How To Build Lean Muscle

If you are training hard but still wondering how to build lean muscle, this little piece of information may wake you up to reality.

You should know that impressive muscular leanness is not obtained by shuddering under heavy barbells, and the way you lift is more important than the number of plates when your goal is to get a noticeable separation between major muscle groups. (Assuming that your diet is in proper order, of course.)

There is a pattern of how trainers improve their routine over the years, so if you want to know how to build lean muscle effectively, save time by avoiding the mistakes that have been already done.

At one end of the spectrum there is the confused newbie lifting tinny dumbbells for toning, critically scrutinized by intermediate Average Joe who lifts solely big barbells for gaining mass and strength. A muscle is a muscle, he would parrotly paraphrase Arthur Jones, and as long as you build it while keeping calories on check, it will be a lean muscle.

This seems fair enough, and I should probably confess that this is the boat I was stuck in a few years ago. After realizing that traditional HIT looked neat on paper but didn't really work, I jumped right in the turf of pure strength training programs such as Westside Barbell or Pendlay 5X5, which was an improvement from the Metzerian dogma but not quite suited for my goal.

At the other end of this evolutionary scale are real bodybuilders (not necessarily on drugs), such as Dave Goodin, who (surprise, surprise), besides heavy poundages, also use moderate weights and even various machines. So what's going on?

That's exactly what Arnold Schwarzenegger asked himself when he was beaten by Frank Zane in 1968 although he was 60lb heavier. “I couldn't figure out why he had won. My first thought was that if a big guy lost to a little guy the contest was fixed. It was one of the very few times in my life when I ever cried. I cried the whole night after the contest.” (The Education of a Bodybuilder, 1977)

But Arnold always knew how to use the inevitable downfalls to create even more vigorous momenta. “Failure”, as he sagely advises in his Encyclopedia, “doesn't have to discourage you. It can be a great training tool. It defines limits for you, it instructs you as to which parts of your program are working and which aren't. It tells you what step of the staircase you are on and helps to motivate you to climb higher”.

And that's exactly what he did. He studied minutely Zane's physique and routine, and adjusted his training accordingly. He added isolation and smoother movements for achieving “more detail, more quality, more separation, and more muscularity”. He paid more attention to strict form, started doing more full range reps, and the result was a more refined, flawless makeup.

But still, if a muscle is a muscle, then how come more mass doesn't necessarily imply more separation when body fat levels are reduced? How come heavy squats, for example, are perfectly suited for building size but less effective when used for getting front thigh definition?

This, obviously, has to do with how and where the stimulus is applied. When you squat, unless you keep an exaggerated wide foot stance, the tension affects principally the vastus lateralis (which has a great growth potential) but only marginally the front thighs. So squatting is not an omnipotent solution, and leg extension is not just a redundant exercise as it has been lately portrayed.

By the same token, putting a few more plates on the bar when deadlifting can work wonders for widening and thickening the back. “If you don't do heavy lifts”, explains Franco Columbu, “it shows immediately onstage. There is a soft look that shows itself clearly.”

Which, of course, doesn't mean that if you don't compete his advice is less valuable. Franco's back got so impressive that he used to brag about it – probably trying to imitate Arnold's pompous charisma. “My back is a weapon I use to destroy my opponents”, he was saying with his Italian accent.

However, truth be told, if you want to get a refined back definition, struggling with humongous weights is not enough. The guy who made Arnold shed some tears used to deadlift heavy, no question about that – especially when he was preparing for the '82 Mr Olympia. But do you think Zane, who knew a bit about how to build lean muscle, limited himself to one facet of training?

Bear in mind that only by targeting the specific muscles, and doing the reps in a perfect form you will be able to get outstanding muscle separation. So don't get stuck on the idea that you have to use big weights no matter what, and always remember that the so-called isolation exercises should also have their place in your program. 

“The key to developing detailed back muscularity was stretching rubber cables on a regular basis. Just two exercises: Cable pulls in front of the chest, 20 reps and then hold the back double biceps pose for a minute, tensing all the muscles in the back, gently at first and then with more force as you get used to this.

Next is cable pull behind neck. Always hold the cable in it's stretched out position on this one, tensing the upper back and rear deltoid muscles. Switching back and forth from holding the rear lat spread and the back double biceps will carve details in your back.” (Frank Zane, Building the Body, 2009) 

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