6 lessons you can learn from the "Master Blaster" aka Joe Weider

Joe Weider, aka "The Master Blaster," is one of the more controversial characters in bodybuilding and fitness. But whether you love him or hate him, you can't deny his extreme influence on how exercisers around the world train.

Joe popularized the so-called Weider Principles - a collection of guidelines and methods to help bodybuilders reach their maximum potential. While these guidelines may be dismissed as bro-science, it turns out that many of them are backed by solid scientific research. Here are six of our favorite principles.

1 - Instinctive training

The instinct principle dictates that training intensity should be based on how you feel during a given training session. Basically, you use a combination of experience and instinct to guide you in your daily training sessions.

This helps address the fact that external factors such as sleep patterns, diet, relationship issues, stress and pain can significantly affect your ability to train at a maximal level on a daily basis.

Recent research seems to support an instinctive approach to training. In scientific circles, this strategy is referred to as "autoregulatory training" and scientific studies have evaluated its applicability in different flexible periodization models.

In one study (McNamara et al., 2010), 16 novice resistance trainers were divided into two different resistance training groups. All subjects used the same training volume and repetition schemes (10RM, 15RM, and 20RM) twice a week, with one group performing this training program in a predetermined manner, while subjects in the other group were allowed to decide when to perform their training sessions based on how they felt.

At the end of the 12-week training phase, the subjects who were allowed to train instinctively had increased their leg press strength by 62 kilos, while the subjects in the control group had only increased their strength by 16.

Despite these impressive results with novice exercisers, instinctive training is better suited to more advanced exercisers. To achieve optimal results, you need to be in tune with your mental, physical and emotional state and know how these factors affect your training capacity.

This knowledge develops over time through training experience. A beginner is simply not familiar enough with the nuances of training to accurately assess their daily capacity for maximum performance, which can lead to less than optimal results.

It's also important to understand that instinctive training has its drawbacks. When you're not highly motivated to exercise, it can be tempting to give in to laziness. The flexible nature of this strategy provides a ready-made excuse to take things easy even when you're feeling good.

So you need to be honest with yourself. If you're the type of exerciser who needs set rules to stay on track, then a more traditional periodization program might be the better option for you.

On the other hand, you can't take this to the other extreme and think that it's okay to force yourself to do anything that won't result in broken bones and torn muscles. Remember that the body needs adequate rest to regenerate its resources. Otherwise, you will quickly reach a state of overtraining and your progress will come to a standstill.

So, regardless of subjective feelings, you should ensure that you integrate regular recovery phases into your training program.

2 - Continuous tension

The principle of continuous tension states that muscles will respond in a desirable way when placed under continuous tension with no rest periods during repetition. Maintaining continuous tension can be achieved in several ways:

1. By eliminating pauses in the movement at the highest or lowest point of the movement.
2. By avoiding the upper part of the range of motion during certain exercises.
3. By minimizing momentum (excessive momentum can result in a significant deceleration phase in the upper range of motion, which is characterized by reduced muscle activation).

As it turns out, scientific research supports that training with continuous tension can provide a potent stimulus for muscle hypertrophy, even when relatively light weights are used (Tanimoto et al., 2008). The real benefits behind this principle probably have less to do with reduced momentum and more to do with acute restriction of blood flow to the working muscle.

Repetitive muscle contractions cause vascular compression, which impairs the inflow and outflow of blood during exercise, generating a hypoxic intramuscular environment. There is evidence that the hypoxia effect mediates a hypertrophy response, possibly due to an accumulation of metabolic products and a reduction associated with such training.

These factors are believed to combine to increase muscle growth through a variety of mechanisms, including increased muscle fiber recruitment, an acute increase in anabolic hormone levels, changes in myokines, production of reactive oxygen species, and/or muscle cell swelling (pump).

Here is our opinion on this. When performing the big basic exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses and pull-ups, focus on moving heavy weights, using good form and setting new personal bests. Feel free to pause at the highest or lowest point of the movement if necessary, use increased momentum to your advantage when appropriate, and make sure you go low to the bottom and all the way to the top (use full range of motion).

For more specific exercises, however, you can consider using the principle of continuous tension. Imagine a bar that moves continuously up and down without resting - this is what your repetitions should look like.

For many exercises, another Weider principle known as the principle of partial repetitions combines well with the principle of continuous tension, as some exercises involve a complete drop in joint torque and muscle activation in the target region.

The upper range of flying movements for the chest or dumbbell pull-ups do not put the target muscles under adequate tension. For this reason, partial repetitions that are limited to the lower two-thirds of the range of motion may be ideal for these exercises as they allow for more consistent tension in the target muscles.

When performing exercises such as flying chest movements, pull-ups, hip thrusts and certain types of curls and triceps exercises, you should focus on maintaining continuous tension in the target muscle. Don't rely on momentum, don't be afraid to limit the range of motion and simply contract your muscles hard against the resistance.

3 - Muscle priority

The muscle priority principle states that you should train your weak points first during your training sessions. Weider reasoned that since this is when your energy levels are highest and your mental focus is strongest, prioritizing training will allow you to use higher intensity and greater effort on the muscles that need it most.

Although this principle contradicts the common belief that large muscle groups should be trained before smaller muscle groups, recent research seems to support Weider's hypothesis.

Studies consistently show that strength gains from exercises performed earlier in a training session are significantly greater than strength gains from exercises performed at the end of a training session (Simao et al., 2010; Dias et al., 2010).

In a recent study review, researchers concluded that, in terms of the magnitude of strength gains over the course of a training session, it is beneficial to structure the exercise sequence based on which muscles show the greatest need for improvement - regardless of whether this involves exercises for large or small muscle groups (Simão et al. 2012).

Conclusion: If your biceps are lagging behind your triceps in terms of development, then you should not hesitate to start your training session with a variation of curls. And if your legs look like upside-down bowling pins, then you should definitely start your workout with calf raises.

Many bodybuilders perform an incline bench exercise first during their chest training session and train their posterior shoulder muscles on shoulder day before heavy pressing movements. Don't blindly stick to the "heaviest multi-joint exercises first" mantra if you have an imbalance in your muscle development. If you have a noticeable strength or muscle discrepancy, prioritize the weak link in the chain by training it right from the start.

4 - Circulation principle

The circulation principle involves training a muscle group with multiple exercises within a training session. The idea is to flood the working muscle with blood so that nutrient delivery is maximized to promote optimal remodeling of the muscle fibers. In other words, this means "train for a pump."

However, it is questionable whether the increased nutrient delivery through increased blood flow affects muscle remodeling, but the cellular swelling associated with this type of training through repeated periods of reactive hyperemia (blood fullness) could very well promote hypertrophic adaptations.

Scientific studies consistently show that a hydrated cell increases protein synthesis while inhibiting protein degradation (Haussinger et al. 1994; Ritz et al., 2003). These effects are mediated by sensors in the muscle fibers that respond to an increase in cell volume by initiating anabolic processes as a measure to strengthen the ultrastructure of the muscle cell (Low et al., 1997). The result of this is better muscle development.

Here is our approach. Progressive overload is crucial. You need to make sure that you get stronger at the big basic exercises over time. However, once you've performed your heavy basic exercises of the day, you should definitely consider choosing a few exercises that pump as much blood as possible into the target muscle - which is especially true if hypertrophy is your primary goal.

Every good strength athlete intuitively learns how to pump blood into their muscles and this strategy seems to work slightly differently for each exerciser. Some like to perform high reps of push-ups or dips through full range of motion in supersets with flying movements or crossover cable pulls to pump up their pecs, while others swear by "shoulder blasters" consisting of multiple triple sets of 10 reps of side bent-over deadlifts for the posterior shoulder muscles, immediately followed by 10 reps of side raises, immediately followed by 10 reps of front raises to pump up their shoulder muscles.

For the gluteus, multiple sets of hip thrusts with very short rests can have the desired effect. There may also be a specific machine in your gym that will create a serious pump in a particular muscle.

Learn what methods you can use to get the best pump in a given muscle group and make sure to incorporate them at the end of your training session after you've performed a few heavy exercises focused on progressive overload.

5 - Muscle confusion

The muscle confusion principle states that exercise selection should be varied continuously over time. Weider believed that such an approach maximizes muscle development as it does not allow the neuromuscular system to adapt to a given exercise. As a result, your body is continually challenged by new stressors, stimulating increased growth.

One problem with performing the same exercise program repeatedly day in and day out is that it reduces exercise-induced muscle damage through what is known as the "repeated bout effect". Although excessive muscle tissue damage can interfere with your training, scientific research suggests that there is a kind of ideal point at which a moderate amount of exercise-induced muscle damage potentiates a supercompensatory response that ultimately increases muscle growth (Schoenfeld, 2012).

