Basics of Training for Size, Part 1

By John Romaniello


Early this morning, I was working with a client doing some heavy benching, and we were interrupted by another gym member during a set.

Now, I normally don’t appreciate interruptions, but this chick was pretty cute and happened to be complimenting my client on his progress, so I let it slide and was happy to take a break while they dialogued for a bit.

Then another person came over—the admirer’s boyfriend. Lame.

I appreciate boyfriends even less than I appreciate interruptions.

On the other hand, the boyfriend was also pretty complimentary towards my client, which made me feel proud. He’s gained a significant amount of muscle in a pretty short time—just over 10 pounds in 6 weeks.

We keep careful records, and the numbers are always right in front of us, but having a few people notice is great. Especially for me, because it shows what an awesome trainer I am. Which, for the record, is Quite Awesome.

Anyway, emboldened by our receptiveness to his adoration, Cute Girl’s Boyfriend starts asking all sorts of questions which I did not, at that moment, have the time to answer. I asked him to wait a few minutes while we wrapped up our training session.

Three sets of bench press later and I’m seated at a table answering rapid fire questions from a kid who clearly has been getting the wrong information from all the wrong sources. He’s asking questions in earnest, as his training has not been productive lately.

He happened to ask me what the “best” set and rep scheme was for gaining muscle, and I inwardly groaned as I realized that this wasn’t going to be a short conversation. Without committing to a definitive answer of what I think is best, I gave him a rundown which I’d like to share with you.

If the question is, “which set/rep range is best for muscle gain?” the simple answer is “all of them.”

Unfortunately, that is also the most complicated answer.

You see, it’s like this: your muscles are made up of various types of fibers, and which rep ranges you best respond to is going to be a factor partially determined by your particular fiber make up.

Of course, without dissecting you (which, while undoubtedly fun, would not be very efficacious in terms of your training), there really isn’t any way to tell you what your general fiber make-up is, or what type of rep and set schemes you’re going to respond to. None of which really answers the question, of course. I know, just wait a tick, I’m getting there.

Let us assume for a moment that the training focus is entirely on growth, and not at all on strength. In that case, your concentration should be on the higher rep ranges; sets of 10-12, 12-15 or even as high as 20 are on the menu. As for the number of sets: well, that is something that will be determined by the number of exercises you for a particular body part.

It helps to think of things in terms of total volume. If you are training with higher reps, I would try to limit a specific muscle group to around 120 reps per work out, preferably just under.

Here is an example using chest:

Bench Press – 4×15 (60 reps)
Incline Dumbell Press – 3×12 (36 reps)
Dumbbell Fly – 2×10 (20 reps)

We’re looking at a total of 116 reps there, give or take any extras your were able to squeeze out, or reps you were unable to complete.

The reason for the high reps if your focus is primarily on hypertrophy is, once more, fiber make up. You are training for what is known as sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, or fluid hypertrophy.

High rep training is the simplest, fastest, and most visibly obvious way for beginners to pack on mass. The drawback is that the higher rep schemes used in this type of training necessitate very light (in relative terms, at least) loads to complete the set.

That being the case, strength tends not to increase. In fact, in some cases you may even notice a decrease if you attempt heavier training.

This is typical “bodybuilder” type training – all show and no go, as they say. You’ll look strong, but you won’t be strong. However, if all you’re going for is a good look in a tight shirt, this may sound like something you might be interested in.

In most cases, when new trainees hit the gym, they do some incarnation of this. They progress a bit, and then stall out. As with all things: when it comes to training everything works, but nothing works forever.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss another way to structure your sets and reps to increase not only size, but also allow for rapid gains in strength.

To find out more CLICK HERE

Interview with Jason Feruggia

Interview with Jason Feruggia:

Most guys are being told to follow bodybuilding splits, train multiple times a day, and other non-sense training tactics that don’t work. What tips do you have for people looking to build muscle as fast as possible?

The key to making consistent size gains is making consistent strength gains (in a hypertrophy rep range) while eating enough food and allowing enough time for recovery. You need to constantly be doing more weight or more reps. The body will respond to any given stimulus one time and one time only. If you place the same demands on it a second time (like pressing the same weight for the same reps) nothing will happen. You must always be forcing it to adapt and thus you must always ask it do something it isn’t used to.

The easiest way to do this is add more weight or do more reps with the same weight. Aside from making consistent strength gains the next most important thing to consider is training frequency. To improve anything in life you need to do it frequently. Building muscle is no different. So you want to train a muscle as frequently as possible, while it is in a fresh and recovered state. This means that you should be training each body part once every 2-5 days, and not once a week like a lot of the muscle mags recommend. That’s too little frequency. The more times you can stimulate growth throughout the year the better. Obviously 104 growth stimulating workouts per year for each body part would be a lot better than 52.

