Survival is a mode.  Embellishment is a mode.  Recuperation is a mode.  Learning how to align your mind with your goals is paramount to the success you will have down the line.  Realizing that during an all-out anabolic mode, i.e. androgens in excess, calories in excess, and a healing response activated from resistance training, you can realistically see progress on a DAILY basis.  Conversely, during a survival mode, you can feel your muscle strength unleash, energy levels go up, you can feel that your body has shifted its resources from your gut (digestion) to your muscles.  You will notice less of a pump, but more of a “hard” look.  More athletic performance is realized as well.

You see, as human beings we have a very diverse metabolism, due to our very diverse eating habits.  Not only that, but the “mode” we are in is influenced by the type of food we eat, and when we eat it.  Nature would have us in survival mode long enough to ensure a kill on the hunt.  The ensuing “Gorge” which is the anabolic mode you enter will end as the amount of food you consume tailors off.  However, when your food is available for you readily, requiring no survival mode to attain it, you will certainly drift into a state of embellishment.  Your body has lost the need for excess calories because they simply aren’t necessary.  You will find your work performance may be affected, sex drive, etc…

This is why you should always train strenuously, and have a “fast day” once per week.  If you aren’t making progress, you’re standing still.  Find a way to get in your desired “mode” of operation.

Fast – when feeling lethargic and overfed

Feed- when being rewarded from an intense training session

Gorge – when training vigorously and consistently

Remember, the human body is designed to be rewarded with food after a kill, or a harvest.  A hard day of work should pay off with a couple big, fat anabolic meals.  Never give your body a reason to not progress.  Challenge it on all fronts.  Live out all modes.

-Eric

-------------------------

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.

www.everydaymuscle.com

Copyright 2010

Skeletal muscles have the distinct advantage of being able to regenerate themselves and heal perfectly after being injured.  Skeletal muscles also have the ability to induce hypertrophy, or muscle cell size increase.  The reasons for increases in muscle cell size can be from several reasons, including:

• More proteins for contraction (strength)
• More muscle glycogen for repetitive contraction (stamina)
• Thicker muscle cell proteins (hardiness and flexibility)
• Increased fast twitch/slow twitch ratio (strength/endurance)

The funny thing is, tearing up the muscle with heavy weight alone is not the only thing you can do to gain muscle mass.  You can trick your muscles into thinking there is less oxygen, thereby stimulating an anabolic response in your fast-twitch muscle fibers.  This is accomplished by “occluding” or cutting off blood flow to a limb or muscle during reduced intensity contractions.  The muscle will confusedly run out of oxygen, and switch to muscle glycogen as a fuel source.

This will cause a hormonal cascade within the muscle tissue, signalling a low-oxygen environment.  When the occlusion is released at the end of the routine, there will be a large dump of lactic acid and other metabolic byproducts which will signal your pituitary to release growth hormone.  Your muscles will directly be influenced by “starving” them of oxygen, which will cause them to utilize anaerobic metabolic pathways, including the extra storage of muscle glycogen.

A typical routine for occlusion training your arms with kaatsu or occlusion training would be 3 sets of 20 with 50% of your 1RM (one rep max).  You would fully occlude the arms between the biceps and deltoids (shoulder).  You can use wrist straps to manually hold and isolate your muscles, or you can splurge on some sweet katsumi straps.  (Be sure to not leave the straps on and occluding the muscle for more than a few minutes at a time, because you can cause excessive muscle damage by starving it for oxygen too long.)

Another benefit of occlusion training is the ability to train a muscle much more frequently.  You can effectively kaatsu or occlusion train a muscle every day due to the near complete lack of muscle fiber damage.  I would recommend keeping the training volume to less than 3-4 per week regardless.

With proper muscle occlusion training, you will effectively be damaging muscle less, while stimulating it for anabolism as well as or greater than resistance training alone.  I personally utilize occlusion training for my arms at least a couple times a month.

