by Greg Robins

The 3 Principles of BIG. 

Listen, I’ve been overweight, I’ve been skinny, I’ve seen all my abs, I’ve even been boy-band fit. Ya, I just said boy-band fit, not my brightest moment.

Let’s face it though; the best thing to be is big. From head to toe. Jeans don’t fit you, and you still look like you lift weights in a t-shirt.

I have a theory: secretly every guy wants to be big, some just never figure it out. Instead, they settle for being:

– Skinny: “But my abs are so tight, bro.”

– Delirious: They think they’re big.

– Fat: I guess technically they are big…

The principles below, like so many things in the weight room, are really simple. So simple you probably won’t follow them. Your loss.

The basic principle to bigness is this: Be able move heavier weights longer/more often.

Damn it, that is logical. How’s it done?

1. Get Stronger

In order to move heavier weights longer and more often you must first be able to move heavy weights once and less often; makes sense.

Are you sick of hearing this yet? Like the proverb says: “You can lead a horse to the weight room, but you can’t unplug his head from his asshole,” or something like that. If you want to get big, you do actually need to get stronger; no matter what you have heard. Consider this the final removal of your head from your 5th point of contact. Stop doing small movements with paper weights and work smartly at progressing your big lifts. Go get help with your technique, follow a simple scheme like 5/3/1, stop being a stubborn bastard.

2. Volume and Frequency Make Big People

Now that you can lift heavier weights, you need to move them more times; also makes sense. Higher volumes mean more muscular fatigue (higher intensities mean more neural fatigue). This also means more propensities for growth. You know that word hypertrophy that you think is so awesome? This is how it’s accomplished. High volumes of training can’t be sustained all the time, but they need to be included. Furthermore, frequency, or how often you train a muscle group, will also play into the total volume (work) done to an area. If you are stronger, you can hit areas more frequently and recover from the work because your capacity to do work is higher; more sense made.

Volume is accomplished by adding reps, sets, training more frequently or intelligently combining all three concepts. If you aren’t that strong yet, do more sets at lower rep ranges. If you are strong, and want to get bigger, add more reps. If you want to bring up a lagging body part, hit it more often. Simple.

3. Eat Big, Sleep Well, Get Big. 

You can’t grow if you don’t recover; common sense.

This is something most people refuse to accept. It’s also the most basic principle to getting bigger. It takes wood to build a house, not just labor, tools and a blue print. Eat more, sleep enough. I’m not going to dwell on this, just do it, please.

There you go, a simple recipe to becoming a bigger person. Now you can go ignore it because it’s not flashy, well marketed or different from anything you have ever seen before.

OR

You can do it and get results. Life is about making choices—choose to be big.