Your personalized training program

Create a personal training program as unique as you are.

When it comes to training, personal training programs and nutrition, there are no better sources of advice than Muscle & Fitness and FLEX (Fitness.ee in Estonia). Once you have mastered the basics of training and nutrition, use what you read in the magazines to find the training or nutrition regimen that suits you best.

When I moved to California in 1968, I sometimes trained at Vince’s Gym in Studio City, owned by Vince Gironda. Vince was a bodybuilding pioneer with several radical theories about training, and he was constantly experimenting. For example, he would do 30 sets of the same exercise; the next day, he could tell which part of the muscle had borne the greater training load by where he felt sore. This gave him an idea of how effective or ineffective the exercise was.

For example, if you do 30 sets of standing barbell curls and your deltoids are sorer than your biceps the next day, that suggests your deltoids are doing a very large share of the work. Based on this experiment, you might consider replacing the exercise with one that isolates the biceps more, such as preacher curls, to take the deltoids out of the equation.

Vince’s philosophy and the example above make it clear that not everything works for everyone, and bodybuilding is an individual journey for each of us. Although many people, particularly competitive bodybuilders, share the same ultimate goal of stepping onstage in the best shape of their lives, the paths they take to get there vary considerably. We are not identical; we all have slightly different builds and our own strengths and weaknesses. Champions are those who focus on their weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

A man with a powerful upper body but scrawny legs only makes the problem worse if he trains his shoulders, chest, back and arms hard while ignoring his legs. A champion, on the other hand, would focus on his legs and give them greater priority until they were in proportion to the rest of his body. To achieve the best possible results, you need to be honest with yourself. Assess your weak points and draw up a specific training plan to bring your physique into balance.

For me, this meant writing down my weak points and then visualizing how I wanted them to look eventually. Be specific. For example, if your calves are small, look through magazines for a photo of the calves you aspire to have, tear it out and put it on your wall. That picture becomes your motivation—with a clear target in sight, it is much easier to reach your goal than if you simply train without a specific aim.

The next step was to build a training plan around my weak points and my goal—the picture on the wall. Through trial and error, I kept moving toward my goal, and you can do the same.

The key to success in bodybuilding is finding what works well for you. You can then keep improving your performance and results by making small adjustments. As you work toward your goal, draw on the knowledge available in magazines and online to help you choose the tools to achieve it.