Natural Bodybuilding, Fitness, and Peak Performance

“Periodization for Bodybuilders”

If you’re a bodybuilder and you spend the next twelve to twenty-four (pick a number) weeks performing sets of four to six repetitions, you will be utilizing a block of training time to work your ‘white fast-twitch muscle fibers.’ If you follow that up with a block of time in which you perform sets of eight to twelve repetitions (red fast/slow twitch fibers), you’ll be engaging, knowingly or not, in ‘periodization for bodybuilding.’

As someone after the possible benefits of ‘periodization for bodybuilders’, you might follow that training cycle with another one that utilizes plyometric training in the low-repetition range of sets in order to hit the fast-twitch fibers with even more intensity.

'Periodization for Bodybuilders': Can this athletic training technique help you build a better body?

‘Periodization’: What is it?

‘Periodization’ is the organized cycling of training methods in order to obtain synergistic results from the resultant scheduled routines. It’s been utilized by athletes (mostly through their coaches) for decades. In the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s, European coaches began subjecting their athletes to this systematic alternation of weight training sets, reps, and intensity levels in order to prevent overtraining plateaus and improve overall strength and athletic performance. It appeared effective; these countries produced some of the best performances of the top athletes in the world during that time. Much of this has been attributed to the utilization of the technique of periodization.

Periodization: Two types for weight training

In weight training, volume and intensity are inversely related. In order for intensity to be increased, volume must be decreased. Likewise, an increase in the volume of weight moved usually demands a decrease of intensity. Alternating between higher volume with lower intensity and low volume with high intensity is an effective and commonly used technique in employing ‘periodization for bodybuilders.’

This method’s effectiveness is likely due to its allowance of adequate rest for each respective muscle fiber type as the other ones are being targeted. If we hit the heavy/low reps sets for a few weeks, we push the fast-twitch tissue for awhile as we allow the slow/fast-twitch red fibers some time off. When we return to hitting the slow/fast-twitch red fibers for a few weeks, the fast-twitch fibers get some rest.

This type of ‘periodization for bodybuilders’, whereby sets, reps, and intensity are unique to each training block of a specific number of weeks, is referred to as “undulating periodization.” This method lies in contrast to “stepwise periodization”, whereby the sets and intensity are cycled within the training block – typically getting higher in intensity with a corresponding drop in volume as the weeks progress.

‘Periodization for Bodybuilders’: Effectiveness depends on other factors

So, the question: Should you incorporate periodization into your bodybuilding routine?

That depends! You see, experiencing success in natural physique enhancement is a matter of combining a bunch of important elements into a nearly perfect mixture, or formula. If the practice of ‘periodization for bodybuilders’ is utilized while some equally important (or even more important) elements of successful bodybuilding are missing, results will likely leave a lot to be desired.

That said, it’s worth noting that I’m currently combining the principles of HardBody Success with the practice of bodybuilding periodization and getting phenomenal results. So in this case, periodization for bodybuilders seems to be enhancing a unique bodybuilding system that is highly effective in and of itself.

I’ll have more on all of this at another time.

“Bodybuilding Supersets”: ‘Super technique’ or overrated redundancy?

The number of esoteric-sounding techniques that can be created for bodybuilding and fitness workouts seems limited only by the imaginations of those who create them. What often gets lost in the minutia is the simple but often neglected principle of overload progression – the main requirement for an ever-improving physique. Successful overload progression should be the yardstick by which we measure the effectiveness of any workout “intensifying technique” – regardless of its ability to provide us a “good workout” (a term with no objective definition). It took me years to realize the folly of utilizing fancy techniques in the name of a ‘good workout’ but which came at the expense of long-term progression in muscle overload and recovery.  This is the lesson in restraint that often contrasts the successful natural bodybuilder from the gym-rat who relies on steroids for every ounce of muscle he gains.

"Bodybuilding Supersets": Do they build more muscle or just more exhausting workouts?


Such is the case of “bodybuilding supersets.”

What exactly is this technique? ‘Bodybuilding supersets’ are the combination of two bodybuilding sets/exercises performed back-to-back without any rest time between the sets. We can break bodybuilding supersets into four different categories:

1.    Two exercises/same-muscle supersets
2.    Pre-exhaustion Supersets
3.    Drop-set Supersets
4.    Opposing Muscle Supersets

Two Exercises/Same-Muscle Supersets

These types of bodybuilding supersets entail working the same muscle with two different exercises.  If you perform a set of ‘dumbbell kickbacks’ for your triceps and then immediately follow them up with a set of ‘triceps press-downs’ without resting between the two sets, you’ll have performed this type of bodybuilding superset.

Pre-Exhaustion Supersets

This is the same as the previously mentioned type of bodybuilding superset with one very intensifying twist: A set of an isolation exercise for a specific muscle is followed by a set of a compound movement exercise which further works and breaks down that muscle. For example, if you perform a set of ‘dumbbell flyes’ (isolation exercise) and immediately follow it up with a set of bench presses (compound movement), you’ll have done a ‘pre-exhaustion superset’ for your pectoral muscles.

Pre-exhaustion is often used to improve progress in “stubborn” body parts that are underdeveloped and unresponsive to conventional sets. For more of my take on pre-exhaustion, you can click here.

