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How Bodybuilding REALLY Works...

Bodybuilding
#1

alright, i thought i had a grasp on the concept of what makes a bodybuilding routine, a good one. but some guy yesterday (his dad is a former Mr USA, so im inclined to believe him) that i work with, just challenged my entire outlook on bodybuilding. im not a bodybuilder, i do PL style training. but i’d like to switch to bodybuilding someday, and plus i just like to be educated.

so tell me, what constitutes a good BB routine? ie: compound lifts, no compound lifts, isolation exercises, no isolation exercises… ? thanks guys.

edit: im not asking for a routine, just what the fundamentals of any good routine are.

#2

I’m curious what he said that challenged what you thought.

(just because someone’s dad excelled at something, doesn’t mean they understand it, or that his dad even understood what truly created his results. Not a dig, just wondering)

S

#3

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I’m curious what he said that challenged what you thought.

(just because someone’s dad excelled at something, doesn’t mean they understand it, or that his dad even understood what truly created his results. Not a dig, just wondering)

S[/quote]

C’mon Stu. Everyone knows that “father knows best”!

Or is that “Mother…”?

#4

I’m not digging on the father (you know that!), I’ve just seen my share of genetic freaks who do everything ‘wrong’ and still look amazing. For all we know, the guy’s dad ate nothing but apples all day long, did full body workouts 7x a week, juiced his brains out, and looked better than most of us ever will paying attention to every minute detail of our diets and training -lol.

S

#5

[quote]iStandOnMyHands wrote:
alright, i thought i had a grasp on the concept of what makes a bodybuilding routine, a good one. but some guy yesterday (his dad is a former Mr USA, so im inclined to believe him) that i work with, just challenged my entire outlook on bodybuilding. im not a bodybuilder, i do PL style training. but i’d like to switch to bodybuilding someday, and plus i just like to be educated.

so tell me, what constitutes a good BB routine? ie: compound lifts, no compound lifts, isolation exercises, no isolation exercises… ? thanks guys.

edit: im not asking for a routine, just what the fundamentals of any good routine are.[/quote]

Ever try picking up a bodybuilding book or magazine or reading some of the thousands of articles of online, let alone the hundreds of articles on THIS site (which only requires a few moves of the mouse and button pressing)?

Or better yet, getting out there and meeting and socializing with some bodybuilders? Or even better: lifting with them?

#6

A good bodybuilding routine focuses on mind-muscle connection over weight.

After that its all preference, on the day of a given routine, or looking at the routine on a weekly or monthly schedule.

IE: Having a body part split to allow recovery of ‘overlap’ training. Having sufficient recovery before training a given body part again.

This part is all about personal preference. I love training quads before hams on leg days, despite the recomendations of many respected authors (Tate, Wendler, Meadows and Poliquin to name a few). My training partner can’t work his biceps after shoulders because of the amount of front delt activation and DOMs he gets from training them. The list is endless. Do what works, and don’t cling to any philosophy but your own in this regard.

-PTD

#7

AS the above poster said…it’s about a mind muscle connection. I find personally the best rep ranges are 8-12 for hypertrophy. However, training in the lower rep ranges allows to build a strength base. Therefore, the weight you can move in the 8-12 rep ranges is increased after you build a decent strength base and you thereby can stimulate more breakdown.

And I feel the big one is progressive overload. Striving to increase the weight or the amount of reps for a given weight.

But, none of this means shit if you aren’t eating properly…if you aren’t hitting your macros/calories you aren’t going to grow. Certainly not optimally.

#8

That whole mind-muscle connection thing is a bunch of bologne.

I can name a dozen guys at my gym that are mass monsters using trash form, exploding every rep, going balls to the wall, slamming themselves into failure beyond failure, dropsetting to 60 pound dumbbell bench down from 125s for 15 reps and struggling with it with poor form because of how fatigued they are, and throwing the bars all over the place.

Look at Branch Warren, he’s the same as the people I’m talking about and places top 3 in the olympia. His form is horrendous, and he probably doesn’t even know what the word muscle connection means rofl.

You should have good form etc, but people emphasizing and overdoing this whole “MMC movement” is so ridiculous to me when clearly many people don’t give a crap and keep adding weight becoming behemoths.

(Note: Maybe it works better for people on steroids, but I would think it would be the same for naturals…)

#9

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
That whole mind-muscle connection thing is a bunch of bologne.

I can name a dozen guys at my gym that are mass monsters using trash form, exploding every rep, going balls to the wall, slamming themselves into failure beyond failure, dropsetting to 60 pound dumbbell bench down from 125s for 15 reps and struggling with it with poor form because of how fatigued they are, and throwing the bars all over the place.

Look at Branch Warren, he’s the same as the people I’m talking about and places top 3 in the olympia. His form is horrendous, and he probably doesn’t even know what the word muscle connection means rofl.

You should have good form etc, but people emphasizing and overdoing this whole “MMC movement” is so ridiculous to me when clearly many people don’t give a crap and keep adding weight becoming behemoths.

(Note: Maybe it works better for people on steroids, but I would think it would be the same for naturals…)[/quote]

This is the worst post of all time. Cheated or quick reps does not imply a lack of MMC. MMC is simply feeling the muscle at work. It can be achieved with intensity techniques, various rep ranges, various rep tempos, etc. Just because someone is crushing weight and getting slack on form doesn’t mean they can’t feel the muscles working.

#10

My apologies, I must have misunderstood it then, because everytime I read or hear about “MMC”, they talk about slow negatives…controlled positives,perfect form,deep stretches,tempo blah blah blah blah.

Im sure branch is feeling his shoulders on fire when he turns his 405 military press into a massive lumbar arch, feet off the floor incline bench with bouncing and foot drive… I mean the weight is ungodly heavy and his delts obviously are probably screaming bloody mercy, but yeah I hope you got my point.

Go to a buck fifty trainer at 24 hour fitness and they will tell you to use perfect form,perfect tempo,very slow reps and feeling stretches,much lighter weight,etc etc. otherwise you’re not doing it right lol.

#11

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
Go to a buck fifty trainer at 24 hour fitness and they will tell you to use perfect form,perfect tempo,very slow reps and feeling stretches,much lighter weight,etc etc. otherwise you’re not doing it right lol.[/quote]

This is definitely on point. Slow or otherwise accentuated reps are good tools for building MMC, especially initially, but they aren’t the only way to have a quality MMC.

Regardless of exactly how you move the weight from point A to point B, mind muscle connection can and should come into play if you are aware of the various muscles at work throughout the course of the movement. I’m sure Branch can feel his delts working in the process of SFW lol.

#12

Hahaha what does SWF mean?

Man when I watch his videos, he gets me so pumped. It’s just so funny watching him manhandle 405 , but with what everybody would flame on youtube is the “crappiest trash form ever” blah blah blah, when 95% of those critiques are 130 pound nobodies that probably cant even deadlift 405 much less to say press it lawl

#13

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
Hahaha what does SFW mean?[/quote]

“Smash fucking weights” lol

#14

rofl sounds about accurate.

my favorite video was him incline dumbbell benching 160 dumbbells, and then after he busted out like 15-25 reps or something, he just said “YEAH MOTHER F****ER” and literally threw the dumbbells across each side of the room. that was some insane throwing strength

LOL

#15

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
Hahaha what does SWF mean?

Man when I watch his videos, he gets me so pumped. It’s just so funny watching him manhandle 405 , but with what everybody would flame on youtube is the “crappiest trash form ever” blah blah blah, when 95% of those critiques are 130 pound nobodies that probably cant even deadlift 405 much less to say press it lawl[/quote]

Keep doing what you’re doing, but you may not feel so tough if you get injured whilst using that ‘crappiest trash form’ in order to feel more macho than those guys using the pink dumbbells and ‘perfect form’, and you then start atrophying when you’re not able to train.

