Q: You guys have said that training each muscle only once a week never worked well for you. But now I see Steve doing that. Has he changed his mind? I’m 40 and wondering if that’s the best way for me to grow.
A: You may have heard the adage, “There’s no such thing as overtraining, only under-eating.” There is some truth to that–if you’re very young and a mesomorph [naturally muscular with good recovery ability]. In all cases, however, recovery is a must to pack on mass.
It’s even more true if you’re on steroids–but let’s assume you are not. At age 40 you should really consider more recovery time for each muscle…
That is Steve’s rationale. He just turned 55 and figured that maybe now is the time training each muscle once a week will work for him…
For most trainees, older means that adding recovery time, to a point, can trigger more growth–maybe more than you thought possible at your age. That’s what Steve’s hoping, and he’s willing to experiment (and you should too)…
To insure the need for extra recovery time, you should strive for some muscle trauma at each workout. You can get that by accentuating the negative stroke of some or most of your sets…
For example, Steve is trying to include X-centric sets for each muscle–that’s lifting in one second and lowering in six. He is also using pure-negative sets every so often and also Downward-Progression 4X.
For DP 4X you use a standard 1/3 cadence on a 4X-style sequence, but you add weight to each set, resting 45 seconds between…
All of those tactics are easy on the joints–great for us older guys–but hammer the target muscle so you achieve the necessary micro trauma. In fact, X-centric not only emphasizes the eccentric stroke for myofibrillar trauma, it also provides a high-end hypertrophy tension time for a double dose of muscle growth.
Incidentally, the photo above is of Chip Wilt, a 59-year-old bodybuilder who is a big fan of pure-negative and negative-accentuated training for more mass even as he gets older. Check out that biceps!….
Bottom line: If you’re going to train each muscle only once a week, try those “trauma tactics” for new size on your physique.
Note: All of those mass-training tactics are included in the Super-Size Crash Course.
Till next time, train hard–and smart–for BIG results.
–Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
X-Rep.com