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Saturday Sharing – Episode 2

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Today I’d like to share with you my 6 favorite leg exercises for mass building. Your job is to leave your own list of 6 items in the comments or on your own blog that relate to the topic this week. If you decide to put the list on your own blog, be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog. Please note that permission is NOT granted top copy the question to a forum or message board for the purpose of having the readers participate in the answering of the topic.

Topic for Saturday, February 11, 2012: Favorite leg exercises for mass building

  1. Squats
  2. Stiff-leg deadlifts
  3. Glute Ham Raise
  4. Lying leg curls
  5. Leg extensions
  6. Leg press

If you have a Saturday Sharing you’d like to see, send me an email. I would love to feature it in the future.

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How Hard Do You Train?

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How hard to you train when you are in the gym? How hard are you pushing yourself? Have you ever stopped to really think about this issue?

I am a big believer that the harder you train the better your results. I honestly think that most of us don’t train anywhere near as hard as we think we do. In fact, I’m willing to bet that most people train about half as hard as they really should/could. We tend to stop sets too early. We “fail” before actual failure of the muscle group. We don’t push through the discomfort. After all of that, we wonder why we are not getting the results we want as fast as we want.

I was one who trained hard. I pushed myself harder and harder every session. Even now, as I think back about it, I can honestly say that I left it on the gym floor. However, I now know that there are ways to train even harder and I was missing that point. I would have seen better results and sooner had I used certain techniques that I am now aware of. You should examine your own training for these common deficiencies.

  • Ending sets too quickly. We quit while we still have some reps left in us. If the bar is moving we have not failed yet, so why are we quitting?
  • Not using heavy enough weights. When an exercise is planned for 10 repetitions, the final set of 10 should be close to impossible to complete. It should be a real stretch. If it isn’t, you are not training hard enough.
  • Not having a plan when entering the gym. I know this may not seem to have anything to do with training hard, but it really does. When you don’t have a plan you tend to rest more in between sets. This lowers the intensity tremendously.
  • Skipping items on the plan. We get into the gym and start to feel the intensity. It is uncomfortable. As a result, we make the decision to skip certain exercises or we lower the number of sets. If we want to train as hard as possible we have to stick to the well thought out plan we came in with.
  • Not training in the full range of motion. When we begin to feel discomfort it is a naturally tendency to shorten the range of motion on an exercise. This means we are not working as hard as possible. Don’t shorten up that bicep curl just to get it done.

Have a listen to the video below and then leave a comment about how hard you are really training. We all want to hear!

[pro-player width='420′ height='315′ type='video']http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT4kZbM_F7w[/pro-player]

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My Idea of Great Music for Lifting

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I find that the music I listen to changes the intensity I train with. I react differently to different types of music. For weight training I really like hard and heavy music. People generally don’t believe me when they hear about the music I listen to. The following is an actual playlist on my iPhone’s Spotify account that I use to train with major intensity.

Metal Workout Mix

All Consuming Fire – War of Ages

The Fallen – War of Ages

Stand Your Ground – War of Ages

Duality – Slipknot

Psychosocial – Slipknot

Sulfur – Slipknot

Gematria [The Killing Name] – Slipknot

Disasterpiece – Slipknot

Surfacing – Slipknot

A Message to the Unknown – Bless the Fall

In Division – Underoath

I Would Do Anything – Killswitch Engage

Rusted Embrace – Killswitch Engage

Re-Education – Rise Against

Shattering the Skies Above – Trivium

Master of Puppets – Trivium

These songs just get me completely pumped up. You can get to this playlist on the web. Don’t forget one of the more important tools for your training—music. While it isn’t a piece of equipment, it is definitely a training tool. This past Sunday I was listening to the above playlist when training. During my cardio session I was thinking about cutting cardio a little short when suddenly the playlist repeated from the top. I got to “Stand Your Ground” by War of Ages and knew I had to finish the cardio session in its entirety. I got through it with extra energy to spare.

Thus, my advice is to remember your music the next time you hit the gym.

What music do you like to listen to when you train?

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Everyone Loves the Posedown

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posedown

The posedown is one of the key moments in every bodybuilding competition. It is a time when the competitors get to show their best stuff. They move around the stage and flex their muscles for the judges. It looks easy to some extent—that is until you try it.

