Training_the_Lats_for_Maximum_Isolation_Stimulation_Innervation_and_Pump_By_Greg_Zulak.pdf

For Maximum Isolation, Stimulation And Pump

G R E G Z U L A K

B Y

T R A I N I N G T H E L A T S

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Training the Lats for Maximum Isolation, Stimulation,

Innervation and Pump By Greg Zulak

Without a doubt the most difficult muscle group of all to train properly for most

bodybuilders are they lats. Many beginners and recreational wannabe bodybuilders

complain that they get a better pump in their biceps when training lats than they do

when training biceps! There are many reasons for this. One of the reasons why working

the lats are so difficult to train properly is because you cannot see them as you do your

sets of chins, pulldowns, rowing exercises or pullovers. You have to concentrate harder,

do your repetitions more smoothly and strictly, and try to feel the lats as you train

them. Its a difficult skill to learn and takes time and effort. But I guarantee that by the

time you finish this article and you follow the suggestions recommended, youre going to

by a lat training fiend.

I can really go in-depth for this article as I am no longer under the restraints of a

magazine that prefers all articles be six to 10 pages long double spaced at a maximum

of 2000 word. Because this is for my website I can write 10,000 words or even 20,000

words if necessary-to get my idea across. Some ideas may be repeated more than once

because they are so important. Ill probably go off on some wild tangent occasionally,

again to help make my point. I will also punctuate this article with little stories and

antidotes which I think you will find interesting and, in some cases, comical.

One of the biggest mistakes wannabe (I-wanna-be-a champion someday)

bodybuilders make when training lats is using the absolutely most weight they can for

their sets of lat exercises. The problem is that using maximally heavy weights often

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leads to cheating and bringing in secondary muscle groups in order to help lift the

weight. Lat isolation is lost. When trying to lift the heaviest weights possible, the natural

tendency is to use the strongest muscle groups to move the weight. On lat exercises the

stronger hands, biceps, traps, and deltoids, as Larry Scott likes to say, bully and take

over. Since most beginners have almost no innate feel for their lats (which are weak

and underdeveloped), and since their hands, biceps, traps and shoulders are stronger

than the lats, those are the muscle groups used and they are the muscle groups that

receive the most work and stimulation. Too many bodybuilders think too much in terms

of how much weight am I using instead of how hard are my lats working.

This is why on chins and pulldowns the hands, biceps, shoulders and traps seem

to get almost all the stress and overload. Many bodybuilders are not doing lat

pulldowns, they are doing biceps pulldowns (hence, the biceps pump). On certain

rowing exercises all the work goes to the biceps, traps, deltoids rhomboids and even the

lower back, so theyre doing biceps and shoulder rows. The lats are hardly used or

stimulated at all. They feel weak, numb and mushy, if they are felt at all. They are

unresponsive to exercise. Without a doubt this is the number one reason for poor lat

development for the majority of novice and recreational bodybuilders. Even some

competitive bodybuilders have ordinary lat development because theyve never learned

how to train their lats correctly.

Ideas to Make Your Training More Successful:

A lot of bodybuilders are frustrated by a lack of gains. They want to know why

they are not making better gains. This is not the typical article about sets and reps and

exercise routines or training principles. Its my thoughts on why bodybuilders fail to

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make the gains they want. I have some unique insights on the topic and I think I can

help.

What many fail to understand is your body is a riddle. Bodybuilding is all about

problem solving; solving the mystery of muscle growth and fat loss. Messages sent by

your body are to be deciphered like codes. Many people think there are mysterious

secrets about building muscle and losing fat known only to champions, like they all got

together in collusion to keep these secrets from the general public, and that these

secrets are a mystery, covered by a shroud wrapped inside an enigma. Thats a myth.

Actually, many of the real answers to many bodybuilding problems are quite

simple and obvious, so simple many people cannot believe that they are solutions to

their problems. Hopefully, I can unscramble and decipher some of these secrets,

unravel the shroud and resolve the enigma. I dont claim to have all the answers but I do

believe there are things that explain poor gains and sticking points and plateaus, and

things are not quite as complex and confusing as many believe. You simply have to

listen to your body and interpret the messages sent to your body from your brain, and

avoid common training, psychological, and nutritional mistakes.

What I have found over the years is that many people tend to put their faith in

sets, reps, and routines. Many feel there is a magic secret routine that will guarantee

them fantastic results. If they only knew how Ronnie Coleman or Dorian Yates train

back theyd get back development like them too. If they only knew how Arnold

Schwarzenegger trained pecs and arms theyd get arms and pec like The Oak. If they

followed Tom Platzs exact thigh routine, one day theyd get legs like the Golden Eagle.

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Unfortunately, bodybuilding doesnt work that way. Theres this problem called

genetics. We all have different body types and somatotypes and muscle shapes, as well

as different skeletal structures, different insertions and length of muscle bellies, a

different number of muscle cells in each muscle, not to mention different hormone

levels, metabolisms, and mental proclivity to training. As much as we want to, we cant

train like some champ and hope to look like him or her one day.

Actually, the worst thing a novice or intermediate bodybuilder could do is to follow

the training routine of a champion bodybuilder. The routines listed in magazines are

almost always the bodybuilders pre-contest training routines, which are meant to get

them into contest condition. Its for tearing the body down and helping them to lose fat

and bodyweight, not to build up with. Its not how they trained to get big in the first place.

Beginners and intermediate bodybuilders should follow sane routines that are

appropriate for their level of development.

Beginners should not use split routines and will make very good gains training

three days a weeksay Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and doing one basic exercise for

each major muscle group for 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps, emphasizing training progressively

and increasing weights used and the number of reps performed when they can. Only

after a minimum of six months of steady training should they consider a split routine,

splitting the body in half training no more than four days a weeksay chest, back, delts

Monday and Friday, abs, legs and arms Tuesday and Thursday, and doing at most five

sets per muscle group. Remember, you grow when you rest, not when you train and

overtraining is by far much worse than under training.

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Still people do put their faith in routines and sets and reps. They reason if I do X

number of exercises for each muscle group for Y number of reps and Z number of sets,

eventually Ill get the development I want. Its just a matter of time. Hope springs

eternal. Such reasoning is spurious. There are many other factors related to whether

your goals of greater muscle mass and increased muscularity will be achieved than the

exercises you do, the number of sets and reps you perform, or how many days a week

you train. These are archaic concepts. Discussing exercises, lat routines, and sets and

reps is putting the cart before the horse. Therefore it is useless for me to write down a

lat routine until you understand some basic muscle building truths.

The Secrets of the Champions: Work the Muscle. Before we get to

how to work the lats properly, we need to discuss proper training of any muscle group in

general. Many times I have been asked if there is a secret training method that

explains why champion bodybuilders are so large and muscular. There is a secret and

here it is: When champion bodybuilders train their mental mind-set and focus is to

always first and foremost to work the muscle as they do a set, not lift the weight, while

beginners and wannabes focus on lifting the weight, not on working the muscle. As

well, champions know when and how to cheat correctly to place extra overload on a

muscle during a set, while beginners and wannabes cheat because its the only way

they can move the weight.

If you do not know the difference between working a muscle versus lifting a

weight, you have a lot to learn about bodybuildingand especially about lat training.

Train for Maximum Innervation of the Lats: Innervation Training

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I strongly believe you have to feel a targeted working muscle in order to stimulate

it properly. If you cannot feel a muscle as you train it, its impossible to isolate it or to

send strong nerve impulses from the brain to the muscle via the neuro-muscular

pathways to make it contract forcibly. Without muscular contraction there cannot be

proper stimulation, overload or a growth pump. Without overload and a growth pump

there is poor muscle growth or no growth. You really have to make that mind-to-muscle

connection as you do a set to work a muscle properly.

This is another secret of the champions. Innervation, a term first coined by

Canadian personal trainer Scott Able, one of the brightest minds in bodybuilding, relates

to the neurol control of a muscle group by the nerves or nerve impulses and to your

ability to feel a muscle as you train it and sense the sensations of muscular exertion in

the targeted muscle group: muscular contractions, muscle ache, muscle stimulation,

muscle exhaustion, and muscle pump. The basic tenet of innervation training is that in

very specific planes of motions, the muscles are innervated differentially. Innervation

also refers to the increased supply of nerve fibres or nerve impulses to the muscles.

Increased nerve or neurol output means stronger brain nerve messages sent to the

muscles via the central and peripheral neruo-muscular pathways for increased muscle

stimulation. This allows you to make that all important mind-to-muscle connection.

