In the suffocating sweat sock of Florida’s Pompano Beach, with its heavy hissing midday air, motorists taking to the freeway do so with a dread not unlike that of entering Erebus, that benighted pit stop on the way to Hades; Ahmad Haidar sees that heat-shimmering snake of macadam wiggling its way into the city and eagerly straps it on like a leash.

Five days a week, year in, year out, Haidar has been lapping up that highway like a puppy dog, loving every mile, and the farther he drives, the hungrier he gets. His trip from home to the gym takes 45 minutes, but he wouldn’t mind an even longer time to stew. This is his chance to become immersed in the prep for his chest workout, where he can plumb his passion and start the momentum for what’s to come, running through every exercise, set, rep and sensation he’ll face. “When I walk through that door,” he exclaims, “I’m at full boil, ready-pumped and ready to go.” His is a silent burning, but one as evident as Florida’s steam. At first glance, he’s laconic, almost shy; but a slight thing, like the timbre of his voice, reveals more of his character than battles where thousands fall. The more Haidar describes the pile-driving pump he’ll feel in his upper chest, the delicious pain that will tear at his outer pecs or the drum-tight fullness he’ll build with a forced rep, the more you share his excitement. Bodybuilders brag about willing certain means to achieve certain ends, but Haidar extols the converse: throughout his 20 years of gym life, he has allowed experience to have its way with him, pitting one random training style against another, until only the best was left standing. Now, at 38, Haidar has arrived at the truth and has discovered that, as with all truths, it is blindingly simple: the best chest routine is based upon the four most basic exercises, each one performed with four sets of 10 repetitions. Chaos has congealed into predictability. “That was not always so,” Haidar confesses. “When you’re inexperienced, it’s not so much a matter of discovering what works as it is of discovering what doesn’t work. For example, I used a barbell for just about all of my chest exercises in the same workout–flat-bench presses, incline barbell presses, decline barbell presses–but I wasn’t building enough peripheral pec fullness or lower and medial separation.” He pauses, then adds, “But you learn.” His most valuable lesson? “Have patience, no matter how long it takes. Listen to others and eventually you can look back and notice what worked best for you,” he says. BODY SLAM Ironically, Haidar’s introduction to the art of muscle was not through weight lifting. His uncle, Hassan Bchara, who earned a bronze medal as a wrestler in the 1980 Olympics, took Haidar and his brother to a gym to learn wrestling. Then came the fateful day when Haidar’s uncle suggested that he needed to work out with weights to gain muscle. To wrestle, he was told, he needed a strong body. “I started liking the weights better than I liked wrestling,” Haidar says. “What I liked better was feeling the muscle getting pumped and actually seeing it bulging bigger and harder. It was an immediate sensation. It was exciting, and the more I felt the muscle working and pumping, the more I wanted. Wrestling did not give me that feeling.” Haidar was hooked on bodybuilding, and when that happens, its siren companion is a twinge of vanity that masquerades as motivating pride. “When you’re young,” Haidar admits, “you want to show off a little bit–’Oh, look, I have muscles’–and I felt a little bit of that when I started competing. I wanted to compete in Mr. Lebanon, and when I won Mr. Lebanon, ‘Oh, I want to win the Arab Championship’; then this, then that. Step by step. I still feel that way. My goal, now, is Mr. Olympia.” Patiently, he pursues the idealist’s goal of perfect balance for every muscle group in his body, as well as his muscular infrastructure. He doesn’t want his upper pecs, for example, to cantilever over his center or lower pecs, nor his lower pecs to jut prognathously past the uppers. Likewise, he wants his outer-pec sweeps symmetrical with his inner pecs. To this end, he employs three different chest routines that rotate sequentially in a Monday-through-Friday, five-days-on, two-days-off training split, in which he covers his entire body in four days. Bodypart order is chest and triceps on one day, followed by legs the next, shoulders and triceps the day after that, with back and traps the following day. This means that his Friday workout returns to the same bodyparts he trained on Monday. It also means that the bodypart workout sequence is different the next week. Furthermore–and this is a big furthermore–Haidar uses three different chest routines that rotate sequentially with each workout, further complicating things. Here’s how: the exercise order for the first chest workout is flat-bench presses, incline dumbbell presses, flat dumbbell flyes and standing cable crossovers. For his next chest workout, the order is incline barbell presses, flat dumbbell presses, incline dumbbell flyes and finishes with standing cable crossovers or decline presses. The movement he selects for the last exercise is determined by whether he feels his chest needs more pump or more fatigue at that point. If the former, he’ll use the dumbbells or cables; if the latter, he’ll go with heavy decline barbell presses. The next time he trains chest, the exercise order is decline barbell presses, flat dumbbell presses and incline dumbbell flyes, finishing with decline barbell or dumbbell presses, pec-deck flyes or standing cable crossovers. Again, for the last exercise, he’ll choose dumbbell presses, pec-deck flyes or standing cable crossovers if he thinks his chest needs more pump; if he thinks it needs more fatigue, he’ll go with decline barbell presses. “In every workout,” Haidar says, “I try to focus on each chest muscle independently, with separate exercises for upper pecs, middle pecs and lower pecs.” PUMP PLAN To economize on energy, Haidar is parsimonious with warm-ups, allocating only one set of 10 reps at 135 pounds for his first exercise, the bench press. From there on, he pyramids through four more sets of 10, adding a pair of plates at a time–225, 315, 405–up to his max set at 455, which he usually takes to failure at six reps. “I don’t like to do fewer than 10, but for power, it has to be done,” he explains. “At all times, though, I have a spotter with me, not only to help me get two more forced reps, but to stay with my movements, so that I can perform every rep, even the heaviest, slowly and with perfect control. Unless I do that, I can’t feel the pump; the pump is what I want. For some other muscles, such as biceps and calves, I want a burn; for chest, I want a pump.” From here on, no more warm-ups. Haidar charges into the first set of his remaining exercises with full power; again, four sets each, targeting 10 reps per set, but hoping, on the fourth set, to reach failure at eight reps, with two more forced. Incline dumbbell presses, for example, begin with 120-pounders, then 130s and 140s, all for 10 reps. His final set, with 150s, is for, as he says, “as many reps as I can.” Dumbbell flyes, too, are four pyramided sets, again with 10 reps through the first three. The last set is eight reps, plus two forced. Haidar warns: “With flyes, I make sure I do not bring the dumbbells lower than chest level. That would invite injury.” The only exercise for which the angle does not change in successive workouts is his last: standing cable crossovers. That’s because Haidar performs them in the only style that’s worthwhile: one that activates the most muscles through a greater range of motion and with the most resistant contraction. “I mimic a most-muscular pose,” he says, “bringing my hands together at a low angle, to hit my lower pecs; I do not cross my hands. I use a lot of weight for four sets of eight to 10 reps, and I flex hard, with a peak contraction.” Surround and conquer is Haidar’s strategy for chest: build a foundation of mass by means of old-fashioned free-weight movements, then attack the pecs from all angles, to tweak their peripherals and give them the definition that has earned him the reputation as bodybuilding’s beau ideal of refinement.

