Bodybuilding Question For the Pros

IRONMAN83 · Apr 15, 2007

Ive been into powerlifting for a while and looking to come back to bodybuilding (although Im not looking to compete) so I watching some bbing vids I had laying around..Dennis James, Jay Cutler, and I noticed that during thier workouts none of them ever do any really heavy all-out-sets. Its usually some light or medium weight that they pump out for a few sets of 10ish. I usually go by the paradigm of pushing the envelope, trying to get more and more weight on everything not just the big movements.
For instance, Dennis James was doing upright rows, I think he worked up to a max set of 135 and pumped it out for 12 which looked like it was fairly easy. When I did upright rows as an assistance exercise Id try to beat my previous best every week and ended up grinding out 185 for a hard 10 which is my best on that exercise. Im probably not stronger than Dennis James but he as well as Jay Cutler dont seem to push it to the max during their workouts they're just pumping out reps.
I feel like a fucking noob asking this but is that how youre supposed to train as a bodybuilder most of the time?

JohnnyPro · Apr 15, 2007

Maybe they were taking it easy as this was for a video and they were just demonstrating the exercises. If you've ever seen the Dorian Yates video "Blood and Guts" you will see Dorian training hard.

mike1107 · Apr 15, 2007

it all depends of the period of the year the video was shot

look at ronnie's videos and u won't say the same

anyway bber and powerlifter don't train the same, and some bber train with medium weight with high intensity, some love heavy asss weights !

oldfella · Apr 15, 2007

I'm no pro, but I have trained with a couple over the years. When we trained it was usually balls to the walls. I say usually because on occasions we would do some higher rep work with good intensity and medium to heavy, not super heavy. It just provided a different stimulus to the muscle groups trained. But for the most part in the offseason we would train very heavy with 1-1.5 minute rests between sets. Also depended on how we felt that day. If not recovered enough we usually went lighter and did more reps.