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years as much as I have enjoyed creating it. Based on the letters and
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M&F Raw! at the Olympia
Although I'm not much of a gambler, I seem to spend a lot of time in Vegas. I just left Vegas, where I attended the 2009 NSCA meeting, less than a week ago. And now I'm prepping for another trip to Vegas for the 2009 Mr. Olympia Weekend to be held at the Las Vegas Convention Center and Orleans Arena, September 24-27. Whether you're a rabid fan of professional bodybuilding or not, you definitely should consider experiencing this weekend of bodybuilding, health, fitness and fun. M&F Raw! fans should definitely consider attending the Olympia Expo. Why? Because I'll be filming brand new M&F Raw! episodes live, with you, the audience, on hand, and I'll be opening the floor to answer all your training and nutrition questions. Not only will you get to experience M&F Raw! live, but you'll get to meet IFBB pro bodybuilders, UFC and other MMA fighters, as well as other athletes and celebrities. Even Arnold and Joe Weider are likely to make an appearance. Trust me, you do not want to miss this event! For details, go to http://www.mrolympia.com/
Recently I was helping out a longtime M&F reader with his training program. He's been following all the standard training rules, like: do multijoint movements first in your workout with heavy weight and lower reps; finish with isolation moves using lighter weight and higher reps; rest 2 minutes between sets; etc... Yet he was unhappy with the progress he's been making lately. It immediately occurred to me that his problem may be the fact that he was following the rules too closely for too long and he needed to mix things up by breaking the very rules of training that have proven to be effective for so many people.
You too may be guilty of this mistake. While the rules are important to follow as your training base, you have to remember that doing the same thing month after month will cause you to stagnate. When that happens you need to change things up, sometimes very radically. I suggested to this reader that he try preexhaust supersets. For those of you unfamiliar with preexhaust, it's simply doing the opposite of what we've always recommended you do when you train. Instead of doing multijoint exercises (also known as compound exercises) first in your routine and finishing with single-joint (or isolation exercises), you do the opposite -- do isolation exercises first and then multijoint exercises. How is that a good thing for encouraging muscle growth? The answer is: because it helps to place more focus on the target muscle group.
Using chest as an example, when you do a multijoint exercise such as the bench press, you use the deltoids, the triceps and even the lats in addition to the pecs. If you do the bench press first in your workout when the pecs are strong and not fatigued, you often don't target the pecs sufficiently. The reason for this is because the larger pecs don't fatigue as easily under all that heavy weight as do the smaller muscle groups like the triceps and delts. This means that when you reach muscle failure on the bench press and have to end the set, you likely didn't have to stop because the pecs were fatigued, but because the triceps and/or delts were fatigued. However, if you first do a pec isolation exercise such as the dumbbell flye (which does not involve the triceps or delts much) you will fatigue (or exhaust the pecs). Then when you do the bench press, your pecs will be the weak link on the exercise and you will reach muscle failure because the pecs have fatigued, not the smaller triceps or delts. This means the bench press now becomes an exercise that better targets the pecs.
The superset means you do two exercises back-to-back. In this case you do an isolation exercise first (such as a dumbbell flye) and them immediately do a multijoint exercise (such as the dumbbell bench press). Keeping with the chest theme, here's a sample chest pre-exhaust workout that will blast your pecs into growing.
Exercise Sets/Reps Rest
Dumbbell Incline Flye 3/10-12 -
superset with
Dumbbell Incline Press 3/6-8 1-2 min.
Machine Flye or Pec Dec 3/12-15 -
superset with
Machine Chest Press 3/8-10 1-2 min.
Cable Crossover 3/15-20 -
superset with
Incline Push-up 3/to failure 1-2 min.
For those of you wondering what a good back isolation exercise is (after all, rows, pulldowns and pull-ups, the major back exercises, are ALL multijoint exercises), check out my new video: M&F Raw! #21 - Straight-Arm Pullback. It will be up on the M&F website on Monday. Those of you following me on Twitter will hear from me immediately when it goes up.
Michael - Yeah, Twitter is a great resource that lets me immediately send out tips and updates with links to studies and videos, so you are only one click away from great, cutting-edge information. As far as the M&F Raw! episodes on legs, yes, I have a bunch of leg training videos that will be going up. I'll have one up this week on how to target the different quad muscles with leg extensions. And you'll know right away when that video goes up thanks to Twitter!
Jacob - Great to hear that you've figured out your weight issues and have been making progress with leaning out. At 181 pounds you are the exact weight that we base most of our nutrition programs off of. All the sample diets we give are for the 180-pound male, but work well for those weighing about 160-200 pounds. So check out the pages of M&F (or muscleandfitness.com) for any one of our numerous get-lean diets that very effective. For example, check out the Show Time diet in the July 2009 issue or click here.
