Advanced Shaping
Advanced Shaping | Peak Points * Your workout needs to be more intense: more exercises, more sets, more days in the gym. * Because your workout is more intense, you need to allow more time for recovery—at least two days'' rest between bouts for any given muscle group. * To maintain intensity and also get enough rest, you should split your routine so that you do different parts of your workout on different days. |
We''ll be honest: If you''ve reached the point where you''re ready for advanced body shaping, you probably don''t need us anymore. You''ve been hanging out in the gym, getting tips from other lifters, reading the muscle mags—or, at minimum, you''ve absorbed everything we''ve told you in the Weight Lifting and Body Shaping for Beginners chapters.
On the other hand, if you simply want to move to the next level, it isn''t necessary to become wrapped up in the muscle subculture, with its oiled bodies, bikini briefs, power pills, tanning booths and competitive spirit. Nor do you need to pay attention to the dubious theories, pseudoscientific product promotions and other assorted weight-lifting hucksterisms that claim to provide an edge over some other guy.
At its most fundamental, advanced body shaping is nothing more than stepping up the application of knowledge you already have. To recap: "You need a lot of repetitions, a lot of sets and a lot of different exercises for each muscle," says Barney Groves, Ph.D., associate professor of physical education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and a competitive lifter who has taught weight training for more than 30 years. "An advanced routine is more of the same," he says. "I sometimes do 15 to 20 different sets for one muscle group."
You may already be doing the quantities that Dr. Groves suggests, but to get the most outcome, you''ll have to increase the intensity of your training program as well. Think of advanced body shaping as a layering process: As you move to the next level, you add intensity and complexity, which, at this point, will require some adjustments to your routine.
How to Be a Hit Man Think of your most intense workout ever. You were really struggling on those last repetitions, right? But tell the truth: If your life depended on it, you probably could have done just one more. Or maybe two, or three—but finally you would reach a point where further effort was utterly impossible. That''s the difference between working to pre-fatigue (or tiredness, which is what you normally do) and working to failure. Working to failure is the cornerstone of a controversial technique known as High Intensity Training, or HIT. The idea is that by working to failure during one or two sets (which is all your body can take), you build strength and size as well as—if not better than—you would by doing many sets working to fatigue. Practitioners of the HIT method are so intent on completely exhausting their muscles that they work beyond their capabilities, using spotters to help lift on those last agonizing repetitions. About a third of the NFL''s teams and several college basketball teams use some modification of a HIT program, according to Jeff Chandler, Ed.D., chair of the research committee of the National Strength and Conditioning Association, and director of research at Lexington Clinic Sports Medicine Center in Lexington, Kentucky. Does HIT work? There are many testimonials that indicate that HIT workouts can be effective, but there is currently little research to back them up. "The majority of the research currently available indicates that the volume of work performed—the number of sets times the number of repetitions—is more directly related to increased strength and mass than single sets," explains Dr. Chandler. He allows that a great deal is still not understood about resistance training, but sees two flaws in a strict HIT approach. First, Dr. Chandler says, constant training to failure means you need more recovery time, which dictates fewer workouts. It''s tougher to make progress when you''re working out less, he says. And second, training to failure may increase your risk of overuse injuries—like the repetitive use that causes tennis elbow—and traumatic injury that may occur when fatigue causes technique to break down. But never say never. "When you really get down to what people are doing, some HIT guys are using multiple sets and some multiple-set guys occasionally train to failure. Variety is a plus," Dr. Chandler says. |
Stepping Up the Program
Here''s what you need to do to take your body-shaping routine to the next level.
Train more. You''ll first be adding another layer of exercises to those you''re already doing, following the principle that the more you hit a muscle in different ways, the more muscle fibers will be called into play. In the workout that follows, we''re adding at least one exercise for each major area of the body to the routine established in the Body Shaping for Beginners chapter. Second, you''ll be increasing the number of sets you do of each exercise. Assuming you''re already doing at least two sets, you should now increase to at least three or four sets per exercise. "It really does make for a time commitment," says Jeff Chandler, Ed.D., chair of the research committee of the National Strength and Conditioning Association, and director of research at Lexington Clinic Sports Medicine Center in Lexington, Kentucky. We''ll deal with that in a moment.
