Should You Train Like a Pro Bodybuilder?

Yes... and no. Blindly following the training of top bodybuilders might not work well for an average person training naturally. The physiology of both types of athletes just isn't the same:



But despite these differences, the top bodybuilders often come up with important parts of the muscle growth puzzle, and these elements can and should be used by natural lifters. Here's what you can take away from some of the top Mr. Olympia champions:

1 – Larry Scott, Training Density

Scott was the pupil of the great Vince Gironda, a man who was decades ahead of his time. Both Gironda and Scott were true thinkers and tinkerers, inventing several variations of exercises to make them more effective at isolating the desired muscle. However, their most important contribution was the emphasis on training density – doing hard work with very short rest periods.

Having a high density of training (short rest periods) while still lifting heavy is one of the most powerful growth triggers. That's one of the reasons why I like clusters, multi-rep clusters (2-2-2-2-2-2 or 3-3-3-3-3-3) and rest/pause sets. At first your performance will drop, but you can train yourself to be more resilient and stay strong even with short rests.

The benefits of high density training (while staying with reasonably heavy weights) are mostly in the body composition department – it will help you get leaner while adding on muscle.

The benefits to the cardiovascular system are also important, since good health is actually the cornerstone of muscle growth and fat loss. If you want to make crops grow, you can have the best fertilizers and use the best farming methods, but if the soil is poor you'll have lousy growth. It's the same with muscle. A healthier body will progress faster.

As an example, adding muscle (naturally) without a healthy cardiovascular system to support it is virtually impossible because the added muscle poses a threat to survival!

2 – Sergio Oliva, Explosive Lifting

Before being the first truly freaky bodybuilder, Oliva was an international level Olympic lifter for Cuba. His upper back and forearms can certainly attest to that.

Much of his physical foundation was built on the Olympic lifts and heavy pulls. While you might not have to learn the Olympic lifts to benefit from them, explosive pulls like snatch-grip high pulls, push presses, and heavy Olympic deadlifts will really help a natural lifter build a thick back and shoulders.

Other great bodybuilders enjoyed doing the Olympic lifts from time to time, Robbie Robinson and Mike Mentzer being two of them.

The benefit of explosive pulls is an improved neural efficiency that will translate into better/earlier fast twitch muscle fiber recruitment. If you develop the capacity to recruit the fast twitch fibers earlier in the set, it means that you'll fatigue/stimulate them sooner and with fewer reps. Additionally, you'll burn less glycogen to get the job done. That means more glycogen for more growth.

On a side note, the more efficient you are at recruiting the fast twitch fibers, the fewer reps you can do at a given percentage of your max. But that isn't a bad thing. Quite the contrary! It simply means that by being better at hitting the money fibers, you provide the same stimulation without causing as much fatigue (glycogen and neurotransmitter depletion).

These big explosive lifts also have the benefit of increasing muscle hardness and density.

3 – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Training Frequency





Consider the benefits:





4 – Lee Haney, Training Stress

Lee Haney was known for coining the expression, "Stimulate, don't annihilate." This was a departure from the mega-high volume approach popularized by Arnold and bodybuilders of his era. Haney did a lot fewer sets per muscle and didn't go to failure and beyond as often as Arnold. He'd train hard, but not to the point of looking like he was going to have a seizure on those last reps.

I don't agree with how Haney trained each body part directly only once a week, but he was on the right track with how to manage training stress. Each muscle received 8 to 14 work sets. That is the proper amount of work for maximal results. I recommend spreading that total workload over more weekly sessions.

You shouldn't hit failure too often, especially on big compound movements. A rep to failure is just as demanding (maybe even more so) than a maximal, all-out lift, regardless of the weight used. Work very hard on the last set of an exercise but not to the point where you fail or break proper form.

5 – Dorian Yates, One Hard Set

Dorian took training volume reduction even further than Haney, using a modified HIT approach of one set to failure per exercise for 3-4 exercises per muscle group. There are things he did that I don't agree with, though, like going past failure by having his partner aid him with assisted reps or negatives at the end of a set and training each muscle only once a week.

Intensification methods are important, but those methods in which you aren't doing the actual work all by yourself can be dangerous. Doing assisted reps (when your partner helps you lift the weight) or negatives (where your partner lifts the weight and you lower it by yourself) when you've already hit muscle failure is responsible for more injuries than any other method.

When you hit failure your capacity to control the weight goes out the window and muscle fiber recruitment is all over the place. It's also very easy to experience technical shifts that will lead to injuries. It only takes one tiny mistake by your spotter to get into the problem zone.

What Dorian taught us was to only do one very hard set per exercise. While I'll use intensification methods on that last set (rest/pause, drop set, mechanical drop set, clusters, partials) and push that last set hard, I don't attempt a rep I'm not sure of making.

Work that last set as hard as humanly possible without reaching the point where you aren't sure about completing the next rep. You'll get maximum stimulus without the risk of injuries.

Related:  Top 10 Tips From a Pro Bodybuilder

Related:  10 Reasons Bodybuilders are Bigger Than Powerlifters