The B.I.I.O.method

See also: BIIO works, BIA says so too

Introducing a different training philosophy into one or more sports is always very difficult. Especially in the world of bodybuilding, where the evolution seems to concern only the dosages and / or types of doping substances and, fortunately, also legal supplements; training, on the contrary, is in most cases always the one disclosed. , trite and withdrawn, by the Weiders and their "champions" for 40-50 years now. The publication of the book "The science of natural Bodybuilding - BIIO method", in March 2001, was welcomed with enthusiasm by thousands of athletes, but also by a certain, justified, skepticism (in some cases by real ferocity) by many "Old Style" traditionalists. In my opinion, theoretical discussions can be interesting, but in the end what matters are the results. The problem is that being a "young" method and not "the method", it takes time before spreading adequately, being assimilated and understood, to extrapolate the maximum performance. Not to mention that, being a strategy dedicated above all to natural athletes, the results are obviously inexorable, yes, but slower. However, after three years, 2004 can be considered the first year of maturation as regards the quantity and quality of the results of the BIIOlogi, both in bodybuilding, but also in other "unsuspected" sports.
To understand the basics of the concepts and the proposed training well, it is necessary to understand that the greatest disgrace of body building is the lack of planning, or at least organization of the training, in the programs offered by the gyms. Usually a member of the gym asks the instructor for the coveted card and receives an unworthy sheet with 4-6 exercises per muscle group, 4 sets of 10, 4-7 times a week, which the unfortunate carries with him sometimes even for months. and months.
In other sports, however, cycling training is an almost routine and extremely consolidated practice. Well, even in physical culture periodizing training, together with the 75% reduction in the volume of work, can lead to extraordinary results.
Therefore only a constant application of valid and codified training methodologies can lead to sought and not random results.
But what does B.I.I.O mean?

Short, Intense, Infrequent, Organized

To understand this, let's start from the ground up and analyze the various parameters that make up a natural body building workout.
To lay the foundations for building organized training, one of the most important processes of the organism must necessarily be studied: supercompensation. This is the physiological mechanism by which our body adapts to external stresses. a body building session, we have a certain amount of basic energy, with exercise we temporarily lose our neuro-muscular abilities. In the following days the regeneration processes restore these abilities with a level, however, slightly higher than the previous one.

Table 1

This is because our body wants to protect itself against other, possible, attacks.
It can happen, however, that an athlete re-trains before the supercompensation has taken place. In this case there is no improvement in performance or muscle mass, on the contrary it can even worsen. This is what happens when the right recovery time is not allowed to pass between one session and another. In fact, although it is a very subjective thing, the minimum time that must pass between one workout and another for the same muscle is on average 7 days. .
So the training sessions must be much rarer than the usual 4-7 that they offer in almost every gym; in other words, your workouts must be absolutely INFREQUENT. The ideal length of a single session should be between 40-45 and 80-90 minutes.

To calculate the duration it is good to carefully study the hormonal flows that occur during physical activity. The hormones to be controlled are: Testosterone and Cortisol.
Testosterone is essential in muscle growth, is responsible for the right aggressiveness in training and is produced by the testicles in men and in small quantities by the adrenal glands and ovaries of women.
Cortisol, on the other hand, is produced for both by the adrenal cortex and, if in excess, tends to catabolize the muscle structure. Unfortunately, it tends to rise during training to reach remarkable peaks after about 80-90 minutes of training.
This is why training must always be SHORT!

Having thus available a maximum of one hour and 30 minutes per session, it is obvious to plan a workout with a few basic exercises and couple the groups in a productive and rational way.
A few multi-joint exercises need to be used, so that the athlete can use extremely heavy loads to exert as much stress on the muscle as possible.
This is how the "INTENSITY" must be exploited at the highest levels at the expense of a greater volume, divided over time. Muscle only grows when you put it into crisis, using as much weight as possible.

Table 2 shows the main exercises of the BIIO training method; as you can see, the program involves the massive use of rather heavy exercises, such as squats and deadlifts, which greatly limit recovery.
Muscle mating combinations are many, as many as the personal characteristics of natural athletes. But the short time available for each session and the absolute need to exhaust the muscle exhaustively, require the combination of synergistic muscles. For example, if you work the triceps after training the pectorals, they will already be very tired and will therefore need, at most, only one basic exercise to be permanently saturated. Therefore, we will prefer to choose 2 exercises for Chest / Back / Shoulders / Legs and one for Biceps / Triceps / Abs / Calves.

LEGS 2 exercises SHOULDERS 2 exercises BACK 2 exercises BICEPS 1 exercise CHEST 2 exercises TRICEPS 2 exercises

Piana bench

Slow forward

Lat-Machine imp.inv.

Barbell squat

Flat bench with narrow grip

Deadlift

Barbell curls

Crunch

All this must be included in an ORGANIZED annual program, divided into two MACROCYCLES (6 months each); macrocycles divided in turn into 6 MESOCYCLES (2-4 weeks), in turn divided into MICROCYCLES (2-7 days).

The program will be divided as follows: