Welcome to Westy's Workouts » Weight Lifting Workouts

Ripptoe #2 – Bulk Building, Mass Gaining, Muscle Makers!

Scrampy — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:17:12 +0000

I’ve added another Ripptoe workout voted best program to stack muscle on lean bodies on bodybuilding.com forums! It works!

Remember: If you’re new to lifting, get some good training advice and learn good technique! You’ll get more out of your training, and you’ll avoid injuries.

On to the good stuff (btw, it’s also published on the site here: http://westysworkouts.com/i/ripptoe-2-bulk-building-mass-gaining-muscle-makers )

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Authors Note: This workout was originally posted on the Bodybuilding.com Forums by the following member: MATTA114. It is based on a program from the book Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe & Lon Kilgore.

Example:

Week 1:

o Monday – Workout A
o Wednesday -Workout B
o Friday – Workout A

Week 2:

o Monday – Workout B
o Wednesday – Workout A
o Friday – Workout B

Etc. For the actual workouts read below:

Workout A:

* 3×5 Squat
* 3×5 Bench Press
* 1×5 Deadlifts
* **2×8 Dips (if you cant do these or no assist machine then do Decline Dumbbell Bench Press with your hands Facing each other)

print Click Here For A Printable Log Of Workout A.

Workout B:

* 3×5 Squat
* 3×5 Standing military press
* 3×5 Bent Rows (or power cleans)
* **2×8 Chin-ups (recommended mainly if doing the cleans)

Note: This doesn’t include warm-up sets (**)Means this is OPTIONAL

print Click Here For A Printable Log Of Workout B.

Assistance Work:

Most people cant get it through there head that compound lifts also work your arms plenty and always insist on direct arm work. As quoted by Madcow2,

“Don’t **** with this. Every bodybuilder seems to have
Attention Deficit Disorder and an overwhelming desire
to customize everything.”

If you are one of these people note that you have the option of doing the dips and chins which give PLENTY of arm work. Abdominal work is fine to do also if needed.

I recommend weighted decline sit-ups and/or Hanging Leg Raises at 2×8-10.

Weight:

As for the weight, make sure that you use the SAME weight throughout the sets. For example if I do the first set if Squats with 200lbs then I do the other 2 sets of squats with 200lbs.

Every week make it a goal to increase each of your lifts by 2.5%. Meaning if I lifted 100lbs for my Bench Week 1 then Week 2 I would try for 102.5lbs. If I did 200lb Squats Week 1 I would try for 205lbs in Week 2. Sometimes you will be able to do more but don’t mess with your form just to lift more.

Warm-up Sets:

Before all your working sets it is best to do a few warm-up sets. Specifically for your first lift. You don’t have to do the whole thing for the other lifts but definitely the first.

What you do is you ramp your weight up to your working sets.

For Example:

o 2×5xbar (sets x reps x weight)
o 1×5x85
o 1×3x125
o 1×2x155

And the working set weight would be 175.

If you are lifting you’re working sets fewer than 150 I would cut out the 3rd warm-up set of 1×5 because it won’t be needed.

The Lifts:

Barbell Squat:

These should be full range Olympic style squats. Use the full range of your body – that means as low as you can go which for almost everyone is past parallel. If the top of your thighs aren’t at least parallel it’s for sh!t. If you think this is bad for your knees going low, you and whoever told you that are relying on an old wives tale.

Anyone who knows the human body will tell you that below parallel is MUCH safer on the knees whereas parallel and above put all the sheer right on them and doesn’t allow proper transfer of the load to the rest of your body (this is how your body was designed).

Rest a barbell on the upper portion of your back, not your neck. Firmly grip the bar with your hands almost twice your shoulder width apart.

Position your feet about shoulder width apart and your toes should be pointing just a little outward with your knees in the same direction. Keep your back as straight as possible and your chin up, bend your knees and slowly lower your hips straight down until your THIGHS ARE AT LEAST PARALLEL TO THE FLOOR. Once you reach the bottom position, press the weight up back to the starting position.

