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“Uni-what?” I hear you cry. Bear with me.
When we think of the requirements of modern day competitive bodybuilding we get a long and painful list: mass, thickness, cuts,
fullness, vascularity, separation, symmetry and so on. It can seem daunting, and considering the list as a whole can lead to a
mindset in which the athlete is constantly struggling to make improvements on all fronts simultaneously, often within the space of 2-
3 weeks between competitions. A far better approach is to target one particular factor and put all your training energy into
improving it, thereby ensuring that by your next contest you have made a noticeable improvement that the trained eye of the
judges will not miss. This is speedy progression in one direction at a time, and “unidirectional loading” is the training style that best
accomplishes it. In this series of articles I will cover the strategies I would use for makign the quickest improvement in the shortest
time frame.
Let’s have a look at how we can train this way, but first consider the available time frame for making improvements.
Mass / thickness.
If you have anything less than 12 weeks between contests you can forget about adding enough muscle mass to make an obvious
visible difference.
Fullness.
Fullness is a short term illusion created by the right combination of low bodyfat levels and large intramuscular stores of glycogen
and fatty acids. It can be influenced in hours IF bodyfat percentage is low enough.
Cuts and Separation.
To my mind the only parts of this we can influence are bodyfat levels and dehydration. Making a body noticeably leaner takes a
few weeks, water balance can be changed in hours.
Vascularity.
Again, dependant upon being lean enough in the first place, and thereafter can be influenced in the short term, whether that be
minutes (pump up strategies, food supplements etc) or weeks (through training).
Symmetry.
This is simply the comparison of one side of the body to the other. If you have a lacking side / bodypart then you can correct it
given a similar time frame to that required for adding mass to any area - a minimum of 12 weeks.
So, what’s required in terms of training and nutrition here? Let’s assume you have a few months between contests and consider
good old MASS and thickness in this first article. The quickest way to gain muscle tissue is through in increase in the loading
applied to that muscle - if you curl 20kg today, and 30kg in a months time, you will have bigger biceps. Simple really but how do
you go about making big increases in loads used in a short space of time? You can’t really get THAT much stronger that quickly
can you? Well, not usually no. But you can manipulate your training so as to maximise change in load over time.
Say for example you are following a sensible upper / lower or push / pull / legs split training system, hitting each bodypart every 72
hours or so and using a rep range of somewhere between 8 and 15 reps - standard, sensible stuff that most champs and coaches
would agree on.
The first way you can increase loads utilised is to train antagonistic muscles in your rest periods when doing “smaller” exercises.
Don’t “superset” as such, take a decent rest after each set before moving on to a set for the opposing bodypart or plane of motion
i.e. overhead press followed by chins or bench press alternated with cable row.
Next up is an increase in actual rest periods - try to take at least 3 minutes between sets, preferably longer. If you are using the
alternate style described above this will usually mean doing a set, resting a minute or 90 seconds, doing an opposing muscles set,
resting for a minute to 90 seconds, and so on.
The other factor of time you can alter is inter-rep rest periods. For most people this will be “zero”, no-one rests between reps! This
results in the build up of metabolic waste products, and the “burn” that you feel during a set. All well and good you might think nut
this metabolic stress actually directly affects how the muscle responds to training. Simply put, you body will “decide” whether to
grow new myotubes (the start of bigger muscles!) or not based on a measurement of the energy reserve in the cell.
Say as a very raw example that your body needs 10 units of “energy” to be available in the cell before it will allow muscle growth to
take place. If you have 15 to start out with and use 10 on a do-or-die set of squats, you don’t have anything left to grow with. The
massive build up of fatigue products signalled to your body that attempting new growth right now would be a waste of resources,
so your body shuts down the pathways responsible for new myotube formation and “bink” - no muscle growth. Sure you will get
better energy storage, more efficient use of fuel etc from this kind of training, but if short term mass gains are what you need then
it makes no sense at all to training for the pump or burn - protect your resources instead.
A better approach would be to take the same weight and do as many reps as you can WITHOUT incurring any metabolic distress.
Set the bar on the pins between reps and count to 5. Now take another rep. Rest again - 5 seconds. When you do finally miss a
rep you can then take your normal rest period (minute to 90 seconds) before going on to your antagonistic exercise as described
above. And performing it in the same fashion. The net result is a lot of work done, with heavy loads and no fatigue / metabolic
distress incurred and that equates to rapid muscle growth.
All of the timing strategies I have mentioned will allow you to use heavier loads in your training, the important thing is to make sure
that the increase in load is gradual, frequent and progressive. To use the example of moving from curling 20kg to curling 30kg in a
few weeks here’s how you could go about it.
Normal week - Dumbbell curls, 20kg ‘bells, 3 sets of 12 reps, 60s rest between sets.
Week 1 of being smarter than that…
DB curls, 21kg bells, rest pause style with 3 seconds rest between reps.
Alternate with triceps extensions, 60s rest between sets. Do as many sets as needed o get all 36 reps (same volume as you used
before).
Next training day…
DB curls 22kg, RP style, 5s rest between reps, total of 36 reps across all sets as before.
Alt with triceps extensions, 60s rest between sets.
After a few sessions adding 1kg per session…
DB curls 26Kg, RP style, 10s rest between reps, total of 36 reps
Alt with triceps extensions, 90s rest between sets.
And so on, increasing rest period and load as you go along to allow the same number of reps to be done with ever heavier loads,
resulting in bigger muscles. It won’t work forever (nothing does) but it beats the heck out of actually trying to get 50% stronger
between shows!