really thats all you do

When I meet new people who have never met a bodybuilder before they always ask, "How much time do you spend in the gym? Six hours." When I tell them 45 minutes to an hour a day, 5 or 6 times a week they just don't believe it. They always say "Really! That's all you do?" I think it was Lee Haney who once said, "stimulate don't annihilate the muscle." Some people, including myself, make the mistake of thinking the more you lift the bigger and stronger you get. I remember when I first joined a gym, I was probably 17 at the time, I would do every single exercise I could think of in one 4 hour long workout. In the beggining this worked but it didn't take long for me to hit a wall. So, I went looking for answers on why wasn't having more progress. The first key thing I learned was the idea of a training split. You know, when I first started I was one of those guys who only trained chest, arms, and abs. It wasn't long after I started that I teamed up with my first training partner and we decided to train each bodypart split over 6 workouts during the week. This way of training (concentrating on either one or two bodyparts in a workout and doing each body part once a week) was great. This made a huge difference and I really started to grow.Training this way has two benefits:1. It allows you to concentrate on the one chosen muscle and really blast it hard set after set.2. It allows you a full week of recovery. I didn't realize just how important this was at the time.The second key thing I learned was you don't grow in the gym while your lifting, rather you grow at home while your recovering. It wasn't until I applied this knowledge that I really started growing. I was told years back by my first bodybuilding coach that less is more. And that the body won't stay anibolic if you train for much more then an hour or so without food. This means that after about 2 hours of lifting your body will start to catabolize which is the opposite of what you want. He recommended doing 12 sets per bodypart. ex: 4 sets of 3 exercises, or 3 sets of 4 exercises per bodypart.I was able to blast out 12 sets and finish my workout in one hour. I was in and out of the gym and on with my life. The amazing thing was that even though I was training with less volume or shorter more specific workouts my strength just consistently went up along with my weight. This is when my body started to really make consistent changes. These are the basic rules I have stuck with for training volume and the basis for how I built my physique. Using these rules for lifting weights I have gained a total of 22 lbs of lean mass going from 143 lbs at the 2003 jr USAs to 165 lbs at the 2006 Nationals, while maintaining good balance and symmetry. I should point out that during the last three years when I made the most significant changes to my physique; I followed a very strict and healthy diet program which may be the most important facter of all. I will get more into that when I write about nutrition.