-Dr Rex

Your potential goals may be to:

• Maximize Muscle Gain
• Maximize Fat Loss
• Perform Optimally (Strength, Athletic Performance, Endurance, etc…)
• Consistency
• Motivation
• Benefits

Therefore, it is easy to see that your exercise schedule will be dictated immensely by your goals.  So let’s look at the various times of day, and the general state of the human body in each…

• Morning

1. Starved of nutrients and dehydrated
2. Highest levels of testosterone
3. Highest levels of cortisol
4. Lowest testosterone to cortisol ratio

• Afternoon

1. Nutrients and hydration levels are high
2. High strength and endurance output
3. Balanced testosterone to cortisol ratio

• Evening

1. Nutrient and hydration levels are highest
2. Highest strength output
3. Lowest testosterone levels
4. Lowest cortisol levels
5. Highest testosterone to cortisol ratio

It is easy to spot some patterns here.  Clearly there are certain times of the day which are best for specific goals.  However, an often overlooked part of a muscle gaining regime is consistency. It truly is the most important factor when it comes to nearly any goal relating to exercise.  The time of day which to consistently train at is only a smaller quotient in the overall regime that is dominated by sticking to your training time.  The reasons for this are myriad, but for starters think about circadian rhythms (sleep/wake cycles), meal timing, work schedule, and gym availability.


A huge factor for myself has always been the availability of equipment and a training partner.  It simply screws up my entire workout if I can’t get in the gym and crank out my sets to failure with my strict resting periods.  It is equally as frustrating to hit the gym expecting to barbell press multiples of your weight and not having a reliable lifting partner.

The optimal time of day to train and exercise is therefore almost entirely dependent upon your own personal schedule.

However…

There is a lot to be said about “priming” your body to lift in an anabolic environment.  That means being in a state of coloric excess, maximum hydration, well rested, and alert.  I like to time this out to around 6 hours after I wake up.  That way I know I will have at least 2 meals in me before I train, and I’ll be consuming another one pre and post workout.   I will also have at least another 6-8 hours to eat, stretch, flex, etc…before I get that big HGH burst while i sleep…

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010

For example:

• Pectoralis Major: The “Pecs” – Single joint muscle which contracts the humerous in a hemispherical “arc” about the shoulder girdle.  This means that the pectoralis must be able to not only contract deeply, but be able to overextend as well.   It also has to be able to contract the humerous and shoulder girdle in a variety of directions, as this joint is very flexible.  So the pecs have to be very versatile!  You will never get the full benefit of training your pecs unless you hit them from every angle (decline, parallel, incline) but with every shoulder angle as well (from maximum stretch to maximum contraction).  If you do not, you will create weak points, or flat spots in your chest.

• Biceps: The biceps muscle is a smaller and simpler muscle.  First of all, it is a multi-joint muscle, which spans both the shoulder and the elbow.  This means that regardless of the angle of the arm, as long as you need to move your hand closer to your body, the biceps will be contracted.  However, there is one caveat: if your body and shoulder are kept at a constant angle, the bicep muscle utility will fall dramatically pas the 90° point.  Also, the biceps is at a leverage disadvantage from maximum extension of the elbow joint to about 170°.  This is exactly why your biceps muscle is strongest while extended, and weakest while contracted, but functionally is actually only strongest while close to 90°.  The muscle is built to overcome the leverage disadvantages at specific angles of the muscle.  Therefore, to keep your body, shoulder, and elbow completely static will guarantee you maximum stress on the biceps for a SMALL ANGLE. For maximum muscle utilization, it must be stressed at all levels of linear contraction.

You can see now how important it is for the advanced bodybuilder to train for over an hour tediously stressing every muscle fiber in a given muscle for growth.  It can easily turn into a high-volume workout.  Rather than doing every conceivable exercise, the natural or intermediate level lifter should focus more on heavy, multi-joint movements to place greatest muscle stress dynamically, and on the largest areas of the muscle to be worked.  Exercises can be rotated on a biweekly or monthly basis to avoid unbalancing or overtraining the muscle.

