Getting Hench in the new year - 5 easy tips to help you look less like a child in a t-shirt.

Tip 1 - Food is your friend

Everyone has been told at one stage in their gym life that they need to consume more calories to grow and get bigger, your aware of it... then why are you not doing it?  Your not special if you not getting heavier or stronger then your not doing something right.  For the assumption of this tip were going to address your lack of calorie intake.  What's the plan of action?  If you find you can't get any heavier apply the following easy 3 step plan.

1. Keep a food diary for a week and weight yourself every morning
2. Next week eat everything in that diary x 2 if on Monday you had 2 wheatbix for breakfast this week your having 4, if you gave 2 ham sandwiches for lunch on Wednesday you guessed it your having 4 this week.  Again weight yourself every morning.
3. Now look at yourself in the mirror realise you've gained weight easily and start eating properly.

Tip 2 - Pump up the volume

Hypertrophy is essentially a response to a volume of work done to this end you need to do quite a lot of sets and reps to get bigger in the gym.  This is why the lord god zeus invented the machine weight.  Here is a simple programme you can add into your weekly free weight routine that will help to boost your muscle growth

Upper body Supplemental work out to be performed 2x a week with a weight you fell your muscles fatiguing on the last set - 60 seconds rest between sets

Monday and Wednesday

1. Lat pull down - 5x10
2. Low Cable Row - 5x10
3. Cable Fly - 5x10
4. Cable Side to Front Raise - 5x10
5. Tricep Pushdown - 5x10
6. Cable Curl - 5x10

Lower body Supplemental work out to be performed 2x a week with a weight you fell your muscles fatiguing on the last set - 60 seconds rest between sets

Tuesday and Thursday

1. Single Leg Press - 5x10
2. Leg Curl - 5x10
3. Leg Extension - 5x10
4. Calf Raise - 5x10

Tip 3 - Barbells are for System Stress

The first exercise in your routine every day should be an exercise you expect to be barley able to move away from because you have went so hard on it.  These exercises are compound barbell exercises and for the reasons of muscle growth these are to be done to failure!  If your not going to failure with increasing heavier weights or with more reps on the same weight your not going to be doing much growing.  This part of your training programme is and always will be the most important.

A good routine I have used with great success is a simple pyramid.

Set 1 -Weight x 12 reps (if you achived reps add 2.5 kg next session for upper body and 5kg for lower body)

Set 2 -Weight x 10 reps (if you achived reps add 2.5 kg next session for upper body and 5kg for lower body)

Set 3 -Weight x 8 reps (if you achived reps add 2.5 kg next session for upper body and 5kg for lower body)

Set 4 -Weight x 6 reps (if you achived reps add 2.5 kg next session for upper body and 5kg for lower body)

Example Exercises to choose 

Chest - Barbell benchpress / incline bench press / decline bench press

Shoulders - Military Press seated or standing

Back - Chest supported Barbell Row / T bar row

Legs - Squat / Deadlift / Trap Bar Deadlift / Front Squat

Biceps - Chin Up (partial ROM)

Tricep - Close grip bench / Dips

Make your first exercise set the tone for the rest of your session by throwing yourself into it with 100% intensity.

Tip 4 - Get a good pair of earphones and listen to some horrible music.

When I am about to go into an all out set of Squat/Deadlift/Bench press I like to listen to some terribly aggressive music at ear bleed levels of volume, I ususally end up having 2 or 3 songs that I like to jam too my current 3 favourites are

It's obviously down to personal taste but you need to find some music you can zone out, get aggressive too and push yourself to the point where your body just can't push any more.  If you learn how to push yourself to the point your muscles stop working your going to make some mo' gainz. 

Tip 5 - Organise your training so you don't end up injured. 

If your training with the correct intensity then the goal of your programming is to stop yourself from getting injured from all the hard/intense training your going to be doing.  The ideal programme for bodybuilding is the one that let's you end your muscles' shit week in week out with out injuring yourself.  As a general rule of thumb you need

24 hours of recovery for an easy session (machine volume work)

48 hours recovery for a medium session (dumbbells to failure)

72+ hours recovery for a hard session (barbells to failure)

The best split that I have used is a simple upper / lower split keeps it simple and let's you put work in every week and recover.

Sample using above tips might look like

Monday 

Back Squat - 12 x failure / 10 x failure / 8 x failure / 6 x failure

Dumbell walking lunge - 4x8

Lower body Supplemental work out

Tuesday 

Bench Press - 12 x failure / 10 x failure / 8 x failure / 6 x failure

Incline DB Press - 4x8

Upper body Supplemental work out

Wednesday - Off (maybe some easy conditioning)

Thursday 

Deadlift - 12 x failure / 10 x failure / 8 x failure / 6 x failure

Dumbell reverse lunge - 4x8

Lower body Supplemental work out

Friday

Chin Up partial ROM - 12 x failure / 10 x failure / 8 x failure

Close Grip Press - 12 x failure / 10 x failure / 8 x failure

DB shoulder press - 4x8

Upper body Supplemental work out

Weekend off or some easy conditioning work.

Hopefully some of these tips can help you look a big bigger in the new year.

Marc.