| Q - John, I'm 40 years old, 5'9 and 187 pounds (not very lean) and have been trying to build muscle for four years now. I've managed to gain 22 pounds in the first few years of training by mainly increasing my protein and calories but the last 18 months there have been no gains. I've tried bulking up with calories and got pretty big (mainly fat), but after dieting this off over 3 months I was back down to my size I was before bulking. Does my age prevent more muscle or does my amount of sleep prevent it as I average about 5 hours a night on week nights doing shift-work? Also I've been trying Mike Mentzer's HIGH INTENSITY training style since March, what’s your opinion of this type of training? I am trying it to increase recovery.
A. - Building muscle in your forties is definitely more challenging than doing it in your twenties or thirties. Your testosterone and growth hormone levels are lower so it is not as easy to add size as it is when you are younger. However, if you stimulate the muscle with the proper intensity and feed it with the correct nutrition, it is possible to get bigger after the age of 40.
Building muscle begins with your workouts. If you are overloading the muscle with enough stress, it will have no choice but to respond by growing. The trick is to do the best exercises utilizing a training method in which the intensity is progressively increased without overtraining.
The best and most effective exercises are the basic exercises with barbells and dumbbells. For muscle growth and strength, it’s hard to beat exercises like squats, barbell rows, deadlifts, bench and incline presses, overhead presses, dips and barbell curls. These exercises will force the muscles to work extremely hard, which will create growth in the muscles.
If you use the basic exercises with heavy weights, the muscles are forced to work harder than when doing isolation exercises or machine exercises. This is the first step towards getting the muscles bigger; overload them with a heavy resistance using the best exercises.
Exercises like squats and deadlifts are also great for releasing testosterone in the body. Because of the energy output required for a basic exercise that uses so many muscle groups (like the squat or deadlift), the body releases greater amounts of testosterone in response to the stress. For this reason, it is important to include exercises such as this in your training program. It’s also important to use heavy weights that will really challenge you to do the exercise in good form for 6-8 reps.
You said that you are using Mike Mentzer’s training program to increase your recovery and recuperate fully from each workout. This is very important and a big factor in getting the muscles to grow. However, it is also important to make sure that each workout is progressively harder in some way from the last workout. It is this concept of progressive resistance, which will force the muscles to grow in response to this continued stress placed upon them.
You can increase the intensity by using more resistance (going heavier) or doing more reps with the same weight (keeping the reps in the growth-producing 6-10 rep range). Another way to increase the intensity is to use some type of high-intensity training technique such as drop sets, forced reps, supersets, etc.
What I like to do in my training is to pick one progressive training method (increasing resistance, increasing reps or using a high-intensity training technique) and make each workout progressively harder each week for a cycle of 8-10 weeks. After the conclusion of 8-10 weeks of hard training (increasing in intensity each week), I will take a week or two and perform either lighter workouts or a complete week off in order to let the body recover before starting another cycle.
Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty Training method is basically the same philosophy, increase intensity progressively each workout and allow the muscles enough time to rest in between workouts so they fully recover. The difference with Mentzer’s philosophy is that he believes in very low volume (low amount of sets) to work the muscles.
I also believe in a moderate amount of sets when training for size and strength. However, I think that you have to do a certain amount of exercises in order to fully develop each muscle. The back, for example, would need at least 3-4 exercises to develop all areas of this muscle group. You could never fully train the back or other large muscle groups with only 1-2 exercises.
As for your diet, you were on the right track in the beginning when you increased the amount of protein and carbs in order to add more muscle mass. However, now you need to get more specific about what you are eating. I would recommend that you count every calorie and every gram of food you take in every day so you can determine exactly how many calories, protein, carbs and fats you need in order to gain muscle mass without adding too much bodyfat.
I like the idea of alternating my carbohydrate intake when I am trying to add muscle mass without adding extra bodyfat. By eating more carbohydrates on the days you train and then cutting back on that amount on the days you don’t train, you will be less likely to put on added bodyfat. Most bodybuilders who are trying to gain weight and get bigger will eat a lot of calories and extra carbohydrates every day but if you are trying to only add muscle without gaining more fat, you should moderate your carb intake on your rest days.
By writing everything down each day, you will be more aware of what your body needs in order to gain muscle without adding more fat. You will figure out what works for your body and how to eat in order to have more energy, more strength and more size. This will also help you if you want to diet again in the future to get more cut. By knowing what you are consuming every day, you will have a better idea of what to cut back on in order to get more ripped without losing size.
One final word of advice on your sleep. You are right to think that you need more than five hours of sleep per night. If you can’t get enough sleep on the days you work and workout, make sure you are taking a 1-2 hour nap on the days you don’t train and then catch up on your sleep over the weekend.
I would recommend that you train 3-4 days a week if you are trying to gain mass. By cycling your carbohydrate intake and getting enough sleep on your rest days, you should be able to overcome the long hours you spend at work and get enough sleep to help you recuperate and grow.
Q. - Hi, I need your expertise. Simply put, I need help with my training. I know that you have written about cycle training in
your column in Ironman in the past and I know that many
bodybuilders like Arnold and Frank Zane cycled their
training to avoid burnout. With this in mind, I have done some research on this
topic and the best ideas I have found on the subject
seem to come from Shawn Ray. He used to cycle his
workouts to gain mass and shape. He divided his
workouts into 3 cycles. Each cycle lasted 3 months or
so. The first one he used only basic exercises and
gained mass and strength. During the second he added
a shaping exercise for each body part to shape the
mass he had gained during phase
1. The final phase was
his pre-contest phase.
