DIRTY DOZEN

AMONG THE CURRENT BUMPER CROP OF GREAT bodybuilders on the IFBB scene, arguably none has Gustavo Badell's unique balance of preterhuman muscle and petrous conditioning. That's probably because his training philosophy is transgenerational, combining the best from the past with discoveries of the present.

Here, the 2005 Ironman and 2006 San Francisco Pro winner provides a dozen rules (plus a bonus set for beginners) that he feels were essential to building his physique. Wisdom suggests we pay heed.

1 BE WELL-EQUIPPED. The first rule is to always bring to the gym the right equipment for what you're going to do that day--lifting belt and proper shoes for squats, lifting straps for back work--all of which help you get the most out of your exercise. Usually, they allow you to concentrate on working the target muscle, without having to worry about maintaining your grip, or tweaking your back, or not being able to stabilize your body, etc.

Don't forget the most important workout accessory: water. You can't maximize your workout without water. It's essential for hard training. You dehydrate very quickly from perspiration and heavy breathing, so you must replenish, or hydrate, your body constantly. You need it for endurance, for strength and for basic health.

2 ALWAYS INCLUDE AT LEAST ONE BASIC FREE-WEIGHT EXERCISE IN EVERY WORKOUT. My first working exercise is always a barbell or dumbbell exercise. It involves a lot more muscles, and even muscles from other bodyparts--that's why it's called a "compound" movement--and it works those muscles in a more complete manner. You will get better overall results.

3 STIMULATE YOUR MUSCLES IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. The idea of bodybuilding is to stimulate every fiber of every muscle in the bodypart. That means free weights, machines, cables and even free-body movements, such as chinups and dips. Every angle, every method, every technique applies a different stress on a muscle and causes it to respond with a different stimulation. It's not so much that you are keeping a muscle guessing, as many bodybuilders think, as it is working different fibers more thoroughly.

Some people use variations with the same piece of equipment, such as flat-bench barbell presses, incline barbell presses and decline barbell presses. That's good, but it's still the same stimulation. A more radical variation would be better, such as flat dumbbell presses, incline barbell presses, flyes with a cable or machine, and dips with the body--four or five variations with different equipment. Since the stimulations will have covered 100% of the muscles in the bodypart, results will be superior.

A corollary to this rule is to change your exercises every workout. I believe you can do anything you want, as long as you start with rule number two: a free-weight exercise. Sometimes I change the order, sometimes the exercises, sometimes both--each of those makes the muscles respond differently. You can even alter things further by performing a changed movement with a different technique. For instance, I may perform an exercise with straight sets for one workout, supersets the next, then perhaps drop sets, giant sets, forced reps, you name it, all in an effort to incorporate muscle-producing variety.

4 CHEST AND DELTS REQUIRE AT LEAST ONE CIRCULAR MOVEMENT, PREFERABLY MORE, IN EACH WORKOUT. "I switch it up like the wind changes directions," he explains with a grin. "I don't want to get bored in the gym. I just want to enjoy it every time I'm in there, so I'm constantly trying new things, seeing what works for me, seeing what doesn't work for me, what's hard for me, what's easy for me. I try to leave the things that are easy for me for the end [of the workout], so I can focus on the harder stuff when I have all my energy and strength."

Here's what I mean. Most people, when training their chest with dumbbells, press the dumbbells straight up and down, which primarily hits the chest at one point from a vertical position. Whereas a circular movement--from the center of the pecs in an arc outward and upward, ending at arm's length above the starting position--tends to minimize involvement of your shoulders and triceps by placing more responsibility on your chest muscles. It also involves more of them, resulting in a better pump over more of your chest area, with more complete development.

Do the same thing with shoulders. With dumbbell presses, the triceps usually do most of the work when the movement is straight up and down. Instead, if you use a circular movement outward, and back in at the top, you minimize triceps involvement while spreading the stress progressively from the traps and inner delts to the lateral head and back. Keep the dumbbell level throughout, and you will feel the pump through 100% of your shoulder complex.

5 BREATHE CORRECTLY. I see guys using a lot of heavy weights and getting stuck. That's because they don't keep breathing deeply. All they do is inhale and hold it. Then, when they exert, their body uses up their entire oxygen supply after just a couple of reps. When you keep breathing, you continuously feed oxygen to your muscles, enabling you to train longer, heavier and with more intensity. The most physically demanding exercises--deadlifts, rows, squats and front squats--require more oxygen than others, in order for you to have the control (strength and endurance) to perform them correctly. A bodybuilder's excuse is often, "This is too heavy, it's too hard." It's not because it's too hard, it's because he doesn't respect the value of breathing. There is no hard exercise, there's only improper breathing.