Four to grow by

1

Find the routine that works best for you. Learn from the pros, but don’t copy them. I followed Arnold Schwarzenegger, Samir Bannout and others, but the time came when I had to modify those lessons to do what worked best for my body. Listen to your own body. You will find that some exercises your idol uses won’t necessarily work best for you.

2

Don’t overtrain. Yes, there is such a thing. It’s possible to burn a muscle to the point where it no longer fires. If you’re using heavy basic free-weight exercises and going to failure, 16 sets per muscle group are enough.

3

Ideal repetitions are eight to 10, but push the weight. Make sure the eighth or ninth rep is a failure rep; then, use a spotter for forced reps. If I can get 10 reps without a spot, it’s time to increase the weight.

4

Rest between sets only long enough for your training partner to do his set. Don’t let the pump subside; don’t lose your intensity. Your body and your mind need to retain the sensation of the previous difficult set.

Ahmad Haidar’s training split

Haidar trains Monday through Friday, with Saturday and Sunday off; however, he covers his entire body in four days, which means that his Monday workout is repeated on Friday. The workouts then continue, in rotational order, the following week.

1. Chest, biceps, calves and abs
2. Legs
3. Shoulders, triceps, calves and abs
4. Back and traps

For some reason, my front delts simply aren’t very developed. My middle and rear delts are doing okay, but when I look in the mirror, my shoulders don’t appear as thick and full as I think they should be, and they don’t tie in to my pecs very well. Here’s my shoulder workout. What can I do to bring up my front delts?
Sincerely, Delt a Bad Hand

Dear Delt a Bad Hand,

The first thing you need to do is make sure your shoulder workout centers around your front deltoids. You can do this in ways other than simply adding more front raises.

First, replace your overhead dumbbell presses with either overhead barbell or Smith machine presses to the front at least every other workout. Reason being, any overhead press in which you lower the bar in front of your face will target the front delts in addition to the middle delts. With dumbbell presses, the tendency is to keep the weights out to your sides, which doesn’t place any extra stress on the front delts. Also, we see that upright rows are absent from you routine–add them in, as they’ll help.

The next thing you should do is change the angle on your front raises–specifically, add incline barbell front raises to your routine on a regular basis. This exercise is great for keeping constant, isolated tension on the front delts. The form is simple: Lie faceup on an incline bench and use a palms-down grip on a relatively light barbell. Begin with the bar at arm’s length just above your thighs. Contract your front delts to lift the bar (keeping your arms straight) until it’s just shy of perpendicular to the floor. Lower it back down without letting the bar rest on your quads between reps. This is just one example of a front-delt isolator you should add to your routine; get creative with other front raises as well, using cables, one-arm variations and other options to shock your muscles.

The “pimped-out” routine below incorporates all the exercises we’ve just mentioned to bring up your front delts. Yet overall balance, especially in the oft-injured shoulder joint, is key, which is why you’ll finish your routine with rear-delt raises or flyes. The last thing we want is for you to come back to us in a few months complaining about your lagging rear delts.

