Bodybuilding

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s program for hardgainers that will work for you

Although Arnold Schwarzenegger’s training methods caused me enormous frustration during my first few years in bodybuilding—because they didn’t work for me—he still played a major part in enabling me to make a career out of bodybuilding.

The frustration motivated my search for training methods that work for natural bodybuilders with normal genetics for muscle-building, which in turn led to my books and magazine articles on bodybuilding instruction.

And it was the poor results that countless bodybuilders got from conventional training methods that drove many of them to try the alternative methods I promote.

Although I craved to be a professional bodybuilder, it was an unattainable goal because my heredity didn’t provide me with the potential to build huge muscles, and I wasn’t willing to take bodybuilding drugs. But the lessons I eventually learned enabled me to build about 45 pounds of muscle, transform my physique, and deadlift 400 pounds for 20 reps—drug-free, and with normal genetics.

I started bodybuilding in 1972, aged 14, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was in his prime. I particularly recall an album of photographs taken mostly in the 1960s, including four astonishing shots of the 19-year-old Schwarzenegger taken at the 1966 London Mr. Universe. (I still have that album, nearly 40 years on.)

Arnold’s physique, and the persona promoted by the muscle magazines, produced an icon that dominated bodybuilding. Although his Mr. Olympia physique was modest compared to today’s behemoths, it was spectacular for that era.

During my teenage years I was consumed by bodybuilding. Not only did Arnold’s images dominate bodybuilding back then, but so did the training methods he used. The other champions at the time employed the same format, albeit with their own tweaks. The mantra promoted by the mainstream bodybuilding magazines was, “Train like a champion to become a champion yourself.” So that’s how I trained, as did countless others.

Those training methods worked for Arnold, of course, but two essential requirements were never mentioned in print at the time—at least not anywhere that I came across. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the other big names of that era (and subsequent eras) inherited genetic good fortune that the vast majority of bodybuilders lack; and drug assistance for bodybuilders took off in the 1960s. But the huge majority of bodybuilders don’t have those advantages, and thus can’t respond well, if at all, to those training methods. Another approach is required.

The seven-point plan to jump-start your muscle growth

Here’s what I’m calling “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Program for Hardgainers.” It can work wonders for natural bodybuilders with normal genetics for muscle-building. (The program also works well for other types of gainers.)

1. Cut volume
Never mind the high-volume training that the champion bodybuilders prosper on. But for low-volume workouts to be effective, you must use the best exercises—the ones that give the biggest return. This means, for example, squats rather than leg extensions, deadlifts rather than back extensions, benches or dips rather than flyes, and overhead presses rather than laterals. Your specific selections must be exercises that you can perform safely, with correct exercise form.

2. Boost effort
The more training you do, the less likely that you’ll train hard enough to stimulate muscle growth. Once you’ve cut your volume, it should be easier to train hard, but you’ll still need to intentionally crank up your effort level.

3. Train safely
Injuries limit if not prohibit bodybuilding progress. You must avoid injuries. To do that, you must use correct exercise technique, and avoid overtraining.

4. Boost recovery time
The more often you train, the less recuperation time you have, the harder it is to recover between sessions, and the harder it is to maintain workouts of sufficient quality. Hardgainers should have a ceiling of three workouts per week, but with just two sessions being a better standard for most of them. Some exercises take a heavier toll on the body than others, and require more recovery time. The most striking example is the conventional bent-legged deadlift. When you’re working hard on the deadlift, train it no more than once a week.

5. Boost recovery ability
Once you’ve cut training volume and frequency you’ll increase your ability to recover between workouts. But further boost your recovery ability by sleeping more each night, and eating better. Get eight or more hours of sleep each night, and really get all the nutrients and calories you need each day. Consume plenty of protein-rich food, healthy carbs, and dietary fat. Consume at least 25% of your calories as fat—from healthy sources, of course. Insufficient fat intake will kill your progress even if you have plenty of protein, carbs and calories.

6. Build strength
You must train hard enough to stimulate muscle growth and be able to make gradual improvements in your poundages while always using correct exercise form. This is the principle of progressive overload. (Keep written records of your workouts so that you can track your progress in strength.)

If you’re not progressing in strength, it may be because you’re not recuperating properly. But even if your recuperation is good, if you’re not training hard enough on the best exercises (without overdoing total volume), you won’t stimulate any growth to begin with.

