Joe Weider, the man who pretty much invented modern bodybuilding, outlined 29 principles for training. Each and
If you have ever worked out this man has played a role in your life whether you know it or not
every one of them is important and I am going to begin taking a look at them several at a time. Today we look at the first three of the Weider Principles.
Workout Principle 1: Progressive Overload
Simply put, in order to gain strength, muscle mass, stamina or any other fitness metric muscles must be overloaded. By putting muscles under continual and gradually increased stress we make them stronger and we make them grow. Because of this, heavier and heavier weights must be used as the body grows accustomed to the weights which are currently being used (i.e., gets stronger). Further, increases in reps and sets along with coinciding decreases in time between sets is what will create muscle stamina.
No Arnold….like this.
Think about that for a second.
Without progressive overload, we simply cannot grow and become stronger or build muscle stamina. As odd as it sounds, this isn’t what the norm was before Weider came along. Here at WB Fitness we always talk about lifting lightweight. Lightweight is the way to go. Lightweight will always be the way to go. But remember, as you get stronger your definition of light weight will change. As it changes you need to add more and more weight or you will plateau.
Further, the idea of lowering time between sets and adding sets and reps plays a big role in the WB method. You will notice that I do not give time between sets as is standard with a lot of workout programs. People have often asked me why and I always tell them the same thing. The time between sets is the least amount of time possible for you to recover enough to perform the next set.
Workout Principle 2: The Set System Principle
Speaking of sets, guess where that idea came from! Yup, once again Mr. Joe Weider. Prior to Weider bodybuilders believed in only doing one set per workout. A whole body 12 exercise workout would be a 12 set workout.
Weider saw the folly in this. He was the first person to recommend doing multiple sets of the same exercise in order
No Phil, like this…..think about that too
to fully exhaust the muscle. When you are doing sets next time, try to remember WHY you are doing sets. The reason you are doing sets is that once you get to failure the first time, you can recover enough and take it to failure again. Doing this over and over again will fatigue the muscle to absolute failure in a way that just lifting as much as you can in a single set never will.
So when you are doing sets keep in mind their purpose. When you are done with your sets, whether it is 5×20 or 3×12, your muscle should have nothing left….nothing.
Workout Principle 3: The Isolation Principle
The third principle is one of my favorites. There are some muscles that can be trained either compound or isolated. For the sake of this lets talk about the chest. You can do your bench presses, but those are compound moves. This means that not only will those huge dense pecs get worked out, but so will the tiny little stabilizer muscles near them.
Joe Weider saw a problem here. The problem is that big muscles like the pecs will outlast small muscles like the stabilizers around them. However, once the stabilizers hit fatigue you won’t be able to press anymore and this will mean that the pecs do not get the fatigue / overload they require to grow.
Weider’s solution was the isolation principle. You can do lifts that isolate larger muscles like the pecs while leaving the stabilizers alone. If you do a good set of isolation lifts prior to the compound lift you bring the pecs in pre-fatigued and then you can overload them before the stabilizers fail.
Words unnecessary.
How would this work? Well, with chest you can look at an isolation move like flat bench dumbbell flyes or even the pec deck. Going 3×20 on the flyes or deck will begin the fatigue of your pecs without fatiguing those tiny little muscles all around the chest. Immediately after you hit this isolation, then go in for your big compound lift like the barbell bench press. This, Weider believes, will lead to maximum exhaustion and overload for each muscle and therefore maximum growth.
I cannot stress enough how much this particular principle plays a role in my muscle growth and suggest everyone at least give an attempt to incorporating it into their routine.
I hope you guys enjoyed the beginning of this series and tune in next Wednesday for another grouping of the Weider principles.
In the meantime, a quick word on consistency. As some of you may have noticed I totally dicked off for a week. I didn’t write here, I didn’t work out, I ate like shit and I drank too much. That is on me. However, I have to tell you that after years of fueling my body well and pushing it to the extreme, a total week of being checked out had almost no noticeable effect on my body composition or size.
The point I want to make to you guys is this: get on your grind and stay that way for life. Like saving money for a rainy day, you never know when life will throw you a curve ball. The man who has kept his body in order with weather the storm and get his ass back in there. Yes we aim for certain goals. We might have a competition or simply want to look good in summer or whatever, but in the end the competition is life and the process is never over.
Grind on team!