I swear, I just don't "get" bodybuilders....

As ashamed as I am to admit to it, at one time I aspired to be a bodybuilder. By that I mean I drank the Kool-Aid...by the gallon. I read all of the magazines, articles and watched “Pumping Iron” a hundred times. (I still own two copies)

There was always one thing that struck me as frustrating and odd at the same time. Why was it that I could lift more and work harder than some of the guys in the gym where I trained, but did not have the same quality of physique they had?

I always wanted a 19 inch set of “guns” to carry around and show off. At the height of my bodybuilding “career” I weighed 242 pounds and had 18 ¼ inch arms. I could squat a house and deadlift a small truck, but I also had about 20 percent body fat and couldn’t climb a flight of steps without resting at every fifth one.

You see, I was under the misguided belief that bodybuilders knew what they were doing when they spoke about muscle gains, or more technically, hypertrophy. For the bodybuilder, body part split training is the cornerstone “Bodybuilding 101.”

Every article you will ever read in a bodybuilding magazine (Muscle & Fiction, MuscleRag, Ironman, etc) espouses the virtues and supposed benefits of body part training versus full body routines. They preach the superiority of so-called “isolation exercise” versus compound movements. This entire view is based entirely upon one deeply misguided concept: muscle gain (hypertrophy) is magically and totally area specific.

Let’s be clear on this: Hypertrophy is a universal reaction and result, not an area specific one.

A group of researchers found this out a while back:

Rogers et alThe Effect of Supplemental Isolated Weight-Training Exercises on Upper-Arm Size and Upper-Body StrengthHuman Performance Laboratory, Ball State University, Muncie, IN.NSCA Conference Abstract (2000)

The subjects in question were divided into two groups, and the researchers compared the effects of a weight training program on 5 repetition maximum (5RM) strength and arm circumference.

The first group did four compound upper body exercises, like pull-ups, pushups, etc.

The second group did the same program AND included biceps curls and triceps extensions.

“What did they find out, Uncle Steve?”

Both groups made considerable gains in both arm strength and size.

Here’s the interesting part: the second group that did all of the extra specific, targeted arm work showed no added achievement on either strength or arm circumference. And the study lasted for 10 weeks!

In other words the group that simply performed multi-joint, compound exercises produced the same results as the group that did additional localized, area specific exercises. In my mind, group one got more bang for their buck and group two wasted a bunch of time and effort.

But enough about reality, let's talk hypothetically:

What if we had two brothers, twins even, who enjoyed the same exact eating habits and were attending the same college? Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next year, without failure, they both go the local gym and lift. Their program is sound and they make progress in terms of weight, sets and repetition gains over the course of the year.

There is, however, one glaring dissimilarity.

Brother number one performs only dead-lifts.

Brother number two strictly and solely does biceps curls.

At the end of the year, who will have made more overall gains? Who do you believe will be bigger overall? Not just in terms of overall dimensions, but arm size as well?

If you said brother number one, have a slice of pie on me.

You see, he is the one who placed a greater emphasis overall through load bearing work on his ENTIRE system. The strange thing is, he never bent his elbow. Not once.

Canadian super coach Charles Poliquin has stated repeatedly that in order to gain an inch on your arm you must increase your overall muscle capacity by 10lbs. That being true (and I for one believe it is) it will come to fruition more quickly by performing exercises like the dead-lift in favor of “pretty boy” movements like dumbbell curls.

Let’s review: muscle acquisition and increase is a universal issue, not an area specific one. If I place a load exclusively on my calves, obviously they would grow. However, the growth would have its limits because the overall load is minimal. But if I performed a more complex movement, like squats or dead-lifts, the overall load is increased so dramatically that everything else would grow.

This applies also to those who inject or take steroids, growth hormone or any other muscle augmenting “supplement.” They are not simply injected into the individual muscle group and they aren’t rubbed onto the intended area of growth and enhancement.

Rather, they are injected or consumed into the body, the unit, the system. It stands to reason therefore that an increase in protein synthesis is an overall body occurrence.

The way I look at it these days is this: if I have a client who wants to gain muscle and “get big”, I do my best to develop a program for them that targets the entire system, and in that way kill several birds with just a few stones.

God bless you,
SP