Build Muscle With David Kingsbury

David believes you don’t have to settle for average. He is a celebrity personal trainer who takes his clients from average to exceptional through his unique transformative programmes. Over the past 11 years he has worked remotely with thousands of clients and worked closely one on one with over 50 celebrities to achieve results that surpassed what they believed was possible. 5 years ago he was called upon by Hollywood to sculpt a group of actors into superheroes. He answered the call and in doing so created a group of elite celebrities who have the most famous and sexiest bodies in the world. David is best known for his work with Hugh Jackman as the Wolverine and Jennifer Lawrence as Rogue in X-Men Days of future past.

In order to get in shape there are a few key factors to consider 1) Effective training, 2) Effective nutrition and 3) Effective recovery.

In part 1, we will cover two training sessions to get the most out of your time in the gym. They are to be performed twice each per week. So, you might be wondering to start with what weights to use…

Warm Up Sets

Before doing any working sets, I suggest doing warm up sets. These are done by recreating the desired movement exactly with a light weight or no weight and progressively warming up so that when you start the working sets your muscles are ready to go. If your first movement is heavy squats for example, I would suggest doing 3-4 warm up sets, which progressively get heavier, until you reach your working set weight. During these warm up sets, I would generally aim for 8-12 reps of the movement.

When moving onto the next exercise, your body may already be warm but I suggest performing another warm up set, prior to the next working set, to ensure you are comfortable with the movement.

5 Rep Max Test

A 5 rep max test determines the heaviest weight you can lift for 5 reps. For 5 rep max tests, I suggest using the warm up principle discussed above followed by a further 3-4 heavier sets, where you gradually increase the weight but decrease the reps to 2-3 reps, until you have an idea of what your 5 rep max would be.

Strength Sets (1rep – 7reps)

For strength sets if you are not following a percentage system I would like you to aim for each set to be a heavy working set. If the plan is 5×5, I want 5 heavy sets of 5 reps. These are not done at your absolute maximum weight for 5 reps but a weight you will be able to achieve the full 25 reps at. I suggest a similar warm up to the 5 rep max test shown above.

Strength Endurance (8reps – 15reps)

For these sets there are two ways to approach them. Using 4×12 as an example, you can either pick your maximum weight, lift it 12 times and then, because it is unlikely you will be able to do 12 reps again, reduce the reps on the later sets. It may look like 12 reps, 11 reps, 10 reps, 9 reps for example. Alternatively, you can choose a lighter weight that you can lift for the full 4 sets of 12 reps.

For these I would like you to choose the first option. But I would like you to make a note of the exact weight and use it week after week until you are able to perform the full 4×12 rep sets. Once you have achieved this, increase the weight and repeat the system.

High rep sets (15reps +)

For these sets pick a weight that you max out on repetitions within 1 or 2 reps either side of the target rep. For example, if you are aiming for 15 reps I am happy for you to max out at 13-14 or 16-17 reps. If the weight is too light and you achieve more than 17 reps then continue the set but increase the weight on the next set.