Kai Greene and Training Philosophy in Bodybuilding.
My Nigga https://twitter.com/ChrisMasterjohn asked for a succinct summary of Kai Greene’s bodybuilding philosophy. I’m going to answer by taking quotes from Kai himself and adding my own commentary.
Here is a video where Kai explains the difference between lifting weights and contracting the muscle:
I have to make several comments on this video:
1-Kai refers to “weightlifting” in a general sense that is not technically correct. Correct use of the term applies only to Olympic Weightlifting, which of course doesn’t include curls.
2-Kai asks the kid to keep his elbows locked and steady and the kid himself talks about “form” but in actuality all of that is irrelevant. What * IS * important is what Kai has to say about stretch, contraction and keeping tension on the muscle …
3 — Loaded stretch is a stimulus for hypertrophy. Peak contraction is a stimulus for hypertrophy. Keeping constant tension on the muscle has the occlusion effect of blocking blood flow which results in pump, which itself is a stimulus for hypertrophy. This is the “money shot” part of the video — this is the absolutely key part. You must perform exercises in a way that maximizes stretch, squeeze ( peak contraction ) and keeps tension constant … this is the OPPOSITE of what happens when people bounce the weight using elasticity of the tendons and momentum as a rubber band — when people do that they miss out on ALL THREE of these key components for stimulating hypertrophy !
4 — that said, you CAN swing the weight intelligently and that’s what i do when i curl myself. when i curl i swing the weight and use momentum BUT the key difference is i do so in a way that still gives me the stretch, the squeeze and the constant tension ! ! !
5 — Because it’s not about how the exercise looks to outside observer — that would be focusing on “form” which everybody thinks is very important, but is actually absolutely irrelevant. Form is what exercise LOOKS LIKE, whereas what actually matters is what an exercise FEELS LIKE. Does it FEEL like you’re getting that semi-painful stretch, semi-painful squeeze, constant tension and ridiculous pump ? yes / no ? that’s what matters. it does NOT matter if some idiot personal trainer thinks your form looks good or not.
Kai also had this to say in 2010:
( source: http://prosourceblog.com/2010/04/19/kai-greene-the-key-to-mass/ )
“I train heavier now than even two years ago, but the weights are just tools. I don’t care how much is on the bar … my muscles don’t know what I’m lifting as long as I’m blasting out in full intensity. I train heavy, but use instinctive intensity techniques to increase stimulation. Bottom line — I only use the weights as a tool to build my muscles.”
from the same interview:
“We always rest after back and legs,” Oscar explains. “We use so much energy and reserve that we have to rest. If Kai trains the next day he won’t have energy physically or mentally. And just going through motions isn’t good enough. Every training session must be good.”
my comment: legs and back are biggest muscle groups. legs are so big that at that point ( 2010 ) Kai was training hamstrings on a separate day from squats, so 2 days of training + 1 day of rest for legs. 1 day of training + 1 day of rest for back. Chest, Abs, Calves, Shoulders and Arms take 3 days.
To summarize: 3 days for Legs, 2 days for Back, 3 days for ALL OTHER MUSCLES. In other words Kai was spending ( in 2010 ) as much time on legs as on all other muscles except back and nearly as much time on Back. This is perfectly logical because legs are half of your muscle mass and back is half of the remaining muscle mass after legs. Noobs spend most of their time in the gym on chest, biceps and abs. In Kai’s ( 2010 ) split those 3 combined are 20% of the split.
Interestingly enough even though i don’t use a split and do full-body workouts instead and i don’t train legs and do Olympic Lifting instead the actual breakdown of time i spend on each muscle group is exactly identical to Kai’s if you count Olympic Lifting as leg training. That is to say time-wise it’s Olympic Lifting first for me, then Back, then Shoulders, then everything else — exactly the same as it is in Kai’s split. That’s just because same fundamental principles apply.
Cardio ( from same 2010 article ):
“[Kai] starts each day with 30 minutes to an hour of cardio on an empty stomach … In the offseason it’s done at a moderate pace more to keep his metabolism active and to increase capillary density in the muscles to allow for greater anabolic growth. Leg day is the only one where he does no cardio because he’s saving up his energy to get under the bar for squats. But when the contest prep kicks in, he goes hard on the Step Mill (his favorite cardio machine) using interval training for two minutes hard followed by one minute for active recovery, and then repeating the cycles. As the contest approaches, Kai will double his cardio sessions each day from the eight week mark, for up to an hour each time.”
“He will hit the weights in the afternoon, often after a nap … this allows him full recovery from the cardio session, plus the opportunity to get in two more meals”
My comment: this strategy of doing cardio in the morning and weights in the afternoon is very common among pro bodybuilders.
The article also mentions Kai consumes 500 to 800 grams of protein per day — all from animal sources. This is essentially identical to protein intake by Ronnie Coleman when he was 8X time Mr. Olympia.
I was going to also write about how Kai super-sets Chest and Back ( something i personally observed when we trained in the same gym ) but i’ll save it for a separate post because it would be long and complex but the point is that supersetting chest and back makes no logical sense but it works ( i do it myself now ). You know that it works because you can FEEL it, and that’s what matters !
I can explain why it works because i have a rocket surgeon IQ whereas Kai himself ( from whom i borrowed the technique ) probably can’t explain why it works but he doesn’t need to know why ! The entire point of Kai’s philosophy is that you don’t need to understand why something works — you just need to feel that it is working ! When it comes to bodybuilding training logic is crippling — it just gets in the way of you being able to perceive and act in accordance to what you’re feeling.
You must feel the tension in the muscle, you must feel the stretch, the contraction and the pump — that’s it ! The weight is 100% irrelevant and i will tell you exactly why !
The way your body is designed for every “primary mover” muscle ( the main muscle targeted by exercise that contracts ) there are antagonist muscles ( muscles that oppose the movement and are stretched ) and stabilizer muscles ( that are mainly loaded statically ). The WEIGHT you’re moving is the sum of all the forces generated by all these muscles ( not just the primary mover ) as well as any momentum and / or leverage employed …
As such the WEIGHT and the way the primary mover muscle is activated are correlated only to the extent that all of these other variables remain constant — but they never do !
Focusing on form is an attempt to eliminate all these other variables such that there is a one to one direct relationship between moving the weight and working the primary mover muscle — this is the accepted way to lift as a bodybuilder — but it is actually 100% ass backwards !
It’s ass backwards because you’re starting from the weight and then you’re jumping through 20 hoops to transfer the load from the weight to the primary mover by trying to do away with physics and biomechanics to the extent possible …
Instead you should start WITH the primary mover muscle and just FEEL it work WITH ZERO CONCERN for what the weight is, what it is doing, what antagonists or stabilizers are doing, what the momentum or the leverage is — who gives a fuck ?
The goal is to work the muscle — how or what works it is 100% irrelevant !
Kai explains this as follows:
“The weight is just a tool. If you’re trying to hammer a nail, do you focus on the hammer or the nail? You better focus on the thing you’re trying to hit — the nail — and not the tool for hitting that thing — the hammer. It’s the same with bodybuilding training. Focus on the thing you’re trying to hit, your muscle, and not the tool for hitting that thing, the weight.”
source: http://www.flexonline.com/training/back/legendary-backs-kai-greene
