I spend a lot of my time reviewing research. Enough time that I can tell you that there are definitely GREAT research papers, and then there are HORRIBLE ones that make you scratch your head trying to figure out how they ever were published in the first place.
Truthfully there are many more papers that seem to fall in the horrible category the truth is, even the worst paper ever published still has some value.
There is no such thing as research with absolutely no value.
While these seems like a typical ‘Pilon ramble’ let me assure you…we’re talking about bodybuilding.
You see for some reason, over the last decade we decided that bodybuilding is dumb, useless, and a complete waste of time.
We junked bodybuilding and replaced it with functional training, sports specific training and the like.
We threw out bodybuilding before we completely understood it.
And just like research papers, there is no such thing as a completely useless type of exercise.
There are things to be learned from bodybuildling.
Good things.
**Before I go any further I need to be clear..there is next to NO research on bodybuilding.
Everything you read on line or in magazines is nothing more than theories and conjecture.
What I’m about to write is no different – these are my theories on bodybuiding.**
Body building and weight training are NOT the same thing – they are close cousins maybe, but they are not interchangeable.
Weight training involved using your muscles to move a weight.
In power-lifting the goal is to move as much weight as possible. In Olympic lifting the goal is to perfect moving a weight through a certain ‘movement’ as efficiently as possible.
In bodybuilding the goal is to contract your muscles using weight to add some resistance.
Similar but very different.
In fact, while things like Olympic lifting and Power-lifting are definitely ‘weight training’ I am starting to think that body building is ‘muscle training’.
Again – similar, but very different.
I think the difference lies in the mental approach.
Here’s an example.
Stand up and let your arms hang at your sides.
Now, with your arms still hanging flex your biceps as tightly as possible (don’t curl your arms yet, just leave them hanging but flexed).
Keeping that same intense level of flex, slowly curl your arm up at the elbow until its fully curled – concentrating on the flex the entire way.
Pause for a second or two at the top then while keeping your bicep flex, slowly lower your arm back down.
That is a bodybuildling bicep curl.
Now imagine this same degree of concentration while holding a weight.
You are using weight to resist the contraction, but the mindset is all about the contraction and not the weight.
Using this technique, a guy that can curl 60 pound dumbbells for sets of 6-8 may only be able to curl 40-45′s before he has to break his concentration on the contraction and start thinking about moving the weight.
From my experience, you can lift a helluva lot more thinking about the weight then when you are thinking about the muscle…but if you want to make a muscle bigger..then there may be something in this approach.
My random speculation -
In the muscles that grow well for you..I bet you really ‘feel’ the exercises that you normally choose.
For the muscles that don’t grow well for you…I bet you really ‘feel’ the weight.
For me, I feel the contraction in my chest every time I do bench press or dumbbell press.
But shoulder press, I feel the weight moving. I’m strong on this lift, but I just don’t ‘feel’ it in my shoulders.
Coincidentally, my chest is much more developed then my shoulders.
(like I said, we’re theorizing here)
So, if the feel is important, then what do bodybuilders do right?
1) They pick exercises that they feel in the muscles they want to work.
2) They do things like ‘preexhaust’ a muscle to ‘help’ it feel an exericise.
3) They concentrate on the muscle in question during the workout.
All of these techniques are things we through way in favor of becoming Olympic lifting /power-lifting /functional training/athletic training wannabees (not meant to be derogatory, just saying..)
But, if your goal is simply to grow a specific muscle, or group of muscles in order to change the way your body looks, then there may be something we can learn from the way a bodybuilder approaches ‘working a muscle’.
In the end, the answer to losing weight will be to eat less, and the answer to building muscle is working out ‘more’ but this may be one little step towards a better definition of ‘more’.
BP
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Brad-
It’s ironic that you post this. Here lately I have been diving into old school books and learning about bodybuilding from back in the day. I’ve been reading stuff from Arthur Jones, Ellington Darden, Steve Reeves, Casey Viator . . . you know, the classics. ; )
Their approach to building muscle is definitely different from how most people “work out”. They focused on moving weights slower, greatly contracting the muscle, and completely focusing on the muscles they are trying to stimulate. As a result, those guys built some incredible physiques.
