Barbell Rows, when done correctly, can be one of the most effective exercises for building back strength & muscle size. When done incorrectly, they can lead to injuries which can last a lifetime. You won’t meet many bodybuilders with great physiques who haven’t used this movement a great deal – so you should be using it too! Let’s review a few of the most commonly asked questions regarding barbell rows.

How often should I be using barbell rows
Unless you have a nagging injury, this exercise should be used with every back workout, usually once per week for 4 sets of 8 to 12 repetitions. There may be times each year when you want to spend 6 to 8 weeks away from the heavy compound movements and wish to give your joints a rest.

Are barbell rows dangerous?
When using extremely heavy weight, the lifter can be at risk for two injuries in particular. The bent over nature of the exercise lends to risk with AC and RC joints, and many lifters who use a sudden, jerking, explosive lifting motion have suffered from torn biceps.

What kind of form should be used with barbell rows?
There are two main variations of the movement which adhere to radically different forms. For the first, your body should be either at a 45 degree angle (for barbell or Yates rows) and you should pull the weight up to your waist while keeping the grip narrow. Alternatively, the Pendlay rows are completed at a 90 degree angle, with the rear end out and the back as straight as possible. Alternate versions of this movement to hit the muscle fibers from as many angles as possible.

What kind of grip should I be using?
Lifters will use both overhand and underhand grips for barbell rows. The overhand is the most popular grip to avoid a torn biceps, but the underhand grip will target the traps and lower lats a bit more.

How can I get better results from barbell rows?
This is a tough exercise which requires the use of many muscles of the back, shoulders, biceps and forearms, as well as the tendons and ligaments. You will want to make sure you have all your ducks in a row in terms of nutrition and rest. A diet rich in protein (steak, eggs, chicken, whey, and fish) along with carbohydrates (pasta, rice and potatoes) along with 7.5 to 8.5 hours of sleep each night will ensure you have the energy to train as well as the tools to recover.

Shoulders are the cap, the corner piece for a powerful and well balanced physique. The deltoids are a 3-headed muscle group which comprise the shoulders, and need to be trained with a very targeted approach in order to full develop all three of the heads to their potential, while doing so in a symmetrical manner. Don’t just blindly enter the gym and knock out every shoulder exercise you see. And don’t try to use only one compound building movement, in the belief that it will cover all of your bases.

Compound movements
There are the exercises which hit ALL of the sections of the shoulders. Think of the major Olympic or powerlifting lifts such as the overhead clean, jerk and press. All of the 3 heads of the deltoids are hit when using these movements, as well as a slew of other muscle groups too. Seated dumbbell and barbell (as well as machine versions) military press fall into this category as well.

Front deltoids are usually targeted following the pressing compound movements. Seated or standing dumbbell or cable raises to the front nail this muscle group perfectly, as does the ever unpopular barbell front raise. Choose 1 exercise of 4-5 sets for this muscle group.

Side deltoids
Dumbbell or cable side raises – with the elbows slightly bent – are very popular for hitting the side deltoids. Stick with 2 exercises, each consisting of 3-5 sets of 8 to 15 repetitions.

Rear deltoids
Often overlooked yet essential for complete development, the rear delts are nailed with the standard 45 degree dumbbell raises. There are also other machines specifically designed for this muscle group in your gym. And, when all else fails, spin around on the cable chest flye machine to hit the rear delts in a very deliberate manner. One exercise of 4 sets should be plenty, unless you have a deficiency in this muscle group at the moment.

Don’t neglect your traps when training your shoulders so hard. They are the sheet of muscle connecting the neck to the shoulder and should be trained on shoulder or back day. Use dumbbell or barbell shrugs – high weight with low repetitions – to target this very growth-resistant muscle group.

Remember that your shoulders receive a bit of a workout with everything you do in the gym pertaining to upper body. Chest, back, and even upper arm days are usually going to deliver some layover effect to your shoulders as they work in a support role for you.

When it comes to building an ideal 4-day bodybuilding muscle group split, shoulders always seem to be the ‘odd man out’. Chest gets its own day. Back enjoys its own day. Arms and legs need their own days too. Shoulders are something hit with back, sometimes with chest, and sometimes added in with legs – anything to keep them from needing that 5th training day which places too much stress on your central nervous system. After all, we all grow faster when we’re training 4 days (heavy days, that is!) each week, with 3 days to rest. Training 5 days per week, with only 2 rest days, results in a situation where you can’t find enough time to heal.

Combining shoulder and back days seem to make the most logical sense. You can do it – but you will need to very carefully select which exercises you will be using. Spending an hour on a dozen sets of cable exercises for burning out your back just doesn’t make sense here. Choosing 3 heavy back movements (such as deadlifts, chins, and barbell rows) and 2 heavy shoulder movements (such as seated barbell military press and bent over side dumbbell laterals) will be the way to go. Your workout will consist of twenty total work sets – 12 for back, and 8 for shoulders. Each set should be taken to failure, with 6 to 12 repetitions per set being the ideal. Train hard and then get out of the gym – 20 sets maximum!

Always take a rest day immediately following this combined training session. Two rest days might be even better! Your central nervous system is going to be beaten down after 20 sets of heavy compound movements from this back/shoulder day, so don’t plan a trip to Disney World the day after this – plan a day at the pool relaxing with a nice steak! You’ve got to heal, because that is when you grow.

If either your back or shoulders is one of your top 2 lagging muscle groups, then you will want to reconsider this option. If your chest and arms are very strong, and your back and shoulders are weak, then you should consider combining the chest & arms into their own single day, and giving back its own day, and shoulders their own day. Always customize your training so that you can give the most time, energy, and other resources to the muscle groups that need it the most!

Building shoulders has proven to be one of the most challenging tasks that any bodybuilder can face. Shoulders were the weakest muscle group for the great Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he trained harder and with more focus than perhaps any other lifter of his day. Developing the 3 heads of the deltoids can be difficult, but not impossible. What is required is a balanced and intelligent approach based upon volume and consistency.

Start each workout with 5 to 10 minutes of warmups with a light dumbbell or 10 pound Olympic plate. Move the AC and RC joints in every possible direction and really loosen up, if that is possible for you. Begin with 4 sets of a moderately heavy controlled movement for the full shoulder region, such as Hammer Strength seated shoulder press. Move on to a free weight movement, such as 4 sets of seated dumbbell press on an 80 degree incline bench for 8 to 12 repetitions. Now you can take a breath, relax and move on to the safer and easier dumbbell work. Find 8 to 12 more sets comprised of movements such as DB front, side, and 45 degree angle lateral raises. End your shoulder day with another 5 minutes of stretching with a light weight.

You can’t build great shoulders in a week, or a month. It will take 3 to 6 months of a steady shoulder program to see any noticeable change, but once that change arrives, it’s there to stay. Once you add an inch of width, you never lose it, and you forever look like you have an entirely new physique. So the rewards are worth the wait!

Keep in mind that you will see men in the gym who possess very impressive shoulder muscle, who improperly or barely even train the shoulders. This may be due to the use of steroids. Remember that AAS users see explosive growth in their thighs, upper arms and in particular, the shoulders, due to the density of tightly packed muscle fibers in these regions. They might train shoulders with just a few sets, or they might skip shoulder training altogether. If you are a natural trainer, it can be difficult to accept your own shoulder development in comparison, but remember that you are on an entirely different playing field. And, should you decide you’d like to go down the chemically assisted road, you will blow those shoulder part-timers right out of the water!

Calves are very commonly overlooked by bodybuilders, and for good reason. They aren’t a large muscle group. We don’t see them all that often when flexing in the mirror. And above all, it is very hard to see really noticeable progress when training the calves. Even if we devote a year to them, bi-weekly training with tons of food (and maybe gear!), they may grow an inch that we might not even notice. Calves are often forgotten until you take the bodybuilding competition stage, at which point you remember quite quickly why they are important. Let’s check out the best way to build & showcard freaky lower legs!

