I want to give some pointers that I have learned from my 24 years of training.

Some of these might not appeal to you but I hope you will get something positive out of it regardless.

-Keep it simple, stick to the basics.
If you want to build quality muscle a good training program and eating plan is the way to go.

I have 2 plans I and my clients have had great success with:
Gain weight plan and get lean like the Machine free ebook.

-Try to keep your workouts 45-1hour long, don’t screw around. Keep your rest periods around :90 seconds for most and if you really want to turn up the fat burning furnace then reduce your rest periods down to 15 seconds between each set.
(this does not apply to powerlifting training.)

-try to work with a weight that is 75% of your 1 rep max. For building muscle I like my reps in the 8-12 range. Performing a single max will build strength, not neccessarily size. Also training like this can be very taxing to the joints over the long term.

- try a rep scheme of 10,8,6,4 with a back off set of 15-20.
You can also try 20,15,10 and 8. This works great for the back and chest due to their size.
The smaller muscles get more out of the 8-12 rep range or even higher. Take the shoulders for example they are a small group and have 3 heads: front, side and rear. I have started doing front raises, side laterals seated and rear delt raises on an incline for 4 sets per exercise. The reason for this is due to the elbow and some shoulder pain due to the heavy toll I have put on my body over the years.

- However I contribute much of my new shoulder growth to performing Alternate dumbbell presses for 3×3 working up to 3×5. Once I can get 3×5 I increase the weight again and drop back to 3×3, then back up to 3×5, back down, up again. This is called progressive resistance. This is how you get strong.
If you don’t have any joint pain and you can press then I highly advise you do so. Overhead pressing will build cannonball size delts.

For all of you Total Gym fans I am currently filming the first of 3 DVD’s based on my workouts that I do using the Total Gym.

I’ll have more info as I get closer to finishing them. I plan on having one or 2 ready to go just in time for Christmas.

Thats all for now,

Keep the Faith,
The Machine