Over the past couple of years, you may have noticed an ever-growing trend: adding bands to machines. You may think that it’s just some new-school bodybuilding faff, or that it just makes machines look cooler and is in fact, pointless. Either that, or you simply don’t understand the rationale behind banding up a machine.

Program design can feel like a tricky and complicated process. Not only are there a lot of factors that need to be taken into consideration, but there are also hundreds of different methods and opinions out there. This can leave you feeling confused and questioning whether you’re doing everything “right”.

From the very beginning of bodybuilding, training partners have been a thing – we’ve all heard of the accountability buddy, and when it comes to physique development, a training partner can be incredibly important for your progress. However, if you have a training partner, ask yourself this: are they helping you or hindering you?

I’ll admit it: back in the day, I would train chest on a Monday, back on a Tuesday, and so on and so forth. Although the “bro split” was something that worked for me in my early days, after trialling some sessions where I added shoulder work into my “chest” and “arm” days, I have never gone back to dedicating a day per week to a specific body part.

It has always been believed that the only way to elicit muscle growth is by training with high mechanical load in the gym. This involves working in a 6-12 rep range, taking each set to failure throughout the majority of your session, and adding in some high rep/low rest work towards then end of your workout.

Let’s be honest: who doesn’t want to have a thick and wide back? Nobody, right? This is why old school bodybuilders – or the “bros” – have historically followed a “bro split” program which had a set day for training their back. However, for the intermediate gym-goer (or the new school bodybuilder), a “pull day” may provide greater stimulus to grow their back in the early stages of their journey.

One of the most commonly asked questions surrounding cardio is whether doing it fasted, first thing in the morning, burns more fat than if you were to do it at any other time in the day. I won’t even encourage you to google it, because there is an overwhelming number of different opinions out there. Some coaches swear by it without any logical reasoning behind it, whereas others are completely against it and will always encourage you to eat before cardio.

On the occasional consultation call, I can often be asked about the frequency with which I change my clients’ programmes, to which my response is usually “whenever it needs to be changed”. This might seem blunt but let me explain. The model I follow is that of progressive overload, and as such, of increasing mechanical load over time on the muscle(s).

In the later stages of extreme dieting, it’s no secret one can lose their love for training. This is mainly because you’re experiencing constant low energy levels and fatigue; paired with the fact that strength isn’t nearly as high as it was during the off-season/gaining phase, it can be hard to find the same enjoyment as before.

Those of you that are in the bodybuilding scene may have seen that a new method of training – an increased volume approach – has been going around. As such, you might be wondering if you should be switching to it too. Don’t worry, the wheel hasn’t been reinvented; however, increasing volume is a very smart way of accumulating more load in the gym without having to increase the total load on the bar or reps at the same load each week.

For the most part, it’s commonly accepted in the bodybuilding world that you need to get stronger over time to gain new muscle mass. Although there are many different methods of approaching this goal in the industry, the concept itself isn’t disputed. However, whilst most people logically understand this idea, their application of it can be quite poor, leading to plateaus, injuries, or poor accuracy in training.

Although it has only come into the bodybuilding scene in recent years, if you are an assisted bodybuilder, you’ll have undoubtedly heard of and/or started using Telmisartan. This compound is typically used to help lower blood pressure, and whilst its usage has become increasingly popular, many will take it without an understanding of what exactly it does.

Most bodybuilders have experienced knee pain at some point in their journey; personally, it’s something I’ve had to deal with frequently over the years, but I’ve always found a way to train around the pain and still grow my legs.

If you have been involved in bodybuilding for some years then you’ll be familiar with the concept of getting “dry”. This is part of the criteria required for the larger bodybuilding classes and is why some athletes use pharmaceutical diuretics.

When I first started going to the gym, I probably trained a bit too much. I wasn’t just hitting five sessions a week; instead, it was more like six or seven training days a week. In hindsight, I can see how that was not the most optimal way for me to train, and over time, I found that hitting the gym 5x a week suited me best.

It all begins with aIn the past few years, bodybuilders have started paying closer attention to their electrolyte balance, with a specific focus on sodium. This has come as coaches have increased their physiology knowledge and have incorporated sodium manipulation into a show day peak week protocol, to help achieve a desired look on stage.

I’m very open about the fact that years ago, I stopped training arms. It was around 2017: I had stepped off stage for the first time and vowed never to step on stage again. Of course, I kept training because I did love that part of the process, but whilst I continued to progress my physique across the board, my arms just fell further and further behind.