William - Yes, one way to pair muscle groups is to train the larger muscle group first and then follow with a smaller muscle group that assists that larger muscle group. Triceps are involved in many chest exercises (like the bench press), as I explained above. Biceps are involved in most back exercises (as I explain in M&F Raw! #21 - Straight-Arm Pullback). That means these arm muscles get a thorough warm-up while training the larger muscle group. So it makes sense to follow up by directly training them. However, because those smaller arm muscles will be fatigued from helping out during the larger muscle group workout, you may not be able to go as heavy on the specific exercises for triceps and biceps. If this muscle group pairing is not helping your arms grow, then I suggest you stop training this way and train triceps separately from chest, and biceps separately from back. For example, you can have one workout devoted just to triceps and biceps.
Kurtis - As I mentioned above, I hit Vegas frequently. But mostly I am working, which leaves little time to get to enjoy much of the Vegas fun. It's too bad you're missing the Olympia fun by only a couple of weeks! I can tell you one amazing restaurant though -- Mario Batali's Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian. Anyone else have some good Vegas tips for Kurtis? For traps, I love to work them on the Smith machine with two great exercises. The first exercise is one-arm shrugs. You can see this in more detail in my book, and I'll also be doing an M&F Raw! video on this exercise in the near future. The other great exercise is the behind-the-back Smith machine shrug. It's a great exercise to do on the Smith machine because you can stand far in front of the bar so that it doesn't hit your ass on the way up, which can limit your range of motion when doing them with a standard barbell. Thanks for the offer on the tix. I'll definitely let you know if I'm in CT in the fall. Go Huskies!
Ariel - I'm glad to hear that the M&F Raw! videos have been helpful. We don't do much on vegetarian bodybuilding because we don't have many readers following that lifestyle. However, I recently did a Diet 911 (in the Nutrition Notebook section) in the October 2009 issue (it will be on newsstands on August 17) of Muscle & Fitness that fixes a vegetarian bodybuilder's current nutrition plan to help him gain muscle. Please be sure to read that when it comes out and let me know if it was helpful for you. One note on your diet plan is that I notice you mention that you use whey protein. If you are not already doing so, I suggest you add some soy to your whey protein shakes. Also, make sure you are using creatine. Most vegetarians have low levels of creatine in their muscles and respond very well to creatine. Also, be sure to check out http://www.vegetarianbodybuilder.com/ if you haven't already, as you may find some great help there.
Recently I was helping out a longtime M&F reader with his training program. He's been following all the standard training rules, like: do multijoint movements first in your workout with heavy weight and lower reps; finish with isolation moves using lighter weight and higher reps; rest 2 minutes between sets; etc... Yet he was unhappy with the progress he's been making lately. It immediately occurred to me that his problem may be the fact that he was following the rules too closely for too long and he needed to mix things up by breaking the very rules of training that have proven to be effective for so many people.
You too may be guilty of this mistake. While the rules are important to follow as your training base, you have to remember that doing the same thing month after month will cause you to stagnate. When that happens you need to change things up, sometimes very radically. I suggested to this reader that he try preexhaust supersets. For those of you unfamiliar with preexhaust, it's simply doing the opposite of what we've always recommended you do when you train. Instead of doing multijoint exercises (also known as compound exercises) first in your routine and finishing with single-joint (or isolation exercises), you do the opposite -- do isolation exercises first and then multijoint exercises. How is that a good thing for encouraging muscle growth? The answer is: because it helps to place more focus on the target muscle group.
Using chest as an example, when you do a multijoint exercise such as the bench press, you use the deltoids, the triceps and even the lats in addition to the pecs. If you do the bench press first in your workout when the pecs are strong and not fatigued, you often don't target the pecs sufficiently. The reason for this is because the larger pecs don't fatigue as easily under all that heavy weight as do the smaller muscle groups like the triceps and delts. This means that when you reach muscle failure on the bench press and have to end the set, you likely didn't have to stop because the pecs were fatigued, but because the triceps and/or delts were fatigued. However, if you first do a pec isolation exercise such as the dumbbell flye (which does not involve the triceps or delts much) you will fatigue (or exhaust the pecs). Then when you do the bench press, your pecs will be the weak link on the exercise and you will reach muscle failure because the pecs have fatigued, not the smaller triceps or delts. This means the bench press now becomes an exercise that better targets the pecs.
The superset means you do two exercises back-to-back. In this case you do an isolation exercise first (such as a dumbbell flye) and them immediately do a multijoint exercise (such as the dumbbell bench press). Keeping with the chest theme, here's a sample chest pre-exhaust workout that will blast your pecs into growing.
