Muscle Building

Are You Overtraining with Adonis Index Workouts?

August 17, 2012 by Allen Elliott

This article is meant for more experienced trainees, read it, but follow the advice only if you have been working out with us for a while.

You have been warned.

So you’re following the Adonis Index workouts and they have grown to become quite fierce.

Is it possible your over-training with our systems?

Chances are you will never get even close to overtraining. How Come?

If you have been around in the community for a while you may have noticed that there are a couple of recurring questions the new guys often ask.

Here’s are a few common questions revolving around our topic of discussion:

“Won’t the Adonis Index 3.1 and Booster specializations cause me to overtrain?”

“Aren’t the supersets in the advanced workouts a little too much?”

“That’s a lot of workout days, shouldn’t I rest after each workout?”

All three questions stem from the fear of overtraining.

This concern is completely understandable, you want to progress, but at the same time, you don’t want to risk over-training, injury and/or compromising your immune system.

This re-occurring question was first noted when we did an interview with Vivek and Adam who both trained twice a day for almost the whole week for the latest 12 Week transformation contest.

Here are their interviews:

Vivek’s interview – 9 Pounds Muscle Gain Since His Last Contest
Adam’s interview – 6-Month Journey to Cover Model Body with Adam Murphy

From these interviews more questions spawned… Can you over-train with Adonis Index workouts? What is the limit that your body can handle before it starts to break down? Aren’t two workout routines a day or even training once a week, but for seven days straight for weeks on end too much?

What about rest and regeneration? Aren’t you supposed to rest for at least a day to let your muscles grow and body to recover?

These question demands a verdict.

Well, after interviewing more than a hundred people from both Adonis and Venus Index contest, the answer seems to be quite simply, “no”.

It appears to be just another industry myth.

For example consider the olympic athletes, they are training all the time, from dusk till dawn, even the pro bodybuilders have two-a-days in their competition prep plan.

Now genetic predisposition and drugs make a big difference, but even without those your body is capable of more.

It all comes down to two things:

Lifestyle circumstances
Conditioning

It All Depends on Your Lifestyle

If you are working from 7 am to 6pm, then you will not be able to handle more than one workout a day without sacrificing your sleep and social life.

That’s the reality.

If on the other hand you are like Vivek, who is a successful business owner can plan his days however he wants, then you can get two workouts done pretty easily without having to go nuts.

So, if you have the option and really want to experiment with your workouts, then go for it.

It’s a Matter of Conditioning Yourself

You can have the time, but you may not have the fitness required for such an intense training load.

I always say that workout frequency is really just a matter of conditioning.

If you are not trying to lift as heavy as possible, testing your max or going to failure with each set and you actually understand the principles behind the Permission to Lift Light concept, then it’s about slightly increasing your frequency over time.

When you first got into weight training, you probably couldn’t handle more than two workouts a week, your body was in shock, trying to repair from the first workouts and build more strength.

You continued to work hard and your body responded with increased strength and mass muscle gains. Your overall condition improved and you were ready to face greater challenges.

Well, going from 4-5 workouts to everyday training or two workouts a day is similar. You begin to increase the frequency “little by little” – baby steps.

After a couple of weeks or months, you’re suddenly able to perform two-a-day workouts with the greatest of ease.

This transformation results in tremendous muscle growth.

Vivek was experiencing muscle gains equivalent to that of someone in their teens (we call this catch up growth).

And Adam could suddenly out perform his buddies, here’s what he told us afterwards:

Here’s what Adam told us after training twice a day:

The guys I was training with were out lifting me every week (% of increase), despite me being more focused and dedicated.

It was not until I started lifting lots more(2x a day) that anything changed. A couple lifts I started going up faster than they were, a couple lifts we progressed equally, a couple I was just able to reduce the percentage that they out gained me.

Every person is different,

I did the 3.0 program and documented everything. Then the next three months I did it with extra workouts, as many as I could do and feel like I was safely pushing the edge. But I worked into it. It started with just a extra set or two at night… then it grew until I was sometimes doing the entire day twice. I did not even alternate days. I did the exact same exercises. I had never heard of anyone doing this so I figured I would see what happened. Athletes do the same thing day in and day out so why can I not do the same lifts twice in one day?

