Weight Training = Muscle Building Before we jump into the fray and look at the various systems of weight training, we need to get a grasp of the basic concepts that nearly all training protocols have in common. First and foremost is the fact that all weight training should be looked at as a musclebuilding activity. I know, I know ... I can already hear the protests from many women, athletes in traditional sports, and anyone else who is, in one way or another, somewhat hypertrophy-phobic: "I just want to tone up", "I don't want to get musclebound", "Big muscles are disgusting", etc., etc., etc.
Look, "toning up" is nothing more than losing fat and/or building muscle. Either way, we're talking about increasing the lean body mass index, or becoming more muscular. Similarly, added muscle weight, assuming it's naturally attained, is functional and will enhance, not hinder, athletic performance. Finally, the likelihood that any particular person will become "musclebound" from serious weight training and nutritious eating alone is very small. The muscular behemoths of the world are typically genetically predisposed to building large amounts of muscle (high normal testosterone levels; long, dense muscle bellies; small but strong joints), eat and train to the extreme, and sometimes even turn to drugs to enhance their muscularity. In general, though, building extreme muscle mass is incredibly difficult and doesn't happen by accident.
The Basics So what are the basic principles which govern muscle growth through weight training? In brief, the factors that contribute to the productivity of a workout system are intensity, duration, frequency, and progression. Briefly, intensity is the difficulty of the exercise you perform. Most exercise protocols have their own definition of intensity, but regardless of the context, if your efforts in the gym are half-assed, so will be your results. Duration is simply the length of time you are in the gym per workout, and frequency is how often your workouts are performed. As we will see later on, a corollary to these basic ideas is recovery, which happens outside of the gym.
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