The method of exercising individual body parts (biceps curls, calf raises, and so on) is several decades old and started in the subculture of bodybuilding. While being an “older” method doesn’t make it invalid, it neither qualifies it as “tried and true” or the best way to exercise for fitness.
The bodybuilding programs found today are perpetuated by articles found in bodybuilding magazines, written by bodybuilders for bodybuilding purposes. A lot of these authors are themselves competitive bodybuilders, and they have a level of commitment to training that is daunting to most of us. Even if we’re willing to commit to the same levels of time and the training, most of us wouldn’t take the anabolic steroids.
By using steroids, almost any kind of exercise regimen works. The hormones that trigger muscular development and fat burning are controlled by various steroids and illegal fat burners. Steroid use is rarely spoken of or written about in popular literature, but bodybuilders continue to provide articles on “how they do it” through training.
Most of us do not choose the legal and physical risks associated with steroid use, so we should think twice about using exercise programs developed by bodybuilders. For legal, health, and ethical reasons, HyperStrike stands strongly against steroids, and therefore our focus is on developing exercise programs for people who get fit naturally. We don’t believe they are necessary for our definition of fitness. Steroids are almost never “needed” and certainly not necessary for anyone outside the highest level of professional muscle building.
You can control your natural hormonal environment to elicit the best muscular development and fat-burning effect possible (a very different process compared to that with steroid use). You do this by selecting the types of exercises that trigger the best responses from your endocrine system.
Because the typical bodybuilding program blunts the hormonal system in the nonsteroid user, it is important that you implement an exercise program that naturally triggers a favorable hormonal environment. Fortunately, sport science has given us a lot of information in the area of exercise and hormonal responses.
Maximize the Hormonal System Naturally
Specific exercises can be used to stimulate your endocrine system for favorable hormonal releases, and doing the exercises in different ways (repetitions, sets, and rest) triggers different types of hormones, as different types have different jobs.
These exercises don’t focus on individual body parts but on multiple body parts at once. They are called multijoint exercises, compound exercises, or complex “hybrid” exercises.
Multijoint Exercises
These are exercises that engage and move many muscle groups at once. No focus is placed on just one muscle group (biceps, back of thighs, and so on). Engaging many muscle groups maximizes the hormonal system to bring about muscular development or fat loss all over the body, and it does so more effectively than single-body-part exercises.
You might have heard that there’s no such thing as spot reduction or burning fat at a particular area of the body, so why do a thousand crunches? Trying to increase muscle size in a particular body part by exercising it separately is not an effective method. Save it for the early stage of a physical therapy program. You want the biggest bang for your effort. Emphasize multijoint exercises for the best muscular development and fat burning!
Variations and Mash-Ups
Variation in sets, repetitions, and techniques, and exercises are important for continual results. Vary the stimulus through reps and sets as well as the types of exercises. Mash-ups refer to changing the way you do an exercise, and sometimes change the exercise completely, doing it often enough to keep the body responding. It also means combining two or more exercises into one new exercise. This is also known as “complex” or “hybrid” exercises and possess superior efficiency at working muscles than single joint exercises.