More Muscle comes from Mighty Strength and ...

...MUCH MORE Recovery, here's How to Gain and KEEP muscle.

I've decided NOT to go into a detailed discussion of the types of fibers or physiology because:

I'm not a doctor, but mostly because knowing doesn't make bigger biceps OR help your training. If you want to check out this Wikipedia article about skeletal muscle knock yourself out ;-)

Finished reading? Good, are you any bigger?

No? Okay let's cut to the chase, someone has to know everything there is to know about that stuff, but not us.

We only have to know how to USE that information to get real results.

Here's the "secret" behind it all, to gain size you need to gain strength, to gain strength you need to systematically work harder EVERY TIME.

Simply put muscle adapts (adjusts) to what we do with it. The technical term for this is specificity. They will get better at whatever we do or train them to do.

An easy way to think of it is our body adapts SPECIFICALLY to the stress or activity it's given.

If you want to get bigger you have to get stronger by working harder every time.

If you want endurance resistance training at high volumes (lots sets and repetitions) will help, but you'd probably be better off doing an endurance sport.

If you want killer punching power, weights aren't COMPLETELY useless, but almost. Punching a heavy bag would be a MUCH better way to get a knockout punch.

To get maximum strength and therefore size gains it's all about strength, not dozens of reps. or sets.

You MUST lift near your absolute maximum limit from the FIRST repetition.

I encourage anyone new to resistance training to start at ONE set of 12 reps. until they're comfortable moving higher intensity and lower reps.

Once you're comfortable start subtracting reps and adding weight.Your last repetition should be near impossible to complete.

Keep subtracting reps, and increasing weight until your first rep is almost as hard as your last. Yup, if you first one is "easy" or even "kinda tough" it's NOT enough resistance.

Remember, this section is Body Building, not sport training (check the training section for that), size comes from strength, and strength come from working at maximum effort for VERY SHORT PERIODS.

You can only put out maximum effort for a few seconds. If you can continue one repetition for 10 or more seconds, it's too easy.

Have you ever seen a sprinter run at full effort for 30 seconds? Nope, they can only maintain absolute maximum output for less than 20 seconds, and probably more like 10.

Lots of lifters (most in my experience) do between two and 20 sets per muscle group. Again if you can do a bunch of sets the first set wasn't hard enough.

Research shows that there is little, if any, extra strength gained from multiple sets.

Even more important than maximum effort for short periods is SAFETY. To lift at such high intensity the only way to be safe is to lift SLOWLY.

Explosive power is great, but doing explosive movements with heavy weights, or even moderate weights can be very dangerous. The only times (very few) I've injured myself training with weights has been from doing fast or explosive reps.

Preventing injury while training is one of the best ways to ensure progress, injuries force training layoffs, and it can take months, years or forever to heal from a training injury.

I speak from personal experience, during a relay race in junior high school my femur came out of my hip socket, then snapped back into place. At 42 my left hip STILL clicks, and sometimes has pain from an injury over 25 years ago.

I also injured my rotator cuff doing an explosive cable exercise, it was years ago, and I STILL feel it on occasion.

Explosive = higher risk of injury. One repetition should take at a minimum of TWO to FOUR seconds on the lift, a COMPLETE STOP at the top, and a CONTROLLED descent of two to four seconds.

Lifting slowly eliminates ALL momentum, so YOU, not the momentum are lifting the weight. If you have to reduce your weight 15% or 20% to lift it that slow DO IT. It's not how much you lift that's important, it's HOW HARD it is to lift that matters.

Maximum effort requires maximum recovery.

It takes DAYS to reach maximum recovery and strength.Allow yourself to reach peak strength for the next lifting session.

I rest 7 days before I work the same group again. I lift every 8 days, but you will have to find your own ideal rest period. I'll show you how on the recovery page.

The last point might shock you. For decades I believed that "compound exercises" like squats, bench press, and dead lift where the best for building size and strength.

They are amazing exercises, but only the weakest areas get used in those exercises are working at their full strength:-?

If you're doing bench press, and your triceps are weaker than your chest in that exercise, then your chest isn't working at it's top strength. Your triceps are getting their maximum workout, while the pecs are working at less than they're capable of.

To guarantee that EVERY muscle group gets worked at it's maximum you HAVE to work them in ISOLATION. There, I said it!!! The old fashioned (and once, but no longer popular) body building technique.

Work each group separately to assure each is forced to perform at it's peak effort to get maximum strength and size.

Remember our goal here is to gain the most strength and size as efficiently as possible, NOT to teach muscles to work together "functionally".

If you want functional muscles, work them EXACTLY or near exactly as you want them to function. Which reminds me, how many times do you do a bench press or squat like movement outside the gym?

If your answer is zero, then doing those exercises in the gym give you the same number of functional muscle movements outside the gym.

If you want functional quadriceps, calves or abs (which are great) at least use exercises that most closely resembles the activity you want to use them for. MOST exercises you do in a gym don't use your body the same way you do in you life outside the gym.

Remember specificity? Muscles get better at doing what you do with them. It's true for endurance, range of motion, isometric contractions (holding or carrying something uses isometric contractions), as well as complete complex movements.

To get "functional exercises" go to the training section where I will detail ways to train to your activities or sports, not the muscles used;-)

Remember:

1) Specificity- muscles get good at what you use them for.

2) Size come from strength and strength comes from training at maximum strength.

3) Do ONE SET of 12 or fewer repetitions.

4) You can only work at top effort for about 10 seconds.

5) SLOW movement avoids injuries and maximizes muscle loading. (two or three seconds up, stop completely, control it down for two or 3 seconds)

6) RECOVER until you reach FULL recovery (every 8th day for me, different for you) I've read it averages once a week for most people.

7) Work each muscle group in isolation so each group works at it's maximum.