In order to innervate the muscles, you must develop the neuro-muscular

pathways from the brain to the muscles so you can generate stronger nerve force to

make your muscles contract more forcibly during a set. You must make that important

mind-to-muscle connection. All of these things are necessary to cause overload,

adaptation and overcompensation, leading to muscle growth. As well, Scott says

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workouts require deep concentration and as much mental energy and effort as physical

energy and effort. In other words, you need to use the power of your mind to work your

muscles properly.

Your number one goal as a bodybuilder should be to learn how to innervate or

feel and stimulate your muscles work as you train them, and to maintain innervation

throughout a set.

Poor innervationknown as enervation, is defined as a lack of energy, as

muscle weakness or lethargy, is the explanation why slow muscle growth occurs. The

muscle fails to grow because it never gets the proper nerve impulses or messages from

the brain. Enervation means an inability to feel or sense your muscles as you train

them, especially muscle groups you cannot see like the lats, because of a lack of neruo-

muscular pathways. This results in muscle unresponsive to exercise. Enveration is

essentially poor sensory ability. It is characterized by muscle numbness, and the lack of

neuro-muscular pathways and nerve impulses from the brain.

It means you will have trouble isolating a muscle, stimulating it with hard

contractions, or achieving a full pump. If you cannot feel a muscle as you train it, it will

not grow. There is no bio-feedback as you do a set, poor mind-to-muscle connection,

poor neuro-muscular pathways and no neural impules from the brain to the lats. If you

properly innervate a muscle you will isolate it. You will feel the muscle working. You will

experience ache, burn, contractions and pump. You will have forced the muscle to work

very hard.

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No one of born with the innate ability to innervate and feel and sense their lats

during a set. It is a learned ability, like learning how to throw or kick a football or sink a

free-throw in basketball or slap a hockey puck. It takes time and correct repetition to

learn. The first year of any bodybuilders training is learning how to innervate their

muscles and establishing neral networks and the neuro-muscular pathways from the

brain to a working muscle so you can forcibly contract it during a set.

Most of all you must understand that exercise is not merely motion and moving a

weight up and down and counting reps. You must have motion with purpose and

deliberation. Your mind-set before beginning a set determines how hard the muscle will

be worked. You can, like all champion bodybuilders, focus on innervating and

stimulating a muscle so you feel the sensations of muscular exertionache, burn,

fatigue, intense contractions, and pumpor you can mindlessly heave a heavy weight

up and down and count reps. Moving a heavy weight up and down does not guarantee

muscle stimulation and ultimately, growth.

If you fail to innervate a muscle, you will have failed to isolate it. You will fail to

stimulate it. You will fail to pump it. You do not feel the sensations of muscular exertion

in the muscle. The muscle fails to grow because it never gets the proper impulses or

messages from the brain. You feel at best, numb, mushy feelings, or even nothing at all.

The muscle is never stimulated properly and has no reason to grow.

Your brain has not sent the right nerve signals or messages via the central

nervous system to the muscle fibers telling them to contract forcibly. As Struther Martin

told Paul Newman in the movie Cool Hand Luke, What we have here is a failure to

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communicate. It`s like some kind of computer glich. It`s also some kind of chicken

versus egg scenario, which comes first? While some might argue that a failure to feel a

muscle is the reason you cannot isolate a muscle, in truth you cannot isolate it because

you cannot feel it. It all comes back to innervation and feeling again.

There are a number of ways to train for innervation and to teach a muscle how to

grow. If a muscle refuses to respond to standard training, you must teach it to respond.

To properly innervate a muscle, you must concentrate harder, use higher reps (15 to

100), take shorter rest periods between sets (one minute or less), and use high intensity

training principles such as supersets, trisets, giant sets, triple drop sets, 21s, and 1

1/2s or Super Slow-Mo training. Once you have developed the neural networks and

neuro-muscular pathways from the brain to the lats, then the muscle can be trained

heavier and for less reps.

A good way go increase innervation is to hold a weight in the fully contracted

position for a count of six seconds, all the while tensing, squeezing and contracting the

lats as hard as you can. Another way to increase innervation is to use the Vince

Gironda 1 principle. Do half a rep with a six second hold, followed by a full repetition

(count that as one rep and do 6 to 10 reps). A second more intense way of using the 1

principle is to do half a rep with a six second hold, followed by a six second hold at

the top (spending those six seconds tensing and contracting the crap out of your lats).

Again count each 1 rep as one rep and do 6 to 8 reps,

The last method definitely worth trying is Slow-Motion training and Super Slow-

Motion training. Don Ross was a big advocate of such training. He said Gary Strydom,

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Phil Williams, and Tonya Knight, all had experimented with Slow-Mo and Super Slow-

motion training and found it very effective. Phil was taking five minutes to do a single set

of calf raises. When I was editor of MuscleMag International, Don sent me an article

called Slow Down and Grow and I can attest that this is a brutal but effective way to

train a muscle.

To do Slow-Motion training take five to 10 seconds to raise the weight, and five

to 10 seconds to lower it. With the slower time, you have to use lighter weights but your

muscles work very hard because there is no cheating and the action is so pure. Shoot

for six to eight reps a set.

Super Slow-Motion is a completely different training experience. It is brutally

painful and intense. The goal is to take 30 seconds to raise the weight, 30 seconds to

lower it (count in your mind one-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two, etc., to

ensure youre actually taking 30 seconds to raise the weight and 30 seconds to lower it).

Expect to use about one-half to one-third less weight than what youd use on a

conventional set. Because of the time factors, youll find that the bar moves at most

one-quarter inch each second. Super Slow-Mo is actually a series of concentric and

eccentric holds, and the muscle works intensely over the entire range of motion.

This is one of the most grueling, intense, and painful ways to train, and causes a

massive amount of blood to be forced into the muscle for the most extreme pumps and

maximum innervation because the muscle is under tension for so long. In a 1996

IronMan article on bodybuilder Rob Colacino, a NABBA Mr. USA winner who had 22

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inch arms, said he did one rep of Super-Slow Motion training for his biceps once a

week, so believe me Super Slow-Mo works and does build muscle.

Former IFBB pro bodybuilder Negrita Jayde tried Super Slow Motion on leg

presses after we talked about Don Rosss article and my own experimentations with

Super Slow-Motion training. She said she did two reps and the pump was so massive

she couldnt walk for several minutes.

Try for two reps per setso the muscle is under tension for two minutes--though

you probably will not get it. My muscles always gave out after one and a half reps, but

maybe youre more of a man than me.

If you have any muscle group that fails to respond to conventional training, that

you have difficulty feeling, innervating, and pumping, I guarantee that Super Slow-Mo

will let you feel and work the muscle like never before. Not for the faint-hearted, though.

The bottom line is any muscle that refuses to grow must be trained for

innervation first and foremost. You do this by training to work the lats, not focussing on

lifting the weight.

Lats and Innervation

The repercussions of muscle innervation as it relates to lat development are

obvious. Bodybuilders who fail to understand the significance of innervation and how it

relates to muscle-building, are just going through the motions as they do their lat

exercises. They can neither feel nor isolate their lats nor place the mechanical overload

on them for maximum muscle stimulation. All the overload goes to other muscle groups,

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hence their lats are not stimulated properly and will not grow. And they will never grow

to their genetic limits because they are continually undertrained because there is poorly

developed neuro-muscular pathways to their lats, and an inability to send strong nerve

impulses from the brain via the central nervous system to the muscle fibres of the lats

telling them to fire and contract forcibly each repetition.

Unfortunately, as mentioned previously, learning how to train and innervate a

muscle group like the lats properly is a skill, no different than learning how to hit a

baseball, bend a soccer ball, or hit a golf ball. Its not a natural or innate skill or ability.

No one is born with the sensory feelings and skill and intuitive knowledge to properly

train and innervate their muscles the first six months to a year they train, especially

muscles such as lower lats (or any lats), rear delts, medial head of the delts, upper

pecs, biceps peak, hamstrings, lower thighs, outer calves, and other hard to develop

areas of the body.

The first few months of training, nearly all bodybuilders have poor development

of the neuro-muscular pathways to the muscles, and the neural networks in their brain,

so they have weak nerve force. They also have poor blood circulation to their muscles

so they dont pump optimally. Increasing blood circulation and developing neural

networks and the neuro-muscular pathways to your muscles take a long time to

developprobably a year of training when first taking up bodybuilding. Its a learned

skill and difficult to master. Some never do. Many bodybuilders still do bench presses,

bentover rows, squats, and barbell curls and other common exercise wrong after 20

years in the gym, and they bodies never improve either.

