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How to Create an Illusion in Your Body |
IntroductionThroughout history mankind has sought to conquer its environment. To literally subdue and master all his surroundings. Yet in the annals of time our basic core structure has remained the same. What features we were born with, we coped with. If we were predisposed to be fat we lived with it, if we were seemingly cursed with narrow shoulders and small bones we stayed that way. Enter bodybuilding! With its brash and wildly innovative ideas it has literally taken the world by storm and left it breathless in its wake! No longer do you have to live with a skeletal flaw such as a wide waist or small and narrow shoulders. Cast off your short comings and adhere to the revolutionary skill and technique of creating an illusion. The illusion that you have actually altered your skeletal structure! That in a nutshell is what this article is about. What the ideal physique is and how you can hide and improve on your structural weaknesses. The Ideal PhysiqueThe classic V shape that every bodybuilder desires is set off by wide shoulders that spiral down into a tiny little waist and dramatically finished with a deep rib cage and narrow hips. However, these features are very much related to our bone structure which was pre-determined for us genetically. And while many of us have good genetics in one area we may lack structure in another. The following paragraphs will discuss all four of these desired features and cause you to give your training priorities a much closer look. Shoulder Structure and WidthShoulder width is hugely determined by genetics. The longer your clavicle bone is the wider your shoulders will be. Width is usually related to the height of the athlete. Orville burke and Gunter Shrimp are perfect examples of this. They have extremely wide shoulders and are two of the tallest in the sport. So how is it that athletes such as Shawn Ray or Franco Columbo who are shorter and narrower compete with their wider opponents? Its simple, they create the illusion of having wider shoulders and also prioritize certain aspects of shoulder training over others. Targeting the medial head If
you
lack
shoulder
width
then
you
need
to
make
side
(
medial
)
delt
training
a
major
priority
in
your
routine!
Examples
of
exercises
that
target
this
area
of
your
shoulders
are
side
lateral
raises,
upright
rows
and
overhead
laterals.
These
can
be
done
with
cables,
dumbbells
and
barbells.
In
order
to
isolate
this
area
you
should
perform
strict
movements,
pausing
at
the
top
range
of
motion
for
a
bit
and
fighting
the
weight
all
the
way
down.
If
you
want
to
go
heavy
try
upright
rows
as
its
the
weightiest
exercise
that
you
can
target
the
side
delts
with.
In
edition
I
believe
you
should
hit
this
head
first
in
your
shoulder
workout
before
you
perform
heavier
more
compound
movements
such
as
the
military
press
and
others
similar
to
it.
Your
main
focus
should
be
this
head.
An
excellent
way
to
prioritize
them
would
be
to
utilize
the
double
your
pain,
double
your
gain
method
of
training. Or
you
could
incorporate
pre-fatigue
into
your
regimen.
By
performing
side
lateral
raises
first
in
your
routine
they
will
be
fatigued
when
you
blast
them
secondly
with
military
or
dumbbell
shoulder
presses. When training your back, the upper portion of it should be your main focus! You see a wide upper back will give you that vital V shape and better emphasize your shoulders by actually drawing attention to them! The number one way to create a barn door back is pullups and pulldowns! Victor Munez who is a IFFB pro trainer has created some of the most massive and beautiful backs in the sport by focusing on this area. Just look at how wide and square Orville Burk and Victor Martinez's shoulders are! This can be widely contributed to Mr. Munez's emphasis on pull-ups. ( If you haven't read my interview with him, you can do so by clicking here ) As Victor stresses in my interview, perform pullups from all different angles! By doing so you can create numerous different exercises that stress your back in different ways. You can have your palms facing you, facing away from you, wide grip, close grip etc. etc. I guarantee that by emphasizing these types of exercises that your upper back will widen faster than you thought possible and you will have created the illusion that your shoulder structure is wider than it actually is! Creating a Small WaistEven though the size of our waist is somewhat influenced by genetics, we actually have more control over it then any other body part. I say this because its size is almost completely related to how much muscle and fat that it houses. Eliminating the Fat It's important for you to understand that you will have to eliminate almost all noticeable fat on your waste in order to achieve a slim mid section. This of course should be accomplished by a complete dieting and workout program designed to burn fat at an optimal rate. We will not directly discuss this here, but you can read about this aspect of training and dieting in the following articles: 1.
