The
Mass with Class Workout |
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by
Lee Labrada
The saying that “bigger is better” is
one that is deeply ingrained in the psyche of many
of today’s bodybuilders. In today’s competitive
arena, muscle size is king. Most bodybuilders refer
to muscle size simply as “mass.” And “mass”
has become the currency of bodybuilding. The more
mass a bodybuilder has, the more attention he gets
from his peers and admirers.
Now,
not all of us are interested in stepping onto the
stage of the Mr.Olympia competition, but almost all
of us could use a little more mass to improve the
look of our physiques. Mass can give your physique
the powerful look that turns heads and creates a buzz
wherever you might go.
Building
mass is not that complicated, but requires discipline
and effort. If you aren’t willing to put out
both, then my mass workout is not for you. If on the
other hand, you are ready to slap on another 10 pounds
of hard, vascular muscle, you’re reading the
right article!
Traditionally,
bodybuilders use their “off season,” or
the period of the year during which they are not actively
competing, as the time to add new muscle mass to their
physiques. That’s because training for mass
requires, amongst other things, consuming extra calories
in the diet, which in most cases temporarily results
in a bulkier, less “cut” look.
Fall
and winter are a great time of year for non-competitive
bodybuilders to focus on adding new muscle size. That
way, there is still plenty of time to sharpen up the
physique in the spring, in time for the summer bathing
suit season.
Building
mass is a function of three elements:
1)
Training intensely enough to stimulate muscle growth
2) Eating correctly to support new
muscle growth
3) Resting sufficiently to allow
complete recovery from workouts and fuel muscle growth
Although
we will touch briefly on eating for mass and resting/recovery,
we will be focusing on training. Any training that
you do to gain mass must meet two requirements:
1)
Your training must be of a sufficiently high enough
intensity to tax the target muscles thoroughly, but;
2) Your training must not over-train
your target muscles
Training
for mass is a little like walking a tight rope. On
one side, you can fail if your workouts don’t
sufficiently tax your muscles. You must train hard
enough and long enough to create the stimulus for
new muscle growth.
On
the other side, you can fail if you do too much in
the gym. This results in over-training, the bane of
the bodybuilder. Over training means that you have
over loaded the muscle to a degree that is counter
productive, yielding no results, or worse, muscle
loss. How do you know when you’re over-trained?
Typically, when you are over trained, your muscles
will be chronically sore, you’ll feel weaker
in the gym, and generally run-down. No fun! Backing
off from training, eating more nutritious food, and
rest will usually mitigate over-training. The best
thing is to not get over trained in the first place.
It
has been my experience in over twenty-five years of
bodybuilding that most trainees do too much in their
quest for muscle mass, and end up over trained. It
has also been my experience that you are much better
off erring slightly on the side of doing too little
when it comes to your workouts.
That
doesn’t mean that you should get lazy and wimp
out of doing heavy, intense workouts. It just means
that you should develop a sense for how much training
is “enough.” How much training is enough
training then? Let’s talk about the growth threshold.
Your
growth threshold is the point at which the level of
fatigue in your muscles reaches a point that is high
enough to elicit a growth response. Your goal during
any workout should be to fatigue your muscles more
and more with each succeeding set. In other words,
you want the muscles to progressively get more and
more tired out, until you reach a point where the
muscles are functionally “worn out.”
Careful;
it is also at this point that your muscles are most
vulnerable to over training! The level of fatigue
in your muscles will be so high at this time that
anymore exercise is counter productive.
 It
is for this reason that you should focus on training
intensity and not training volume during your workouts.
With a focus on training intensity, your goal is to
fatigue your muscles as fast as possible with as much
weight as possible for the prescribed number of repetitions.
We will discuss repetition range later in this article.
All
too often, beginners get hung up on training volume,
which boils down to the total number of sets and reps
performed per body part (or similarly, the total amount
of time spent in the gym.) This misconception is due
in part to the “more is better” mentality
prevalent amongst beginning trainees. The logic goes
that if three sets of an exercise is productive, then
six sets will be twice as good. Don’t fall for
this common fallacy.
So
if the focus should be on training intensity, what
can you do to increase it?
To
increase workout intensity, you can:
1)
increase the amount of weight that you use on exercises,
2) increase the number of repetitions
performed on each set, or
3) decrease the rest time between
sets
These
are just a few ways to increase your workout intensity,
defined here as the total amount of work that you
do in a given amount of time. We’ve examined
the concepts of growth threshold and training intensity.
But how do these two concepts tie together and how
can they be used to help you develop more muscle mass?
