a partner drape a towel over your head and provide resistance as you move up and down. Be sure not to use extreme ranges of motion on neck work or you could put yourself at risk for injury.
The neck should be trained two or three days per week for 1-3 sets of 10-25 reps. Personally I like to train flexion one day, extension another day and rotation or lateral flexion on the third day.
Muscle Building Secrets
By Jason Ferruggia, MuscleGainingSecrets
In the quest to unlock the world’s most powerful muscle building secrets I have tried nearly every training system and diet there ever was. Through many years of trial and error I have finally developed a surefire way to build enormous amounts of muscular size and strength rapidly in even the most painfully skinny hardgainer.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is training session frequency. One look at male gymnasts or Cirque Du Soleil performers will tell you that a higher frequency of training than the typical “once-a-week-per-bodypart” recommendation is in order for rapid muscle growth. Whenever you want to improve something in life you do it frequently. It doesn’t matter if it’s improving your golf swing, learning an instrument or building muscle; you have to do it more than once per week.
The next thing that needs to be looked at is training session length. When you allow your workouts to stretch any longer than 45 minutes, you are actually doing yourself more harm than good. Research has shown that testosterone levels are shot after 45 minutes of training. They actually peak at 27 minutes, so stopping at 30 minutes might even be a better idea. Beyond the 45 minute mark, cortisol production increases dramatically as testosterone levels plummet. Cortisol is the stress hormone and actually eats muscle tissue and increases bodyfat storage.
Another one of the most important muscle building secrets that I have discovered over the years is that it is crucially important to cycle your training. The body eventually adapts to any one set routine after a while. The trick is to switch your routine just before your body starts to adapt to it and your gains come to a halt but not so soon that you don’t allow for significant progress. Switching too often is just as big of a problem as not switching things up often enough. If you constantly switch programs too frequently you will never make steady progress because you will always be confusing your body and you will just end up spinning your wheels.
Some experts argue that overtraining is the biggest problem most drug free lifters face. Others say that undertraining is actually the main problem for those who fall into the hardgainer mindset. The truth is that both camps are right and wrong. You need to push yourself, sometimes to the brink of overtraining, and then adjust things at just the right time and back off for a while. Eventually, if you back off too long, you will enter a state of undertraining. The key is to ramp up your training again before that happens. When you train like this you will never experience plateaus.
Finally, I must point out that no matter how well you cycle and plan your training you will never experience any significant muscle growth if you use the wrong exercises. The most effective exercises are those that allow you to move your body through space (as opposed to just moving your limbs). Those include chin ups, dips, pushups, handstand pushups, inverted rows, squats, single leg squats and deadlifts. Stick with those exercises and their different variations and you will build massive amounts of size and strength.
Now that you have the knowledge it’s time to put these muscle building secrets to work and get your butt to the gym and start growing like a weed.
Good luck and train hard.
The Hardgainer Mindset
By Jason Ferruggia, MuscleGainingSecrets
Nothing pisses me off more than skinny guys who complain about their inability to gain weight.
“Waaaaa (said in a whining baby voice ala Artie Lang and Howard Stern), I have a really fast metabolism.”“Waaaaa, it’s harder for me than most people to gain weight.”
“Waaaaa, I don’t have the appetite to eat that much.”
“Waaaaa, I have terrible genetics.”
“Waaaaa, I don’t have time to eat that much.”
“Waaaaa, I have tried everything and still can’t get bigger.”
You know what I say to people who make those excuses?Give up.
Quit.
It’s hopeless.
You’re right, you are a hardgainer.
So, stop going to the gym today and never even think about picking up a weight again. End your misery now and start something else because I promise you that you will never get bigger.There’s not a shot in hell… and that’s the honest truth.
You know why you will never get bigger and stronger?
Because you don’t have the heart or the balls to do it. It’s that simple. And the sooner you realize it the sooner you can move on and start doing something more productive with your time.
You are a weak, lazy chump… or as you like to put it- a hardgainer.
And you make me sick.
I graduated high school weighing all of 147 pounds at six feet tall. I was the epitome of a hardgainer.