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Why Non-Contiguous Innervation is Wrong and Innervation is

Right:

Some so-called experts in the field of exercise dont believe in the concept of

innervation. They say its impossible to isolate certain segments of a muscle groupsay

upper pecs with incline presses or lower biceps with preacher curls or biceps peak with

concentration curls. This concept is called non-contiguous innervation or NCI. Former

top power lifter Dr. Fred Hatfield, for example, is a proponent of NCI

According to NCI, all muscle fibers of any given muscle group share common

nerve forces and therefore working sections of various muscle groups with isolation

exercises is futile. They argue that muscle sensory feelings like an ache or burn or

pump in a segment of a muscle is a sort of illusion or self-deception, and that just

because you feel ache, burn, fatigue, contractions, stimulation, and pump in particular

part of a muscle group doesnt mean those fibers are working any harder than the rest

of the muscle. They argue sensory feel doesnt matter.

If you do incline presses for upper pecs, for instance, they say the lower, middle,

inner, and outer pecs work just as much as the upper chest. Therefore, according to

them, you dont have to do crossovers for inner pecs, dumbbell flyes for outer pecs,

incline presses or flyes for upper pecs, and dips or decline presses for lower pecs. If

you do bench presses, or any chest exercise for that matter, they say, you will work the

entire pectoralis major muscle.

Even if it feels like your upper pecs are aching and burning and pumping and

working harder when you do incline presses and incline flyes, it just feels that way. In

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reality, your whole chest is working just as hard. In fact, no matter what exercise you

do, say the proponents of NCI, the whole muscle works at once. Leg extensions work

the upper thighs as much as the lower thighs. Preacher curls work the upper biceps as

much as the lower biceps, Concentration curls work lower biceps as much as peak. So

you dont have to do preacher curls for lower biceps, barbells curls for the belly of the

muscle, and concentration curls for peak. If you just do barbell curls you will work all

sections of the biceps equally hard (if you buy that I have some swamp land in Florida

you can buy from me, or perhaps I can sell you the Empire State building for a steal).

Advocates of NCI want you to ignore and dismiss your own sensory feelings,

sensations and experiences. NCI is in complete contradiction to every bodybuilding

champion going back to Bert Goodrich (first Mr. America champ in 1939) of the past 84

years, including Grimek, Reeves, Ross, Park, Pearl, Scott, Oliva, Schwarzenegger,

Zane, Haney, Dickerson, Bannout, Yates, Wheeler, Coleman, Jackson, Cutler, Heath

and all the greats. Not one Mr. America, NPC champ, Mr. Universe or Mr. or Ms.

Olympia champ has ever trained according to NCI. You cannot build a Mr. Olympia

physique just with one exercise per muscle group no matter how heavy or intensely you

train. Where you feel an exercise is where you develop the muscle.

What are my thoughts on NCI? That its all nonsense and BS. Its like saying that

just because Ive hit my thumb with a hammer my thumb doesnt hurt worse than the

rest of my hand because the fingers are connected to my hand. The NCI guys would

have you believe I could hit my palm or my little finger and my thumb would hurt just as

badly. We all know that if you do just squats we dont work the entire quad, and if we do

just bench presses we dont work the entire chest and t-bar rows do not work the entire

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lats. The guys in the white labs coats with the PHDs after their names are dead wrong

about this one. They obviously have never done serious bodybuilding before.

It reminds me of a story related to me by Scott Abel. Back in the late 80s Scott

went to California to spend two weeks at a Weider muscle camp. At the camp were

bodybuilding champions, and experts in nutrition, kinesiology, anatomy, and exercise.

The whole point of the camp was to go there and totally immerse yourself in all aspects

of bodybuilding and get pertinent information from all these various champions and

experts, a kind of crash course on muscle-building, nutrition and exercise.

One day at one of the daily lectures a man with a PHD in kinesiology, and a

proponent of NCI, was explaining to the group why it was a waste of time to do incline

dumbbell flyes for upper pecs, because, he said, incline dumbbell flyes work only the

anterior or front deltoids, not the upper pecs. Suddenly pro bodybuilder Renel Janvier, a

member of the audience and who had placed second to Shawn Ray at the Arnold

Classic a few months prior, put up his hand and said, I love incline dumbbell flyes.

When I do them I get a deep burn right at the top of my chest. They really thicken my

upper pecs.

Rather than acknowledging Renels personal experience and the effect incline

dumbbell flyes had on his upper pecsthe proof was right before the mans eyes as

Renel had upper pecs as thick as a phone bookthe kinesiologist began to ridicule and

patronize him. He started to lecture Renel about NCI and told him that it just wasnt

possible to work the upper portions of the pectoralis major muscle with incline dumbbell

flyes. Not only that, even if Renel did feel burning and ache and pump in his upper pecs,

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it just felt that way. In reality, he was only working front delts. The incline dumbbell flye

works only front delts, said the PHD. Im sorry, but its not possible to work upper pecs

with incline dumbbell flyes. He just totally dismissed Renels development and his own

experience.

But I have to ask you, who would you believe, Renel Janier with his massive

chest development or some pencil-neck geek with a PHD? The experts are sometimes

dead wrong. Hell, you can still find doctors who say steroids do not work and its all

placebo effectbut they still want them banned at the Olympic Games and in pro sports

just in case--or that bodybuilders dont need extra protein or calories. In the 1940s and

50s doctors said smoking cigarettes was good for you. I once saw a doctor on 60

Minutes who said a lunch of a hamburger, French fries and coke was a very nutritious

meal because it contained protein, starch, and simple carbohydrates. The state of

California recognizes that a serving of ketchup is as nutritious as a tomato. Mike

Mentzer said that regardless of somatotype or metabolism no bodybuildereven skinny

ectomorphsever needed to eat more than 3000 calories or 100 grams of protein a

day. Mike also said in order to gain 10 pounds of muscle a year all you had to eat was

an extra two grams of protein a day, which is absurd.

Vince Gironda used to do so many sets of wide grip dips that he developed a

thick ridge of muscle on his outer pecs. Do you think Vince would have gotten the same

development with narrow grip dips? No way. Would Larry Scotts biceps have

developed and looked the same without all those preacher curls? Would his arms

developed just the same with barbell curls. I think not.

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Its all nonsense. As John Parrillo has said to me several times, I know guys with

PHDs in exercise physiology who do not even known how to do a bench press

properly If you want to look like a PHD, train according to NCI. If you want to look like a

bodybuilder, train according to innervation and pump. There is no other way. Learn to

think for yourself. Use common sense. Those who fail to think and who follow the follow

of others are sure to fail. Train to maximize innervation and feel, to stimulate and work

your muscles, not to see how much weight you can toss around. Try to sustain feel for

the muscle and innervation throughout a set. Never lose that mind-to-muscle feeling.

Never lose constant-tension on the muscle.

To sum up, if youre ever in the gym someday doing concentration curls for

biceps peak or incline presses for upper chest or reverse-grip rows for lower lats and

some guy tells say you should be training according to NCI, tell him to get lost or drop

dead.

Dont Always Think the Pros are Bodybuilding Experts:

Believe it or not, some champion bodybuilders really dont know a lot about

training, as strange as that seems. They are so genetically gifted and in most cases

they take so many drugs (as in thousands of milligrams a week), they can do less than

perfect training and still become champs. They are bodybuilders, not teachers. Let give

you a couple of examples.

Back in the early-90s Joe Weider called me and asked me to do a biceps

training article with Cory Everson, six-time Ms. Olympia champ. The article was for

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Muscle & Fitness magazine. The last thing Joe told me was to make sure Cory

mentioned all her favorite Weider training principles. No problem, I told Joe.

I phoned Cory up and we did the interview. As we were getting to the end of the

interview, I remembered Joes request so I said to Cory, Oh, yeah, Cory, before I

forget, Joe wants you to mention your favorite Weider training principles. There was a

long pause and Cory finally said, You know what, Greg. I dont know what a Weider

training principle is. I was stunned and more than taken a little aback. She was a six-

time Ms. Olympia champion and her husband Jeff had been editor of Muscle & Fitness

magazine for eight years and yet she didnt know what a Weider training principle

was?!!

Uh, I mumbled, you know, like supersets and trisets. Oh, said Cory cheerily,

I do those. And, I continued, forced reps. Oh, I do those too, said Cory. And, I

said, you know, things like drop sets. Oh, said Cory, I do those too.

If I mentioned a Weider training principle, Cory said she did it. Otherwise, she

didnt have a clue.

