Mitch Edmunds has only just begun to realize his lifelong dream of becoming a professional bodybuilder. In 2004 Mitch entered and won the Northeast American INBF contest. With this first place win, Mitch earned his WNBF pro card. Already, in 2005 Mitch has competed in his first WNBF sanctioned contest in preparation for the main event coming this November, in New York City.
While this dream-come-true story is a common goal for many people visiting Bodybuilding.com, it was a special accomplishment for Mitch considering this goal was realized at age 39. It was just a few years earlier that Mitch essentially just started bodybuilding; serious bodybuilding.
Most people were very impressed with Mitch's progress and state of bodybuilding development, keeping in mind that Mitch is age 40, and has only been bodybuilding for about 3 years.
Mitch is also a natural, drug-free bodybuilder, and his transformation and continued progress is an inspiration to people who want to make impressive gains without using drugs. Mitch's success is due to persistence and following a viable training, nutrition, and supplement program.
Between Mitch's success and from my Old-School Bodybuilding articles with Bill Grant, I know that this has started a movement of people making a better effort to perfect their training, nutrition and supplement programs, and focus on doing it the smart way, to reach their "natural potential".
Based on popular demand, I'm working on additional parts to this article series. Mitch has gained over 30 pounds of lean body mass in just a year. He is making steady progress, and we will be revealing some of his new training and nutrition approaches that work best.
But, for now, enjoy learning about Mitch's basic training, nutrition and supplement program that he has been using the past year to make incredible gains and progress.
This article presents the training, nutrition and supplement programs Mitch has been following the past year to gain over 30 pounds of lean body mass. Mitch's training program includes training each major body part at least once a week, for several sets, during a 4 day core resistance training program.
Then on day 5, Mitch trains certain body parts a second time that he feels need the extra workout to make the progress in building symmetry he is looking for.
Concerning aerobic training, as Mitch is susceptible to gaining body fat, he performs at least 3, 30 minute sessions of aerobics during his regular training season, and will up this to at least 5 sessions per week during the 3 months prior to a contest.
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Mitch With Personal Trainer & Co-Owner Of Health & Body Steve,
Checking On Mitch's Aerobic Exercise Progress.
However, keep in mind that for bodybuilding, when it comes to aerobics, less is often better, as this type of exercise competes with your muscle building training stimulus.
It is best to do the minimum of aerobics for optimum muscle mass results; it's a matter of what your primary bodybuilding goals are. When your primary goal is building maximum muscle mass for bodybuilding contests, then you need to reduce training that will be in conflict with this primary goal.
To maintain cardiovascular fitness, and to boost your metabolic rate, keep your resistance training fast paced and your heart rate at a health exercising level.
If you have trouble losing body fat or maintaining the body fat levels you want, then introduce aerobic exercise slowly to determine the minimum you need to do for the best results; it's a real balancing act.
Mitch stays in the standard 8 to 12 rep range for most of the year. Three months before a contest, he will use lighter weights and higher reps, up to 15 reps. During this lower intensity pre-contest training, he includes at least one heavier set, per body part per week, to stimulate the larger Type IIb muscle fibers to maintain their size.
On Friday's, when Mitch performs a second workout for certain muscle groups, he usually uses lower weights and a higher rep range, 10 to 15 reps. This helps provide an extra growth stimulus for the Type IIa muscle fibers. Keep in mind that Mitch is a professional bodybuilder, so this is an advanced program.
If you are at an intermediate level of training, and want to ease in to this training program, you can start by performing 1-2 sets instead of 4 sets per exercise, and work your way up to 4 sets. Also, make sure to perform a light workload warm-up set, and use a training partner when required.
Mitch evaluates his symmetrical progress every 4 to 6 weeks, and will rotate other body parts on this Friday fine-tuning workout he feels need a second workout to increase growth rate and maintain symmetrical increases in muscle development.
If you have been following a once per week body part workout, when following Mitch's program, you should experience an increase in muscle growth, especially during the first 2 months.
These video clips show Mitch performing a demonstration set, then Mitch performs a second set that is a close-up of the muscles he is exercising.
Because Mitch was at pre-contest low body fat level, with incredible muscle definition, you can see phenomenal muscle detail, which makes these video clips a nice anatomy, plus exercise demonstration.
Some strong points about Mitch's basic nutrition plan is that it contains a healthy balance of carbohydrates, protein and fats and it uses top quality sports supplements.
Mitch's basic nutrition plan is divided over 5 meals per day, with an optional evening snack, which is also a strong point especially during a period of stimulating loss of body fat or maintaining healthy body fat levels. This helps keep the body in a fat burning mode.
When you over eat even one meal a day this conditions your body to store the excess calories as fat, making your metabolism a fat building metabolism.
Spreading your food intake out over several meals, like Mitch has done, will prevent overeating at meals, and condition your body to store less fat, and use the nutrients from your meals for energy and tissue growth and repair; a muscle building and fat burning metabolism.
Some weak points about Mitch's basic nutrition plan is that it might be hard for some people to follow because it lacks diversity of foods, so you may need to substitute different types of foods if your taste buds get fatigued or you don't particularly like these foods.
This diet may be low in fiber for some people which can be adjusted by including some high fiber foods or supplements.
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Due to the lack of fruit and vegetable diversity there may be a concern for suboptimum mineral and vitamin intake, which can be corrected by the supplements Mitch uses, which contain vitamins, minerals, protein and loads of other ingredients.
In addition to these a multivitamin and mineral supplement can also be taken to balance the essential nutrient intake out. Mitch's basic nutrition and training programs are for use by healthy people and might not be suitable for everyone.
