Forgotten Secrets of Muscle Building

 Hypertrophy Training that WORKS for the Natural Lifter

     In my recent essay “The Game Changers,” I wrote this about high-frequency training: “Although it (HFT) is more mainstream now, I suppose, it’s still the kind of lesser-known of training methods, at least among the general population.  And even among lifters who do know about it, it’s still often dismissed because it’s not how competitive bodybuilders train.  It’s also certainly not how pro bodybuilders—i.e. drug users—train.  But that’s the thing.  It’s dismissed because it’s not attempted by enough drug-free bodybuilders.  Something tells me that if anabolic steroids never existed, it might be the #1 method of lifting among everyone—powerlifters, Olympic lifters, and bodybuilders.”  For some reason today, I thought about that sentence—there are always thoughts about my training and writing swirling around in my head; it can be a bit annoying—and then it made me think about other forgotten methods of training that might benefit today’s drug-free, natural lifters.  What follows are the often forgotten methods of training that would greatly benefit you if you're after the maximum amount of hypertrophy without resorting to a needle.

     In many ways, I guess, this could have also been titled Game Changers 2, as these secrets could very well change-the-game in your mass-building quest.  And as I wrote with high-frequency training above—which will be the first one we’ll discuss below—I think these are the very things that most bodybuilders would have stuck with, and gravitated toward, if steroids had never come into the world.

Frequent Training

     High-frequency training wasn’t just a game changer for me—and all of my lifters—when I first discovered, and then implemented, it; it was a method of training that should have never had to be rediscovered in the first place.  In many ways, when discussing old-school methods of training, this was the one method that all bodybuilders used 100 years ago.  It was used consistently all the way from then until the ‘80s, when bodybuilders started resting their bodyparts more between workout sessions.  But if you look at all bodybuilders in the ‘70s and before, no matter what exactly their training looked like—whether they used only a few exercises or tons of exercises; whether they used a lot of sets or a few sets; whether they trained with high reps or low reps—all of them trained frequently.

     In the ‘90s—with the advent of increasingly more anabolic steroid use among competitive bodybuilders—lifters started training their lifts/bodyparts less frequently.  Guys like Dorian Yates reduced the length of their workouts and the frequency of their workouts… and became absolutely massive.  But that’s the issue with steroids that’s never discussed.  Steroids don’t just allow you to train less frequently, they make that (perhaps) the best form of training that you can do.  When natural bodybuilders follow a split where they train one-bodypart-per-day and train each bodypart only once-per-week, they (often) end up both overtraining and undertraining.  They do too much at each workout session since they’re training infrequently (not a problem on steroids) and then, because they are so sore from such workouts, they wait too long before the next session (also not a problem for the steroid user).  Steroids, because they keep you in an “anabolic state” constantly, actually make that sort of training almost ideal.  Of course, that’s not to say that a bodybuilder on steroids can’t also train frequently since the exogenous testosterone also enhances recovery so damn much, but it’s not necessary to train that way on drugs.  (While I’m mentioning steroids, let me say that another benefit is the fact that you also don’t have to do any of the other things we’re going to discuss below; you don’t need to take advantage of other methods that enhance muscle growth because you’re already “enhanced” enough, which makes, once again, infrequent, one-bodypart-per-workout training the “best.”)

     All of this is not to say that the natural bodybuilder should start training as frequently as he or she possibly can.  Adding more volume and more frequency to your already existing workout program is not the answer.  But you do want to slowly increase the amount of work you do until you build up the capacity to train not just frequently but also with enough poundage and volume.  All of which brings us to our next secret.

Full-Body Workouts or Two-Way Split Training

     For the first 50 years or so of bodybuilding’s history, no one used split workouts.  Those weren’t used by lifters until the ‘40s, when some of the top muscle-men experimented with them.  But even then, full-body workouts were used by the majority of bodybuilders, and, yep, even the top ones, well until the ‘60s, when split workouts became more prominent.  But even then, no one used more than a two-way split.  And when two-way splits became the norm, they were often what I refer to as “full-body split workouts.”  A bodybuilder might train legs, chest, and shoulders one day—with plenty of barbell work; squats, bench presses, and overhead presses, and their variations—and then heavy back and arms on another day.  Back wasn’t just lat pulldowns or chins, either.  It was deadlifts, power cleans, snatches, rows, and other, similar, movements.  So a bodybuilder often utilized his back, leg, and hip muscles—the muscles that promote the most growth when trained—as much as 6-days-per-week.     

     Nowadays, when a natural bodybuilder begins training, he or she often starts with multi-bodypart splits.  But most find they don’t see progress—unless they’re simply built for that kind of training; those are the modern bodybuilders that are typically the most successful—until they go to full-body workouts utilizing heavy barbell and dumbbell movements; the classical lifts.  Which brings us around to our next forgotten secret.