Another time I was doing an article with Michael Francois on deltoids for

MuscleMag International. Mike had just won The Arnold Classic. After describing the

presses and laterals he did for deltoids, Mike said, Next I do. . .Uh, what do you call it

when you bend over at the waist and lift the dumbbells out to the sides. Mike didnt

know the name of bentover laterals.

The most knowledgeable people in bodybuilding are not champion bodybuilders.

Scott Able and Chris Aceto have good physiques but theyre not pro level. John Parrillo,

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Gunnar Sikktwo of the most knowledgeable people I have ever met-- and myself

couldnt win a local contest. Chad Nicholls is not a top bodybuilder, nor is Bob Gruskin

or Dennis DuBreuil. Vince Gironda was a good bodybuilder and almost won the Mr.

USA one year but he wasnt a freaky bodybuilder like Sergio Oliva or Arnold

Schwarzenegger or the top pros. Bob Green, one of the most knowledgeable experts,

was not a champion bodybuilder.

Thats not to say all champs are airheads. Larry Scott really knows his stuff, as

does Bill Pearl. Arnold Schwarzeneggers Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding

contains a lot of good information, as does Bob Kennedys encyclopedia and some of

his other books. Rick Valente really knows training, as did Don Ross, WBBG Pro Mr.

America for 1977. But just because someone has won a title, dont automatically they

know a lot about training, just as dont ever assume because a man has a PHD that he

know what hes talking about.

Train for a Growth Pump and According to the Blood Volume

Theory: A second major secret of the champs is training for a growth pump. As any

reader of my articles know I am a firm believer in Dennis DuBreuils Blood Volume

Theory that states there is a direct relationship between how well a muscle pumps and

how well it grows. A muscle that pumps the best and the easiest grows the fastest and

easiest too, while muscles that pump poorly, or refuse to pump at all, grow slowly and

poorly, if they grow at all. Im sure if you think about it you will agree this statement is

true. Arent your best and easiest growing muscle groups those that pump the best, and

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arent your worst muscle groups those that pump poorly, if they pump at all. Ill bet

anything its true. To me this validates the Blood Volume Theory.

I make the distinction between a growth pump and just a pump. You can lift 5

pound dumbbells and do hundreds of reps and get some pump but your muscles will

not grow. If you use moderate or heavy weights and do 6 to 100 reps, then youll get

growth.

I can guarantee you that all champion bodybuilders train to pump their lats as

they do their lat exercises. If there is poor blood circulation to the lats, there can be no

good pump.

A good growth pump is a strong indicator that more blood is flowing or circulating

to working muscle group, in this instance, the lats. Increased blood flow brings in freshly

oxygenated blood and key nutrients to the working muscle and carries away lactic acid

and other fatigue products so growth and recovery can occur.

It should be noted that a muscle is not made larger not by just thickening of the

muscle fibers. It is also made larger by increasing the number of capillaries and red

blood cells, as well as more red muscle fibres and larger veins and arteries to

accommodate the increased blood circulation and volume. John Parrillo calls this

increase in capillaries, red blood cells, and red muscle fibres as cardio-vascular

density.

Your muscles are like sponges, soaking up blood and making your muscles look

larger and fuller. Consider a good growth pump as a kind of cell volumization that

occurs when you use creatine monohydrate, but with blood instead of water. If you do

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not increase blood circulation or flow to a muscle, pump and this type of cell

volumization cannot occur. This is why many top powerlifters and weightlifters can lift

very heavy weights without a lot of muscle mass, especially those competing in the

lighter weight classes. They have good leverages, strong tendons and ligaments, and

strong white fast-twitch muscle fibres, but little cardiovascular density.

To me a skin tight pump is a very good indication that you have been successful

in your primary goal of innervating, isolating, and stimulating the lats. Pump doesn`t

occur in a vacuum. It is always accompanied by muscular ache, burn, fatigue, and

contractions. When you achieve a maximum pump, can there be any doubt in your mind

you`ve worked the muscle very hard?

Train Like a Bodybuilder, Not a Weightlifter or Powerlifter: This

statement may confuse some people. After all, some powerlifters and weightlifters have

pretty good physiques. Both bodybuilders and weightlifters or powerlifters lift weights

but it`s how they lift the weights that makes them different. Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever seen a world-class weightlifter or powerlifter with the muscular

development of a Mr. Olympia competitor? No, of course not. If lifting maximally heavy

weights gave the most muscle mass and muscularity, than world champion powerlifters

and weightlifters would win the Mr. Olympia and Arnold Classic every year. But they

dont and cant. I mean who would you like to look like, Paul Anderson or Steve Reeves,

or Anthony Clark or Ronnie Coleman or Phil Heath?

How do powerlifters and weightlifter lift a weight? With speed, momentum and

inertia, the fastest and easiest way they can. They dont care if their muscles pump or

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receive maximum muscle stimulation. They dont give a damn about innervation and

feeling and isolating their muscles. They just want to drive the weight up and make their

lift. Any muscle stimulation is secondary and incidental to their primary goal of making

their lift.

Bodybuilders need to train differently than weightlifters or powerlifters. They need

stricter form, higher reps, greater muscle concentration and lifting a weight the hardest

way they can with pure muscle action. Their primary goal is to isolate, innervate, and

pump their muscles to the max. You need to, as I said above, focus on working the

muscle, rather than just lifting the weight. Its a matter of proper mental mind-set as you

do a set and training priorities. Just dont expect to look like a bodybuilder if you train

like a weightlifter.

Strength Versus Size

Do you believe that you there is a definite relationship between how strong you

are and how big you get? That is to say, do you believe every time you get stronger you

will always get bigger too? If you do, you are wrongat least some of the time.

It is possible to get significantly stronger without developing larger and more

muscular muscles if you train primarily for strength, not for muscular development and

size. How do you think Olympic weightlifters and world-class powerlifters train to

increase strength while maintaining at a certain bodyweight so they can compete in a

specific weight class?

Say a guy is a 148 or 165 pound powerlifter. He cant afford to increase his

muscle mass and bodyweight as that would take him out of his weight class. Still, he

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needs to increase his strength each year to remain competitive. So how does he train to

increase his strength without increasing his bodyweight? Well, Ill tell you.

First, he never does high repetitions or takes short rest periods between sets

because that would cause increased blood flow and create a pump in the working

muscle. Our powerlifting friend does low repetition sets (1 to 6), with lots of doubles and

triples. He takes long rest periods between sets, at least five minutes and on his

heaviest sets as long as 10 minutes. Strongman Paul Anderson used to rest 10 minutes

between sets and one hour between exercises. Why? Power needs rest. The longer

you rest, the more strength you have to lift maximally heavy weights. In a sports journal

strength expert Charles Poliquin said even a three minute rest between sets was not

enough rest when attempting max attempts.

Long rest periods between sets ensures no pump, no increase in capillaries, red

blood cells, and no increase in red slow-twitch muscle fibers and no cardiovascular

density. Instead the powerlifter/weightlifter targets white fast-twitch muscle fibres that

are worked with low reps (1 to 6). He isnt trying to increase his muscle size. He needs

explosive power and strength, not 20 inch arms or cross-striated thighs or glutes.

As well he may do heavy partial reps in the power rack and heavy supports with

150 to 200 pounds more than his max to increase tendon, ligament and connective

tissue strength and his entire skeletal frame. He may do some negative-only training, as

its possible to lower 40 per cent heavier weights than one can raise concentrically. As

well, he may develop better neurological efficiency. Peary Rader, former editor of

IronMan magazine, observed that some champion weightlifters and powerlifters were

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able to lift more and more weight each year even though their bodyweight did not

increase. He theorized that many lifters can generate what he called stronger nerve

force. These lifters can literally rev up their nervous systems before a maximum

attempt to lift heavier weights, as if they took amphetamines.

Finally, another way to increase strength without getting bigger is through intense

stretching, which decreases the bodys protective mechanisms, such as the Golgi

Tendon Organ stretch receptors which shut a muscle down when it is exposed to

extreme stretch and stress and strain to prevent possible injury. If you can raise the

threshold of the Golgi Tendon Organs, you can lift more weight without increasing

bodyweight and muscle mass. Youve probably experienced the effect of the Golgi

Tendon stretch receptors without being aware of it.

For example, have you ever run as fast as you could for a long distance when

suddenly your legs seem to turn into mush and youre suddenly running in slow motion?

No matter how fast you try to run, you can only run at a slow pace. Thats the Golgi

Tendon stretch receptors kicking in to shut the muscles of the legs down to prevent

possible injury.