Big, round, wide cannonball delts are the mark of a hardcore bodybuilder. To make them huge, pressing some serious poundage is essential. Heavy dumbbell presses are one of the best ways to go for full deltoid development, but if you’re stuck on the 50-pounders, you’ll never get those caps.

Sometimes you have to take an alternate route to increase your strength. Here’s a program that’s designed to add a good 20 pounds to your dumbbell press. Any takers?

Get ready

This program actually is a training secret that many Olympic weightlifting champions have used to increase their pressing strength. All that’s required is a set of dumbbells and an adjustable bench, preferably one that goes from flat to upright in many increments, like the Ironmaster Super Bench shown in the photo above. The trick is that you start by doing flat-bench presses with a certain weight and slowly increase the bench angle over several weeks while using the same weight until you can press it overhead.

Get set

The first step involves finding a set of dumbbells with which you can do 8-10 reps of the flat-bench dumbbell press. The second step is to find an adjustable bench that allows you to make about eight increments similar to those found in Big Delt Program.

Grow

Do three sets of the presses (using the weight you can get for 8-10 reps on the flat bench throughout the entire program) at the appropriate angle first thing on chest days during Phase 1 and first thing on shoulder days during Phase 2. After you complete the cycle, stick with that weight on the seated overhead dumbbell press for several weeks before starting the program again with a new weight.

Big delt program

Follow the program as designed below. The example is for someone who can flat-bench dumbbell press 85 pounds for 10 reps. Reps shown below are hypothetical. After eight weeks this bodybuilder can now do over-head dumbbell presses with 85 pounds for about seven reps.

Phase 1

Phase 1 training will be performed during your chest workouts. Do three
sets of dumbbell presses at the corresponding angle for that week at the
very beginning of your workout. Finish with two or three other chest
exercises.

Phase 2

Phase 2 training will be performed during your shoulder workouts. Do
three sets of dumbbell presses at the corresponding angle for that week
at the very beginning of your workout. Finish with two or three other
shoulder exercises.

One overlooked variable for many bodybuilders, however, is rep speed. The prevailing mantra is slow and steady, contracting the working muscle as forcefully as possible at the apex of each rep. Good advice, yes … but you can do better. In fact, by using the full spectrum of rep speed, from slow to fast, in your overall program, you can maximize your growth. Isn’t that really what it’s all about?

The fast and the furious

The speed of each rep you perform depends on the weight being lifted, the number of reps being performed and the level of fatigue of the muscle being trained. Usually, most reps are done in a slow and controlled manner, about one to two seconds for the positive and one to two seconds for the negative. Of course, as you go heavier and the muscle fatigue intensifies, the positive portion of the rep takes longer and the negative part of the rep accelerates. Generally speaking, typical speed is about three to four seconds per rep.

Training with reps that are faster than the typical three to four seconds can be beneficial for a number of reasons.

• When you perform the positive portion of your reps explosively–taking less than one second to complete them–your fast-twitch muscle fibers are called into action to a greater degree. Fast-twitch muscle fibers produce the greatest muscle force (i.e., strength) and have the highest potential for growth. The other major type of fibers found within your muscles–slow-twitch fibers–produce less force and are smaller than the fast-twitch fibers, but they have greater endurance capacity.
• Fast reps may focus the workload more on the intended muscles. Some research suggests that fast-rep training relies more on the major muscle groups performing a particular exercise and less on the assistance muscles that help. For example, one study found that doing biceps curls with a fast rep speed predominantly used the biceps brachii muscle, as opposed to the brachialis muscle that normally assists in a biceps curl.

Slower rep training, however, placed greater stress on the brachialis muscle and a little less on the biceps brachii. Although little research has been done in this area, it’s reasonable to assume that this holds true for other exercises besides biceps curls. By doing chest exercises with a very fast rep speed, you will preferentially use the pectoralis muscles; doing fast-rep back exercises will preferentially use the lats, etc.

• Training at a fast rep speed increases the pace at which your muscles can move a given weight. The faster you can move a given weight, the more power you have. Power is important for overall muscle strength because it helps you accelerate a weight, so increasing power will successfully increase your strength.

Research shows that the best way to train with high reps is to pick a weight that is about 50% of your one-rep max or a weight that you can lift for 25-30 reps. The trick is to do only three to five reps with that weight for each set. This may seem too easy to do any good, but it’s necessary to prevent fatigue.

Doing too many reps when training with fast reps will only compromise your speed and can lead to injury if your form breaks. Perform each rep with explosive power, completing the positive portion as fast as possible. Return the weight to the start position in a slow and controlled manner.

Fast-rep training usually calls for multijoint exercises, such as bench presses, squats, shoulder presses, rows and dips. Do only three sets per exercise and only two to three exercises per bodypart. Train each muscle group twice per week, as in the “Fast Gains” chart we’ve provided in this article.

Slow down

Just as fast-rep training has its advantages, training with slow reps can also offer benefits.

