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FITNESS CONCEPTS
In order to optimize the time we spend in the gym, it is important to understand some basic concepts.
These will be helpful whether you’ve never lifted a weight, or you’ve been in the gym six days a week for
the last 10 years.
I make two assumptions here:
You desire to maximize your lean muscle tissue while burning stored body fat. You also want a strong
body that functions well in daily life, sports, etc.
While you may (hopefully) enjoy exercising, you don’t want to spend more time in the gym than is
necessary to get the best results. In other words, you have a life – friends, social obligations, work,
family, etc.
An exercise program, if it is going to be effective, must take into account the following basic principles.
Some of the information presented will seem to counter all of the things you believe about exercise. I
need you to come to this information with an open mind. You will be rewarded by seeing results you
never thought possible, achieved in the most efficient manner.
Whether your goal is to gain the most muscle mass possible or to “tone up”, the principles are
foundationally the same. Please understand that when I talk about muscle, I’m not talking about bulky,
obscene, steroid-induced physiques. I’m talking about lean muscle tissue, the basis of metabolism. The
only physical place in the human body where fat is burned is… that’s right! Muscle. Specifically, fat is
burned in the mitochondria of each and every muscle cell in your body.
And let’s understand what it means to “tone up”. I put that in quotation marks because there is really no
such thing. There is not a set of exercises to get bigger muscles and a different set to “tone” them. What
we think of as muscle tone is simply well-developed muscles in the absence of excess body fat around
and over the muscles.
This is of particular concern to women, since every woman I’ve ever met professionally has told me that
she doesn’t want to “bulk up”. But men should pay attention as well. Here is the bottom line: Most
people (but especially women) simply do not have the genetics to naturally develop the kind of
musculature we see on bodybuilders. To develop that kind of body takes enormous dedication, massive
amounts of calories, a very specific, intense exercise program and, more often than not, supplementation
with injected anabolic steroids. You will not develop that kind of muscle overnight. And if you’re
worried about “bulking up”, and for some reason you decide that you’ve developed all the muscle you
want, just switch to a maintenance program. It’s not as though you will wake up one morning after a a
month of working out and be ready to compete in the Miss/Mr. Universe Bodybuilding Competition.
When subjected to the stresses of strength training, muscles have only three options. They can get
smaller/weaker (as when one is overtraining), they can not change at all (as when one does not subject
them to enough stress) or they can grow larger/stronger, as when they are correctly stimulated. We
don’t work out so that our muscles get smaller/weaker or stay the same. That would be futile. So there
really is only one option, whether your goal is to gain muscle mass or to develop muscle “tone”.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF AN EFFECTIVE STRENGTH TRAINING
PROGRAM
Universal principles that are required to develop a lean, strong, muscular body (and keep it that
way)
INTENSITY
In every workout, we need to strive for the absolute most intensity we can get our bodies to generate. We
need to lift the most weight we can (in a given REP range) for a given exercise in the shortest amount of
time.
So, for all prescribed SETS in a workout, we should aim for MOMENTARY MUSCLE FAILURE
(MMF). That is, the final REP we perform should be the last REP we are able to complete while still
maintaining strict form.
ADAPTATION
Our bodies are adaptable. When we subject our bodies to a stressor such as lifting 20 pounds, our bodies
very quickly adapt by making the muscles bigger and stronger so that the next time we lift 20 pounds it
will be easier. So, the next time we lift 20 pounds for the same number of REPS, the muscles have to
make no further adaptation, which means that this time they do not get bigger or stronger. Think of the
first time you go out in the sun in the spring. The sun damages your skin, and it adapts by making itself
darker so that the same amount of sun will no longer damage it. If you go out in the same sunlight the
next day, for the same amount of time, your skin does not need to protect itself any further so it does not
darken the pigment further. That brings us to the concept of….
PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE
In each successive workout, we must lift more weight for a given exercise or the same weight for a
greater number of REPS if we want to make progress. If we do not do so, the workout is essentially
wasted, with no new lean muscle tissue added. If your goal in workout one is 1 SET of 20 REPS and you
reach MMF at 18 REPS with 20 pounds, then the next time you workout, you must be able to complete at
least 19 REPS with 20 pounds. On the other hand if, on the first workout you were able to complete 20
REPS, on the next workout you should increase the weight to 25 pounds. Either the weight or the number
of REPS should increase on each workout.