I just experimented. My theory was this… If lifting causes a slight damage to the muscle, maybe re-damaging it a couple hours later would be like ripping a scab off and getting extra damage. Sort of sounds silly saying it like that but that is what I was wondering.

The reason I love the AI way of life is simply that they give you the understanding of the concepts and theories that we are then free to play with. To use the latest information and theories to create our own experiment.

No ONE rule exists. I think that this is an important thing to accept. Then dedicate 3 months of your life as an experiment and report back.

The truth is you will have greater results if you train with lighter weights, and work the muscle more often.

However, keep in mind if following this strategy blindly, over-training is bound to occur.

Here is a quick message from John Barban on this topic:

“Eat too much food and do too much exercise, and your body will develop diseases of over consumption like type-2 diabetes, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer and arthritis (just to name a few). And you’re joints muscles and tendons will start to break down from excessive exercise and your immune system istself can become compromised (classic overtraining syndrome).”

There is a sweet spot to everything.

However, the Adonis Index workouts are designed in a way that will not cause overtraining.

And if you have the time and conditioning, you can start adding more in order to get more results and find out your limits.

Start with the basic 3.1 workouts and MBF that through a couple weeks condition yourself to handle more challenging stuff. This can be adding specializations aka boosters to your current routine or progressing to ATS and IXP. (Here is a list of all Adonis Index Workouts)

It’s a step-by-step process of conditioning yourself to handle bigger challenges.

4 Ways to Challenge Yourself and Gain More Muscle

If you are a more experienced trainee you might wanna try testing your limits.

If you have been through the regular AI workouts and you want to keep your training fun, fresh and challenging here are a couple of ways to do so.

1. Try the Anabolic Again

Anabolic Again is a very advanced program designed by Brad Pilon that will take your training to a whole another level.

It’s mainly for people who no longer get any results from their regular workouts.

2. Cut the Rest Days

This means that if you have 5 workouts a week like in MBF or 6 with 3.1+boosters, you can just skip the rest days and do three weeks worth of workouts in just two.

If at any point you feel like it’s getting too much and you really need a rest, just take a day off.

It’s about trial and error, remember your goal is to test out your limits and see how much you can push.

3. Add a Second Workout

You can add an extra workout day like Vivek or Adam to increase training frequency and put on some serious muscle mass.

4. Add Some other Sport Activities

We go to the gym to work on ourselves, develop a stronger body, and improve our character. However, if you already look good, why not keep improving and enjoy your body and life a bit at the same time?

Take up swimming, challenge some friends to beach volleyball, or join a pick-up game of basketball.

These activities are great forms of cardio, you’ll be out of the gym, breathing fresh air and may even have time to stop and smell the roses.

The bottom line is if you continue training 4-5 days a week you will still burn calories while participating in other recreational activities on your “non-training” days.

For example, an activity such as mountain biking will enhance your conditioning, and contribute to some mass muscle gains in your thighs and calves.

An added bonus if you are naturally skinny guy like me.

So what will it be? Which option will you try and experiment with? Let me know in the forum. (Not a member? Go here)

Talk to you soon,

Vaclav Gregor

Filed Under: Greg's Lessons, Muscle Building Tagged With: adonis index, overtraining

Counter Contraction: The Adonis Row

July 20, 2012 by Allen Elliott

If your goal is to build muscle mass then the point of lifting weights isn’t to simply move as much weight through space as you can, but rather to contract the target muscle.

It takes time to learn to contract your back muscles, the Adonis Row will teach you FAST!

Theoretically you could build your muscles as big as possible without ever lifting a weight IF you could force your muscles to maximally contract simply by flexing them. Unfortunately it seems that we must use some sort of external resistance (weights, bands, machines etc) to force us to contract our muscles harder than if we just flex them without any weight to push against.

Moving Weight vs Contracting Muscle

Take a look around your gym the next time you go and see if you can tell who is ‘moving weight’ and who is ‘contracting muscles’.

The ‘weight movers’ will be cheating up the weight no matter what their form looks like and what muscles are actually involved. In the case of the ‘weight movers’ their focus is on moving the dumbbell or barbell through space and they’ve likely forgotten why they are there working out in the first place, which for most people is to train the muscles.

