By Greg Merritt Flex

HALF SCIENTIST AND HALF MONSTER, BEN PAKULSKI IS THE DR. JEKYLL
AND MR. HYDE OF BODYBUILDING.

No one in the IFBB Pro League today applies greater scientific rigor to their workouts than
Pak- Man. Armed with a degree in kinesiology, he is forever seeking the latest training
research, and if youre lucky enough to converse with him, he can explain the proven logic
behind the technique of his every exercise. So hes Jekyll, the scientist. But hes also Hyde,
the monster (in a good way).

Hyde-like, hes capable of conquering bar-bending weights, and he brings a ferocious

intensity to the gym. At first glance, some of his methods seem bat-crap crazy, but theyre
only mad in relation to the normplodding through the same routine workout afer workout
and expecting to magically expand muscles without asking anything extra of them. Now
what sounds crazy? Pak-Man is rare among bodybuilders for applying his brain to his
workouts at least as much as his body. And as the following 10 factors illustrate, he has
some unique and uniquely efective ideas about training.

1) GET TENSE, STAY TENSE Lets start with the fundamental concept behind all of
Pakulskis workouts. As he says, This is the most important thing to understand when it
comes to building muscle. Weights dont build muscle. Intensity doesnt build muscle.
Volume doesnt build muscle. Those are all just tools. How you use them is the key. What
builds muscleor, more precisely, what stimulates muscles to grow larger when they
recover is increased tension. If you want to carry more muscle tissue, you must subject
your body to increased tension on a regular basis and allow it to recognize a long-term need
for building muscle, Pak-Man explains. This is why proper form is so important to him.
You have to know how to maximize tension on the targeted area in order to fully stimulate
the muscle.

Time under tension (TUT) is crucial. This is the total duration during which a muscle is
stressed. Pakulski recommends sets last 40 seconds, and his favorite tempo for achieving

this is an eight-rep set with each rep lasting five seconds with slow eccentrics (lowering the
weight) but explosive concentrics (rais- ing the weight). Getting up to 60 seconds is also
very efective, he says. This doesnt mean you stop a set that you could easily extend well
beyond 60 seconds just because the time range is up. Go until you reach failure, and
increase the weight for the next set. Also, dont, for example, squat 10 reps that are
essentially 10 singles, pausing for several seconds between each rep. Keep working,
extending the TUT until the set is complete.

2) OVERTRAINING IS OVERRATED New research shows that over- training is about

as likely as winning the lottery, Pakulski contends. Overtraining is a state that exists
systematically throughout your entire body, not within one muscle. Its a chronic condition
that afects your central nervous, endocrine, and muscular systems. As long as youre giving
your body adequate rest and time to recover, overtraining isnt even a thought. Youre not
going to overtrain because of what you do in the gym. Youre going to overtrain because of
what you dont do out of the gymnourish and rest your body sufficiently.

3) DOUBLE TROUBLE As with everything in Pak-Mans program, the practice of

doubling up daily workouts for the same body part is based in science. He wants to keep his
workouts short (less than 50 minutes) to maximize the hormonal environment for growth.
His first daily workout focuses on fast-twitch muscle fibers with heavy weights and
explosive concentrics. Necessarily, his rest periods between sets are lengthy (two to four
minutes), so he cant get in many sets in 50 minutes. Therefore, he returns to the gym 45
hours later (after two meals and a nap), and he does a second workout for the same body
part, focused on exhausting the muscles with lighter weights, shorter rests (4060 seconds),
more isolation exercises, and techniques like supersets and dropsets. To over-reach a weak
area, he recommends training the same body part twice daily every other day over five days
(six workouts total for that body part). Then take three days of from the gym to foster
recovery and growth.

4) REACH FOR IT Because he doesnt worry about overtraining, this years runner-up at
the Arnold Classic favors a lesser-known over concept: overreaching. If you want to
grow, you have to do more than your body is used to, he states. There are at least 30 ways
to approach weak-body-part training, but none is more effective for immediate growth and
feedback than overreaching. The point of overreaching is to tax your body so much that it
sees a need to adapt and grow. This is where you need to think outside of the box. Your

muscles are used to the same old exercises and set and rep schemes, and just tinkering with
those variablesas valuable as those changes arewill probably not shock stubborn areas
into new growth. Thus, one of Pakulskis favorite overreaching methods may seem wacky
training the same body part twice in the same day.

5) FLUCTUATE TEMPO To work both fast and slow-twitch fibers, vary the rate at which
you raise and lower the weight. There are many ways to do this, but the key is to maintain
the formula of raising the weight at a rapid or moderate pace and lowering it at a slower
pace. Though slow concentrics will increase TUT, theyll also decrease the speed of
muscular contractions, which, over time, makes you weaker. In contrast, fast concentrics
boost strength. So, go down slower and up faster. With those precautions understood, you
can and should still fluctuate the tempo at which you lower the weight, pause (or dont) at
the bottom, raise the weight, and pause (or dont) at the top. Try to change the rep tempo
every three to six weeks, Pak-Man advises.

