Bodybuilding Tips and Tricks

They say variety is the spice of life. And, varying your workouts is one of the best ways to ensure that you continue to achieve gains from your training program. Building muscle is all about adaptation: forcing your muscles to adapt to increasing and varying stresses and challenges by increasing in size and strength. One problem that many people I’ve encountered have is that they’ve never changed the original workout plan they initially received, whether they obtained it from a book, a video, online, or from a personal trainer. As a result, they end up doing the same workout over and over (sometimes for months and years at a time) and their gains stagnate. Once they’re no longer making gains, they lose their motivation and often end up quitting their fitness routine entirely.

There are nearly an infinite number of ways to keep your workout program fresh and mix things up. One of the easiest (and simplest for beginners to understand) methods I’ve found is to take the typical training split that most people start out with and turn it on it’s head a bit. (Incidentally, a training split refers to when you work which bodyparts and which are grouped together throughout a particular training cycle–usually a week). The typical pairing of muscle groups in a workout plan is back with biceps and chest with triceps. There’s good logic behind this because each of the pairings are grouping like with like: biceps and back exercises typically involve pulling motions while chest and triceps exercises usually involve pushing motions. In addition, most back exercises utilize your biceps as an accessory muscle and most chest exercises utitlize the triceps in the same fashion.

While this is certainly a logical training split, a good way to change things up is to reverse things and work back with triceps and chest and biceps. In addition to providing a welcome variation to your muscles, it also will allow you to lift heavier and work harder when it comes time to train those accessory muscles (biceps and triceps). This is because the larger muscles (back and chest) which, incidentally, are normally trained first, have not weakened those accessory muscles yet. So, once you’re through with your chest workout and are ready to blast those bi’s, they should be nearly totally fresh and ready to be blitzed. You should notice how much stronger you are in these accessory muscles almost immediately.

One item of note: you should be sure to allow 24 hours of rest between training days when using this split to avoid overtraining your biceps and triceps. Performing a back/triceps, chest/biceps workout on consecutive days should be avoided as the biceps and triceps will be hit to some extent on both days. There are a ton of other ways to vary your workout and keep those gains coming. I’ll address some in future articles…for now, try mixing things up with the split I mentioned and keep training hard!

I’ll admit it: I’m an average sized guy, well at least as far as height is concerned. I’ve bulked myself up considerably through weight training using many of the tips I’ve shared with you in this blog but I’ve always wished I was a bit taller. Unfortunately, there isn’t any magic pill that can help us add a few inches to our height. Luckily though, at least as far as sports and athletics is concerned, there *is* something we can do to overcome much of the burden of being an average sized or short guy: improve our vertical jump. Actually, even if you’re already a tall dude, improving your vertical leaping ability is something that will increase your performance in sports such as basketball, football, volleyball, and a whole host of others.

For years, I’d tried to improve my vertical jump but, despite diligent adherence to what I thought was a great training regimen, I was making very little overall progress. Then I noticed this guy at the gym. This dude was stacking aerobic STEP blocks at higher and higher levels and vaulting onto them seemingly effortlessly. He’d do some reps, then add another block, and do some more, and so on and so on. Finally I approached him and asked how he’d managed to achieve such a high vertical jump. He’s the guy I have to thank for introducing me to The Jump Manual, the system he had used to achieve the incredibly vertical leaping ability I had seen him demonstrating in the gym.

Normally, I’m very skeptical of things like this and this time was no exception: my first reaction was “Yeah, right”. But I took a shot, upon my new gym buddy’s recommendation, and damn am I glad I did. It turns out The Jump Manual is put out by a guy named Jacob Hiller who has trained athletes in improving their vertical jump at everything from the high school level all the way up to the NBA pros and Olympic athletes. Jacob’s system covers everything you need to know to improve your vertical jump including complete workout charts to keep track of your training, videos of exercises and stretches, a nutrition plan, and much more. He even offers up techniques you can use if you don’t have access to a gym. In addition, Jacob offers up his own personal consulting services which could include emails, online chats, and even phone calls. Once I started the system, it didn’t take me long at all to start seeing an improvement…now my buddy and I train our vertical jumps together at the gym and I’m keeping pace with him. Plus, when I’m playing some b-ball, I can actually do some dunking for a change. It’s awesome. Take a look at Jacob’s site, watch the intro video, and check out all the info he has to give you. If you want to improve your vertical jumping power (with no bullshit), grab yourself a copy of The Jump Manual today.

