Natural Muscle November 2016 Celebrating 21 Years This Month! | Page 50

TRAINING

more Is not better

BETTER IS BETTER
Skip La Cour, six-time national champion bodybuilder

www.skiplacour.com

M

any bodybuilders mistakenly believe that the more time
and effort they put into their training during each workout, the better results they will experience. They pride
themselves on pushing themselves through grueling,
marathon workouts that are loaded with lots of exercises and sets.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Unfortunately, that is not how the muscle-building process works.
This is somewhat of a difficult concept to grasp because it’s not how

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Natural Muscle Magazine

most things work in life. Most of the time, the amount of effort you put
into a particular endeavor directly correlates to your results. In other
words, the more time and effort you invest, the better the results you’ll
get. However, this is not true when it comes to packing-on muscle
and developing your physique.
There is an expression that says that one man’s
set is equal to another man’s workout. Don’t confuse
training volume with training effectiveness. They are
not the same. You may need to cut down the time you
spend in the gym and reduce your training volume to
experience the muscle gains you’re after. You can do
this by becoming more efficient in the gym.

Your weight training sessions should last no
longer than one hour. And you know what? I’m being
extremely liberal with that amount of time. Regardless
of how you try to rationalize it, longer training sessions
are NOT more productive. You must force yourself to
become just as effective in a shorter period of time
by becoming more efficient. Stimulating the muscles
can be done quite effectively in one hour or less. It is
a fact that the more time you spend in the gym, the
more your concentration and focus will wane. The
more your mental focus and concentration diminish
the less effective you will become physically.
Planning to do only two or three sets with only three
or four exercises per body part creates that sense of
urgency you need. Many lifters give themselves four
and five sets of a particular exercise to get the job
done. If you give yourself four or five chances to do
anything, undoubtedly there will be less importance,
less of a demand, or less of a sense of urgency to
give as much effort as you really can during the first
couple of sets. It is only human nature for us to think that way under
those conditions. In order for us to perform at our highest level of performance, we must change those less-than-ideal mental conditions.
Anything less than 100 percent effort during a set is a wasted set.
I can’t tell you exactly how many sets you should use to train each
of your body parts effectively—and neither can anyone else. It all
depends on that ever-evolving, ever-changing, constantly re-defining
level of intensity. However, you should just remember that more isn’t
better. Better is better.

November 2016

Could Make Building Their Bodies Easier

Many bodybuilders want to believe that anyone who has a great
physique must be taking
steroids or illegal drugs.
This is oftentimes a gigantic distraction for

Take Action and Do This NOW!

These determined individuals work each body part as many as three
times a week with the hopes that this kind of superhuman effort will
produce the massive results in a shorter period of time.
Most people who are committed to their training programs have
the tendency to train too much. Their enthusiasm and desire to build
their physiques makes them want to train as often as they possibly can.

Some Bodybuilders Spend Too Much
Energy Thinking About How Steroids
and OtheDrugs

Celebrating 21 Years!

them. It’s almost
as if they WANT to
believe this is true!
Why?
Choosing to believe that everyone with an awesome body takes
drugs makes them feel better about their own shortcomings. It
gives them an excuse. It takes the pressure off themselves to
find the strategies, find the combination of strategies, or do the
work necessary to do a better job of building their own physiques
without drugs.
Seek and you shall find. If you want to focus on all the people
who have an easier time than you because they are taking drugs
to assist them—you will find them. At the same time, if you look
for people who have successfully built their great bodies without
drugs—you will find them too. Trust me; those positive examples
are out there.
Most people who train in the gym do not want to do “whatever it
takes” to have an outstanding physique if that means using steroids
or other drugs. If that’s you, great! But do yourself a gigantic favor
and don’t stop there.

Take Action and Do this NOW!
Ask more out of yourself than to “not use drugs.” Think about
it for second. How hard is that?
Demand yourself to create an awesome physique--and do so
on your own terms.
Don’t waste your time talking or thinking about how much
easier of a time people who use drugs to assist them with their
development have than you do. Drugs or no drugs, you can look
much better than you do right now if you applied yourself and
did the things you ALREADY know you should do, right? Better
training, better eating, more consistency, and more time doing all
those things properly will make you better. You need to focus on
doing those things.
Those people who may or may not be taking steroids aren't
stopping you from getting to the gym; training hard once you are
there, and eating all of your meals everyday, are they?
Then stop using them as a distraction and as an excuse NOW-and get the job done!