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http://www.t-nation.com/training/9-things-i-wish-i-knew-when-i-started-bodybuilding
One morning, while reflecting on my 21 years of bodybuilding, I thought, "If I could go back in time and teach myself
what I now know about bodybuilding training, I'd get to where I am now in a fraction of the time!"
How's that for starting your day on an utterly depressing note?
Tears aside, I don't want you to have to wait so long to become a savvier trainee. That's why I'm sharing with you the
nine most important things that I wish I could teach my 16 year-old self so you can learn from my experience.
Training to failure can certainly be beneficial, but it's also very taxing to the body, especially the nervous system. More
specifically, training to failure is beneficial in terms of muscular endurance and even size, but is less beneficial in
regard to strength gains.
Therefore, when doing sets of 2-6, stop a rep or two short of failure. But on sets of 7 or more (where the goal is to
metabolically tax the muscle), go to failure on the last set or two.
In short, training to failure is a concentrated stimulus that places a lot of stress on the body in a short period of time.
It's a beneficial, but unforgiving technique.
As your physique advances, you may also want to make sure you have ample strength in the following ancillary
movement patterns as well:
Elbow flexion (i.e. Biceps curls)
Elbow extension (i.e. skull crushers, cable pushdowns)
Knee flexion (i.e. leg curls)
Further, you may want to divide your rowing strength (a.k.a. horizontal pulling) into upper back rowing (shoulders
abducted 60-90) and lat rowing (shoulders abducted 0-30).
Why so complicated? To use a familiar analogy, it's hard to build a house on sand. Likewise, it's hard to build a big,
badass physique on a body that doesn't have good strength in all the basic movement patterns.
Do yourself a favor and get a solid foundation of strength. If your strength on any major movement pattern ever dips
too low, train to redevelop that strength base.
In short, trying to get big when you're weak is like trying to drive fast with the emergency break on.
other stimuli. Instead, implement things like powerlifting, Olympic lifting, yoga, sprinting, etc., to support your
bodybuilding efforts.