If You Want to Look Like a Bodybuilder, You Need to Train Like One!

Bodybuilding is a dying sport.

Attend any local or state NPC show and you’ll see that the quality and number of competitors has been adversely impacted. Male competitors are moving towards the more socially acceptable and readily obtainable men’s physique type aesthetic; exercise routines are gravitating towards Crossfit and functional type training. In the milieu of all these new training systems one important fact has been forgotten: if you want to be as muscular and as ripped as possible, you need to train like the athletes who are judged solely on the aesthetic components of size, leanness, and symmetry. Bodybuilders.

So often I see arguments based around what type of programming is more effective based on an individual’s personal exercise routine rather than science. Even worse, I see coaches plugging the square peg into the round hole simply because they can’t admit that their limited training knowledge can’t possibly address every conceivable athletic and aesthetic goal. Clients with no grasp of proper movement or body awareness using kettlebells because their trainer is RKC certified. Non-functional exercise neophytes being thrown into challenging WODs because their trainer has his Level 1 cert. Not only is this programming completely and totally inappropriate for the client’s goal, it’s begging for injury. And a coach’s primary focus at all times should be avoidance of injury.

Below you see some examples of physiques that are representative of the top athletes in their respective sport.

Jim Cordova is 5’7” and weighs 170 lbs onstage. Rich Froning is 5’10” and weighs 190 lbs. Usain Bolt is 6’5” and 196 lbs. And Patrick Musyoki? Let’s just say he’s not impressing the ladies when he takes his shirt off at the beach. They say abs on a skinny guy are like boobs on a fat chick. Of course they have them, but more importantly, who cares? (Just for fun, here’s a shot of Froening with Phil Heath, current Mr. Olympia….the non-drug-tested one).

I’m sure most of you reading this are familiar with the SAID Principal, Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. Having said that, I am constantly amazed at how those that have a conceptual understanding of it will then have a program design that is utterly inconsistent with their understanding of the specificity of exercise. “I want to look like a bodybuilder and I know Crossfit is the fastest way to get in shape.” In fact, Crossfit makes the bold claim that doing Crossfit will produce maximal (drug-free) muscle gains – better than bodybuilding training (which, by definition, is training for hypertrophy). By the same token, the National Strength and Conditioning Association has two agendas identified by its very name, i.e. “Strength” and Conditioning” – neither of which is essential for bodybuilding.

Crossfit is never going to produce bodybuilder-like physiques, and bodybuilding is never going to produce Crossfitters. This isn’t based on opinion or conjecture, it’s based on an understanding on the physiological response to specific types of exercise.

Science is not ego-based (at least it shouldn’t be), it’s evidence and fact based.

There are 5 components that are generally recognized to encompass what is known as “fitness” (per the Surgeon General’s report in 1996, adapted from Wilmore and Costill, Physiology of Sport and Exercise, 1994).

These are:

• Cardiovascular fitness (marathon runner),

• Muscular strength (powerlifter),

• Muscular endurance (MMA fighter),

• Flexibility (yoga), and

• Body composition (bodybuilder).

If your goal is simply to look better naked, you should only be addressing components other than body composition to the extent that those components do not hinder your attempts to do so.

In other words, if your cardiovascular fitness is so poor that you’re tapping out on squats because of aerobic failure rather than muscle failure, you need to do cardio. Other than that, you’re wasting your time and causing your body to adapt to a stress that isn’t conducive to your goal.

I can see the Crossfitters reading this spitting out their Kool-Aid and preparing to send me threatening messages. Please don’t bother. I am a fan of the sport, and I recognize the startling physical transformations that are possible because of it. I also know this: if you’re singular goal is to look good without your shirt on, using Crossfit as the vehicle to get you there is analogous to training to climb K2 when your goal is to make it to the 3rd floor without using the elevator. Ok – perhaps the Surgeon General’s report wasn’t an expansive enough definition of fitness. That’s fine, there are others…

According to Crossfit, there are 10 area of fitness (which are actually 7/10 of the areas identified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association in their guidelines to athlete assessment):

It’s interesting to note that all of the areas of focus within Crossfit’s definition deal with issues of performance (as do 8/10 of the NSCA guidelines). The favorable changes in body composition that occur with Crossfit, are a by-product of creating as much competency as possible in these 10 areas, NOT THE PRIMARY FOCUS. The reality is that if Rich Froning looked like John Goodman, he’d still win the Crossfit Games if his totals didn’t change. Yes, to the average male, Rich Froning is a Greek God. To the average bodybuilder, Rich has a physique that would get him laughed offstage.

