As an MI40 Nation member I will assume you are busting your balls week in week out and following my advice to the letter… I’ll also therefore assume you are seeing progress that is ahead of the curve.
While I genuinely believe I am giving you THE best training information and workouts you’ll find anywhere, if my training advice REALLY is the best, why are there still IFBB Pros training in a manner that would appear suboptimal, almost seeming to fly in the face of what I’ve taught you?
Valid question right?
Well, there’s maximising workouts by training optimally, and then there’s training sub-optimally but seeing results in spite of this…
While there are various factors that play a leading role in how well a person may respond to exercise, some of those are outside of our control.
Take ‘genetics’ for example… if someone “chose better parents” than I did, then I have to train harder, eat better, and approach things in a smarter way than they do to be in with a chance of coming out on top. Simple as that.
I therefore have no choice but to put my focus on optimising what I CAN control, and avoid wasted time sitting around lamenting what I can’t.
Some people will still see fantastic results in spite of a seemingly inferior approach – I accept that, it’s just a reality among the elite. The top 0.1% can bypass many important factors.
BUT…
There are some common traits that ALL top pro bodybuilders share in common, ones that you must work on if you are serious about making significant progress.
Over the next 6 weeks we will turn our attention to one of the most important…
Intensity of contraction
Every top bodybuilder on the planet has the ability to contract a muscle to an INSANE degree… no exception. You will NEVER significantly build the size of a muscle with weak shitty contractions… it just won’t happen.
While it’s true that many pro’s have God awful form which you’d think would inhibit their progress, pay close attention to their ability to contract the working muscle… no doubt it will be on a whole other level to 99% of the world.
Now obviously I don’t encourage sloppy form, I’m merely pointing out the importance of being able to develop a heightened ability to contract a muscle. Optimizing your execution should still be a priority if you want to maximise your time and results.
As an example of a high profile top pro that deserves massive respect, but doesn’t exactly train optimally from a biomechanics perspective, I’ll mention my good buddy Branch Warren.
While he may not train the way I would personally recommend, his ability to contract is INSANE.
In my humble view, he would probably see even greater results if he followed the sort of exercise execution I teach, but no one can argue that the dude’s not a freak and among the best around (though there’s no doubting who has the more impressive wheels ;)).
The moral of the story… you MUST work on improving the skill of contraction – it is a NECESSITY if you want to add more than just a few measly pounds!
Progressively stronger muscular contractions not only improve your ability to stimulate tissue growth, they also make your muscles more receptive to utilizing the foods you eat, thus increasing the “margin for error” in your nutrition.
The next 6 weeks will be mainly about increasing the quality and the intensity of your contractions, as well as encouraging neural adaptations – if followed precisely, soon you could be on your way to joining the ranks of the elite and growing like a pro!
Sound good?
Well let’s move on to the meat of the program…
Workout Structure
As I have implied already, increasing your ability to recruit more muscle fibers during every contraction – neurological efficiency – is essential to maximizing your ability to rapidly build muscle. You can hit your optimal levels of volume and frequency, but if you are only engaging a fraction of your potential muscle tissue during each rep, your progress will also be a fraction of what it could be.
When training for neurological efficiency, it is helpful to minimize the number of ways one may ‘cheat’. We will take advantage of exercises that will allow us to better “lock it down” and avoid extraneous movement. As a result, the number of exercise variations will be less than in many of my other programs – this is intentional – it will not only help in reducing time spent setting up and changing stations, but it will force you to better focus on increasing the quality of your contractions in a single movement pattern.
There are practice sets written into these workouts, but they should not replace any warm-ups you may typically do such as isometric activation sets.
The goal of the first sets of each exercise is to practice squeezing the muscle all the way into the fully shortened position. A1 and A2 exercises are specifically selected to provide the least amount of resistance in the lengthened positions, while increasing during the concentric – therefore DO NOT launch or initiate forcefully out from the bottom of the rep… initiate slowly with maximum control, gradually squeezing harder and harder as the muscle becomes shorter and the resistance increases.
B1 and B2 exercises will be the same as those performed during A1 and A2 sets. This is because your body has been primed for hard contractions with those particular movement patterns. This is where we will focus on increasing the intensity of those contractions and maintaining continuous motion.
C’s and D’s will follow the same pattern as A’s and B’s, but will emphasize overloading the lengthened and mid-range of motion. Aim for a HARD initiation, and then focus on increasing your mental ability to contract as the relative resistance decreases.
Finally, because I know you love lactic acid 😉 …some intensifiers await you at the final hurdle – the goal is to produce some metabolites and increase bloodflow, nutrient update, insulin sensitivity, as well as stimulate a greater hypertrophic response.
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As always, frequently assess your active range each session, apply ‘intent’ whenever possible, and remember… this is about increasing QUALITY and INTENSITY of CONTRACTIONS… NOT about moving more weight.
Squeeze it ‘til it cramps soldier.
BPak out
