More often then not here’s what I find in deltoid bodybuilding workout and why I feel these programs are ineffective and incomplete for complete deltoid development. Most of the time the workouts consisted of raises and presses and nothing much more and the worst part is that all exercises targeted the middle and front deltoids and included no exercises for the rear delt. The result of this type of workout is strength imbalance in the shoulders and that makes them less stable.

That loss of stability is bad for a lot of reasons but mainly because you increase your risk for injury in an area that’s already highly susceptible to injury. Dislocations and rotator cuff injuries are common for bodybuilders so it’s important to do everything you can to prevent them and training your rear delts in your bodybuilding workout is one such way.

What may bother you more then the added susceptibility to injury is that not training your rear delts will also result in decreased strength in important lifts such as the bench press, the shoulder press and practically every other upper body lift.

If you’ve hit a plateau in your bodybuilding workout and you’ve noticed that your upper body lifts have plateaued I would strongly recommend you start training your rear delts. You plateau because you can only lift as much as your shoulders can support and if you notice your rear delts are at the bottom of lifts like the bench press and the shoulder press.

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It’s crazy but as personal trainer I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who complain about having a weak body part/ muscle and when I ask them if they’ve ever trained that weak muscle at the beginning of their bodybuilding workout I usually get a blank stare in return…

You know the look a deer gives when it’s about to get hit and run over by a mack truck.

That’s exactly what will happen to your weakest muscles if you train them at the beginning of your bodybuilding workout… They’re going to get run over by a mack truck!

You see most of my clients are guys and as guys we have a natural tendency to only want to train our strongest muscles. Sometimes it’s just to impress the ladies at the gym (it’s all good) and sometimes it’s just to boost our own ego and look at our biggest muscles in front of the mirror at the gym.

Any way you look at it, you have to realize that you have a weak muscle and it’s going to need special attention if you want it too keep up with the rest of your muscles.

I should also mention that we all also have strong muscle groups… muscles that basically grow sometimes by just looking at them! I’m not saying you have to stop working those muscles out but you should pay more attention to your weak muscles if you want a well proportioned body.

One of my clients is this guy with a HUGE barn door back. I have a big back but this guy has a wider back then mine but he has puny and skinny arms which makes him look kinda silly if you ask me…

Sure enough when I asked him for the past few years in his bodybuilding workout he’s been working out his back first and then his biceps right after.

Guys if you’re working out your back and then you hit your biceps, your biceps are already “tired” from the back workout because your biceps are an ancillary muscle to most back exercise. Basically your biceps help out your back (more if you’re a beginner) when you’re doing your back exercises and by the time you get around to your biceps workout your biceps are already exhausted and that’s how NOT to get your muscles to grow.

If you have a similar problem, I recommend that you move your biceps to the beginning of your back/biceps bodybuilding workout and train your biceps while they’re fresh and they can move a maximum amount of weight. I guarantee you’ll see better results.

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There are no exceptions.

If you want big muscles, you’re going to have to move massive amounts of weight and iron every time you’re in the gym doing a bodybuilding workout.

You’re not going to get big curling 25 pound dumbells or benching 135 pounds. Unless you’re warming up of course.

You get big and you add tons of muscle to your frame by pushing your body to the damn limit every single bodybuilding workout.

In order for you to get bigger you’re going to have to get stronger and in order for you to get stronger you’re going to want to limit your bodybuilding workout sets to about 4-6 repetitions per set.

This is the ideal rep range for increasing mass and strength. You usually want to do 3 sets per exercise and I would recommend you do 2 sets at 6 reps and then do your last set at 4 reps to really emphasize increasing your strength.

You’re not going to increase your overall muscle mass unless you start to lift heavier weights.

It doesn’t matter which exercises you are doing so long as you are getting stronger and you are gradually increasing the weight you use for every single exercise you use in your workouts.

So there you go… you want to get bigger? Start moving more weight in your bodybuilding workout.

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We’re going to build a huge chest by utilizing two old-school Joe Weider principles of pre-exhaustion and compound sets in this bodybuilding workout. I’m not really sure if compound sets are actually a principle or just a training technique but either way I know the combination of these two works like crazy to blow up your muscles…

A compound set just means you’re going to do one really long set of two different exercises back-to-back with no break in between. So you’ll do one set of something for 10 reps and then we’re going to follow that up immediately (without a break) by another exercise for 6-8 reps.

The pre exhaustion principle works like this…

So we’re going to be doing 2 exercises back to back for one compound set… the first exercise in a pre exhaustion compound set is always some type of isolation movement followed by a compound movement or a multi-joint movement.

Ok so let’s build a big chest with a pre exhaustion bodybuilding workout.

Here’s the bodybuilding workout I challenge you to try if you want to build a huge chest:

1st compound set

Incline dumbell flyes (10 reps) followed by incline bench press (6-8 reps)

2nd compound set

Flat dumbell flyes followed by Flat bench dumbell presses

3rd set (regular set)

Weighted dips (go heavy pussy!)

