Muscle and Fitness Rock Hard Challenge 2012: Thoughts and Feedback

I should take a minute right here to state that I do not work for Muscle and Fitness magazine or any other Weider publication. I am a faithful reader and a regular in my local gym. Therefore my thoughts and opinions about this year's Rock Hard Challenge (hereafter to be referred to as RHC) are in no way motivated by the magazine's doctrine or influenced by supplement companies.

Well now that that's over with let me give you a little backstory on what the RHC is. For the last several years Muscle and Fitness magazine puts together a contest designed to reward whoever makes the most progress in what is typically a 12 week program. Each year it is sponsored by a different company (MRI this year), and the grand prize typically involves winning a year supply of supplements as well as a mention in the magazine itself etc. This year they decided to change things up by making the contest only 8 weeks, meaning the workouts are a bit more accelerated, and therefore theoretically more intense. More detailed information can be found @http://www.muscleandfitness.com/rhc2012/homepage so feel free to consult that.

It would seem a bit negative of me to criticize the program right from the get-go so let me take a minute to state some of the things that are great about this year's RHC. For starters it's a new plan. If they simply recycled last year's plan I'd just consult a back issue instead. Whereas last year the focus was on mixing up heavy strength based days and lighter weight/higher rep endurance days here the focus combines the two. The training split would be as such for each year:

2011

Monday - Heavy: Chest, Shoulders, Traps, Triceps
Tuesday - Light: Back, Biceps, Forearms
Wednesday - Heavy: Legs, Calves, Abs
Thursday - Light: Chest, Shoulders, Traps, Triceps
Friday - Heavy: Back, Biceps, Forearms
Saturday - Light: Legs, Calves, Abs

2012

Monday + Thursday - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Tuesday + Friday - Legs, Calves, Abs
Wednesday + Saturday - Back, Traps, Biceps, Forearms

Now both plans involve training 6 days a week. Since this year's plan is only 8 weeks this is a little more realistic because the chances of over-training are diminished significantly because the entire plan doesn't last for 12 weeks. In each year the idea is to hit every muscle group twice per week, with one day (Sunday) as a day off to recover. Rather than alternate one heavy day and one light day per week, the plan is to use linear periodization (work up to heavier weights with lower reps) and reverse linear periodization (lighten the weight and work in a higher rep range) within each workout. This technique allows you to get the benefits of training for strength and endurance in each workout, without having a separate heavy and light day per week. The workouts also alternate total reps each week. So you would essentially perform two workouts that are the same then in the next week you'd perform the same exercises but drop your reps on the heavy sets and increase the reps on the lighter sets, so the first week there might not seem to be a huge difference between 10 and 12-15 reps. On the other hand, by week four those reps are 3-4 on the heavy side and 26-30 on the light. In the 2011 RHC the rep ranges would change each month, rather than each week.

As before there is also a sample meal plan and supplement information. Seeing how the contest is sponsored by a supplement company naturally all advice in this department relates directly to said companies products available. The meal plan gives a sample day of eating, and then offers slight changes over the next few weeks to adjust. In other words it'll say eat like Phase 1 until you stop seeing results, then proceed to Phase 2, then 3 etc. Rather than wait until next months issue to get updates, this is a welcome addition this time around. They are also taking into account that each of us respond differently to food so the idea is to proceed with the different phases as needed.

Here's where I start my nit-picking. Now my complaints however minor or major are well founded and I believe justified, if you disagree I'm happy to hear your opinion.

It is not terribly realistic to work out 6 days a week. Many people find themselves struggling to work out 3 times a week, so lifting weights that much is not terribly practical. Now they do mention that it is best to work up to the 6 day split, considering this is a greater workload than most people are used to. However if you recover fast, or if you don't mind fighting through the pain and have all the time in the world to work out, this won't be an issue.

If this wasn't effective it wouldn't be worth doing, so if it were easy then what difference would it make. It's not easy to get into phenomenal fitness model shape, certainly not in 8 weeks. This is a contest after all, even if you're really doing this for yourself, so I shouldn't complain much about this point.

However I don't like the fact that the workouts are exactly the same not only twice a week but for four straight weeks. Sure they could write an entire book on this subject, but the number one principle for developing muscle is the principle of muscle confusion. Its not only important to vary the rep ranges, but to change up the exercises. Can you really expect a balanced workout plan that uses the same moves every week, simply by changing the weight and reps performed?

My other complaint is the diet. This is a "sample" day in the diet. A good meal plan should be adequate, nutritious, varied, and balanced. Sure one day might be a fine example, but this would be a much better plan if there were more food options. In other words, offer different vegetables, fruit, grains, and meat to eat each day to mix and match so to speak. Most nutritionists will tell you it is not good for your body to eat the same thing every day. Now utilizing their three phase approach you could look at this as a blueprint for carb cycling, but each phase has the same food plus or minus a form of carbs. Very rarely are complete 7 day meal plans included, and taking a look at the average book store's selection of diet books would have you believe everyone has a different opinion on this subject.