Drop-Set Supersets

Drop-sets are the performance of consecutive sets of the same exercise by simply reducing the weight of that exercise once the muscle is fatigued or a certain number of reps have been completed. For example, if you perform ‘dumbbell side lateral raises’ with 40-pound dumbbells for eight repetitions and follow it immediately by performing another set with 30-pound dumbbells, you’ll have performed a drop-set. These bodybuilding supersets can be intensified by dropping the weight several times to perform one huge superset.

Opposing Muscle Supersets

Doing a set of biceps curls and immediately following it with a set of triceps extensions. Performing sets of bench presses for the chest while combining intermittent sets of barbell rowes for the back. Combining sets of leg extensions for the quadriceps with sets of leg curls for the hamstrings. These are examples of ‘bodybuilding supersets’ of the opposing muscle type.

These types of ‘bodybuilding supersets’ are terrific for saving time in the gym. I’ve used opposing muscle supersets extensively for creating workout efficiency and motivational muscle pumps.

‘Bodybuilding Supersets’: My experience

If you are a natural bodybuilder, you should only use these bodybuilding supersets techniques sparingly with the exception of #4; ‘Opposing Muscle Supersets.’ Utilizing these intensifying methods can cause greater tissue breakdown and adaptation requirements, but will often necessitate greater recuperation times between workouts in order that full recovery and compensatory strength/tissue take hold. This seems especially the case for ‘pre-exhaustion supersets.’

But I highly recommend Opposing Muscle Supersets for the upper arms. Working biceps and triceps together by trading off between sets of each of those opposing muscles, you can save a lot of time in the gym and leave with that terrific feeling of overly-expanded arms.

“The Fad Diets”: What’s the ‘skinny’ on these things?

I know of a guy who did ‘The Atkins Diet’ back in the early 2000s. He cut his carbohydrate intake to nearly nothing, ate a lot of protein and dietary fat-laden food, and pumped iron a few days each week.

How did he fare?

He lost body weight rather quickly, gained a little bit of muscle, and managed to drive his cholesterol levels up too high.

How’s he doing now?

He fell off the wagon of that scourge of ‘the fad diets’ a few years ago, gained back all his body fat plus an additional twenty pounds, and has muscles that have atrophied enough to appear like they’d never enjoyed the tiny bit of development they once had.

“The fad diets” – what is it with these things? ‘The South Beach Diet’, ‘The Zone Diet’, ‘The Hampton Diet’, and ‘The Atkins Diet’ – just to name a handful. Why did so many people fall prey to the hype associated with these eating plans and then gain back fat with a vengeance after following and then dumping them?

Can 'the fad diets' keep you in shape after helping you lose unwanted weight? That depends much on your thinking - much of it subconscious

Let’s start with a theory on how ‘the fad diets’ became such fads. The one thing all these eating plans have in common is that they prescribe cutting carbohydrates in various amounts – each one having its own respective pattern for doing so. The Atkins diet requires a drastic cut in carbs until the desired weight is lost. The South Beach Diet directs its adherents to cut carbs drastically for two weeks – followed by a gradual reintroduction of them until weight stabilizes. The Zone Diet has weight loss enthusiasts keeping their carbohydrates at no more than 40% against the other two macronutrients – with protein and dietary fat each being at 30%. The Hampton diet primarily emphasizes shifting from refined carbohydrates to complex and fibrous carbohydrates.

That’s all well and good.

Yet what most adherents of these eating plans who are susceptible to the hype associated with them are unaware of is the water weight drop that’s inherent in their prescriptions. There are 2.7 grams of water attached to every gram of carbohydrate we ingest. That’s a lot. It means that when we drop our carbohydrate intake significantly – we immediately experience a drop in our body weight due to some water loss. This initial drop in body weight typically gives the dieter his or her much needed assurance that the fad diet is “working” within the first week or two of its inception. That’s good for word-of-mouth marketing for “the fad diets.”

With this commonality among the fad diets in mind, the question becomes whether there’s anything special or overtly effective about any one of them over the long term. Since the basic formula for fat loss is:

Consume fewer calories than you burn each day
                                  Or
Burn more calories than you consume each day

… one has to wonder if there’s anything but a regimented guideline packaged as a “special formula” that gives each these eating plans their ‘fad’ status.

What’s needed for most people, in my opinion, is a gradual change in habits and self-image over a longer period than ‘the fad diets’ provide. This change of habits should include an effective muscle building program – not some haphazard and generic routine of tossing some weight around in the gym each week. Effective muscle building not only improves metabolism and fat-burning capacity – it makes the whole fitness endeavor more rewarding, exciting, and motivating.

The positive side of the fad diets (aside from The Atkins Diet) is that they could help one develop better eating habits. They can help steer a person away from processed and starchy carbohydrates and toward the type that are more fibrous and complex. That’s good.

The negative side of the fad diets is that they can lead a dieter to an over-zealous state after seeing so much (water) weight drop off within two short weeks. This enthusiasm often leads the person to cut too many calories way too quickly, leading to a snap-back effect.

After the initial “snap-back”, the subconscious mind easily finds its old patterns and directs behavior to follow these cognitive and physiological grooves. That’s what apparently happened in the case of that acquaintance of mine who did The Atkins Diet.

That’s a shame – he could have done it all a lot differently and successfully.