THIS IS A TRILOGY OF ARTICLES AIMED AT HELPING YOU GENERATE THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN ANY GOOD BODYBUILDING RECIPE--INTENSITY...

Go Intense!

Intensity is a word that is used incorrectly in bodybuilding. If you do a chest workout consisting of bench presses where you haphazardly perform many sets, not pushing yourself with the right weights and walk up to somebody and say "Wow, that workout was intense" ...yeah right!

The only way that you will truly attain your bodybuilding goals is by going at it all out, holding nothing back, taking no prisoners. After an intense workout your muscle should be engorged with blood, with a pump that makes a Goodyear blimp look like a water balloon, you should be fountain of sweat and unable to do anything beyond getting in the car to drive home. Granted, generating this kind of drive is not easy, that is where the following postulates come in.

TRAIN FOR MAXIMAL STRENGTH AND POWER ON THE BASICS:
I borrow this idea from Team Universe Winner Skip Lacour and 3 time Ironman winner Chris Cormier. When these guys enter the gym the are all business with the weights. You don't build pecs like "The Real Deal" by easyin' yourself with light pumping-- after warm-ups there should be no hesitation! Put a mack truck on either side of that Olympic bar so that you can complete only 6-8 reps and do that for 2 more sets. When Chris roles into Gold's in Venice he goes over to an Incline puts 5 forty-five lb. plates on either side and pushes out 7 tight reps. Now, even though you are not in the IFBB, you have to be just as ruthless. Big weights + recuperation = Size.

PROGRESSION FOR PROPENSITY
Every week when I train I always try to either add more weight or eek out one more rep than I did last time. By focusing on these small incremental improvements in the long run I have improved a lot and there is no reason why it cannot work for you. For instance, I have gained 30lbs of muscle in the past year and have added 120lbs to my leg press, 60lbs to my incline press, and went from doing 4 chins with bodyweight to 7 reps (with a 25lb plate attached!). YOU CAN IMPROVE LIKE THAT TOO!

Write it down!
Keeping a bodybuilding journal is a sure fire way to help you keep your intensity up. You should write down what exercises you do, reps and poundages used with them. Review this the night before your workout to analyze what ya need to be lifting the next day. There are days when we are overrun by stress from work, family, relationships, friends, school etc. But in spite of all this, if you review your journal and see what you did last week and what ya need to do, what you need to do will not come as a surprise to you, and you will be ready to attack the weight with unsettling vengeance.

Reach for the Stars!
Think about it. If you wanted to do well in a class you would do all the homework, study when ever you had a second to spare and seek the help of those who did well, right? You wanna get grades like them right? Well, IN THIS CLASS YOUR SUPERIOR PUPILS ARE RONNIE COLEMAN, FLEX WHEELER, ARNOLD AND GUNTER SCHILERKAMP.

What I mean here is that you should have a model of what you want to attain. Before you work find a pic of a competitor who has exceptional development in an area you are about to train. For instance, say you are gonna train biceps, go to Bodybuilding.com and find a pic of the oak-- yeah you would like soma'dat.

Here is what I look at:

• Before I train back I look at rear double biceps, and spreads of Ronnie Coleman and Flex Wheeler.
• Before legs I catch a pic of Chris Cormier's wheels.
• Before chest I look to Arnold, Cormier or Marcus Ruhl; for delts it's Levrone.
• Before bis, it's a biceps pic of Gunter Schierkamp, triceps it's Kevin Levrone.
• If I am training abs it's Shawn Ray and for calves I look to Mike Matarazzo.

Joe

Prsoar@aol.com

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