To be honest ATG (@ss to the Grass) squats work the best IMO. What you do is you go ALL the way down until your hamstrings touch your calves and keep the same Olympic squat form.

Barbell Deadlifts:

Each rep is deweighted fully on the floor. No touch and go. This is called the ‘dead’ lift because the weight is ‘dead’ on the ground. You can touch and go warm ups but that’s it.

This is a very complicated exercise so here is Bodybuilding.com’s detailed instructions on this lift.

Flat Barbell Bench Press:

Lie on a flat bench and firmly position your feet flat on the floor a little more than shoulder width apart. Keep your back flat on the bench! Using a grip broader than shoulder width, hold the barbell above your body, then lower slowly to the middle of your chest. Without bouncing the weight off your chest, drive the barbell up over the middle of your chest until your arms are straight and your elbows are locked. Lower the bar down slowly.

Standing Barbell Military Press:

Standing overhead presses. Supporting weight overhead is a fundamental exercise and stimulates the whole body. Raise barbell to your chest with your hands shoulder width apart. Lock your legs and hips. Keep your elbows in, slightly under your bar. Press bar to arm’s length overhead. Lower to your upper chest or chin (depending on what is comfortable).

Bent Barbell Row:

Raise barbell to your chest with your hands shoulder width apart. Lock your legs and hips. Keep your elbows in, slightly under your bar. Press bar to arm’s length overhead. Lower to your upper chest or chin (depending on what is comfortable).

Chin-Up:

Hold the chin-up bar with a supinated grip (palms facing you) with your hands about 6 to 8 inches apart. Pull yourself up and try to touch either your chin or upper chest to the bar. Return slowly to the starting position. Do NOT swing back and forth! Using this grip works more of your biceps than your back or lats.

Dip:

Using the parallel bars, grip the handles and push yourself up to your starting position. With elbows close to body and hips straight, lower body until shoulders are slightly stretched. Push body up in same posture and repeat. You can bend and cross your legs or keep them straight.

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That’s it for today, if you’re looking for more info on these exercises, google is your friend

Train hard, eat big… and keep moving forward!

Westy

BUILDING MUSCLE TIPS #4 ~ HOW TO STRIP THAT FAT AND REVEAL YOUR LEAN, TONED MUSCLES

Scrampy — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:26:21 +0000

Building Muscle Tips #4

How To Strip That Fat and Reveal Your Lean, Toned Muscles

What good is a muscular body if you can’t see it under layers of fat?

Take a look around next time you go to the mall or out to work. Look at the physiques of the people you work with, the people next to you at the supermarket, the people at the newsagent and the local take away. What is the standard these days? Do people look fit and strong? Well, unless you live in a community where hard physical exercise is the standard then you’ll see fat people.

I’m not talking overweight whales, or massive obese people, I’m just saying people, in general are not as “skinny” as they used to be. It’s got a lot to do with their diets, and the lack of exercise NEEDED to get along in daily life now days. Not a bad thing! I, for one, wouldn’t like to have to be hunting my food and chopping wood for a fire to cook it on. Way too much effort!

So how does one overcome the tendency our body’s have to put on a few extra pounds? Now that we’ve got it so good, we’ve got to come up with a way to stay healthy and lean without popping pills and getting liposuction!

Building Muscle Tips #4
How To Strip That Fat and Reveal Your Lean Toned Muscles

So You’re ready to strip that fat? OK, here’s how it’s done:

Step 1. You need to be following some kind of weight training program. Don’t worry, you’re not going to become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger by lifting weights. But muscles do consume twice as much energy as fat so they’re an advantage. Get started lifting weights 2-3 times a week and you’ll start noticing that you’re not only getting stronger, but your metabolism is speeding up too. You’ll start to get hungry. This is good, because you need to feed your muscles so they become fat burning assets.

Step 2. Don’t do aerobic exercise. Yep, you heard me DON’T do it. You’ve got to be mad right? Everyone says do aerobic exercise so you’ll burn fat, so it must be true. Nope. Well, it is, sort of. But it’s not the most effective way so lets get to it.

