Aside from genetic predispositions, there are many factors that contribute to your gains in the gym.

1.)    Intensity of training. Are you working our hard and fatiguing the muscle fibers or are you barely breaking a sweat while telling jokes every 5 minutes?

 

2.)    Volume. Too much volume will quickly deplete your glycogen stores and fry your CNS. Too little volume and you haven't induced anything despite what Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer might tell you! So where does this leave us? We have found that 4-6 intense sets per muscle group works best, split up among 1-2 exercises. Obviously not every body part is the focus in a given training session. Cut the fluff sets and get to the point after intelligently conducted warmup sets.

 

3.)    Frequency. Are you training once a week? While in season this can help maintain your gains, don’t expect to get much stronger on this training split. Conversely, are you hitting it 6 days a week? Spinning your wheels? It is probably because you are doing TOO much. If you train hard, 2-4 days a week is your best bet.

 

4.)    Exercise Selection. We are talking about “bang for your buck” exercises that force multiple muscle groups to engage and fire, providing an excellent stimulus for growth and strength throughout your body. Squats, Bench Presses, Chinups, Deadlifts, etc are great selections. Leg Extensions, Flies, Curls, and Leg Curls have their place, but we (IF we do them) throw them at the end of a workout after we have hit the big stuff.

 

AND Finally…The King of the Hill …

 

5.)    Progressive Overload. Let’s say last year you could bench press 185 pounds 9 times. You spend a year scouring the pages of every bodybuilding magazine, and read every internet article there is to read on “the secret” of making gains that none of us strength coaches know about. You perform pre-exhaustion, post-exhaustion, drop sets, strip sets, 3 Way Splits, blah, blah, blah..one year later, you lay back on the bench, and perform 185 pounds…9 times.

 

Disappointed, you look into the mirror and break into a cold sweat (you know, the kind that you get when you are receiving a bad haircut). You have not added ANY size to your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Those muscle mags lied to you! What you failed to account for in your training is the MOST important of all in determining your progress: Progressive Overload.

 

Not only do you need to work with the right amount of intensity, volume, frequency, and with the proper exercises, but you need to SLOWLY increase the resistance in all of these exercises in order to make strength gains. I don’t care what the “experts” say, strength (in the hypertrophy rep range of 6-20 reps) and size are related. Go to any commercial gym and you will see this phenomenon play out, the big guys are pushing big weights! Sure, there are freaks out there, skinny guys that can move weight, but this stuff is all relative people! Those skinny guys who are rowing the 110’s for 7 for reps are bigger than they were when they rowed the 85’s for 7 reps.

 

Do finishers have their place? Sure they do, 21’s for biceps or widow set squats are great growth stimulators, but intensity is just one piece of the pie. Progressive Overload is HALF of the pie, if not more.

 

The best weapon in your gym bag is not the latest Nitric Oxide product (please throw that crap away)…it is your workout log. Record EVERYTHING you do, try to break records, deload and back off a bit every fourth week, eat well, sleep at least 8 hours a night, and watch your body grow as you get stronger!