- ...ished physique. If you want muscular balance, symmetry, detail, fullness of
individual muscles, and unusual definition, you will need to make the appro-
priate changes to your routines. At least temporarily your focus will not be
on getting bigger and stronger. “Finishing” is about refining the size you have
already built. Without overdoing matters, because otherwise you will shrink
in size, you may need to use quite a lot of isolation exercises. You will need
to do whatever you can, short of surgery, to bring up lagging aspects of your
musculature, perhaps detrain any parts that are excessively big relatively
speaking, and emphasize certain parts of your physique in order to draw
attention away from weak spots.Increased cardiorespiratory work
. ough content with your size and strength you may not be interested in
physique finishing. Instead you may now want to maintain what you have
developed while giving increased attention to cardiorespiratory work. You
would therefore maintain your strength by using the same sort of training
that built it, but while using constant working poundages, and gradually
and progressively build up the cardiorespiratory component of your exercise
program. But the stress is on doing this gradually and while using safe zero-
or minimal-impact aerobic activities. You would need to keep in mind that
an exaggerated attention to cardiorespiratory training—as noted in section
seventeen of this chapter, Cardiorespiratory Work—will conflict with your
muscular size and strength, and cause a reduction in those respects.. Once you are truly of advanced status you will have an extensive under-
standing of productive training in general, and of how to train yourself. You
need to draw on that wealth of knowledge and experience in order to devise
the most productive training routines relative to the goals you have set for
yourself.