Demian Seale

It IS a bodybuilding blog after all…priceless vanities bought with sweat, bloodshot eyes, nosebleeds, bashed shins, swearing…

Anyway that’s about the state of things. The illusion in bodybuilding is that, once your water is dropped, and every last molecule of fat is jettisoned, excised, annihilated, scorned, dispatched…you may drop up to 30 lbs or more; however, you actually appear ‘larger’; the illusion is created largely by the dissipation at the middle: the hips and waist vacuum in so drastically that it creates a real “V-taper” to the upper body; and if you are blessed with great legs (which I am not), your entire frame should appear as an “X”. So those are the only two letters in the bodybuilder’s vocabular, “V” and “X”: and now you know why.

My last two workouts have been fantastic, which is unusual, as I went into them a bit apprehensive, having not rested properly; however, I have been eating more, in the attempt to gain overall bulk; and I believe the extra glycogen deposited as a result of more carbs has given me that extra punch. I’ve also begun to understand bodybuilding a lot better.

What I mean by that is largely a matter of technique and focus. I believe there are three components to the actual workout (apart from the dieting, sleep, supplementation, etc. that precede and succeed a workout): technique, focus, and intensity. I post them seriatim like that because I prioritise them so. First, you must have thorough knowledge of proper exercise technique. While it helps to have a thorough knowledge of physiology, and what each muscle is responsible for, it is not necessary to proper technique. There are many youtube videos to be scoured for learning the essentials to each movement. This is especially important in the gross movements, like deadlift, squat, bench press, military press, etc.

Once you have perfected these movements, you can focus your mind intently on the movement itself, and on the targeted muscle. You must forget that you owe Telus Mobility 88.13$; you must forget that your dog will need to be walked in half an hour; you must forget the awkward argument that went unresolved this morning; you must forget everything but the weight and your body. Lock in on your muscles. Specifically, the target muscle. Feel it stretch, and contract; if you cannot stretch or contract that muscle, adjust the movement slightly — only slightly. Try various positions. Move slowly in this phase, experimenting, until you feel the pinch distinctly, right where it should be. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Now technique is a means, and not an end. The end is total stimulation of the muscle.

Once you’ve gone through this phase, INTENSITY must be added to the movement. Now that you can stimulate the muscle, annihilate it with intensity. How much intensity you are probably wondering? Intensity must be parcelled out intelligently. I see all too much very low intensity. Rarely do you see the opposite: the summoning of too much force, fury, willpower; those who truly overtrain are exceptional people! I will, however, deal with my ideas about overtraining another time.

I prefer doing 5 sets of a particular exercise. The first set is merely what I call a “tracking” set. Even if you’re the most experienced muscle practitioner, you need to kind of find the groove of every movement you do. Now a tracking set is not a warmup. Warmup precedes all workouts and should combine cardio with stretching and very light weight. Tracking sets are actual work sets of the particular movement one is preparing to do. You simply use a weight about 50% of your maximum (for 8-10 reps) and you perform the movement until you feel that stretch and contraction. Now, you are “tracked”, you are in the groove.

I believe that each set should be about 8 to 10 repetitions; this has been proven as the best range for muscle hypertrophy (gaining muscle size, apart from strength, though they are related of course). On your first set, go until you think you could do perhaps 3 more repetitions with proper technique (75%). On your next set, pull up 2 reps short (85%). On your third set you are now doing what i call a “working” set; you go until you could only do one more repetition with proper form (no body english!), or 90%. Your last set should be to temporary muscular “failure”: without assistance, you could not perform any more reptitions of the movement.

Muscular failure is maximum intensity. Now this is where it gets really interesting. What is maximum? How do you know, THAT was my maximum? Let’s say I put you in a puce-coloured dress, in a room painted baby-blue, and gave you a barbell, told you to curl it as many times as you could, and left the room, and piped in Enya. Could you achieve maximum? Now let’s say I put you in a hardcore, concrete-walled subterranean gym, with half-clothed crazed shrieking bodybuilders everywhere, acrid smells of sweat wafting about, and Rammstein blasting. Now could you do maximum? What if you were in this gym, Rammstein going, and I loaded you up on caffeine AND had the biggest, meanest guy in the gym swearing at you and cussing you out as loud as he could while you did your reps?

I assume if you’re like me you will get more repetitions in the latter scenario! But that scenario is not readily available to most, nor particularly alluring. There are many mental exercises you can try to achieve intensity. If you’re like me, you’re likely angry about a few things — we all are. On your last set, near your last rep, as you’ve been focussing intently on the muscle being fired, you switch mental gears and summon the image or idea that angers you. Or frustrates you. Whatever works. Use it.

Some days you won’t be able to summon that furious intensity; on those days just revert to the second phase, focus. Just focus intently. Bodybuilding is a marathon, and not a sprint.

Yours irroneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.