Bodybuilding's Next Frontier

Let's say you could totally wipe out all of the bodybuilding information that you've ever heard or read. If you could, I'd say do it. But since you can't, do your best to avoid thinking about what you've ever been taught. Open up your mind and answer the following question for me:

If you knew nothing about bodybuilding parameters, what would you do to a muscle in order to make it grow as fast as possible?

Answers:

A. Train the muscle group often (every 1-2 days).
B. Train the muscle group infrequently (every 7-10 days).

Which answer makes the most sense? It's safe to say most people would choose option A. So why have so many bodybuilders chosen option B?

Here's why: They want it to be true. The mind is a powerful, and sometimes deceiving, tool. Wouldn't we all be thrilled if we could grow maximum muscle with only one workout per body part every 7-10 days?

Such an infrequent plan would turn your fitness levels, work capacity, and cardiovascular conditioning into shit, but who wants to spend a lot of time building a better body, right?

Since we live in an overly-stressed modern world with the clock spinning out of control, it makes sense to market a system that says training a body part four times per month is your ticket to fast gains.

A system that only requires one workout per body part every 7-10 days with 20 minute sessions is a great marketing strategy. I can't tell you how many times a world-renowned strength coach has mentioned the power of a few 20 minutes sessions each week for building professional athletes and bodybuilding champions.

While infrequent training regimens may sound appealing, the results suck.

The best evidence for any hypothesis is based on real-world observations. To develop an effective hypertrophy plan, I collected data from the people who built muscle without even trying.

The best group to analyze consists of people who don't give a damn about hypertrophy, and barely consume enough protein to meet the sub-par RDA standards. If these people built bigger muscles with inadequate nutrition, then I've found one helluva good population to analyze.

The origin of this program lies in the hypertrophy I witnessed from your everyday Joes. If a mechanic can build forearms faster than a bodybuilder without even knowing that protein shakes exist, that's some pretty strong evidence to support what the mechanic is doing.

Think about how often a full-time mechanic grabs, grips, and twists with his forearms on a daily basis. Growing up in Redneckville, USA gave me plenty of data. I've seen new mechanics add an inch to their forearms within the first six weeks of starting a job in a repair shop. What do you think the nutritional plan of a typical mechanic consists of? I'll tell you: beer, tobacco, and trans-fat.

But forearms are notorious for being muscle groups that respond best to lots of volume, so that isn't a good example, right? Well, that's bullshit, but I'll go along with it to establish my position.

So is there any other evidence to support regimens that build muscle in non-lifters? You bet. Let's look at another group of non-lifters who built muscle without trying: rock climbers.

Rock climbers don't want extra muscle. It's safe to say they represent a case study in catabolism. Pro rock climbers avoid gaining new muscle! Every extra ounce of muscle they add is an extra ounce that they have to lug up a mountainside.

I used to be the head trainer at an extreme fitness gym in a major city. This gym had the crème de la crème of artificial rock-climbing walls and attracted some of the top climbers in that area, so I observed hundreds during my tenure there. Very few weighed more than 150 pounds.

I asked many of them about their training and nutrition. They barely consumed enough food to maintain basic physiological functions, and their training was limited to climbing (minimal to no weight-training).

Most were deathly afraid of red meat and were convinced that high-protein diets would detonate their kidneys. The highest protein intake ever reported to me by one of these climbers was 100 grams per day, mostly from soy. But they all had proportionally large forearms, biceps, lats, and upper backs.

Then we have lumberjacks. Know any? If you do, notice their upper back development. Or check out those log-cutting events on ESPN. Their upper back development would impress any competitive bodybuilder. And the ones I know virtually live on Budweiser, gravy, and Copenhagen.

We're surrounded by lots of examples that support the efficacy of high frequency training. Think of the calf development of soccer players, sand volleyball players, ballet dancers, and cyclists; the thigh development of downhill skiers and speed skaters; the shoulder, lat, and upper arm development of gymnasts who perform the rings, pummel horse, and uneven bar events.

Think of right-handed basketball players who favor their left leg when jumping. They all have bigger left calves.

And even though Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the most genetically gifted bodybuilders in history, you've got to remember that his calves weren't genetically great. In fact, Arnold's calf girth was downright embarrassing.

So what strategy did the greatest bodybuilder of all time employ to build his calves? I'll let him tell you:

"I train them 30 to 45 minutes a day, six days a week."

He trained them six days a week, but did he do anything else? According to his book, he also sought to stimulate his calves throughout the day. For those who wanted bigger calves, he said:

"When you are walking, make an effort to go all the way up on your toes... "

Six days of training per week along with tricks to stimulate the calves throughout the day. That's a lot of frequency! Arnold also mentioned that his left biceps used to be smaller than his right. He targeted the problem:

"I noticed that whenever I was asked to show my biceps, I would automatically flex the right arm. So I consciously made an effort to flex my left arm as much or more than my right. Eventually I was able to make my left biceps the equal of my right."

