Freakish Size- Fractional Time

Size. Lots of size. Freakish size. This is the goal of many bodybuilders. The kind of size that separates the average gym-goer from the bodybuilder is like a membership card into the bodybuilding world. It tells everyone you meet that you are a real bodybuilder. It portrays power and commands respect. The problem is that many people approach training for size the wrong way.

Gaining size is really a simple concept. If you break down the muscles using strength exercises and then provide plenty of nutrients to rebuild the muscle, and then a little extra, you will gain size. Unfortunately, for individuals with a high metabolism this is difficult because the food they eat gets burned as quickly as they consume it. Because of this, along with the fact that a lot of calories are burned during an intense workout, these individuals must consume a large number of calories to gain size.

With this in mind, it should be obvious that shorter workouts are better for gaining size. Even with the obviousness of this fact, many aspiring bodybuilders head to the gym for marathon workouts, thinking that they have to do every exercise they have ever seen or heard of. The old thinking, if a little is good then more must be better, does not apply to gaining size. Short, intense workouts are the way to go. Focus on multi-joint, compound exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and other exercises that use multiple muscle groups and lots of weight.

Breaking the body into small training groups will help to keep workouts short, while focusing intensity on one or two muscle groups. A sample might be to train Chest and Shoulders on one day, Back on another, Legs on a third, and then Biceps and Triceps by themselves on a fourth. Then allowing rest before hitting the Chest again (and a rest day can be thrown in between days two and three if needed.) Even the simple upper body, lower body split can work as long as the workouts are kept short and intense. Don't neglect the rest days, growth happens during rest not during the workout.

The deadlift, followed by a row and pull-ups with three sets of five to eight repetitions can be an intense blast for the back. The key is to keep rest time between sets just long enough to recover for the next set but not full recovery. Focus on the heavy, basic exercises. For arms, avoid the concentration curls, tricep kickbacks, even the rope extensions, and focus on barbell curls, close-grip bench presses and skull crushers for size. Leg extensions and leg curls are easy to do but they don't do much for packing on slabs of muscle. Instead, use squats, stiff-legged deadlifts, low-angle weighted bench step ups, and heavy leg presses. These exercises will stress the entire muscle and accomplish the goal of breaking down the muscle tissue for growth and strength gain stimulus.

If done properly a good strength and size workout should have you in and out of the gym in thirty minutes (sometimes less.) The key is to get in, get the work done, and then socialize after the workout (if you are one of those social gym types.) During the workout, focus on feeling the muscle through the full range of motion and make each repetition count. After the workout, get plenty of quality food into your system so the muscles have the fuel and nutrients needed to rebuild.

Often lifters make the mistake of trying to gain size while staying super lean. In order to do that you need a lot of tools not available to the average lifter. You also have to have all day to tweak your diet as needed and work in just the right amount of cardio work. Instead, you should focus on gaining as much size as possible, and accept that some body fat may creep on as well, then before competition (or hitting the beach) drop the small layer of definition hiding fat. The new muscle you gained will make dropping that fat easy with a slight adjustment to the diet and some additional cardio.

Size can, and should, be the focus of any aspiring bodybuilder. It takes intense, but not long, workouts in the gym and loads of clean calories. Don't fall into the trap of doing marathon workouts in the gym just so you can get in every exercise invented for a particular body part, because those extra calories you're burning could be put to use building and repairing muscle. Short and sweet can equal large and freaky.