Weider Principles: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced Joe Weider, the father of modern bodybuilding. I gave a brief biography of his productive life and the legacy he has left behind.

I also introduced the principles that he came up with by talking to the bodybuilding legends of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. He came up with three catagories of principles; first, how to get the most out of an exercise, second, how to group your exercises together, and lastly, how to put an exercise program together.

In part 1 I described the first six principles on how to get the most out of an exercise. Let’s begin part 2 with the seventh principle -

7. The Retro-Gravity Principle

When you do a rep with weights there are two parts to an exercise, the movement that contracts the muscle, called the positive movement, and the part where you return the weight back to the starting point, which is called the negative portion. For example, when doing a dumbbell curl, as you lift the dumbbell, the bicep contracts, that is the positive movement, and when you lower the dumbbell the bicep lengthens, that is the negative movement.

Bodybuilders noticed that they could handle more weight during the negative movement than the positive movement. This principle emphasizes the negative portion of the exercise to stress the muscle and make it grow.

You can do this principle one of two ways, but to do this principle you are going to need a workout partner. The first way you can do this is to lift a weight that you can handle for 5 or 6 reps but as you get to the point that you can’t lift it on the positive side any longer, then your partner helps you reach the top position and then you slowly lower the weight fighting gravity to lower it. Try to slow the movement so that it takes at least 5 or 6 seconds to lower the weight.

Do that at least 4 or 5 times to complete a set of 10 reps total.

The other way is to do an entire set of negatives. Choose a weight that is heavier that you are able to lift on your own, but not too heavy that you can’t slowly lower the weight. Have your workout partner help you lift the weight and then lower it for 5 or more seconds. Lift again with assistance and repeat. Do a full set of 8 to 10 reps and you will notice the burn.

Joe Weider could have called this the negative principle, but being good at marketing he gave it a name with a more positive spin.

8. Forced Reps Principle

Forced Reps is very similar to the retro gravity principle in that it takes a workout partner to do it. The difference is forced reps focuses on the positive rather than the negative.

If you go to a gym you might have seen someone spotting for another on the bench press or when doing squats. When the lifter reaches the point where he can’t lift the weight any longer, the spotter jumps in and helps him just enough to lift the weight. That is what it means to do a forced rep when you help the lifter force the weight up when he no longer has the strength to complete it. That alone helps create the maximum amount of stress upon the muscle so it can grow.

9. Burns Training Principle

Sometimes it seems that these training principles are contradictory to one another. For example, one basic principle that is always taught when lifting weights is to always use the whole range of motion when doing an exercise. This principle says it is okay to only use a partial range of motion. The difference is in the timing of the movement.

The idea is to lift the weight in such a way that you actually feel the burn of the muscle when you finish. You are pumping as much blood into the muscle by the end of the exercise and can feel it.

What you are to do is this. Start by doing an exercise with a weight that you can handle for 8-10 full range reps. As you get close to the end of the set and don’t think you can handle any more then do burns. Burns are short partial reps where you don’t go all the way down, nor do you go all the way up. Just simply pump in the mid-range of the movement until you can’t pump anymore, getting every last ounce of work into that muscle.

10. Flushing Training Principle

The idea of the Flushing Principle is to pump your muscle enough to draw blood into your muscle to produce growth. You can imagine pumping air into a basketball or bicycle tire. The more you pump, the more you notice the ball or tire getting bigger and tighter.

The way to accomplish this is through volume. The more reps and sets of an exercise you do the more blood gets pumped into the muscle. One thing to do to accomplish this is to use lighter weight. Too often, when lifting, many people try to lift the maximum amount of weight they can handle. What really needs to be done to grow muscle is to focus on working the muscle, not working the weights.

For example, I love using the flushing principle on my biceps. I will do about 9 to 12 sets of moderate weight in which I can do 8 to 10 reps, then on the last set I drop the weight almost in half and do that set to failure no matter how many reps it takes. Usually it feels too easy through the first ten reps, then around 15 reps you notice it is getting harder to do. By rep 24 or 25, I simply cannot lift it anymore.

I love doing this. Once I’m done, I can see my arms are visible larger due to the influx of blood. Over the last few months of this routine I have seen growth in my arms, which is the goal of this principle.

11. Cheat Training Principle

The Cheat principle is something that should be done rarely and only for certain muscle groups. The idea of cheating in weight lifting is when you relax your form when doing an exercise.