The bodybuilding testimonials don't end with Arnold. Bob Gajda, the 1966 Mr. Universe, also used high frequency training to build up his lagging body parts. I could go on and on.

Many bodybuilders have praised the benefits of super high-intensity training to stimulate muscle growth. Dorian Yates comes to mind. But mind-blowing levels of intensity are virtually impossible to maintain for any length of time, not to mention that most of us also seek greater fitness levels.

Training your entire body for, say, four sessions each week will build up your overall fitness levels much higher than one set of a handful of exercises taken to failure every seven days.

For someone who's trying to build muscle at the fastest physiological rate their body allows, it means you should be training your muscles with a high frequency, much higher than your body is accustomed to.

But here's the rub: We don't want hypertrophy limited to an isolated portion of our body. We want hypertrophy across the entire body.

If mechanics, rock-climbers, and lumberjacks started training their entire bodies with the frequency they expose to their respective key body parts, they'd probably burn out in no time. This is where training gets complicated.

Likewise, if you trained your entire body six times each week then you'd probably end up in traction, not to mention that our bodies will adapt to a specific set of parameters in no time.

Even if you respond best to 5 x 5 for hypertrophy, you've got to remember that the number of times you can perform 5 x 5 in a row is limited. With high frequency training, the plethora of training sessions each week would burn out the 5 x 5 parameters quicker than a politician pulls up his pants after a knock on his hotel room door. This is where it gets even more complicated.

Finally, it's not easy for any of us to get to the gym 8-10 times each week. I know it's tough to make time to train, so I've made this program as user-friendly as possible. But there's only so much I can do to make high frequency training a viable option for you.

Obviously, if I recommend that you train each body part for eight workouts per week, it's not possible to accomplish this in three sessions. So, to devise this high frequency program I had to tackle the following challenges:

1. Quickly induce hypertrophy over the entire body without burnout.
2. Find a periodization plan that works for those who aren't genetic freaks.
3. Make it user-friendly.

Done. You're welcome.

The purpose of this program is to induce muscle growth. But not only will you build more muscle, your work capacity and fitness levels will also skyrocket. As a bonus, soreness will quickly become a thing of the past due to your supercharged recovery ability.

This plan induces lightning fast hypertrophy by quickly building up the frequency of training each body part for eight sessions each week. Not only will you be performing eight sessions each week, but these will be eight total-body sessions. This will be accomplished in only eight weeks.

Sound impossible? It's not.

The efficacy of this program lies within the periodization plan. The frequency of stimulating each body part must be built up, dropped down, built up further, dropped down again, and then built up to its peak. That's what I've discovered after five years of fine-tuning this system.

The Waterbury High Frequency System is periodized into five phases. Here's a brief overview of each phase.

Phase I: Establish Frequency Stimulus

Purpose: To expose the primary muscle groups to four sessions each week with submaximal loads to manage fatigue. This will effectively prime the trainees who've only been training each body part 2-3 times per week.
Duration: 2 weeks

Phase II: Max Motor Unit Recruitment 1

Purpose: To retrain your nervous system to recruit the high-threshold motor units. Since Phase I was performed with submaximal loads, it's necessary to retrain your ability to recruit the largest, high-threshold motor units. By recruiting these large motor units, you'll also be recruiting all of the smaller motor units (muscles).

Basically, you'll recruit your entire muscle fiber population (minus the emergency reserve that's virtually untouchable without a life-or-death scenario). This phenomenon is based on Henneman's size priniciple.
Duration: 1 week

Phase III: Augment Frequency Stimulus

Purpose: To reestablish a moderately high frequency plan in order to force the muscles to recover more quickly between workouts.
Duration: 2 weeks

Phase IV: Max Motor Unit Recruitment 2

Purpose: To recruit even more high-threshold motor units than Phase 2. This phase will set you up for big gains in Phase V since you'll have enhanced your ability to recruit muscle fibers.
Duration: 1 week

Phase V: Peak Frequency Stimulus

Purpose: To force your muscular and nervous systems to recover from training in less than 24 hours.
Duration: 2 weeks

Most of the sessions involve exercise pairings. If you absolutely can't alternate between exercises, perform all of the prescribed parameters before moving on to the next exercise.

Keep in mind that you'll need to lower the load to cater to incomplete rest periods from performing straight sets. If you must, substitute exercises with a similar variation. However, switching from back squat to leg extension isn't a viable option; switching from back squat to front squat or hack squat is. You get the idea.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Off from weight training. No more than 20 minutes of medium intensity cardio (if desired).

Day 4

Day 5

Days 6 and 7

Off from weight training. No more than 20 minutes of medium intensity cardio (if desired).

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Off from weight training. No more than 20 minutes of medium intensity cardio (if desired).

Day 11

Day 12

Days 13 and 14

Off from weight training. No more than 20 minutes of medium intensity cardio (if desired).