The hypertrophic effect of exercise-induced muscle damage is believed to be mediated by various myokines, which are growth factors that induce an acute anabolic effect within the muscle. Exercise-induced muscle damage also increases the activation of satellite cells, which support muscle repair and donate additional nuclei to the muscle fibers so that more muscle proteins can be synthesized. Performing a variety of exercises reduces the aforementioned "repeated bout effect" so that these responses are maximized.

Varying the exercises also helps to ensure complete stimulation of all muscle fibers in a given muscle. Contrary to what some believe, muscles do not necessarily contract the entire length of the muscle fiber. Instead, the majority of muscles are divided into one or more fiber bands that terminate intrafascicularly, creating separate areas within the muscle (Heron & Richmond, 1993).

These areas are often activated by different nerve branches, indicating that parts of a muscle will show greater muscle activation than other parts depending on the exercise performed (Wickiewicz et al., 1983; Woodley & Mercer, 2005).

For example, the long and short muscle heads of the biceps brachii show architectural sub-areas that are controlled by separate nerve branches of the primary neuron (Segal et al., 2001). As a consequence, elbow flexion targets motor units in the lateral area of the long muscle head and outward rotation targets motor units in the central area (ter Haar Romeny et al., 1982; ter Haar Romeny et al., 1984).

In addition, the short muscle head shows greater muscle activity in the latter part of an arm curl (i.e. greater elbow flexion), whereas the long muscle head is more active in the early phase of the movement (Brown et al., 1993). As you can see, variety is a good thing when it comes to muscle hypertrophy!

Now before you think that P90X is the key to muscle building nirvana, you should understand that you can't just put together a mishmash of unrelated movements for the sake of variety in anticipation of optimal gains. Instead, the basic idea is to design your training program in such a way that the training is systematically performed from different angles and on different planes of movement.

You should take into account how different exercises interact with each other from an anatomical point of view. A combination of both mass-building multi-joint exercises and targeted isolation exercises will synergistically influence symmetrical muscle development just as much as training with multiple modalities (i.e. barbells, dumbbells, cable pulleys, etc.) will.

The bottom line is that if you don't get stronger at the big, basic movement patterns over time, your muscle shape probably won't change much. You can train the pecs from any angle with any exercise imaginable - if you continue to only do 3 sets of 60kg bench presses with 10 reps, your muscle development will likely be lacking.

For this reason, you should use a variety of exercises, but at the same time make sure you always perform variations of squats, deadlifts and presses. There are thousands of modifications you can make to these exercises to 'confuse' your muscles while sticking to the best movement patterns.

For example, to add variety to the bench press, you could perform conventional bench presses, close grip bench presses, board presses, floor presses, bench presses in the rack, incline bench presses or bench presses on the reverse incline bench. Many of these exercises can also be performed with dumbbells and you can also change the set and repetition patterns. Vary your workouts intelligently, but never deviate too much from tried and tested methods.

6 - Falsification

The principle of abbreviation states that abbreviating to use a slightly heavier weight or to force a few more reps at the end of a set makes sense from a hypertrophy training perspective.

Many online discussions about whether bending during exercise execution makes sense have degenerated into endless debates. Brand new research has taken a closer look at this topic and has shown that there is an ideal point for technical form and the resulting joint torque requirements and hypertrophy stimulus when performing side raises (Arandjelović, published ahead of print).

The authors of the study make the following statement:

"A moderate increase in load and use of momentum allow for a further increase in torque. In contrast, excessive use of momentum results in lower demands on the target muscles, while excessive increases in load reduce the overall hypertrophy stimulus due to the reduced number of repetitions that can be successfully performed and the resulting dramatically shortened time under tension."

Here is our recommendation. You should not deflect or use excessive momentum when performing exercises with an inherent risk to the joints such as squats, deadlifts or standing shoulder presses. However, certain exercises such as barbell curls and side raises are good for using some momentum or faking. However, do not forge too much or you will reduce the load on the target muscle and put your body at increased risk of injury.

Conclusion

Joe brought us the IFBB, he founded the Mr. Olympia competition, he brought Arnold to America and he put together the Weider Principles. We believe all exercisers and bodybuilders would be well advised to learn these principles and put them into practice based on specific training goals. Even though they were compiled decades ago, new research confirms their value as viable training strategies.

By Bret Contreras, Brad Schoenfeld,

https://www.t-nation.com/training/6-lessons-learned-from-the-master-blaster

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