As the saying goes, you are only as strong as your weakest link! A weak link will inhibit any progression you are trying to make until you work on your weakness. So now that the life lesson has been taught, how does this apply to your training and, in particular, bodybuilding?

What is a Weak Point?

The goal of bodybuilding is to attain physical aesthetic perfection. To this end, bodybuilders will be judged on whether their muscles are symmetrical and in proportion with the other muscle groups. A weak point would be a muscle that is lagging behind in its development.

These weak points might come down to genetics with issues such as differences in muscle insertions or muscle length. It could also be caused, particularly with amateur bodybuilders, by the lack of training of certain muscle groups. Let's be honest, we are all more likely to train those mirror muscles as it makes us feel good! This can cause a lag in the development of other muscles, creating weak points. Just think of those bodybuilders with a barrel of a chest but nothing more than pins for legs. And while you may not be a bodybuilding competitor, if you are putting effort into your training, you might as well train correctly and prevent any weak points from occurring.

How to Train Weak Points

Before you can train a weak point, you need to identify it. If you are wanting to take your bodybuilding training to the next level, then the best thing to do is get a bodybuilding coach that can help identify your weak points. Alternatively, you can take note of what you think is out of proportion in a mirror. Identify muscles that look out of proportion to the surrounding muscles. Also trust your gut. You will probably know what feels like a weak point for yourself and work on it.

Once you have identified the weak point you then need to stimulate the muscle to grow. To stimulate hypertrophy you need to fatigue a muscle more than just normal strength training. This is achieved by doing reps of 10 - 12 and selecting a weight that has you shaking by the end of the set. Doing slow negative reps will help increase the time under tension to keep the fatigue high. Rests between the sets should also be kept low.

One option is to perform isolated exercises on the weak muscle after you have already pre-fatigued that muscle in a compound movement. For instance, performing a leg curl for the hamstrings after doing deadlifts. Exercise variety is another method that can be used. By slightly changing exercises such as flat bench press to incline or grips from wide to narrow, you can stimulate the muscle in a different way to what the muscle has become accustomed to.

How to Train Weak Calves

So you have finally found time to do a leg session. Your focus will probably be on quads and hamstrings. Those tiny muscles down at the bottom of the leg tend to be forgotten. And who could blame you as they have a reputation for not responding to training. While it is true that calves are more difficult to train, they are still muscles and muscles will respond to the correct training stimulus. Part of the problem with the calves is that they are active all day to keep us standing and for that reason they are largely composed of slow twitch muscle fibres. Slow twitch muscle fibres are less bulky than fast twitch muscle fibres. It then stands to reason that in addition to hypertrophy training, you should also perform max strength training to increase the percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres in the calve.

This can be done by lifting heavy loads for 4 to 6 reps and long rests in between. The calves also consist of two main muscle groups, the gastrocnemius and the soleus. The gastrocnemius is best activated with standing calf raises while the soleus is more active with seated calve raises. Make sure to include both in your training program.

Dumbbell Standing Calve Raise

Do standing calve raises on an Exercise Step with some Dumbbells. Perform with relatively heavy loads and emphasise the eccentric phase by lowering the heel past the horizontal. For an added stimulus you can change your foot position by turning your toes inward or outward. An inward position will target the lateral portion of the calve more while the outward position will work the medial portion of the calve.

How to Train a Weak Back

The back is often forgotten as you stand in front of a mirror and decide what you are going to train. However, getting the important V shape in your back goes a long way to improving your bodybuilding appearance. Like the calves, the back consists of two major muscle groups, the latissimus dorsi and the trapezius.

The trapezius forms the diamond shape of your back and is often attributed to giving the back an appearance of greater width. The lats, on the other hand, form part of the middle back and are attributed to giving greater thickness in the back. To develop the back, it is important to build both these muscle groups. The trapezius can be targeted by doing pulling movements such as the pull ups while it is better to target the lats with rowing movements such as the seated row.

Seated Row

The Seated Row Machine has adjustable handles. This allows you to train both the lats and traps. By selecting a closer grip, you target the lats and muscles of the middle back, while the wider grip places more emphasis on the traps. Select a weight that allows you to do 10 - 12 reps. Emphasise the eccentric movement by taking 3 seconds to lower the weight and keep the rest periods short.

How to Train Weak Shoulders

Do you ever feel that you have weak shoulders or that they are underdeveloped? You keep doing shoulder presses, but it doesn’t seem to help? It is important to remember that the deltoids are made up of three different parts, the anterior, lateral, and posterior deltoids. Each is responsible for its own movement.

The anterior deltoid is used for pressing motions such as the overhead press and the bench press. The lateral deltoid is mainly used to lift the arm sideways away from the body and finally the posterior deltoid assists with rowing motions. Therefore, performing various versions of shoulder press exercises are not going to assist in developing the lateral and posterior deltoid. The best way to develop the shoulders is to include a variety of exercises to target each part of the deltoid such as shoulder press, lateral raise, and rows such as the cable high pulley pull. An excellent exercise that can work all three parts of the deltoids is the upright row. All you need is a barbell and some weight plates. However, this exercise also uses other muscles of the back and arms to assist.

Lateral Raise and Shoulder Press

With the Lateral Raise and Shoulder Press Machine you are able to train both the anterior deltoid and lateral deltoid. Quickly switch between shoulder press and lateral raise exercise to get the most out of your shoulder routine. You can perform supersets to create maximum fatigue in the shoulders by starting with weight that allows you to perform 8 - 10 reps for the shoulder press, lower the weight and immediately perform another 8 - 10 reps for the lateral raise.

How to Train Weak Arms

After the chest, the arms are probably one of the most focused on regions as a bodybuilder. The tricky part is to get the biceps and triceps to appear in proportion. We tend to spend more time focused on the biceps but even then, we tend to only focus on a single part.

While standard curls tend to only focus on the main bicep muscle, by changing hand position to hammer curls you target the deeper muscles of the biceps as well as the forearms. The triceps should have various hand positions to maximise muscle growth. You can have your hands in a neutral position for exercises such as the tricep dips or overhand grip for tricep pushdowns.

Bicep Curls and Tricep Pushdowns

Biceps and triceps are largely involved in other exercise movements. The biceps are used in rowing exercises while the triceps are used in pressing exercises. With the goal of fatiguing the muscles to stimulate hypertrophy, a good time to perform bicep and tricep training is when they are already pre-fatigued such as doing tricep pushdowns immediately after bench press. The Bicep Curl and Tricep Extension Machine allows you to quickly select either bicep curls, hammer curls or triceps pushdown exercises so you can maximise the fatigue and develop those arms. Lower the weight slowly for both the bicep and tricep exercises.

Don’t let a weak point inhibit your bodybuilding training! Evaluate yourself and determine where your weak points are or get the help of a professional. Once you know what your weak points are you are then able to select the appropriate exercises. For hypertrophy, higher reps and time under tension is key. Some muscles may take longer to respond to training but stick with the plan and add variety with different versions of exercise and you will achieve your goals and eliminate those weak points.

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Tags: Misc > Lifestyle