During phase 1 he divided his body into 3 parts:
Day
1, back, biceps and abs,day 2 chest, triceps and
calves, day 3 rest, day 4 thighs and shoulders and day
5 rest.
He used 4 exercises for back and thighs, 3
exercises for chest and shoulders and 2 exercises for
biceps, triceps and calves. He used only basic
exercises like barbell rows, bench and incline
presses, deadlifts, squats, military presses, etc. He
did 4 sets per exercise using 6-10 reps.
During phase 2 he added a shaping exercise to the mix.
For example, he added concentration curls for biceps,
lunges for legs and cable crossovers for chest.
Because of the added volume he now divided his body
into 4 parts: day 1 was shoulders, biceps and abs, day
2 legs and calves, day 3 rest, day 4 chest, triceps
and abs, day 5 back and calves and day 6 rest.
He now did 5 exercises for back and thighs, 4 for chest and shoulders and 3 for biceps and triceps. He still did
4 sets per movement and did 8-12 reps per set.
What I would like you to do is to create routines that
I can use following the above parameters. I know it
is a big job, but I also know that you are the best
source for natural bodybuilding information around. I
think this cycle training might take my physique to
the next level and allow me to win. Thanks for
reading all of this and please let me know what you
think of Shawn Ray's plan.
A. - I like the idea of cycle training and I think the way Shawn Ray designed his training cycle is very good. Shawn was doing the same thing that Frank Zane and Arnold did when they prepared for the Mr. Olympia title each year, gradually build up the intensity in order to reach peak condition at the end of the year.
These champions were smart enough to know that you cannot train all-out every week of the year without eventually burning out. They would actually hold back on their training at the beginning of the year, gradually increasing the intensity and volume of their workouts until they reached peak condition at the end of their year-long training cycle.
Shawn is giving himself nine months to prepare for the Mr. Olympia from the workout cycle you listed. Each cycle lasts three months and he is gradually increasing the intensity of his workouts by adding more exercises and increasing the volume of his workouts.
In Phase One of his training, Shawn is doing between 8-16 sets for each bodypart, depending on the size of the muscle group. In Phase Two, Shawn increases the sets to 12-20 sets for each bodypart by adding additional shaping exercises to his workout.
My recommendation to you as a natural bodybuilder would be to keep the sets slightly lower and the training cycles shorter. This would allow you to use heavier weights and increase your muscle mass without burning out.
Twelve weeks of training heavy and hard is pretty tough on the body and you might begin to regress in strength if you try to go heavier each week for that many weeks.
I think you can keep the total sets for each bodypart between 8-12 sets by focusing on the basic exercises. Even bigger muscle groups can be trained with the basic movements for a moderate amount of sets in order to increase the muscle mass and strength.
Here is an example of an off-season workout for the back and legs:
Back
Wide-Grip Chins 3 sets 6-10 reps
Barbell Rows 3 sets 6-8 reps
Deadlifts 3 sets 6-8 reps
Total Sets – 9 sets
Thighs
Leg Press 3 sets 8-12 reps
Squats 4 sets 6-10 reps
Leg Curls 3 sets 6-10 reps
Stiff-leg Deadlifts 3 sets 6-8 reps
Total Sets – 13 sets
By keeping the sets low and the focus on increasing your strength by using more resistance each week, you will be increasing your muscle mass without the danger of overtraining. You will be able to train heavier each week and put everything into each workout because of the low volume and emphasis on just the basic exercises.
If you did three 8-week cycles emphasizing the basic exercises with low reps and low sets, you could build substantial size and strength to your physique after 27 weeks of training (three 8-week cycles with one week of rest after the conclusion of each cycle).
When the contest is 12-16 weeks out, you can do what Shawn did and start training the body over four days instead of three and add another exercise to each training session to create more shape and separation in your physique.
You could add leg extensions or lunges for the legs, seated cable rows and one-arm dumbbell rows for the back, flyes for the chest, upright rows for the delts, etc. This would add a little more volume to each workout but it would increase the intensity of the training session by the addition of more volume. At this point in the year, you should be much stronger and bigger than you were at the beginning of the first cycle.
I noticed that Shawn was giving each muscle group five days rest with Phase One of his training but he increased that rest time to six days of rest with Phase Two. I agree with this strategy and I would recommend the same training split.
During your size cycles, you could train two days on, one day off, one day on and one day off to give each muscle group five days of rest. When the contest or the end of your peaking season gets closer (12-16 weeks out), you could train the body over four days using the two days on, one day off, two days on, one day off cycle. Here is an example of how you could split it up:
Mass Cycle
Day One – Chest, Arms, Calves
Day Two – Abs, Legs
Day Three – REST
Day Four – Delts, Back, Calves
Day Five – REST
Repeat Cycle
Peaking Cycle
Day One – Chest, Triceps, Calves
Day Two – Abs, Legs
Day Three – REST
Day Four – Delts, Traps, Calves
Day Five – Back, Biceps, Abs
Day Six – REST
Repeat Cycle
John Hansen has won the title of Mr. Natural Olympia and is a 2x Natural Mr. Universe winner. Check out his website at www.NaturalOlympia.com or email any questions or comments to him at John@NaturalOlympia.com. Look for John's new DVD “Natural Bodybuilding Seminar and Competitions” along with his book, "Natural Bodybuilding", and his Natural Bodybuilding Training DVD, "Real Muscle", at his website, www.naturalolympia.com or at the HomeGym Warehouse. You can send written correspondence to John at the following address: John Hansen, PO Box 3003, Darien, IL 60561.
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