The Weider principles

We’ve put together some of the training principles from bodybuilding pioneer Joe Weider. Get to know them and – most importantly – apply them!

The major enthusiast of bodybuilding, was also the man who created the bodybuilding competitions of Mr. and Ms. Olympia, based on principles and training methods, which where systematized and are now the “Bible” of bodybuilding. Weider is based on these principles that practitioners continue today to train to achieve muscle hypertrophy.

Overload principle

This is the basic principle of strength training. In order for muscles to grow you should submit them continuously to higher efforts then they can handle. Only then the muscle can recruit more muscle fibers and grow.

Muscle confusion

This is another of the important principles in order to continuously increase in muscle size is trying to “confuse” the muscles, causing them to train differently to what they were used to. In this case the muscles “get confused” by the variations in the exercises, such as changing the number of sets, repetitions, intensity or new moves, they ask for help the more muscle fibers to hold the new effort, coming out of comfort zone. And so are the conditions for that hypertrophy can happen.

Blood to the muscles

Having blood pumped to the muscles is another way to increase muscle growth and is another of the principles defended by Weider. Here you try to increase the level of blood to a specific muscle and keep it there for a while, as for example during the static force, to produce muscle growth.

Training in series

Series are part of the basic concepts of any strength or resistance training. The number of series is determined depending on several variables of training, but are always performed two series, at least, per exercise. Series can be combined in various ways, depending on the goals you want to achieve: super series, giant series interleaved or composed are just a few examples of such combinations.

Pyramid Principle

Although this principle can be used even by more advanced practitioners of bodybuilding and can be adapted to each specific level, it was a way to solve the problem of beginners, the problem of not being able to train with very heavy weights, in general. So this principle combines the load lifting, with the number of repetitions to be carried out, increasing the weight and decreasing the reps or vice versa, depending on the cases.