OVERTRAINING
When you reach a point when you can no longer lift more weight or do more REPS than you did on the
previous workout (or you can lift less, and are effectively weaker), you are overtraining. This means that
you either need more rest between workouts or you must change your workout.
VARIABLE FREQUENCY
In order to ensure that you are not OVERTRAINING, the workout frequency must be variable. If you are
training with maximum INTENSITY and using PROGRESSIVE RESISTANCE in each workout, you
will get stronger and add lean muscle mass in every workout. Because of this, you will be lifting heavier
weights which will require that you rest for a longer periods of time between workouts.
If you have been working out 3 days per week for one year and have been doing similar numbers of
SETS and REPS in each workout, chances are VERY good that you HAVE NOT made appreciable
progress in at least 10 months.
CYCLE TRAINING
Humans are incapable of continuing to get stronger in a linear fashion for long periods of time. If
this were not true, we’d just keep getting stronger and there would be guys lifting garbage trucks over
their heads. If you continue to try to go heavier and heavier beyond your bodies capacity, you will either
get weaker ultimately, or set yourself up for a potentially serious injury. It is for this reason that all good
training programs should be CYCLED or PHASIC.
WORKOUT STRUCTURE – “Exercise 101”
Definitions and terminology – If you’ve spent a lot of time in the gym, you probably know this stuff
FREQUENCY – How often one does their workouts.
Workouts are divided into exercises for various muscle groups. Sometimes you will work the entire body
in one workout, a FULL BODY WORKOUT. Other times, you’ll work half the body in one workout and
the other half in another, a 2-DAY SPLIT. If you work 1/3 or 1/4 of your body in a given workout, you
are employing a 3-DAY SPLIT or 4-DAY SPLIT.
In each workout, you perform SETS of each exercise.
SETS are made up of REPETITIONS or REPS.
For example, you might perform 1 SET of 15 REPS of given exercise. Or 3 SETS of 8 REPS.
REST
One must rest in between SETS of exercises so that the muscles can recover and ready themselves for the
next SET. Typically a one minute rest is sufficient. If muscle growth is the goal, resting less than one
minute will not allow for growth. When endurance is the goal, shorter rest periods may be employed.
And when one is working with very heavy weights, a longer rest may be indicated. A workout is divided
into exercises that target muscle groups or individual muscles. The best exercises for developing lean
muscle mass are COMPOUND EXERCISES, defined as exercises which move multiple joints and work
multiple muscle groups. A prime example is the SQUAT which requires movement at the hip, knee and
ankle joints and works most of the muscle of the lower body. An example for the upper body would be
the Bench Press, which uses the chest muscles (pectorals), the front of the shoulder (front deltoid), the
back of the arm (triceps) and other smaller muscles. Because COMPOUND EXERCISES activate
several muscle groups with one movement, they are more efficient than ISOLATION EXERCISES which
only require the movement of one joint and the activation of one muscle or muscle group. An example of
isolation exercises that correspond with the above two examples, would be the Seated Leg Extension
(quadriceps) and Chest Fly (pectorals).
SUPERSETS
These are two SETS of exercises employing two different muscle groups (usually opposite groups) done
back-to-back without resting. For example, doing a SET of Chest Press (pectorals) followed immediately
by a SET of Rows (trapezius/rhomboids). Because you are working two different muscle groups, you do
not need to rest in between. Pairing exercises in this way increases endurance and saves time in longer
workouts.
COMPOUND SETS
These are two sets done back-to-back without rest in which the same muscle groups are stimulated in
different ways by first performing an ISOLOATION EXERCISE and then a COMPOUND EXERCISE.
For example, we perform a Chest Fly (pectorals) to pre-fatigue the muscle group and then immediately do
a Chest Press (pectorals, anterior deltoid, triceps), which calls in other muscles to help the primary mover.
CIRCUITS
Performing a group of exercises back-to-back without resting in between.