Another minor complaint is with the issue itself. Often times pictures and descriptions of various exercises are included in the article itself. However in this particular article we have pictured Dumbell Cleans and Incline Cable Flyes which are not included on any of the four weeks of workouts. Perhaps this is an error on the editor's part, or maybe they're exercises to be performed in next month's installment, but considering how few of these exercises are pictured, it seems a waste to picture ones that aren't even listed in the workouts.

Simply saying here's the good and bad of the program would seem a waste for you to read without offering some alternatives. So below are some ideas I'm currently using to help correct some of these grievances.

Dumbbell to Barbell to Cable

An easy way to offer your muscles new stimulus without neglecting the primary focus of the training split is to change the equipment you're using. For example, Monday and Thursday are Chest/Shoulders/Triceps day so on Monday perform a barbell bench press, incline dumbbell press, dumbbell shoulder press, and an EZ-Bar lying triceps extension. On Thursday's workout do a dumbbell bench press, incline bench press (or incline dumbbell flye), standing military press, and a dumbbell lying triceps extension. This way you're hitting the same muscles but with a new stimulus. If you know more about muscle anatomy then feel free to change as many of these exercises up as you want.

Go Organic and Raw

I never thought I'd see the day when Muscle and Fitness would advocate a raw foods diet in one of their publications. After all to them vegetarians are strange mythical creatures that exist only in other distant far off magazines. However on page 55-56 is a profile on a raw foods diet, complete with a list of a few fruits, vegetables, and grains to eat that are considered "Super foods". We've heard of super foods diets and the basic principle behind raw foods diets is to eat food without cooking it because that's where most of the nutrients and digestive enzymes are present. It is theorized that the body can recover quicker from hard workouts (like lifting weights 6 days a week) on a diet based primarily on raw food. In order to practically apply this try and eat as many foods as you can in raw form. For example the meal plan suggests 2 cups of broccoli for lunch along with a turkey sandwich, if you can stomach broccoli raw it is far better for you, and not to mention way easier to prepare. Obviously you shouldn't eat everything raw, such as meats or sweet potatoes/rice/pasta/etc. Some foods that can be eaten raw include spinach, romaine lettuce, kale, Goji berries, cuccumbers, beets, avocados, squash, zucchini, raw almonds, and nearly all fruits.

When it comes to vegetables, produce, and even protein sources the more organic your diet is the better it is for you. Organic food might seem like a buzz word or an excuse by your local grocery store to charge more for the same food but it is a fancy way of saying that the food is grown or raised the way it should be, in other words without being treated with pesticides, chemicals, artificial hormones, etc. In other words you're eating the food the way it was meant to be, not in mass produced form. Since it's February I'm going to assume you don't have a garden in your backyard, but this is one example of local homegrown organic food that can provide tremendous benefits to your physique. Free-range chicken and grass-fed beef might be a bit on the expensive side (as well as cage-free eggs) but these will also be great for your body. My recommendation is to check out your local grocery store and see what the prices are, organic is almost always going to cost more, but if the price difference isn't too great I'd say go for it.

Other Tips and Strategies for Success

It is always a great idea to keep a food journal as well as an exercise log. Write down the workouts in the magazine into your log, and you can plug in the weights used. If you decide to perform the same workout twice in a week, try and beat your previous numbers. Likewise if you know how much weight you can lift for 10 reps it'll help you know how to adjust the weight to 8 reps in week two, etc.

Few things can keep a diet on track quite like a food journal. Write down everything, down to the condiments used. If you made a burger out of grass fed beef on a whole what bun, write down if you put ketchup or mustard on it, and how much. Don't guess, if you have measuring cups then use them. Go out and get a food scale. A serving of pasta is 2 oz. dry, so measure 2 oz. If you want a turkey sandwich that's 4oz of meat, put it on the scale to see exactly how many slices that is. In the case of spinach 2 cups is a lot so put as much in a bowl as you think you can eat, but make sure when it comes to salad dressing you're using exact measurements because the difference between a serving size and your eyeballs could be 200 calories. Also write down how much alcohol you consume, because believe me this could seriously derail your physique.

Listen to your body. 6 days of weight training a week is a lot. A way around this is to perform the three day split, rest then perform the next three days in a row. So instead of going through a whole cycle in 7 days it'll take 8. You can train while still sore, but if you feel like death, give yourself a day. I wouldn't recommend "adding to" any of the workouts. More isn't always better, so if you feel like you can do another 2 sets of bench presses, or maybe feel like throwing some weighted dips at the end of your chest routine I'd be hesitant. Same goes for lopping off exercises entirely. If you feel your forearms only need one exercise and don't want to do the last, this is not a good idea. Smarter minds than mine came up with this workout, so I wouldn't arbitrarily start deciding to avoid the exercises you don't feel like doing (unless you are to replace them with an effective move to hit the same muscles).

So there you have it, best of luck to you in your quest for physical fitness.