Old school fitness practices completely lack hype, and are tried and produce a result. That goes for techniques as well as fitness equipment. Most of the knowledge that I work with I acquired from just one book: Arnold’s Encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding. Yes, I am a certified personal trainer, and yes I use a lot of that with my clients, but my goal is bodybuilding and growth. So, Since my goals and the goals of my clients are different then we will work with different systems. If my clients goals were to gain weight and not to lose it, then we would go with the old school method.
1. Old School Dieting: there are many many fads out there that do work, but are quite complicated and expensive. I have found that a very tried and true format just using body weight to find out what you need. For example, I am 185lbs. To find the total amount of protein that I need, I multiply 2 x 185, thats 370 grams of protein. For carbs: 185 x 3, thats 555 grams of carbs. What about fat? 185 x 0.75, thats 139 grams of fat. I deal with macro nutrients, basically the larger nutrients (proteins, carbs and fats), its the easiest and most old school way to do it.
2. Old School Machines: I’m not a big believer in machines, mainly because, in order to grow, a muscle require overload and that cannot really be achieved with a machine. Also, there are many muscles that act as stabilizer muscles in your body, and create that much fuller look to your muscles, therefore, in using machines you cannot achieve that look. So, I use machines, yes, but very sparingly.
3. Old School Techniques: I use the Keep It Simple Stupid techniques. Theres not reason to complicate things. If I want to grow and create dense muscle, then I will perform a rep range of 4-6, usually for two sets per exercise. I will usually only do 8-12 sets for this method, because the body needs some fuel left in order to recover. Want to create fuller muscle? Then move to sets of 12-15, along with cardio to now shape this denser muscle and use your new found strength in order to stimulate growth.