• Slow-rep training reduces momentum and forces the muscle to do more of the actual work. This can improve your overall strength and muscular size.
• Both slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers are recruited, imparting gains on both. At the start of a slow-rep set, slow-twitch muscle fibers are predominantly used. As fatigue sets in, more fast-twitch fibers are called in for support. When you reach failure, you have successfully hit all the muscle fibers you can in that exercise.
• Depending on how slow your reps go and how many reps you do, some sets can last up to three minutes, extending the time the muscle is under tension. This will fatigue the muscle far beyond anything you are used to. Muscle fatigue is important for stimulating size adaptations, increasing growth hormone and IGF-I (growth factor) levels. In addition, research has found that training with slow reps can increase strength gains better than normal rep training.

To train with slow reps, choose a weight that is 50-70% of the weight you could normally lift for each exercise for five reps. Five reps may seem easy with this weight, but trust us, you’ll be lucky to finish five before your muscles fail.

Start the positive portion of the rep slowly and methodically. It should take approximately 10 seconds to complete just the positive. Hold the weight in the contracted position for about two seconds. Lowering the weight will be even more painful, as you’ll take 10 seconds to return to the start position. You should reach muscle failure by five reps. If you can do six or more reps, increase the weight for the next set. If you can’t complete at least four reps, lessen the weight.

When training with slow reps, choose more isolation exercises than multijoint, and do only one or two sets per exercise and only two or three exercises per muscle group. Due to the high intensity of this training program, work each muscle group only once per week as shown in the “Go Slow to Grow” chart.

Life in the fast/slow/fast lane

To take advantage of all the benefits of rep-speed manipulation, follow the “Speed-Up/Slow-Down Cycle.” It begins with normal rep speeds (three to five seconds per rep) for two weeks, then speeds things up for two weeks with fast-rep (one to three seconds per rep) training. Then it’s back to normal rep speeds for another two weeks before hitting the brakes with two weeks of slow-rep training (about 20-25 seconds per rep). After that, return to normal-speed reps for two weeks.

You can continue in this cycle endlessly if you’re so inclined. We suggest you try it for at least eight weeks, to see how far and fast it takes you.

NOTES:

Use your current workouts and training split during the normal-speed weeks. Refer to the “fast” and “slow” charts for exercises and training splits to use during these weeks.
It may be low-rep, but it’s high intensity, as you’ll find after a two-week “Fast Gains” cycle.

A guy at my gym told me not to waste time training forearms, because you either have them or you don’t. Mine are stubborn, so should I even bother training them?

A:

You think your forearms are stubborn? You should meet the mule we keep at Haney’s Harvest House!

In all seriousness, absolutely train your forearms. They are part of your whole body and, as a bodybuilder, it’s your duty to train them, just like any other bodypart. It is true that the forearm muscles can be quite stubborn for some people, but that is no reason to avoid training them. Think of it as a challenge to make them grow.

Forearm training is a simple matter for me. I knew from the start that they didn’t require many different exercises, because they receive a lot of stimulation from other upper-body workouts. So I would simply do one exercise to hit the flexor muscles of the forearm and one to hit the extensors.

For the flexor portion, which is the side in line with your palms, I recommend barbell wrist curls. I prefer doing higher reps for forearms than for other bodyparts since they’re designed to take so much stress throughout the typical day. With the lickin’ they get from doing daily chores and activities, you have to give them some extra work if you want them to respond.

Load a barbell with a weight that will allow you to get 15 to 20 reps, and place it on the floor at the end of a bench. Now grasp the barbell with an underhand grip, keeping your thumbs below the bar. Sit on the end of the bench and rest your elbows on your knees. Then curl the barbell up and let it slowly drop back down until your hands are hanging. Make sure not to swing or jerk the weight, as this is a sure-fire way to pull something. Do three or four sets of these, remembering to concentrate on your form, not the weight. Sometimes, I would put only a 25-pound plate on each side of an Olympic bar for these. If my forearms burned afterward, that was all that mattered.

Next, I suggest doing reverse wrist curls. This is basically the opposite movement of the one you just performed. Take an overhand grip this time, making sure to keep your thumbs under the bar for support. You will definitely have to go lighter for this exercise as you put yourself at a mechanical disadvantage in comparison with standard wrist curls. Again, aim for 15 to 20 reps, three or four sets.

Train your forearms twice a week, but not on arm day. You want to have the strength to really focus on your forearms, but if they’ve just spent the last half hour working on preacher curls, dumbbell curls and pushdowns, they’re going to be sapped already. Ideally, you should train them with legs. That way, they’ll be fresh by the time you get to them.

Whatever days you decide to train them, please don’t give up on your forearms. They may be stubborn as a mule, but that doesn’t mean they won’t budge. Trust me on this one.

The ectomorph is the lucky body type that doesn’t carry much body fat, but are unlucky in that their body burns a lot of calories per day normally. In order to increase body weight, this type of person would need to increase calorie levels in stages until a pound in body weight is being added per week. The ectomorph’s diet is crucial to increasing muscle tissue from their training. They should use a calorie level of 20-25 times their bodyweight in pounds as a starting position for calorie level. Example; a 140 lb lifter would use a starting calorie level of between 2800-3500 calories per day.

Meals should be split into 6-8 meals (including weight gainer drinks) per day, split into meals every 2.5 – 3 hours throughout the day. Protein intake should be 25%-30% of total calories; carbohydrates should be approx 50% of total calories; and fats at approx. 20%-25% of total calories. A meal or meal replacement shake should be taken before bed. Simple sugars should be limited or avoided totally.

Eat lower glycemic index foods such as brown rice, whole grain pasta, whole grain breads, yams, oats, sweet potatoes, whole grain foods. Supplement the diet with a good branded multivitamin and mineral. Essential fats should come from the following foods. Olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, nuts and seeds, vegetable oils (safflower, corn, sunflower, cottonseed oil), fatty cold water fish (salmon, mackerel and herring), flaxseeds, flax oil and walnuts.

Recommend Supplements For This Workout:

1. Whey Protein (pre/post workout)
2. Creatine (daily/post workout)
3. Multi-Vitamin (every morning)

Important Training Notes

• Aerobic activity should be kept to a minimum.
• Warm up with a cardio session for 5-10 minutes.
• Stretch the worked muscles at the end of the workout.
• Cool down when finished training with 5-10 minutes of cardio.
• Use a repetition timing of 2-1-2 seconds.
• Keep rest time between sets at 2 minutes.
• Keep rest time between exercises at 3 minutes.
• Keep workout time as short as possible.
• Get at least 8 hours sleep per night.
• Perform abdominal exercises on Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Friday.

Wednesday – Rest Day

Sunday & Saturday – Rest Days

The only bodybuilder worthy of his profession is a power bodybuilder. He couldn’t care less about what he sees in a mirror. Rather, he feels the call to get into the gym every day for no other reason than to slam the heaviest weights he’s ever tried. You can spot these guys a mile away. They’re as big as bridge pilings and just as hard. Worse, you can spot the guys who don’t power bodybuild. They don’t have hard muscle; it’s beach muscle. That’s fine for the average Joe, but for me?

No way. I’m not in this game to look at myself, but to lift–and the only way to lift is from the soul. That’s power bodybuilding. It’s doing whatever you can to magnify the resistance against your muscles, and I accomplish that with extreme overload and concussion reps. I pound away like a piston, as hard as I can, at the heaviest weight I can find, until one of us gives.

Explode

Concussion reps cannot be cautious reps, where I’m only concerned with the precise firing of each precious muscle fiber. Just the opposite. I want every last one of those precious muscle fibers ripped to shreds and smashed lifeless into charred, smoking, carboniferous debris. I lift very heavy weight, and the only way to rep it is to get a run for it and ram myself into the weight like a pile driver. I’m a fired cannonball, the weight is a concrete wall, and I’m going to hit it with such violence that it’ll disintegrate from the concussion.

Reps per minute (RPM)

I don’t care about the pace of my concussion reps, only their power. None of that “two seconds up, one second down” stuff for me. I go by feel. I don’t work at a rabbit’s pace, nor do I use those stupid slow reps. I make the weight dictate my rpm.

Think weight, not reps

I don’t concern myself with counting reps. Thinking in terms of “how many” can be seductive, because once you hit a certain number, you’re tempted to stop. Never stop! Repetitions are almost always psychologically, not physically, limited. If you find you can do three sets of an exercise for a given number of reps with good control and without struggling for the last life-or-death repetition, then you haven’t done a complete set. If, instead, you use all-out explosive full-power concussion reps, you’ll find that you can usually get one more than expected. At the very least, you’ll go further than if you hadn’t tried. I believe that every time you go into the gym, you can increase something in your workout by 10%, and it’s your duty to find that variable.

A concussion rep is approached with a different state of mind than that of other bodybuilding movements: it’s a record-busting detonation of strength. No matter what the weight, whether it’s one pound or 1,000 pounds, my goal is to break my personal record. Every time I go into the gym, the record for at least one exercise is going to fall. For that to happen, my goal must be fixed on the number of pounds I’m lifting, not on the number of reps. If I have a training partner, I let him take care of the rep counting.

Tight from the start

Freed from keeping track of the numbers, all of my concentration can be focused on keeping my entire body tight. That’s my practice, and it’s what I preach: flex everything, starting with your core. You don’t have to look like you’re doing a most-muscular pose, but practice tensing your entire body. It should feel pretty much the same for your warm-up as it does for your maximum set.

This sensation, though, necessitates the use of heavy weight and concussion reps. Lighter weights and slow reps allow you to be sloppy on your initial sets. Whereas, if you’re forced to tighten from the start, you not only have more control earlier, but you can take bigger pyramid steps, thereby reaching your heavy productive poundage earlier. Heavy weight forces you to use good form, light weight doesn’t. Get a little lackadaisical, and you pay for it.

Heavy first

I’ve always held to the philosophy that a person’s physique is a billboard of his training. Therefore, my workouts start with the biggest, most powerful exercises and low reps–that’s the only way to maximize comprehensive overall mass gains. Simultaneously involve as many muscles as possible. Then, once they’re fatigued as a system, you can individually fatigue them further with the remaining exercises in your workout.

