Alberto Nunez in 3D (5 part video series) by Natural Pro Bodybuilder Alberto Nunez
I made big surges in development when I started applying work in the lower rep ranges Enter Powerlifting Powerlifters have found ways to continuously add weight to the bar throughout a long career of lifting (I refer especially to raw power lifters since the added poundage from equipment doesn‘t help with adding muscle). Being that powerlifting is not a subjective sport, their ability to remain competitive depends on adding weight to the bar. If you ever go to a powerlifting meet, you surely won’t find the leanest (although you would be surprised) of physiques, but you will find slabs and slabs of muscle. However it is not uncommon to go to a bodybuilding show and see a guy who’s posterior chain (basically every muscle behind you from your traps to your calves) appears to have vanished along with the missing persons we see on the back of milk cartons! Those “burnouts” on the leg press are not going to get you Jeff Alberts type hamstring development. However teaching yourself to move big weight in a safe manner will improve your muscularity, and it will especially do so in those powerful muscles. I like to think backs and legs win shows, and truthfully it’s very hard for a judge to say “no” to a lean overpowering back, glutes, and hamstrings. We can learn plenty from lifters that lift for performance. After all, muscles were meant to move things long before they ever were made to be looked at.
A bodybuilding show doesn’t start until you turn around How I “Powerbuild” I have almost all together stopped reading any training information that is directed towards a bodybuilding audience. On the contrary, I tend to focus more on what weight lifters are doing and I try to apply that to my training. Currently, I am running a “West Side Barbell” routine, which was popularized by Louie Simmons. This program has produced many of today’s best powerlifters, and even more impressively, it has helped many already great powerlifters get even better. This to me is the most impressive part because I plan on making progress for a very long time. WSB incorporates days where you focus on Maximal Effort and days where you focus on Dynamic Effort, while also allowing you a few accessory movements. I use more traditional bodybuilder movements and rep ranges for my accessory work compared to the standard WSB setups. In a nutshell, you get stronger in your core lifts and the benefits are sprinkled across all your other exercises; not to mention the improvements your physique goes through from the simple core movements themselves. In this video series I will take you through one of my workout weeks, and what I do to continually get stronger and most importantly, how I continue to make changes in my physique.
Sometimes you have to get a little ugly to get pretty "Alberto in 3D" Part 1 of 5 video series. "Alberto in 3D" Part 2 of 5 video series. "Alberto in 3D" Part 3 of 5 "Alberto in 3D" Part 4 of 5 "Alberto in 3D" Part 5 of 5
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This has certainly been a very successful offseason, in fact one of my more successful offseasons in its own right. I have almost made a full recovery from an injury I suffered during my last competitive season. So severe was my injury, that if you would have told me in 2008 that I would not only be free weight squatting again, but competing in powerlifting meets, I would not have believed you. The biggest difference is that I have adopted a more structured approach to my training, and not so much the typical “organized chaos” that the majority of bodybuilders use. This approach might be fine and dandy, but only during those initial phases when almost anything backed by good effort and consistency works. I am sure we can all look back and notice we perhaps grew quite a bit doing some things that might be unorthodox, things we would never do now. Perhaps you had 3 or 4 chest workouts a week (I know I did!) that consisted of ridiculous volume, and on top of that everything was taken to failure, but it didn’t matter since anything worked initially. I am sure if you sat back and analyzed other times in your bodybuilding endeavors that yielded the biggest changes in your physique, there might have been a correlation to adding weight to the bar. I know that when I went from the guy that did 3 sets of 10 with 155 on the bench press, to the guy who was able to do the same with 225, my body went through quite a few changes. I vividly recall the first time I was able to squat 400 pounds on a regular basis, my legs went from okay, to one of my best body parts. Now progress surely slows down, and while we can’t add 100 pounds to our bench press in a short time frame anymore, we sure can find other ways to still add weight to the bar in a safe manner. It may not occur at the same rate, but you still can make substantial gains.
