Advanced Bodybuilding Strategies

There are many different advanced strategies to increase muscle
growth for advanced bodybuilders. Most of them have been covered and
re-done and re-written about countless times over the last few years
as bodybuilding increases in popularity. From ascending pyramids,
forced reps, negatives, working the big three and many more. But this
article is going to be about a few of the many advanced bodybuilding
strategies that are slightly "off the beaten track" so that you can
look at these many different and often confusing ideas a little
differently.

The first idea may be something that you might not have ever
considered and it is the training on an unstable surface to activate
the nervous system. The idea came from experiments and studies that
were done in order to snap out of the groove and "wake up" the
nervous system.

These should all be done before you start your real strength workout
in order to get all your neuromuscular pathways firing. A good
example is performing a pushup with your hands on a stability ball or
2 medicine balls.

If you have a sticking point or have reached that dreaded plateau on
your training of a certain body-part then doing this can certainly
make a big difference. Often the reason why you have plateaued is
because of the lack of activation of the CNS which is why using an
unstable exercise could fix the problem.

It is important to note that you don't always have to be on an
unstable surface to "wake up" the nervous system. You can perform
exercises on 1 foot, with your eyes closed; or create a situation
where your base of support is limited. There are many ways that you
can experiment with this idea.

Another idea for an advanced bodybuilding strategy is something that
most sensible and successful bodybuilders have been using this for
years. It is simply training in heavy lifting cycles that have
proven itself to work. There are quite a few reasons why it works.

These include muscle damage, activation of the high threshold muscle
fibers (growth fibers), potentiation of the nervous system; which
means when you get back to your normal bodybuilding routine you will
be able to recruit more muscle fibers for the same exercise.

You can make the heavy cycles work for you if you use every means in
your power to increase your maximal strength, power and
explosiveness. It is a good idea to dedicate a period of time each
year to this style of training. You will find that after a period of
focused heavy lifting, your gains from the subsequent program are
always far superior.

The last brief point that is considered an advanced strategy is
volume training. The simple reason why volume training always works
very well is that you get the cumulative fatigue, hormonal
production, and achieves a good pump. Increasing the blood flow will
cram the amino acids into your muscles when they need it most.

This means a much more anabolic (muscle building) response to your
workout. There are a few methods you can experiment with: regular
sets in the 8-10, 10-12 and 12-15 rep ranges, drop sets, pre-fatigue
(super set isolation plus multi-joint), post fatigue (superset
multi-joint plus isolation), giant sets (3 sets in a row for the same
muscle group), slow reps (6 seconds up, 6 seconds down), "burns"
partial reps added at the end of a regular set).

You should try and rest between 30-60 seconds between sets (or less).
Do not chase after a pump in each set. Strategically place it at the
end of each workout for your very last set and this will greatly
increase the rate of muscle gain