A WORKOUT WITH Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t just a workout. It’s also an in-depth muscle-building education from one of the greatest bodybuilders of all-time. At age 75, Schwarzenegger may not bench press and squat small planets anymore, but he still rides his bike to Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, nearly every day to pump iron.
And these days, he loves to pass his bodybuilding wisdom on to anyone who’s lucky enough to jump in on his workout. That’s something I learned firsthand while working on our July/August issue cover story at Men’s Health, a project that landed me in a workout with the Terminator himself.
It was an hour-long workout filled with tips that can help you get more out of every single session, especially if your goal is adding size and symmetry to your physique. Schwarzenegger did a pair of circuits (one for shoulders and one for arms), and between exercises, he offered plenty of hype and motivation, as well as three tips that can make all your lifts better. Integrate these three ideas into your workouts to maximize your muscle growth, stay pain-free, and build truly superheroic shoulder muscle.
Get Super Warm
Sure, you know to warm up for your workout. But how often do you start an exercise by doing warmup sets? Before we start our arm superset, which includes machine dips and machine preacher curls, Schwarzenegger selects a super-light weight on each machine. He proceeds to do more than 30 dip reps, followed by 30 preacher curl reps, then pushes me to do the same.
“We always start off with high reps, so we kind of warm up the area,” he says. “The first set we start with 30 reps, or sometimes 50. The same when you do squats you warm up your knees, or when you deadlift you warm up your back. It’s all about warming up and cooling down.”
A high-rep warmup set does several things for your muscles to set you up for success. First off, it lets you assess how your body is feeling on a given day. Second, it lets you build a strong mind-muscle connection with the movement you’re going to take on. Thirdly, it stimulates blood flow to the areas being trained, lubricating the tendons and ligaments near the joints you’re going to focus on. Aim to do at least one high-rep warmup set before your key movements in any workout. But keep the load light, working with as little as 10-15 percent of your training weight for 15 to 20 reps.
Head Up for Shoulder Size
Schwarzenegger loves hitting the rear delt fly machine, and for good reason: Rear delt development is one of the keys to a complete physique. Plenty of guys attack their chest and front deltoids with exercises like bench presses and shoulder presses, but if you want to avoid a hunched-over posture (and bulletproof your shoulders against injury, too), it pays to train your rear delts hard.
The classic rear delt fly machine can work well for this, but when most guys do the move, they struggle to truly feel their rear delts working. Schwarzenegger, however, has a fix for that: Instead of leaning forward on the machine, he says, keep your head up and don’t let your chin rest on the machine. “If you go forward too much,” he says, “you will feel it in the back. If you keep your head up and your chest out, then it is going into the rear deltoid.”
When you lean your chest into the machine, your rear delts can draw more assistance from other posterior chain muscles, like your rhomboids. A more upright posture helps focus your training on your rear delts (although you’ll likely find you need to lighten the resistance to do this. Over the long haul, mix in both of these styles of movement; you’ll build a well-rounded back and complete shoulders. Do each for three sets of 10 to 15 reps.
Dominate Full Range of Motion
There’s full range of motion—and then there’s Arnold’s take on full range of motion. That’s something I learn when we head over to the lateral raise machine, a Schwarzenegger favorite. When I settle into the machine, locking my elbows in place under the pads and then flaring my arms outwards, I think I’m doing flawless reps. Then I hear Schwarzenegger call me out. “All the way down,” he says. “I don’t hear it clinking.”
Indeed, I’m stopping about a millimeter short of letting the weight stack fully return to its starting position. And Schwarzenegger says that just may be costing me gains. On every rep, he expects to hear the weight stack gently clink before I begin the next rep. “Why rob one-tenth of the movement?” he asks me. “Which could be—and we don’t know but which could be—one-tenth of the growth?”
Too often, too many people cut their range of motion just short, whether that means not pushing into the bottom of a squat, stopping just short of touching barbell to chest during a bench press, or missing that final millimeter on the lateral raise. This hurts for two reasons. First off, you’re cutting time-under-tension (a critical muscle-building stimulus) just short. The other issue: You’re failing to fully load the muscle in its most lengthened position. And as Schwarzenegger points out, that just may be a key moment for growth. Especially when using machines, push to use a full range of motion.
Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S.
Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., is the fitness director of Men’s Health and a certified trainer with more than 10 years of training experience. He’s logged training time with NFL athletes and track athletes and his current training regimen includes weight training, HIIT conditioning, and yoga. Before joining Men’s Health in 2017, he served as a sports columnist and tech columnist for the New York Daily News.
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