Training Guide

This nutrition and training guide provides fundamental knowledge to those who are seriously interested in and committed to building and conditioning their bodies. You will find straight-forward information concerning all aspects critical to building and maintaining an extraordinary physique. Choose a routine from the list and get going!

The Mega-Pro workout is a compilation of various lifting movements designed to break down muscle fiber. Combined with proper nutrition, supplementation and rest, it will produce positive results in muscle size and strength. This is a very intense bodybuilding workout that requires extreme concentration and exertion. The exercises that are prescribed in this workout are the same ones used by many of today's pros. By combining consistency with intensity you will be training the same way the pro's do.

How to effectively Train

Countless theories support various weight-training routines, and heated debates often surround discussions of what is the most effective number of "reps", sets, days, techniques, and intensities. In the end, most routines work--if they are supported by proper nutrition and training protocols. Essentially all weight-training routines are based upon the fact that if muscles are stimulated or stressed through weight-lifting (no matter what the routine), muscles will in turn respond by growing. Basically, "controlled damage" is the goal of every weight-lifting routine. The athlete must tear-down the muscle just enough so the body will respond by adding new muscle fiber. It is important to understand that "controlled" indicates that it is possible to lift too hard, too long, and too often and thereby over-train the muscle--which is, in fact, counter-productive.

So which program should you use? The best answer is to try them all! The key to progress is muscle stimulation. The most effective way to consistently stimulate the muscles is to vary your routine every 8 to 10 weeks. So grab a routine out of your favorite magazine and try it out--just don't hang on to it far too long. Inject new ideas and routines into your training. Your muscles need change; they respond to variety. Once your body adapts to your current routine, your progress will begin to slow down and perhaps even stop. You must shock the muscles with different routines and new exercises. The purpose of this training guide is to consolidate and describe a number of training exercises for each body part and to suggest a few training schedules. It is your responsibility to determine when your body is no longer responding (getting sore or making gains) and to then determine that it's time to alter your routine. Additionally, this guide sets out some fundamental principles concerning technique, intensity and concentration. Lack of attention to these three principles (not lack of some secret training regimen) proves to be the downfall of most novice and intermediate athletes and bodybuilders.

Quick Training Tips

Keep a detail record of journal
Detail and record your workout routines and poundage's. Each week refer to them and select a few lifts on which to increase the weight. A log will provide a good indication of your training progress and of which exercises are working for you. This allows you to eliminate lifts that are not producing results.

Eat several small meals a day
Eating this way insures you are providing your body with adequate nutritional support. Frequent small meals provide a consistent supply of nutrients for the most efficient muscle growth. Many diets provide inadequate, below maintenance levels of calories and nutrition. This results in metabolization of muscle tissue.

Eat protein
Try to eat at least 1 gram of protein per lean pound of body weight daily. This is critical for people engaging in high-intensity resistance exercise because they need increased amounts of protein to support muscle growth. This goal can be easily met by supplementing the diet with amino acids or protein. Eat right, and treat your body with respect. Proper exercise will not counteract bad eating habits and poor eating patterns.

Avoid distractions
Have conversations before and after workouts if you like, but once the workout begins, become self-centered, serious and selfish with time.

Vary your program
You must become your own exercise scientist. After a period of time, muscles become conditioned to the same routine and exercises--in other words they become immune to the workout. Gains become null. This can be overcome by periodically varying the order, exercises, and muscle groups. Keeping new angles and new exercises incorporated into your routine causes "muscle confusion" which forces muscles to break down more easily.

Increase the weight
Only by increasing the weight as often as possible you will provide muscles with the stimulus to protect themselves from future assaults by building up more muscle mass. This is the single most important fact for increasing muscle size and strength.

Train hard, not long
Cut back on the amount of lifting you do and raise your intensity level. High-intensity muscular contractions are an absolute requirement for stimulating rapid, large-scale increases in muscular size and strength. Muscles respond to stimulus. Completing an arbitrarily chosen set of reps will not make muscle grow. You must take the last rep to failure--this is the most productive lift. Keep workouts relatively short. Over-training in the quest for size can halt progress. Over-training is a common and often fatal mistake made by novice and intermediate bodybuilders. Heavy lifting should not exceed much more than 30 minutes.

Train for a complete physique
It is great to develop exceptional muscle mass and tone, but it is a sorry state of affairs when there is so much body fat on your frame that the muscles you have worked for so hard don't even show. Add some aerobic training to your routine. It is not only healthy for you, but it is important for aesthetic reasons as well. Twenty minutes of aerobics daily is usually plenty. Calculate your aerobic heart rate by taking 220 minus your age and multiplying that by 70%.

Focus on the muscle group you are working on
By concentrating on a specific muscle, you will automatically isolate it more. Do not rely heavily on machines. Free weights are more efficient for muscle growth.

Breath correctly
Proper breathing is very important. Breathing supplies oxygen to the muscle cells, which is necessary for muscle contraction, and helps deliver energy and build the muscle. Exhale when you lift the weight. Inhale when you lower it.

Concentrate on the negative
Most of the damage, and thus gains, in muscularity is caused during the negative (eccentric) portion of the lift. It is more important for growth to control the weight when lowering it than when pressing it upwards (concentric/positive). Concentrate on the negative portion of the lift. That is, lower the weight more slowly than you press it up.

Maintain constant resistance
A lift should be preformed with constant tension. Pressure should remain constant on the muscle group you are training throughout the exercise. Many times this can be avoided by not locking out the joint in an effort to rest momentarily.

Full range of motion
People make serious mistakes by not completing a full range of motion in their lifts. They either miss the top or bottom range.

Focus on form, not weight
While you should always train as heavily as possible and increase the weight as often as you can, you must also perform the exercises using good form. Heaving a lot of weight can make you feel macho, but improper form will keep you from developing the best physique.

Achieve peak contraction
This is a training principle that turns the average "rep" into a growth-producing blitz. Rather than merely moving the weight up and down, you should actively squeeze it hard for a second at the peak of contraction.

Rest is critical
Allow at least 72 hours of rest before training the same muscle group. Some people may need more recovery time. Very few can get by with less.