Whole Body Lifts

     Whole body lifts were, in many ways, the baby that got thrown out with the bathwater when it comes to split training.  It was understood that whole body lifts could promote strength and growth, but as bodybuilders started training more-and-more with bodypart-specific splits, they got away from doing exercises that targeted the entire body.  After all, where are you going to put the clean-and-jerk in your training rotation when it works the back, the leg muscles, the shoulder, and the “core” in equal fashion?  The answer, of course, is not anywhere.

     Whole body lifts have at least made something of a comeback due to the popularity of Crossfit and other “functional” training methods, but they still aren’t used enough by bodybuilders and regular gym-goers that just want to look good.  But if you want more muscle mass—these exercises are mistakenly seen more as strength-builders than mass-builders, which is more than a little foolish—you need to include some whole body lifts into your routine.  Just remember: the more muscles that are worked in an exercise, the better!  All kinds of clean and presses are fantastic—barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell; one arm and two arm.  Same goes for the variety of snatches.  Any exercise that combines two movements into one are virtually fool-proof bets for more muscle growth.  The squat and press is a good example, as is the clean and curl.  Ditto for any “complexes” where you do a series of exercises back-to-back without setting down the barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell.

     Recently, I was in my home state of Texas for a week for a family reunion.  I stayed in a rural county at an Airbnb, and didn’t want to drive 30 miles to the nearest gym, so all I took with me for training was a pair of 20kg kettlebells.  And the only exercise I did with the kettlebells was Dan John’s “armor-building” complex, which consists of the double kettlebell clean, the double kettlebell overhead press, and the double kettlebell front squat.  I can’t remember the exact reps that John recommended, but I did my sets with a 5/3/8 rep range.  5 reps of cleans, followed immediately with 3 presses, then the 8 squats.  I did however many sets I felt like on each day, and trained every day while there.  And at the end of the trip, I realized that you would need little other than that one complex to build a good degree of muscle and strength if you trained it daily.  Because whole-body lifts plus high-frequency equals big-time results.

Train Long, Not Hard, with Moderate and “Reasonable” Workouts

     I have written a few times that “moderation sucks” or that your body needs challenges on occasion in order to continue to progress.  Without challenges, the body can grow complacent if not careful.  But you shouldn’t treat each-and-every workout session like an all-out military assault on your muscle tissue.  Old-time bodybuilders certainly didn’t.  Sure, you need to occasionally test your boundaries and limits, and you should also occasionally follow a program that pushes you almost to the edge, but those are the exceptions, not the rule.

     About a decade ago, maybe longer, when I was writing regularly for Planet Muscle, I received a call one night from Jeff Everson.  If you don’t know Everson, who died in 2019, he was a famous bodybuilder who was the one-time husband of multiple Ms. Olympia winner Cory Everson, and the former editor of Muscle & Fitness during its heyday.  He was also a heck of a guy who I miss talking training with.  Anyway, that evening he called me to discuss an article I had written.  I can’t even remember exactly which one, but he thought some of the material I had written about the training of old-time bodybuilders, from the ‘70s and before, was a little mistaken.  He said that, having personally watched a lot of the bodybuilders from the ‘70s train, they didn’t exactly train the way it was written in the magazines.  He said that, sure, they trained each bodypart 3x weekly, and, sure, they trained with a lot of sets.  But he said they only had one really hard workout each week, and that was the workout that would be printed in the magazines.  He said the other workouts for that same bodypart during the week would be medium or even light workouts.  He also suggested that was the key to the full-body workouts from earlier eras.  None of their full-body sessions were “intense,” but they were simply moderate workouts, doing only enough to allow them to train with the same level of intensity at each session.  Over the years, they would slowly increase the amount of total work, and weight, being utilized.  Keep that advice in mind if you ever try something such as Arnold’s “Golden 6” workout plan.

More Sets, Less Reps

     Almost all training programs nowadays for hypertrophy involve doing less sets and more reps.  The standard 3 sets of 10 reps is the most common example, but all set/rep ranges seem to revolve around something similar.  But as Pavel writes, “if you get a pump with heavy weights, you’ll get big.”  8 sets of 5 reps is a good standard.  That’s also much closer to the kind of training that old-time bodybuilders did in the ‘40s and earlier.

     5 sets of 5 reps is a good starting point, probably, for the average gym-goer when beginning this sort of training.  As you progress, start doing more and more sets, but keep your reps around 5, and go even lower on occasion.

     I have written at length about this sort of training on the blog, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but if you’re interested in seeing what some programs might look like, here are two good ones to start with:

The 10x5 Method

The 3x10x3 Method

To Sum it Up

     Even though most of these “secrets” have been forgotten by the training and lifting masses, many of the training programs I write on this blog use them.  So if you’re looking for even more programs, please search through the site.  These methods may be forgotten by most, but you can use them to break away from the hypertrophy herd and build mass that stands out from the rest of the crowd.