- Liittynyt
- 16.4.2002
- Viestejä
- 98 634
Last weekend, 11 weeks out of my Pro debut, I had the opportunity again, to have a great photo shooting with Mike Siren in Helsinki. On our two Shooting days we took tons of great pictures and especially the Gym-Series which is showing my training turned out to be extraordinary good. Mike and I decided to use this series not only for a simple gallery but also to explain the Users of Pakkotoisto.com the way I am training.
I hope you enjoy the pictures and maybe they can even motivate you to try out these ideas I am talking about. Train Hard and go for your dreams !
Arms
Biceps :
Like for many tall Bodybuilders, Arms is also for myself a weaker muscle group compared to the rest of the body. That means for me to emphasize the focus on this muscle and to work on it even more special. Truly, Arms and Calves can probably never be big enough. As long as they don’t grow in a totally freaky way they won’t harm your symmetry and for this reason, even people having relatively strong arms, can possibly use my strategy to stimulate the Arms to new levels of growing.
A long time I trained Biceps very heavy and basicly I just focused on the amount of weight.
I allowed myself to cheat in my biceps workouts and for many people (probably the genetically gifted ones) even this seems to work. But after some months or maybe years in my case, I simply had to realize that it is not working for me. The shape of my Biceps is simply not responding on this kind of training. Finally in 2006 I started to change many things. I started a slow and controlled movement. I completely forced myself not to aim for any weights anymore and I realized how the changes started to work.
The results were great so far but after one year I found another big mistake I was doing over the years. I trained the Brachialis only every few weeks, but I seen that this muscle is almost not visible on all of my stage pictures. So the Brachialis became another big part of every Biceps workout. I still need to work on it, but after 2 years I can say that it improved already.
But speaking about the facts of my current Biceps workout, I want to give some numbers:
You can see the really heavy part of my workout consists only of nine Sets, as the first exercise includes 2 warm-up sets. So I limit my workout to a few exercises and keep the focus on a controlled movement, using the whole range of motion and taking the highest possible amount of weight to get 6-8 reps.
But there is another day of the week, when I train my arms again.
Basicly the heavy training, you read about just a few lines ago, reminds on an European way of training, but on my many trips to the USA I also seen many Americans training quite successfully their arms only by pumping the muscles. I never really get a satisfied feeling by doing only a “pump-training”, but as it seems to work for them, it was also worth for me to try. So I added another Training Session, only consisting of cable exercises, to my weekly schedule.
In this training I am using Supersets by combining one biceps exercise with one triceps exercise. At my heavy Arm-training day, I prefer to train biceps in the morning and triceps in the evening. On the “Pump-day” I stay around 12-15 reps and the results in 2009 got better and better.
Truly, my arms still need a lot of work, but they slowly start to match the rest of my body.
Example for a “Pump-training”:
Triceps :
The triceps is probably the easiest muscle to stimulate it’s growing.
Basicly you cannot do anything wrong unless you start to cheat in an extremely brutal way.
Most of the movement is happening by itself and as long as you really push the weight in a proper way, you can be sure that the triceps gets some work.
For competitive Bodybuilders it should be also important to mention that you have to listen to the body again, especially with this muscle. If you train too heavy or simply not in the right way, soon you might get problems with your joints. It is more important for me to use the whole range of motion, when doing pushdowns for example, instead of using a freaky weight.
I have seen a few Pros already getting some kind of infection at the tendon and because of that they needed a surgery which destroyed the shape of the triceps completely. The muscle looks torn and the loss of symmetry is the sad result.
Next to Pushdowns which is definitely a “must to do” in every training I can say that French Press or also called Skull Crushers are probably the best exercise to develop the triceps based on my experience.
So here is finally an example for my usual Triceps workout:
I hope you enjoy the pictures and maybe they can even motivate you to try out these ideas I am talking about. Train Hard and go for your dreams !
