Specialization Periodization How to Gain (or Lose) Muscle

The vast majority of people in the gym have mostly cosmetic or physique goals.  How to gain or lose muscle in specific body parts is commonly referred to as specialization.

As it may seem like common sense to train the whole body and achieve balance, most people have conflicting objectives.  Some want to 'get buff' or want their arms to look good in a tank top.

Most trainers will ignore these objectives and continue to train someone their own way.  As an ethical professional, I consider it an obligation to my clients to help them realize their goals.
Following are the rules to help you to achieve their own aesthetic image.

Goals

You must make a decision about your physique or performance.  Make a list of your goals.

Decrease the volume and intensity of training for the rest of the body

This is the most important aspect of making specified gains that eludes many trainees who seem to think that increasing the intensity for a body part is all that is required.

A question for those athletes would be: 'Has it worked yet?'

You must drastically decrease the work for other areas.  All training requires recovery and stresses the body; you cannot simply make optimal gains in a body part while imposing a normal training load on the rest of the body.

While maintaining a muscle group, the most important parameter is tension.  This means if you maintain 95-100% of your 1RM, even for as little as one set, the amount of muscle lost during a specialization phase for another body part will be negligible to nonexistent.

The dissent is this: 'Don't you know that for big arms you should squat big?'  Yes, that is true, but so is my point.  Just like 'Better safe than sorry' and 'No risk, no reward' - opposite truisms - there's a time in your training career when both are applicable.  A beginner will usually find that when one trains the compound movements intensely and exclusively, one will make the best gains in all muscle groups, but as a trainee gains experience and nears his potential s/he will find he can more easily increase his/her arm girth if s/he truly specializes.

Specialize training for only one muscle group at a time

The best gains are made when trying to improve only one area at a time.  You cannot concentrate on chest, back and shoulders all at once.  It is important to focus on one muscle at a time.

Alternate microcycles of specialization with equal or longer cycles of generalized training.

This refers to "periodization."  When attempting to maximally increase hypertrophy in a single body part, it is best not to try to specialize all the time.  Bodybuilding, like all physical stressors, is governed by the law of general adaptation, which states that the body will eventually recognize the stressor as normal.  That is why many people at the gym never seem to grow or get stronger, and why some people who only bench press do not have pecs.

The General Adaptation Syndrome (G.A.S.) also helps explain why professional and Eastern European athletes, who often train for up to three hours at a time, once or more per day, can make incredible gains seemingly in opposition to the "one hour time limit" rule; their bodies have simply adapted to the great load of training and practice.

Another reason to alternate cycles is to rest the body, which should have been under maintenance training. Maintenance does not mean progress (though in the short term you might benefit from the reduction in work), and if one tries to go from arm specialization to calf specialization to chest, etc. you will eventually find your other areas in regression.

For each specialization cycle, change the training parameters

Training parameters refers to the volume, intensity, frequency, density, exercise selection, tempo, grip, and rest periods.

Often, advanced athletes and professional trainers have a bias related to volume and intensity comes from an extreme response to what is usually sound, expert advice. Statements such as 'High reps do nothing for strength or power,' or 'Loads near 1RM require fewer sets and more rest,' while partially true, often cause an athlete to adopt a method of training that excludes legitimate variation.

If you are truly interested in making good gains, your first assignment for your next microcycle is to adopt the opposite combination of volume and intensity. For our purposes, all training programs will mostly fit into the following combinations:

High volume, High intensity
Low volume, High intensity (often called intensification)
High volume, Low intensity (often called accumulation)
Low volume, Low intensity
Simply adopt the opposite of what you've been habitually doing, or did in your last microcycle.
Do not be afraid to vary rest periods.  It is not written in stone that high intensity work requires more rest, or that "bodybuilding" training necessitates short intervals.  Try longer rest periods (hence, much longer workouts) in your next accumulation-type phase, or shorter ones, up to and including rest-pause (where you actually put the bar down for 10-15 seconds, rest, and then do another set) in your next intensification phase.

Increase calories

A fear of getting too big or too cut holds some people back from their muscular potential; resulting in fat and bulky, unaesthetic muscle.  Most people do not want to look good only a few months out of the year. They want to look good year round.

The benefit of specialization is that the increase over maintenance calories does not need to be very much for the training effect to work.  Theoretically, if you added an inch to your arms (and no weight elsewhere), you gained less than a pound over what's probably a month-long cycle. For Type-A compulsive calorie counters, an increase of 100-250 calories above maintenance should work; for those less observant, simply add a small meal, in the form of a snack or small meal.

If you train it, it will grow, right?

This is an ignorant statement.  Sometimes people who want a certain muscle to grow will train it all the time.  Why, though?  Hypertrophy is an effect of training that cannot be avoided, even by the strictest protocol or the extremely low-intensity work provided by endurance or cardio training.   Endurance runners, the most stick-like of athletes, still have mass in their legs.  Tennis professionals, often have a dominant arm that is quite larger than the other arm.

Over time, the hypertrophy of any muscle group is directly related to the work performed, whether it is intentional or not.   This means that if you choose to train abs directly, you will gain increased muscularity at equal levels of body fat, but this muscularity will be mostly the result of hypertrophy of the abdominal muscles, which is very obvious in serious power lifters.

To lose muscle, you must temporarily stop training it.

Yes, there are ways to train muscle and minimize (not stop) hypertrophy, but if you are serious about losing mass, you must allow for atrophy to appear.  This means stopping any direct work for at least a month, and being very observant of any indirect tension you may be placing on the muscle.  For instance, if you want to lose mass from the trunk, this isn't a good time to do power lifting.  If you want to reduce your thighs, be careful of the amount of work they get from aerobics.

It is important to understand that there is a difference between detraining (the physical and hormonal consequence of complete cessation of training) and specialized atrophy.  As long as the usual level of tension is maintained for the rest of the body, detraining shouldn't be a problem.  Athletes, who enjoy high intensity training, should focus on machines and isolation work for the other groups during the planned atrophy period.  This maintains strength while minimizing inadvertent work.

To lose muscle, you must reduce calories.

Muscle is a tissue, which requires energy for maintenance or growth, and it will decay in a hypocaloric environment.  If you avoid training a muscle but eat enough or too many calories, the result might not be a reduction in muscle tissue but a reduction of resting muscular tension, commonly called tone, that may leave the thighs every bit as stocky, except now soft and undefined.

As stated earlier, specialization does not require nearly the same caloric change as bulking and cutting.  A reduction of about 250 calories a day should speed atrophy while shrinking some fat stores but minimizing other muscle loss.

You must eventually resume training.

As indicated above, atrophy and decreased muscle tone happen together. Assuming you don't like a soft, flabby look, you must eventually resume training that muscle.  However, certain rules apply.  While minimizing hypertrophy, volume should be kept extremely low, both in sets and reps.  As a general rule, trainees should perform no more than nine total sets per workout for the problematic body part, usually in sets of fewer than four reps.  A side effect of the high-load approach is that muscle tone is at its highest level, and strength is preserved.  You will want to resume training at no more than 90% of previous 1RM, with 80% being better for many athletes.

In conclusion, you must make a decision.  If you are a recreational athlete, and you want to improve your look, the techniques outlined in this article should help you get as close as possible.