Close-Grip Bench Press - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 8, 10, 12
Tricep Pressdowns - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 10, 12, 12, 15
Reverse-Grip Bench Press - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8, 10, 12
Overhead Dumbbell Extension - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 8, 8, 10, 10

Rest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise.

This workout targets the long (outer) head of the biceps muscle.

Incline Dumbbell Curls: - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 6, 12, 12
Close-Grip Barbell Curls: - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10, 10, 12
Standing Cable Curls: - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8, 12, 12
Hammer Curls: - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10, 8, 6

Rest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise.

Barbell Front Raise - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 12, 10, 8
Reverse-Grip Smith Machine Press - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 12, 10, 8 , 6
Upright Cable Row - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10-12 reps per set
(compound set with)
Dumbbell Lateral Raise - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10-12 reps per set

Rest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise.

Lat Pulldowns - Back - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10, 8
Flat-Bench Dumbbell Presses - Chest - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10, 8
Incline Dumbbell Curls - Biceps - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10, 8
Tricep Pressdowns - Triceps - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10, 8
Dumbbell Lateral Raises - Shoulders - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10, 8
Dumbbell Shrugs - Traps - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10, 8

Increase weight each set to allow you to only complete the prescribed number of reps.

Rest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise. Alternate this rep scheme with a 6, 6, 15, 20 rep scheme at your discretion, starting with a heavier weight for the first two sets and lowering the weight for the last two.

Incline Barbell Press - Chest - 4 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10 , 8
Bent-Over Barbell Rows - Back - 4 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10 , 8
Standing Barbell Curls - Biceps - 4 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10 , 8
Lying French Presses - Triceps - 4 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10 , 8
Seated Barbell Shoulder Presses - Shoulders - 4 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10 , 8
Barbell Shrugs - Traps - 4 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 12, 10 , 8

Increase weight each set to allow you to only complete the prescribed number of reps.

Rest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise. Alternate the 15, 12, 10, 8 rep scheme with this rep scheme—6, 6, 15, 20—from workout to workout, exercise to exercise, or however you see fit. Keep those muscles guessing! For this second rep scheme, you will start with the heaviest weight (after a couple of warm-up sets of course) and then lower the weight for the final two sets.

Pull-ups - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 12, 10, 8, 8
Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 10-12 reps per set
Wide-Grip Seated Cable Row - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 10-12 reps per set
Straight-Arm Pulldown - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10-12 reps per set

RRest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise.

Incline Barbell Press - 4 sets; Rep Scheme: 12, 10, 8, 8
Incline Cable Flye - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10, 10, 8
Seated Machine Chest Press - 3 sets; Rep Scheme: 10, 10, 10
Foot-Elevated Push-Up - 2 sets: Rep Scheme: 15, 15

Rest time between sets: 1-2 minutes
Be sure to do 1-2 warmup sets or 5-10 minutes of cardio (or both) before beginning the first exercise.

Barbell Squat - 2 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8
Bent-Over Barbell Row - 2 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8
Incline Barbell Press - 2 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8
Seated Barbell Shoulder Press - 2 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8
Lying French Press - 2 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8
Barbell Curl - 2 sets; Rep Scheme: 6, 8
Standing Calf Raise - 1 set; Rep Scheme: 25
Cable Crunches - 1 set; Rep Scheme: 25

I recommend doing 5-10 minutes of light cardio to warm-up before beginning.