Exercise Sets/Reps Rest
Dumbbell Incline Flye 3/10-12 -
superset with
Dumbbell Incline Press 3/6-8 1-2 min.
Machine Flye or Pec Dec 3/12-15 -
superset with
Machine Chest Press 3/8-10 1-2 min.
Cable Crossover 3/15-20 -
superset with
Incline Push-up 3/to failure 1-2 min.
For those of you wondering what a good back isolation exercise is (after all, rows, pulldowns and pull-ups, the major back exercises, are ALL multijoint exercises), check out my new video: M&F Raw! #21 - Straight-Arm Pullback. It will be up on the M&F website on Monday. Those of you following me on Twitter will hear from me immediately when it goes up.
Michael - Yeah, Twitter is a great resource that lets me immediately send out tips and updates with links to studies and videos, so you are only one click away from great, cutting-edge information. As far as the M&F Raw! episodes on legs, yes, I have a bunch of leg training videos that will be going up. I'll have one up this week on how to target the different quad muscles with leg extensions. And you'll know right away when that video goes up thanks to Twitter!
Jacob - Great to hear that you've figured out your weight issues and have been making progress with leaning out. At 181 pounds you are the exact weight that we base most of our nutrition programs off of. All the sample diets we give are for the 180-pound male, but work well for those weighing about 160-200 pounds. So check out the pages of M&F (or muscleandfitness.com) for any one of our numerous get-lean diets that very effective. For example, check out the Show Time diet in the July 2009 issue or click here.
William - Yes, one way to pair muscle groups is to train the larger muscle group first and then follow with a smaller muscle group that assists that larger muscle group. Triceps are involved in many chest exercises (like the bench press), as I explained above. Biceps are involved in most back exercises (as I explain in M&F Raw! #21 - Straight-Arm Pullback). That means these arm muscles get a thorough warm-up while training the larger muscle group. So it makes sense to follow up by directly training them. However, because those smaller arm muscles will be fatigued from helping out during the larger muscle group workout, you may not be able to go as heavy on the specific exercises for triceps and biceps. If this muscle group pairing is not helping your arms grow, then I suggest you stop training this way and train triceps separately from chest, and biceps separately from back. For example, you can have one workout devoted just to triceps and biceps.
Kurtis - As I mentioned above, I hit Vegas frequently. But mostly I am working, which leaves little time to get to enjoy much of the Vegas fun. It's too bad you're missing the Olympia fun by only a couple of weeks! I can tell you one amazing restaurant though -- Mario Batali's Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian. Anyone else have some good Vegas tips for Kurtis? For traps, I love to work them on the Smith machine with two great exercises. The first exercise is one-arm shrugs. You can see this in more detail in my book, and I'll also be doing an M&F Raw! video on this exercise in the near future. The other great exercise is the behind-the-back Smith machine shrug. It's a great exercise to do on the Smith machine because you can stand far in front of the bar so that it doesn't hit your ass on the way up, which can limit your range of motion when doing them with a standard barbell. Thanks for the offer on the tix. I'll definitely let you know if I'm in CT in the fall. Go Huskies!
Ariel - I'm glad to hear that the M&F Raw! videos have been helpful. We don't do much on vegetarian bodybuilding because we don't have many readers following that lifestyle. However, I recently did a Diet 911 (in the Nutrition Notebook section) in the October 2009 issue (it will be on newsstands on August 17) of Muscle & Fitness that fixes a vegetarian bodybuilder's current nutrition plan to help him gain muscle. Please be sure to read that when it comes out and let me know if it was helpful for you. One note on your diet plan is that I notice you mention that you use whey protein. If you are not already doing so, I suggest you add some soy to your whey protein shakes. Also, make sure you are using creatine. Most vegetarians have low levels of creatine in their muscles and respond very well to creatine. Also, be sure to check out http://www.vegetarianbodybuilder.com/ if you haven't already, as you may find some great help there.
12 Comments
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Jim,
Big fan man, I love all of the M&F Raw! videos, there a lot of help. I had a question that I had been browsing to find on the internet and turns out that it's a pretty heated debate. I'm pretty lean right now but would like to add 20-30 clean pounds over the next year. Do you suggest cardio during a bulk phase do keep fat gains at bay? Maybe a short 15 minute run after a lift session, or maybe a 30 minute morning session before eating on my off days? I'm too skinny for my height so I'd like to up the scale but keep my abs. You're advice always helps.
Thank a lot
Hey Jim, what's going on? Thanks for all the great tips you have been posting...I am actually vegetarian and right before your post on creatine for vegetarians I started taking some...so, I will let you know if I see a difference. I had a question for you...recently I got a flu-like virus and I was knocked off of my routine for about a week. Any tips on what to do when you are sick so that you don't lose the gains you have made? What not to eat...if you should lift while sick...any suggestions would be appreciated, as always. Hope you are doing well. I am looking forward to getting back into the gym and using the M&F Raw! tips ASAP.
