Throughout the bodybuilding tradition, bodybuilders have trained like weight lifters. They were weightlifters or strong men who lifted weights and, as time went on, worrying as much about how they looked instead of, or in addition to, how much they could lift.
This trend accelerated in the 1930s with the advent of "Physical Culture" competitions, in which athletes with overt aesthetic musculature had a distinct advantage in physical development through strength training. These events included things like some sort of athletic performance and sometimes public speaking, but by 1939 the focus shifted to assessing muscle development while participants tensed and then did a personal posing routine - in other words, bodybuilding, like us know today.
Some bodybuilders were still doing things like gymnastics and the kind of hand balancing you see in vintage photos of the original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica in the 1940s, but more emphasis was placed on the type of bodybuilding poses in the 1950s, that we still see today, such as side chest or double bicep shots. The exercise routines of that era stayed pretty much the same, though: most of the time, you worked your entire body three times a week in one workout like a weight lifter. But gradually a more modern system developed, using techniques that Joe Weider would codify as "The Weider System". This included split-system training, where each workout only trained part of the body; Combination of two-jointed strength exercises and one-jointed isolation exercises; Peak contractions, super sets, and a variety of different exercises for every part of the body.
When he first got on stage in the '60s, Arnold had a lot of muscle mass and by the' 70s he combined size and definition to win the Olympics Courtesy Gene Mozee
In the 1960s, thanks to these new techniques and a more advanced diet approach (e.g. this trend continued into the 1970s until we saw extremely disrupted competitors, defined but often far too exhausted (in large part due to extreme dehydration and ketosis- Diets), but also because of overtraining.
Overtraining in terms of bodybuilding results from exercising too hard, too often, or too long, leaving the muscles with insufficient time to rest, recover, and grow. Exercise stimulates growth, which only takes place when you rest and recover. In the 1960s and 1970s, bodybuilders began to exercise as if they were doing more sets and reps. As a result, we saw very muscular and defined competitors but not big at all compared to most professional bodybuilders today.
Ms. Olympia, Andrea Shaw demonstrates excellent form in the side dumbbell exercises. Wings of strength
An example would be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Standing over 6 feet tall, Arnold weighed around 255 or 260 pounds as a young man. In his prime, he stood on stage in the 1970s, weighing 235 pounds. Very small by modern standards and very small considering its obvious muscle genetics. Why was this the case? If you compare the two versions of Arnold's Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, one describes how he exercised in his early years and the other his recommendations for the newer techniques that have evolved over the decades. One of the main differences is the volume of exercise and how much rest you need to avoid overtraining. He now recommends shorter, high-intensity workouts, fewer sets and reps than before, and plenty of time to rest and relax between workouts.
Bodybuilding training should be like a series of sprints, not a long distance run. If you exercise hard enough, you can quickly exceed your body's ability to deliver fresh oxygen to your muscles. This is anaerobic activity. You will feel the "burning sensation" when lactic acid builds up in the muscles. At this point you need to stop and rest and allow the muscle to recover. But these muscles do not fully recover in a short period of time. So you are still tired as you do your subsequent sets for those muscles or muscle group.
But then you need time between workouts for the body to fully recover. This varies depending on the muscles being used. The biceps recovers faster than any other muscle group; the lower back the slowest. The legs need more time to rest and recover than the back or shoulders.
It is also a fact that bodybuilders in the bodybuilding tradition continue to do more sets and exercises than is necessary to develop any individual muscle or body part. For example, when treating a simple group of muscles like the biceps, those muscles only curve your arms - contraction from the starting point at the shoulder to the starting point in the forearm and flexing the elbow joint.
When you do bicep dumbbell or barbell curls, cable curls, machine curls, or concentration curls, you are essentially doing the same movement over and over. There are some differences between lifting a free weight that requires joint stabilization and curling on a machine that doesn't. Essentially, the biceps contracts several times through the same range of motion. A few biceps exercises are one thing; four or five are very different. The biceps are so comparatively small that you can easily overtrain them with too many sets and repetitions.
w there is an alternative approach to training that is popular with many. This follows the principles promoted by Arthur Jones, the developer of Nautilus, and involves very heavy-duty and low-rep training - including forced reps and negative and forced negative exercises. When promoting a Nautilus gym it resulted in members cycling through a circuit fairly quickly, getting off the machines, and leaving room for another group of members to get their own circuit. This enabled a gym to increase the number of active members. However, it is not the most effective or efficient way to develop a competitive bodybuilding body.
When Lee Haney first hit the market in the 1980s, there was much less overtraining in her workouts than there was in previous decades. Bill Dobbins
There were bodybuilders who claimed to have built their bodies on these principles, like Mike Mentzer and Casey Viator, but they had already created muscular bodies using the traditional method before they ever saw a Nautilus machine. Dorian Yates won multiple Mr. Olympia titles using this approach to training, but the stress tore his body apart - a penalty he knew but was willing to pay to become a great champion.
So what is the most effective and efficient training method for building muscle? According to the powerlifting champion Dr. Fred Hatfield (Dr. Squat) is about contracting the muscle against just enough resistance for just enough repetitions - or "Time Under Tension". The correct resistance is about 75% of your maximum value for one rep. That way, you can do around 8 to 12 repetitions for upper body movements, a little more for legs (better blood and oxygen supply). You're not really training the muscle directly; They program the nervous system. In order to send the right signals through the nervous system to produce the stimulus needed to build muscle, you need to be under tension for a total of about a minute.
Ronnie Coleman was one of the toughest contenders, but trained as a modern bodybuilder, not a weightlifter. Bill Dobbins
Each repetition only lasts about a second. In total, one minute of TUT is achieved through the familiar three to four sets with three to four exercises per body part.
There is also the fact that contraction of a muscle against resistance makes it grow. Lowering a weight does not have the same result. It only puts stress on joints and connective tissue.
Remember that progressive resistance training can be used to create a wide variety of different responses in the body. Really heavy, low rep workouts are best for developing big muscles and maximum strength. With less weight and a lot of repetitions, the result is a smaller, leaner, and well-defined body like that of a gymnast.
This can vary greatly depending on individual genetics. There have been some athletes who have developed a lot of muscle and musculature (but not enough for bodybuilding) and have done nothing but calisthenics. I remember I was in high school when no one was lifting weights. There were some teenage classmates who were genetically tall and muscular and some of us who weren't. I wasn't made for soccer or I chose baseball.
The effects bodybuilders seek is large, rounded, well-shaped muscles and extreme muscle strength. And that's why you need to avoid overtraining - not too many sets and reps, not too much weight, and plenty of time between workouts to allow the body to rest, recover, and grow.
If you look at performance trends in sports in general, from tennis, golf, and baseball to athletics or boxing, there are two factors that made this possible. The first is equipment upgrade. Running shoes are like springs that allow more energy with every step. Golf clubs and tennis rackets don't look like they did 30 or 40 years ago.
But the most important factor is strength and conditioning techniques, which have produced athletes with much greater physical abilities than in the past. Barry Bonds may have been caught using anabolic steroids, but he also did a 300-pound bench press. Tiger Woods was the first modern day golfer to work hard on weight training and now all young competitors have followed suit.
And one reason today's bodybuilders are so much taller than they were in the past is because they have learned to exercise more efficiently and economically, in a way that maximizes muscle growth and gives the time necessary to rest, relax, and grow leaves .