So what is the big theme here?  Maximum muscle stress and resistance throughout entire contraction.  Keep the reps slow, and utilize all angles.  Just don’t overdo it in one session!

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010

Go to the gym twice a day, 5 days a week, every muscle twice a week…etc…

Besides, that’s what all the fitness magazines tell us to do, right?  How about cardio?  Every day after hitting the weights, right?

Well, as much as I hate to tell people this is wrong, because it isn’t necessarily  wrong, but for most of us out there – IT’S WRONG.

I’ll explain…

There are over 600 skeletal muscles   ”Train it hard and let it recover while I train something else”.

Herein lies the problem: Most people don’t take steroids.  Why is this important?  Because your body grows because you train hard when you are natural.  Your body grows because of the steroids produced and taken into the stressed muscle fibers.  Therefore, if you are not supplementing your body with EXTERNAL androgens (steroids), you need to be supplementing your body with INTERNAL androgens (Naturally released hormones).  This is definitely NOT optimally achieved with typical compartmentalization techniques.

To be fair, to train every body part seperate, to Compartmentalize your training style is a great way to further seperate and mature the most minute fibers and outlying or underlying secondary muscles.in the human body.  Every single one is appropriate for a specific skeletal movement.  Every single muscle fiber within every single muscle has a purpose.  These muscles can be grouped (a terrible, but easy method) by their physiological location within the body. Most people train muscles like they clean their house…bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, etc… Compartmentalization is the key term here.  This style of training (Compartmentalization) is based on the idea of

So, how are you SUPPOSED to train?  Well, if you’re truly natural, you train like a caveman!  Remember that your muscles will not grow unless they have a reason to – just like how you won’t be lean unless your body has a reason to be lean.  WHY would your body want to grow muscle?  Because it has to.  Because you give it a reason to.

The idea here is to utilize training styles and exercises that promote the optimal volume of total muscle activation, nervous system stress, and hormone manipulation.  Doing 10 sets of curls with 10 sets of triceps extensions and some wrist curls and calling that an “arm” day simply will not do for the average joe.

Functional training styles are what we are talking about here – big, heavy, multiple-joint compound movements should be your training style.  Compartmentalization should be an afterthought.

Here is a great example of a great natural bodybuilding training style.  This is perfect for the beginner and novice.  Even an advanced lifter can benefit immensely by going “back to basics”:

Day 1: Deadlifts, Bent-over barbell rows, standing barbell curls

Day 2: Flat bench press, military press, close-grip bench press

Day 3: Rest

Day 4: Squats, standing calf-raises

Day 5: abs, wide pull-ups, lateral shoulder raises

This is a very simple routine – utilizing no more than 3 sets per workout, however I have always recommended the primary lifts (squats, deadlifts, bench, press) to be performed HIT with a warm-up set(12 reps), Heavy set (6 reps) and a failure set (10 reps).  I recommend that squats gain an extra failure set as they utilize the largest muscle group.

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010

This is a quick preview of my “Gain 1 inch on your arms in 30 minutes!!” Routine. You can see the sort of pump you can get from this powerful technique. It incorporates:

• Close Grip Bench Press
• Overhead Trieps Extensions
• Seated Hammer Curls
• Inverted Skull-Crushers
• Barbell Curls
• Deep Stretching
• Isometric Contractions

The tempo, rep-range, and range of motion during exercies all come into play.  Be sure to check out the upcoming videos!

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010

“It interpenetrates and surrounds muscles, bones, organs, nerves, blood vessels and other structures. Fascia is an uninterrupted, three-dimensional web of tissue that extends from head to toe, from front to back, from interior to exterior.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascia

Basically, what this means is that there is a very tough, fibrous “web” of tissue that covers all structures in the body.  There is an exceptionally strong sort of fascia that covers your skeletal muscles.  Why is it there?  Basically it acts as a sort of container for the muscle.  It keeps the muscle belly wrapped up nice and tight so it doesn’t flop and slosh around on the bones.  It also helps to protect the muscle from abrasions and lacerations.  It keeps the muscle tightly bound to maximize efficiency of space and quick contraction.

