TRAINING Lou Ferrigno's Mass Class Lou Ferrigno's 30 best training tips for gaining hulking size.
Before and after he was the Hulk, Lou Ferrigno was bodybuilding’s ultimate behemoth. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was winning Olympias at 235, Lou was 275. And when Dorian Yates was collecting Sandows at 265, Lou was 315. In fact, the future not-so-jolly green giant first broke the 300-pound barrier in the off-season at the age of 20—an unprecedented muscular body weight in the early ’70s. At 6'5", he towered over competitors, but whereas most tall bodybuilders have trouble filling out, Ferrigno carried his mass proportionately with pleasing symmetry. He’s the best over-6'2" bodybuilder of all time, and if he hadn’t spent 17 years off posing stages, he may have collected a mantel full of Sandows. In celebration of what was and what could’ve been, Lou serves up his 30 best tips for hulking mass.
- PRESSING GRIP
“On chest-pressing movements, I see a lot of bodybuilders use an excessively wide grip. My grip for all my chest presses is only slightly wider than shoulder width. That gives me both a better stretch at the bottom and tighter contraction at the top.”
- BASIC TRAINING
“Focus first on the exercises that work the largest muscles and several muscles together. Get stronger on these basic lifts, and you’ll grow. You could get a tremendous full-body workout with just squats, bench presses, and barbell rows.”
- DUMBBELL PULLOVER
“The dumbbell pullover is excellent for tying the chest and back together, hitting the serratus, and stretching the rib cage. I like higher reps on pullovers: 10 to 15 per set and sometimes as many as 20.”
- BIG DREAMS
“Everyone remembers that scene in Pumping Iron when I’m doing shoulder presses and shouting, ‘Arnold!’ over and over. I used Arnold to motivate my workouts. Coming up I looked up to people like Steve Reeves, Larry Scott, and Sergio Oliva, and I read a lot of comic books: Superman, Batman, and, of course, the Fantastic Four, with the Hulk. From an early age, I wanted to be as big and powerful as the Hulk. Those are the kinds of images that drive you through your hardest workouts.”
- CONTROLLING FATIGUE
“You can’t let yourself get too fatigued from a single beyond-failure set—at least not near the start of your workout. If you do, your strength level will be too low for you to do justice to the rest of the workout.
- PRE-WORKOUT PLAN
“I spend time at home before my workout thinking about what I have to train, the exercises, how I want to feel as I train, etc. I try to erase all negative thoughts from my mind. Then I go to the gym and put 100% into my workout.”
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- BENCH PRESS
“Do benches in at least every other chest workout. They’re the single best exercise for pecs, and they’re great for shoulders and triceps.”
- AB ROUTINE
“Abs are not just for little guys. Even at 6'5", my abs were always among the best in any contest I entered. It’s no wonder, since I gave them a lot of work. This is my giant set ab workout. I did all four exercises without resting. Then I rested for two to three minutes and did the next giant set. I repeated that one or two more times.”
Hanging Leg Raise: 3–4 sets, 15–20 reps
Roman Chair Situp: 3–4 sets, 50 reps
Bench Leg Raise: 3–4 sets, 30–40 reps
Crunch Side Bend: 3–4 sets, 30–40 reps
- ARM WORKOUTS
“I prefer to work biceps with triceps, rather than hitting them on separate days. I usually start with biceps and finish with triceps, but sometimes I superset bi’s and tri’s.”
- UPRIGHT ROWS
“I do shrugs with a barbell or dumbbells, but I feel like the best exercise for my traps is the upright row. I sometimes do barbell upright rows, but I prefer to do these with a cable, because I feel a stronger squeeze at the top. With upright rows, it’s essential to get your elbows as high as possible.