The Low Down on Reps, Sets, and Length of Workouts

I want to touch base about something very important about training. Besides steroids and testing your gear with Roidtest or some other like product, training is the most overlooked part of the whole process. Without proper training, all the steroids in the world will not help you. Every single training program or routine is completely worthless if you don’t give it enough time to work.

You know how many young guys I talk to that tell me a certain routine they read about did nothing for them.

Then I find out they were doing the routine for two weeks and then went onto something else.

Let me give it to you straight. All routines are worthless if you do not stick with them for at least 8 weeks.

Stop jumping around from program to program, saying that nothing seems to work for you.

You must stick with a weight-training program like DC Training for at least 8 weeks before you’ll see any great results.

What do you do after that 8 weeks?

Well, if it worked well for you, keep doing it.

Against what many people may lead you to believe, you DO NOT need to change up your routine often to get weight gain and muscle gain results as believed by Mike Mentzer.

Your body does not stop responding to exercise just because you are performing the same routine and the same exercises often.

The key to muscle growth is overload, which we will talk more about in just a moment.

So do not feel like you have to switch things around all the time.

I actually made my best strength and weight gains when I did the same 3 chest exercises, the same 3 bicep exercises, 3 tricep exercises, and the same 3 shoulder exercises.

What must change is the amount of overload that’s being used.

This step, we talk specifically about how many reps and sets you should be doing.

I know at first glance, the amount of reps and sets I suggest to you are not going to seem like enough.

If that’s the case, please go back to the very beginning of this program and read the part about having 100% faith in this program.

Again, every single word written in this program, I have used myself and can recommend it works.

I would not suggest something to you if I didn’t think it held your best interests. Here is the scoop on reps and sets:

I swear everyone and their cousins have an opinion on how many reps and sets you should do.

The last time I checked, that cousin was fat and not muscular, so be careful who you listen to.

I used to do a ton of sets and a ton of reps.

What did I have to show for it?

Not much in the way of muscle growth, that’s for sure.

But when I learned from some of the top natural pros about the rep and set range I’ll discuss with you, my muscle gains and strength increase soon blew past anything I had ever experienced.

The best thing though, I’ve used this rep range and set scheme with hundreds of clients.

And it works.

Is this program the only way to train? Of course not, that’s like saying there is only one food you should eat, or only one car you should drive.

The point I’m trying to make it this–if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

If this program has worked wonders for many others, and me why look for anything else.

I can honestly say I’ve spent hundreds of dollars and have tried hundreds of different programs in my life and the pages you are reading and are about to read are the past 15 years of my weightlifting life condensed into 100 pages.

I’ve been weight training since the age of 16. I started in high school to get ready for football season.

I have hundreds of old Flex magazines and muscle building books sitting in milk crates with an inch of dust on them.

So believe me, I’ve tried as many different programs, rep schemes, sets, exercises, and supplements like Aromasin and the rest.

What I write here is saving you 15 years and hundreds of dollars.

With that said, this step will be one of the most important ones you make to your routine.

It’s probably the one change I made in my routine that allowed me to gain more strength and more muscle in a shorter time than I have ever gained.

In late 2000, I was working out regularly and thought I was in pretty good shape.

Here are some of the lifts I was doing.

Flat bench press–285 pounds Incline bench press 215 pounds Squats 385 pounds Alternate dumbbell curls–50 pounds each arm straight bar bicep curls–100 pounds Seated dumbbell shoulder presses–50 pound dumbbells 1 arm dumbbell rows–60 pounds

Now, after I really searched for the most successful training principles available to man, I started using some of these principles in my own routine and soon the changes were staggering.

Early 2001, about 12 weeks after making some of the changes you’re about to make in your own routine, my lifts were:

Flat bench press–365 pounds Incline bench press 265 pounds Squats 525 pounds Alternate dumbbell curls–80 pounds each arm straight bar bicep curls–145 pounds Seated dumbbell shoulder presses–90 pound dumbbells 1 arm dumbbell rows–120 pounds

Do I mention any of this to impress you? Of course not, there are guys out there that can blow me away in lifts that are much bigger than these.

You may be one of them.

I’ve learned in my time here on earth that there is always someone bigger and stronger right around the corner, so by dropping the whole ego thing, you get further.

What I want to illustrate is the percentage of weight I was able to go up in such a short time using the following changes we are going to make.

Just think, if you are benching 300 pounds now, what you’ll be able to move in 8 to 12 weeks.

Now, these lifts of mine were also accompanied by a large increase in lean muscle mass.

That’s not a coincidence.

CONT TO – Muscle growth occurs from lifting heavy