It happens with weight-training too. On a set of bench presses for 10 reps,

perhaps the first eight reps goes smoothly, but on the ninth rep your arms start shaking

and trembling and the weight goes up slowly and you barely complete the rep. On the

tenth rep the weight goes half way up but you cant finish the final rep. Its not just

because of muscular exhaustion that you fail. Its the Golgi Tendon Organ stretch

receptors in the triceps kicking in to shut the muscle down to prevent possible injury.

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Back to strength verus size training. It is true that if you get stronger on strict sets

done for 6 to 20 reps (or more) per set, you will gain size along with strength. The basic

premise of bodybuilding is, after all, progressive training. As long as you are maintaining

correct form and are training for innervation and pump, and performing at least six strict

repetitions, you will get bigger as you get stronger. But bodybuilders need to train

differently than powerlifters or weightlifters because their needs and goals are different.

They need higher repetitions, stricter form, more isolation movements, and all their sets

done with the goal of maximum innervation and pump. They need less rest between

sets so their muscles do not cool off and they lose their pump. They need to do more

exercises for a muscle group to hit all muscle fibres.

Ill repeat what I said above: Bodybuilders need to train to work the muscle, not to

focus on how much weight they can lift. All champion bodybuilders train to innervate,

stimulate, isolate, and pump their muscles when they train. So should you. Yes, aim to

get stronger over time on compound movements but never sacrifice feel for the muscle

for the sake of lifting heavier weights.

When you train like a bodybuilder you have to muscle up the weight, lifting it

with pure muscle action the hardest way you can. You never want to rely on speed,

inertia, momentum, and excessive cheating to lift the weight the easiest way you can.

There is fine line between training heavy and working the muscle properly and training

too heavy. Youll know when you are training too heavy when you lose the feel for the

target muscle and you have to cheat excessively and use secondary muscle groups to

help lift the weight.

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Many recreational bodybuilders get so caught up in lifting the heaviest weights

they can, in any manner they can, and counting reps, they forgot to work the muscle

they are training. They use so much weight they are forced to cheat excessively and

use speed, inertia, and momentum to lift the weight. You often see guys doing bench

presses by arching their backs a foot or more off the bench to drive the bar through the

sticking point and then bouncing the bar off their chests to gain momentum for the next

rep. Such benching will never develop the pecs properly. Or you see guys using so

much weight on on t-bar rows or bentover barbell rows they have to yank and heave the

weight up with their arms and drop their chests to meet the bar. They may have to stand

up with the weight as if they are doing a deadlift. Such rowing will never develop the lats

properly.

Only increase the weight when you can do so without excessive cheating and

you retain the feel for the working muscle. Only cheat at the end of after youve

completed as many strict repetitions as you can. Always strive to do at least six strict

repetitions before allowing any cheating, and only cheat enough to make another rep

possible, not easy. Cheat to make the muscle work harder. In other words, only cheat

when fatigue and muscular failure does not allow any more strict repetitions. Also,

always accentuate the negative whether performing strict or cheating reps. Fight gravity

all the way down.

If a weight feels too light you can make it feel heavier by slowing the speed of

your reps and by concentrating harder. An advanced bodybuilder can make a 35 pound

dumbbell feel more like a 50 through deep concentration alone. Slow-Mo training

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taking five to ten seconds to lower the weight and five to ten seconds to raise itis an

excellent way to learn to feel the muscle and innervate it properly.

If a weight feels too heavy, try to speed up your reps or to move the weight faster

over a complete range of motion. On heavy sets the bar will actually often move quite

slowly even when you are trying to move it faster because of the heaviness of the

weight. This type of explosive eccentric and concentric lifting is favored by some

champion bodybuilders, including six-time Mr. Olympia champ Dorian Yates and two-

time Mr. Olympia Larry Scott. But save the speed reps for near the end of a set when

you are near muscular failure.

Cardiovascular Efficiency and VO2 Max and Muscle Size and

Development and Maximum Strength:

Arthur Jones, the developer of Nautilus machines and principles and author

Nautilus Training Bulletins 1 and 2, believed that bodybuilders and strength athletes

should train as fast as possible (not speed of repetitions but rest between exercises),

with little rest between exercises and to use the heaviest weights possible and high

intensity training, while at the same time raising the heart rate and working the

cardiovascular system as hard as possible too. He had people literally running back and

forth between various Nautilus machines as they did their sets for various muscle

groups with as little rest between sets as possible.

Actually, Russian research has shown it is not possible to build maximum muscle

size and strength and maximum cardio and Vo2 Max at the same time. In other words,

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you can`t train to win the World Weightlifting or World Powerlifting championships or

become Mr. Olympia and win the Boston Marathon at the same time.

Bodybuilders and strength athletes should maintain some cardiovascular

efficiency but should not train for the maximum VO2 Max and maximum muscle size at

the same time. If you do you are just holding back gains. This is especially true of

skinny ectomorphs who have difficulty adding bodyweight and muscle size. Too much

cardio burns too many calories and prevents maximum muscle size.

Negative-Only Training: Back in the 1970`s Arthur Jones began to

advocate negative-only training to gain maximum muscle size and strength. Arthur said

it was possible to lower 40 per cent negatively more weight than you can raise

concentrically. For example, if you can raise 100 pounds in the barbell curl, you can

lower 140 pounds negative-only style.

Intrigued, I decided to give it a try. At the time I was in my third year of university

(I was completely natural and weighed about 185 pounds) and I had been stuck for

several months at standing behind-the-neck presses with 145 pounds for 6 repetitions.

No matter how hard I tried I just couldn`t do one rep more. Actually, the 145 pound for 6

reps was actually quite good because the gym where I trained had no squat racks or

power racks, therefore in order to perform a set of behind-the-neck presses I had to

clean the bar to my shoulders, push press it overhead so I could lower it to my neck, do

my 6 reps, then push press it back overhead, and then lower it to the ground. That`s a

lot of work for one set of behind-the-neck presses.

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Anyway, I used to keep a 200 pound barbell under the couch of our common

room, and one night I somehow I talked my three pot smoking, beer drinking and non-

exercising roommates to lift that 200 pound bar overhead as dinner cooked so I could

slowly lower it down.

When performing negative-only lifting, the idea is to try to slow the descent of the

bar for as long as you can. You should actually try to stop the bar if possible. The time

to end the set is when you can no longer slow or control the descent of the bar and it

drops like a stone. I did two sets of 6 reps with 200 pounds. The next night I did two

more sets of 6 reps.

My next workout I went to the gym not knowing what to expect. What happened

was quite unbelievable. When I did my behind-the-neck presses, the bar felt incredibly

light. When I did 145 pounds I did 12 reps, not 6. I actually did a set with 175 pounds for

6 repsa 30 pound gain in just a few days. I even did a single for 195 pounds (again,

cleaning the bar to my shoulders, push pressing it overhead, doing my one rep, push

pressing it overhead to my front shoulders, and lowering the bar to the ground).

The problem with negative-only training is trying to find people willing to lift a

heavy weight up so you can lower it down. The novelty wears off very quickly. In my

case my roommates were willing to do it for two nights. After that they wouldn`t do it for

love or money.

Another thing about negative-only training is you cannot sustain these

unbelievable gains in strength for very long. I have spoken to people who have added

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50 pounds to their bench presses in a few weeks by performing a few sets of negative-

only training. Then the gains stop.

Also, it`s one thing to find two people to lift a heavy weight so you can lower it

down on bench presses, incline barbell presses, behind-the-neck presses, barbell curls

and chins, quite another thing to find two (or three) people to lift a super heavy weight

500-600 pounds or more- when doing squats and deadlifts.

Still, you cannot knock a 30 pound gain on behind-the-neck presses after just two

days of negative-only lifting, or 50 pounds on your bench press in just a couple of

weeks.

Most lat exercises do not lend themselves to negative-only training. T-bar rows

and seated cable rows do not. I suppose you could have two people raise a heavy

barbell so you could do a few sets of bentover barbell rows, or one-arm dumbbell rows.

Wide-grip and medium and narrow grip chins definitely could be done in negative-only

training styleif you can find two people willing to lift you up with a heavy weight

attached to your body so you can lower yourself slowly down. As I said, people will do it

once or twice but the novelty wears off very quickly.

Another way to enjoy some of the benefits of negative training is to do negative-

accentuated sets. On leg extensions, leg curls, and leg presses you can raise the

weight with two legs and lower with one leg. You could even try it on hack squats and

Smith machine squats. On a Hammer Strength machine you could raise a weight the

weight concentrically when doing incline presses or shoulder presses, then lower it

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down with one arm. On machine curls you can raise a weight up with two arms and then

lower it down with one arm.