Unfortunately, the current practice seems to be for bodybuilders to do their power movements last in their workouts. They rationalize that they are reducing the chance of cheating. I claim it’s so they don’t have to use so much weight.

There’s no way around it: if you want the greatest growth rate possible, you have to ram those explosive concussion reps against mighty weight, with powerful passion. Power bodybuilding is extreme bodybuilding.

If you’ve been making less than stellar increases with your heavy weights lately, consider revamping your power training to include unilateral movements. “Unilateral training for your lower body is an excellent way to break through plateaus,” according to Tom Seabourne, PhD, author of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Great Buns and Thighs (Alpha, 2006). He recommends rebuilding your workout program around unilateral movements for 4-6 weeks to focus on strengthening your lower body one leg at a time.

“Performing one-legged squats or deadlifts will help you target your weak spots so you’ll be stronger when you return to standard moves,” explains Seabourne. Begin with very light weight and concentrate on correct form, he advises. “You’ll be amazed at how weak you feel on one leg.”

Seabourne offers the following tips for performing one-legged squats:

• Use light dumbbells when you begin. “You can also stand near a wall or hold onto the post of a squat rack to help stabilize yourself if you can’t maintain your balance,” he instructs.
• Hold your “resting” leg behind you. “Set the top of your foot on a bench a couple of feet behind you or use a Smith machine rather than dumbbells–with or without the bench technique,” suggests Seabourne.
• Using perfect form, squat down until your upper quad (the working one) is nearly parallel to the floor. Pause, then press through your heel to extend your hip and knee until you return to the starting position. Keep your chest up, abs tight and back flat throughout the exercise.
• Move slowly through the set, which Seabourne says really challenges your stabilizers. He recommends using at least a slow three count on the down-ward movement, pausing for a count at the bottom, then another three count on the way up.
• Work up to 10 reps per side. “At first, it may be easier to alternate from one side to the other,” notes Seabourne. “Eventually, work toward performing 10 reps on one side, then 10 reps on the other. When you can successfully perform 10 repetitions with perfect form with each leg, increase the weight.”

Seabourne says you may feel muscle fatigue throughout your entire leg, including the calves, that you normally wouldn’t experience due to certain compensation. “Through this type of unilateral training, you’ll activate all the tiny balancing muscles of your lower leg, and this helps improve your total leg strength. When you return to your regular power-training routine stronger and more balanced than ever, don’t be surprised to find that you’re readily able to break through your previous plateaus.”

Try following this workout two days a week for 4-6 weeks.

When it comes to the perfect training program, there are three key variables for gaining strength and muscle mass: the number of sets per bodypart, the number of reps completed per set and the frequency with which each bodypart is trained.

Yet, if you were to ask the bodybuilding industry’s biggest pros for their numbers of sets, reps and training frequency, you’d be surprised at how much their answers would differ. This means that different training schemes work better for some individuals than for others, which is often a frustrating realization for aspiring bodybuilders seeking the best way to train.

This topic is debated in local gyms, college strength rooms and exercise physiology laboratories. There are so many differing opinions that it makes even the smartest exercise scientist’s head spin. (FullyFlexed staffers often ask yours truly this question just to observe this phenomenon.) Searching through scientific journals only turns up conclusions that vary from one study to another. Most scientific studies have two major flaws. One problem is that they often involve only a small group of subjects (usually 10-20) who are supposed to represent the bodybuilding majority. The other problem is that many weightlifting studies use beginners as subjects. Even the least-educated bodybuilder knows that beginners respond to training much differently than experienced bodybuilders.

Fortunately, scientists from Arizona State University in Mesa, Arizona, have published a study that could give us some solid answers. They gathered data from 140 well-designed weightlifting studies and compared the optimum number of reps and sets and the best training frequency for inducing strength gains in both novice and trained (defined as having lifted weights consistently for more than one year) weightlifters. Then, the data was analyzed using a statistics method that calculated the optimal rep, set and frequency scheme for beginner and advanced weightlifters (see “Strong Results” sidebar).

Intensity rules
Intensity refers to the number of reps and the amount of weight employed.

• Beginners The study concluded that beginners should start with a program of higher reps and lighter weight. Those who have been lifting for less than a year should use weights that allow 12-15 reps to be completed per set. Beginners make considerable strength gains by adaptations that occur within the nervous system. Lifting weights teaches the nervous system how to fire signals to the muscles faster and more efficiently so that the right muscle fibers are optimally recruited during a lift. Using more repetitions allows the nervous system to get more practice, as it must work to control each and every rep.
• Advanced For advanced trainers, heavier weight and lower reps produced the greatest strength gains. If you’ve been training for more than a year and are interested in making strength gains, use weights that allow you to complete about six to eight reps per set. According to the concept of progressive overload, as muscles adapt to repeated training, you must challenge them with heavier weight. Therefore, advanced trainers need to use poundages that are relatively heavier than those a beginner would use.

Pump up the volume
Volume refers to the total number of sets performed for one bodypart during a workout. If you do three sets of three exercises for chest, the total volume is nine sets.

