Q: I need to lose about 20 pounds. I’ve been weight training for about two years, so I’m not a beginner. You say that more muscle helps burn fat, so should I use X Reps to add more muscle size and just work in some cardio so I get a double fat-burning effect?

A: That’s an excellent start, and adding X Reps isn’t just a good idea because they help build muscle fast—they also help you burn fat. The reason: growth hormone and testosterone, two very potent fat burners.

If you’ve tried X Reps, you know they produce an incredible searing effect at the end of any set. We’ve mentioned in our e-zine that GH is linked to muscle burn. Think about it: With X Reps you can do an intense heavy set on a compound exercise, like bench presses, and then end that set with power partials to significantly magnify the burn. You know the big exercises help trigger testosterone, and with X Reps you can force more GH as well thanks to the burn they produce. It’s a fat-burning double whammy—a much more efficient method than anything out there, with almost zero wasted effort. (That’s one reason we say that each X-Rep set is at least three times as effective as a straight set to failure.)

If you’ve been training for any length of time, you know it’s very difficult to achieve a burn on the big, compound movements. But with X Reps you can make it happen every time—producing a searing firestorm finale. Do you see why we’re so fanatical about X Reps—and why they were the key method during our one-month metamorphoses?

So definitely include X Reps in your fat-burning plan. As for cardio, you can start slowly, say two 20-minute sessions a week of medium-intensity work and build from there. Make gradual increases so your body adapts and you don’t burn too much muscle. The real key, however, will be your weight workouts which will jack up your metabolism long after you leave the gym. [For more on the best fat-burning techniques, including cardio-surge programs, gradual calorie-reduction diets and the new High-Definition X-Rep workout, get a copy of the new e-book, X-treme Lean.]

The new e-book X-treme Lean details our fat-burning strategies, as well as Becky Holman’s (she’s on the cover) and also includes our cardio programs, meal-by-meal diets, key fat-burning nutrients and how we used each. We also outline and explain the new High-Definition X-Rep workout that’s designed to boost GH and testosterone so you melt fat as you pack on muscle (yes, it can be done!).

Q: I read in IRON MAN magazine that you tried to do X Reps on the first and second sets of an exercise, but you said that two X sets was too much. Why not do X Reps on the first work set after a warmup, and then on the second set do only X Reps at the bottom—no full-range reps?

A: Our reasoning for not doing two X sets is that X Reps take so much out of the muscle that doing a second X set of the same exercise is almost pointless (you can tell the muscle has been taxed beyond its capacity by how much you have to reduce the weight for the next set after your X-Rep set).

That’s why we went back to using the strategy that worked so well for us during our transformation X-periment: a straight work set prior to the X-Rep set. That works so well because the straight set acts as an extended warmup. It insures that your nervous system is primed and the muscle is ready to fire with maximum force. Most bodybuilders rarely warm up enough, and they usually don’t go heavy enough to prepare the nervous system for their first work set. That’s why on many exercises it takes a few sets to “get into the groove.” We want to be in that groove for our X Reps set, and the heavy straight work set that precedes it gets the job done without overtaxing the target muscle.

Your suggestion of a straight set with X Reps at the end followed by a set with only X Reps would be worth experimenting with. Just be sure the target muscle is warmed up thoroughly before that first set that includes X Reps.

Q: I am totally loving X Reps. They have given my workouts new life, and I’ve already put on five pounds of muscle the first month. Not too shabby. My question is about triceps. I do skull crushers [or lying extensions], and I can’t seem to manage any X Reps at the end of my sets. Are my triceps just too weak down below the middle part of the rep to make X Reps happen?

A: Not at all. As we say in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book, some exercises have a leverage shift that makes X Reps difficult or nearly impossible below the middle of the stroke. Lying extensions, barbell squats and barbell curls are in that group.

On lying extensions the arc of the rep and gravity create odd leverage at the X spot—between the bottom and middle of the stroke. We tried using partner assistance, like forced-rep partials, but that was awkward, so we found another solution. We do our lying extensions to failure, then, using the same weight, we launch into a set of close-grip bench presses. When we can’t get another rep on those, we do X Reps right below the midpoint of the press. You can use that superset whether you’re doing extensions with an EZ-curl bar or two dumbbells. You’ll feel your triceps firing like never before. We’ve both noticed new growth in our triceps’ long head thanks to that combo.

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