7. Accommodate your lifestyle
Your lifestyle can greatly affect the blend of volume, frequency and intensity that’s effective for you. As an illustration, imagine yourself in two contrasting scenarios at your current level of development.

First, you’re on a long summer vacation from college, not working, single, and spoiled by your parents so that you can eat well, live leisurely, and have about nine hours of sleep each night. (Many top-level bodybuilders have near-optimal recovery conditions akin to these, together with drug support. No wonder they can prosper on high-volume training and very frequent workouts.)

Second scenario now: you’re married, 10 years older, have two young kids, work 60+ hours each week at a stressful job, and have only six to seven hours of sleep each night (that’s often interrupted). With the latter scenario you may need to cut back to two major exercises for your upper body and just a barbell squat or the parallel-grip deadlift for your lower body, for a workout of just six to nine work sets (plus warm-ups) every four to seven days. Bodybuilding progress can still be made even under severe circumstances provided that you adjust your training accordingly and ensure that you consume enough nourishment.

Aspects of what Arnold Schwarzenegger applied that hardgainers should copy

As the antithesis of a hardgainer, Arnold could make amazing progress on a volume and frequency of training that’s hopeless for hardgainers. But some of what he applied is fully applicable to hardgainers:

a) He had tremendous desire to improve his physique. You must have tremendous desire, but you should apply it differently to how he did. A big part of desire is persistence, but it’s essential that you persist with a program that has the potential to work for hardgainers. Persistence that’s not properly applied will get you nowhere.

b) He included the most important exercises in his programs—squats, benches, deadlifts, chins, rows, and overhead presses—and so should you. But whereas Arnold also used many isolation exercises in each workout, hardgainers should focus on just a small number of multi-joint, compound exercises each session.

c) He was dead serious about his training, trained hard, and built strength. And you must be dead serious about your training, train hard, and build strength!

How to build muscle: 6 big lies that kill your
bodybuilding progress

This is the first part of the BIG LIES series.

The BIG LIES in this post are described as such in the context of drug-free, genetically normal bodybuilders. But some of the big lies are TRUTHS in the context of bodybuilders who are drug-fed and genetically highly gifted.

Never mind what the drug-fed genetic freaks can build muscle on. What works for them doesn’t work for drug-free, genetically normal bodybuilders.

LIE #1: TRAIN MORE OFTEN TO GROW MORE MUSCLE

There may seem to be some logic here because, in many activities, the more often that a skill is practiced properly, the quicker that competence is acquired. But bodybuilding training isn’t like pure skill training. Furthermore, when someone discovers that a modest amount of proper training builds muscle, there’s a tendency to think that training more often will yield even better results.

A bodybuilding workout will build muscle only if it safely stimulates growth and is followed by sufficient recovery time and supply of nutrients to permit the body to heal, which means to recover from the training and build a very small amount of overcompensation tissue—muscle.

Train too often, and you may not stimulate any growth because you’re unable to train hard enough because of the excessive frequency of training. And even if you do stimulate growth, you’ll not have sufficient recuperation time between workouts to permit the growth to occur.

It’s very easy for a natural bodybuilder with normal genetics to overtrain. But someone with outstanding genetics for bodybuilding can prosper on more frequent training, and such a person can prosper on even more frequent training if he’s on bodybuilding drugs.

Hardgainers are best off training no more than three times a week, but with just twice a week being ideal for many bodybuilders. But the super-responsive, drug-fed bodybuilding elite can prosper on six workouts a week. (Some, for short periods, have progressed on twice-daily training, six days a week!)

Such high frequency is training suicide for hardgainers. But even the pros can overtrain, and many of them have discovered that, even with their huge advantages, when they cut back on their training frequency (and volume) they are better able to build muscle.

Don’t think that by splitting your training over, say, four workouts a week is necessarily easier on your recovery system than two brief full-body workouts. Because the muscular system is so interwoven, and many exercises overlap somewhat in the muscles they recruit, some split routines train some of the same muscles at every workout. Furthermore, intensive training for just a limited area of musculature still has an overall systemic demand that needs to be recovered from before you work a different area of your physique.

Recovery time—and lots of it for hardgaining bodybuilders—is essential in order to build muscle.

