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When I was 17 years old I discovered a sport that I was extremely good at - natural bodybuilding. Most people when they think of bodybuilding think of the really big 300 lb guys, which look like the incredible hulk. But what I'm talking about is natural bodybuilding - without steroids.
I discovered the gym through my unyielding desires to continuously improve my skills in Track & Field, Volleyball, Soccer, Badminton and Basketball. I started a sports and personal development path which led me to the library, and then to weight training at The YMCA.
I started out by talking to the guys who had the "look" I wanted and the performance I was looking for. I bought every current magazine that had to do with weight and performance training, as well as books that I could afford at the time. I also checked out as many books as I could to learn everything there was to know about the different training strategies, principles and research that had been done on athletic performance, weight training and bodybuilding. I studied them every chance I could get. Then with eager passion I poured my heart and soul into making my skinny 121 pound frame into a sculpted 154 lean body, it was a lot of hard work.
After winning, I contemplated how I achieved my newly found success. I realized that I had no formal training in weight lifting or bodybuilding and that my passion for achievement created a learning desire to become great. Learning on my own, and using trial-and-error, I quickly realized what worked well (and what didn't), and how to combine strategies for faster results. I also had a few mentors of the bodybuilding world - but since they were using steroids, I refused to use their strategies fully.
Bodybuilding taught me at a young age that it takes more than just lifting weights every now and then to achieve the result you want. I had to be consistent, so I lifted 6 days a week, and I had a goal to move toward - Mr. Flex Wheeler's symmetry, balance, fullness and definition (I had his pictures everywhere).
Through a focused eating plan, proper stretching, hydration, and vitamins, I was able to reduce my repair time and increase the speed of my results.
Since then, I've used a similar strategy for everything in life. I create a vision to move toward, inspire the passion for learning everything about what I want to achieve, take consistent action (6 days a week with one day off), and use multiple action strategies to work synergistically to create my desired outcome.
Why Muscles Grow
Bodybuilding, like losing body fat, is a mathematical and scientific calculation. Understanding the formula and how the calculation works will allow you to always have results!
The basic reason that muscle grows is due to the amount of force exerted on the muscles. But it is a bit more complex than just that. Muscle grows because the force exerted is greater than what the muscle is comfortable resisting and so you force the muscle to respond by building more fibers to become stronger and larger.
How Muscles Grow
In the past when I hit a plateau, the times I didn’t see any progress in my training, I found they were due to either one or a combination of the following reasons :
- Not enough total force was exerted on the muscle. Our bodies are extremely intelligent! That is a very good thing for survival, but can make it tough to consistently see results with muscle and / or strength building. If you have exerted a certain total force on your muscles in one workout, and use the same total force in the following workout a week later, you will not see the same growth after the last workout that you would have seen after the first workout. The reason is that your body adapts very quickly. Basically, your body does not like stress, and will try to make anything you encounter easier based on what you have recently encountered. Because your body tries to become more conditioned to handle the stress it recently experienced, it adapts to become more fit to the environment it was subjected to. So, if you consistently place the same force on the body (mentally, physically, emotionally, etc…), your body will adapt to it and you will not be affected by it as you did the first time you encountered it. That is one of the secrets to always achieving consistent growth. If you want to grow, always place more force on the body so that it has to grow in order to adapt to it.
- The type of force is always the same. If you are always putting the same kind of force on the muscle, your body will get use to the way the force is exerted and adapt to that movement – very quickly! If you always do bicep curls with a barbell, your body will get use to that position and motion, until it becomes strong only in that type of exercise. Instead, change the type of exercise so your body has to adapt to a different movement. Perhaps you could use dumbbells. Or you could use the cable machines. You might even use a preacher bench to do your barbell curls on. You can overcome this obstacle by always change what you do from one workout to the next.
