DefMetalLifter
MuscleChemistry Registered Member
I have a problem I know is not unique, but it still bugs the crap out of me. My upper body is much bigger and better developed than my lower body. It’s so bad I avoid wearing shorts even in summer. Guys at the gym rag on me. I don’t know why my legs don’t grow; I do about 15 sets once a week for quads and hams, and my reps are usually around 10 to 12. I know my form is good. Is it just a matter of bad genetics?
My friend, bad genetics get the blame for a lot of things in bodybuilding, but in my experience they are rarely the actual problem. And I can
tell you right off the bat that your poor leg development has nothing to do with genetics. You just aren’t working them hard enough. Before you get all huffy, let me rephrase that. It’s not that you aren’t using enough weight, or taking your sets to failure; you probably are. What a lot of bodybuilders fail to recognize is that the lower body is very different from the upper body.
The legs are already used to a certain volume of work from supporting your body weight as you stand, walk, climb stairs, etc. Further, the actual composition of muscle fibers is different, having a higher percentage of red slow-twitch fibers that are more suited to endurance than toward short bursts of power like a low-rep set of squats with a heavy weight. What does this mean? The legs can take a lot of work compared to muscle groups like the chest or biceps, and in fact, without an adequate amount of work, you can’t expect to see gains. Fifteen sets total for both the quadriceps and the hamstrings? Try doing around 20 sets for each, for starters. And the reps need to be a mix of high and low. You can go as low as sets of five reps, and as high as 50 or more. The quads, in particular, seem to really respond to occasional shock treatment workouts of 30 to 40 sets and reps that can go as high as 100.
Think about some of the guys with the greatest legs of all time. Tom Platz, the Golden Eagle, was legendary for his feats of endurance in the gym (and for the way he consistently trained far beyond the pain barrier). The man squatted 405 pounds for 50 reps. He would also take a weight like 315 and squat for 10 minutes non-stop. Do you think he would have had those awesome tree trunk thighs if he had been satisfied with the standard 10 or so sets of 10-20 reps? No way. And look at Lee Priest. It takes this guy at least two hours to get through his leg workouts. You can choose to say Lee is overtraining, but how can you ignore his enormous legs?
Don’t worry about overtraining the legs. Due to the unique nature of the legs, I don’t think it’s even possible to do, at least in one workout. Considering you are giving your legs a full week, or 168 hours to recover, whatever damage you manage to inflict in that workout will be repaired in that amount of time. With all this in mind, here’s a leg workout you can start following immediately. Stay with it just the way I have outlined it, and I guarantee that your legs will start catching up to your upper body in no time. You may choose to break up quads and hams into two separate sessions if it is convenient, to better allow you to focus on each individually.
Warm-Up: 5-7 minutes on stationary bike
Leg extensions
5 sets of 20, 20, 15, 15, 12 reps
Squats
6 sets of 20, 20, 15, 15, 12, 8 reps
Leg press
5 sets of 20, 15, 10, 8, 30 reps
Hack squats
5 sets of 20, 20, 15, 12, 8 reps
Stiff-leg deadlifts
6 sets of 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Lying leg curl
6 sets of 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Standing leg curl
6 sets (each leg) 8-12 reps
I thought I had a pretty good back, but after I took yet another second place at my last show, I asked a couple of the judges what they thought I needed to work on. They both said I had decent back width but lacked thickness. What do you recommend for building back thickness in a hurry? Honestly, I am pretty sure this is the only weak point on me right now and it’s holding me back from going to the next level.
You are far from alone, my friend! I have watched literally thousands of bodybuilders from all over the world walk through Gold’s Gym in Venice over the years, and I would estimate at least 80 percent or more of them had the same physique deficiency you currently have. Wide backs are as common as houseflies, but backs that are both wide and thick, I mean so thick you could lose a finger in the meat around the spine, are very rare indeed.
Why do you think Dorian Yates was so dominant during his reign as Mr. Olympia? He sure didn’t have the best overall shape or symmetry, and if you started comparing body parts to some of his main opponents like Flex, Kevin, or Nasser, the big Brit didn’t always seem so formidable. But when the lineup turned and faced the rear, he slaughtered them all with a back that was so rugged and thick from traps all the way down to the erectors, that no one could touch him.
Ronnie Coleman has used his superior back development to his advantage, too, over the past five years to stay on top against a hungry group of excellent challengers. These two Mr. Olympias used different routines to build those massive lats, but one thing they both shared in common is that they both trained very heavy and always incorporated free weights. Dorian was famous for his underhand grip barbell rows using over 405 pounds, and those of you who saw Ronnie’s video know the deadlift has always been his secret weapon. These are the best three exercises for building back thickness, and I suggest you start doing them instead of the various cable and machine variations I have a feeling you may be doing instead.
Deadlifts: I honestly doubt it’s even feasible to build a genuinely thick and impressive back without being a deadlifter. No other exercise for the upper body rivals the sheer mass-building effect of this old-school classic. Essentially, it’s the most basic exercise you can imagine: Bend down, pick up a weight and stand back up. But to do it you need to recruit the lats, the traps, the muscles of the lumbar spine, the biceps, the rear delts and the legs. How’s that for a lot of bang for your buck? When I think of Ronnie, Dorian and others over the years known for stunning backs— like Franco Columbu, Samir Bannout and Mike Francois— they were all very strong deadlifters. Work hard at becoming stronger on deads and that back will thicken up considerably by the time you compete again. Bodybuilders should use the standard shoulder-width foot position and an even grip rather than the over and under mixed grip powerlifters have to use, since wrist straps are not allowed in their meets.
Barbell Rows: You gotta row to grow when it comes to the back, and barbell rows are the most effective way to do the movement. EMG tests have confirmed that barbell rows activate more of the muscle fibers than machine or cable rows, but I could have told you that without needing a high-tech gadget. I have seen the results when bodybuilders started focusing on barbell rows time and time again. This exercise never fails to deliver. At the same time, form is crucial. You can’t heave and jerk the weight up like you’re having a convulsion. Pull with control and try to hold the bar at the top of the rep as you squeeze your shoulder blades together. Feel that? That’s the area of muscle in your mid-back that you need to build, and that’s how you’re gonna do it. T-bar rows are a reasonable substitute every now and then, but stay loyal to the barbell row if you want to be thick as a brick back there.
Dumbell Rows: I like dumbbells for a wide variety of movements because they are so versatile. Having the freedom to alter the angle of pushing or pulling, or to face your hand in a different direction, can attack the muscle from a completely unexpected direction that it’s not used to, and that almost always means more hypertrophy. Dumbbells are perfect for rows. You can do them in the standard way, with your torso parallel and supported on a flat bench. You can also do them like Jay Cutler does, lying face down on an incline bench for more stability and to minimize cheating. You can even choose to stand and use two dumbbells at once, as if you were doing a barbell row. The advantage is that you are free to do things like rotate your hands over the course of the rep to intensify the muscular contraction. You are limited only by your imagination. Since the back is such a big and complex muscle group, little twists and turns like this can really ignite the growth process. Again, concentrate on squeezing the inner back hard on each and every rep. Loose form won’t get you any closer to first place!
I feel overtrained, but I shouldn’t be. I take a full two days off from the gym every week and usually get seven or eight hours of sleep a night. I‘ve been training hard for over 10 years without missing more than a week at a time and until a couple years ago, my gains were pretty steady. What supplements are best for a man in my situation?
There are supplements that can help, but since I don’t think your problems really have their solution in them, I will focus on what I think is the real root of your dilemma. You say you haven’t missed more than a week of training in years. I admire your devotion and discipline, because very few people in this world are that committed to exercise. But at the same time, I have a feeling your enthusiasm is what is hurting you. Plain and simple, your body is trying to tell you it needs a break from the constant stress of weight training.
Your body is a biological organism and not a machine, so you can’t expect it to just keep chugging along full speed forever and ever. Those two days a week are not cutting it, as you must realize by now. This may sound crazy, but I strongly recommend you take at least a full month off from the gym. Before you think this will ruin the body you have worked so hard for, let me reassure you with a couple real-life examples. Flex Wheeler and Chris Cormier are two of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. Both of these men would routinely take two, four, or even six weeks off from the gym after a major event they had trained hard for, like the Olympia or Arnold Classic. Some critics tried to call them lazy for doing this, but the truth is they were being smart. The body and the mind need a substantial period of rest every now and then, or else you will become overtrained and actually start regressing.
Another good example is Quincy Taylor, one of the newest pros in the IFBB, but also among the very biggest at around 300 pounds ripped. Quincy designates a three-month phase of every year in which he doesn’t touch a weight. Yet, when he comes back to the gym, he quickly regains his previous levels of size and strength and then surpasses them. Studies have shown that you don’t really start losing significant amounts of muscle mass or strength for at least a month. And the wonderful thing about muscles that many of you have discovered firsthand is that they do have a memory. It’s almost miraculous how fast it all comes back even when you have been away from heavy training for periods as long as a year or more.
