I do a lot of pondering—usually about my training and how to make it better. That doesn’t make great conversation at parties.
But it does allow me to reflect on my past training and efficiency-of-effort factors I missed. For example…
In 2019, right before the pandemic hit, I was training four days a week, 1 to 1 1/2 hours per workout at a commercial gym.
I felt burned out—tired and unmotivated. To light a fire under my ass, I took this photo…
I was fairly horrified when I saw it, which was the plan. But within a few months the pandemic hit, and my motivation was again punched, kicked, and slammed to the mat. However…
In the middle of the pandemic, around August 2020, I reconnected with Doug “Mr. Universe” Brignole and got his book The Physics of Resistance Exercise. It opened my eyes…
I made some of the most shocking gains—at least to me—at age 60-plus that I can remember in my training history. This pic was taken in July 2021, a few days after my 62nd birthday…
Remember, I did it with 35-minute workouts three days a week, using only a 50-pound PowerBlock dumbbell set, an adjustable bench, and a doorway chinning bar. That’s a hair over 1 1/2 hours per week, NOT per workout…
How was that possible? Heck, before I was training more than double that amount of time—and in a commercial gym with high-end equipment.
The answer is efficiency of effort and low-energy cost…
You see, in the commercial gym I was using a lot of multi-joint exercises, like leg presses, machine chest presses, rows, and pulldowns. I usually followed with some isolation exercises; however, the “big” compound moves were my bread and butter.
From a biomechanics standpoint, most of those multi-joint exercises are inefficient. Even worse, they use a lot of recovery ability, or energy, for not a lot of muscle-building return…
You expend a lot to gain very little…
For instance, I was not working my quads effectively or efficiently with leg presses. Sure, I would often follow with extensions and/or sissy squats. But the leg presses had already taken a high-energy toll…
Add in other inefficient multi-joint exercises for big muscle groups, like pulldowns for lats, and you can see that for a 60-year-old, I was overtraining due to lots of high-energy-cost, inefficient exercises…
In other words, I was essentially wasting time and way too much energy on big moves that weren’t optimal from a target-muscle-building standpoint. They were providing very little hypertrophy with big drains on my recovery.
So for me, the pandemic and my reacquaintance with Doug, as well as my pathetic home gym, which forced me to be innovative, all converged to make me better at building muscle with minimal time and energy cost…
Learning to emphasize the ideal exercise for each muscle, and reaching the growth threshold quickly to avoid too much recovery drain made a huge difference…
And yes, it pisses me off that it wasn’t until my 60s that I figured this out. Still, lesson learned, one perhaps you can benefit from as well…
If you’re compelled, you can do compound exercises—but I highly encourage you to emphasize the ideal exercise first. Save the synergy for only a set—or maybe two—after…
That’s especially important for skinny ectomorphs—and it’s critical for an OLD Jolly Roger hardgainer like me.
New: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos, and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
X-Rep.com
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The “New” Perfect Physique
You’ve probably believed that women go crazy over huge muscles. You’ve probably even aspired to look like Arnold at some point.
The picture of the perfect physique seems to have changed over the years…
There were several years when it seemed women preferred a leaner and smaller physique like Brad Pitt’s in Fight Club.
Luckily, that seems to have just been a fad, and a more muscular look has become more desired again. Not pro bodybuilder big, but something in between with good muscularity and chiseled detail…
Alain Gonzales refers to it as the “Athletic-Aesthetic” physique, and women go wild over it.
Check out Alain’s 12-week program here: