Weight lifting programs and bodybuilding are based around the idea of progressive resistance or overload. The idea being that in order to build muscle and increase your strength you must constantly increase the stress on your muscles. Then you must give your muscles adequate time to recover and rebuild so that you can again increase the overload and continue to build muscle. The following weightlifting workout won't do you a darn bit of good if you don't adhere to the overload principle of progressive resistance. Overload doesn't necessarily have to mean an increase in your training poundages. You can also do more reps on a set with the same weight. Another way to bring about overload in these weighlifting workouts is to decrease the amount of time you rest between sets. Doing more work in the same amount of time or doing the same work in less time is a great way to overload your muscles without increasing your workout poundages. This is the cornerstone of Escalating Density Training by Charles Staley. Clearly, to make great muscle building gains, you can't get complacent in your weight lifting workouts. You need to constantly strive to do more. And, as stated above, this does not mean working out more often or making your workouts longer. You must make your workouts progressively harder and more intense. However, this type of weight training routine is very hard on the recovery process so you must make sure you get enough rest between workouts to allow the muscle building process to take place. Otherwise, you end up overtraining and instead of bigger muscles, your muscles will get smaller and weaker. When training this intensely, it's very important to take time off from your workouts. You should consider taking a week to ten days off every four to eight weeks to keep your mind and body fresh. If you don't recover from these weightlifting workouts you overtrain. And if you overtrain, you don't get stronger and your muscles don't get bigger. The core of these power-mass workouts is the big compound weight training exercises like the following: Squat Deadlift Bench Press Chin ups Dumbbell Press or Upright Row Shrugs Following is a sample weighlifting workout for developing power and building muscle. Day 1 Chest, Triceps, Shoulders
Decline Bench Press 3 x 10, 8, 6
Decline Flyes 2 x 8 - 12
Incline Flyes 2 x 8 - 12
Dips 3 x 12, 10, 8
Tricep Pushdowns 2 x 8 - 12
Dumbbell Upright Rows 3 x 12, 10, 8
Incline Dumbbell Laterals 2 x 8 - 12
Day 2 Back, Biceps, Abs Curl Grip Pulldowns 3 x 10, 8, 6
Machine or Dumbbell Pullovers 2 x 8 - 12
One Arm DUmbbell Rows 2 x 8 - 12
Incline Dumbbell Curls 1 x 8 - 12
Dumbbell Concentration Curls 1 x 8 - 12
Barbell Curls 1 x 8 - 12
Weighted Crunches 2 x 15 - 20
Reverse Crunches 2 x 15 - 20 Day 3 Legs Squats 3 x 10, 8, 6
Leg Extensions 2 x 8 - 12
Stiff Legged Deadlifts 2 x 12 - 15
Leg Curls 2 x 8 - 12
Standing Calf Raises 2 x 12 - 15
Seated Calf Raises 2 x 12 - 15 This routine involves working each muscle group once per week. The idea is to keep the overall training session short but intense to avoid overtraining. If you can recover from it, you may want to replace the Curl Grip Pulldowns and the Pullovrs with 4 sets of deadlifts instead. If you feel you recover sooner than that, you may want to change up the split to something like the following: You definitely don't want deadlifts on the following split because you would find yourself doing deadlifts and squats on consecutive days. Monday: Chest, Triceps, Shoulders Tuesday: Legs Wednesday: Back, Biceps, Abs Thursday: Off Friday: Chest, Triceps, Shoulders Saturday: Off Sunday: Off Monday: Back, Biceps, Abs Tuesday: Legs Wednesday: Chest Triceps, Shoulders Thursday: Off Friday: Back, Biceps, Abs Saturday: Off Sunday: Off Monday: Repeat at the top If you haven't been training, or haven't been training very intensely lately, you'll want to start out by avoiding training to failure for the first week or two. This will help you build up some momentum, as well as avoiding extreme soreness that will keep you out of the gym. |
