One of the most important things to consider in training for muscle growth is that it is a multi-faceted goal to actually get maximum growth. You can't simply say that type A training is the best, or type B works better for me, etc. The differences in muscle fiber type, their ability to grow, and the stimulus to make them grow is very different and to get the most out of your training, you have to know how to get every chance of growth out of every type of muscle fiber.

Most of you have heard of periodization. This is simply a way to organize an athletes training throughout the year, in and out of season, to peak when necessary all the while continuing to make progress. Training athletes is much tougher than bodybuilders because of all these variables you have to work around. In the same manner, however, when bodybuilders organize their workouts in a similar way, not with the same goals, they always make dramatic gains. I'll address this in an upcoming article in detail to give you different approaches to create longer term goals and short term plans to reach them. It truly is amazing when you see the results. Most bodybuilders mistakenly think that as long as they work out with a certain intensity each workout that they are growing and improving. While intensity is obviously a huge factor, the “master plan” should be so well organized and physiologically sound that it is optimally efficient at reaching those goals. Think of it this way. You can have all the intensity in the world digging a hole with a little garden spade, but what if you used that same intensity with a big shovel? You'll make more progress with that same intensity. Let me show you what this means for a chest workout.

I always start with a primary movement because it's necessary as a warm up and you need the strength on this first exercise to hit heavier weight. Depending on the individual, I will spend 3-4 weeks doing the same primary mover before I switch. It is usually flat bench or incline bench with dumbbells. I virtually never do barbell chest work for two reasons. The first is proprioception and a fuller range for the chest. The maximum peak contraction is with the upper arms adducted as close as possible in front of the chest. Biomechanically, this is called the close-packed position. The second reason is you will eventually have major shoulder injuries using a barbell. With the hands fixed on a barbell (the same width at the top as at the bottom of the movement) it forces your shoulders to roll forward as your elbows pass 90 degrees placing an incredible amount of stress to the most vulnerable of your rotator cuff muscles. If you do a lot of barbell benching, you'll notice that the front of your shoulders (deep against the bone) are always more sore than your chest. That's not a good thing. Dumbbells keeps the stress on your pecs for more activation and virtually no risk to your supraspinatus tendon. That is a good thing.

Pyramid up through a few good warm up sets and you're ready to go. One note on form. Always keep your shoulders back against the bench and learn to squeeze with your chest throughout the movement. Think less of pressing and more of squeezing as this is the action of the pecs. If you round forward at the top you take all the stress back off the chest and back onto the rotator cuff.

Here's where you have to decide what your goals are. I'm going to pick one scenario and focus on that workout. Let's go with a hypertrophy/growth workout instead of just strength. Different rep ranges target different fibers and different patterns of recruitment. The traditional 10-12 rep sets are characterized as growth, the 6-8 are for power, and 2-4 are more strength and nervous system type training. In a growth phase of training, however, you need to maintain strength and power. If you do 4-5 warm up sets, let's say you did dumbbells at 40 lbs for 20 reps, 50 lbs for 15 reps, 60 lbs for 15 reps, and 80 lbs for 10, I would call that a good warm up (adjust for your strength but follow the same pattern.) Now, pick a weight you can get 8 reps with. For this example, this person might chose 100s for 8. Couldn't get a single rep more, but didn't require a spot. Rest for no more than two minutes and repeat, but this time you'll need a spot probably around 6, but do forced reps to complete 8. Same thing for the third work set. Rest two minutes and go again, forced reps to complete 8. Now, chose a secondary movement that changes angles. The example above was incline chest press, so we'll move to cable cross overs. We now have our major strength and most of the growth work done. Do one warm up to get the body neurologically adapted to this movement pattern and then go right into a 12 rep set to failure. Add a little weight so you fail at 10 for the second and final set.

Progression, literally building this workout plan from the bottom, is the key. This is all I would do for the first chest workout. The second one would be identical, but trying to add 5 lbs if possible to the heavy work sets. The third workout I would add a superset to finish the workout. After completing the last set of cross overs, dive right back on the incline for a set with something like 60's for a forced set of 10. You may fail at 3-4, but keep the eccentrics very slow and strict, just let your partner give you a smooth spot to the top to give you what you need.

You are now set up for week for which will be the peak week for this micro-cycle. I would switch gears and instead of the three sets at eight reps for the press, I would increase weight for 4 reps (110's x 4.) The next set I would go for 2 reps, either with the same weight or up to 115's.

Take a week off and do exercises that you haven't done. Things like flat dumbbell press or machine chest press and do a standard “high intensity” workout. Try the four week micro-cycle again, but again, try to increase your weights slightly as you go. This requires charting and being very objective. In other words, note what rep you fail on and how many forced you got from your partner. This is the only way you'll truly see strength gains and be able to monitor your progress.

Link three of these micro-cycles together and then change your style altogether. I would switch into a strict power or strength phase for a couple months. I can write out that type of protocol another time.

The workouts I described emphasize growth, but have a slight edge leaning toward increasing weights. Do not go for weight over form and rep range during this phase of training or you'll lose the building effect of progress. Save the sheer strength training for that particular phase of your yearly plan. Strength training goes hand-in-hand with an offseason where you consume more food