• Beginners The Arizona team discovered that beginners should complete only three or four sets per bodypart for good strength results. In the study, optimal results for beginners interested in gaining strength were achieved with three sets of one exercise per bodypart.

When performing only one exercise per bodypart, FullyFlexed recommends that it be a basic exercise, such as bench presses or incline bench presses for chest, barbell or dumbbell overhead presses for shoulders, barbell rows or pulldowns for back, squats or leg presses for legs, close-grip bench presses or skull-crushers for triceps and standing barbell or dumbbell curls for biceps. Considering its lower volume of exercises, this workout can be done as one full-body workout or split into two separate workouts that train the entire body (quads, hams, chest and triceps one day, for example, and back, shoulders, biceps and calves the next).

• Advanced The volume of sets for advanced trainers is increased slightly but still remains on the lower side. Researchers found that advanced trainers who are concentrating on strength gains should perform only about four to six sets per bodypart. For most people, that means three sets of two exercises. The best option is to pick one basic exercise for each muscle (as previously described for beginners) and one assistance exercise (one that trains the muscle group in a similar manner to the basic exercise or that trains the muscle group using a single-joint exercise).

For chest, do flat bench presses and incline dumbbell presses or dumbbell flyes. For shoulders, do barbell or dumbbell overhead presses followed by upright rows or lateral raises. For back, do bent barbell rows or pulldowns followed by one-arm dumbbell rows or seated cable rows. A good leg workout would entail squats or leg presses followed by lunges or leg extensions. For triceps training, perform close-grip bench presses or skull-crushers followed by triceps pressdowns. And for biceps, follow standing barbell or dumbbell curls with preacher curls or incline dumbbell curls.

The best type of workout split is a two- or three-day training split. Again, progressive overload is behind the increase in the number of sets per bodypart for advanced trainers. As muscles adapt, increase the amount of stress they receive. One way to do this is to increase the number of sets performed. Of course, the increase only enhances strength to a degree. Scientists found that when more than six sets per bodypart were performed, strength gains were not as significant as for those who trained with four to six sets per bodypart.

What’s the frequency?
Frequency refers to the number of times a bodypart should be trained each week.

• Beginners As far as weekly training frequency goes, beginners should train each muscle group three times per week. (A beginner may choose to split his bodypart training over two workouts, resulting in a six-day-a-week program that works each muscle group three times weekly.) Weightlifting trains a beginner’s nervous system, and by training more frequently, the nervous system can adapt at a faster pace. To make sense of this concept, consider when children learn to ride a bike. The more often they practice, the faster they learn.
• Advanced On the other hand, advanced trainers should not train a bodypart more than twice per week to optimize strength gains. Unlike beginners, advanced trainers’ nervous systems have pretty much adapted by this point. Their strength gains come mainly from adaptations in the muscle fibers themselves. Because training with heavy weights and more total sets causes more muscle damage than beginners would experience if they used lighter weights and fewer sets (as suggested by this study), advanced lifters require more recovery time between workouts. This allows the muscles to regenerate muscle protein and grow larger and stronger.

Bottom line
Besides the results, there are other important points to take from this study. First, the study’s conclusions are based on maximizing strength gains. What about maximizing muscle growth? Some would argue that these conclusions could also be applied to muscle growth. Although strength increases are not directly associated with more muscle mass, we know that being stronger will lead to more muscle mass.

Second, don’t forget about variety. Regardless of what the study found to be optimal, no single rep range, total number of sets or training frequency will give you optimal results forever. You need to mix it up and change these variables from time to time.

Third and last, you are an individual and should train like one. Even though the study’s results represent what works best for most lifters, it doesn’t mean they will work best for you. Try the suggestions for six to eight weeks. After that, change the variables, whether they worked for you or not. If they did, use them frequently in your training program. If they didn’t, try a different technique.

Just as the Manning name--Archie, Peyton, Eli--is synonymous with great quarterbacking, the Taylor name--Vince, Ernie, Quincy--is synonymous with enormous arms. It’s even more remarkable that three prominent pro bodybuilders would share the same surname, because, unlike the Mannings, the Taylors are unrelated and, muscles aside, have little in common.

Quincy Taylor is the greatest enigma of the three: pensive yet loquacious, a 6’4″ 300-something-pound former probation officer with a lacerating stare, and yet among the most down-to-earth and affable of all bodybuilders. His views are refreshingly unvarnished. Fasten your seatbelt and your weight belt, for the opinionated 36-year-old known as Q.T. is about to tell you how he built biceps and triceps worthy of the label Taylor-made.

Quincy Taylor Motivational Video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=INUDwpwgQMg

How important are heavy weights for arm growth?
Quincy Taylor: Heavy is all relative. Ronnie [Coleman] goes heavy, but he’s still getting 10 reps. I’m the same way. I’m using a weight for 10-12 reps. I believe in training as heavy as you can, but within reason. You can’t do what you can’t do. Don’t get hung up on always trying to get stronger. Some peoples’ structures just aren’t built for big strength. Find out what works best for you and run with it.