As you know, I am in the middle of Mission Grand Prix. Part of this process is learning to pose properly. I take posing lessons once a week from a coach (Ken Turchek). He has taught me all of the mandatory poses. I have learned a lot during the past month and through my own practice posing sessions. As I have gone through the process I have come up with the following thoughts on posing:

  • Posing is not easy. In order to show the muscles properly you must flex tightly. Even if you are flexing your chest, your legs need to be flexed as well. It is hard work!
  • Posing is not intuitive. There are things about posing that just don’t make a lot of sense until you actually do them. The chest, for instance, pops out differently than you’d expect.
  • Posing can be helped by training. You can improve certain poses by doing certain exercises during your training sessions. To work on the most muscular “crab” pose you can do cable crossovers at the end of a chest training. It will help tremendously.
  • Posing takes practice. You can’t just learn to pose in a short amount of time. My advice to any aspiring bodybuilder is spend time with a coach and then spend even more time practicing on your own.
  • Posing is different for everyone. There are small amounts of leeway when posing that you can use to emphasize strengths and hide weaknesses. You have to know where that leeway is in order to take advantage.
  • Posing reveals your conditioning. When you pose your conditioning is totally exposed. If you have done a good job of conditioning the judges won’t notice much during your posing. At the same time, if you have not conditioned yourself well, the judges will see it in an instant.
  • Posing is tiring. I once did a posing session prior to a shoulder session. I was exhausted and the training session was that much more difficult as a result. I learned to never pose before training.

The takeaway here is that posing is essential to your success as a bodybuilder. Get on it early so that you have time to master it.

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A Real Review of MI40 by Ben Pakulski

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I spent the past month going over the MI40 Mass Intentions program from IFBB Pro Ben Pakulski. My intention in this review is to inform you on the content this program provides and advise you as to whether or not it is worth purchasing.

In my opinion, most training programs released on the internet today are just a rehash of someone else’s ideas. They rarely bring something that I have not seen before. I tell you this because I want you to understand what my mindset was going into my review of MI40 by IFBB Pro Ben Pakulski.

What Do You Get?

MI40 is primarily a video program. It has several written components to it, including a training guide, but the meat of the program is the video presentations. I will discuss the quality of the videos later in this review, but I found it interesting that Ben spent so much time on videos.

What Is the Significance of the Term “MI40”?

When IFBB Pro Ben Pakulski uses the term “MI40” he is really telling you a lot about his program. For one, the “MI” stands for Mass Intentions. Mass Intentions is simply a way of tweaking an exercise to recruit maximum muscle fibers. It is difficult to put this into writing, which is why Ben has spent hours on video content with this program. One example I can give of Mass Intentions relates to lying hamstring curls. Ben discusses (and shows in a video) how to make sure that the exercise is really hitting your hamstrings directly. It is a small tweak, but one that seems to work (I’ve tried it).

The “40” part is related to many aspects of the program. It relates to the 40 exercise examples given, the 40 minute length of each workout, the 40 seconds rest between exercises and the 40 days length of the program itself.

Quality or Quantity or Both?

I really enjoyed the videos that were done for this program. They were professional and actually helped to explain the concepts quite well. My complaint is that there is not enough written material. I am the type of person who likes to read over a description and mentally absorb it.  That just isn’t possible with the way this program is designed. It is primarily a video program. I would be happier if the program had a matching manual similar to the way Jeff Anderson does things in his eBooks.

My Opinion on MI40

While a lot of what is contained in MI40 is far from revolutionary, I’d say there is enough here that it is a worthwhile purchase. IFBB Pro Ben Pakulski shares some great tips for activating the muscles in a unique way utilizing angles, tension, etc. For a fan of bodybuilding like me, this is a great program to review because it gives you a glimpse into the training of an IFBB Professional. At the same time, there really wasn’t enough of the revolutionary material if you are an advanced trainee. Ben offers a money back guarantee, so what have you got to lose? Give this program a try. Just be aware of the fact that you will not be able to utilize this (or any program for that matter) continuously without changing it up.

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