Power lifters and competitve olympic style lifters are in fact attempting to move weight through space and don’t actually care how their body achieves this goal. This means their form becomes their function and whatever shape their body must take in order to the move the weight then so be it. In both of these cases a larger core/torso and larger hips/butt/leg area tends to dominate their physique. Indeed this is a powerful end result for moving weight through space on the major power and olympic lifts, but it doesn’t do much for building a Golden Adonis Index Ratio.

Contracting Muscles on the other hand is about using enough weight to force a maximal contraction at the working muscle that you are in fact intended to be contracted.

One way to ensure you’re getting the target muscle to contract is to have very strict form and avoid using other muscles or ‘body heave’ to assist the movement of the weight. It’s the idea of eliminating or minimizing the contribution of other muscle groups that are not meant to be worked during a given exercise.

For most exercises the best you can do is attempt to keep the rest of your body still/strict while only allowing the working muscles to move.

BUT there is one specific exercise where you can take this one step further and do what I call a ‘counter contraction’.

A counter contraction is where you not only keep the other muscles still/strict but you engage them in the opposite direction that would have otherwise been cheating.

For example on a bent barbell row many people engage their hips and lower back and instead of only using their lats and arms to pull up the barbell they also use a significant amount of lower back movement and hamstrings to ‘heave up’ the weight. This stype of cheating will allow you to move a heavier weight through space, but it will take away from how intensely your lats and upper back muscles will have to contract. In other words, you’re taking away from the activation of the target muscles instead of adding to it.

The counter contraction bent barbell row (I call it the Adonis Row) is where you bend into the contraction while your flex your arms and back. It’s somewhat difficult to describe so I’ve included a video here so you can see exactly what it looks like.

Try this row at the end of your next back workout, I guarantee you’ll get the most intense contraction and pump you’ve ever had in your back muscles.

John

Filed Under: Muscle Building, Workout Design Tagged With: Adonis Row, Counter Contraction

Eliminate Inhibitors and Muscle Growth Will Be The Default State of Your Body

July 4, 2012 by Allen Elliott

Welcome to Season 2 of our UNCENSORED Podcasts!

What really is muscle growth? Do you think it has been studied and understood by scientists?

In the bodybuilding community, there is a strong belief that we don’t have any research on muscle growth and muscle building.

That’s not true.

There are a ton of papers on this subject, the results are just not what we would like them to be, that’s why it’s usually brushed under the table.

A New Way of Thinking about Muscle Growth

We’ve always been lead to believe that you need to “boost your muscle growth”, find ways to eat more protein, more calories, basically do everything you can to stimulate your muscles to grow even more.

The only issue with this approach is that you can’t do it, because it’s impossible without the use of drugs.

Today, Barban and Pilon will show you how the typical approach, as explained by others who focus on bro-science in this industry, is completely the opposite to how your body REALLY works.

To explain this in simple terms, let’s imagine your body works like a car and you are the driver. In this case, you would have one foot on the gas and the other one on the brake. However, in this case, you can’t press your foot further down on the gas pedal: you already are crashing the floor with it.

What you need to do is something else – you need to completely remove the other foot from the brake. Because once you get your other foot off the brake, the car starts going forward. To complete the analogy, your body starts growing.

So instead of trying to “force” your muscles to grow, you just need to remove the inhibitors that are preventing you from reaching your golden body shape.

The minute you are born, you start growing, but let’s take away juvenile muscle growth and even steroid induced growth from this to make things really simple.

Now, you may be saying, if this is true then why don’t I already have a 20 inch bicep, right?

Well, here’s how this works. Your body has a predefined way of growth, so if you are supposed to be 190 pounds at 6’1” it will try to get there by default and it will ALWAYS try getting there until you are 190 and 6’1”.

If your body isn’t where it should be yet, then it’s not because you haven’t done enough to boost the growth, yet it’s rather because you haven’t removed the things that are preventing your body from growing the way it wants.

Let me repeat: Your body wants to grow, however there are roadblocks called inhibitors that are preventing it from growing.

These inhibitors can be nutritional, environmental and even mental. There are also genetic inhibitors that keep the body from uncontrolled or unchecked growth, which like it or not is not something you would want. (ex: a tumor or cancer is an example of uncontrolled or unchecked growth)

So some inhibitors have to be there.

In essense, what you can do is find a way to remove some of them, so your body can reach it’s full potential.