Allow more recovery. Because you''re stressing each muscle group with a high degree of intensity, you''ll need to give your muscles more rest between workouts. As a rule, serious bodybuilders avoid training the same muscles more than twice a week. Unless you''re blessed with superior genetics, a training volume greater than that undercuts your gains because your muscles don''t get adequate time to rebuild between bouts of exercise—which is essential for bulking up and shaping your body. When you hit muscles again too soon, you feel drained, which prevents you from working with an all-out effort. With high-intensity training, there should be at least two days'' rest between each bout for a given muscle group.
Split your routine. If you''re both training more and resting more, something needs to give. Let''s say you intend to follow your standard routine, trying to cram all your exercises into a single workout. This will be difficult because it''s time-consuming and, with the kind of effort we''re talking about, downright grueling. Plus, if you build in two days of recovery between workouts, you''re only in the gym about twice a week. Somehow, going from three days of exercise a week to two just doesn''t feel right.
To make all these considerations work together, it''s necessary to expand your workout into what''s called a split routine. With a split routine, instead of doing your entire workout each time you exercise, you break it into sections so that you''re working out four to six days a week, but doing different parts of your routine on different days.
One way to structure a split routine is to do the upper body one day and the lower body the day after. Or, since most exercises you do are in the upper body, you could more evenly distribute the load by doing a three-day cycle.
The program outlined here uses a three-way split, in which you work the back, biceps and forearms on Monday and Thursday, the chest, triceps and shoulders on Tuesday and Friday, and the abdominals and legs on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sunday is the only day off, but each muscle group has at least two days'' recovery before being specifically worked again. There''s nothing magic about one kind of routine over another. What works best will be the routine that most easily fits into your schedule.
Stick to your diet. Before getting to the particulars, a word about nutrition. A lot of bodybuilders maintain that because protein provides the raw material for muscle growth, you need to eat more protein to grow bigger muscles. "Proper diet is important," Dr. Groves concurs, "but getting more protein and less carbohydrate isn''t part of it." The typical American diet already provides two to three times more protein than you need—more than enough surplus to supply whatever extra demands your growing muscles may cause. Ideally, protein should comprise 10 to 15 percent of your diet, with carbohydrates accounting for 60 percent and fat 25 to 30 percent.
The Advanced Workout
Most of the exercises described in this workout are the same as those in the beginner''s workout from the last chapter, although, as we''ve noted, each major muscle group has at least one new exercise. Most of these are drawn from other chapters in this book, but two—the dead lift and the "nose-breaker" extension—are moves we''ve avoided recommending elsewhere because the injury potential is higher for these exercises than for others that work the same muscles. Being an advanced lifter, you should be able to do them safely. Here they are.
Dead Lifts
Earlier we described the Rumanian dead lift, which is a slightly altered version of this more traditional exercise. The difference? This one puts more tension on your back.
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, with a barbell on the floor in front of you (the bar should be over your feet and close to your shins). Keeping your back straight, your head up and your shoulders directly over or a little ahead of the bar, squat down and grasp the bar with your arms extended and positioned just outside your knees. One palm should face out, the other palm in.
Stand up holding the bar, raising it straight up off the floor, using your thighs and back, keeping your arms extended and back straight. Once upright, lower the weight back to the floor again.
Nose-Breaker Extensions
Lying on a bench, lift a barbell from the rack or have a spotter hand it to you. Extend your arms straight above your head, hands close together on the bar, palms out.
Keeping your upper arms straight, with your elbows pointed toward the ceiling, lower the bar until it touches your forehead. (This position puts a lot of stress on the forearms. You may wish to use a lighter weight for this version of the overhead extension. You should also use a spotter to help balance or "save" the bar, or this move may live up to its name.)
The Program This is an advanced workout. Attempt it only if you''re able to perform the exercises with good technique and are already conditioned enough to withstand the repeated stresses involved. Don''t attempt this workout until you''ve mastered the beginner''s workout in the previous chapter. |
| Mondays and Thursdays Back * One-arm dumbbell rows * Seated rows * Lat pull-downs * Dead lifts Biceps * Preacher curls * Inclined alternating dumbbell curls * Inclined alternating dumbbell curls, palm down * Concentration curls Forearms * Wrist rolls | Tuesdays and Fridays Chest * Bench press * Inclined bench press * Dumbbell flies * Dips Triceps * One-arm triceps pull-downs * Overhead triceps extensions * Standing extensions * Nose-breaker extensions Shoulders * Alternating press with dumbbells * Side lateral raises * Upright rows * Military press Wednesdays and Saturdays Abdominals/obliques * Reverse curls * Oblique crunches * Raised-leg crunches Legs * Squats * Leg extensions * Leg curls * Dumbbell lunges * Standing heel raises |
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