6) UNIQUE LIFTS Here are four exercises that Pakulski does on some leg days that most
trainers never do:

ONE-LEG PRESS Working one side at a time lets you focus more on the muscles of each
individual leg. You may also find you can comfortably go deeper by toiling unilaterally.
Pak-Man keeps his foot low on the sled and doesnt rest between taxing his left and right
wheels.

REVERSE HYPEREXTENSION Whereas when you do a back extension (popularly called

a hyperextension) your legs are locked and only your torso moves, this lif reverses that.
Your torso is held steady on a high bench while youre facedown, and you lif your straight
legs up behind you, from down to at least parallel with your torso. This targets the glutes
and hamstrings.

SAFETY-BAR SQUAT The owner of arguably bodybuildings best legs does a variety of
free-weight squatsback, front, dumbbell, and safety bar. The latter differs from a normal
back squat because the (padded) bar rests higher on your traps, the resistance is set more

forward (sort of halfway between a front and back squat), and you can free up your hands
to avoid tumbling over if you fail on a rep without a spotter.

SISSY SQUAT We told you he does a lot of squats. He even sometimes does
bodybuildings worst-named exercise. The sissy squat is performed by holding a support
bar with one hand, standing on your toes and letting your knees go far forward and torso
backward as you squat down.

7) BE A CYCLIST The use of cycling periods of different training styles is called

periodization. Its common in powerlifting, but less so in bodybuilding. Pakulski is a big
believer in it for continuously stimulating growth. Bodybuilding is unique because in
order to grow you have to constantly shock your muscles with new training, he states.
Charles Poliquin was a huge help for me in learning how to periodize my own training.
There are so many different hypertrophy variablesjust a lot of different things people can
manipulate. Pakulski recommends you cycle on and of periods, changing such
components as the exercise weight-load (in relation to your one-rep max), workout volume,
and length of rest periods. He details how to periodize in his online programs MI40 and
Hypertrophy Max.

8) MIDDLE MANAGEMENT This is less of a training tenet than an anti-tenet. So many

champion bodybuilders talk about avoiding standing exercises (especially deadlifts) with
heavy weights because theyre afraid of thickening their waists or hips that Pakulski has to
set the record straight. Workouts arent going to change your structure. For better or worse,
your structure is based on the DNA-determined dimensions of your skeleton. Pak-Man has
relatively wide hips and whether he deadlifts for low reps or never does a standing freeweight exercise his hip width isnt going to change. (Luckily for him, he has ridiculously
wide shoulders to overshadow his hips.) As for a bloated waist, he explains that it comes
from overeating, poor digestion, inflammation from food sensitivities, or liver
inflammation. Hes had some problems with bloating in the past but is controlling it by
regulating intestinal inflammation due to food allergies.

9) GRAVITY RULES At first blush, this one may not seem unique. Its such basic physics
that most of us never think about ittheres that thing called gravity that keeps us all
standing on solid ground. But Pak-Man doesnt forget about it, at least not when hes in the

gym. Talk to him about specific exercises, and hell probably mention how most people get
ranges of motion wrong because theyre not cognizant that a free weight always wants to
travel straight down to the floor. Gravity, remember? And combining that with Rule No. 1
about the primacy of tension, you need to always be aware of when a muscle loses tension
because the weight is no longer traveling up or down against gravity but on a more parallel
plane. Tension is lost on the parallel plane because the weight wants to get back to earth (or,
at least, the gym floor).

For example, on dumbbell flyes, he instructs that you bend your arms on the way down to
get a maximum stretch and then straighten your arms as you bring them closer together on
the way up. Never let the dumbbells come inside of your shoulders because this lessens
tension on the pecs at the same time it eases your struggle against gravity. His flyes are
more like flye presses. On the other hand, you can do a more traditional flye movement
with a machine or two cables because, with the weight stack(s) always fighting gravity, you
can maintain tension throughout. Similarly, the tug of gravity is lessened on the upper half
of a free-weight preacher curl. At the contraction, gravity is actually pulling your hand
toward your shoulder. This is not true if you do those same preacher curls with a cable
because youre pulling the weight stack up even higher against gravity from stretch to
contraction.

10) THINK BIG Pakulski weighs more than three bills in the off-season. And yet, always
the scientist, this Dr. Jekyll knows the greatest key to Hyde-like monstrous muscles lies in
what his mind can imagine. If you want to achieve great things, its important to know that
youll only ever grow, literally and figuratively, as big as the limits you place on yourself. If
mediocrity is your goal then dont ever consider anything more than the life youre already
living. If greatness is in your veins, stepping outside your comfort zone and setting bigger
goals is a great place to start. Do something that scares you. Youre only as good as you
allow yourself to be.