JUNE 2016 MUSCLE & FITNESS 57K IS FOR KNOWLEDGE
“If I had to name just one
component for workout success,
it would be knowledge. Never
think you know everything. As
soon as you get complacent, your
muscles also get complacent, and
that means they have no reason
to grow. I am constantly trying to
learn more from expert trainers,
from other bodybuilders, from
books, and from my own body.
Everything I learn contributes to
my growth – whether I discover
something that works or I try
something that doesn’t work.”L IS FOR LOOSE FORM
“All champion bodybuilders use
some form of cheating in their
workouts, some more than
others. The cheating principle
works best in conjunction with
strict training. Start a set in strict
style and continue until you can’t
complete another strict rep. Then
continue past the sticking point,
using body momentum for two
or three cheating reps. Cheating
doesn’t work for every exercise.
Don’t cheat squats, for example.
But it’s great for things like curls
and side laterals.”F IS FOR FLEXING
“You can never practise posing too
much, and, whether you compete
or not, hitting poses is excellent
exercise. Flexing your muscles
helps flush the area with blood
and builds a greater mind-to-muscle
connection. When you pose a
muscle, you’re contracting it, and
this constitutes a kind of isometric
training. I know of bodybuilders
who hardly do any training in the
gym a week or so before a contest.
All they do is pose and they end
up fantastically cut. This is one
of Joe Weider’s tricks.”
G IS FOR GYMS
“Almost every bodybuilding star in
the world started training at home,
myself included. I made tremendous
progress the first year. After that,
I hit a sticking point due to a lack of
equipment. Also I was missing the
inspiration that comes from training
with people who were better than
me. So I joined a professional gym,
and my gains practically doubled
overnight. You can develop a
magnificent body by training at
home, but to make it to the top, you
must train with the best equipment
and where the greatest training
knowledge is available.”
H IS FOR HYPNOSIS
“When people see me doing
concentration curls with my eyes
closed, they think I’m focused on
doing the exercise. Actually, I’m
really thinking about a mountain
of muscle – a giant, unreal biceps,
more than 30 inches around. It’s
a kind of self-hypnosis, a way of
making the muscle function beyond
its own rational ‘thinking’ .”
I IS FOR INSTINCT
“You must go through the preliminary
stages to learn how your body
reacts to training, nutrition and
recuperation. As you’re training,
you’re developing your sensitivity
so you can ‘hear’ what your body is
telling you. This takes about a year.
But once you’ve gone through all the
trial and error and learned to listen
to your body, you’re ready to perfect
a method of exercising and nutrition
that works for you. At this point,
use your instincts to make subtle,
responsive changes day to day and
set to set to maximise your gains.”
IS FOR JUXTAPOSITION
“Supersetting has long been part of my
workouts. I’ll superset a chest exercise with
a back exercise or a biceps exercise with a
triceps exercise or a quadriceps exercise
with a hamstrings exercise. That way I’m
working both sides of an area, stretching and
contracting in opposite exercises, and one
pumps up the other to keep the blood in the
area. Juxtapositioning exercises has always
J been a key to my muscle growth.”