Q: It seems like every month I have to miss a few workouts because of life, like business trips, family stuff, etc. If I know I’m going to miss like a chest and back workout, should I just add those bodyparts to my last workout? Or should I skip and pick up with that workout when I’m able to? The add-on idea is appealing, but I don’t feel like I do the muscle group justice unless I train it with all three Positions of Flexion. But then the workout is too long and I feel overtrained. What should I do to make up for missing workouts?
A: Even if you’re only going to miss one workout, you’re going to feel as if you’re shrinking in those areas if you don’t work them…
That’s probably not actually going to happen, but such is the nature of bodybuilding “psychosis.” LOL! We speak from experience.
So let’s use a specific example to solve the problem. Say you’re on a split like the one below…
Monday: Chest, Back, Abs
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Delts, Arms
Thursday: Off
Friday: Chest, Back, Calves
Okay, you’re leaving town early Thursday, so what do you do? You could just skip the Friday workout. That way you’ve trained everything once that week. You’d pick up with chest/back the following Monday….
Here’s a better idea: Put chest, back, and calves on Wednesday with delts and arms—but do only one set in each Position for every target muscle. And use something that “damages” the muscle for myofibril thickening AND produces a longer tension time for hypertrophy in the sarcoplasmic “energy fluid.”
That would be X-centric sets—lifting in one second and lowering in six. You could do that on all three exercises for chest, back, delts, arms, and calves.
The slow lowering creates microtears in the myofibrillar strands, and a tension time of almost a minute—eight reps times seven seconds—gives the sarcoplasm a high-end hypertrophic jolt. And you get that double size hit on all three exercises…
So for chest, you might do wide-grip dips (midrange), dumbbell flyes (stretch), and machine or cable flyes (contracted). That should take you between five and 10 minutes, depending on exercise set-up time…
A more varied alternative would be to do a pure-negative set on the midrange move, X-centric on the stretch, and a high-rep set on the contracted. So, for back, you might do…
Midrange: Chins (pure negative), 1 x 7
Stretch: DB pullovers (X-centric), 1 x 7
Contracted: Close V-handle cable rows, 1 x 20-30
For chins, you would need something to stand on to get into the top position, then lower yourself and some added weight down to the bottom in six to eight seconds. Shoot for seven of those pure-negative reps….
With either of those choices to avoid missing workouts, all-X-centric sets or a pure-negative/X-centric/high-rep combo, you will get plenty sore, no psychosis, and you’ll grow.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
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