What do you do instead? Well, you know how muscle burns more energy than fat right? Well, you can also put your body into a fat burning mode by doing Short and intense cardio exercises. This is similar to say going for a jog, or riding a bike for an hour, except you take all that effort, and put it into 15 minutes! This is commonly called interval training or High Intensity Training.

Here’s how it works:

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), or Interval Training is a training session divided into 2 parts. One intense, and the other less intense.

Here’s an example of a HIIT training session:

Stretches
5 min warmup
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
1 min walk/jog
20 second sprint
5 min cooldown

Stretches

The beautiful thing about this kind of training is that you’ll speed up your metabolism so much that you’ll be burning calories for days! And it only takes 15 minutes!

It’s seriously the BEST way to strip that fat from your body with the least amount of work.

If you’re already training 3 days a week, do this cardio training on your OFF days only. The reason why is because your body simply does not know how to burn fat and build muscle at the same time. Alternate between the 2 so you can get the best of both worlds. And remember, take a day off. Nothing worse than burn out when you’re doing so well.

Is that it? Nope… one last thing:

Step 3. Eat Fresh High Water Content Food.

I’m not going to get into the whole calorie argument and talk about how confusing it is to have to read all the food labels. Let’s just be serious for a second. If you want to get the fat from your body it’s not going to happen eating burgers and fries. You know it. So what do you eat? Well, your best option is to eat food that’s got plenty of nutritional value and helps keep your body and metabolism moving. What’s the best food to do that? Fruit and vegetables.

Yeah, I know, what a drag. Your mama always told you to eat your vegies. Turns out she was right eh. Well, I won’t tell her if you don’t!

But seriously, eat your vegies, and eat them often. Keep your protein levels high by snacking on RAW nuts (not the salty kind, they deep fry them!) and protein shakes / snacks. And supplement your carb intake with mostly fruits and vegetables. You’ll find that you need to work a little harder to eat them. But if you can, eat them raw to provide your body with the best chance to get nutrients out of them.

And eat as much as you like. Yep, I said eat as many fruits and vegetables as you like. At first you’ll probably feel a little bit bloated, but keep at it, and your body will adjust to the higher water content of the food and you’ll balance out. This is what you want. While your metabolism is working quickly, consume good vitamin rich foods and clean out all the crap. (literally!)

If you’re feeling a little uncomfortable and you’re not in a major hurry, then adjust to adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet while cutting out the heavy carbohydrates like fries and burgers and that morning muffin with your coffee etc.

As you start to see results you’ll become more motivated to change your diet. But trust me, if you

1. Work out with weights
2. Do Intense Cardio
3. Replace Junk Food With Fruit and Vegetables

You’ll be stripping the fat faster than ever.

Take some advice from someone who’s done it all before: Sean Nalewanyj.
He’s the former skinny guy and successful author of The Truth About Building Muscle. He’s not only one of the best muscle building experts around today, but he’s got fat burning down to a fine art. Learn from a pro and do something today to be proud of your body.

#3 OPTIMUM ANABOLICS – BY JEFF ANDERSON – A REVIEW

Scrampy — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:23:29 +0000

More
Info…

Cost: ~~$68~~ $47

Format: E-book (Instant Download)

Includes: The Optimum Anabolics "Natural Hormone
Triggering"
Manual

Bonuses: Optimum Anabolics: The Workout, Body Part "SPECIALIZATION"
PROGRAMS, "Anabolic Growth Tracker 5000" Software, Special Report
– How To Measure Your Body

Check
Out OPTIMUM ANABOLICS Here

ACHIEVE STEROID LIKE
RESULTS WITH THESE MASS GAINING SECRETS FROM A MASTER

Jeff Anderson nicknamed “muscle nerd”
has authored Optimum Anabolics. He got the nickname
from his habit of dutifully writing down every minute detail of all
that he did at the gym.

So can he help you? If yes then how?

