Ted Arcidi's Workout Routine, Diet Plan & Supplements

We’ll get into Ted’s training principles shortly, but it’s important to note that he would progressively reduce the repetition pattern during his training cycle for competitive bench press events.

In the first three weeks, he would do three sets of 6 reps, then reduce it to 3 sets of 5 reps for the next three weeks.

Then he further reduced things to 3 reps for three weeks. And the final two weeks would involve a mix of 2 or 3 reps per set.

His workout days were extremely intense, but he managed to achieve his size by going to the gym on only three days of the week.

And if you want to follow his approach, then you definitely want to avoid any kind of light weight.

We already covered the approach for sets and reps in Ted Arcidi's bench press routine, but there are a few other things to keep in mind.

First of all, he does everything at a slow to moderate speed. It’s not a race with these routines, and the longer your muscles are under tension [1], the better your muscle fibers will react to bulking.

The other thing he introduces from time to time is forced reps where he might have a spotter help him get one rep in where he would otherwise have failed.

He has said on a few occasions that he thinks the behind-the-neck press is one of the greatest upper body exercises, and he sometimes added a last heavy workout set of this movement at the end of a training session.

The other thing to mention is his breathing.

Due to the relatively slow movement, he would often exhale and inhale twice during the lockout. He believed this stabilized the chest to ensure the pressure was evenly distributed between the shoulder girdle and joint.

What he also mentioned as a reason for choosing progressively heavier weights and lower reps was that once he developed the increased lung capacity to do six reps, then doing three reps became a lot easier, even with a heavy weight load.

Here is the type of food that Ted would typically have to get through in a day to bulk up to that size.

• Meal 1: 8-egg omelet with steamed vegetables, a large bowl of oatmeal with unsalted nuts and seeds;
• Meal 2: mass gaining shake with 500+ calories and mostly carbs, fresh fruit and berry salad, double scoop of protein shake;
• Meal 3: a large bowl of rice or sweet potatoes, 4 lean chicken breasts, a large portion of steamed vegetables;
• Meal 4: mass gaining shake with 500+ calories and mostly carbs, a large bowl of mixed salad, double scoop of protein shake;
• Meal 5: a large bowl of rice or sweet potatoes, 20-ounce steak;
• Meal 6: a bowl of mixed salad, double scoop of protein shake;

As you can imagine, that’s a ton of calories, but that kind of bulking with extremely heavy weights will require a lot of excess energy.

Ted’s diet efforts were always a very important factor in preparing for a scheduled meet or just to maintain his massive bulk.

And to achieve that, he would have relied on two types of supplements.

1. Creatine

Not only would creatine supplements have helped him speed up his recovery phases, but it would also provide good endurance and reduced levels of fatigue [2].

2. Whey Protein

The kind of heavy benches and the fact that there are no light days at the gym says it all. To get the maximum bulking and recovery effect, it’s likely that you would need multiple scoops of whey protein each day.