This phase consists of working up to a 5 repetition maximum (RM) for the following lifts. Start the session with approximately 70% of your 1RM for the lift, or a 12-14 RM. Perform 5 reps, rest and add 10%, perform 5 reps, rest and add 5%. Keep increasing the load 3-5% until you reach a comfortable 5RM.

Rest 1-2 minutes between the initial efforts; rest 2-3 minutes between efforts with higher loads. This shouldn't be a balls-out competition effort. Therefore, no face-slapping or screaming is required.

Day 1

Back Squat (wide stance)
Bench Press
Lying Dumbbell Triceps Extension

Day 2

Deadlift (narrow stance)
Chin-Up or Pulldown (palms up grip)
Hammer Curl

Day 3

Off

Day 4

Front Squat
Barbell Military Press
Dip or Decline Dumbbell Bench Press (palms facing each other)

Day 5

Off

Day 6

Deadlift (sumo stance)
Seated or Chest-Supported Row
Barbell Biceps Curl

Day 7

Off

This phase introduces your body to a few twice-daily sessions. Separate each session by at least 6 hours (more is better).

Day 1

AM Workout

PM Workout

Day 2

Day 3

Off from weight training. No more than 20 minutes of medium intensity cardio (if desired).

Day 4

Day 5

AM Workout

PM Workout

Days 6 and 7

Off from weight training. No more than 20 minutes of medium intensity cardio (if desired).

Days 8-14

Repeat days 1-7.

This phase consists of working up to a 3 repetition maximum (RM) for the following lifts. Start the session with approximately 70% of your 1RM for the lift, or a 12-14 RM. Perform 3 reps, rest and add 10%, perform 3 reps, rest and add 5%.

Keep increasing the load 3-5% until you reach a comfortable 3RM. Rest 1-2 minutes between the initial efforts; rest 2-3 minutes between efforts with higher loads.

Day 1

Back Squat (wide stance)
Bench Press
Lying Dumbbell Triceps Extension

Day 2

Deadlift (narrow stance)
Chin-Up or Pulldown (palms up grip)
Hammer Curl

Day 3

Off

Day 4

Front Squat
Barbell Military Press
Dip or Decline Dumbbell Bench Press (palms facing each other)

Day 5

Off

Day 6

Deadlift (sumo stance)
Seated or Chest-Supported Row
Barbell Biceps Curl

Day 7

Off

Now that you've finished dropping the volume and increasing the loads, your system is prepped for 8 total body sessions each week. Avoid going to failure during any set to control fatigue.

Day 1

AM Workout

PM Workout

* don't rest between arms

Day 2

AM Workout

PM Workout

Day 3

Off from weight training.

Day 4

AM Workout

* don't rest between arms

PM Workout

Day 5

AM Workout

PM Workout

Days 6 and 7

Off from weight training.

Days 8-14

Add one set to each workout. For example, the AM Workout on Day 8 becomes 5 x 4 for all exercises.

Note: Phase V is organized with a 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off schedule. However, you can use any combination that fits your schedule as long as you don't lift three continuous days in a row. For example, some of my clients favor the 2 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off, 1 on, 1 off schedule.

Continue with Phase V for as long as you keep reaping benefits. Once you start feeling rundown, take a week off from Phase V and perform Phase IV. Then, return to Phase V.

The exercises I chose are some of my favorites because they're effective. If you can, stick with them or similar variations for as long as possible.

Calories: Eat as many as possible over the course of six meals each day. If you skimp on calories, you'll burn out fast during Phase V.

Protein: 1.0 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight. Buy some Metabolic Drive® protein. You'll need it.

Water: Consume one ounce per pound of lean body mass.

Flameout®: 4 capsules per day

Superfood: Consume a full serving each day, either mixed in water or mixed in your protein drink.

Plazma™: Pre-load 500 ml prior to your workout. Consume an additional 1000 ml during the workout.

Sleep: Unless you're one of the lucky few who don't need much sleep, you must get 8 hours each day. Find time for a 20 minute nap whenever you can to make up for any lost sleep.

Cardio: Any form of cardio or interval sprint training isn't recommended once you reach Phase V. That's not to say that it can't be done, but use extreme caution. Your fitness levels will skyrocket on this program without any cardio whatsoever, so don't think there will be any potential health ramifications by leaving the cardio out.

Stretching: Be sure to stretch on your off days.

This plan won't be easy for some people to follow. And it can't be shortened. It's quantitatively impossible. But hey, at least it's crammed into four days, right?

Those of you who follow the program as prescribed with plenty of nutrition and rest will be part of the next revolution of bodybuilding.

1. Schwarzenegger, A. (1985) Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. Simon & Schuster, Inc.
2. Ironman Magazine. Weider Publications. May 2002. Page 219.
3. Henneman E, Somjen G, and Carpenter DO. 1965. J. Neurophysiol 28: 560-80.