Here’s
how. The point is simply that by training more intensely,
you can reach the growth threshold of your muscles
more quickly. And that’s what you want to do
in order to avoid over-training. If you do a lot of
sets with light weights, it takes longer to reach
the growth threshold, if you ever do. If you rest
a long time in between sets of exercises, muscles
have too much time to recover their strength, and
again, it takes longer to reach the growth threshold,
if you ever do. By training intensely with heavy weights
and keeping rest to a minimum, you will quickly reach
the growth threshold and the stimulus for muscle growth
will be sent to your brain. And remember, once you
have reached the growth threshold during a workout,
you should stop your workout for that muscle. Any
more work is counter-productive.
Let’s
put this advice to practical use. When embarking on
a mass building program, we don’t want to train
like power lifters do, with super heavy weights (90-100%
of max) and low reps (1-5 reps/set). Powerlifting
stimulates the muscles in a manner that primarily
builds strength, with size as a secondary consideration.
We
don’t want to train like pre-contest bodybuilders
do when they are trying to drop body fat and become
more muscular, either, with lighter weights (60-70%
max) and higher reps (11-15 reps/set). Pre-contest
training is great when you are trying to lean up for
a contest or for the beach season, but it stimulates
muscles in a manner that primarily builds muscularity
and definition, with size as a secondary consideration.
To
gain mass then, you should select training poundages
that are 75-85% of max with repetitions in the range
of 6-10 reps per set.
My
mass workout consists of three heavy sets of 2-3 basic
exercises per body part. That’s just six to
nine sets per body part, excluding a warm up set.
That may not seem like much, but it’s enough
to trigger super growth when done correctly and supported
by good nutrition and rest.
Basic
exercises are exercises that stimulate two or more
large muscle groups and involve two or more joints.
For instance, squats stimulate not only the quadriceps,
but also the gluteus and other supporting leg muscles.
Squats involve not only the joints of the knees, but
those of the hips as well.
Basic
exercises deliver results in terms of mass because
they tax the big muscles of the body. Basic exercises
recruit a larger number of muscle fibers than isolation
exercises do. And the more muscle fibers that you
recruit during an exercise, the better. My basic mass
building exercises include, but are not limited to:
Legs:
Squats, Leg Presses, Calf raises
Back: Chins, Bent over rows, deadlifts,
shrugs
Biceps: Barbell curls, hammer curls,
alternate curls
Chest: Bench press, incline bench
press, dumbbell presses and flyes
Shoulders: Military presses, dumbbell
presses, side dumbbell laterals
Triceps: Close grip bench presses,
dips, barbell triceps extensions
At
the beginning of each of these exercises, you should
perform 1-2 warm up sets to increase blood flow to
the target muscle. This will result in a muscle that
is more elastic and less susceptible to injury from
the heavier training poundages that will follow. Once
the muscle is warmed up, light stretching is useful
to further prepare the muscle for training.
Once
you are warmed up, select a training poundage that
you can comfortably perform 8-10 repetitions with.
Perform your first set. Rest long enough to catch
your breath, or to allow your training partner to
perform his/her set, whichever comes first. This rest
period will last about a minute on the average, but
may be as long as two minutes with larger body parts
such as legs. Gauge your training tempo by your breath.
Increase
the training poundage by adding weight, so that on
your second set you can perform no more than 8 reps.
In a perfect world, you should “fail”
on the eighth rep. But things being what they are,
if you get to the eighth rep and feel that you can
perform another, proceed to do so. The important thing
is that you take the muscle to the point of failure.
Remember the growth threshold? You want to get there
fast. Your muscles should feel more and more fatigued
with each succeeding set.
On
the third and last set of an exercise, increase the
training poundage yet again, to ensure that you can
do no more than 6 repetitions. Have your training
partner assist you if necessary to help you get the
last rep. Don’t over do these “forced
repetitions” however. One or two on the last
set of an exercise is usually enough. Too many forced
reps can lead to over training.
Now,
go on to the second exercise and repeat the pattern
that we followed here. If necessary, you can go to
a third exercise, but I only recommend that for larger
body parts such as back and legs. I have gotten my
best results from limiting total sets for small body
parts like arms to 6 total sets. It doesn’t
sound like much, but when you are training fast and
heavy, it’s the just the right amount.
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Nutrition
Tips
1.
Calories.
The essence of any weight gain program is this:
you must consume more food calories than you
are burning, on a daily basis. The reason for
this is that we must create an excess of calories
in order to gain body weight. It
is really a matter of simple arithmetic WEIGHT
GAIN = CALORIES EATEN > CALORIES BURNED
2.