I have known many bodybuilding champions of the ‘70s and ‘80s who stopped training seriously for many years, yet quickly returned to their previous conditions with just a few months back in the gym. So, I hope I have been able to convince you that the key to getting results again from your training is to stop training for a while. It’s not going to be easy for someone so used to their days and weeks revolving around working out, but you have to force yourself to do it. In fact, a month off every year is probably something all bodybuilders should practice.
As for supplements that can also enhance your recovery— legal ones, of course— a few have proven effective. First is L-Glutamine, an amino acid. I recommend 10 grams both before and after training. Another useful product is phosphatidyserine, or PS for short, which has been shown to block the effects of cortisol, the stress hormone that can eat up muscle tissue if your body makes too much of it. Finally, you say you are sleeping seven to eight hours a night, but that doesn’t mean it’s quality sleep. Melatonin can make your sleep deeper and more relaxing, so you wake up refreshed and energized. Give these suggestions a try and overtraining should no longer be a stumbling block in your pursuit of your best physique.
Right now, I am a beginner, just over six feet tall and stuck at 170 pounds. I want to get a good six-pack, be able to bench press at least 400 pounds and weigh at least 250 pounds. Can you recommend a good workout for me?
Whoa, slow down! You are going in too many directions at once. It’s great to have such specific goals, but you need to understand that you have to approach them one at a time. Right away I can see you have two goals that are in opposition. You want a six-pack, which leads me to believe you have a little flab around the belly and need to lose some weight if you want to see clear abdominal definition. Then you also say you are “stuck” at a body weight of 170 pounds and want to gain another 80 pounds! Well, which one is it?
I can tell you for sure that you can’t achieve both of these goals at the same time. I can’t tell you what should be your priority, but it seems as if gaining overall size and weight is what you need to focus on for now. I wouldn’t worry about trying to be all defined and cross-striated until you have a lot more muscle to cut up in the first place. Lift heavy four or five times a week using basic free weight exercises, eat plenty of quality food and get plenty of rest. That’s the overly simplified formula a million men before you have used to go from skinny to huge. As for bench-pressing 400 pounds, you don’t mention what you can bench now. Not everyone has the potential to be a very strong bench presser, and taller guys with longer arms tend not to be as good as more compact men with shorter arms and larger ribcages.
If you really want to get the numbers up, you need to specialize on the lift and learn the proper technique. The way bodybuilders bench press is not the way to get big numbers up, because we focus on slow rep speed and quality muscle contractions rather than just powering up the weight by any means necessary. I suggest hooking up with a seasoned powerlifting competitor who can teach you all the little tricks and nuances he employs. You have a lot of work ahead of you, but remember that if you take your goals and break them down one at a time, you can achieve them all.
My friend, bad genetics get the blame for a lot of things in bodybuilding, but in my experience they are rarely the actual problem. And I can
The legs are already used to a certain volume of work from supporting your body weight as you stand, walk, climb stairs, etc. Further, the actual composition of muscle fibers is different, having a higher percentage of red slow-twitch fibers that are more suited to endurance than toward short bursts of power like a low-rep set of squats with a heavy weight. What does this mean? The legs can take a lot of work compared to muscle groups like the chest or biceps, and in fact, without an adequate amount of work, you can’t expect to see gains. Fifteen sets total for both the quadriceps and the hamstrings? Try doing around 20 sets for each, for starters. And the reps need to be a mix of high and low. You can go as low as sets of five reps, and as high as 50 or more. The quads, in particular, seem to really respond to occasional shock treatment workouts of 30 to 40 sets and reps that can go as high as 100.
Think about some of the guys with the greatest legs of all time. Tom Platz, the Golden Eagle, was legendary for his feats of endurance in the gym (and for the way he consistently trained far beyond the pain barrier). The man squatted 405 pounds for 50 reps. He would also take a weight like 315 and squat for 10 minutes non-stop. Do you think he would have had those awesome tree trunk thighs if he had been satisfied with the standard 10 or so sets of 10-20 reps? No way. And look at Lee Priest. It takes this guy at least two hours to get through his leg workouts. You can choose to say Lee is overtraining, but how can you ignore his enormous legs?
Don’t worry about overtraining the legs. Due to the unique nature of the legs, I don’t think it’s even possible to do, at least in one workout. Considering you are giving your legs a full week, or 168 hours to recover, whatever damage you manage to inflict in that workout will be repaired in that amount of time. With all this in mind, here’s a leg workout you can start following immediately. Stay with it just the way I have outlined it, and I guarantee that your legs will start catching up to your upper body in no time. You may choose to break up quads and hams into two separate sessions if it is convenient, to better allow you to focus on each individually.
