{"id":65290,"date":"2016-12-28T11:41:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T11:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakingmuscle.com\/\/\/uncategorized\/get-big-and-strong-the-old-school-way"},"modified":"2022-10-25T20:47:50","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T01:47:50","slug":"get-big-and-strong-the-old-school-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakingmuscle.com\/get-big-and-strong-the-old-school-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Big and Strong the Old-School Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone wants to claim they\u2019re old-school these days, but do their actions reflect that statement?<\/strong> Modern hypertrophy programs seem to follow the same boring protocols, feeding egos but providing very little progress. Bodybuilding training from yesteryear was far from popular among the masses. The training was simple, brutal, and effective.<\/p>\n

Monday, which has become international chest day for all the bros, sees an endless line for the bench press stations. Eager, ego-driven lifters asymmetrically pour every ounce of effort into the one and only \u201cimportant\u201d exercise, but this does little for long-term aspirations. The dopamine spike and chest-puffing soon wear off, and the herd migrates to the squat rack for a few sets of barbell biceps curls.<\/p>\n

How Hard Work Was Forgotten<\/h2>\n

Long ago, when lifters were naturally big<\/a>, strong, and powerful, full-body routines ruled the gym.<\/strong> They were replete with Olympic lifts, difficult and now obscure exercises, and plenty of volume. Whole-body workouts checked all of the boxes for building a Greek-like physique.<\/p>\n

As the decades flew by, bodybuilding went from the gym to the lab.<\/strong> Drug cocktails became a shortcut for hard work. The aesthetic, balanced, and proportioned body everyone had aspired to devolved into a cartoonish assembly of packed beef with little to no functionality.<\/p>\n

Drug protocols have become so complex and extreme that training changed from careful programming and measured progress, to a mere stimulus to activate hormones.<\/strong> Training took a backseat to nutrition and pharmaceutical preference. With that came the shift in focus to training only one body part per day. Frequency decreased, and rest periods and food consumption increased.<\/p>\n

If you look at any professional bodybuilder program, it will be eerily similar to all the rest. Chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, shoulders on Wednesday and so on. Very little creativity, very much cookie-cutter.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where does this leave the average, natural lifter? Since most research revolves around performance and not aesthetics, we mortals are left emulating the \u201cbig guys.\u201d <\/strong>This isn\u2019t only unrealistic, it\u2019s also contradictory.<\/p>\n

The old-school lifters such as John Grimek<\/a>, Clancy Ross<\/a>, and Steve Reeves<\/a> all had physiques the average lifter today would die for. But here\u2019s where logic is thrown out the window: Why would you train using a method built for a completely different look? In other words, if you want to look like an old-school bodybuilder, then train like one.<\/strong> It\u2019s the simple idea of specificity. Why not adopt some of the old principles of training and reap big rewards?<\/p>\n

Get Back to the Old School<\/h2>\n

Here are a few forgotten principles from the past that could use some dusting off and put to good use.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n