In today’s UNCENSORED training, you will discover and learn:

Why removing inhibitors is a way to go to build more muscle
How many calories you need to eat to build 5 pounds of muscle a month
Some of the inhibitors that are preventing your body from growing
Why studies on rats are completely irrelevant when making a point about human body
Why ‘extra’ protein will not help you build muscle
The reason behind “How I gained 30 pounds with this workout” marketing stories and why they’re all likely true, and also to be expected
More insights from the Disinhibition theory of muscle growth that makes most fitness marketing seem outdated
Why running marathons might be detrimental to muscle growth

IMMERSION Clients May Login and Download Podcast Here

Not an Adonis Index IMMERSION client? Click here to find out more… and hear a weird story too

Filed Under: Muscle Building, Uncensored Podcasts S02 Tagged With: adonis index, Inhibitors, muscle growth, Uncensored Podcasts, Vaclav Gregor

Give Yourself Permission to Lift Light

May 4, 2012 by Allen Elliott

We have talked about the permission to be light a lot lately, especially it comes up in the interviews, because guys are starting to realize that being 200 pounds might not be the answer to a great looking body. You would have to be about 6’2” and train for at least 10 years in order to be lean and ripped at 200 pounds, that’s just how it is, no one will tell you this, but height is an important factor in determining your weight.

Today, we are going to discuss something similar, yet different. We won’t talk about the ideal physique, but rather about the training itself that will be responsible for building you such a physique.

If you have been listening to the last couple of interviews you may have noticed that more and more guys are starting to focus on things like

Training rather than on the supplements
Workout structure rather than on the high protein diets
Mind-muscle connection and muscle contraction rather than on the amount of weight lifted

And this goes completely against the conventional saying: “lift heavy, sweat blood in the gym, take protein shake exactly 3.8 minutes after your workout followed by post-workout meal 30 minutes after that”.

Well, Adonis Index made it’s name on going against the conventional approach. However, it’s also made it’s name on having a string of dozens of successful transformations from guys having 4 kids and 4 jobs or guys with injuries lasting decades, yet despite their condition or lifestyle circumstances or training history, they still achieved their physique goals and honed in on their ideal body shape. And more and more of them as they progress are focusing on this unconventional training approach.

The headline of this article is to lift light. And let’s be honest that just doesn’t sound all that sexy, does it? Chances are this would not get printed in a fitness magazine, yet if you get this concept it might be the difference between gaining 8 pounds compared to 3 pounds of muscle mass in the same time period.

What’s the deal with this mind-muscle connection and workout structures anyway, why can’t you just lift heavy to grow more muscles?

Is your training just about lifting heavy or are you really training your muscles and focusing on the contraction?

Well, the truth is that a fare amount of guys that try to lift really heavy, thinking that’s the way to go, experience a loss in their strength.

Have you ever done a really tough workout, but instead of just feeling sore, you felt really weak for several days? Or you may have just noticed that your strength decreased over a couple of weeks.

Well, if that happened to you, you may count yourself lucky, because you could have also seriously injured yourself.

I’ve even seen some serious chest tendon injuries as an immediate result of heavy bench press and testing the “max”.

Let me tell you something, if you are a guy that can’t do a bench press without someone else helping you with the bar and your whole body is shaking and almost dancing on the bench while you are lifting the bar up, you may want to reconsider your training style. Not only that your friend can do a biceps curl on his own without you lying under the bar, but you alone are not training instead you’re simply stroking your ego by attempting to lift more weight than your current body can.

Best case scenario – you will simply just look dumb, worst case scenario – you will get injured and won’t be able to work out for months or years.

Not only that lighter weights are bearable on your joints and CNS, but with lighter weights you can do something that you just can’t with the heavy weights.

What it is?

Well, you can actually focus on TRAINING the muscle.

If you are lifting so much that you are only thinking about putting the bar down after the first two reps, you are not really training.

Workout Structure Should Dictate the Resistance

What really drives me nuts, well apart from the whole fitness industry, is when somebody comes up to me and says: “Hey how much do you lift on bench press?” or “How strong are your biceps?”. This just doesn’t make sense and just shows that you have no idea what you are talking about if you ask a question like that.

Most people do the 3 set-8 reps-rest until fresh type of training that they’ve heard the first day of their workout life from some trainer. Some people will do that for the rest of their lives.