Form is important because proper form protects you from injury. When you cheat on your form you can damage your muscles, damage your tendons and end up having to stop lifting until you recover.

When you use the cheat principle, it should be limited to biceps, triceps and shoulders. Exercises where you can sway a little bit when you lift without causing harm.

The cheat principle should also only be used at the end of a set where you can no longer raise the bar with strict form so you can get two or three final reps done. Otherwise this principle probably should be left to the pros.

12. Peak Contraction Principle

The peak contraction principle is for those exercises where when you reach the top of the movement your muscles are at their peak of their contraction. At the point where your muscle is at the peak of its contraction, hold the weight still while the muscle is contracted for a few seconds and at the same time flex the muscle while holding it there.

Take the triceps pulldowns as an example. When you push the cable down as far as you can, the triceps contract. Hold it at the bottom for a few seconds and squeeze the muscle flexing it. This actually helps you focus more on the muscle you are working rather than just doing rep after rep.

It is a simple principle but it has lots of benefits when you do it.

This concludes the principles on how to get the most out of an exercise. Now it is time to expand to a wider circle and see how we can group our exercises together to get the most out of our workouts. There are actually eleven ways we can group our exercises together. Let’s look at the first six exercises today.

How to group your exercises together

1. Set System Training Principle

Joe Weider’s Set System Principle is so common place today that some would find it hard to believe that it had to be stated as a principle. The idea is to do what it takes to pump as much blood as possible into a muscle group and exhausting the muscle until it can do nothing but grow in response.

To pump up the muscle it takes multiple sets of an exercise as well as multiple exercises for the same muscle group. Typically that would mean 2 to 5 exercises with 3 to 5 sets per exercise.

These days doing multiple sets for a muscle group is what is normally done, but it wasn’t always that way. Many instructors back in the 1950’s and 1960’s would teach others to do a full body routine in which you only did one set per muscle group.

Through trail and error, some bodybuilders back then started experimenting with multiple exercises for a body group and found that it grew muscles better. Weider then put what they learned into this principle.

Now we can all benefit from what they learned.

2. Muscle Priority Principle

Everybody who exercises has some body part that they want to improve. Maybe you want larger arms, maybe a more toned waist or maybe a wider back. Whatever you want to improve, pay attention to this principle.

The point of this principle is if you have a muscle group which is weaker or more underdeveloped than your other muscle groups, then focus on that muscle group first when your body is fresh.

Bodybuilders in the past, noticed if they prioritized the muscles they wanted to improve upon first in their workouts then they would quickly improve that muscle group.

Since those days, researchers have proven that the old bodybuilders were correct in their, prioritizing your weaker muscles first will aid in growth.

3. Superset Training Principle

Superset training is when you take two exercises from opposite muscle groups such as chest and back, biceps and triceps or quadriceps and hamstrings and work them together. The key to this to not take any rest between sets and move straight to the other exercise.

The one thing that happens when you do a superset is as you contract a muscle when you exercise, the opposite muscle gets stretched out. Then as you contract the opposite muscle the first muscle gets stretched out.

An example of this would be when you do a bench press and immediately get up and pick up the dumbbell you placed next to the bench and do one arm rows for your back.

This is a more efficient way of working two muscle at the same time. Some research has shown that this type of training also burns more calories and can be an aid in weight loss, because it in effect creates a bit of a cardio response to the extra work and lack of rest between sets.

Doing superset is also a way to speed up your workout and cuts time out of your workout which is a plus in our already busy lives.

4. Compound Set Training Principle

Most of the time nowadays, this principle is often called a superset also. Joe Weider saw enough of a difference that he gave it the name compound set.

Like the superset you do two exercises back to back without taking a break in-between. The difference is you are doing two exercises for the same muscle group. For example, an easy combination for shoulders is to do side laterals raises with dumbbells and then immediately do front raises without stopping or putting the dumbbells down.

5. Tri-Set Training Principle

Tri-set training is simply a compound set where you have set up three exercises for the same muscle group and go from one to the next without stopping for rest.

6. Giant Set Training Principle

A Giant set is simply doing four or more exercises for the same muscle group. This can at times be difficult to do at the gym unless it is empty that day. People might complain that you are hogging up everything. I, myself will do tri-sets and giant sets in my home gym sometimes. With a combination of weights, resistance bands and body weight exercises you can become creative with your workouts.

I’m going to stop here and pick up next time with the conclusion to the Weider Principles. Have a blessed day.