Warm-Up: 5-7 minutes on stationary bike
Leg extensions
5 sets of 20, 20, 15, 15, 12 reps
Squats
6 sets of 20, 20, 15, 15, 12, 8 reps
Leg press
5 sets of 20, 15, 10, 8, 30 reps
Hack squats
5 sets of 20, 20, 15, 12, 8 reps
Stiff-leg deadlifts
6 sets of 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Lying leg curl
6 sets of 20, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Standing leg curl
6 sets (each leg) 8-12 reps
I thought I had a pretty good back, but after I took yet another second place at my last show, I asked a couple of the judges what they thought I needed to work on. They both said I had decent back width but lacked thickness. What do you recommend for building back thickness in a hurry? Honestly, I am pretty sure this is the only weak point on me right now and it’s holding me back from going to the next level.
You are far from alone, my friend! I have watched literally thousands of bodybuilders from all over the world walk through Gold’s Gym in Venice over the years, and I would estimate at least 80 percent or more of them had the same physique deficiency you currently have. Wide backs are as common as houseflies, but backs that are both wide and thick, I mean so thick you could lose a finger in the meat around the spine, are very rare indeed.
Why do you think Dorian Yates was so dominant during his reign as Mr. Olympia? He sure didn’t have the best overall shape or symmetry, and if you started comparing body parts to some of his main opponents like Flex, Kevin, or Nasser, the big Brit didn’t always seem so formidable. But when the lineup turned and faced the rear, he slaughtered them all with a back that was so rugged and thick from traps all the way down to the erectors, that no one could touch him.
Ronnie Coleman has used his superior back development to his advantage, too, over the past five years to stay on top against a hungry group of excellent challengers. These two Mr. Olympias used different routines to build those massive lats, but one thing they both shared in common is that they both trained very heavy and always incorporated free weights. Dorian was famous for his underhand grip barbell rows using over 405 pounds, and those of you who saw Ronnie’s video know the deadlift has always been his secret weapon. These are the best three exercises for building back thickness, and I suggest you start doing them instead of the various cable and machine variations I have a feeling you may be doing instead.
Deadlifts: I honestly doubt it’s even feasible to build a genuinely thick and impressive back without being a deadlifter. No other exercise for the upper body rivals the sheer mass-building effect of this old-school classic. Essentially, it’s the most basic exercise you can imagine: Bend down, pick up a weight and stand back up. But to do it you need to recruit the lats, the traps, the muscles of the lumbar spine, the biceps, the rear delts and the legs. How’s that for a lot of bang for your buck? When I think of Ronnie, Dorian and others over the years known for stunning backs— like Franco Columbu, Samir Bannout and Mike Francois— they were all very strong deadlifters. Work hard at becoming stronger on deads and that back will thicken up considerably by the time you compete again. Bodybuilders should use the standard shoulder-width foot position and an even grip rather than the over and under mixed grip powerlifters have to use, since wrist straps are not allowed in their meets.
Barbell Rows: You gotta row to grow when it comes to the back, and barbell rows are the most effective way to do the movement. EMG tests have confirmed that barbell rows activate more of the muscle fibers than machine or cable rows, but I could have told you that without needing a high-tech gadget. I have seen the results when bodybuilders started focusing on barbell rows time and time again. This exercise never fails to deliver. At the same time, form is crucial. You can’t heave and jerk the weight up like you’re having a convulsion. Pull with control and try to hold the bar at the top of the rep as you squeeze your shoulder blades together. Feel that? That’s the area of muscle in your mid-back that you need to build, and that’s how you’re gonna do it. T-bar rows are a reasonable substitute every now and then, but stay loyal to the barbell row if you want to be thick as a brick back there.
Dumbell Rows: I like dumbbells for a wide variety of movements because they are so versatile. Having the freedom to alter the angle of pushing or pulling, or to face your hand in a different direction, can attack the muscle from a completely unexpected direction that it’s not used to, and that almost always means more hypertrophy. Dumbbells are perfect for rows. You can do them in the standard way, with your torso parallel and supported on a flat bench. You can also do them like Jay Cutler does, lying face down on an incline bench for more stability and to minimize cheating. You can even choose to stand and use two dumbbells at once, as if you were doing a barbell row. The advantage is that you are free to do things like rotate your hands over the course of the rep to intensify the muscular contraction. You are limited only by your imagination. Since the back is such a big and complex muscle group, little twists and turns like this can really ignite the growth process. Again, concentrate on squeezing the inner back hard on each and every rep. Loose form won’t get you any closer to first place!