This “Muscle Nerd” can
definitely help you to realize your goal of body building because
he knows every fact and detail of mass building. He has dedicated
an enormous amount of effort and time to study everything on mass
building. He shares this secret information with you in Optimum
Anabolics.

While you’re reading it, you too like Jeff will come
to know everything relating to the topic of gaining muscle. Jeff not
only shares all that he knows with you but will also teach you to
understand it all.

This is a very unique
book. It is animated and brought alive by a character
Joe Hardgainer. Who is this: "Joe Hardgainer", you ask?
It is you (well not literally) but you will surely see yourself in
him. He’s a guy who wants to desperately gain muscle weight. He has
hit the gym, spoken to the biggest guy, tried the much-hyped supplements,
scanned the muscle magazines and the professional bodybuilders for
help. He is remotely successfully in his endeavour, but is still fighting
those plateaus unsuccessfully. He has not been able to pull across
the plateaus that constantly stall the progress of the most dedicated
trainers.

Through this character, Jeff exactly knows who his audience
are. It may be you. He writes well, and it’s a very motivating read.

However this program is not for the undetermined. This program
requires discipline. Be it the diet, the five day a week
one-hour workout. You will need to adhere to all points of the training
for it to bear fruits.

Does this scare you? Well it is a very intense
program, but nobody’s gained anything without sweat and hardwork.

The Program is based on "8 anabolic factors."
These are the 8 keys to gain max muscle. They form the crux of the
whole program and understanding them fully is pivotal. To help you
at it, Jeff has gone ahead and included MP3 downloads
for these factors. So that you can listen to them anytime!

Its factors like
tempo, frequency of your training and diets. However, the base of the
program is Hyper-Adaptive Cycling. This is the real guts
of the whole program. This is the basis of Anderson’s claim his
system is not like anything that you have seen before.

His technique is workable, reasonable and detailed not only on breaking
down plateaus but prevents them from happening in the beginning.

How does it work?

For this you need to understand how the body grows muscles. Once you
understand this you will realize how effective Hyper-Adaptive Cycling
is to prevent plateaus.

As a beginner you will notice that your body does not respond to your
training once it hits its first plateau. The plateau occurs when the body
recognizes your workouts and stops adding the muscles to endure your workouts.
In short it gets accustomed to the workouts and stops building the muscles.

It is important to get your muscles to react to add new muscles. Therefore,
bodybuilders constantly introduce alterations to their training and keep
their body guessing to never enter a comfort zone.

Hyper-Adaptive Cycling is not about bringing classic changes that keeps
the body guessing it goes much beyond that.

Hyper-Adaptive Cycling = Massive change

Jeff shows you how the body is naturally designed to work against building
the new muscles you desire. He shows you how to re-program your body to
use the naturally occuring defence mechanisms that can stop you from gaining
and, using special strategies, actually cause those mechanisms to gain
extraordinary amounts of muscle.

Hyper-Adaptive Cycling is a "never-ending anabolic guessing
game where it’s only option is to grow."

Jeff is thorough and takes you through an additional 7 Anabolic factors
and demonstrates the application of the hyper-adaptive process to these
seven factors to create and sustain an optimum anabolic environment.

Although you may be familiar with these factors, Jeff will help you
re-learn this.

Dieting section: It is detailed and helps you designed
to achieve your primary goals be it gain muscle weight, burn fat or improve
on all areas.

Exercise section: There is a lot to choose from. If
you get bored of doing the same thing repeatedly, you find a lot of variety
to help you keep at your workout.

Once you’ve finished the book, plateaus will be only a memory.

Bonuses

In the "The Workout" book Jeff takes you
through a 24 week Optimum Anabolics program. It also
has a workout log for each day which you can print.

One of the other features is a year’s membership to the
Muscle Nerd University which is an online forum, featuring stuff
like training videos, exercise videos and other stuff. Also included is
a monthly training session that’s shown live to members only. The uniqueness
of it is that it talks on a particular subject and then fields questions
from members.

The live sessions give you a chance to take a break from reading and
provide you with some good body building info.

Do any of you have any Questions? No problem.