Eventually I got up to 231 pounds through proper training and eating and an undying dedication to achieving my goal.I trained as hard as I could and ate when I didn’t want to, when it wasn’t convenient and when I wasn’t hungry. I went to sleep early on nights I wanted to be out drinking and partying. I did whatever I had to do to achieve my goals and refused to believe that my crappy genetics would hold me back. I never fell into the hardgainer mindset.Somewhere along the path I came down with tuberculosis and nearly died. I spent a few weeks in the hospital and six months on bed rest. I was on medication for a year and when I returned to the gym could only bench press the bar.
But I didn’t let that stop me and picked up right where I left off.
Another good friend, client and former training partner of mine named Todd Coker gained over 120 pounds during the time he trained with me, going from somewhere around 130 pounds to over 250.
My friend Jim Wendler has less than God like genetics and even had a serious disease which he overcame to go to squat 1000 pounds in competition and a body weight of over 280 pounds.
Jim’s teammate and friend Matt Rhodes went from 220 pounds at 6’4” to 313 pounds within the course of two years because of his incredible commitment to eating and training. I had dinner with Matt a few weeks ago and personally watched him force feed himself long after he was full. In fact we all laughed as the sweat dripped down his head while he choked down another bite of chicken. That’s dedication.
I could literally list dozens and dozens of examples of people I know personally who were once considered a classic hardgainer but went on to big time success in the weightroom, (let alone the thousands of people who overcame crappy genetics that I don’t know) but I think you get the point.
You know what those people all had in common?
Drive, desire, dedication and an iron will and commitment to excellence.
That had heart and they had balls.
They never succumbed to the hardgainer mindset.
And most importantly, they never made excuses.
The Magic Number for Building Muscle
When looking at most popular muscle building workouts you need to understand that most forms of training have just been passed down for decades from one generation to the next, without the inclusion of rational thought. Sometime in the 60’s sensible muscle building programs started becoming less and less prevalent with the rapidly growing usage of anabolic steroids.
In days gone by, men like Steve Reeves and Paul Anderson trained with far more sensible, lower volume muscle building programs, but these started to disappear during the 60’s. By the time Arnold got to Gold’s Gym in Venice for the first time, high volume, bodypart splits were the widely accepted way for everyone who wanted to build muscle and gain strength to train.
This type of training is not based on rational thinking but just on the fact that “it’s what everyone else is doing.” The proponents of these training methods will always blindly tell you that “higher volume training is needed to build muscle.” Says who? I can tell you for a fact that the University of Chicago isn’t wasting time examining the effects of Jay Cutlers workouts. There are no studies saying that you need 8-12 sets per bodypart to build muscle. However, there are, in fact, studies that show the exact opposite; that one set is just as effective as three when it comes to building muscle.
The proponents of this type of training will also tell you that higher volume training is associated with higher levels of growth hormone secretion. What they don’t tell you is that almost anything you do elevates GH. Extreme temperatures elevate GH but my biceps don’t get bigger every time I take a shower. The increased GH secretion is not enough to make the slightest difference whatsoever in the muscle building process.
For the drug free lifter who does not possess muscle building genetics quite up to par with the Austrian Oak, training this way is a huge mistake. Not only does it drain your amino acid pool and glycogen stores but it dramatically increases your recovery time between workouts. If you do 8-12 sets for chest on Monday you can not recover from that workout and be able to train again for seven days. So you are only getting one growth stimulus per week or fifty two per year. Now if you reduce your volume to the point where you can recover faster and more efficiently without draining your amino acid pool and glycogen stores so greatly, you can train bodyparts twice per week instead of once. Now instead of 52 growth stimulating workouts per year for each bodypart, you can now do 104.
To train more often you absolutely have to lower your training volume. The total sets per workout should be kept low and the total sets per exercise should be even lower. Contrary to what a lot of the popular programs out there today prescribe, there is rarely a need to do more than two sets per exercise when you are trying to build muscle. If you can’t get the job done with two sets you probably aren’t training hard enough. In theory you should be able to get the job done with just one set but I like to use two just to be safe and make sure all bases are covered. The second set is basically an insurance set.
The are only a few times you should do more than two sets per exercise. If you are a raw beginner who needs more sets just to practice and perfect your form then you should probably do more than two sets. If you are doing speed exercises such as cleans or box jumps you should also do a few more sets. Finally, if you are varying the reps and weights, you can do more than two sets. For example if you are doing two sets of three with 315, a set of five with 295 and a set of eight with 275, you can get away with more than two sets. But other than that, you should never do more than two sets of any exercise with the same weight for the same reps.
