 One of the most important factors in packing on muscle is how big that muscle is and it makes a lot of sense. The larger your muscle gets, the easier it will be to activate and if you don't have a bicep, how are you supposed to do a bicep curl? Well Frank, if I'm moving that dumbbell from point A to point B, aren't I automatically activating my bicep? So it should get bigger, right? Well, you have accessory muscles like the forearms, tendons, momentum, so many things that prevent you from activating the bicep as much as it should. And the bigger problem here is developing muscular imbalances through compound movements such as the bench press. Let's say you've been that point A to point B lifter for a year or two and your chest, tris and shoulders aren't equally strong because all you're thinking about is how to push that weight, not am I activating your chest? So when you bench press, maybe your shoulders fail before your chest and obviously that's not conducive to bodybuilding because the goal of bodybuilding is to take the target and muscle to failure and that's what stimulates the most growth. So we don't want a bench press where our chest isn't going to failure. Now how do you fix this? You take a step back to square one, what a beginner would do. Use light weight, make sure you're taking that muscle to failure. If you can't take your chest to failure on a bench press, you need to change the exercises, change the range of motion, change your form, maybe even your rest time, your rep range, lower the weight most importantly. So you have two hypothetical scenarios. One that we just mentioned when someone who's been in the gym for quite a while has developed physique imbalances and the other scenario is an untrained individual who has imbalances but that's from their prior lifestyle, you know, maybe right arm versus left arm. Maybe they did a certain job where something stronger than something else. For me, I've always had problems with my shoulders going to failure during chest workouts and my biceps and shoulders giving out during back workouts. So I've had to orient my routine around these problems. I've had to figure out a way to target my muscles effectively so that I can bring them to failure. If you're just starting off, there's a lot of basics you want to keep present in your routine, regardless of your goals. Always start with a lightweight and make sure that muscle is contracting properly. Make sure you're able to take it to failure effectively, especially when starting off. You might have right and left side imbalances. So focus more on single arm movements, stuff like the functional trainer and pay attention with those barbell and dual arm movements. If one side is doing more work, incredibly important, make sure the volume for each muscle group is adequate. Back is the largest muscle on your body and requires 2-3 times as much volume as chest, which requires 2-3 times as much volume as your shoulders. I really wish I had this information when I started because on a classic grow split, you're doing 12 sets for chest, 12 sets for back, 12 sets for shoulders and it doesn't make any sense because those muscles are drastically different sizes. Even if your volume is correct for each muscle group, if you start with push movements and then do pull or you do pull then push, you might develop imbalances anyway. So switch up the workout routine, start with different muscles on different days. This brings us to paying attention and not just paying attention in the gym and focusing on your workout, paying attention to your physique. Yeah, you might get distracted by the cardio bunny or that monkey bench pressing three plates, but you want to see how you're developing. If people are telling you that your arms are big or your chest is under developed, hey, take a step back, maybe reduce the volume on your arms and do some more chest exercises. All of this advice is getting you to work towards developing a routine where you take all of the muscles to complete failure as frequently as possible. Once you're able to do so for a consistent period of several months, your muscles should be at a size where the margin of error is decreased. There's a term I believe too big to fail and that's kind of true in body building. When the muscle gets large enough, it's hard to mess up working it out because regardless of what you do, you're going to be able to take the muscle to failure. Unfortunately, most people start off incorrectly and as easy as it is to get to that point, most people don't. Depending on how many days per week you can get in the gym, you might really have to tweak around your workout routine. You know, what muscles should I do first? What exercise should I do first? If I'm doing chest and my shoulders always give out, maybe I should stick to fly movements that don't put as much pressure on the front delts and triceps. If my biceps are always going to failure with back, maybe I should do more pull-throughs and lighter rows, focusing on squeezing my back so I don't overwork my biceps. Then you have the simple stuff where your calves are lagging, maybe your glutes, and you just have to do more exercises, more sets, increasing the volume. So thank you guys for joining me today. Hopefully this gives you more insight to my workout philosophy and helps you incorporate different strategies to bring up those lagging muscle groups and build a symmetrical physique. If you guys would like to support me, you know how to do so down in the description below. Thanks again for joining me today, guys. I will see you for tomorrow's video. If you do want to reach out to me for one-on-one fitness and diet consultations, you can contact me through my website frank-de-fano.com.