Q: I want to do everything I can to make the fastest gains possible with X-Rep training. Do you have any suggestions on how to check my progress, other than weighing myself every week?

A: First, don’t weigh yourself every week. You can make muscle gains as you lose fat, so your weight may stay the same or you may even gain weight while getting more muscular (muscle weighs more than fat, by the way). About the only way to really track progress is to take photos every four weeks or so. You should hit a variety of poses at your first session, keeping a list of the shots you took and the camera settings you used. Four to six week later, take photos again, and use the same poses and camera settings (put the camera on a tripod, if possible, at about waist height). Also—and this is important—be sure the lighting is the same. Take the pictures in a room with a fairly bright overhead light and don’t use a flash, or it will wash out your muscularity.

We have a specific spot in the IRON MAN Training & Research Center where we take our photos. Below are a few of our before and after shots that were taken one month apart in the same lighting. The befores were taken at the end of May ’04, right as we began using X-Rep training. The after shots were taken July 2, about a month later. These shots, taken under the same light, convinced us that X-Rep training works better than anything we’ve tried in the past!

Be sure to take your progress-monitoring shots under the same lighting conditions. We took these at the same spot in the IRON MAN Training & Research Center about one month apart during our X-Rep experiment. They proved to us that X Reps can produce drastic changes in size and muscularity fast! We’ve never made such amazing progress in such a short period of time in our training careers.

Q: I can only train two days a week, so I’m using the Basic Ultimate Mass Workout 1. I really like the idea of training each bodypart with only the absolute best compound exercise, and I’m getting some excellent results after only three weeks! My problem is that the workouts make me feel a little drained. Can I cut back to one set on some of the exercises and still make gains?

A: That’s a solid routine, but training the whole body with the best compound exercises, even if it’s only with a couple of sets, along with X Reps can be taxing. It’s not for every body. That’s why we provide alternatives, like a three-day version and a four-day version, with some of the workouts lasting only 35 minutes or so. You said you can only trian two days a week, however, so those aren’t options for you.

Here’s a better altenative to simply cutting the sets: Try the drop-set technique with X Reps so that within the one set you’re actually doing two in less time. For example, on incline presses, do a set to failure, finish the set with X Reps at the appropriate position, then reduce the weight to a poundage that allows about six hard reps. You’ll be doing about the same amount of work in less time, which is a classic intensity amplification technique for mass building. You can do that on as many exercises as you want, doing one X-Rep drop set instead of two straight sets. That should reduce your workout time considerably, have you feeling less drained and may even produce better results!

Q: How do you guys stay motivated to keep training hard?

A: Staying motivated is one of the hardest parts of the muscle-building game. For us it’s most difficult in the winter, when sugary foods are everywhere and our physiques are covered from head to toe because it’s cold out. We do have a few tricks. For example, during part of the winter we often go on a basic program similar to the Basic Ultimate Mass Workouts in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book, training only three or four days a week. (We’re more excited than ever about training this winter because we get to experiment with some new X-Rep incarnations, like X Overload, which we’ll report on soon. By the way, that’s another thing that motivates us: finding and experimenting with new training techniques so we can help others make better gains.)

When we’re in that back-to-basics winter phase, we try to increase our strength as we gradually increase our calories. We make an effort to stick with quality foods and avoid junk, but we do allow ourselves to indulge every so often. We try to convince ourselves that winter is the time when we can build lots of muscle due to a calorie surplus—your body is more apt to pack on mass when there are extra calories available—so we stay focused on how that extra muscle will look when we lean out for summer.

As spring approaches, say, around the end of March, we start training for some detail and ramp up the intensity. We also begin to gradually drop our calories. It’s still cold out, so our motivation is only about 80 percent; however, it’s much easier to see summer on the horizon, and our big goal is to try to improve on the way we looked the year before. (As you know, this year was very successful, as we made some of the best gains of our lives with X Reps. Fast progress like that is a big motivator in and of itself!)

And, of course, once we start leaning out, the looks and comments we get really get us jazzed. For example, Steve was running in his neighborhood with his shirt off one afternoon, and a guy driving his kids home from school pulled up next to him and said, “Hey, you look awesome!” His kids waved, and Steve thanked him, waved back to the kids and kept running. Then, on down the bike path, a woman pushing a baby carriage with her husband walking beside her saw Steve coming toward them. As he passed, the woman said, “Now that’s a body!” More motivating acknowledgement (although she probably said it to annoy her husband).

Jonathan has had similar experiences. While at the beach with his shirt off, Jonathan saw an older gentleman and his wife walking toward him. The man glanced at Jonathan and said sarcastically, “Gee, you need to work out.” Then, when he and his wife got a little closer and took a good look, they were stopped in their tracks by Jonathan’s condition. They just kept looking at him, jaws dropped, uttering a “wow” every few seconds.

We’re not relaying those incidents to brag. We just want to remind you that those types of pats on the back help fuel motivation as you get in muscular shape—a snowball effect. Once you start making X-ceptional progress, you’ll no doubt get lots of those types of comments, not to mention approving glances, with a raised eyebrow or two, from both sexes.

Q: Are X Reps better than forced reps, and if so, why?

A: Yes, X Reps are better because you extend the set at only the precise point in the exercise’s stroke that is key for force production and/or fiber activation. With forced reps, on the other hand, you writhe around as you strain through full range reps with help from your training partner. So while X Reps help you circumvent nervous system failure for an extra hypertrophic surge, forced reps waste a lot of nervous energy as you push through weak areas of the stroke with imprecise unloading (pushing or pulling from your partner). That’s why trainees who use a lot of forced reps tend to get tremors after training—they overstress the nervous system.

A recent study appears to confirm that (International Journal of Sports Medicine, 24:410-418. [2003]). It featured 15 male athletes engaged in either a maximum-reps routine or a forced-reps routine. Both types of training led to considerable increases in serum testosterone, free testosterone, cortisol and growth hormone; however, cortisol, which is a stress hormone that can cannibalize muscle tissue, was higher in the forced-reps group. Forced reps also produced a greater decrease in maximum muscular force, according to the researchers.
The greater loss of muscle power indicates that forced reps overstress the nervous system and the excess cortisol produces catabolism in muscle. In fact, many studies indicate that the biggest cause of overtraining is nervous system stress, and therefore forced reps do a lot to increase that probability—much more than X Reps. In other words, cue to X Reps short stroke, as opposed to full-stroke forced reps, we believe X-Rep training is a superior way to extend a set for a maximum growth response with less recovery and nervous system stress (Journal of Applied Physiology, 85:2352-2359. [1998]).

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