Q: I’ve read some of your articles on the 10×10 method, and I just can’t wrap my mind around using lighter weights to gain mass. Can that really work? I’m scared I’ll lose muscle if I try it.
A: First, you don’t have to dive in head-first and use 10×10 all the time for every bodypart. For example, when we first tried it, we had some of the same doubts you’re expressing, so we decided to try it only on arms originally…
The split we were using was designed so that we were training chest and back early in the week—Monday and Tuesday, respectively—and then we’d train delts and arms on Friday. Biceps and triceps got lots of heavy work early in the week with all of the bench presses, dips, chins, and rows. In fact, our arms were often sore after training chest and back…
That made Friday’s direct arm workout the perfect time to experiment with 10×10. The ache and pumps we got the first time we tried it were freaky—almost scary. We used dips and cable curls. Remember, for 10 sets of 10 reps you use a weight with which you could get 20 reps with, but you only do 10—all the way through for 10 sets with about 30 seconds of rest between sets…
Like you, we were worried about using lighter weights, so we followed the 10×10 exercises with a heavy set on the stretch- and contracted-position exercise to complete the Positions-of-Flexion chain.
But after two weeks of those “combo” arm workouts, our bi’s and tri’s felt overly fatigued. We figured we were overtraining, so we bit the bullet and went to only one 10×10 exercise for biceps and one for triceps, nothing else. (We dropped the stretch- and contracted-position moves.)
For maximum effect, we settled on barbell curls and decline extensions because MRI studies show that those two exercises train all heads of the target muscle completely. Yes, they are isolation exercises, but keep in mind that we were getting compound arm work early in the week on chest and back days, so these two highly efficient arm movements were perfect.
Results: Our arm size increased immediately. We both noticed more biceps fullness and thickness, and our triceps long heads gained significant noticeable sweep. That growth spurt makes sense because we were essentially using heavy/light training for arms…
The torso work at the beginning of the week was acting as heavy arm training, and the 10×10 work on Friday could be called light—although those last sets don’t feel very light at all, and the soreness you get begs to differ with the term “light” too.
More fuel for the 10×10 fire: Bill Stinson recently sent us an article by Douglas M. Crist, Ph.D., on his version of the 10×10 method. Crist maintains that heavy training doesn’t build much muscle mass at all—you get stronger due to better nerve force without much fiber hypertrophy…
Lifting loads greater than 50 percent of your one-rep max is accomplished not by an increase in muscle-fiber recruitment but by an increase in the discharge rate of nerves controlling muscle-fiber contractions…. An illusion is created that perpetuates the myth that such a program produces strength gains solely from changes in muscle-fiber size.
What’s the illusion? He explains that trainees who go to low-rep power training in the winter and loosen their diets actually do get bigger and stronger; however—and this is a big however—the strength is due to nerve-force adaptations, and the apparent new muscle size is due to extra fat being stored there thanks to excess calories. You essentially get bigger by marbling your muscles with visceral fat.
So, must you use heavy weights to build extreme muscle size? Maybe not. Check out this quote from Peary Rader, the founder of Iron Man magazine, from way back in 1964…
Experiments we have carried out show that we can put an inch on the arms in a short period of time by pumping methods along with special protein feeding, but that when this size is attained, the arm is not one bit stronger. On the other hand, we can, by training on an entirely different system with the same barbells, develop 10 to 20 percent more strength without one bit of increase in the size of the arm.
Emphasizing different aspects of muscle stimulation by shifting between max force, stretch overload, and tension (such as 10×10) is a great size-and-strength-building attack. A lot of trainees neglect that last one (tension), which may be the real key to ultimate hypertrophy. It’s why 10×10 is worth a spin—give it a try if you’re looking for a different path to muscle mass.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com