Q: You’ve sent emails about specializing for lagging muscle groups. What is your favorite way to bring up the slacking bodyparts?
A: One of our favorite methods is one we borrowed from Arnold—with our own density twist…
We call it Staggered Density because we fuse Arnold’s staggered-sets method with 4X density. What does that mean?
For example, if you need more calf development, you can train a quick set of calf work between 4X sets of any other muscle—like chest…
So after your first set of 4X DB bench presses, instead of just sitting and resting for 40 seconds, you do a set of one-leg calf raises. That focused calf work will take about 35 to 40 seconds—the perfect 4X rest time—then you hit DB bench presses again, no pause…
So it’s back and forth, chest work to calf work. You can do that on every chest exercise so you get 10 to 15 sets of one-leg calf work in during your chest workout.
It’s like active rest—training calves as you rest chest…
One warning: It’s best to pair a large muscle with a small one. Training the small muscle won’t sap your energy or tax you too much to hamper your performance on the large-muscle sets…
For example, good combo-to-grow pairs include: back/triceps, chest/biceps, hams/forearms.
Of course, you can pair any two smaller groups: biceps/triceps, calves/forearms, abs/lower back.
As for quads, we don’t like to combine a small group with quad work—it’s just too taxing—and potentially puke inducing. LOL! However…
As Arnold recommended, calves can be paired with just about any body part for a new blast of lower-leg mass. It worked for him—to the point of people accusing him of having implants.
SUPREME SPECIALIZATION: For more on innovative old-school mass-building secrets you can use to get HUGE, check out the Supreme Specialization—Legendary Methods for Propelling Muscle Mass & Strength from our friends at Critical Bench HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
X-Rep.com