Getting the calves big
First, you have to muscle them up. Just as you need to add 10 pounds of mass to the scale for every inch you add to your arms, you will need to add that ten pounds to see a new inch on your calves. If you are staying ripped all year, you won’t see new calf muscle growth. It is only when you enter that “build new muscle all over” phase with squats, deadlifts, rows, and plenty of food, milk and sleep that the kind of muscle growth you desire will begin to arrive.

Getting the calves ripped
Once you have added one to two inches to your calves, and plenty of muscle all over, it’s time to diet down so that your new calf muscle will be visible to the world. Standard dieting tenets apply. Reduce your overall caloric intake through fat and carb manipulation, keeping your protein as high as possible. Choose early morning cardio, remembering that the stepper will deliver the best results, thanks to the fact it is a kind of mini-workout for the calves as well. Choose ECA or another supplement stack to help cut the fat faster.

Learning to display the calves
Flex calves daily to help bring out detail. Turn one to the side to show off the depth and three dimensionality of the group.

Here is a sample calf routine that will get your results. It should be completed every 4 to 5 days.

• Standing calf raise with barbell on smith machine, 4 sets of 10 to 20 repetitions
• Seated heavy calf machine raises, 4 sets of 8 to 12 repetitions
• Angled calf sled – slow repetitions, 3 sets of 12 to 25 repetitions

Stay consistent as you build new calf muscle, diet down to show off the cuts, and pose properly to illustrate your new calves to the world. Good luck!

Are you experienced with the world of Tabata? It is a high intensity training technique which has a very vocal pocket of supporters. Let’s look at some of the basics of Tabata training to see if it is something you may want to consider integrating into your training protocol.

The Training
The Tabata method is simple. Hit your entire body using the Hammer Strength or Nautilus machines. Start with 20 seconds of VERY high intensity exercise. Then, rest for 20 seconds. Move from station to station, training with each machine in an extremely intense fashion, until you have completed EIGHT exercises of very high intensity. Take a rest to drink water and recoup your energy, and then repeat. Complete 2 to 5 cycles and you will have saturated your body with an insanely intense workout. You should train with this protocol 3 to 5 times per week, with 4 workouts being the most used option.

Muscle Gain & Fat Loss Benefits
Studies have shown that trainers using this brief high intensity training method make better gains in overall muscle mass than those trainers opting for lower intensity weight work. Endurance is actually also higher, making this better for gaining muscle AND losing fat. This unique blend of superior results explains why the method is growing in popularity so quickly. Trainers see their clients getting stronger and leaner simultaneously, which is rare for a training protocol – so they’re sticking with it.

Becoming a better athlete
If you are involved in any sport which requires explosive strength and fast actions, then Tabata might be a great option for you. If you are already training at a very high level, Tabata will not garner any real results beyond what you are seeing already. However, if you are less than optimally trained, then this may be what you need. Moderately and untrained athletes will respond quickly in 4 to 6 weeks.

Bumping your metabolism
Aerobic workouts lasting longer than 20 minutes will elevate your basal metabolic rate. Intense weight training periods lasting 20 minutes will do the same. You’re essentially combining the two with Tabata, so you can imagine the fat burning effects that will become obvious in a very short time. Significant reductions in body fat levels accompany moderate weight loss. Tabata is recommended for treatment of Type 2 diabetes for this reason – it lines up perfectly the results desired by gym trainers and diabetes sufferers alike.

Improving health
Greater blood flow and better oxygen movement are what you need if you want to live longer and have a better functioning cardiovascular system, and Tabata delivers that – in half the time required for other training protocols.

We’ve all seen the physiques of long distance marathon runners. They are some seriously skinny guys, right? And sprinters always seem to be short, thick and well-muscled. Now, we know that at the highest levels, the people winning races have bodies built for it. The marathoners have plenty of slow-twitch muscle fiber which allows their slimmer bodies to keep on firing for 3 or more hours in a race. And at the same time, the sprinters are stocked thickly with fast-twitch muscle fiber which activates quickly in order to give them their insane level of explosive sprinting power, for a very short while.

Cardio can be very effective for shedding fat, when used correctly. The best high intensity cardio machine workout involves the use of interval training. Start with 60 seconds of moderate paced walking, and then bump up the intensity by 100% with a 2 to 3 mph speed climb. Do this for 1 minute, and then drop back down to the easy level. Alternate one minute slow, and one minute fast, for best high intensity results without burning valuable muscle. You can even challenge your body further by slowing raising your incline or resistance levels as the minutes pass!

Choosing a machine can be a difficult but fun process. Perhaps you have a nice machine that fits nicely in your basement that you’ll use every night. In that case, you have already found your ideal machine. Or, maybe your commercial gym has several different machines. Take advantage of the available variety. Treadmills, elliptical machines, stair steppers, and others are all good options. Use the machine you’ll stick with, and mix them up to give your mind and body fresh options to keep your workouts exciting and your body guessing.

Using an incredibly high amount of intensity is overkill in your workouts – but training hard with high intensity for short periods can be very useful for stimulating muscle fibers of the legs, and burning fat all over. Remember that diet actually plays MORE of a role in the fat loss process than cardiovascular exercise, but cardio is very much needed as well. Keep your protein intake very high, your fat levels moderate (from healthy fat sources such as fish oil), and choose to make carbohydrates the macronutrient you manipulate in order to lose body fat at a specific rate. Also, remember to get plenty of sleep and keep your mental attitude positive as you work to shed body fat. Good luck!

There’s a good chance you have heard of Metabolic Resistance Training, even if not by name. This training protocol has been hotly discussed on the message boards and in gyms over the past year, and it is starting to come into its own as a viable replacement for the standard “20 sets per muscle group” training protocol that has been used by lifters for the last 30 years with moderate to good results.

Metabolic Resistance Training is, essentially, training like a madman. You attack your sets and train with reckless abandon, take a minimal amount of rest (if any), and then immediately jump to your next set. You’ll grow stronger, burn fat, and add muscle to your frame, all while getting out of the gym quickly and building your lung capacity at the same time! MRT is wildly popular with those people who have limited time to train for exactly this reason – it covers plenty of goals and doesn’t take a ton of time!

Metabolic Resistance Training works by delivering to you the greatest possible outcome for your time in the gym. You maximize the change capacity of your body. You will attack each set of each exercise with as much energy and explosiveness as possible. Take 5 seconds to catch your breath as you move to the next exercise and then complete another set with maximum intensity. Metabolic Resistance Training requires you to train full body with each workout. There is one primary goal – exhaust the body.

The results of Metabolic Resistance Training with be something you may not have enjoyed before from a full workout. First off, you will be stronger. After all, you are attacking every muscle group and forcing it to work beyond its usual capacity. Next you will be bigger. Forcing this much blood into every muscle group – more than it may be accustomed to receiving – means your fibers will be growing. The nonstop nature of the workouts ensures you will be burning fat continually for the duration of the workout, so you’ll get leaner. Finally your heart health will skyrocket as your fitness capacity climbs. Spending an entire workout at peak capacity means your lungs will be pumped!

Give Metabolic Resistance Training a try – your body will never see it coming! You may decide its not for you, but as a result of your brief time with it, you’ll be that much closer to having the tools needed to better design your own training program which perhaps first your goals a bit better.

Building a decently thick chest isn’t exactly rocket science. You show up at the gym 2 or 3 times a week with your buddies, you bench press until you get bored, you leave and pig out on some fast food, and voila! You grow some new chest muscle thickness. Does this mean your chest is aesthetic, balanced, or looks good? Of course not. It just means you’ve added some thickness. This is fine for some lifters who just want to grow a bit. But for the dedicated disciples of the weight room who strive for a complete chest, the training needs to be a bit more organized and planned.

Remember the way Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chest would jump out in poses? His upper chest was so thick that he could balance a glass of water upon it. This was a result of a training routine which made the upper chest the main priority. Instead of just hitting the flat bench with his buddies, Arnold would (like many wise athletes do today) utilize incline presses and flyes intelligently in order to build a huge upper chest. And so can you!

3-to-1 incline ratio
Every 1 set of flat bench press or dumbbell pressing should be matched with 3 sets of incline presses. This means each workout should include three set of incline movements (incline bench press, incline dumbbell press, and incline DB flyes) for each set of flat or decline bench press. The upper chest movements stimulate the lower parts of the chest as well.

Dropped level cable crossovers
Wrapping up your chest workout with cable crossovers is a popular method for getting the most of your training. Lowering the cables so that you force your entire pectoral to flex – from bottom to top – is an excellent way to ensure the upper pectorals – and the OUTER pecs – are stimulated. This will grow a bigger upper chest that you can sit a glass of water upon!

Flex!
Between sets and when you’re just at home recovering from the workout, you should be flexing your pectorals as much as possible. Move a great deal of blood into the muscle groups and you will quickly discover greater pumps, greater burns, and more DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) in your upper pectorals, a sure sign your muscles are growing. You will also see more of the separation/gap in the upper pectorals that is so desired by bodybuilders. Flexing more will give you that!

Dip, baby, dip.
One overlooked movement that does contribute to upper pectoral development in a big way is the dip. Try it more in your routine, keeping your chin down and your reps slow and controlled. You may discover your upper pectorals grow more from this movement than anything related to dumbbell or barbell pressing.

Time, diet, rest, consistency and patience all play significant roles in the development of all muscle groups, including the upper chest. Eat right, take care of yourself, give it time and stick to a chest routine which emphasizes the upper pectorals and you’ll have a huge upper chest before you know it!

Most bodybuilders will warn you about the use of cables during your workouts. After all, we all know that the real muscle is built with free weights, right? You see the little guys in the gym, pumping away on the cable crossovers for chest and pulldowns for back, and they’ll never break 180 pounds. It is the true athletes tossing around the iron in the gym for hours at a time that cross the 200-pound threshold and build the serious muscle. We’ve had it ingrained in our minds since our first gym entry that the heavy metal is what we need to grow.

When it comes to most body parts, this philosophy makes sense. Use the cable exercises to ‘finish off’ your muscle groups, but never make them a focus. Use the heavy bench presses for chest – not cable crossovers. Don’t waste your time with cable leg extensions. If you want thick legs, then you have no choice but to use free weight squats. When it comes to training abdominals, you should pick up a 45 pound plate and..

Wait a second. These rules don’t apply when it comes to training your abdominals. The midsection is a unique part of the body in that you don’t want it to become as big and thick as humanly possible. Rather, you wish the midsection to be small and trim – well muscled but tight – so as to ensure you can get as close as possible to that elusive “V-taper”, combining wide shoulders and flaring lats with a small midsection. Let’s check out some light weight cable exercises which can help your to build up your midsection without allowing it to get too wide!

Kneeling Cable Crunches
Using the rope press downs you’d normally use for triceps, take to your knees and crunch away! You’ll hit the upper and even middle abdominals with serious intensity using sets of 12 to 25.

Lying Cable Crunches
Your standard crunches – while holding a cable behind your head! You’ll be sore for 3-4 days after this movement.

Cable Side Raises
Keep the weight very low as you grab the cable grip at waist level and take turns hitting the side abs with each arm. Sets of 20 to 30 reps are ideal here.

Cables are better than standard movements with no weight at all due to the fact they place a light yet continuous tension upon the abs. Use them along with body weight exercises and you’ll soon discover your midsection isn’t getting bigger, but it is getting better. Toss in some cardiovascular exercise on your next pre-season cutting phase and you’ll have a tight midsection in no time!