There are a few different approaches you can take to doing your two sets. The first approach is to go balls out on your first set and then drop the weight a little bit on your second set and use it as a sort of backoff set. Theoretically this will allow you to give your most effort when you are freshest on your first set. The second approach is to hold a little something back on your first set and instead use it as a hard, working warm up set. Then you go balls to the wall on the second set. It has been suggested that a heavy, but not all out set, before your money set can serve as a neural primer and arouse your nervous system thus making the second set even more effective. The third option is to not take neither set to the limit but instead just do two very hard sets to clean failure. Each option works very well but you will have to experiment to see which is best for you. The most demanding method would be to do two all out death sets to failure. This can work but may be a bit hard for most people to recover from.
Whatever option you choose will be far better than the normal, mindless nonsense of doing 4-6 sets per exercise and you will get far better results. Better muscle gains with far less work? Sounds like an unbeatable plan to me.
Less Time Equals Better Results?
By Jason Ferruggia, MuscleGainingSecrets
You need to understand that most forms of training have just been passed down for decades from one generation to the next, without the inclusion of rational thought. Sometime in the 60’s, sensible training programs started becoming less and less prevalent with the rapidly growing usage of anabolic steroids.
In the days of old, men like Steve Reeves and Paul Anderson trained with far more sensible, lower volume programs but these started to disappear during the 60’s. By the time Arnold got to Gold’s Gym in Venice for the first time, high volume, bodypart splits were the widely accepted way for everyone to train for size and strength.
This type of training is not based on deductive reasoning but just on the fact that “it’s what everyone else is doing.” The proponents of these training methods will always blindly tell you that “higher volume training is needed for hypertrophy gains.” Says who? I can tell you for a fact that the University of Chicago isn’t wasting time examining the effects of Jay Cutler’s marathon workouts. There are no studies saying that you need 8-12 sets per bodypart to grow. In fact there are studies that show the opposite; that one set is just as effective as three.
The proponents of this type of training will also tell you that higher volume training is associated with higher levels of growth hormone secretion. What they don’t tell you is that the level of GH increase is not enough to make any difference at all. In fact, almost anything you do elevates GH. Extreme temperatures elevate GH but my biceps don’t get bigger every time I take a shower. The increased GH secretion from training is so minimal that it is not enough to make the slightest difference whatsoever.
For the drug free lifter who does not possess muscle building genetics quite up to par with the Austrian Oak, training this way is a huge mistake. Not only does it drain your amino acid pool and glycogen stores but it dramatically enhances your recovery time between workouts. If you do 8-12 sets for chest on Monday you can not recover from that workout and be able to train again for seven days. So you are only getting one growth stimulus per week or fifty two per year. Now if you reduce your volume to the point where you can recover faster and more efficiently without draining your amino acid pool and glycogen stores so greatly, you can train bodyparts twice per week instead of once. Now instead of 52 growth stimulating workouts per year for each bodypart, you can now do 104. In fact, if your volume is kept low you can even get away with training bodyparts three times a week in certain situations. Now, which do you think will be more effective; 156 growth stimulating workouts per year or 52?
To train more often you absolutely have to lower your training volume. The total sets per workout should be kept low and the total sets per exercise should be even lower. There is no need to hit four sets of incline presses, flat bench presses and decline presses for your chest workout. Doing that is a form of neuroses; you think that you need to hit every angle and do and endless amount of sets to stimulate every last muscle fiber, but this is simply not the case.
The reason these training programs remain popular is because nobody wants to be told that they are wrong. Admitting your mistakes is something many people can’t do. It is why when something radically different is proposed, the high volume proponents get upset and offended. Nobody likes to have their ego bruised so they keep on doing and promoting the same old high volume workouts that they always have.
That’s fine, let them continue to do what they choose; personally I have way more important things to do than spend all of my waking hours in the gym. If I can get better results in a fraction of the time I will choose that option every time.
Cut your volume down, up your weights and intensity and get ready for the “what are you on” questions to start rolling in.
Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more great muscle building information, please visit MuscleGainingSecrets.com.
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