Leaning Out/Contest Prep Thread

Thank you very much for the kind words! Are you following me on IG: @masmacros (Bradley Grunner MS RD)?

I think your point is spot on to a degree, splits are amazing for bodybuilding, ppl powerlifting and so forth. I think that TRT is a great thing for bodybuilding in regards to not having a natural rise and fall of test doesnā€™t occur with TRT, but that being said still doesnā€™t work without hard work and dedication put in. Like anything else in bodybuilding.

Split routines include compound lifts, as you know, but they allow for more specialization for each body part.

Essentially just what you said. It allows greater and easier specialization from an upper/lower split because the upper day has to include about 50% back work. That means at least one of the chest, shoulders, tris are going to get shortchanged. Not a problem with a push/pull/legs split. Back gets its own days and pushing can be separated however you want based on what you perceive as your biggest weaknesses.

For an intermediate I personally think it offers the most bang for the buck, but it wonā€™t work if youā€™re trying to add massive size to your armsā€“a full body part split is superior then in my mind. Honestly though, what Brick said about frequency in body part splits is dead on accurate. The indirect volume isnā€™t usually thought about but it exists in an intelligently designed split.

I think where people get these notions about body part splits not working is from

  1. Shittily designed and executed splits

  2. People who donā€™t want to put the work in on both learning AND sweatin and want to claim hardgainer genes

  3. People who ARE NOT bodybuilders (athletes, etc). Body part splits are not the way to train an athlete.

I think 1 and 2 are the most problematic in terms of frequency hearing about ā€œsplits donā€™t workā€. I have personally seen splits that had 40 sets of back work in 1 day. No fucking kidding you arenā€™t seeing any results doing that bullshit. 35 sets of legsā€¦ Come the fuck on. Youā€™re either not working anywhere remotely hard enough, or you donā€™t know what you are doingā€“usually both. Iā€™ve seen the happen more than once.

this is the main one IMO. Every dude who doesnā€™t know what heā€™s doing in the gym is training a split, but it sucks. 4000 isolation exercises per bodypart, not training to progress the main lifts.

People even refer to them as ā€œbro splitsā€ for all the clueless ā€œbroā€-types who use them.

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Yes!

How many times on this forum have we seen people with no real experience of bodybuilding or drug use claim that splits arenā€™t good for natural lifters?

If that were the case, why does every successful natural physique athlete use them?

It baffles me how people can think the most successful people in this game could be doing it wrong.

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and Iā€™d like to point out I donā€™t think that splits are the only thing that works. Thereā€™s plenty good routines based on high frequency, low volume used by some kickass bodybuilders (DC training and Fortitude Training for example), and I myself love the extra recovery from push/pull/legs with a day off in between when Iā€™m trying to back off a bit and let my body recoup.

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Yes of course, but for bare-bones beginners who donā€™t seek guidance I feel like youā€™d usually see:

Tons of curls and lateral raises, and very few presses, pulls, and squats

true, but this is just a flaw with the execution, not the method, as Iā€™m sure youā€™d agree.

Correct. I believe all beginners should start full body, regardless of their future aims, whether itā€™s general fitness, powerlifting, athletics, bodybuilding, whatever.

And like many here have said, if you look at the split routines for many who are failing with them, they do not follow the guidelines I listed, which are NOT my guidelines. Theyā€™re simply whatā€™s done by people who succeeded with split routines and what real bodybuilding trainers/writers like Clay Hyght, Tom Venuto, John Meadows, Ron Harris, and our very own @The_Mighty_Stu recommend. I think fitness writers like Jason Ferrugia, Chad Waterbury, and the like are great guys, but much of their stuff caters to general fitness and strength and conditioning.

Iā€™ve seen some of the most ridiculous split routines, with, like what is said here, ridiculous, random, and redundant exercise selections. Iā€™ve seen five pressing exercises in a workout. Iā€™ve seen 20 exercises per body part. Who the hell can survive such a workout if they are putting any effort into it?

What works perfectly for me is 9 to 12 sets per muscle group for 8 to 12 repsā€¦ not surprisingly. Stu actually recommends a bit more, but I spoke with him about the volume I can handle and do well with.

I go to near failure or failure in which I know the next rep will either not be made. What I mean is, I might have a rep thatā€™s a little ā€œgrindyā€ and then Iā€™ll stop the set. What I do NOT do, is Dorian Yates-style, turn-purple death sets in which the last rep is not just grindy, but an all out effort similar to a shaky one rep max!