I feel overtrained, but I shouldn’t be. I take a full two days off from the gym every week and usually get seven or eight hours of sleep a night. I‘ve been training hard for over 10 years without missing more than a week at a time and until a couple years ago, my gains were pretty steady. What supplements are best for a man in my situation?
There are supplements that can help, but since I don’t think your problems really have their solution in them, I will focus on what I think is the real root of your dilemma. You say you haven’t missed more than a week of training in years. I admire your devotion and discipline, because very few people in this world are that committed to exercise. But at the same time, I have a feeling your enthusiasm is what is hurting you. Plain and simple, your body is trying to tell you it needs a break from the constant stress of weight training.
Your body is a biological organism and not a machine, so you can’t expect it to just keep chugging along full speed forever and ever. Those two days a week are not cutting it, as you must realize by now. This may sound crazy, but I strongly recommend you take at least a full month off from the gym. Before you think this will ruin the body you have worked so hard for, let me reassure you with a couple real-life examples. Flex Wheeler and Chris Cormier are two of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. Both of these men would routinely take two, four, or even six weeks off from the gym after a major event they had trained hard for, like the Olympia or Arnold Classic. Some critics tried to call them lazy for doing this, but the truth is they were being smart. The body and the mind need a substantial period of rest every now and then, or else you will become overtrained and actually start regressing.
Another good example is Quincy Taylor, one of the newest pros in the IFBB, but also among the very biggest at around 300 pounds ripped. Quincy designates a three-month phase of every year in which he doesn’t touch a weight. Yet, when he comes back to the gym, he quickly regains his previous levels of size and strength and then surpasses them. Studies have shown that you don’t really start losing significant amounts of muscle mass or strength for at least a month. And the wonderful thing about muscles that many of you have discovered firsthand is that they do have a memory. It’s almost miraculous how fast it all comes back even when you have been away from heavy training for periods as long as a year or more.
I have known many bodybuilding champions of the ‘70s and ‘80s who stopped training seriously for many years, yet quickly returned to their previous conditions with just a few months back in the gym. So, I hope I have been able to convince you that the key to getting results again from your training is to stop training for a while. It’s not going to be easy for someone so used to their days and weeks revolving around working out, but you have to force yourself to do it. In fact, a month off every year is probably something all bodybuilders should practice.
As for supplements that can also enhance your recovery— legal ones, of course— a few have proven effective. First is L-Glutamine, an amino acid. I recommend 10 grams both before and after training. Another useful product is phosphatidyserine, or PS for short, which has been shown to block the effects of cortisol, the stress hormone that can eat up muscle tissue if your body makes too much of it. Finally, you say you are sleeping seven to eight hours a night, but that doesn’t mean it’s quality sleep. Melatonin can make your sleep deeper and more relaxing, so you wake up refreshed and energized. Give these suggestions a try and overtraining should no longer be a stumbling block in your pursuit of your best physique.
Right now, I am a beginner, just over six feet tall and stuck at 170 pounds. I want to get a good six-pack, be able to bench press at least 400 pounds and weigh at least 250 pounds. Can you recommend a good workout for me?
Whoa, slow down! You are going in too many directions at once. It’s great to have such specific goals, but you need to understand that you have to approach them one at a time. Right away I can see you have two goals that are in opposition. You want a six-pack, which leads me to believe you have a little flab around the belly and need to lose some weight if you want to see clear abdominal definition. Then you also say you are “stuck” at a body weight of 170 pounds and want to gain another 80 pounds! Well, which one is it?
I can tell you for sure that you can’t achieve both of these goals at the same time. I can’t tell you what should be your priority, but it seems as if gaining overall size and weight is what you need to focus on for now. I wouldn’t worry about trying to be all defined and cross-striated until you have a lot more muscle to cut up in the first place. Lift heavy four or five times a week using basic free weight exercises, eat plenty of quality food and get plenty of rest. That’s the overly simplified formula a million men before you have used to go from skinny to huge. As for bench-pressing 400 pounds, you don’t mention what you can bench now. Not everyone has the potential to be a very strong bench presser, and taller guys with longer arms tend not to be as good as more compact men with shorter arms and larger ribcages.
If you really want to get the numbers up, you need to specialize on the lift and learn the proper technique. The way bodybuilders bench press is not the way to get big numbers up, because we focus on slow rep speed and quality muscle contractions rather than just powering up the weight by any means necessary. I suggest hooking up with a seasoned powerlifting competitor who can teach you all the little tricks and nuances he employs. You have a lot of work ahead of you, but remember that if you take your goals and break them down one at a time, you can achieve them all.