#16

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:

Go to a buck fifty trainer at 24 hour fitness and they will tell you to use perfect form,perfect tempo,very slow reps and feeling stretches,much lighter weight,etc etc. otherwise you’re not doing it right lol.[/quote]

…and that buck fifty trainer at 24 Hour Fitness is wrong?

Yeah, Branch Warren and Jay Cutler have terrible form…but they’re also lifting considerable weight and by their physiques, you can tell they have a semblance of what they’re doing and why they’re doing any given exercise in such a manner. Therefore, their body English is forgivable.

However, Jonny Joe Gymgoer with the pencil neck and chicken legs is kidding himself if he thinks it’ll be of benefit to him to go to the gym and herk-n-jerk barbells and dumbbells around as if he were Branch or Jay. Someone informing them it would be better to lighten the load and concentrate on proper form should not be scoffed because you, the person being informed, are NOT a mass monster akin to Jay Cutler or Branch Warren.

If more people told the idiots in the gym to stop looking like idiots and learn to work out correctly, said people might actually make improvements to their physiques instead of looking now as they did when they began. The gyms everywhere are littered with these people…

#17

@ alternate , just so you are aware, I go ATG full depth on squats, reset every weight on deadlift, touch my chest and pause on bench, and do my military press standing all the way from my upper chest,etc.

I myself don’t do that body english stuff except on some dumb stuff like bicep curls I might start cheating the last few reps after already doing 5-8 reps because thats what a lot of people do and it makes it burn more.I got a torn bicep tendon and have to do everything very carefully and consciously so unfortunately I am not able to do what many people get away with.

You really seem to be missing my point, and this is a waste of time to even discuss it further. Just never mind. Lol,forget about it. Btw, there is a big difference from those 16 year old kids at the gym that cant even bench 185 properly loading on 275 and going 1/8th range of motion, and the ones who actually can bench it but are going balls to the wall with a full RoM, etc.

#18

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
That whole mind-muscle connection thing is a bunch of bologne.

I can name a dozen guys at my gym that are mass monsters using trash form, exploding every rep, going balls to the wall, slamming themselves into failure beyond failure, dropsetting to 60 pound dumbbell bench down from 125s for 15 reps and struggling with it with poor form because of how fatigued they are, and throwing the bars all over the place.

Look at Branch Warren, he’s the same as the people I’m talking about and places top 3 in the olympia. His form is horrendous, and he probably doesn’t even know what the word muscle connection means rofl.

You should have good form etc, but people emphasizing and overdoing this whole “MMC movement” is so ridiculous to me when clearly many people don’t give a crap and keep adding weight becoming behemoths.

(Note: Maybe it works better for people on steroids, but I would think it would be the same for naturals…)[/quote]

Fail.

#19

No, I get it Ethan, good for you if you pay attention to form, people that ‘get away’ with using poor form are highly advanced strength athletes/bodybuilders that have so exhausted the possibilities of progressive overload using ‘proper’ form that they have had to start jerking the weights around in order to get a continued training effect.

Even then they are essentially gambling with their health.

For those of us not at their level, we can leave them to do what they do best, and concentrate ourselves on increasing weight whilst paying attention to good form.

#20

[quote]Ethan7X wrote:
That whole mind-muscle connection thing is a bunch of bologne.

I can name a dozen guys at my gym that are mass monsters using trash form, exploding every rep, going balls to the wall, slamming themselves into failure beyond failure, dropsetting to 60 pound dumbbell bench down from 125s for 15 reps and struggling with it with poor form because of how fatigued they are, and throwing the bars all over the place.

Look at Branch Warren, he’s the same as the people I’m talking about and places top 3 in the olympia. His form is horrendous, and he probably doesn’t even know what the word muscle connection means rofl.

You should have good form etc, but people emphasizing and overdoing this whole “MMC movement” is so ridiculous to me when clearly many people don’t give a crap and keep adding weight becoming behemoths.

(Note: Maybe it works better for people on steroids, but I would think it would be the same for naturals…)[/quote]

lol at lifting for a few months, experiencing typical noob gains, and then assuming you know everything about bbing

plz feel free to stfu for a few years