I have seen the phrase “stimulate, don’t annihilate” on your blog in reference to training. Can you explain what you mean by this and the relation to training volume?

To elicit a training response you need to present the body with a stimulus that it isn’t used to. This stress will cause the body to adapt. The body adapts by building itself up bigger and stronger.

Where people go wrong is that they think they need to annihilate the muscle in order to elicit any type of response. This is completely counterproductive. When you annihilate the muscle with tons of sets and reps and intensity techniques like drop sets you drastically increase your recovery time. And as I mentioned previously, frequency is very important. So when you increase your recovery time you have to decrease your training time. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. The key is to do just enough to stimulate size and strength gains but not annihilate yourself so that it takes forever to recover, or worse- that you put yourself in a state of overtraining.

Triple Threat Muscle is your new program. What separates this program from all the others and can you tell our readers why you created it?

My Muscle Gaining Secrets program is specifically geared toward skinny guys, hardgainers and beginners. This is more of an intermediate/advanced program that is more athletically based. So while the main focus is still on building muscle there is also a shift toward a bit more speed work, mobility and conditioning in Triple Threat Muscle. The new program was created for the typical weekend warrior or Average Joe who wants to look and train like an athlete but doesn’t actually have the time or recovery ability to spend more than a few hours per week in the gym.

I spent the last two years experimenting on a wide group of individuals to come up with the most effective and fastest way to do this. Triple Threat Muscle is the result of two years of hard work and is based on all of my findings.

And finally, what general tips can you give to our readers who want transform their bodies?

• Strength train 3-4 days per week.
• Lift heavy and keep most of your sets in the range of 3-10 reps.
• Don’t go to failure.
• Train each body part 2-3 times per week.
• Don’t do more than 12-16 total sets per workout.
• Always strive to get stronger.
• Eat natural, organic foods and avoid anything processed.
• Sleep 8-10 hours per day.
• Minimize stress.
• Get out in the fresh air and sun more often.

To find out more got to Jason's new site, CLICK HERE

1 Key to FAST muscle growth

By Jason Ferruggia

Stop over thinking. That’s it. That’s one very important key to fast muscle growth. It’s that simple. Stop doing that and instead focus on what’s really important and you’ll grow a hell of a lot faster.

Every day people ask me what angle they should set the incline bench to, should they do hill sprints or sled sprints, whether they should wait two hours or two and half hours between meals, if they should do six reps or eight reps on dumbbell presses, if they should rest between arms when doing 1 arm rows or do both arms and then rest.

It’s all way too much thinking and over analyzing. Stop stressing yourself out over all the minute details that make very little difference in the big picture.

The majority of people who fail to gain any appreciable amounts of size and strength do so because they over think, over analyze and bang away on the keyboard more than they actually eat, sleep and train.

Simplify it all and your results will come much faster. Not to mention the fact that your life will be a lot less stressful.

Muscles get bigger when you apply a stress they are not used to and then feed them properly and allow them adequate time to recover.

How much stress is enough? A lot less than most people think. Muscle growth can be stimulated in just a few hard sets.

Your goal is not to get the most massive pump possible. Skinny guys tend to chase the pump during their workouts. It’s one of the reasons why they remain skinny. Doing an extra three sets of curls because it temporarily makes your arms a half an inch bigger is a waste of time. It does nothing to contribute to real muscle growth. The pump is just a rush of blood in the muscles. It’s not real, lasting size. So don’t obsess over it.

The easiest way to stimulate growth is by lifting heavier weights or doing more reps with the same weight (up to a point). Anything over twelve reps on most exercises will be a waste of time for most people. Hardgainers are better off sticking with ten and under. Advanced guys can get away with higher reps, occasionally; especially on lower body exercises.

So your goal is to beat your training journal every week. It helps to have a training partner and to try to beat him as well. The more motivation the better. Just get stronger, no matter what it takes. Do this three or four days per week and don’t spend more than an hour in the gym.

If your numbers are going up you know you are recovering properly and that your training is on point. But the scale needs to go up too. So make sure you are eating enough to make that happen. You can do that on the Paleo Diet, the Zone Diet, a vegetarian diet or whatever works for you. When all is said and done the most important thing is that you eat clean, organic food and get the necessary calories required to make the numbers on the scale go up.

You don’t want to get fat in the process, so the majority of you (except the genetic freaks whom we all envy yet secretlydespise) will need some type of cardio or conditioning to keep body fat levels in check. By far and away the number one choice here would be some type of sprinting. Do this once or twice per week. And get really good at jumping rope.

Simple, right?

Now stop thinking and start growing.

Jason Ferruggia

For more info go to Jason's new site CLICK HERE