Dutch exercise physiologist Dr. Jan Voss was one of the early researchers of muscle fiber types. As part of his research, Voss performed numerous muscle biopsies on himself and observed that the color of his gastrocnemius muscle tissue would change from week to week. Sometimes, there was a predominance of red (slow-twitch) fibers; other times,…
A popular bodybuilding technique is the 21-rep system, or simply “21s.” To give you a glimpse of how it works, 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 curl as an example. Begin…
Here’s a superset routine that targets the entire body one joint at a time. It follows a split routine where the lower body is trained on Day 1 and the upper body on Day 2. Each workout starts with a proximal pair of exercises and progresses distally with each subsequent pair. In other words, larger…
One of my favorite TV shows was the Spartacus series on Starz, which ran from 2010 to 2013. The first season (Blood and Sand) and the six-episode prequel (Gods of the Arena) were fantastic. But in the second season (Vengeance), they introduced a new lead actor—one who didn’t have the type of muscularity you’d expect…
My new book, Mass Explosion: Blast Through Your Training Plateaus!, is now available! Mass Explosion is a comprehensive guide to the art and science of building muscle. Packed with the latest research and proven training strategies, this book shows you how to achieve drug-like gains—naturally! Why Most Lifters Plateau (And How to Break Through) Anyone…
If you’ve been in the muscle-building game for a while, you know you can’t stick with the same routine forever. No matter how well it works initially, progress will eventually stall—and when that happens, change is necessary. The problem is, you can’t just pick a random program from your favorite training website. Random routines lead…
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…
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…