Keep going . . . I think you’re on to something. ; )
Yes!! Finally someone gets it! In my opinion strength training and bodybuilding should be synonymous terms. Correct bodybuilding is the focus on the intensity of muscular contraction to make that musculature stronger. The movement of the load is a result of that.
Muscles get stronger threw powerlifting and Olylifting, but as an indirect result. Those are sports that rely on skillfully using the body and it’s levers to hoist a load from A to B. It certainly isn’t the most efficient way(nor safest) way to strengthen them.
Thanks Brad I enjoy your stuff.
Nice post, Mr. Pilon. I am getting rather sick and tired of seeing folks throw bodybuilding under the bus, so it is refreshing to see someone recognizing there can be some value to be gleaned from it. In fact if you search hard enough and with an open mind, it is amazing how almost anything has something of value to offer……………..some more so than others, but I’ve rarely found an area that is 100-percent worthless.
It seems that oftentimes the dogmatic side of bodybuilding culture gets so many in a rage that the baby ends up getting tossed out with the proverbial bathwater!
Nice job Brad I agree with you. My feeling is no matter what your goals in training are most if not all of us want the same thing… To look good naked.
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Nia,
Good reading selection. You may also want to look into this:www.maxalding.co.uk.
Muscle Control is a lost art that almost all of the pre steroid bodybuilders practiced. It gave them an incredible ‘mind-muscle’ connection.
I’d be interested to know why the current exercise community thinks that someone who’s concentration is as good as the old time bodybuilders wouldn’t be ‘functional’. Short answer: they would. As a matter of fact bodybuilding was once a sport that involved other athletic feats. ‘Roids killed all of that.
Anyone who wants to read into the history of Physical Culture should pick up a copy of “Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors”.
You’re definitely on to something in that post! PLEASE: You should look into the work by Dr. Doug McGuff (“Body by Science”, check YouTube for lectures etc.), which touches heavily – and scientifically – on this subject and has changed the way I perceive weight training and fitness in general (Oh, and my physique, too.
) It is my honest opinion: This is the future of weight training (although I’m 100% sure Bodybuilders won’t give a damn, because they are frigging ADDICTED to training and will not abandon “old truths”, no matter how inefficient).
Theo (from Germany)
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I always try to learn something from people who are in good shape/better shape than me, because i know they are doing something right. Ive always wondered about bodybuilders, but i have never been able to pin it down, this has finally shed some light. now im gonna tweak my workout and see how it turns out. thanks BP
Hey Brad. Nice of you for pointing out the big difference between bodybuilding and strength training.
Personnally i’m training for the way i look and i also want to achieve some strenght goals (like getting at 20 pull ups).
I do have a question about diet on your non fasting days. You say working out is the factor in muscle building, not diet. So when you try to gain muscle, how do you train? Do you also tend to eat more on non fasting days when u are trying to gain muscle?
I’m asking you this because i’m now training for about 2.5 years and arround the last year or so i have it very difficult to gain muscle (bulking only made me fat). I realise that muscle gains are very slow and tend to get slower the longer you train but i don’t have exceptional stats. I’m 6ft2 and weigh about 186-188 pounds at 6-8%BF, my arms measure 15 inches and considering my height that aint very big.
Do you have any advice on this?
PS: Eat stop eat is one of the best things i learned and i will always thank you for that!
Greetz
Al Coleman-
Thanks for that. I’ll check it out right now.
; )
Nia,
No problem.
Theo,
Thanks for pointing out BBS. Dr.McGuff is the brightest guy in the field. Body By Science is a paradigm changing book that I hope gains wide acceptance. The problem is that people aren’t willing to work as hard as it advocates and are to addicted to “just going to the gym” to even try out the recommendations. Make no mistake about it; the recommendations in BBS work!
Serge Nubret and Vince Gironda talk about this type of stuff. Serge has several mega long threads on most of the bodybuilding forums. Vince’s stuff can be found at ironguru.com.
My comment – beginners don’t feel any of the muscles anyway, so they should be just lifting heavy stuff.
Incidentally most accomplished bodybuilders just get a solid foundation (moving a lot of weight) before starting on a ‘muscle squeeze’ program.
