The Making Of a Champion #001
Jon Bridge, owner of the famous Ironman Hardcore Gym of Champions gives you his take on training, diet, and mental focus with "The Making of a Champion" blog posts right here on NAPA BODYBUILDING.
Jon is a former Mr Britain and Mr World, Universe contender with bags of experience and a brutal approach to bodybuilding prep. Jon is also the "husky voice" behind the microphone on NAPA TV's commentary team who, although sounds like he has been "eating glass" for most of his life, he offers great insight into bodybuilding and what is required to become a champion, as-well as an epic sense of humor which makes him as endearing and cuddly as a bearded teddy bear .
The Making Of a Champion #001
So we decide to build/sculpt our bodies and the gym equipment and weights become our tools for pursuing the task ahead.
How does it work?
The muscle cells we possess require physical stimulation/overload via intense exercise to respond,adaptation of the cell in order to cope with the exercise performed,its response after undergoing muscle trauma (intense weights session) is to be repaired bigger, faster, stronger!!!
To cope with any future intense overload,our body's defense system increase our muscle cells size and strength capability, and in order to continue to develop we must also continue to train heavier and harder,making our muscles adapt to cope and as they adapt they grow-simple eh!! Physiology (human body function and form) shall be read about much further in printed-off info sheets.
So now we know we must stimulate our muscles,we join a gym and seek advise on the task ahead. But there are a thousand workout plans, millions of 'experts', lots of contradicting advice, loads of different types of gym equipment, and basically, its all very confusing!! But like I said in part one, it is very important we spend all our time and effort progressing in the right direction, our path to success, not the wrong way to failure, and having to avoid beach holidays in case a whaling ship harpoons ya'!!
Well what do we do? We seek expert experienced help and advice,have a consultation on our objectives/goals etc.Then set the plan and then proceed in that order.
Righty then, so we wanna be a bodybuilder, not huge but just look muscular, conditioned, fit and strong!! We need to develop our bodies with a weight-training program which trains our full body so we can develop all our physique equally so to give us symmetry.proportion and size. We don't want to be misshaped with huge chest and arms, with legs like a heron!!
How many days and how long (duration) should our workouts be?
Now this depends because if we only have certain days we can train due to other commitments (work, family etc) and only a little time then we must plan the workout to suit the client. However, if like me you will put the gym first to get to the top then its a different ball-game! No compromise approach is the best way, but very rare, way forward due to life's demands. So we have to decide on the best way forward to become bigger, faster, stronger in the most productive way possible.
To do this, and set a workout plan, we discuss the clients aims and then we decide; how many days do we train per week; which exercises; which body parts; how may sets and reps etc, etc...
Now my knowledge and vast experience in this game means that I can apply my expertise to carry out this task. We must also remember the status of the client, beginner, novice, advanced, body-type, male or female, health, age etc, must all be considered when devising the plan.
So lots to consider!
First and foremost we assess the gym and its facilities/equipment to see which machines/weights are available as our tools to use. Some gyms are very limited which means we are limited in our selection, some gyms like mine have no limits! So we decide on which machines to use we must then perform on them correctly, training in a correct manner is a must but not often adhered to mainly due to poor advice, being too macho and trying to lift too heavy to impress onlookers, being plain stupid, or having a training partner trying to force-rep you so much that you turn red n shake violently, legs kicking!! Yes I've seen that many times!!
Each rep must be controlled by our muscle in a smooth fashion, with both positive and negative parts of the rep controlled full range of movement, and utilising a paused contraction on each rep (i.e. we squeeze each rep (contract) at the contraction point of each rep (increasing the muscle overload).
So lifting too heavy and cheating is OUT, its not big nor clever, its for the egotistical brain-dead! Train correct, train smart!!
How many sets and reps?
Well without going too deep regarding fibre types etc (printed sheets shall go deep into body science), its basically 6 reps = low/heavy,.8-10 reps medium and 12-15 high/light. That's easy eh!
How many sets?This depends on aims and ability ability. In general, I would say 15 sets for large muscle groups and 10 for smaller muscles. Large would be quads, back, chest. Small muscle groups would be biceps, delts, triceps and calves,
Reps would be a mixture of low to high,low on our heavy compound lifts(basic free-weight lifts .i.e squats)(free weight meaning -not machine)Higher on machines(but not always as hammer strength type are great for heavy sets too).
Next we can decide which body-parts we train on which days and why; how do we group/match body-parts; how many sessions per week is best??
Still lots more to learn and understand in constructing our training/workout plan which I shall undertake next in part 2.
