Written by Ron Harris
30 December 2020

 Build more muscle

 

How to Build More Muscle: Why Old School Training Works Best

 

By Ron Harris

           

You can’t stop progress, and in most cases it’s a wondrous thing. Take technology, for example. When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, even the concept of a basic cellular telephone that you could carry with you anywhere seemed as futuristic as flying cars. All we had were clunky rotary dial phones that were plugged into wall jacks. Now, everyone has a “phone” that can do almost anything including make calls, send text messages, take pictures and videos and send or share them instantly, navigate to any destination, video chat with others, and access the Internet to immediately find just about any piece of information your heart desires with a few taps and swipes. Bodybuilding has undergone a similar meteoric revolution in my lifetime. I remember Mr. Olympia champions that weighed as little as 185 pounds, with the heaviest of that classic era being Arnold at 6 foot 2 and 240 pounds. By the early 2000s, we had Ronnie Coleman crushing the Olympia stage like Godzilla at 5 foot 11 and 296 pounds with striated glutes. That brings up another major change – body fat. The old-school crew was lean, but nothing like the extreme condition we witness today. In the ‘70s, not one star ever displayed striated glutes, a clear Christmas tree lower back, or that dry, grainy look with veins on top of veins. Today, no one is even considered “in shape” unless his glutes are in. There have been numerous advances in training, equipment, nutrition knowledge, supplementation technology, and of course, performance-enhancing drugs. While I agree that some of these have proved to be superior, I submit that in many ways, the old-school guys had it right and some of our so-called “advances” aren’t superior at all.

 

Training Frequency

 

For many years, bodybuilders performed full-body workouts three days a week. By the time the original Gold’s Gym on Main Street in Venice was a thriving mecca, Arnold and company were hitting every body part twice a week, typically in split routines where they would train twice a day. The top men in the sport continued that split all the way through the 1980s. The only star to challenge the rationality of training so frequently was Mr. Universe Mike Mentzer, but few had the courage to switch over to his abbreviated style. It wasn’t until Dorian Yates exploded on the scene with his Mr. Olympia debut in 1991, taking second to the great Lee Haney, that “recovery” became a common term in bodybuilding. People always want to imitate what the champions do, and once Dorian began his six-year domination of the sport in 1992, legions of bodybuilders adopted his Blood and Guts style; training just four days a week and working each body part just once, with only one all-out working set to failure and beyond of each exercise. Giving the individual muscle groups additional time to recover between sessions did result in substantial mass gains for many, who had unwittingly been overtraining for years. Some did feel that they didn’t need quite so much rest time and adopted a five or six-day split routine with higher volume for each muscle group. This is more or less the way most bodybuilders train today, with a training week that might resemble something like this:

 

Monday: Chest

Tuesday: Back

Wednesday: Shoulders

Thursday: Legs

Friday: Arms

 

This type of split is enormously popular because it allows you to focus more on each muscle group without having to pace yourself because you have another body part or two still to cover in the same workout. Today’s bodybuilders are bigger than ever, so clearly this routine will be conducive to adding maximum mass. The quantity of the physiques has increased, but do they show better muscle quality, as in separation, detail, and seasoned maturity? That’s not even up for debate – no, they do not! Over the many conversations I had with Lee Haney, the eight-time Mr. Olympia was adamant that muscle quality had taken a big step backward over the past 20-25 years, and he pointed the finger of blame on the newer practice of working muscle groups only once per week. “That’s more like powerlifter type of training,” Lee would say, “and that’s why so many of these guys have that look – they’re big and strong, but the detail and quality in the muscles just isn’t there.” Muscles need to be trained more often to develop that polished and conditioned look. One might immediately assume this would lead to overtraining, and to be certain that could be a risk. But if one is on point with his nutrition and sleep and doesn’t go crazy with the volume at each workout, you can get both bigger and better working every muscle group twice a week. If you can’t get to the gym twice a day, you could try a push/pull/legs three-day split with a day off between each sequence.

