Beyond Brawn - The Insider's Encyclopedia on How to Build Muscle && Might

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ence in the muscular development you experience while you build strength.
Instead of training each exercise every seventh day, now it moves to every
fourth or fifth day. is is a sensible experiment, but for it to be a positive
change, there are three essential requirements:

a. Full satisfaction of the components of recovery. is is easily said, but
not so easily achieved. It means, primarily, a high quality diet every
day that provides a caloric and nutritional surplus, spread over five or
preferably six feeds each day, and a full night of sleep every night, which
means sleeping till you wake naturally each morning. It is not just for
this program that you need full satisfaction of the components of recov-
ery. But if you cut any corners on a three-days-per-week exercise program,
the negative impact will probably be greater than on a two-days-per-week
program.
b. If you are not gaining in strength on a two-days-per-week program, a
shift to three workouts a week is unlikely to make a positive difference,
and the explanation for your lack of progress rests elsewhere. e boost in
training frequency is targeted at producing greater size gains along with
sustained strength increases.
c. e routines must be short. You should be done inside an hour—longer
than that and you are doing too much work or you are hanging around
too long between sets.

. While you may not be able to progress steadily over the long term on three
workouts per week, you may be able to for – months periodically, and
revert to two weight-training days per week at other times. But if you con-
sistently gain better in size and strength on three workouts per week than on
two, and you want the extra size, stick with the three workouts.

. Some trainees have greater recovery ability than others, be it from genetics
or the extent of your satisfaction of the components of recovery (or both).
I do not know you, your lifestyle, motivation, and the control you have over
you lifestyle. Lifestyle control, however, is usually more motivation-based
than actual events-based—if you want a better physique badly enough, you
will arrange your life accordingly so that you eat and sleep better.

. e “Twice-a-week divided program... modified” is especially worth a try if
you have been gaining strength well on a two-days-per-week program, but
have not been gaining as much muscle as you would think should be associ-
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