LIE #2: TRAIN LONGER TO BUILD MORE MUSCLE

The origins of this lie are the same as for the previous one. Men and women with exceptional genetic talent for an athletic activity, especially when assisted by performance enhancing drugs, can prosper on a far greater volume of training than can drug-free, genetically normal athletes.

Some great medium- and long-distance runners, for example, inherited an ability to process oxygen and produce energy that’s in another world relative to that of a normal person. Of course, the great runners further enhance their natural advantages with great dedication to training, but they had way more to work with from day one. The same sort of point applies in the bodybuilding world.

As little as just one work set can stimulate muscle growth, provided that its quality is high enough. If you ever need to do more than three work sets for a given exercise, you must be loafing. Train harder. Make three work sets per exercise your ceiling. Sometimes, just one or two work sets per exercise is better. Some body parts are much larger than others, and thus can sometimes benefit from multiple exercises in a given program, but there’s no need to do a great many sets per body part.

Too much training is as counterproductive as training too often. But most hardgaining bodybuilders train too oftenand do too many sets per workout, and that combination is usually a major part of the explanation for why they continue to make little or no progress.

LIE #3: THE ROUTINES THAT WORK FOR THE BIGGEST GUYS WORK FOR OTHER BODYBUILDERS, TOO

The routines that work for the biggest bodybuilders only work well for people who have the same genetic advantages and drug support that the biggest guys have. While the big guys know what works well for them, that doesn’t mean they know what works for drug-free bodybuilders with normal genetics.

Someone who struggled for years without building any muscle, but then managed to build 25 pounds of muscle drug-free, knows way more about how to train genetically normal, drug-free bodybuilders than does a genetic freak on tons of drugs who has built over 100 pounds of muscle.

LIE #4: A BODYBUILDER’S DIET SHOULD BE A LOW-FAT ONE

A low-fat diet undermines if not prohibits muscle growth even if your caloric intake and protein consumption are adequate. The phobia of dietary fat that many bodybuilders seem to have seriously undermines their ability to build muscle.

When you’re trying to build muscle, get about 30% of your total caloric intake from healthy dietary fats. Avoid newfangled fats, fried food, deep fried food, and anything with trans fats or hydrogenated fats. If you check food labels, you’ll see that most processed food contains unhealthy fats.

And even if you’re cutting back on body fat you still need to consume healthy fats because they supply essential nutrients. A low-fat diet is unhealthy.

LIE #5: TO BUILD BIG MUSCLES IT’S NOT ESSENTIAL TO BE STRONG

Even bodybuilders who have a similar amount of muscle can vary greatly in their strength levels. The explanation may include differences in leverages, muscle belly lengths and efficiency of the nervous system, and variations in the ratios of the different types of muscle fibers. A smaller bodybuilder who is better put together for strength may be stronger than a larger bodybuilder.

But you have to get stronger than you are now, to build muscle. If you can bench press 150 pounds for eight reps now, and in a year’s time you still can’t bench press more than 150 pounds for eight reps, you’re highly unlikely to have bigger chest and triceps muscles. But if in a year’s time you can bench press 200 pounds for eight reps in the same technique as before, you’ll have somewhat bigger chest and triceps muscles. Then if, for instance, 18 months later you can bench press 265 pounds for eight reps in the same technique as before, you’ll have substantially bigger chest and triceps muscles.

The “get stronger to get bigger” maxim is misinterpreted or abused when bodybuilders focus on adding poundage at the expense of exercise form. Don’t be guilty of that. Exercise form must be correct consistently. You must not get injured.

LIE #6: WHEN YOU’RE BULKING, YOU NEED LOADS OF FOOD

On growth programs, many bodybuilders overdose on food, and thus overdose on body fat. While you need a sufficient surplus of calories and nutrients to grow on, “sufficient” doesn’t mean a gross excess. What “sufficient” means is enough to permit muscle growth but without adding appreciable body fat.

Most bodybuilders need to allow a small amount of body fat to accompany a larger amount of muscle growth. But many bodybuilders have overdone the bulking mentality and added far more body fat than muscle, which doesn’t yield a pleasing end result.

But no matter how ideal your caloric consumption may be, and how ideal your dietary fat and protein intakes may be, if you’re not training effectively, the surplus of nourishment will go to waste, and just add to your waistline.

To build muscle, you need an effective training program in combination with sufficient nutritional surplus and lots of sleep (and rest in general).