 

Exercise Selection

 

“Pumping Iron” is a rare window into the training styles and methods used by the top bodybuilders of that era. We see Arnold just a few weeks out from the 1975 Mr. Olympia, training chest. The exercises are about as basic as it gets: barbell flat and incline bench presses, heavy dumbbell flyes, dips, and – probably more for the documentary camera’s benefit to better showcase his splintered pecs – cable crossovers. What a caveman chest workout! Yet riddle me this: who among today’s pros has a better chest than Arnold did over 40 years ago? Arnold and his peers were all about barbell and dumbbell presses and rows, squats, deadlifts, chins, and dips. The stars of today still use good old free weights, mixed with machines. Some pros are known to use more machines and cables than free weights. Generally speaking, bodybuilders today often shy away from basic free-weight movements like the barbell bench press, the military press, squats, and deadlifts. Why bother to squat when your gym has five cool leg presses to choose from? Why do barbell rows and deadlifts when there is a fleet of fancy back machines and eight cable stations? Avoiding the toughest free-weight exercises is practically a death sentence for gains. I’m convinced we don’t see as many sets of thick pecs these days because trainers have replaced the barbell bench press with machines. Truly thick backs are rare because bodybuilders don’t pay their dues with deads, barbell, and T-bar rows. For anyone who feels bad that the bodybuilders of yesteryear didn’t have all the fancy options in the gym that we now take for granted, don’t bother. Not only did they do just fine focusing on the basics, in many ways they did better.

 

Equipment

 

Let me just get this out of the way up front. I think a large percentage of exercise equipment being manufactured today is garbage. Those of you who have had the privilege of being able to compare it to vintage pieces from the ‘80s and ‘90s produced by companies like Icarian, Cybex, Body Masters, Flex Equipment and Hammer Strength are all nodding your heads in agreement right now. There was a reason Dorian Yates sought out specific machines from the original Nautilus line of the ‘70s and ‘80s when he took over ownership of Temple Gym. They were designed expertly to work the target body part perfectly. Most of the equipment you see being used at the original Gold’s Gym in the movie “Pumping Iron” was handmade by Joe Gold. Several of those pieces found their way to Gold’s Gym in its current location on Hampton Drive in Venice, while others were kept at Joe’s flagship World Gym on Main Street, now long gone. Training at both gyms, I was able to use Joe’s custom machines, and I can attest to the fact that they were all smooth and efficient. Machine manufacturers in the old days tended to be bodybuilders, or to at least have a vested interest in bodybuilding. They had a passion for designing machines that would help people develop their best body possible. I can’t say the same for the shiny, high-tech gadgets you see rows and rows of today in places like LA Fitness, Planet Fitness, and Work Out World. They look cool, but they just don’t work right. I’ve tried many that don’t even work the target muscle through the full range of motion. It’s no coincidence that the gyms bodybuilders flock to as serious training “meccas,” like the Powerhouse Gyms in Syosset, New York and New Haven, Connecticut are stocked with pieces that in some cases date back to the 1970s. New doesn’t always mean improved. In the case of exercise equipment, new usually means inferior. 

 

Training Style

 

Many modern bodybuilders smugly believe training science has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent decades. We now see trainers using bands and chains, calculating percentages of their maximum lifts, and following extremely detailed workouts in which every rep is carefully timed. So why do we see a lot less muscle mass in today’s gyms? The old-school men did plenty of heavy straight sets in the 8-12 rep range. Intensity techniques still used today, like drop sets, forced reps, rest-pause, supersets and pre-exhaust, were all around as far back as the early ‘70s, so don’t think there’s much new under the sun when it comes to training. The men back then applied their efforts into getting stronger and getting great pumps, and those are still the keys to building mass all these years later.

 

Nutrition and Supplementation

 

OK, surely, we have made drastic advances in the field of nutrition, right? For the most part, yes, we have. Yet you would be surprised how little the diets of bodybuilders have really changed in all this time. The standard off-season fare was high-protein, high carbs, and moderate fats. When contest-prep time rolled around, the carbs came down. What we now know as the ketogenic diet was being preached well over 50 years ago by The Iron Guru, Vince Gironda, who was ridiculed for it at the time. But food is food. Bodybuilders have been eating chicken, beef, eggs, fish, rice, potatoes and oatmeal since the original Muscle Beach days in Santa Monica shortly after World War II. I would argue that recent attempts to “revolutionize” nutrition, such as intermittent fasting and IIFYM, have not advanced the field one bit. According to If It Fits Your Macros, 100 grams of carbs is 100 grams of carbs whether it comes from brown rice or Fruity Pebbles. Many experienced prep coaches beg to differ.

 

Supplements have indeed come a long way since the old days. Arnold and company had only rudimentary protein powder blends of highly dubious quality that by all accounts tasted horrific and had to be downed swiftly lest you gag and puke them right back up. I can recall early liquid aminos I used in 1987-88 that tasted suspiciously like gasoline. There were no pre-workout formulas, though coffee did the job if needed. Bodybuilders didn’t drink shakes after a workout. Like Ronnie Coleman, they proceeded right to a hearty meal like steak and potatoes. Modern products like whey protein creatine, and nitric oxide boosters didn’t exist. I’ll give this category to the present.

