I have spent the last 2 years going to the gym trying to gain mass and strength and mass while lifting weights. In my first year of lifting I was going and doing what I had always done with no real knowledge on what I'm doing. I first started lifting in high school almost 20 years ago and was just told to lift heavy and do as many as you can, with nothing more being said outside of that. Since then I lifted on and off over the years and I didn't get serious about it until 2 years ago.
When I first started lifting again 2 years ago I started doing what I always had done and then I finally was tired of not getting anywhere and started looking to YouTube to see what I might need to be doing different from what I'm doing now. I looked to Arnold Schwarzenegger and some of his lifting videos that he has and there was another guy by the name of Rich PIana and his bigger by the day video series that he had done.
By the time I was starting year 2 of going into the gym I had started to implement some of the advice from Arnold and using the bigger by the day program from Rich. and in roughly 6 months I was getting results. People were starting to notice I was getting bigger and I was actually seeing that I was able to add more weight to my bench quicker and was able to get more of a pump on any given day of lifting. I was having a hard time on getting a pump when I was on my back days and was rarely sore the next day. So I looked into it a little for some advice and whether by luck or chance I was watching one of Rich Piana's video's for one of his back days, he said that he almost never gets sore when doing back and when he did, it was barely noticeable.
To make a longer story shorter What advice I was able to get from Rich Piana and Arnold, that made me rethink my aproach on how I lifted was that I needed to go lighter on the weight. Some advice I got from Arnold's video's is that while I went lighter I needed to squeeze or flex the muscle group that I'm working out so I can get a better pump from lifting. I noticed that when I started doing this It will feel like my muscles are getting pumped so much it feels like my muscles were going to rip and tear right through my skin. Ever since I was able to get this kind of pump I was able to look forward to being sore all the time and was like a drug for me ever since then.
Now what advice I got from Rich was do 5 sets of 12 reps. If you needed to go down on reps for the last 2 sets, try and shoot for 12 reps just the same, but do a minimum of 10 on set 4 and 8 on set 5. But still try to shoot for 12 on sets 4 and 5. And for the advice that I got from Arnold was, instead of doing the 5 sets of 12 reps start off at 4 sets of 12 reps. And if you notice any muscle group that is not developing as well or as fast, add on a fifth set of 12 reps for that particular group of muscles so they can catch up to the rest of you so things can get evened out and not look so small compared to everything else.
When I took this advice and went with it in the gym, I have exploded in my gains both on size and strength. It is my hope that someone out there will benefit from this info and give it a try and see what you think of it. I will do another article on what kind of workout I do on what days and why I have rest days and what supplements I take.