What are the best exercises for arm size?
Skull crushers [lying triceps extensions] are the meat and potatoes for triceps development. They make your tris grow better than anything does. For biceps, it’s barbell curls. I’ve been doing them for years. If they’re good enough for Arnold [Schwarzenegger], they should be good enough for me. That’s one of the old-school movements. Most pros don’t do ‘em, but that’s because most pros are lazy. It’s like squats. If you want big legs, you gotta squat. If you want big arms, you do barbell curls and skull crushers.

You use a cambered bar for lying triceps extensions but a straight bar for barbell curls. Does a straight bar hurt your wrists or elbow joints?

I get a little pain in my elbows, but that’s the nature of the beast. If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. This is bodybuilding. If you haven’t got pain anywhere, you’re not training hard enough. If you don’t like pain, you might as well quit. Pain keeps you going. It’s an important part of life. When I feel pain, I know I’m alive, and I know everything’s working.

I’m with you when it comes to aching muscles, but you lose me when it comes to joint pain.

Pain’s just part of the game. I’m not saying you want injuries, but if you spend your time trying to avoid pain, you’re not going to get very far in bodybuilding. You’re not going to get very far in life.

Where’s your focus when you’re doing dumbbell curls?
I do them alternating, either standing or seated. I twist my wrists out [supinate] on each rep. And I turn my head to face whichever arm is working. I do these strict, and I just squeeze those suckers. I’m trying to get the maximum contraction on each rep.

Why do you sometimes use an underhand grip and sometimes an overhand grip for pushdowns?
I don’t get much of a pump after a while, so I reverse it just to hit the tris from a different angle. I already did the heavy stuff, so by the time I get to pushdowns, I’m trying to just push as much blood into the muscle as I can. Any variety I can do is going to increase the pump.

Explain what you get out of machines for curls and dips.

With the angle of Hammer Strength curls, you can really rep it out and isolate the biceps a whole lot more. You get that tension in the bis without dropping all the way down [to full stretch]. I love Hammer Strength. I love it for hamstrings with the seated leg-curl machine. I love it for leg extensions. And I love it for biceps.

A triceps dip machine is just a way of hitting the triceps from a different angle, so if I do skull crushers, pushdowns and dips, I’m attacking my tris in three different ways, instead of doing three types of extensions or something. I like to do things that are as different as possible from the other things I do. I started working with Albert Beckles last year, and he really taught me how to work the angles with each exercise to stimulate fibers I might be missing otherwise.

Albert Beckles is a legend (second place in the 1985 Mr. Olympia and winner of eight pro bodybuilding contests between 1981 and 1991). How does he get you to work different areas of muscles?

What it’s all about is finding the best grips, stances and ways of positioning yourself to make each exercise unique. If you’re hitting the same fibers in the same way with the second exercise as you were with the first, you might as well have kept going with the first exercise.

Rope curls are certainly a way of hitting your bis from a different angle.

Those give me a good final pump. By then, my arms are pretty well spent, and using a rope keeps my wrists close together and hits my

outer biceps. A rope allows you to twist your wrists. I keep my palms facing each other at the beginning of each rep, and then at the end, I twist my wrists out so they face up. I’m just trying to hit my biceps from as many different angles as possible, so if I do barbell curls, dumbbell curls, preacher curls [free weight or on a machine] and then rope curls, I’ve done four really different exercises.

How often do you change your routine?
I mix it up every now and then. Sometimes I’ll leave things out and add something else. There are six or seven different exercises for each bodypart. I tend to do three or four, so sometimes I’ll leave three out and the next time maybe I’ll do those three. I’ve been doing this since I was 12, so I go by feeling.

Some days, if I don’t feel like doing straight-bar curls, I’ll just come in and go to the dumbbell rack. I’ll start with 50s to warm up. Then I’ll do 80s and do two sets there, move down to 70s, do two sets there, move to 60s, do two sets there, do 50s and do two sets there. I do like 12 sets total, going down every two sets, just to get a burn. Then I go home.

Sometimes, I’ll come in and all I’ll do is cable work for triceps. Some days, I’ll come in and do sets of 20 [reps] of skull crushers until I can’t do any more. Then I’ll go home. Your body gets used to the same thing all the time, so you’ve got to mix it up.

Why do you do mostly supersets in your arm routine?
That brings the maximum pump. I sometimes change the way I do it, but I usually feel that bis and tris should be worked together. With supersets, one side of your arm rests while the other side works, so you can just go back and forth and blow up your arms in the least amount of time.

What would you recommend to an average trainer who wants to grow bigger arms?
Go strict. Don’t bounce the bar around. That only cheats your muscles. Use maximum weights for at least 10 reps. It’s not a heavy weight that builds muscle, it’s using a heavy weight that builds muscle, it’s using a heavy weight with strict form for reps. Then use a variety of exercises. Do the heavy basics, but don’t make that all you do. Try out all the exercises and find out what works for you. Switch when that gets old. Listen to what the champs say, but don’t think just because they have big muscles, they’ve got it all figured out. Some do, but some I wouldn’t trust telling me how to tie my shoes. Get all the advice you can, but figure out what works for you, not what works for somebody else.