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21st Century bodybuilding has become a complicated business. It seems that to get anywhere in this game nowadays, you've got to have PHD level knowledge on everything from nutrition to kinesiology, from chemistry to, dare I say it, psychology. We're constantly being bombarded with state of the art research about everything from metabolic typing to visualization, from chemical sub-structures to ECG graph print-outs. It's enough to make an old school iron pumper growl in disgust. Fortunately for the several million of us who would like to keep things simple, however, there is one muscle building truism that will never change, no matter how far our sport meanders into technical triviality: to build huge and freaky muscle mass you've got to haul heavy poundage.

Go Heavy or Go Home

The principle of progressive resistance is the cornerstone of the sport of bodybuilding, and for good reason. Without it we simply will not progress. That's because our bodies have an amazing adaptive ability. If you're pumping 100 pounds on the tricep push-down for 10 reps, it won't take your body long to get used to that level of stress. When it does, it won't have any reason to respond and the process that, if supported by proper rest and feeding, leads to bigger muscles will never get started. That is why you need to be lifting heavier and heavier weights progressively to keep packing muscle onto your frame. To put it bluntly, if you're not pushing the poundage to the edge of your ability, you're pretty much wasting your time. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you've got to increase the weight on the bar each set. That is only one way to make the weight feel heavier. There are a whole host of intensity techniques that will also do the trick, such as reducing rest between sets or doing drop sets. Yet, increasing the weight progressively is an essential ingredient that must not be side-stepped.

The Great Rep Debate

Go heavy for 6-10 reps to build mass, and go light for 15 to 20 reps to get cut.

That apparently sage piece of bodybuilding advice has been doing the rounds for longer than most of us have been on the planet. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting, it's a load of baloney. It has led a lot of mass hungry gym neophytes to while away their gym time with light weights and high reps, get absolutely nowhere and give up in despair, convinced that they just aren't genetically disposed to building muscle. One the other side of the ledger there are those hardcore individuals who are convinced that the only way to get big is to max out on every set, keeping the reps way down in the one to three range. After all, they argue, a stronger muscle is a bigger muscle, so lets get as strong as we possibly can. It's hardly surprising, then, that there's a lot of confusion around the trenches regarding the ideal rep range. So, what's the truth about this rep thing?

To build muscle we must firstly place maximal stress on that muscle. Performing one repetition of a movement with a maximum poundage will not recruit all of the fibers within the muscle cell. In fact, it will only stimulate somewhere between 65 and 80 % of them. The more reps you do, the higher the number of fibers recruited. Of course, there has to be a trade off to this ' after all you can only do one rep with your one rep max. So the weight needs to come down to enable you to do more reps and, as a result, recruit more muscle fiber. As the reps increase, the initial 65-80 % of fibers recruited fatigue and more fibers are called into action. After a certain number of reps there will be no more fibers left to recruit and the set will come to the point of positive (concentric) failure. To complicate matters further, there are more than one type of fiber within the muscle cell. There are, in fact, two types of human muscle fiber. Type 1 (or slow twitch) fibers have a slow contraction time and are highly resistant to fatigue. These fibers are predominant in cardiovascular exercise. Most of our everyday activities also involve slow twitch fibers. Type 2 (or fast twitch) fibers are just the opposite ' they have a fast contraction time and a low resistance to fatigue. These Type 2 fibers are the ones responsible for muscle growth. They are stimulated by heavy resistance. The lighter the resistance the more the Type 1 fibers come into play. Clearly, then, there must be a cut off point where the resistance switches from maximally activating Type 2 fiber to stimulating Type 1 fiber. Not surprisingly, dozens of studies have been performed over the years to determine what that cut off number is. The result? The ideal range to maximally stimulate Type 1 muscle fiber is between 6 and 8 reps. Any less than that and you won't be recruiting 100 % of those fibers and much more than that will switch the emphasis over to Type 1 fibers.

Temper the Flame

Having established the technical validity of training hard and heavy for 6-8 reps, lets add a qualifier or two in order to create a sensible, productive routine. You cannot and should not go heavier every time you work out. Your body operates in cycles and rhythms that make it impossible to be constantly lifting a heavier weight every time you work a muscle group. As we all know the body also arrives at its own plateaus. If it didn't, we'd see guys who have been training since the Sixties pushing 800-pound bench presses by now. So, if you set your mind on pushing a heavier weight every single work-out, there will be only one inevitable result: you will start to cheat on your form in order to get more weight up. In so doing, you'll be leaving yourself wide open for a serious injury. So, rather than setting your mind on upping the weight every session, view the adding of weight as just one ' albeit the most important ' way to enhance training intensity. When a weight that you used to be able to barely manage 6 reps on now allows you to squeeze out 8 reps, than it's time to add a pound or two ' not before.

You should also cycle your training so that every six weeks you get a complete break from working out for a week or so. This allows the body time for both mental and physical recuperation. Do not fall into the trap of working your body to exhaustion. It demands time to refresh and refocus. If you ignore this demand, your body will literally eat away at your muscle stores ' the mere thought of which is enough to send most bodybuilders into a catatonic state.

A Heavy Routine

When it comes to hard and heavy training, what role models come to mind? The Nineties gave us Dorian Yates. The Eighties saw the emergence of the golden eagle, Tom Platz. The Seventies belonged to Arnold. The Sixties were ruled by such luminaries as Bill Pearl and Larry Scott. And the Fifties? Anyone remember Marvin Eder? If you're going "Marvin who?" then you're in need of a quick iron history lesson. Marvellous Marvin is perhaps the strongest bodybuilder who ever lived. Check out a few stats: 510 lb bench press