The truth is that there is no universal way to train, every workout type is different, so asking about the weight without mentioning the other variables of your training is kind of short sighted.

If you asked me how strong I was in the middle of the 2nd workout in the week 7 of the IXP on my biceps, then I would tell you. However, this is a completely different question, you are being specific and we both know what type of training structure are we talking about.

Let’s elaborate on this a bit.

If you do the regular Adonis Index Workout, then most of your training will be around 5,8 and 13 reps with around 90 or 120 seconds rest. However, if you decided to follow the IXP protocol, you may be doing three supersets in a row with no rest in between. So, this means 6 sets in a row, back to back, no rest. Do you think that you can lift the same weight in both of those training protocols in a given exercise?

Of course not.

Just like with look, weight itself tells nothing, because it’s all about proportions and shape, and the same applies here. If you said just how much you lift, you gave a number that holds no meaning, because nobody would know whether you did 3 reps or 21. And that’s a pretty big difference. Not speaking of the fact that in that given workout day, you may have been doing the exercise as a first one, while normally you do it as a last.

Here is test for you.

Take one routine you normally do, change nothing, just add three sets of 10 reps with 90 sec rest of pull-ups. In the first week, do this exercise as the first exercises of the day, so before you start your regular routine. Next week once you are fully recovered, do the same routine, but this time do the pull-ups as the last exercise, after the your routine.

You see where we are going with this?

There is just so many variables that will translate into you changing weights all the time on the same exercises.

Here is a short list of the stuff that will dictate how heavy you will be able to go:

Sets, reps done in the exercise (3×21 vs 6×6)
Rest after each set (30 sec vs 90 sec)
Regular sets vs Supersets vs Pyramids and other types
Frequency of your workouts and frequency of you training each muscle group
The sequence in which you will do the exercises in your workout
Sleep – how much you got the night before, the quality of that sleep

There might be a few others, but the point is to show you, that it’s important to detach yourself from the number on the plate or on the dumbbell and choose based on your workout structure.

A smart choice of the weight will help you stay away from injury and allow you to train your muscles properly. Which brings us to the last part of today’s lesson.

You Can’t Expect Your Muscles to Grow from Lifting

Not only that most guys believe that protein intake is the trigger for muscle growth, but they also think that the lift itself gives your muscles incentive to grow.

Well, not really. Your muscles don’t know how much you lift, what workout you use, how many reps you do, only your mind does.

The only thing your muscle feels is the repeated contraction against greater resistance, which makes it grow.

Big difference.

So, next time you are in the gym, make sure you don’t pick the heaviest dumbbells in there, thinking how amazingly strong you are going to look to everyone around you, but pick a reasonable one and focus on doing the motion with perfect form and really feeling the muscle contracting and working.

If you apply this advice you should see results in both strength and look.

Summary of Today’s Lesson:

Leave your ego out of this, preferably at the gym’s entrance
Try to detach yourself from the numbers on the plates and focus on feeling the muscle working rather then lifting some specific weight
Realize that muscles grow not because of protein intake or weight lifting, but because you are repeatedly creating strong contraction against greater resistance…weights are just a tool to create resistance
Understand that there are different workout structures and they will determine how heavy will you be able to go
Focusing on mind-muscle connection, feeling the muscle, contracting it in the fullest way possible is way more important than lifting the heaviest weights you can manage…form ALWAYS trumps weight…ALWAYS
Try several different workouts like AI 3.0, ATS or IXP to understand this concept in more detail, you will learn all this by experience
There is a difference between lifting and training, ask yourself: “Do I want to be a weight lifter or be in killer shape, what’s more important for me?” and act accordingly
Of course you still need to lift a reasonable amount of weight, doing curls with pencils will not get you anywhere (I know, stupid, but had to be said)

Talk to you soon,

Vaclav Gregor

Filed Under: Greg's Lessons, Muscle Building, Workout Design Tagged With: adonis index, Mind-muscle connection, muscle contraction, muscle growth, Permission to Lift Light, Training, weight lifting, Workout Structure

“State of the Adonis Union” Inaugural Address by Allen Elliott

April 27, 2012 by Allen Elliott

“The State of The Adonis Union is getting stronger. And we’ve come too far to turn back to the couch.” – Allen Elliott, Adonis Lifestyle Ambassador

My Adonis Lifestyle Journey began when I made the Watch List in Contest AT3. I received tremendous support from members of the AI/VI community to pursue my fitness endeavors. After winning the AT7 Open Level 2 Contest Category I'm inspired to support and motivate others to begin their own Adonis Lifestyle Journey.

