Bulking Up Training

Training to bulk up and get jacked!

If you are trying to add some more muscle, there are a many ways to do it, and no particular way is specifically wrong, however, there are a few things that are certainly right and you should be doing no matter what.

The first thing to focus on is making sure your program is full of compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, pull ups and some type of overhead pressing movement. The reason for using compound movements is, these larger movements will:

1. Stimulate more muscle fibres than smaller isolation movements such as bicep curls and lateral raises, for example a Chin up uses the Latimus Dorsi, lower trapeziums, rhombiods, biceps and forearms, to name a few muscle. If you want add thickness to the arms, then a set of chin ups with an average 80kg bodyweight lifter and 20kg's strapped to you for more weight assuming you are strong enough, is going to be far superior than a set of bicep curls, considering the chin up has all the range of movement you get in a bicep curl, except when you do a weighted chin up you are now using 120kg's instead of 40kg's.



2. You can use more weight and build more strength, this links in with the point above. Because movements like squats, deadlifts and bench presses will always have more weight on the bar than movements than exercises like lat raises, triceps extensions and bicep curls which has many benefits, one is that you can get more constant progress. For example it's easier to add 5kg's to your deadlift week after week, than it is a bicep curl and put simply, as you add weight to the bar, your muscles adapt, get stronger end up bigger.

3. Compound movements are more stressful and harder work that isolation movements. At first that seems like it sucks because we all want the easy route, but the more stress you put on your body, the better it adapts, it's a term called hormesis and this just means, when you put a mild stress on your body, it adapts and hardens up, so doing more tough compound movements will increase whole body tension and strain, leading to more adaption, more muscle and just generally being tougher, which is always a good thing, of course you must man up and do them to get the benefits of this.

4. They increase anabolic hormones better than isolation movements because of a larger recruitment pattern, these hormones include testosterone, growth hormone and insulin like growth factor 1, these all help burn fat and build muscle faster the higher they are.

Okay so now we have established that if you want to add muscle and bulk up, the main staple of your training should be compound movements, the next thing to look at is what repetition ranges, sets, rest periods and frequency should be in a program for the fastest muscle gains.

The short answer to this is, it depends, but that's not very helpful, however its the truth, because without taking other factors into consideration, you really can't put together a good training program, so before looking into putting a good solid hypertrophy program together.

First you need to realise, you can't out exercise a bad diet and you can't out diet a bad lifestyle. Any recommendations I give here won't mean jack if you are not getting adequate sleep, around 7-9 hours, aiming for nine more often than not and eating a half decent diet. Focusing on real foods, such plenty of protein from meats, fish, eggs and some dairy if you tolerate it and including the fats as they will all be saturated and contain cholesterol, which increase anabolic hormone production, fruits, vegetables, some starches like rice, potato's and sweet potato's. Try to avoid wheat, gluten, sugars and processed foods and your recovery will be much better and topped off with some quality supplements.




Okay back to the training, first we need to establish the best repetition range for hypertrophy, the information on this seems to vary and evidence shows you can get hypertrophy and build muscle at up to 25 reps and carry on all the way down to around 3 repetitions, so this leaves the options open for quite a few variables, however if you are reasonably experienced and have been training for more than 6 months, I would steer well clear of high repetition compound work as you will probably lose strength and stick closer to 5-8 repetitions as this will elicit good hypertrophy and cross over into promoting nice strength gains, this will keep progress moving.

When it comes to how many sets to do, if you want more muscle, generally, you need to do more sets rather than less, as you will cause more trauma on the muscles, release more anabolic hormones intern causing more muscle growth. This is where you can end up with programs such as German Volume Training, calling for 10 sets of 10 repetitions on major muscles groups, although this program puts a lot of volume on the body and can add muscle fast, the problem with this program is because the emphasis is on quite high reps and also a lot of sets, it actually has very little benefit on strength and can often decrease it if you are a natural lifter, and you can't afford to lose strength, because you'll just see you weights go down and no increase in muscle in the long term.

Four weeks of GVT could be an effective strategy for some short term muscle growth and then transitioning to lower reps and more strength work to maintain the extra muscle, or follow what I prefer to use, a hybrid GVT program, using a lower rep scheme of 3-5, but still doing up to 10 sets and keep rest periods short, around 60-90 seconds, as you can get strength increases, while still putting in plenty of volume to build mass.

Here is an example option for bulking up, doing fewer reps, using a heavier weight and training your muscles more often as it doesn't take seven days for your muscles to recover before you can train them again, instead you can train each muscle group twice a week, but do some high repetition work for one of the sessions and lower for another, this will get the strength and hypertrophy benefits all rolled into one.

Here is an example do one day focused on upper body day, one day on lower body day and one full body workout a week or if you train four days a week, two full body sessions and one upper and one lower body session, focusing on the 5-8 repetition range, you can go higher repetitions for smaller muscles like biceps, abs and triceps, say 10-12 and get a pump, since building strength in these will come from the compound movements you do.

So a hypothetical 3 day hypertrophy bulking up program could look something like this:

Monday – Lower Body

A 6x3-5 Deadlifts
B1 4-6x5-8 Back Squats
B2 4x8-10 Hanging leg Raises


Wednesday – Upper Body

A1 8x4-6 Barbell Bench Press
A2 8x4-6 Weighted chin ups
B1 4x8-10 Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
B2 4x8-10 Single arm rows
C 3x10-12 Barbell Curls


Friday

A1 4x6-8 Standing Barbell Overhead Press
A2 4x8-10 Leg Press
B1 3x6-8 Dips
B2 3x8-10 Hyper extensions
C 3x10-12 Triceps extensions

Note: The letters in the sequence correspond with the order of each exercise, so A is going to be the first exercise and would be done on its own, if it is A1 & A2, it means the exercises are done in a super-set fashion, with minimal rest from one exercise to the next. The first number is the amount of sets and the second number is the amount of repetitions.

About the Author:

Oliver Chapman is the owner of Renaissance Fitness and is a body transformation expert, focusing on helping people to achieve results they never thought possible, his passion is helping people to become there own hero by making people look, feel and perform at their very best

This is done through his very successful Personally Training business, where he uses many different methods to help people from all walks of life to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

He has studied with some of the worlds top experts in health and fitness and reads between 50 and 100 books a year to further his knowledge and is establishing himself as the go to person for body transformation training and rapid fat-loss. He has been weight training and exercising since his early teenage years and has developed a huge passion for helping people achieve their goals from the knowledge he has gained from studying with various experts and through his own trail and error from years of walking his talk and constantly challenging himself in every area of life from sky dives and weightlifting competitions to the development of his own Personal Training business.

He embraces the idea that fitness and health is not just about looking good, but also using it to help develop a strong mind and healthy body and challenge yourself inside and outside of the gym, to achieve more than just great fitness, but also because improving health and getting the body you want should help you live the life you want to live, by having more confidence in the way you look, feel and perform to help take on any challenges life throws at you.

To learn more about him and what he does, go to his website:www.olliechapman.com


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