Page 178 - Muscle & Fitness (February 2020)

FLEX_SIMEON PANDA

I can guarantee they’ll increase
their muscle mass from doing it,”
he says. “For me, it’s something
I’ve always done. It’s contributed
to my strength and my size. I get
the best of both worlds.”
Panda typically begins a work-
out with several high-rep sets
of a compound exercise. Since
he trains a single muscle group
every day, he knows he has

several days to recover before
those same fibers go through
his brand of high-rep hell. Even
as he transitions into isolation
exercises, he still saturates the
muscles with set after set. If
Panda had a costume, he’d most
likely have a pyramid icon on
his chest (probably in gold, over
black Kevlar). He likes to take
three sets to slowly build up to
his heaviest weight. He’ll spend
three to four sets pushing very
heavy loads and then finish with
a warm-down set or two. These
submaximal sets help him add
the thick cross-section of mus-
cle fibers that are a requisite for
developing super strength.

The Hero Workout
The superhero body is all about
creating that dramatic X-frame:
a strong torso that contracts to a

narrow waist, then flares out into
powerful legs. When it comes to
building that body type, every-
one knows which muscle group
should be your top priority.
“The first thing is the shoul-
ders,” he says. “You have to have
big delts. You need arms, too, but
it really is the shoulders.”
Panda’s shoulder workout
begins with a huge dose of
stimuli in the form of German
Volume Training (GVT). From
there, it systematically hits each
head of the deltoids.
On the following pages, Panda
breaks down his five-move
shoulder workout for delts that
are just super.

1 7 4 M U S C L E & F I T N E S S / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 0