The Science Behind the SAID Principal

“An inverse relationship exists between striated muscle fiber size and its oxidative capacity. This relationship implies that muscle fibers, which are triggered to simultaneously increase their mass/strength (hypertrophy) and fatigue resistance (oxidative capacity), increase these properties (strength or fatigue resistance) to a lesser extent compared to fibers increasing either of these alone.”(1)

In laymen’s terms, if you’re goal is simply larger muscles, any attempt to increase muscular endurance is going to produce less than optimal results than pure hypertrophy training. To get as big and strong as possible, forget the aerobics!  In fact, the more minutes per day you perform endurance training, the less hypertrophy, strength, and power you’re going to develop:

(Adapted from: CONCURRENT TRAINING: A META-ANALYSIS EXAMINING INTERFERENCE OF AEROBIC AND RESISTANCE EXERCISES)

This doesn’t mean that you can’t get “strong” or “big” while doing endurance training – it means you’ll never be as big and strong as you would have been, had you not done the endurance training.

Resistance training leads to hypertrophy through hormonal increases (testosterone, HGH, and IGF-1), gene adaptations (protein synthesis and transcription) and satellite cell proliferation (2). Endurance training produces increased mitochondrial density and expression of Type I fibers (3). This is to be expected, one can see this demonstrated through the various body types produced by the sport-specific training in the examples posted above.

Perhaps more importantly, concurrent training (performing resistance and aerobic activity together) seems to produce interference that almost completely overrides the normal response to resistance training. In one study, 8 college-age males completed two phases of exercise, one resistance portion consisting of 4 sets/10 repetitions of unilateral leg presses and extension. The second phase consisted of the same resistance exercise followed by 90 minutes of stationary bike at 60% VO2 max. The resistance only portion showed a significant increase in satellite cell proliferation in Type I fibers, while the resistance with aerobic phase actually showed a decrease. (3)

An additional study was conducted using 8 men in their 20s. All 8 performed trials that consisted of a resistance component (8 sets/repetitions @ 80% of 1RM) followed by 30 minutes of cycling at 70% VO2 peak. The order was then reversed. In both cases, the addition of the aerobic component, whether it preceded or followed the resistance component, had an adverse impact on the anabolic response of resistance training. When it preceded it, levels of IGF-1 Ea were suppressed, as were mRNA and MGF. When it followed it, aerobic activity increase inflammation response and protein degradation. (4)

Conclusion

It seems that with specificity of exercise, the saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none” has a great deal of relevance. Many sports require competency at a myriad of aspect of fitness – but bodybuilding isn’t one of them. The NSCA presumably seeks to focus on Strength and Conditioning while Crossfit’s goal is to become as competent as possible at the 10 components they identify, and RKC’s goal is to become as good as possible with Kettlebells; all valid goals.

However, the vast majority of people with whom I come into contact merely want to look good without their clothes. Focusing on aspects of fitness that aren’t crucial to improving their aesthetic is not only a waste of time, it is ultimately counterproductive to the very goal they seek.

Aerobic and endurance activity are often seen as necessary components to an aesthetic goal, particularly when one is attempting to lean out. I advise my clients to lean out through increased resistance training sessions and strict adherence to nutritional programming and to avoid aerobic activity altogether. Doing so maximizes retention of lean body mass during a fat loss phase. I’ve seen too many clients work themselves to death to gain muscle, only to lose it all because of ill-advised programming.

Source:  vpxsports.com