- The intensity of the force exerted on the body. This is related to the type of exercise, but here we are considering how the exercise is performed. If we go back to the barbell curl example, we could keep the exercise the same but change the intensity we create to provide consistent growth. Here are some of the ways we can change the intensity of force we exert on our muscles :
- The amount of force we exert. Through changing the amount of force we put on our muscle, we require the body to respond differently. One way is to increase the force you have previously encountered in order to force your muscles to grow.
- The number of repetitions in each set. By changing the number of repetitions (“reps”) we place a different stress on the muscle because it has to resist the force in a different amount than it was previously use to. If we increase the number of reps over the previous workout, with the same exercise, we force our body to adapt to the greater quantity of repetitions.
- The speed of the repetition during an exercise. The time it takes you to contract your muscles with the exerted force changes the intensity of the repetition. This applies to the length of time you concentrically contract the muscles, hold the “peak” contraction, and how long you resist the force on the eccentric contraction. When you are doing a bicep curl, the concentric contraction is when you are raising the weights toward your upper body. The peak contraction is when you have concentrically contracted as high and intense as you possible can. And the eccentric contraction is when you are bringing the weight back to its starting position. Through changing the speed of each of these contraction periods, you will change the intensity of the repetition.
- The amount of force we exert. Through changing the amount of force we put on our muscle, we require the body to respond differently. One way is to increase the force you have previously encountered in order to force your muscles to grow.
- Not using proper form when exercising. There can’t be enough said about using proper form. Not only does using proper form keep you from getting injured, but it allows you to target the muscles you want to grow. I learned quickly that using a greater amount of weight will not mean bigger and stronger muscles if you “cheat” it up with other muscles. Going back to the bicep curl example, if you put too much weight on the barbell and use your back and shoulders to “swing” the weight up to the position of a full bicep contraction, you are not focusing on the biceps, but instead you are focusing on your lower back and shoulders and your biceps are assisting. This can, and in some cases does, lead to a lower back injury or shoulder strain. Instead, lower the weight and stick to good form to target the muscles you want to get results from. Always use proper form when training, if you do you will get bigger and faster gains!
- Not keeping the muscle contracted during the entire exercise. Unless you are doing a plyometric exercise, you should always keep you targeted muscle(s) contracted during your entire rep and set. When do you force your muscles to tear and break down? During the contraction of course! So why would you not contract your muscles as much as possible during every part of your repetition and set? It might be easier not to, but when you squeeze the muscles you are targeting the entire time, you will get a greater workout ( in less time! ) and create what the advanced bodybuilders call the “Mind-Muscle” connection.
- Overtraining. This is a big one for most people. Because we get so passionate about building muscle we can get caught up in the more you do, the faster you will see results. This is not always true. Let me define what overtraining is before we continue. Overtraining is working the same muscles in another workout before they have had time to fully recover. There were times when I would train every muscle for a half an hour every day of the week (6 days straight with 1 day off) and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t growing. I was working harder and with greater intensity, and I was more sore than I had ever been – and then I learned that I got bigger when I wasn’t training, I learned that when my body was resting and repairing was when I got bigger muscle gains stronger muscle fibers. I learned that if I was not stronger when I got back in the gym, how did I expect to increase my intensity grow more muscle? The answer was that I couldn’t. So I designed a routine which built in rest and repair for certain muscles when I trained other ones.
- Not getting enough nutrition. Here is another huge area of growing muscles. If you don’t give your body enough energy or materials to build your muscles, they can’t and won’t get bigger, or stronger! I learned that to build muscle I needed a lot of protein! I also needed certain carbohydrates and fats at the right times. And what shocked me the most is when I discovered how important vitamins, minerals and herbs were to muscle performance, growth and recovery! I could be here for years writing about the importance of nutrition and the details of how and what to take – nutrition is that important! Make sure you are getting at least 1 gram of protein for every pound of lean body weight. If you don’t know your lean weight then just use your total weight. Protein breaks down into amino acids when digested. And amino acids are like the bricks you use to build a wall. Without the bricks you would just have a mushy, goopy mortar to work with – that will not build very high or very quickly.
- Not drinking enough water. Did you know that your muscle is anywhere from 70 ~ 80% water?! Let me ask you a question. Is an object smaller and weaker when it is full and dense, or is it stronger and bigger? You bet it’s bigger and stronger! That’s one of the reasons why creatine is so popular. Creatine basically allows you to hold more water in your muscles, giving you greater hydration for stronger and bigger muscles – but it doesn’t work without first drinking the water. This is a big reason to drink lots of the clear stuff!
- Lacking a specific goal. If you don’t have a goal, how are you ever going to reach it? I use to cut up magazines and use pictures of what I wanted to accomplish. I always used the bodies that I thought were the perfect reflection of what I wanted to accomplish. I put the pictures on my workout books, on my bedroom walls, on my mirror, in my wallet – anywhere and everywhere that I could look at them and keep me focused on that goal. Sometimes when I didn’t want to workout, I would look at one of the pictures and I would be motivated to get my butt to the gym!
- Not visualizing your new body as if you already achieved it. You have to own what you want. If you possess your goal in your mind through visualization, your subconscious will cause your unconscious actions to create what you see yourself already having. See and feel how good it is to have the body you want. The more you do this, the more action you will take to create that result!
- Not rehearsing your workouts before you do them. Michael Jordan use to play every game in his mind before he even stepped on to the court. Was he perfect? No, but he is one of the greatest players to ever play basketball! When he played the game in his mind, there was no limit to what he could achieve or do. He carried this mindset of “no limits” on the court with him. It was though this mentality that he was able to do the amazing things he did. You can apply this same strategy to your workouts. I use to visualize myself lifting more weight that I previously did. I would see and feel the weight, through my own eyes, and have incredible workouts without even working out. Then while the mental workout was still fresh in my mind, I would go to the gym and do what I had visualized doing. You see, your mind does not know the difference from what you see in life and what you create in your imagination. The reason is that in order for your brain to process what you see in life, your mind must create the image, or a visual representation, of what is being perceived. When you visualize, you create the visual representation without the need for visual perception – basically you skip the step of seeing it first before creating the visual image in your mind. Pretty powerful, isn’t it?!
- Not having a pre-written strategy to follow. Your strategy is one of the best ways to achieve your goal faster. Without a specific, pre-planned strategy, you are doomed to follow whatever happens to come before you. If you have a strategy on how to achieve something, you'll be able to just do the next step, execute the next part of the formula, to reach your intended goal. Would you attempt to travel to a location you've never been before and not look at a map, or follow the directions from a source which knows how to get there? The answer is most likely no. You would probably research the best way to travel there based on your time restrictions, physical and financial allowances. So make sure you have a pre-written strategy to follow so you don't get lost on the way to your goal.
- Not recording the results of your workout. Would you try solve an algebraic equation without recording your answer to see if it was right? Not unless you were Einstein! Treating your workouts like an advanced mathematical or scientific equation just makes good sense. The reason is that you will be able to not only chart your progress, but you will be able to see what's working for you, and what you can tweak to get better results. Without any specific data, you cannot make specific changes to acquire more specific or accurate results. Get a training journal or notepad and record what you do in your workouts, you will be surprised by what you find.
- Not stretching after your workout. Most people don't understand why stretching is so important for building muscle. Did you know that in untrained athletes, stretching alone can build muscular strength. With trained athletes, stretching will help reduce the amount of time required for repairing torn muscle fibers, and the soreness associated with torn fibers. When you stretch you tear the fascia (a thin membrane surrounding muscle tissue) to allow more nutrients to the muscles. Not only does this allow you to repair faster, it also helps to relax stressed muscles and allow for greater flexibility.
- Not using supplements. Supplements are a great way to increase your workout performance, intensity and overall muscle growth. Not all supplements are for everyone, nor for every goal. Make sure you get the right supplement(s) for you and for your specific goal(s).
Adam Aulenback
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