You don`t need to do a lot of sets of negative-only training. Just a couple of sets

taken to failure will give all the benefits negative-only training. Also, don`t do your

normal workout plus negative-only training sets. Stop your regular workout for a couple

of days and do your negative-only sets and then return to your regular workouts.

Of course, you should always lower a weight slowly down and accentuate the

negative on any exercise. The bar or weight should never just drop down. Fight gravity

the whole way down.

How the Champions Train Lats and Back:

Since 1982 I have done dozens of lat and back training articles with champions

of both sexes, and not a single one ever said to me their lats and backs improved when

they used the heaviest possible weights. On the contrary, champions such as Steve

Reeve, Freddie Ortiz, Dave Draper, Serge Nubret, Frank Zane, Robby Robinson, Albert

Beckles, Danny Padilla, Chris Dickerson, Paul DeMayo, Paul Dillett, Vince Taylor, Lee

Labrada, Rich Gaspari, Gary Strydom, Tony Pearson, John Terilli, Laura Creavalle,

Lenda Murray, and Vince Comerfort all said their lats and backs greatly improved when

they reduced the amount of weight they used on their lat exercises. Vinnie Comerfort

said it best: Theres a big difference between rowing with 225 pounds properly instead

of snapping up 315.

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Lee Labrada told me, I only started to make real improvements in my back when

I reduced my weights and used correct form and a full range of motion. Lee added,

Personally, I have never seen a guy rowing with 405 or 495 pounds properly yet.

Jim Morris, who won the 1973 AAU Mr. America contest used to train his lats

with 20 sets of 20 reps of wide-grip chins (Id like to see some power monger or Heavy-

Duty fanatic do that!), followed by one-arm dumbbell rowing, and seated low pulley

rowing. In an article in the July, 1978 issue of IronMan magazine Jim described how he

did his rows. I rested my forearm on the dumbbell rack and placed my forehead on it.

At no time should the back move up and down. The weight should be pulled to the chest

without jerking.

On low pulley seated rowing Jim said, I perform this exercise with the upper

body leaning forward as far as possible and stay in that position. As the pulley is pulled

toward the chest, at no time should the body rock back and forth. Once you start pulling

back your upper body you are no longer working lats, but glutes and leg biceps.

Even Dorian Yates, one of the strongest Mr. Olympia champions and with

perhaps the freakiest back development of anyone, recommended in his book Blood

and Guts, that all bodybuilders should reduce their rowing poundages by 50 per cent

and do their reps slower and stricter and with more concentration and trying to get a full

range of motion and a hard contraction each rep. This is a tough sell to many wannabe

bodybuilders because they are more concerned about how much weight they lift in any

mannerego training and showing off, I call itthan on working the lats properly. As

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Vince Gironda used to say, most bodybuilders work out incorrectly because its too

hard to train correctly. Its easier to cheat than to do your reps correctly.

A story about Tony Pearson, AAU Mr. America of 1978 and NABBA Pro Mr.

Universe of 1980 and a top IFBB pro, illustrates the difference between working the

muscle versus lifting the weight. Tony developed some of the largest and widest lats

Ive ever seen. They were truly amazing in size and width. But this was not always the

case. Back when Tony first got into serious bodybuilding he totally bought into the idea

that the heavier he trained, the bigger his lats would become. He became so strong on

bentover barbell rowing he could use 405 pounds for 6 reps, and use 8 plates on the t-

bar row device for 6 reps. And yet Tony admitted his lats at the time where not that

good and he was always straining his lower back. Then one day the great Robbie

Robinson invited Tony to do a back workout with him. They used less than half the

weight Tony normally used and yet his lats ached and pumped like never before.

Robbie taught Tony how to do rows properly: Staying down over the weight and

not standing up with it, and rowing with knees bent, head up, body just slightly above

parallel, keeping the lower back arched and never allowing it to round over. Robbie told

Tony to think of his hands as hooks and to row with his lats, not his hands and arms. He

told Tony not to heave and yank with the arms and drop the chest to meet the bar.

After that training session with Robbie Robinson Tony said he rarely ever used

more than 185 pounds on bentover barbell rows for 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps. On t-bar

rows he usually used four plates, again for 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps. His lats grew like

crazyamong the greatest lats of all time.

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But the average gym monster cant understand that. They see Tony Pearson

rowing with 185 pounds and they laugh it off and think hes training easy. Hey, I use

four plates aside for 6 reps on barbell rows, they say. They strut around like theyre Mr.

Olympia. Their whole focus is on how much weight they can pile on the bar. Hey,

during my lat workout I rowed with 405 pounds. They dont mention that the only place

they feel sore is in their lower backs and their biceps. Never mind their joints ache and

they almost had to stand upright when they did their rows as if they were doing a

deadlift. Never mind the range of motion when they row is half of what it should be.

Never mind that their lats are lousy.

Theyre baffled by Tony Pearsons lat development. How can this be? they

demand to know. I use twice the weight he does. I work my ass off and yet his back his

ten times better than mine. Its not fair. Why is he so genetically gifted and Im not They

cant understand that when Tony rows his lats do almost all the work. When they row

they use every muscle in their body to lift the weightexcept for the lats. They think

expending effort makes for effective training.

Never confuse effort with effective training. If I ran a 100 meter run against by

Olympic champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica by hopping up and down on one leg I would

use a lot of effort but it wouldnt be a very effective way to run, would it?

A Row is not a Clean, Snap, Heave or Deadlift: Lets make this point

very clear. Very few bodybuilders do their rowing exercises properly. They throw and

heave and yank the bar upwards and drop their chests to meet the bar. Its like their

doing a clean in the bentover position. They use every muscle group in their body to get

35

the weight up except their lats. They also use speed and momentum and inertia to

move the weight up and down, instead of rowing smoothly and correctly with their lats

and using pure muscle action.

Such bodybuilders think they are doing rows but they are not. They cant even

feel their lats as they row, so its no wonder why they dont grow. Theyve never learned

how to row correctly because theyve never experienced a proper row. We are back to

the problem of not being able to watch the lats working as you do a set. You have to go

by feel and many bodybuilders are not sure what they are supposed to feel. Any fool

can grunt and groan and throw heavy weights around but it takes a smart cookie to put

all the effort into the lats when they do rowing exercises.

True rowing involves the lats over a full range of motion. The hands merely act

like hooks holding the bar. The involvement of the spinal errectors, traps, shoulders,

rhomboids, and biceps is kept to a minimum. Watch a good rower and you notice how

little body movement there is, how the lower back is always arched and never allowed

to round over (which makes lat contraction impossible). A good rower always rows with

his knees flexed, his head up, and his upper body just slightly above parallel. He stays

down with the weight. He doesnt let his body move up and down. He doesnt drop his

chest to meet the bar. The lats move from full stretch to full contraction. There is never

any heaving or throwing of the weight. A proper row is a thing of beauty. Its all finesse.

Any cheating is saved for the end of a set of at least six strict repetitions.

I tell bodybuilders to row with their heads on a folded towel on a dumbbell rack to

keep their bodies locked in. Or they can row with their butts against a wall to keep their

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body locked in. I tell them to get the mental image of a jet airplane coming in to land:

nose up, the flaps up, wheels down. In the same way, keep your head up, your upper

body higher than the knees, the lower back arched, and to stay down over the weight.

Also, you can row off a block to get a greater range of motion. Use sponges or straps to

reinforce your grip. Use deep concentration and visualize your lats stretching and

contracting each rep.

One last thing about rowing: Many bodybuilders think that rows are done in a

straight-up-and-down motion but they are not. Actually, the plane of motion is tilted.

When you do one-arm dumbbell rowing you should not row the dumbbell up and down.

That works only upper lats, along with rhomboids and traps. Row as if you are sawing

wood. Reach forward as you lower the dumbbell out to stretch the lat, than pull it into

the lower lats to contract the lats. This type of rowing works the entire lat, even the

lower lats. Rick Valente actually told me to row as if sawing wood when we did an article

together back in the mid-90`s. This is also the type of rowing Sergio Oliva used when I

went to Chicago for four days to watch They Myth train.

Even on bentover barbell rowing or reverse-grip barbell rowing (Dorian Yatess

favorite rowing exercise), you should reach forward and outward as you lower the bar

down, and then pull it into the lower lats. The range of motion is tilted like \, not straight

up-and-down like |. I also like to tell bodybuilders to not start coming up until theyve

finished going all the way down. This ensures a full range of motion.