What it does not do very well is allow the muscle to expand when needed.  Meaning there will always be an upper “ceiling” to the immediate “pump” you can obtain with a muscle.

So how can we overcome this?  By stretching!  The muscle fascia, being a 3-dimensional cross-hatch of fibers that resists stretching in all directions must be STRETCHED in ALL directions in order to expand.   So there is importance in all areas of bodybuilding to expand this muscle fascia.

• Strength conditioning builds density and anabolism
• “Pump” training builds intra muscular pressure to stretch the fascia
• Higher-Rep training builds vascular inroads to the muscle
• Stretching literally stretches the fasia longitudinally.

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of really, really strong guys who just weren’t that large.  And I’m sure you’ve seen planty of guys with large muscle bellies who weren’t that strong.  Those strong guys have to switch up their training to include volumizing workouts.  These pump inducing workouts will cause the muscle bellies to increase their aerobic performance by increasing energy stores, capilliarization (increase in capilliaries within the muscle itself), and vasodilation (increase in size of vessels to and from muscle tissue).  And those big weak guys should switch up their training to include more strength lifting.  This will cause their big muscle bellies to gain “hardness” and density.


Furthermore, a great finishing move for training for muscle size gains would be be do a thorough flexing session for at least 5 minutes or so post-workout on the muscles trained.  This further stretches the fascia outwardly directly where the muscle is trying to grow in the first place!

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010

www.naturalmusclescience.com

The methodology here is to maintain strict form, use a conistent smooth rep tempo.  The idea is to use a maximum pump strategy.  Utilizing full range of motion, smooth movement, and a lockout with contraction at the top allows the muscle to “soak up” as much blood as possible.  This causes a positive pressure within the muscle itself, stretching the muscle fascia and riving anabolic nutrients and hormones into the muscle belly.  Regardless of the targeted muscle group, always move from heavy, multiple-joint movements to isolated, single-joint movements.  This will cause the greatest anabolic response to the workout rollowed by the greatest isolated “pump”.

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010

If you are a 100-lb string-bean or a 300-lb tub-o your ability to increase your lean body mass exists.  In fact, it is vital to your very existence.  How? Think back to 3,000 years ago.  How about 10,000 years ago. Genetically speaking, that is not very long ago.  Human beings have always required muscle mass in order to fight, work, farm, hunt, compete, etc… If one were to be devoid of the ability to do these things, his genes would surely die out.

Fast forward to modern history.  We know a thousand times more information regarding muscle gain, strength, and fitness in general.  We understand the science behind muscle gain, muscle strength, and lean-body transformation.  The science of muscle building has literally been “whittled to a fine point”.

However, there are many key points which have been lost to the ages.  Lost, even to a generation ago.  There are stigmas that exist today which did not exist previously.  There are shortcuts and false indicators of progress today that didn’t exist before.  Today we have the feminization of males and the empowerment of females.  All of a sudden a woman’s “bark” is worse than a man’s “bite”.  Not only that, but the idea of settling disputes physically – at least legally, is on the way out.  “Lawsuit, anyone?”

So why do it?  Why even bother earning yourself a physique to be proud of. Why should you beat your body to hell and back – sleep like the dead – eat like a monster?  Because that’s how you illicit change.  That is how your body produces results within itself.  Provide your body with a REASON to change, to GROW muscle…and it will.  Think like a caveman.  Imagine yourself like good ‘old Arnold “back in the day” with 3 hot broads hanging on his arms. Think heavy, strong, bigger, more powerful.  I promise you real permanent muscle growth.  I promise you more than that, in fact. I promise physique transformation.

————————–

Dr. Rex is a natural bodybuilder and a local authority on training for muscle development.  Be sure to subscribe to his newsletter for superior muscle and bodybuilding information Here.

www.everydaymuscle.com.

Copyright 2010