You can’t have striations without a proper diet, but don’t think for a moment that training is less important. Both are needed to make sure that your muscles are not obscured by layers of fat and that individual muscles are sufficiently developed to stand out in distinct relief from one another.
If you’re looking for tips on how to get muscular and vascular, then look no further than these tips from the 8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman, aka “The King.” Ronnie made himself a legend through his training techniques that propelled him to a record-tying number of Olympia wins, shared with the legendary Lee Haney.
Ronnie didn’t win these by accident, or because he was up against lackluster competition (quite the opposite, actually). He became “The King” because of his tried-and-true training techniques that, to this day, have been shown to shed fat and increase muscularity.
“In the pursuit of striations, I emphasize training rather than diet,” Ronnie says. “From my years of experience, I’ve discovered that the following factors constitute the formula that will produce the highest quality of striated muscle in the shortest time.”
We’ve asked Ronnie to write down his top training techniques so that you, too, can be at your best. Odds are you probably won’t get to win the gold at the Mr. Olympia eight consecutive times, but you’ll certainly be turning heads as you walk down the street after incorporating these into your routine.
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Rob Hammer / Aurora Photos / Getty
Heavy weight
Striations don’t come from surface muscularity, but from deep, thick, full and complete development of individual muscles, and the only way to achieve that is to train heavy enough to activate all of that muscle’s fibers, from deep in its belly to its outermost tie-ins. This means stressing them from inside out with maximum weight resistance, forcing them to pull and strain at themselves to stretch their capacity. Try for heavier lifts every workout.
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MRBIG_PHOTOGRAPHY / Getty
Use 10-15 reps per set
Individual muscles must be worked to their capacity for every set, and the most efficient means I’ve found to achieve that state is with a minimum of 10 reps per set—and often as many as 15. Commanding an individual muscle to perform the bulk of the work from the very first repetition of a set is easy when you’re using light weight, but not enough stress is applied. The first few reps with heavy weight, however, require you to concentrate more on overcoming and controlling the resistance than on the specific muscle’s contractions and extensions. Not until the fourth or fifth rep does a muscle adjust to flexing that heavy weight solely by itself to reach optimum efficiency. By aiming for higher reps, I am using those first few reps to acquaint the muscle with the weight. Thereafter, I’m getting five to 10 perfect heavy contractions and extensions before the set is finished.
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Gilaxia / Getty
Optimum pump, not failure
A muscle is receiving maximum benefit from reps only if you can feel it being pumped and burned, but as soon as that sensation fades or shifts to a joint or a different muscle, you’ve gone too far. I never go to failure. When the muscle reaches a hard tight pressurized sensation, I stop.
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Per Bernal
Supersets and giant sets
The best technique I’ve found for pumping a muscle up to maximum blood volume is with supersets or giant sets. With the proper amount of control and weight, you can—with one set!—build almost perfect blood volume in a specific muscle, pressing it out through its fibers to give it distinctive striations, but additional (super or giant) sets virtually guarantee this effect. Furthermore, they sustain that maximum blood volume longer than a single set does. Hardly a workout goes by that I don’t use them at some point.
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PAVEL YTHJALL
Complete range of motion
The easiest way to feel how a muscle is performing is to use a full range of motion, smoothly extending all the way, then contracting likewise, intensifying the squeeze as you go. This allows you to mentally become one with that muscle, almost as if you are commanding it to pop out separately from its adjacent fibers.
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Per Bernal
Visualize striations
If you see them in your mind’s eye, they will come. With every extension and every contraction, concentrate on individual fibers becoming more massive, apart from all the others. Think bigger and your muscles will become bigger and more visibly separated. Remember that your body is the sum of its parts, and striation training is focusing on each of those individual parts.
