Adjusting Volume and Frequency Equals High Intensity Progress

Amazing as it may seem, most bodybuilders, powerlifters and powerbuilders have not mastered this key. This is one of the most important points to your progress and if you don't get it right, you could be wandering aimlessly in a pool of confusion and doubt. If you do get it right, you will make progress each and every workout to the point of your genetic potential and this will not take decades, but a mere year or maybe two.

Science is a discipline, thus, there are not multiple valid theories. The muscle magazines for years have been conveying that everyone is different and you have to find what works for you. Rubbish! If that were so, doctors could not prescribe medicine nor give anesthesia.

Could you imagine being on a table ready for surgery and the doctor of anesthesia says to you, "well Joe, we are going to try 200 milligrams of anesthesia instead of 150 milligrams we gave the last patient having this surgery and we will just have to see if that works...because of course, everyone is different and we really don't know how much to give you!"

You would jump off that table and be out the door before he could finish his last word! Of course this is not the case at all...doctors know exactly what to give, based on certain criteria. Medicine is very much a science as is the science of space travel. Do you think that NASA wonders if their astronauts are going to come back each time?

The science of building muscle is actually very cut and dry. The same things that work for you work for me and others... with the end result based on your genetic potential. It is not a free for all or a guessing game! In order to build muscle and strength, exercise has to be:

* Intense
* Brief and
* Infrequent

The reason for this is that your body has the capability of increasing its strength to the upper limits of 300% while only increasing its recover ability only 50%. This means as you get bigger and stronger the ability of the body to recover or compensate, and build muscle or overcompensate, becomes harder and harder unless... you regulate volume and frequency! Lifting weights is nothing more than a stress reaction as is a tan. You will receive an ultimate tan by going out on a sunny hot August day...not a cloudy December day. You will stimulate muscle growth with an intense contraction, working hard.

The question then becomes apparent, "How many times do I need to stimulate muscle growth in a workout?" or asked a different way, "How many sets do I have to do?"

If you wanted a tan, you would not go out into the hot August sun for two hours, out for 10 minutes, back in for two hours, out for 10 minutes and then repeat that cycle the entire day. Your body would not be able to cope with that stress! No way, especially if you were fare skinned! You would burn, blister and if repeated day after day, possible die!

Same goes for exercise. Once you have stimulated muscle growth with an intense set, you don't have to continue over and over again, get out of the gym! Also an important note is this... every consecutive rep up until the last almost impossible rep of a set is nothing more than a warm up. That last rep is the safest rep because the muscle is not able to contract full steam. In truth, it is the first rep that is most dangerous, but, it is the last rep that turns on the growth mechanism of the body.

Because of the following reasons, I agree with Mike Mentzer that, only one set per exercise is required:

* The body recovers systemically, meaning, as a whole. After it has recovered from the exhaustive effects of the workout, only then, if enough recover ability is left, can it compensate or lay down muscle.

* Since there are only, for explanation purposes, 100 shovel fulls of recover ability, the workout must be brief. The more sets that are done, the more shovel fulls are used, leaving less to lay down muscle or overcompensate.

* Because the body recovers systemically, as a whole, and not by body-part, the process takes longer than 24 hours or 48 hours, and can actually take up to a week or more. Workouts must be infrequent.

I would like to debunk a theory that many bodybuilders and weightlifter have right now...that is, if they don't get back in the gym in one to three days, that they will start loosing muscle. This is ridiculous. How could you possibly loose muscle if your body still has not recovered from the last workout?

Now that you have a broad brush of the elements involved, how would you adjust volume and frequency? Read on...

Most of my clients perform 2-5 sets per workout and train every 4-10 days. Workouts last from 12 to 25 minutes in most cases and there is ample time to recover between workouts. All my clients experience gains each and every workout and get stronger and stronger. Because strength gains and muscle gains are relative, a properly designed workout is really based on strength. This is the only way to gauge progress.

Since I released my latest book in October 2007, High Intensity Powerbuilding - The Next Step, http://www.ruserious.info/p1hip.html I have had a number of my patrons to email me, telling me that after only four workouts, they have experienced significant strength gains each and every workout. (One good example is a gain of 130 pounds in the squat alone, with similar gains for the other exercises.) Those with stubborn body parts like shoulders and arms, who have not been able to make gains before, are reporting that their shoulders and arms are growing and are noticeably bigger. What makes this most interesting is that they are not doing ANY direct shoulder or arm exercises. I had at least two gentlemen tell me that within a few weeks, they broke their all time records in upper body strength. Wow! Could it be they were overtraining, doing too much too frequently in their prior workouts?

What great testimonies of strength and muscle gain! But here is where it all ties together...

Those who were using this workout for a month or more asked, "Over the holiday season I took almost 10 days off (and some said 14 days off, rather than 4-5 days), and in that time frame, my shoulders, chest, arms everything grew even bigger! How can this be when I am not even working my shoulders and arms directly?" I have gotten this question asked many different ways, thus this article.

As you get stronger you must reduce the volume and frequency of your workout so that your body can compensate and then overcompensate. If you take one more workout before this happens, you short circuit the process and get nothing! If you do one more set than is necessary to stimulate muscle growth, you are overtraining! You move into that overtraining state and if you continue, it could take possibly weeks or months to recover.

So the best thing to do is to insert another 2 or 3 rest days between workouts. Remove an exercise. Many of my clients are on a two set workout performed every 7 days. One client went from 155 to 195 in 17 weeks training once every 7 to 10 days for 15 minutes! Lets do the math, If I have done this correctly he gained 40 pounds of muscle training about 3 hours total... total! I know bodybuilders that spend 3 hours in a single workout, 3 to 4 times a week. They are lost and wonder why they do not make any gains and negligible progress.

Now, an important point to mention is genetics. Your abilities are based on your genetics. That is a true variable. Not everyone is going to be an Arnold or a Mike Mentzer but you can certainly be the best that you can be. The example above shows that this person had very good genetics. But what if it was only 20 pounds... still great!

If you do this right people, you will make gains each and every workout based on your genetics but until you take the right path, steps and understanding, you will never know if you could be an Arnold or a Mike Mentzer.

Bill Sahli is a 35 year veteran X Competitive Bodybuilder, HIT Trainer, Author and Life Coach.

Bill is author of the E-book "R U Serious ?- High Intensity Bodybuilding and the Audio Teleseminar - High Intensity Mindset found at " http://www.ruserious.info

He is available for personal instruction on a limited basis. He has trained bodybuilders, athletes, professions, the handicapped & both men and women. His amazing techniques save hours in the gym, with most clients training 15-30 minutes within a week, allowing them to reach their goals in record time. You can reach Bill at rruserious@gmail.com.

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