5 Ways to Shock the Muscle Like Arnold (It’s Simpler Than You Think)

“I’d always try to shock the muscles… Your muscles tend to become complacent and resist growth if you are constantly doing the same workout for them. But if you try all different types of training methods, exercises, weights, set‑rep combinations and training tempos, you keep the muscles off balance.”

– Arnold

Arnold always brings up this ‘shock the muscle’ thing. And many people are confused about how to ‘shock the muscles’.

They say you shouldn’t warm up, just go to your working weight.

They also said that you can train whatever muscle you want to train on that day (so if you’re a leg day skipper, you just shock it by training chest instead)

Even though it’s a complete bs, people still believe it.

But I guarantee, after you finish reading this newsletter, you can directly apply this ‘shock the muscle’ principle in your next workout session.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

– Albert Einstein

Here’s the thing.

Shocking the muscle is so simple, and actually you’ve been shocking your muscle all the time.

In definition, it just gives your muscles a greater or different reason to grow.

So, for example, if you train with a heavier weight than last week, you’ll actually shock your muscles, because you give a greater and different reason for your muscles to grow.

Here’s the fun thing.

You can shock your muscles in many a thousand kinds of ways, you can change rep ranges, you can change your split, change your exercises order, and so on, and so on.

But, even Arnold, only used a few of these ways when he trained back then.

So, here are 5 ways Arnold shocks his muscles.

1. Progressive Overload

“So each time, you need to be adding more—whether reps, sets, or weight; that’s the progressive in progressive resistance.”

– Arnold.

The most basic, yet the most essential way to shock the muscle is progressive overload. This is where you go heavier and harder than last time you trained.

But, how does progressive overload shock your muscles?

By simply going heavier, you’ll give your muscles a greater and different reason to grow, which is shocking the muscle.

2. Varying Rep Ranges

Varying rep ranges means you don’t train with the same rep ranges in every set.

So for example, you train with 8 – 12 rep ranges in your back workout, then maybe use 12 – 15 rep ranges in your leg workout.

Or maybe…

You train with 5 – 8 rep ranges in your first set, then on the second set, you train with 8 – 12 rep ranges.

By doing this, you give your muscles different reasons to grow.

Here are some Rep Ranges:

3 – 5 reps (very heavy weight with higher injury risk)
5 – 8 reps (heavy weight)
8 – 12 reps (moderate to heavy weight)
12 – 15 reps (moderate weight)
15 – 20 (light to moderate weight)

Arnold often includes powerlifting in his routine, which means he trains with 5 – 8 reps ranges, while his known for training with higher reps ranges.

3. Changing Exercise Order

Exercise order is the order of exercises in your workout routine.

It may sound simple, but it is a game changer.

But, how can it be a game changer?

It is because you can prioritize your muscles by placing them in the first order in a session.

So, if you run an Arnold Split, and you want to prioritize biceps over triceps and shoulder, you might want to train your biceps the first time in the session.

For Arnold, he sometimes change his pairing exercises when he do supersets/

For example…

He should be supersetting bench press with chin up, but now he supersets bench press with row.

That’s one of the ways too.

But, how often should you change your order?

Simply by changing your exercise order every 6 – 8 months, you’re good to go.

4. Different Volumes.

“I trained body parts three times per week, and I’d do 25–30 sets for big body parts like the back and 15–20 sets for smaller body parts like triceps. … You have to find out what works for your body…”

– Arnold

Arnold is known for his high volume training, he often trained 5 hours a day or 4 hours a day.

But actually… That’s not the whole case.

Arnold trains only 1 – 2 hours in his offseason. And he only did like 15 – 35 sets per muscle.

But, when it comes to competition prep, he piles on as many sets as possible, even until 50+ sets per muscle.

But for us…

We can tiger up the volume or lower the volume.

So… if you train 10 sets per week, maybe you want to add an additional 5 sets, so now you train 15 sets a week.

But if you train 25 sets a week for example, maybe you want to lower your volume to 20 sets or 15 sets a week.

By doing this, you can give either the better recovery or stimulus to your muscle.

5. Change Your Split

This is not what Arnold used to do, but I think it is maybe beneficial for you.

Changing your training split might be one of the ways to give your muscles different feelings and reasons to grow.

And it also can give your muscles a better recovery, which means greater muscles and strength grow.

So, if you train with high frequency,,

You train using the Arnold Split or PPL, which you train 6 days a week, you only have 1 rest day.

But suddenly,

If you use an PPL with an additional arm day, which only consists of 4 training days in a week, maybe your muscle will have a greater recovery, which maybe leads to better growth.

Conclusion

These are the 5 ways of ‘shocking your muscle’. It is suitable for you to implement 2 of these 5 ways to shock your muscle except progressive overload, which is essential.

Maybe, for your next sessions you want to up your volumes, or even vary your rep ranges.

Important!! Once you’ve changed your routine and shock your muscles, stay in that routine for 6 – 8 months. Then you can change it again.

Hope this is useful for you guys.

!!!VERY IMPORTANT All of these things are USELESS, if you’re not consistent. That’s why you should buy Arnold’s framed quote as cheap as $35, and don’t forget to use code BLA10 to get a 10% discount.