Small frequent meals.
Eating
too much at one meal leaves a "hard gainer"
unable to eat for hours on end, so pigging out
is self-defeating. Small frequent meals ensure
that your body has a constant supply of nutrients
to keep it in an anabolic state.
3.
Protein.
Consume at least one gram of protein per pound
of lean body weight. Proteins include: Scrambled
egg whites or egg substitutes, chicken breast,
turkey breast, lean ground turkey breast, fish,
and fat free cottage cheese.
4.
Complex carbs.
Consume at least 3 grams of complex carbs per
pound of bodyweight. Complex carbs include:
Oatmeal (avoid instant or sweetened oatmeals),
cream of wheat, brown rice, wild rice, baked
potatoes, sweet potatoes (yams), beans, corn,
peas, lentils, lima beans, barley, 100% whole
grain
breads and cereals, grits and corn tortillas.
5.
Essential fats.
Get yours
from unrefined sources such as flax seed oil,
nuts, salmon, etc.
6.
Minimize empty calories.
Stay away from foods containing empty calories
such as products made from refined flour, and
those that are high in sugars and saturated/hydrogenated
fats.
7.
Get some insurance.
Use Lean
Body MRPs and RTD shakes as nutritional
insurance to keep you gaining muscle. Click
here for more information
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Strive
to increase your training poundages periodically.
The
foundation of any good workout program is built upon
constantly striving to lift heavier weights, tiring
your muscles out more, and making them adapt to the
increased workload by growing.
Now
that we have discussed exercises, sets and reps, let’s
look at our training split. During my early years
of training, I engaged in a four day per week routine
that looked like this:
Monday:
Chest/ Shoulders/ Triceps/Abs
Tuesday: Back/ Biceps/ Legs
Wed: OFF
Thursday: Chest/ Shoulders/ Triceps/Abs
Friday: Back/Biceps/Legs
Sat/Sun: OFF
If
you look at this split, you’ll see that I trained
each body part twice per week. This routine is especially
difficult on Back, Biceps and Legs day, as a lot of
effort must be expended to get a good workout when
training back and legs in succession. I must admit
that this workout worked well, however, for the first
few years. I put on over 40 pounds of muscle using
this routine. The extra days off on the weekend really
help.
As
my muscles grew larger, I noticed that they required
more time to fully recover from workouts. Hence, I
adjusted my four-day-per-week split to look like this:
Monday:
Chest/ Shoulders/ Triceps
Tuesday: Back/ Biceps
Wed: OFF
Thursday: Legs /Abs
Friday: Chest/ Shoulders/ Triceps
Saturday: OFF
Sunday: Back/ Biceps
Monday: Legs/Abs
Repeat
cycle.
If
you examine this two-on, one-off split carefully,
you’ll see that I am training each body part
three times every two weeks( instead of four times
every two weeks, as on the four day per week routine.)
This added rest really helps with overall recovery,
which you need lots of to enjoy huge gains in muscle
size. In fact, this routine is so effective, that
I still use it to this day.
On
the days off, you can do 30 minutes of your favorite
cardio work to improve your recovery. One of the benefits
of cardio is that it increases blood flow throughout
the body, which aids in flushing the waste products
of exercise out of your muscles. That means faster
recuperation in between workouts for you.
No
matter how hard you train, in order to put on solid
mass, you must feed your body correctly and get enough
rest so that your body can compensate for your workouts
by growing more muscle. I personally use Lean
Body Meal Replacement Powders and Ready to Drink Shakes
to provide the nutritional insurance I need to keep
making the progress I desire. Whole food is great,
but supplementing with Lean Body gives me that extra
edge that results in solid gains for me. Don’t
underestimate the need for consistent high protein
meals throughout the day. Click here for more information:
www.leanbodyinfo.com And don’t forget to get
at least 8-9 hours of sleep per night when you are
on a mass building program to get the best results.
With
hard work, perseverance and dedication to your training,
nutrition and recovery, you will be well on your way
to unveiling a “New You” soon!
Lee
Labrada is a former IFBB Mr. Universe and winner of
22 major bodybuilding titles. He is one of only four
men in history to place in the top 4 in the Mr. Olympia
bodybuilding competition 7 years in a row. He is the
founder and CEO of Labrada Nutrition®, based in
Houston, TX. Lee started the Lean Body Coaching Club™
in 1999 to share his 25 years of training and nutrition
experience with others interested in a healthy lifestyle.
Have
a question for Lee? Send it to asklee@labrada.com
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