Classic Bodybuilding: Serge Nubret's "Chase the Pump" Training

For those of you who are my age or older, you can probably remember well the first time you saw the amazing physique of Serge Nubret: It was in the pseudo-documentary we all now know and love as “Pumping Iron.”  With the director and writers of Pumping Iron attempting to make out the film as a “David vs Goliath” with the young (but massive) Lou Ferrigno taking on the older “Goliath” in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger, they had no idea that their whole half-true enterprise would crumble a bit with the entry of Serge Nubret.

You took one look at Nubret and you knew there was no doubt that Ferrigno was out of his league with both Schwarzenegger and the Frenchmen.  (Nubret was French.) Nubret - to this day - had one of the most classically beautiful physiques of all-time.  Arnold, of course, won the whole thing, but Nubret easily came in 2nd.

By the time I watched Pumping Iron sometime in the mid to late ‘80s, there was very little information that I could find on Nubret’s training methods.  The sole source for bodybuilding information, of any sort, in those days were your major bodybuilding magazines, and Nubret, being already retired by that point, wasn’t in any of them.  It wasn’t until I read a lot of articles in MuscleMag International - primarily by Greg Zulak and Robert Kennedy - that I began to understand Nubret’s sort of unique training.  I say “sort of” because what Nubret did wasn’t anything particularly new, but he took it to unique heights, heights that were only surpassed by his fellow amazing Frenchman, Thierry Pastel.

To be honest, good information on Nubret’s training is still fairly scant, even with the advent of the internet.  If you do a search, for instance, on “Serge Nubret training” you basically get one article that has been rewritten or “re-worded” - or just plain copied - on a number of different websites.

Nubret’s training was actually fairly simple when looked at from an outsider’s point of view, but it doesn’t really take into account the mindset of Nubret or the amount of “instinctive” training he used, a technique used by many other bodybuilders of the “golden age” that trained with higher reps and higher volume.  So, what was his training?  In a nutshell: a lot of sets, a lot of reps, a lot of exercises, which means a lot of volume.

There.  You happy?  I didn’t think so.

Anyone who simply tries to duplicate his training, even if you have his more detailed plan that floats around the internet, is going to run into issues.  Just so you don’t have to do your own search, here is the training program of Nubret’s that is on a number of websites:

Serge Nubret’s Routine:

Monday:

Quads

Squats – 8 sets of 12 reps

Leg Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Leg Extension – 6 sets of 12 reps

Chest

Bench Press – 8 sets of 12 reps

Flat Bench Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Bench Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Pullovers – 6 sets of 12 reps

Tuesday:

Back

Chin-ups – 6 sets of 12 reps

Behind the Neck Lat Pulldowns – 8 sets of 12 reps

Lat Pulldowns to the Front – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Bent-over Rows – 6 sets of 12 reps

Hamstrings

Lying Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Standing Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Wednesday:

Shoulders

Behind the Neck Barbell Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Alternate Dumbbell Front Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Upright Row – 6 sets of 12 reps

Cable Lateral Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Arms

Barbell Curl superset with Triceps Pushdowns – 8 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Curl superset with Triceps Dips – 8 sets of 12 reps

Calves

Standing Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Seated Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Thursday:

(Same as Monday)

Quads

Squats – 8 sets of 12 reps

Leg Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Leg Extension – 6 sets of 12 reps

Chest

Bench Press – 8 sets of 12 reps

Flat Bench Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Bench Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Incline Flye’s – 6 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Pullovers – 6 sets of 12 reps

Friday:

(Same as Tuesday)

Back

Chin-ups – 6 sets of 12 reps

Behind the Neck Lat Pulldowns – 8 sets of 12 reps

Lat Pulldowns to the Front – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Bent-over Rows – 6 sets of 12 reps

Hamstrings

Lying Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Standing Leg Curl – 8 sets of 15 reps

Saturday:

(Same as Wednesday)

Shoulders

Behind the Neck Barbell Press – 6 sets of 12 reps

Alternate Dumbbell Front Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Barbell Upright Row – 6 sets of 12 reps

Cable Lateral Raise – 6 sets of 12 reps

Arms

Barbell Curl superset with Triceps Pushdowns – 16 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Curl superset with Triceps Dips – 16 sets of 12 reps

Calves

Standing Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Seated Calf Raises – 8 sets of 12 reps

Sunday: Take it Easy

First off, I seriously doubt that was the routine that Nubret followed every week.  As with many of the programs I have posted here in the past, that is an example of a Serge Nubret routine, but not the end-all, be-all that created his majestic physique.

Let’s break down his training a little bit, so that - if you so choose - you can actually use his techniques for yourself.

Nubret liked to use moderately light weights for all of his sets.  He would focus on form, and use what we might say in a cliched way to be “mind over muscle.”  He would really focus his mind so that he was concentrating on the muscle being used, and ensuring there was tension throughout the set.

The weight also had to be light because he believed in using minimal rest between sets.  30 seconds between sets was nothing for Nubret! His training, in this way, is very similar to Vince Gironda’s “6x6 Program”.  Gironda used this program to train several great IFBB bodybuilders in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, including Chris Dickerson when he won the title in 1982.  For Gironda’s program, you typically picked 3 to 5 exercises per bodypart (depending on the size of the muscle), and picked a weight where you would probably fail around the 10th to 12th rep if you were training to failure.  You then did 6 sets of 6 reps on every exercise, taking only 30 to 20 seconds of rest between sets.  The pump and soreness you get from this program is out of this world.  Dickerson, when he won the title (so the story goes), reached the point to where he was only resting 15 to 20 seconds between sets!

Gironda called this sort of training - as did others from his era - “chasing the pump”.

Nubret’s reps are (obviously) higher than 6 on each set, and Nubret reportedly like to train to failure on all his sets.  I don’t advise that sort of training until you reach an advanced level. Keep in mind that, when designing a program, you need to properly manipulate volume, intensity, and frequency.  It’s best, for a program such as this one, to keep volume and frequency high while keeping intensity relatively low. Only highly advanced bodybuilders, such as Nubret was, can use high volume, high frequency, and high intensity.  My advice is to keep your reps in the 10 to 12 range but pick a weight where you typically fail somewhere around the 20th repetition.  By keeping rest between sets to a minimum, your intensity will be plenty high enough. Trust me.

If you insist on training with the amount of intensity that Nubret used, then don’t train so frequently.  For example, let’s say this is the chest program that you use:

Flat Bench Flye’s – 5 sets of 12 reps

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press: 5 sets of 12 reps

Incline Bench Press – 4 sets of 12 reps

Incline Flye’s – 4 sets of 12 reps

Dumbbell Pullovers – 4 sets of 12 reps

You will notice, first things first, that there are less sets than what Nubret used.  Good. 22 sets is still plenty! And if you take every set to failure, or damn close, then you still shouldn’t train your chest (or other muscle groups using the same philosophy) every two to three days.  Which means that I would recommend a split that looks something like the following:

Day One: Chest, Back

Day Two: Legs

Day Three: Off

Day Four: Shoulders and Arms

Day Five: Off

Day Six Repeat

This gives you four days of rest between obliterating your muscle groups with 20 sets (or thereabouts) of failure training.  This means that your volume and intensity will be high, while your frequency is low. As you adapt to the training, and find that you are not as sore the day after a workout, then you can consider repeating the workout on Day Five instead of Day Six.  Eventually, if you want to reach the volume of Nubret, you could even consider cutting out the day off on Day Three altogether.