My muscle-building success doesn't come from particular exercises. It comes from experience and knowing what works and what doesn't.

Good form is a must, but there is more to it than that. I always had trouble getting shape into my legs so I sought advice from a friend who was an experienced bodybuilder. What he told me changed the way I worked out forever.

"Treat every muscle like it's your biceps, even your legs."

With my best Tim Allen impression I responded, "aaauuuurrrrghgh???"

First think about it vice versa. If you went into the gym and did a couple explosive sets of heavy curls and then called it a day, what would your arms look like? They would be bulky, but with hardly any definition and no shape...exactly what my legs looked like at the time. I thought pounding out some heavy squats was good enough for legs. What I learned was that I needed to put the same focus I did for my biceps into all my workouts. You want to get the same isolated burn from preacher curls in every exercise, except maybe when you're trying to max out.

It's not easy. Some of your muscles work together with a certain synergy because of they way your body is designed. When you squat, you're going to work all the muscles in your legs--but if you want to focus on the quads try doing some leg extensions beforehand so you can isolate the muscle group. You can also vary the exercise like doing front squats instead. Nobody ever said you have to stick to the basics. Change it up.

Same goes for doing presses for your triceps. It's really tough for me to feel a burn in my triceps when I do close-grip bench. So I do some exercises (triceps pushdowns, skullcrushers, etc.) before to build up the lactic acid so I can feel the muscles burning when I go into the exercise. That way I can focus on pushing with my triceps and not my chest.

The next bit of advice I learned over the years is that nothing beats the healing power of proper rest.

Many of you probably overtrain without knowing it. The biggest hidden example of overtraining would be doing chest and back on a Monday and doing arms on a Tuesday.

When you work your chest you are also heavily working your triceps. When you work your back you are also heavily working your biceps. Doing arms the day after working chest and back is overtraining. The muscles in your arms are still healing from the day before. Overtraining will minimize muscle development and can also lead to injury.

How do you avoid overtraining? Proper muscle pairing. When you work your chest and shoulders you should also work your triceps. When you work your back you should work your biceps. And finally try and work your legs all-in-one.

This is my weekly schedule:

Monday: Legs & Cardio

Tuesday: Back & Biceps

Wednesday: Chest & Triceps

Thursday: Legs & Cardio

Friday: Back & Biceps

Saturday: Shoulders & Triceps & Cardio

Sunday: Netflix

I can get more specific if anyone is interested in my routine.