4th set

Cable flyes (so all the chicks at the gym can see your chest popping out of your damn shirt)

A couple of notes regarding this pre exhaustion compound set bodybuilding workout: Go heavy but don’t be stupid… your muscles will be severely weakened by the isolation movements at the beginning of your pre exhaust compound sets.

There you have it… build a rock hard chest with this bodybuilding workout.

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In my years as a personal trainer if there was one constant for damn near every bodybuilder I ever trained it was that they always worked out in the 6-10 rep range for every exercise in their repertoire.

Sound familiar?

If this is you and you’re in a rut listen up because making one simple change and switching to a high-rep bodybuilding workout will have your muscles more detailed then ever before and a few weeks your muscles will be twice as responsive to your beloved high-weight, low-rep workouts.

Here’s what you do and it’s pretty simple if you want better results from your current bodybuilding workout:

Do the same exercises you’re already doing only cut the weight and give it your best guesstimate as to what you’ll be able to do for 20 reps.

You’ll be doing 3-4 sets and you’ll be doing 20 reps per set.

Bodybuilding and more specifically packing on pounds of muscle is all about switching up the workouts that you attack your muscles with… this high-rep bodybuilding workout is good for 2-6 weeks and it’s a great change of pace workout. Use it when your current workout becomes stagnant and is no longer producing good pumps for you in the gym.

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“Circuit training is for the pansies in biker shorts wokring out on the nautilus machines…”

Normally I would agree with you but there are certain occasions where a particular style of circuit training could really benefit you. I’m talking about those times where you probably only have something like 20-30 minutes to get in a bodybuilding workout and you really want to pump iron and you also want to get in some cardio…

What to do right?

Here’s what I do when I find myself in the above situation:

Basically I tweak your normal circuit training routine and I mix in some cardio usually at the end of the circuit so I can still move a good amount of weight during the anaerobic exercises of the circuit training session/ bodybuilding workout.

I’ll be doing 4 sets of 4 exercises with a couple of minutes between sets, not individual exercises like you would in a typical bodybuilding workout. 3 anaerobic exercises and 1 cardio exercise at the end of the circuit.

For the cardio exercise portion of the circuit training I usually run on a treadmill, ride a stationary bike or ride an elliptical trainer. 9 times out of 10 I’m running on a treadmill for 5 minutes and it’s usually pretty damn close to a good sprint for 5 minutes.

Well there you have it… you get your bodybuilding workout in, you get some cardio in and you get it all in in under 20-30 minutes in this unique circuit training session.

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Sure it’s one of life’s cruelties but it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s what I do.

I switch up the order of the exercises in my bodybuilding workout before I try anything else… then I’ll try super-setting a couple of exercises… if the routine is just 3 exercises for a single bodypart, I might just do 3 giant sets of the 3 exercises!

Point is you mix it up. You don’t necessarily have to ditch your favorite bodybuilding workout just because it’s not as effective as it once used to be. You just have to be flexible and tweak your bodybuilding workout wherever possible untile you start feeling the muscle pumps you are after in the gym.

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Perhaps even more important then the increased fat metabolism is that the split workout produced lower stress hormone levels which is obviously important if you’re trying to keep as much muscle on your frame as possible while maintaining a fat loss regimen as well.

Better fat loss results and keep more of your muscle… sounds like a good deal to me.

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#1 Your diet. Are you  consuming enough protein, carbohydrates and fats to fuel your bodybuilding workout and provide enough protein to fuel muscle growth? Remember you need at least 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight.

#2 Recuperation. Are you sleeping at least 8 hours a night? If you’re working out hard you may need more then that. And if you have a job that requires a lot of physical activity you may also need some additional rest. The point is to let your body adequate time to recover from the bodybuilding workout.

If you’re eating well and sleeping at least 8 hours and still not making decent progress, I would mix things up a bit. Change up your bodybuilding workout. Your body  adapts very quickly to the workouts you throw at it.

It’s up to you to keep it guessing through new and innovative bodybuilding workout.

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Your muscles may look and feel fuller this week but that may be due entirely to your diet.

The fact is that for your muscles to get bigger; your bodybuilding workout has to consistently and progressively get harder and harder.

And the best way to assure yourself that each and every workout you endure is getting harder and harder is by logging your stats in a bodybuilding workout log.

Bodybuilding workout logs are great because you never have to wonder how much weight you pressed last week. You don’t have to worry about what weight to warm up with and how many reps to do. And finally you don’t have to worry about what your max weight is and for how many reps!

I like to keep notes in mine about how certain exercises affect my muscles and whether or not I should do them again the following week.

Based on some of the notes I’ve made and taken, I’ve come up with some “cheat sheet workouts” which are some of my favorite and all-time best bodybuilding workout combinations. Super-sets, drop-sets, giant-sets…it’s all in there.

And this is an amazing resource when I go into my gym and I just don’t “feel it” or I just can’t seem to get it going.

I just look up my cheat sheets (maybe slam a Red Bull or something) and start attacking the weights.

You know how it is when the blood starts filling up your muscles and you start getting pumped…

And when you can turn a bad workout into a good one; that’s when you start to make some real progress!

If your goal is to get bigger; you should be keeping a bodybuilding workout log.

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