JIm,
I recently started lifting weights and have started adding supplements as I learn. I currently use whey and creatine. I found an article on M&F on supplements for beginners. They recommend adding Arginine. What is it and what does it do? Do you recommend I use it? Any other supplements you would recommend for beginners?
Thanks,
Cristhian.
Hey Jim,
Ive been incorporating the tips and takes on exercises into my plan with good success. They continue to bring a challenge and confusion into the weight room. During your HIT training video you suggest a 2:1 ratio, but in the latest M&F theyre saying to give more rest and apply a 1:1 ratio instead. Currently I'm doing 2:1 3-4x per week during the summer months to stay leaner and combat some of the "summer time" extras with a mix of jump rope, mountain climbers and burpees, along with some 100yd sprints, all solid choices. What is your take on the difference in ratios? Personally the 2:1 brings more intensity I think while allowing just enough rest to catch my breath and maintain the level intensity needed.
Hey Jim, absolutely love the Raw series! I had a question for you. I was thinking about splitting my workout and doing each body part twice a week. The first part of the week being heavier compound like movements and the second workout of the week more isolation movements targeting certain improvement areas. I was really wanting to know what you thought about this and if this is a good method or am I wasting my time with it. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hey Jim. I am a vid reader of M&F and a personal trainer. I workout very hard and follow a diet pretty well getting 225-250 grams frotien a day 150-200 grams of carbs and about 75 grams of fats a day. I am 5'8'' and have been stuck at 205lbs for a while. My bodyfat is ok at just under 10% says the dunk tank. The question I have is the information out there for diabetic bodybuilders is very limited and I am having a tough time getting through this plateau. I have been a type 1 diabetic for 13 years. I would love some new information or tips for training or supps. Thanks.
Jim,
The chest workout that you posted most recently was one of the best workouts I have ever had. Thanks for the tips!
Question of the day: For the last year I've been working out in a gym with limited equipment . . . at least in certain respects. We do not have cables or any machines to target the biceps. While I have tried to change up my biceps routine as much as possible with free weights / barbell and variations of seated preacher, I have not been hitting my bis as hard as I used to. Any creative ideas to mix things up?
Hey Jim,
I was just introduced to your muscle and fitness raw videos and have officially finished seeing all of them. I really love your work and you've helped to keep my workouts effective. Thanks for that. My question to you is similar to that of Adam's who left you a comment on July 19th. I've been following the 12-week work out plan from the June 2008 issue of Muscle and Fitness magazine that uses frequency to build muscle.
I'm 19, 172 pounds and very active. I'm also 6 feet tall and am looking to bulk up. I've done some snooping around on the internet and the arguments go both ways on cardio. Should I have cardio in my routine since I'm trying to bulk up? should I be having the same amount of protein shakes on rest days as I have them on workout days (4 shakes).
Let me know what you think
Thanks For everything.
Jim,
I wanted to add a calcium supplement to my regimin. It looks like there are a few different types of calcium supplements on the market and was wondering which would be the best option to go with (calcium ascorbate, calcium carbonate, calcium citrate, calcium lactate, etc.). And should I look to take a calcium supplement by itself? I have seen some information stating that calcium does not go well with iron or zinc. Can it be taken with magnesium? Some supplements combine these two together. Thanks for all the help Jim! I always look forward to new Raw videos, especially any relating to nutrition.
Dave
Dr. S - Before my question, thanks for all your great writing and the vids. I started using the reverse grip bench (and on incline, too) and can feel a big difference post-workout.
I have a question about protein shakes. We have all heard to get in your post-workout protein shakes within 30 minutes or other time frame depending on your source. A recent New York Times article said drinking water in gulps as opposed to sips will process the water faster a limit cramping. It made me wonder, should I be drinking my protein shakes in gulps or sips? If I need to get the protein into my body within 30 minutes of the workout - how long should it take me to drink it? 30 minutes? 30 seconds? What's the research say?
Thanks
-Matt in Texas
Hey Jim, question: is anyone from muscle and fitness going to be at the Europa expo in Dallas this August from M and F?
Hey Jim,
I picked up the magazine and i do have a few questions. I do not have a smith machine or cables, so I was wondering if you had any workouts i could replace with the cable crossover, cable dip, and Smith machine up right row. I also saw that in this workout, each muscle group is only targeted once per week. Wouldnt that just break down the muscles each week without any gain? Or is this supposed to be a workout that you implament into an existing workout. I also had a question about workout supplements. Which would you reccomend (if any) for me to build muscle and burn fat. Thank you for your help with my workouts and i look foward to reading more articles in the future.
Will