You will never achieve your genetic potential for lat development if you do your

exercises incorrectly and you cheat too much. I suggest you reduce your training

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poundages by half and doubling your repetitions. I also suggest you keep rest between

sets to a minute or less. After training this way for several months, then you will have

established the proper neuro-muscular pathways to the lats, and you should be able to

do heavier sets and still achieve innervation and pump. But first things first. First learn

how to innervate and pump your lats, then add heavier lifting.

See Your Body as a Bio-Feedback Machine: What do I mean by that?

I mean your body will tell you everything you need to know to make gains. It will answer

every question you have about training and diet if you listen to it. It will tell you if you are

doing an exercise correctly. It will tell you if you are using too much weight, cheating too

much, performing the exercise wrong, failing to concentrate, isolate, innervate, or

stimulate your muscles. It will tell you if you are not feeling contractions in the muscle

during a set, if you are feeling muscular ache, burn, fatigue and pump. It will tell you if

you are innervating and feeling the muscle. It will tell you if youre making good gains or

not and if you are not eating enough. It will tell you if you are overtraining or are not

working hard enough.

Some of the most frequent questions Ive been asked prove the point.

Greg, how do I know if Im performing an exercise properly? Answer: When you

feel the sensations of muscle exertion: ache, fatigue, burn, contractions, and pump in

the working muscle.

Greg, how do I know how much weight to use? Answer: Youll feel it. Its the

right weight when its enough to work the muscle but not so heavy that you lose control

or have to cheat excessively to lift it.

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Greg, how do I know if Im training too heavy? Answer: If youre focusing more

on lifting the weight than working the muscle, and you lose the feel for the target

muscle, the weight is too heavy? Also, the weight is to heavy when you are forced to

bring secondary muscles into play to help lift the weight.

Greg, how do I know which width grip is best? Answer: You tell by feel.

Experiment with different width grips or foot placements until you find the one they feels

best, that allows you to isolate, innervate and pump the muscle the best.

Greg, how do I know which plane of motion to use? Answer: You tell by feel.

Experiment with arcs and angles and planes of motion to find the ones that feel the best

that best allow you to isolate, feel, innervate, stimulate and pump the muscle group the

best.

Everything comes down to feeling the muscle. If the working muscle burns and

aches and contracts and pumps during a set, man, youve got it. Youre doing

everything right. If you fail to feel the sensations of muscular exertion in the working

muscle, if theres no ache, burn or pump, than something is obviously wrong. If you do

bentover rows with a lot of cheating and all you feel is biceps and forearms and traps,

than youre not performing the rows properly and youre certainly not stimulating or

innervating your lats. If youre doing bench presses for pecs but all that burns or works

is your triceps and front delts, youre obviously not performing the bench presses

properly or for maximum pectoral growth. If you do barbell curls and your biceps dont

pump, but your shoulders do, youre not training biceps, youre training shoulders.

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This aint rocket science, folks. Its common sense. Exercise is not merely

motion. You must have motion with a purpose. Your mind-set before starting a set

determines how hard the muscle is worked. You can focus on innervating and

stimulating and pumping a muscle or you can focus on moving a weight any way you

can and counting reps. Moving weights and counting reps doesnt guarantee muscle

stimulation or growth. Poor muscle growth is nearly always caused by an inability to

feel a muscle as you train it. This gets back to the concept of working a muscle versus

lifting a weight. Lifting a weight doesnt necessarily work a muscle, especially when bad

form and cheating come into play. You really have to know what youre doing to work a

muscle, while any dummy can lift a weight. Your own body will tell you if youre training

properly or incorrectly.

Isnt that amazing? Isnt it empowering? You dont need Greg Zulak or John

Parrillo, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Phil Heath or any bodybuilding expert or

champion to tell you how to train or what to eat or how to do an exercise properly for

maximum innervation and stimulation. Your body has the innate ability to feel, sense,

and give feedback on all your sensory abilities. As far as training goes everything

comes back to sensory feel, sensing what your muscle is doing as you train it, feeling

and isolating the muscle, and feeling and sensing all the sensations that go along with

proper muscle innervation and stimulation such as muscle ache, fatigue, contractions,

stimulation, overload and pump. Let your body guide you. Everything ultimately comes

down to the feelings you get in the muscle as you train it.

Just listen to the feedback you get from your body as you do your exercises.

Your body has the ability to feel and sense and to give you feedback on all your sensory

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abilities you experience during a set: I mean the sensory feedback of muscular exertion:

muscle ache, exhaustion and fatigue, muscle burn and pump. Your body will tell you

what is the best plane of motion to use, which width of grip is best, and which exercises

are best for your structure.

The answer to all your questions comes from the feedback and the feelings you

experience during a set. It your lats burn and ache and pump during a set, you know

your training is spot on. If they dont, something is wrong and must be changed. It really

is as simple as that. Learning how to train a muscle properly is no different than learning

how to hit a baseball or throw a football or slap a hockey puck. It take time and correct

repetition. New neuro-muscular pathways and neural messages must be established

and become part of your nervous system and the brains neural network. Its a skill and it

takes time to learn. Some never do learn. Even after 20 years they still make the same

mistakes at the gym. This can happen through the engraining of bad habits, habits that

are hard to break.

Are You Practicing Perfectly or Just Practicing? Remember the old

saying, practice makes perfect? Actually that is wrong, practice doesnt make perfect.

Only perfect practice makes perfect, otherwise youre just engraining bad habits. Its a

phrase used by golf instructors, baseball batting coaches, and teachers of any sport and

any athletic endeavor that requires precise and exact physical skills and perfect body

performance, such as, weightlifters, power lifters, divers, swimmers, figure skaters,

skiers, ski jumpers, speed skaters, gymnasts, sprinters, hurdles, high jumpers, pole

vaulters, shot putters, javelin throwers, discus throwers, hammer throwers, Ball room

dancers, and tennis players. It means if you always practice to do a movement

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incorrectly youll never learn how to do it correctly because you are teaching the nerves

and the muscles how to do it the wrong way. Doing anything wrong over and over just

engrains bad habits.

If you continually do a movement wrong, you never get to experience what is

actually right, so you just keep on doing it wrong. You see this a lot in golfers. They start

off with a bad grip, a poor stance and bad body posture, and they never get the

fundamentals right, so they develop bad swings. When they go to the driving range to

practice they continue to do the wrong thingsbecause they feel and right and natural

to themand so they never get any better. Often to do something correctly you have to

go 100 per cent against your intuition and sense of what is right. Allow me to digress for

a bit.

After bodybuilding golf is my next great passion. Many people do not consider

golf a sport. They see it as a game, like checkers. Ill tell you why golf is one of the

toughest sports in the worldand surely the most frustrating and humbling game ever

conceived by the mind of man. People think golf is about hitting a little white ball to a

little hole. Its not, as Mark Twain famously said, a good walk spoiled.

For advanced players and PGA players, its all about controlling distance, spin,

trajectory, and shaping the ball to hit a particular shot. Most holes are not straight. Most

dog-leg or turn left-to-right or right-to-left, so you have to curve or shape your shot to

play the hole probably. Approach shots often must be shaped as well, as the pin may be

on the right or left side of the green.

Golf must be played in all kinds of weather: Hot, cold, wet and rainy, windy or no

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wind. The wind can be in your face, from behind, or a cross-wind. The wind really

affects the flight of the ball so you need to know how to adjust to the wind. The ball

doesnt travel as far when its cold, so you have to make an adjustment.

From a physical standpoint, there is a lot of walking involved in playing golf. The

golf courses the PGA stars play on TV are typically 7200 to 7700 yards long. Thats

over four one-third miles to five miles. When you add in the distance between the

greens and the tee blocks, and all the walking to your ball, and all the walking done on

greens, you can add another 1000 yards. So to play a four day tournament, plus one or

two practice rounds, the pros are walking probably 25 to 30 miles in a tournament. And

it can be up and down hills, in very hot and humid weather, so there is a lot of walking

and they have to walk fast because they are timed and slow play can result in a one

stroke penalty stroke.

If amateur players play golf, and they carry their own golf bags (which can weigh

40 or more pounds), they can walk four to five miles in a round of golf with 40 or more

pounds on their back. Its harder than you might think.

Once I played a round of golf with pro bodybuilder Henderson Thorne and a

couple of guys from Golds Gym. Henderson was getting ready for a pro show and even

though he was doing more than an hour of aerobics a day, by the end of the round he

was exhausted. You have to be a good walker to play golf.