This mind-muscle connection is very interesting. Does that mean that by concentrating on the muscle that you wouldn’t necessarily have to use heavy weights to get good results? What about isometrics or concentration exercises without weights, which Bruce Lee espoused, would that produce similar results?
That would be wonderful for us desk jockeys!
I’m with ron wholeheartedly on this one. Looking good naked is the END to every MEAN when it comes to getting in shape. Yes, health, nutrition, long healty clean living are right at the top as well…but what he said needed to be said.
Very interesting post Brad. But surely the heavier the weight you are lifting the more forcefully the muscle used to lift it must contract, unless one cheats.
Omar
P.S. I like the new look of your blog.
Agreed.
But what does that mean? My thought is that perhaps (and again all just conjecture) there may be something more to the equation.
B
Rahim,
Sounds very Adonis Effect…love it.
B
You still have to ultimately lift ‘more’ as you become better. Rules of progression still apply, I’m just wondering if we lift too heavy we start to miss the point.
B
I have a different memory of being a beginner…I remember feeling the muscle before I ever understood the idea of pushing the weight.
I’m always trying to gain muscle, but I never eat more because of this..unless for some reason I wanted to get fat..but that’s not a goal I see myself ever having.
My advice is as follows – if you want bigger arms, concentrate on training your arms. Sounds simple, but I can’t think of anything else that would really be worth advising.
B
Bodybuilders are the hardest to learn from, because the drug use distorts the applicability of the info to non-drug users.
Example – bulking.
B
Yea,
OCE could just as easily mean Obsessive Compulsive Exercise as it does Obsessive Compulsive Eating.
B
Agreed
Glad you liked it, also nice to see someone recognizing that Power-lifting and Olylifting are skill development sports, more than they are ‘lifting weights’.
B
Thank Nia!
B
“I have a different memory of being a beginner…I remember feeling the muscle before I ever understood the idea of pushing the weight.”
I hear you. but lets say you have hardly any chest development. Lets say you can’t flex your chest voluntarily. Such a beginner will benefit from benching as much weight as possible.
- Same applies for not really having triceps development and starting doing dips, etc.
“My advice is as follows – if you want bigger arms, concentrate on training your arms. Sounds simple, but I can’t think of anything else that would really be worth advising.”
- I agree completely and this is one of the areas in which ‘functional training’ got it all wrong.
“You still have to ultimately lift ‘more’ as you become better. Rules of progression still apply, I’m just wondering if we lift too heavy we start to miss the point.”
Yup – if you can feel and control the muscle – this will work. Serge Nubret benches with 70kg or whatever when his max is probably 200kg. Same goes for Gironda and his ‘honest workout’ with very brief rest periods, perfect technique and tensing and ‘light weights.’
But – a foundation is a must I believe. I guess ‘muscle squeezing’ can work from the very beginning – if you train with somebody who knows how to do it right.
There’s something to be said about the style in which the average bodybuilders train… the sheer white-hot concentration on working the muscles regardless of the weight, rather than the movement of the body in relationship to the barbell in Olympic-style weightlifting. Great post on examining the possible difference in training methods for various goals.
I’m not totally convinced on slow tempo training. I know that a lot of strength and conditioning coaches talk about it and I have experimented with it myself. The thing is, using slow tempo you have to use lighter weight. I find with lighter weight I have less tension in the muscle and feel that it hasn’t worked hard enough.
It’s already been proven that you can contract muscles all day and they won’t grow bigger. Those electrical impulse machine scams have come and gone. I’m not convinced that contracting the muscle while holding weight will contribute to anything. You have to move big weights to grow big muscles.
As for the “feel”, I only “feel” the heaviness when I squat, but my legs are growing. Same with deadlifts too.
You can’t do them slowly…
Hi Ty,
I’m not talking about lifting ‘slow’…but slow is also a relative term…after all, your squat and deadlift are probably much ‘slower’ then your bench press..but regardless, the post was more theoretical and speaking mostly to the concept of being able to feel the specific muscle you are attempting to work.
B
Yeah, I definitly agree on this!
I always pay attention to my lifting speed so I can feel the muscles. In my humble opinion this is essential when trying to build muscles.
Barging in from Yahoo and after having a look around, there is some Terrific here, Thanks!