The Basics Behind The Arnold Schwarzenegger Workout

Here’s a look at some of the basics behind this workout.

Focus on compound exercises

Compound exercises are basically exercises that work more than one muscle group at once, instead of isolating the muscle, and Arnold was a huge fan of compound exercises, and it’s safe to say that they proved pretty beneficial for him as well.

Compound exercises are mainly performed with free weights such as dumbbells or barbells, so try to make them to focal point of your workout.

By all means include some isolation exercises but the main focus should be on compound lifts such as the military press or the bench press, as you’re working more than one muscle group at once.

Always go to failure

With every single exercise, Arnold always used to go to absolute failure with each set, no matter what.

That means that if you do a certain exercise and you perform 8 reps, yet you could easily have performed a few more, you should perform those few more and should keep going until you can’t complete another rep.

As Arnold said “it’s the reps that the body is not used to that makes it grow”, so heed those words and train to failure.

(But be safe! Don’t do anything to risk injury)

Train heavy

By heavy we don’t mean stupid weights that you can barely lift for 1 whole rep, but rather weights that will test you, where you can generally perform around 6 – 8 reps before you begin to fail. Training heavy really puts stress on the muscle fibres and helps trigger muscle growth within the muscles themselves.

If you are training heavy, make sure you have a spotter on hand to help keep you safe.