Hello, my name is Allen Elliott and I’d like to share my “Adonis Lifestyle” Story with you. While stumbling upon the Adonis Index website over three years ago, I could’ve never imagined the incredible amount of success and personal satisfaction this system has provided for myself and my fitness endeavors. As an ex-athlete, I’d hear the horror stories’ of guys who started off in great shape only to be de-railed later in life & never recovering. Now that training for performance was no longer a goal or requirement, I was desperately looking for direction. I found the Adonis Index Systems to be straightforward and applicable to anyone desiring to improve their overall “Look” as opposed to specific performance training.

After completing the First Week of Workouts, I took the plunge and never looked back. Training exclusively with Adonis Index Systems, I have competed and placed with top honors in Natural Bodybuilding/ Men’s Physique Fitness Competitions, graced the runway in several prominent fashion shows, and have published work as a fitness model. Following the Adonis Lifestyle has given me unstoppable confidence to pursue my fitness goals with a relentless tenacity.

Allen Elliott | Fitness Model Comp Card || Credits: N3K Photo Studios | Bertron Anderson Photography | Michael Martin Photography

When John contacted me and asked if I would like to become a guest blogger on the site, I was deeply honored and graciously accepted his offer. My Goal while giving back to the Adonis Index Community is to: Supply, Train, and Build.

Supply–As a guest blogger, I will post helpful tips for contest preparation, provide insight on making the transition from an AI Contest to a “Live Show”, and share updates from my Journey in the World of Fitness Modeling.

Train–I’ll also be active in the AI forums to chat with members about training styles, body-part specialization within the AI system, and any other topics that may arise that I can help with.

Build–Preparing for the road ahead, John and myself are masterminding to bring you the next Adonis Index workout. This advanced workout will show you how I prepare for Fitness Competitions and Model Photo-Shoots, Adonis Index Style.

As we carry forward the plans and programs to better help you achieve your fitness goals I’d like to remind you to enjoy your fitness journey, the results are worth the effort. Stay Tuned! The best is yet to come.

Allen Elliott

Filed Under: body image, Contest, Fat Loss, Featured Articles, Goals, Muscle Building, Podcasts, Reviews, Weekly Guide, Workout Design Tagged With: Adonis Index Contest, bodybuilding, Building Muscle, Contest, contest prep, contest winner, figure model, Fitness, fitness model, health, Men's Physique, muscle building, muscle growth, Muscle Index, open contest winners, workout

How Do Muscles Grow? Uniform versus Non-Uniform Muscle Growth

November 30, 2011 by Allen Elliott

Working out with weights causes muscles to adapt and grow, this is nothing new. The pattern of muscle growth however, is not as obvious as we might have thought.

Most people think you train a muscle and the entire muscle simply gets bigger in a uniform and evenly spread out way…but this is a false assumption.

New research is showing that muscles do not grow in a uniform pattern, in fact research is showing certain areas or ‘chunks’ of the muscle grow to a greater degree than other ‘chunks’.

This non-uniform growth is due to many factors that come into play when we start working out with weights. These factors include:

The Anatomy of a Muscle

1. Volume of training

2. Intensity of training

3. Frequency of training

4. Velocity of reps performed

5. Muscle pennation angle

6. Muscle fiber length

7. Distribution of muscle fiber types within a given muscle group

8. Type of exercise performed

9. Previous training experience

And this is just the short list.

Modern imaging techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and 3D MRI are starting to reveal what is really going on in the muscle when we lift weights in an effort to make them bigger and stronger.

In the UNCENSORED audio program named “Non Uniform Muscle Adaptation – How Do Muscles REALLY Grow?”, released today, we review the latest research on muscle adaptations to strength training and determine how much or how little of a muscle we can really activate while working out and what is necessary for maximum muscle growth.

We also look into the research that the same muscle does not grow at the same rate from top to bottom and we may indeed be able to change the ‘shape’ of a given muscle group if we know how to active the entire muscle.