The Perfect Size | Other | Forum

I would think that diet has about five times more to do with your physique goal as does the training, especially as one advances to the level of the pictures shown here.  

For the most part, training needs to be about the same (big seven with heavy weight, working in some isolated movements later on if certain weak areas arise, and using periodization to help keep one progressing in strength and mass for more advanced lifters).  

As Darrin has explained on here before, resistance training is all about building mass (or maintaining mass while losing weight).  In other words, you do not increase your body's ability to become toned or cut by lifting lighter weights, performing higher reps., or engaging in particular movements.  If, for instance, you believe you have enough muscle mass but want to become more lean, then you would not drastically change your training versus someone who is bulking up, however, you may increase the amount and/or frequency of cardio you perform and decrease the amount of daily calories you consume.  By slightly increasing your energy expenditure (adding more cardio), and slightly decreasing your energy input (decreasing total calories), you can tweak your physique over time.  But this is harder than it sounds, because you have to find the right balance for your particular body.  For alot of people, that's the hard part.

I guess my point is that weight lifting should be somewhat of a constant no matter what your UFGs.  Each of us recover from weight training at different rates and each of us are at a different levels of development, but beyond that,  we should all be training with high intensity, with similar movements and pretty static volumes and frequencies for our own genetics.  The other two elements of body building (cardio and diet), however, can vary drastically from person to person, depending on each of our physiques and each of our UFGs.

Of course genetics also controls how easily one can move towards a more bulky frame and genetics also affects how easily one can lose fat to get the more cut look, so it's not a simple question of how to train to obtain one particular aesthetic.  In other words, some people (like myself) gravitate towards being lean and have trouble building and maintaining mass, while others easily gain mass but have trouble controlling body fat.  Then, there are a few, true mesomorphs that easily gain muscle and also easily stay lean.  But even when considering genetics, it's not so much the training that should vary (except maybe the frequency); it's the diet that is the big game changer with cardio also playing a small role.