A popular method in bodybuilding is the 21-rep system, or simply “21s” for short. To give you a glimpse of how to perform this technique, here’s an excerpt from Robert Kennedy’s book Reps!: “This is a method which was popular on the West Coast bodybuilding scene in the fifties and sixties. Let’s use the barbell…
Here’s a superset routine that attacks the entire body one joint at a time. It’s a split routine where the lower body is trained on Day 1 and the upper body on Day 2. Each day starts with a proximal pair of exercises and progresses distally with each subsequent pair. In other words, larger muscles…
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If you’ve been in the muscle-building game for a while, you know quite well that you can’t stay on one routine forever. No matter how well you do initially, eventually gains will come to a halt and when that happens, a change is required. The problem is that you can’t just go to your favorite…
As you hit your 40s, 50s and beyond, you realize that you are no longer able to do what you did in your late teens, 20s and even early 30s. Weights that used to feel like feathers start to feel more like boulders. Loads that were once part of your warm-up sets, all of sudden…
When I first started lifting seriously in a commercial gym, my routine consisted of one body part a day. I’d go to the gym and absolutely trash that poor body part. A typical two-hour workout was like a boxing match. I’d use about every exercise available to hit that body part from all angles until…
Walk into any gym and what comes to mind: fake boobs, synthol arms, lipo six-pack, calf implants, or “that guy’s juicing, for sure!” We all do it. You may not say it out loud, but you know you’re thinking it. Implants, synthol, and liposuction are rather recent innovations, but steroids have been around for a…
In my small home gym, I have three dedicated machines for calf training: a standing calf raise unit that goes up to 600 pounds, a seated calf raise machine, and a step platform equipped with a handle for one-leg calf raises. These are the sort of machines that you see in large commercial gyms, but…
Some guys seek size at any expense. They don’t care if their joints take a beating in the process. To them it’s “carpe diem,” seize the day and screw tomorrow! Others are more along the lines of “been there, done that,” and joint health takes a bit more priority then getting huge. A day without…
Eccentric training will catapult strength and athletic performance to a new level if used appropriately. In order to lift a weight, muscular force must exceed the downward force of a load. The opposite occurs when you lower a weight – motor units are turned off until the downward force of the load is greater than…