Jeff has already thought of this. He has put a Virtual Online
Trainer for you to use which is a search engine that turns up
answers to almost any program-related query you might have. If any question
is not covered, he does it in the training sessions.

Next included is the tracking software to enable you to see how you’re
going at any time. A Body Fat Ebook shows you how you
can get an idea of how much your body fat percentage is with just a tape
measure. You can get further information if you want to get a more specific
feedback using body fat calipers. (he recommends these)

Further, you get 5 Micro-Burst Programs (Chest, Shoulders, Back,
Legs, Arms) to help you target the areas that might not be getting
the results you would like them to be.

Complaints?

Previously only 1 month member’s area access was provided. Now, however,
Jeff has increased it to a full year. Nothing to complain about now.

A private forum for members would be good for this program because it
includes so many intense training techniques and concepts.

Finally, there isn’t anything to complain about. It is organized,
written and helps make a complex program simple.

Conclusion

Optimum Anabolics makes you takes you much further than
your traditional training program.

Loads of thought has gone into this program. This is a well-written,
well-tested and very well-presented program for preventing plateaus.

The main ingredient of it is cycling which manipulates the
body’s defence mechanisms to discover muscle growth. Jeff shows you how
to use this program’s interesting approach to cycling to help bring you
constant growth.

The program requires dedication, discipline and hard work.
It is designed for people who’ve got some experience, intermediate to
advanced trainers

If you’ve got the dedication you’ll find the program delivers
beyond your expectations. Jeff’s incredible attention to detail
and his teaching abilities turns the complex and specific approach to
body building into a great advanced muscle mass building program that’s
understandable and easily applicable.

#4 BODYBUILDING REVEALED – BODYBUILDING REVEALED – REVIEWED!

Scrampy — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:22:32 +0000

More
Info…

Cost: $47

Format: E-book (Instant Download)

Includes:
Bodybuilding Revealed Ebook, Full VIP Access To Members Area, Free
Updates, Meal and Calorie Calculator, Diet Plans, Online Exercise
Video Database, Build Muscle At Home Ebook, Mass Gaining Training
Programs, Online Diet Planner, 60 Days Money Back Guarantee (NEW:
Try The Program For only $4.95! – Just
Click Here, Press the
button, then hit , the
auto sales chat robot will make you an offer for only $4.95!)

Optional Upgrade:
($20 extra) Hybrid Training Program,
Turning Point Interview Series – Hypnotist, Injuries Avoidance &
Dealing With Them, Hypnotherapy Audio MP3’s, Misconceptions of Muscle
Soreness Ebook, Overcoming Training Plateaus Ebook

Check
Out The Full Program Here:

Will Brink
got together with his buddies and have given us a potent tool that
can enhance the muscle mass on our body. The book contains some of
the most intelligent ways of training our bodybuilding practices.

Today’s market is highly vulnerable and subjugated by short
and messy e-books, but Brink stands out to be different.

He has come up with 632 pages of e-book, worth reading.

And if your appetite still wants to learn more intelligent ways of
bodybuilding, then you can get into the member’s only
area, it is probably the best source of learning bodybuilding
techniques, online.

You cannot expect this kind of expert advice from anyone
else other than Brink. He’s known for his advice about bodybuilding
and is respected all around the world of bodybuilding, from the experienced
ones to the junior levels.

But there’s something unique about Brink,
he communicates his thoughts in a very transparent manner, which helps
the beginners in pursuing the goals of physique change. It is quite
easy to be an intelligent guy, but being able to communicate one’s
knowledge to others with equal ease is a virtue.

Will has this unbelievable quality of taking up
complex aspects of body building and sorting the good ones from bad
ones, correctly and then simplifying it into easily understandable
language.

With Will at our aid, we the ones who do not have
degrees in nutrition and haven’t been able to devote time to
the gym can well make the correct training decisions right now.

The program is very clearly written and easy to apply.

The e-book as everything that is needed for developing muscle mass,
motivation, goal-setting, tracking and organizing, you can learn almost
everything. There are ample information about supplements and diets
as well.