 

Drugs

 

No discussion comparing the methods and ideology of the old-school bodybuilders would be complete without mentioning performance-enhancing drugs. I couldn’t just say “steroids.” The muscle men of the “Pumping Iron” era and for about 10-15 years prior to that did use only basic steroids like Dianabol, testosterone, Anavar, Deca and Primobolan. These days you practically need a degree in chemistry to keep up with the cornucopia of drugs that also includes human growth hormone, insulin, peptides, thyroid meds, clenbuterol, DNP and IGF-1. As much as modern meatheads like to mock this phrase, bodybuilders of days gone by truly did look upon drugs as being “the finishing touch.” They would use them in moderate amounts, and for the most part, only once they began to prepare for a contest. That’s one reason they tended to be lighter and downsized much of the year and then “grow into” shows. This is essentially the polar opposite of how modern competitors manage their drug use. Staying off steroids for any length of time, let alone six to nine months out of the year, is an inconceivable notion to most of today’s generation of bodybuilders. Most will “cruise” on what they call a TRT dose of 400-500 milligrams of testosterone a week, even though the typical TRT dose prescribed by doctors for men with low testosterone is 100-250 milligrams, plus they will of course continue using GH and insulin. This “cruise” usually is a three to four month bridge between off-season and contest prep “blasts” in which the gear total will range from 2,000-5,000 or more milligrams per week, and prep cycles will also include fat-burning drugs like T-3 and clenbuterol as well as aromatase inhibitors.

 

Rather than be lighter and slightly smaller in their off-season, today’s muscle men strive to bulk up and get as big and heavy as possible, then diet down and lose anywhere from 20-60 pounds of fat and water for a contest. While this has obviously resulted in physiques that are substantially larger, one cannot ignore the plague of serious health problems that has befallen far too many bodybuilders over the last 10-20 years, with a shocking amount of name bodybuilders dying before the age of 50, and in some truly tragic cases, in their 30s and even 20s. In contrast, you can still find plenty of old-school stars like Arnold, Lou Ferrigno, and Robby Robinson looking good and in excellent health in their 60s and 70s. Even the densest meatheads out there must concede that it’s no coincidence that escalating drug use over the decades has had disastrous health consequences for many. The old-school guys did not rely on drugs, they didn’t take excessive amounts, and they didn’t stay on drugs for extended periods of time. I’d argue that the trade-off of looking bigger and harder than old-school bodybuilders did in their era isn’t worth the additional risks that today’s men (and women) are taking.

 

Physiques

 

Finally, let’s compare the old-school physiques to the top men of today. The first argument you can make is that bodybuilders today are far bigger and heavier. A dump truck is much larger and heavier than a Lamborghini. Which one would you rather cruise around town in? Bigger isn’t necessarily better in bodybuilding. If that were true, the late Greg Kovacs and Dave Palumbo each would have won at least one Mr. Olympia title. Next you could point out that today’s bodybuilders possess more complete physiques. In particular, the leg development of the old-school guys was paltry in comparison to today’s stars. This is true, but only because the standards of that era didn’t call for huge quads and hanging hams. It was felt that legs so massive that they rubbed together when you walk took away from the aesthetic flow and lines of the physique.

 

Now let’s look at how the old-school bodies could easily be considered better. Nobody had a big gut back then – nobody! GH and insulin weren’t part of the drug regimen, and the men weren’t bulking up to 280-340 pounds in the off-season either. There were no weak chests, which are common today, or shallow abs, because the bodybuilders of yore all invested plenty of time training their abdominals. You didn’t see gyno, cyst-like acne, or bizarrely shaped, lumpy synthol-filled arms or delts. The men all had full heads of hair, whereas now we see men in their 20s who have already gone bald from steroid abuse. There was such a demand for the more aesthetically pleasing types of physiques we used to see that an entirely new division, Classic Physique, was created to fill that void. The fact that it has exploded in popularity in just a few years is a solid indicator that many fans had become jaded and disenchanted with the direction pro bodybuilding had taken since the 1980s and ‘90s.

 

Time marches on, and you can’t stop progress. That doesn’t mean there aren’t many valuable lessons to be learned from the bodybuilders of the old-school era. There’s a reason those decades are referred to as The Golden Age or the days of classic bodybuilding. In many ways, those guys had it right. Our attempts to advance bodybuilding in all the areas we’ve discussed have met with mixed success. The bottom line is that old-school bodybuilding never really went out of style or became obsolete. In many ways, it still rules!

 

Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Facebook Instagram

 

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