There are many weight lifting programs on the ‘net, so research them all and come to your own conclusions. Good luck!

This information is great, I’m going to try bulking up with these recommendations in mind. Quick question though: If you’re a bit injury prone, would you stick to a higher rep range – say 8-12, or is that just wasting your time?

Thanks!

The classic example of this phenomenon is the comparison between barbell rows and machine rows. With the machine, most of the stress of the movement is focused on the lats. With the barbell row, the lats don’t get fully worked until the lower back is strong enough to take the strain of supporting not only the fully-loaded barbell, but the weight of the upper torso.

Anything that reduces the need for core strength, supporting muscles, etc. helps you build size, especially when you’re doing isolation exercises. Of course, most sensible people don’t want to neglect their whole-body strength just to get a bit more size in a given muscle, but if you’re a pure bodybuilder you have to find ways to increase intensity.

Please understand that I’m not recommending this sort of workout program to anyone in particular. The article explains why certain bodybuilders do things the way they do. Their needs are not necessarily your needs.

I’ll never tell anyone to focus on the size of a muscle instead of the strength of a movement. But for bodybuilders who do focus almost exclusively on the size of an isolated muscle, a free-weight barbell is less useful than a well-designed isolation machine.

Health.gov says you need 30 minutes of moderately-intense cardio just about every day. But cutting out the cardio for a while isn’t the end of the world, if you do it to gain muscle mass. Some bodybuilders use weight lifting as a form of cardio. It’s why many bodybuilders recommend shorter rest periods between sets, at least when they’re cutting fat.

So, keep accurate records, make sure you’re getting the results you want, and remember that you should focus on one main goal at a time.

Thank you,
-Dilan

It’s a pain in the A**, but here’s a possible solution.

Bodybuilders, lift in two stages. A bulking stage, and a cutting stage. The guys you see on the cover of muscle mags are in the cutting stage. Most pro body builders cant keep that physique year round. They face the same problem you do, but a little more extreme. This article points to a push pull program, which is phenomenal. most lifter will tell you it’s the best way to gain size. Especially upper body size. For your body now, stick with the push pull workout. In my opinion, it is easier to bulk up before cutting down. I would try bulking up your arms and legs before trying to slim down your chest and gut. It will be more weight gain in the begining, but the results of larger muscles will be more present. For the gaining of muscle, a different set up would be to use a 12-10-8-6-12-12 rep set. You also will want to be eating more, more often. Try eating 6 meals a day. Still do your breakfast lunch dinner, and throw in a few smaller meals as well. It’s good to take protein supplements .5 to 1 gram per pound of body weight. Magazine’s will tell you more, but anything your body cant use it wastes. After your size gains I would start to cut up. I believe the difference is if you cut first, then try to gain you’ll find yourself in the same boat as before. You’ll have the definition, but lack the mass. This is just a suggestion.

My aim is to bulk up my legs and arms but tone down my gut and chest. I understand I can’t achieve both at once, but could you recommend any way in which I can get the results in the shortest time possible, and any changes I should try to make to enhance my results, both on the exercises and also on diet?

Thanks

By making the rep range wide at 4-8, though, I imagine that one would be trying to encourage more sets than, say, a 6-8 or 4-6 range would allow. Is that part of the point? Is it a quasi-volume approach?

I don’t believe there should be a hard-and-fast rule about how many sets to perform.

Maybe the article needs a bit of editing, but it should say to do as many sets as possible until you can no longer maintain the rep range that you are shooting for. That is, if you want to stay in the 8 to 10 rep range, keep doing sets until you can no longer get at least 8 reps. This assumes that you have adequate rest periods between sets. Obviously, if you only rest 45 seconds between sets you’ll be unable to do as many sets as you could if you had rested 3 minutes.

I don’t want to be in the business of prescribing a one size fits all workout for anyone who stumbles across this site.

I’m not willing to tell people to “just do 5 sets and then move on to the next exercise.” I believe a person should tweak his workout program so it complements his own abilities. Things like long- and short-term recovery ability, and desired rep range play a large part in how many sets are ideal. A guy who is new to working out won’t have anywhere near the recovery ability of an expert. His sets will, by necessity, be less. There’s no point in me telling this new guy that he has to use 5 work sets or he’s just shortchanging himself.

For bodybuilding — unlike other strength training sports — you want to exhaust the muscles so no muscle fiber is left untouched. This can only be done by performing as many sets as possible at a given rep range and weight. Some days, it might take 5 sets, other days only 3.

Note that “warm-up” sets are important, especially when the reps go below 8 or so. These aren’t counted as “real” sets because the weight is lighter than that used in the “work” sets. I may write an article about warm-up sets sometime, but there’s already a lot of good stuff about this subject on the ‘web (most of it cribbed from Mark Ripptoe’s book).

Hope that helps; thanx for the comments.