12
weeks
to
burning
fat
the
diet How To Determine How Much Muscle Your Mid-Section Needs Determining how much fat should be on our midsection is easy, you don't want any come contest time. However, it is more difficult for an athlete to determine how much muscle he actually needs in this area. For the most part your upper and lower abs can never have too much. However the external obliques are a completely different matter. This is the muscle on each side of your midsection that forms the outer waist. Besides fat it is your obliques that determine how wide your waist will be! This is why you must be cautious in how you train them. If you have a have a blocky and wide hipped body then you should only do seated and bent over twists to keep this area toned. In edition you can also add some high rep side bends without weight. However, if you have narrow hips and wide shoulders you should do some resistance work for this area. Obliques are stunning when fully developed and your body fat percentage is low. The rule for everyone is to build this muscle, but to never allow it to be built to the point where your waist looks wider than your hips! The Stomach Vacuum A Lost Art That Needs to be Rekindled. When I think about what the perfect waist should look like, I immediately envision the classic physique's of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry Scott and Sergio Olivia. These guys were huge and yet their waists were so damn small that they would seem to disappear in many of their poses. One of the most dramatic of these is the lost art of executing the awe inspiring Stomach Vacuum! Executed correctly this pose will literally make your waste look ten times smaller, blowing the completion away! As you in hale the crowd will collectively gasp in amazement! Its unfortunate but you rarely see this pose executed any more throughout the ranks of bodybuilding. Whether they may be pro or armature. Perhaps it is so seldom used because it is hardly ever practiced anymore. The stomach vacuum is the art of pulling in the waste as far as possible. In order to execute it, suck your abs in as far as you can while continuing to breath normally. Hold it for 15 to 20 seconds and then release. Your goal will be to work up to several one minute sets. The advantage you have on this exercise is that it can be easily performed behind your desk at work or behind the wheel of your car. If you master this exercise you will reduce your waist circumference, improve your posture and most importantly have one of the most dramatic posing techniques at your disposal! wide shoulders = smaller waist? When you speak of the ultimate illusion it would almost be the fact that the wider your shoulders are the smaller your waist appears to be. Literally every inch you add to your side delt will seem to melt an inch off of your waist. Conversely the smaller or narrower your shoulder width is the wider your waste will appear! So again I will refer to the importance of side deltoid training. The Importance of Ribcage Depth!The ultimate example of how a deep ribcage can crush opponents underfoot is the great Shawn Ray! He has spent countless hours developing this area and has reaped the reward of success and fame from it! I personally think that it is his most stunning feature and has contributed greatly to his legacy! As with other bones there is really nothing that you can do to expand your rib cage bones themselves. However not too long ago bodybuilders would spend countless hours trying to accomplish this. You see your rib cage is made up of 12 ribs. The top 10 of these connect to the sternum with a considerable amount of cartilage, which is extremely more pliable than bones. Bodybuilders would perform vigorously high rep squats to force heavy breathing in hopes of stretching this cartilage. They would also perform countless hardcore sets of pullovers to aid in the stretching process as well. However, these will have little effect on stretching the cartilage permanently. The only people who may benefit from this are teenagers because their cartilage is more pliable then more mature athletes. But it is highly unlikely that even they will be able to stretch it noticeably. That being said it would be much more productive to try and create the illusion that your rib cage is deep then to actually expand it from within. You can accomplish this by focusing on workouts that target the muscular aspect of this area. 2 sample routines would be: workout one 1.
Straight
Arm
Pullovers
3
sets
of
12,
10,
8
for
beginner
to
intermediate
athletes.
An
advanced
athlete
might
add
a
drop
at
the
end
of
the
last
set. workout two 1.
3-5
sets
of
machine
pullovers
supersetted
with
3
sets
of
straight
arm
pullovers.
(
12,
10,
8
) If your intensity is right these workouts should add a serious new dimension to your rib cage! If you add enough muscle then you will create the illusion of having a larger bone structure in this area. If you are ectomorphic and have a really small rib cage then this should be a prioritized area! Just as you would prioritize side delts for shoulder width! A Bodybuilder Should Have Narrow HipsHip width as with your other body parts is due in large part to your genetics. However, muscularity and fat also contribute greatly to this area's width! Fat would be eliminated the same way as with your abdominal fat, an overall program dedicated to cutting up. However as with your obliques you must make intelligent decisions when using exercises that train your glutes, namely the outer section of this muscle called the gluteus medius. If you overdevelop this area it will make your hips appear much much larger! If you have a wide hip structure you absolutely must stay away from abductor machines and side lunges! These directly target this area of your glutes. Squats For most bodybuilders I would recommend using the pre-fatigue method if your hips are a bit out of proportion. If your glutes are taking too much of the load while squatting then they will continue to overdevelop. However, if you apply pre-fatigue you will force your quads and hamstrings to work much harder and fail before your glutes do. Thereby you will get the benefits of squats and lose some of the muscle that is on your glutes. I must stress again, that this is usually an advanced problem. Squats are a must for up and coming bodybuilders, but if your hips are too wide try pre-fatiguing your quads and hams before hitting the rack. Putting It All Together!An athlete in this sport must evaluate himself as a whole. For example your shoulders may appear too narrow because your hips are too wide. This of course throws off the " illusion " of having narrow shoulders. Conversely your hips may appear too wide because your shoulders are too narrow. This is why you must constructively look at your body parts together rather than individually. So take what you have learned today and cast aside your genetic weaknesses. You are now in control! Jacob
Wilson
Trainer@abcbodybuilding.com © ABC Bodybuilding Company. All rights reserved. Disclaimer |