Arms
Biceps :
Like for many tall Bodybuilders, Arms is also for myself a weaker muscle group compared to the rest of the body. That means for me to emphasize the focus on this muscle and to work on it even more special. Truly, Arms and Calves can probably never be big enough. As long as they don’t grow in a totally freaky way they won’t harm your symmetry and for this reason, even people having relatively strong arms, can possibly use my strategy to stimulate the Arms to new levels of growing.
A long time I trained Biceps very heavy and basicly I just focused on the amount of weight.
I allowed myself to cheat in my biceps workouts and for many people (probably the genetically gifted ones) even this seems to work. But after some months or maybe years in my case, I simply had to realize that it is not working for me. The shape of my Biceps is simply not responding on this kind of training. Finally in 2006 I started to change many things. I started a slow and controlled movement. I completely forced myself not to aim for any weights anymore and I realized how the changes started to work.
The results were great so far but after one year I found another big mistake I was doing over the years. I trained the Brachialis only every few weeks, but I seen that this muscle is almost not visible on all of my stage pictures. So the Brachialis became another big part of every Biceps workout. I still need to work on it, but after 2 years I can say that it improved already.
But speaking about the facts of my current Biceps workout, I want to give some numbers:
- 5 Sets: Main Exercise: SZ-Curls, Barbell Curls, Dumbell Curls or Seated Dumbell Curls
- 3 Sets: Isolation Exercise: Concetration-Curls or Scott-curls (Dumbell or Barbell),
- 3 Sets: Brachialis: Hammercurls, Scott-Hammer-Curls or Hammer-curl maschine
- 3 Sets: Pump: High Barbell Curls with light weight or Reverse Barbell Curls
- 4 Supersets of Forearms
You can see the really heavy part of my workout consists only of nine Sets, as the first exercise includes 2 warm-up sets. So I limit my workout to a few exercises and keep the focus on a controlled movement, using the whole range of motion and taking the highest possible amount of weight to get 6-8 reps.
But there is another day of the week, when I train my arms again.
Basicly the heavy training, you read about just a few lines ago, reminds on an European way of training, but on my many trips to the USA I also seen many Americans training quite successfully their arms only by pumping the muscles. I never really get a satisfied feeling by doing only a “pump-training”, but as it seems to work for them, it was also worth for me to try. So I added another Training Session, only consisting of cable exercises, to my weekly schedule.
In this training I am using Supersets by combining one biceps exercise with one triceps exercise. At my heavy Arm-training day, I prefer to train biceps in the morning and triceps in the evening. On the “Pump-day” I stay around 12-15 reps and the results in 2009 got better and better.
Truly, my arms still need a lot of work, but they slowly start to match the rest of my body.
Example for a “Pump-training”:
- 4 sets One-Arm cable curls with 4 sets Pushdowns
- 4 sets high cable curls with 4 sets Dip machine
- 4 sets Hammer-cable curls with 4 sets one arm cable pushdowns
Triceps :
The triceps is probably the easiest muscle to stimulate it’s growing.
Basicly you cannot do anything wrong unless you start to cheat in an extremely brutal way.
Most of the movement is happening by itself and as long as you really push the weight in a proper way, you can be sure that the triceps gets some work.
For competitive Bodybuilders it should be also important to mention that you have to listen to the body again, especially with this muscle. If you train too heavy or simply not in the right way, soon you might get problems with your joints. It is more important for me to use the whole range of motion, when doing pushdowns for example, instead of using a freaky weight.
I have seen a few Pros already getting some kind of infection at the tendon and because of that they needed a surgery which destroyed the shape of the triceps completely. The muscle looks torn and the loss of symmetry is the sad result.
Next to Pushdowns which is definitely a “must to do” in every training I can say that French Press or also called Skull Crushers are probably the best exercise to develop the triceps based on my experience.
So here is finally an example for my usual Triceps workout:
- 4 sets Pushdowns
- 4 sets Skull Crushers
- 4 sets Kick backs
- 3 sets dips on a bench (only in diet)