Golf is the most difficult sport in the world because it is so anti-intuitive. Golf is a

game of opposites. Everything a beginner thinks is right about the golf swing is

completely wrong and the opposite of what they think and believe. For example,

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beginners and hackers think they have to hit up on the ball to help the ball into the air.

Thats all wrong. If you hit up on the ball you top it and it barely gets off the ground. You

need to hit down on the ball and let the loft of the club get the ball into the air.

If youre playing a hole downwind (with the wind at your back), the natural

tendency is to think, Oh, the wind is blowing behind me, so I can swing easier as the

wind is going to help the ball to travel further. But actually, when the wind is blowing

from behind, you want to take less club and hit the ball harder to put maximum backspin

on the ball, because the wind is going to reduce backspin, making it more difficult to

keep the ball on the green. Again, the complete opposite of what you would think.

On the other hand, if youre hitting into the wind the natural tendency is to think, I

have to hit the ball much harder because the wind is going to make the bar travel less

far. But thats when you want to swing easier. If you swing extra hard you put extra

backspin on the ball and it balloons up into the air and may come up short of the hole or

even the green.

If it would normally be an 8-iron to the green, into a strong wind you might hit an

easy 6-iron and hit a punch shot under the wind in order to hit the ball low to get it to

the green. To hit a low punch shot you keep your weight on your left side and have an

abbreviated follow through. This is just anti-intuitive.

In order to make the ball go right-to-lefta hook or draw--you have to swing the

club rightwhich is opposite of what bad golfers do. To make the ball go left-to-right, a

fade or slice, you swing the club to the left. Thats swing right to make the ball go left,

swing left to make the ball go right Confusing? This is the opposite of what you might

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think to be true and, again, completely anti-intuitive and its what makes golf so

frustrating and difficult.

People who slice the ball badly do so because they club face cuts across the ball

and puts left-to-right spin on the ball. They dont understand that the reason they slice

the ball is because theyre swinging the club left (not by a foot, but inches or even

fraction of inches). If they miss the green or fairway by 30 yards to the right, on their

next hole they might try to compensate by aiming 50 yards left of the green or fairway.

But that just opens their stance up even more and makes them cut across the ball even

moretheyre swinging even more leftso they might miss the green or fairway by 50

yards.

They only way to straighten their shots is to square up their stance, take the club

slightly inside, and swing a bit out to the right to put a hook spin on the ball. But Ive

known guys who took up the game when they were 10 and they had a bad slice then,

and 50 years later they still slice the ball because theyre still swinging left instead of

right. They havent figured it out after 50 years.

There are so many shots you have to master to play golf welldrives, fairway

woods, long irons, medium irons, short irons, wedges, chips, pitches, putts, and sand

shots. Greens are not flat so you have to try to figure out how much your putt is going to

bend or break. You can also putt uphill or downhill or side hill and the speed of the

greens can change due to weather and all this makes putting very difficult to do.

The fairways are not flat, so you have to know how to hit the ball from a

hanging lie. The ball could be lying slightly (or a lot) above your feet. In this case you

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have to allow for the ball to hook or curve right-to-left. If the ball is below your feet, you

have to allow for the ball to curve left-to-right. If the ball is downhill, you have to align

your body to the slope and play the ball back in your stance or youll hit the ground

before the ball and hit it fat (take a big divot) and come up short of the green. If the ball

is uphill, you have to play the ball forward, align your body, or youll hit the ball fat again.

Sand shots are a major struggle for many players. They never learned that when

playing a greenside bunker, its the only shot in golf where you do not try to hit the ball.

You try to hit behind the ball with the clubface wide open and laying flat, and you try to

move sand. How far behind the ball you hit the ball depends on how far you are from

the pin. If youre 20 feet or less you might hit five inches behind the ball. If youre 30

feet, you might hit 4 inches behind the ball. If youre 40 feet you might hit two inches

behind the ball, or even one inch.

To hit a greenside bunker shot the shaft should point outside your right leg (for

right-handers) in order to open the face. But hackers have the shaft pointing left and

they hood the clubface and try to hit the ball, not move sand, so often they cant get the

ball out of the bunker. Or if it comes out it comes out low with no back spin and runs off

the green. But if your ball is buried and you have a half buried lie, then you have to

allow for a low ball flight with no spin because you cant float the ball up in the air as you

can on a normal bunker shot.

If you hit your ball in the rough you get what are called flyer lies. Grass gets

between the clubface and the ball so you cant put as much backspin on the ball. The

ball may fly lower and hotter and run farther. You have to take less club and

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compensate for this.

In order to play good golf you need the proper grip (with the Vs created by your

thumbs and forefingers pointing to your right shoulder), the proper stance, and you have

to relax. If you squeeze the grip hard before you hit the ballthe natural tendency for

hackers but they are anxious about the shot5 they are about to hitthen you create

tension in your arms and shoulders so its difficult to make a full backswing and to make

a good pass at the ball.

The toughest thing about golf for many people is the ball is not moving. Willie

Mays, one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, who hit 661 home runs, who had

no problem hitting 98 mph fastballs and all the sliders, curve balls, cutters, screw balls,

fork balls, knuckle balls, and all the crazy pitches major league pitchers throw, had

trouble hitting a golf ball because it was not moving. Sometimes Willie Mays would

whiff or miss the ball completely on his drives.

Charles Barkley, one of the greatest NBA players of all-time, had no trouble

dribbling through three or four players and doing a behind-the-head dunk. He had great

athletic ability. But put a golf club in his hands and hes terrible. When you see Charles

Barkley playing golf in some celebrity golf tournament, it looks like he took up the game

an hour before his playing time.

Hes actually been playing for over 20 years. Hes worked with some of the top

golf instructors in golf, men like Butch Harmon (who worked with Tiger Woods, Greg

Norman, and currently works with 2013 Masters champ Adam Scott), Rick Smith (who

worked with Jack Nicklaus, the greatest golfer of all-time with 18 majors), David

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Leadbetter (who worked with Nick Faldo and Nick Price and Greg Norman some), and

Hank Haney (who worked with Tiger Woods and Mark OMeara). Hes had his swing

videotaped many times. He has the best equipment money can buy. Charles cant make

a golf swing to save his life. He doesnt turn and coil on his back swing, and then uncoil

on the follow through. He lunges to the right, then lunges to his left. Its painful to watch.

He cant break 100.

Golf is a game you play but can never win. No matter how well you score there

are always a few shots you could have putted better or hit better drives, irons or chips.

Even the top players in the world can shoot a great score one day and a terrible score

the next. Its common for even top PGA pros score 10 shots worse after a great round

the day before. In 1987 Greg Norman shot a 63 at the Masters in to set an all-time low

score at Augusta National in Georgia. He had a seven stroke lead. On Sunday he shot

78 in the final rounda 15 stroke difference from the day beforewhile Nick Faldo shot

a 67, and won by several strokes.

The best golfers in the world hit the greens about 75 per cent of the time. They

hit the fairway on their drives at best 75 per cent of the time. They save par when they

miss a green at best about 75 per cent of the time. Even they can`t hit perfect shots all

the time. Ben Hogan, who won nine majors and who was one of the best ball strikers of

all-time said he expected to hit only four or five perfect shots a round, out of 65 to 72

shots.

Sorry for going off topic but, as I said, golf for me is a passion. All golfers can

send me $10 bucks for the lesson. Send the money to, Thanks for Improving my Golf

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Game, Greg Youre one hellava nice guy Zulak.

What does this have to do with training? Everything. Doing exercises is also in

many cases anti-intuitive. You may think youre doing an exercise correctlybecause

its the way youve done it since your first day in the gymbut you may be making all

kinds of mistakes. When you are doing your exercises in the gym, dont just do them, do

them perfectly. Dont cheat excessively. Dont heave and toss and throw heavy weights

around with speed, momentum, and inertia without thought. The only way to get better

in any athletic endeavor is if you practice doing something the right way.

When youre at the gym you have to practice your exercises correctlycorrect

for innervation, isolation, stimulation and pumpor you will never improve. Throwing

and heaving heavy weights may be gratifying because doing so allows you to lift heavier

weights but actually gives your muscles less stimulation and work. Dont kick with your

knees and drive with the legs on standing presses. Dont yank and pull on pull downs

and rows, or kick and wiggle on chins. Dont shrug with your delts and traps and lean

back on curls. Dont arch your chest and bounce the bar off your chest doing bench

presses and incline presses. Many people are in such big hurry to get big and strong

they wreck every exercise in the book by using such heavy weights that all they can do

is cheat like crazy. They build their egos, not their muscles.

Like the golfers