I take little rest as I need, whether that be 1.5 to 3 minutes between sets of squats, stiff-legged deadlifts, or bent over rows or as little as 45 seconds between sets of calf raises.

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Yes, I do

I think a trap a lot of people fall into is emulating the routines of professionals without regard to actually understanding the exercise selection. A top-level bodybuilder probably focuses more on shaping and bringing up weak points in the physique than building appreciable overall mass (since they already have a ton)

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I think people tend to fall into this, as well as the opposite extreme. As Brick mentioned, certain writers cater to their audience, and if someone believes that they donā€™t need to spend the hours and hours each day in the gym that they (erroneously) think their favorite pro is doing, yet still reach their own physique goals, itā€™s going to sound amazing.

S

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yeah itā€™s when people blindly follow the advice of their favourite author without trying the opposite way to see which is better. Thatā€™s what causes problems. I fell into it - I swore blind in my first few years of training that the big compounds were all you needed to build muscle everywhere, so thatā€™s what I did. Fast forward to now and Iā€™m playing perpetual catch-up with my arms and delts.

The key is to try absolutely everything, and absorb the lessons from each. I donā€™t do, and havenā€™t done for a while, pre-written routines these days, but I have done plenty in my time and they all taught me something which I apply to my own training to this day.

-5/3/1 reinforced the importance on having key exercises to which you have to keep trying to add weight
-GVT taught me that every once in a while you have to spend some time seriously brutalising yourself in the gym, and itā€™s those last few reps you squeeze out when your jaw hurts from grinding your teeth and your eyes have crossed that really count.
-DC training has taught me to use intensity techniques sparingly and sensibly.

and so on. Thereā€™s plenty things Iā€™ve tried that sounded great on paper (HFT for example) that didnā€™t pan out for me at all, but I didnā€™t know that until Iā€™d tried.

SO TRY EVERYTHING

and as an aside: how great is this thread? Best discussion weā€™ve had on the bodybuilding forum for ages.

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lol, I remember realizing MANY years ago that one month, Chris Cormier was raving about how heavy weights were the key to it all, only to see another piece a few months later talking about how higher rep work was the holy grail. The ultimate take home being there is no end all be all, BUT, a smart trainer will realize that most approaches have SOME merit, and figure out how to best make use of them within their own training.

S

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This principle right here is the single best change I made this June once transitioning to stage prep from PL and its been saving me from dragging ass ever since. Failure and rest periods. Not 1 day has been spent drained or beat to piss since. I use an HRV unit EOD as well and only had 3 days go all reds of which were on an OFF day anyway so I used that day to chill and rebound just fine. Not going to complete failure every set all session all week has been key to keeping my CNS near optimal and for a natty who also has 3-4 hours of group x classes to lead for military folksā€¦I do not need any more physical stress coming in then absolutely needed.

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This sounds like youā€™re agreeing with meā€“that it is better to hit a given muscle group every 2-3 days.

Random fitting room pic. Lol.

I have found lately that this is working well for me too, having been a primarily very high volume guy until the past few months.

I agree! Now this is not trying to get into a natural vs assisted type conversation, but I do think that when pro bodybuilders talk about the types of training they do for certain body parts or just in general, a natural lifter simply canā€™t copy/paste the routine because there are just too many variables. Certainly dissect it and think if anything can be applied to training that hasnā€™t been tried before, but donā€™t blindly just follow it. I do think that doing crazy drop sets and constantly going to failure, the typical scenes we see on the bodybuilding motivation videos on YouTube, are things a natural trainer simply canā€™t recover from on a regular basis if theyā€™re in the gym 5 or 6 days a week. Just my thoughts from what Iā€™ve found works best for me though, I agree with @BrickHead about getting close to or near failure without risking injury or just competing frying yourself on a daily basis. It may work for a little while, but not in the long term.

Yep!

I think what @BrickHead is saying is that a well programmed split winds up working all muscle groups, directly or indirectly, more than once a week, so a second direct training session might not be necessary for a given muscle group. If you add another direct tricep session and another chest session in the week, now the triceps are getting hit directly 2 times and indirectly 2 times, totaling 4 times, which might be too much OR it might work well, depending on the person. Either way, @The_Mighty_Stu told me once ā€œin bodybuilding everything works but nothing works forever.ā€ So, as weā€™re all saying, itā€™s important to try everything, but donā€™t assume once you find ā€œthe formulaā€ for you that itā€™ll work forever or wonā€™t need to be changed in the future to keep progressing.

Wouldnā€™t you say 12 sets for a muscle IS high volume? :wink: