How I Improved to Win the Title

By Grant Johnson, 2002 Musclemania Atlantic Overall Champion

Many people after the show wanted to know what separated my training this year from last year and what it was that allowed me to make gains and improvements as I did. Aside from changing my diet around and things of that nature (supplements) I decided to work on my deficiencies and take matters into my own hands. The first thing that I do, in that process, which is important, is to try and get feedback on how I looked. This is paramount. It is important to get feedback whether you win or lose. By the way, let me clarify what I mean by feedback. You want scrutiny, not complements. You want the most hardcore negative truth that you can possibly get. This is a little check for your sobriety so you can ascertain how you are going to go about completing the project of building/sculpting your body into it's most symmetrical shape for competition.

That being said, most people know that I was also last years heavyweight champion, but, fell short of claiming the overall title. What most people don't know is that I was so upset I almost went into a premature retirement. But nonetheless, I kept on training and did a lot of introspection concerning my physique and how I could make improvements. So, I began to not only look at the pictures but ask questions. I'd ask those who were qualified and people who did not know a thing about the sport. When I completed my "research" I then composed a plan to take my physique to the next level. To do this I used one of the most fundamental principles in bodybuilding specialization training, muscle prioritization. This is a very basic principle. In fact, it is sheer common sense. The body parts that I proceeded to deliver out of mediocrity were my shoulders, and upper arms. I also wanted to extend the length of my chest. Overall my chest was good and my back was good. So I de-emphasized my back and chest and emphasized my shoulders and arms. Using the principle of prioritization I trained those body parts in special sequences and adapted my training splits accordingly.

The first thing that I did was to either train those body parts on separate days, in order to hit them while I was fresh and had the most energy, or, hit them first in a sequence. Therefore, I changed my training splits from chest, shoulders, and triceps, to shoulders, and do my chest second. I would perform my upper arm routine on a separate day and perform my leg and workout for back on the same day. For shoulders, I would use the hammer strength behind the neck press and perform four sets. Two of the four would be extremely heavy sets x7reps and the other two sets would be descending sets lightening the weight and successively doing more reps each one. Note, when prioritizing I would always work out with a partner and do at least two forced reps each set. Then I'd move onto heavy upright rows with a medium to wide grip, attempting to increase the width of my shoulders. Here, I would do three sets. The last of the three would be lighter, performing more reps. Again, going beyond muscular failure. Next, was incline lateral raises facing the bench. I'd keep the sets the same and go heavy except the last one. Finally, I would do cable or dumbbell raises to the front. Note, rear delts were done on back day.

After that I would do chest and begin with decline. Most bodybuilders should not do this, but I felt that I had enough upper pec development and that more lower pec development would make my package more aesthetically pleasing. Here, I would do either hammer strength decline, heavy for four setsx7reps making the weight lighter on the last, attempting to complete ten to twelve reps, or, superset decline dumbbell press with decline cable flies (WHOA!!!). After that I just made sure that I did some type of exercise that focused on my upper and middle pecs.

The next day in my split I would do biceps and triceps. Usually, beginning with some type of barbell curls completing 3setsx7reps, heavy. Then, hammer curls with the same format and would complete 4 sets of concentrating curls-usually ten reps per set. For triceps I would do three exercises with a similar amount of sets and reps. Note, that all of these workouts changed every couple rotations between splits and would sometimes revert back to the same format. I tried to use muscle confusion to eliminate plateau's in progress.

This is what helped me as far a elevating my lagging body parts.

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