Transcription
Let me explain to you how one working set is actually the best way to make sure you're building muscle. I think sometimes we get caught up in the idea that more is better when we go in the gym. And to a degree when you're learning how to lift, there is an element of skill acquisition that it is important to understand. Yes, volume matters. Training volume matters.
But over time, and when I say time, I've been in this game for a long time. I've been lifting weights for 35 years. I'm still a lifetime natural uh bodybuilder, and I've accumulated a really nice amount of muscle. But what's really allowed me to continue to progress even at 50 is that I've really learned how to train properly for the purposes of putting on muscle, making sure I'm recovering properly, and moving forward.
So, let's talk about this today in the training video where I'm going to show you exactly what I mean because we hear about these principles. We hear about this micer, these high-intensity principles. And I think sometimes it can be a little bit misunderstood when people say, "Oh, one working set. Oh, two working sets." But what a lot of people don't actually understand is what leads up to that working set. That's actually considered training volume. It's not just the single set that matters.
And so understanding that as an experienced lifter, if I brought someone into my workout who doesn't train with much frequency and taught them how to train with proper technique, how to engage the muscle properly and put them through my warm-up before I got to my working set, they would be exhausted. They would be fatigued. So, there is a there is the ability here to make that working set better because I've learned the proper tools of how to uh get ready properly. Dynamic warm-ups, which is basically going through the motion with a lower load and increasing that load over a few sets until I'm ready to get to my allout set.
So, what you're going to see here today in this video is me training chest and shoulders. And we're talking about technically six working sets. Six working sets over the course of maybe 40 45 minutes. And this was a fantastic session. Now I had strained my back earlier in the week and I thought I still need to do my session. And that's one of the great things about bodybuilding is the ability to adapt your training around. So, instead of lugging around heavy dumbbells, and if you haven't been watching my content lately, I've been really excited that I've been actually hitting some nice PRs with flat dumbbell presses with the 125s. I've been doing inclines with over 100s. I've been doing some really good weights. Um, you know, and so instead of that today, because the real struggle for me was like picking up, you know, couple hundred pounds worth of dumbbells, I moved everything to machines. And I was in my friend's new gym in Tampa. And if you're in the North Tampa Loots, Wesley Chapel area, you got to check out Morning Fitness. My buddy Bernard has built a great gym, but he's got some really cool pieces. And I started with this incline converging chest press and I moved on to a flat chest press. But if you'll notice was I started with a uh incline converging press on a machine that I, you know, I've used in the past, but I've never used it to this extent. Right? So warming up on this machine um for me was about acclimating to how it was going to feel each time I unrackck the weight, the good stretch, and then adding a little bit of weight.
Now, when I'm warming up to my one working set, I'm making sure I stay away from fatigue. That doesn't mean I'm not pushing myself, but I push myself to the point where I can start to sense that I'm doing some real work. And then I will actually stop the set, take a short break, and increase the weight until I get to my working set. Now, for working sets, I don't like the reps to be too low. Right? If you're talking about one, two, three reps, you're putting so much stress and strain on your body that you're more likely to compromise your form to get the rep completed. I prefer to stay in the five to 10 rep range um for a kind of all out one set. So you'll see me I'll kind of pyramid the weight up and for some exercises I'll actually do a drop set. I just kind of decide um based on the exercise and how I'm feeling, how fatigued I am. Almost always on my first exercise of the day I'm going to do a drop set. So that's exactly what I did.
Now what does this mean for recovery? Recovery is the ability to train hard and come back and train again. Okay? I like to give each body part three, four or five days off between sessions. Um, and what this allows is the body to accumulate the progress that you made from the session. Going to go home and eat and train and rest. And after I train, I'm going to rest. And that what that does is the next time I train, I should therefore be stronger.
If you are just going to the gym and going through the motions and just focused on your three sets of eight and not trying to progress, that's a completely different mindset. That is what's going to allow you to maintain where you're at. To evolve, to put on more muscle, you have to be challenging yourself. And these kind of challenges can come in the form of a higher weight on your top set, adding a drop set, um, or using other intensity techniques. So for me specifically through this workout, what I wanted to do was just focus on one top set for each exercise, which came out to six total sets. But again, the first warm-up the day is going to be the most challenging. I see some people do five, six, seven exercises per body part. What I try to focus on is depending on the body part, just enough exercises to hit all of the muscle fibers. So for the chest, in my opinion, that's four movements. So we're going to start with the incline press. I went as high as I could on that. Did a few reps. did a drop set and that was it. I was done. Next, I went to the flat press and again it was another machine that was converging. So, if you're not familiar with chest movements, the function of the pectoral is to bring the elbow across the body. So, when you're doing a converging movement, it actually naturally brings the elbow across the body and you'll really feel the pec contract. If you're doing a pressing movement and the hand goes away from the body or stays the same, you'll feel the pec disengage and the shoulder becomes more engaged. So learning how to engage the pec through tucking the elbow to the proper range. This is you know a skill. Lifting weights is a skill. The movements that you have are skills. So you need to make sure that the skill is proper before you can really push yourself. So why? Because again this is the purpose of the chest is actually to bring the elbow across the body. If you're not getting proficient at a fly movement, you will not be maximizing the volume of the muscle of your chest. Yes, pressing is great, but again, that's a shorter range and you're going to be using a lot of anterior delt and a lot of triceps.
So, for this workout, you know, when I when I hear people tell me like, "Oh, they're doing a lot of volume." I would rather you come to the gym and focus on intensity, intensity of set. If you want to do a lot of volume, that's fine, but finish each exercise with a lot of intensity. So again, with the fly movement, I got pretty close to maxing out the machine for a few good reps um before moving on to shoulders.
Now, shoulders for this day, again, I didn't want to lug around dumbbells. I love a seated dumbbell incline press, but I found a nice machine. I used the Smith machine to really allow me to load it up. Now, because of the angle of the machine, I wasn't really able to put a ton of weight on there before the resistance got really heavy. I think I had a 35 and a 25, but overall, it felt really good. And I got to my top set. Did that. And then I moved on to a side lateral dumbbell raise. Now for the dumbbell raise, because the movement is, you know, a lot of momentum in it, if you let it be, I don't like to go super heavy on those. So, how do I handle a top set when I'm not really moving a lot of weight is I do what's called a giant drop set or three consecutive drops? Um, I got myself warmed up, got myself accumulated, and then I did a set of 30 pounds to failure, 20 pounds to failure, 10 pounds to failure. And at that point, I saw the volume in my shoulders really increase. I finished the workout with dips. Now, a dip is going to be uh an exercise that involves both the triceps, the pec, and the shoulder. So, you're going to be pretty strong at these, especially if you're good at pressing. Typically, if I want to do something heavy on here, I'll I'll add weight to a belt. But again, if I want to be intense and I'm about to finish my workout and sometimes you just want to do something that gives you a good pump. I did one allout set to failure. I was somewhere in the 30 rep range, but again, this was a workout finisher for me. Uh I didn't have a way to add too much resistance to my physique. And sometimes dips are are challenging in a different way because you get a little bit of endurance out of it.
Overall, the focus for this phase of training for me is to get in the gym, stimulate the muscle, and get out of the gym. If you have not tried this type of training, then I highly suggest I'm going to put a full description in the workout in the description box so you can understand it. But designing a training program for athletes like I do, it's it's around maximizing our time in the gym, getting in there, getting the work done, and making sure it was effective so that the next time we train, right? So for me, this was a push. The next time I train is going to be a back day that's going to be followed up by a leg day. Same philosophy. Going to hit the back from multiple angles. I'm going to hit the legs from multiple angles. But for this day, the pecs, the shoulders, multiple angles, very focused, one working set, but you understand that that one working set was led up to by some training volume and it was very intense set before moving on.
So yeah, let me go if you guys have any questions around this style of training. But hopefully this helps you understand the concept of how to build muscle. Even as a natural athlete, you need to not be wearing yourself out, but you need to be training hard enough to grow, but not be so beat up that you're going backwards.
Now, if you're interested in learning more about this style of training, understand that we do coaching. We do one-on-one coaching. We do group coaching. We also have a summer challenge that's coming up where we offer training programs, nutrition programs, and support within a private community. Whatever level of support you need, whether it's just that you like these videos and you want to learn more, comment below. But if you would like to learn more and get involved so that I or one of my team can help design something specifically for you, use the link below.