What’s
in the Diet Section?

The program does not intend to give you repetitive information. That’s
not really a good way to present a nutrition plan that works.

Instead, Brink’s Bodybuilding Revealed looks into
the effort needed to maximize your body fuel and enable muscle gain. Brink’s
idea is to study all about the facts of nutrition and evaluate it fro a
bodybuilder’s point of view. The idea is unique and so are the techniques.

This section deals with the optimization of the anabolic activities
of your body. The purpose of macro-nutrients and its effect on our metabolism
are taught. Also the process of eating and digesting are explained herein.

You will be taught exactly what you have to eat and in what proportions,
also how you can gain quality muscle mass. Will has stated some formulas
which are complicated, but accurate. A diet-planner is available within
the member’s section which will help you in these calculations.

Wills’ food pyramid for bodybuilding athletes is a typical
method. Some worthwhile shots are taken at the standard pyramid
of USDA and new pyramids are formed based on much more logical ways of thinking.
All people who exercise must see this.

Will believes in the complicated nutrition world and takes you deep into
the theory of Glycemic Index, thermic food effect but there’s
nothing to worry about these scientific terms, he has explanations
of these terms in simple language. He emphasizes on proper nutrition and
food value.

Will recommends a diet that has a quicker impact on your body; he has all
the dietary details listed in the book.

The Body Building Supplements Sections…

This ebook is a very useful resource. It’s
incredible!!

Marketing guys try to create hype by advertising statements like “what
supplement companies don’t want you to know”.
But truly speaking, they don’t live up to what they say. But, Will’s
words are a mark of truth. You can rely on him if he says so.

If you are to believe Will’s supplement section, you’ll stay
miles away from these supplements and the whole concept will also be gone.
Every supplement being used today is discussed in this section and you will
get to learn all about these drugs. The effects and side effects are elaborately
stated.

A Hint: Supplement companies quote studies who’s results
have been disproved since the release of the product.

Misrepresentations are widely used in the book. Will shows
you the naked truth of these supplement companies and their unethical ways
of marketing their products. As you gain all the knowledge about these supplements,
you will be an intelligent consumer.

Will recognizes the supplements which are worth
being tried and ignores the one’s which are just a bluff.

The forum allows you to ask questions about supplements, also the newly
available ones. If you are using a mixed forum, you might get those same
idiotic answers about supplements and its benefits, but if you venture the
Bodybuilding forum, Will shall answer your queries. Some experts in this
field are also present in this forum to assist you.

Mass Training Section…

A beginner’s guide is included in Will’s book that helps you
to start the process. He emphasizes on straight forward methods of weight
gain. He gives you some starter routines as samples; also you’ll get
exercise descriptions, tips and videos demonstrating the methods, in the
members only area.

Brink’s Hybrid Training System is an interesting
approach to gain weight. These are advanced techniques. Also you will get
Charles Polyquin in his book in a section: “Individualization of Mass
Gaining Programs.”

Charles will give you his 21 principles to gain mass and will help you
tailor you’re the training to your body type. Once Charles is done,
Dr. Evan R.Peck will take further steps with his bonus training reports.

Overall, it is a good package altogether.

Bonus’s

All the major bonuses are mentioned on
his page, but the most amazing of all are the tools and forums included
in the member’s area. It comprises of question answer sessions, exercise
instructions, videos, diet planner, diet samples, routines and progress
charts.

Very Impressive!

Any Complaints?

Every necessary detail is mentioned in Will’s program. He stresses
on the beginners who have just started learning the art of bodybuilding.
He expects them to follow his guidelines a to z.

Conclusion

The main reason for introducing this program has been stated above. Moreover,
Will himself and some experts in this field have given essential tips for
everyone, specially for beginners.

It is truly worth your money spent, from diet plans and
nutrition to supplements and its usage, Will has covered almost every aspect
of bodybuilding. He also intends to change your dietary habits into a wholesome
nutrition plan, so now you can also have a great body.

Check
Out Will Brink’s Bodybuilding Revealed Here