6 IF YOUR GOALS ARE TO GET BIGGER AND HARDER, YOU HAVE TO STRETCH. Most people get a muscle pump during workouts, but don't stretch. Their pump is good, sure, but it's not enough. When you stretch, you give the muscle more capacity. It's like a balloon: stretch a balloon, and the balloon is going to be bigger. Likewise, stretch a muscle between sets, and you will be able to fill it with more blood and oxygen. As a result, the muscle will look bigger, fuller, more beautiful and more complete.

7 TRAIN AS HEAVY AS YOU CAN, BUT CONTROL THE WEIGHT. This helps you avoid injury and work the muscle properly. If you can't lift the weight properly, don't lift it at all. We're bodybuilders, not powerlifters. Think of yourself as having the superhuman strength to bring the heaviest weight possible under your control, so you can move it and handle it any way you want. That combination of maximum weight under absolute control is what we bodybuilders call intensity, and it's the only thing that produces the ultimate combination of big, thick, hard, defined conditioning.

That raises the question: how heavy is heavy? To me, it's a mistake to go by the old-school formula of "high reps for definition, low reps for size." I say, go as heavy as you can with repetitions of seven to 12, and you'll be in the most efficient range for sustaining your intensity (control) for your full workout. That may sound like high reps, but it takes that many, applied with maximum intensity, to hit the optimum number of muscle fibers. In the end, the muscle will be huge, extremely hard and very thick.

8 DON'T NEGLECT YOUR CARDIO OR DIET. Separation and conditioning are not from reps they're from cardio and diet. Repetitions of 15 or more are not high enough to burn bodyfat and too high to build muscle. Instead, train as heavy as you can, always, for your muscles, but rely on cardio and diet for contest-level conditioning.

9 POSE DURING YOUR WORKOUTS. A couple of times during each bodypart workout, practice posing the muscle. People in the gym might see you doing this and say, "Oh, he's just showing off," but posing stimulates different muscles from those you're training. Other fibers are forced to work at the same time, making your muscle even bigger and harder, because you're pumping blood into regions that the exercise movement doesn't affect. An ancillary benefit is that posing teaches you better muscle control and isolation in the performance of an exercise. Whatever you do, don't knock posing--sometimes it's more difficult than training, because of its greater intensity for muscle control and contraction. If you don't believe me, try squeezing a muscle as hard as you can for 10 seconds, then do 10 intense reps. You'll be surprised.

STIMULATION. With dumbbells, barbells and machines, you're often secured on a bench or in a seat, so you can concentrate on using your strength. Cables, on the other hand, are for focusing on contracting the muscle to squeeze more blood into those isolated or remote interstices that mass-building exercises can't reach. You can also use cables to practice your posing, as the movements for both are similar.

In any case, choose a weight you can control. I see many people use such heavy weight that they can't even contract the muscle--they're using every support and stabilizing bodypart except the one they're trying to work. Cables should be the last exercise in your bodypart workout, but that doesn't mean they should be approached casually. Train with as much intensity as you can muster, and do 12-15 repetitions per set performed slowly, with hard contractions.

11 FIND A GOOD PARTNER. To maximize your workout, a good partner, one you can trust, will allow you to train really heavy. If you have someone behind you in whom you can place your faith, all you have to think about is going all-out. He should not help you; he should be there only to protect you, in case of failure; although, your ideal training partner will be such a compelling motivator, you won't fail, anyway.

12 ALWAYS GIVE LAGGING MUSCLES PRIORITY BY TRAINING THEM FIRST. If I'm having trouble with my legs, I'll train them first in a two-bodypart workout. If I'm having trouble with my triceps, I'll train them first. Prioritize as you go. Keep your body balanced in development. As a bodybuilder, you have to be as perfect as you can.

Go heavy, but not too heavy. Don't try to gain as much strength as possible right away, just so you can feel as though you belong in the gym. Don't try to compete with the guys who are already there.

Do it right: lift weight heavy enough so you can feel it working the muscle you want to build. Make sure your intelligence guides your sets and reps, so that you can feel all of that maximum stress being pushed directly into the muscle.

Give it some time. In a couple of months, you'll start becoming huge, with good results and lots of muscle, and you'll be heavier than when you started.

Remember: bodybuilding is a process. Don't make the mistake so many others make, of impatiently increasing your weights and injuring yourself. If you're injured, you can't train.

BY GUSTAVO BADELL AS TOLD TO JULIAN SCHMIDT