HERE’S WHAT DIDN’T make the final cut of my hellacious Muscle-Building Blitz workout video with bodybuilding champion Sadik Hadzovic: The part where I actually thought I was going to puke. You can still see it in my body language on tape; as I leaned all of my weight into a racked barbell to stay on my feet between sets of squats, I motioned for someone off-camera to have a trash can on hand, just in case. Thankfully, I didn’t need it. But for a moment, I was worried.
Understand this: I do videos like these all the time. Part of my job at MH involves gutting out ultra-tough workouts from top trainers, sometimes to give you new workout ideas and frameworks (as in my 5 Minute of Hell series), sometimes to show you exactly how hard you need to train for a given fitness goal (my Blitz series). This one was about documenting just how hard it is to train for hypertrophy—a nerdy way to say building muscle tissue—and to do that, I took on a 30-minute leg workout. I dive deeper into how it felt and how it’ll change my training in the full writeup here. Or, continue reading for a sneak peek into some of the lessons I learned from Sadik, who was the inaugural Arnold Classic Physique division champ in 2015.
Lesson 1: Warmups Are More Than a Stretch
There were no slow-moving plank walkouts, arm swings, or stretching to kick-off this workout. Sadik just had me start moving weight. We opened with alternating forward lunges using a pair of 30-pound dumbbells. And yes, that approach is far different than what I’m used to when it comes to a ramp-up—especially since he had me move even more weight as the lunges wore on. The end result: I had to instantly get my mind in the game. There’s nothing wrong with a few Spiderman lunges to open a workout. But jumping into heavy load just hits different.
Lesson 2: Tempo Can Be Fun
Maybe “fun” isn’t the right word, but I do know taking the approach to move more deliberately can be effective. I come from an athletic background, so I’m used to attacking my reps fast. But Sadik cued me to slow down throughout the session. Cutting the speed of my reps made each set more grueling, even when I was using weights that I’d usually consider light work. Watch my face closely in the video: By the end of the first set of tempo, on my final rep, I’m struggling to hold it together. Part of that just might’ve been that I was so sick of listening to Sadik counting to three, part of it might’ve been the accumulated time under tension, who’s to say. It’s not easy to stay in the zone during a tempo set, but it is worth it.
Lesson 3: Prefatigue to Open Up
After tiring me out with lunges and Bulgarian split squats, Hadzovic had me do a back squat at the middle of the workout—something I also wouldn’t normally do. “As we get to our mid-thirties, even forties, mid-forties, fifties, we do want to oxygenate our blood and get those hips nice and open,” he said. It also meant I couldn’t go as heavy on my squats as I usually would, because I’d burned so much energy on all that other work. But if this can spare me from having to always go heavy on leg days (I squat up to 350 pounds for my last set on a typical day), this trick will be useful. It’ll spare my back and knees as I get older—and yes, I have to admit I’m right in the bottom part of that range Sadik listed, and not getting any younger.
Lesson 4: Don’t Hurt Yourself to Stick to the Structure
By the last exercise of the day, I was hurting. Instead of crushing my reps, I was running on autopilot—and that system was clearly on the fritz, as I messed up my form for sumo squats during the penultimate movement. Sadik could tell I was fading, so he made an alteration and basically just ended the workout. That’s my last big lesson: If you’re mailing in reps, don’t do them. That’s not going to give you real muscle-building stimulus you want. Don’t just finish a workout for the sake of finishing. You’ve got to be able to work.
Don’t do the exact workout I did, either. Watch it though, please—it’s fun to see someone push to their limit, and you’ll pick up other lessons, too. And then check out our Muscle-Building workout package, because our team put a ton of work into this one. We’re giving you all the knowledge you could possibly need to build serious muscle over the next few months. With my workout to inspire you, a ton of knowledge in our other videos, and some nutritional goodness—you’ll get a full program that’ll push you to your limits without going overboard.
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Brett Williams, NASM-CPT, PES, a senior editor at Men’s Health, is a certified trainer and former pro football player and tech reporter. You can find his work elsewhere at Mashable, Thrillist, and other outlets.
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