Q: I recently read that fascia stretching is important to allow muscles to grow. If you don’t do some form of it, your muscle size will be stunted, and if you do it often, your muscles grow faster. Do you think stretch-position exercises in your 3D POF programs stretch the fascia enough to get that extra growth to happen?
A: For the uninitiated, the fascia is the fibrous encasement around a muscle—much like the outside of a sausage that holds in the meat. The contention is that the fascia constricts the muscle tissue so much that it holds back maximum growth. The degree to which that happens probably depends on individual (genetic) tissue density, but the fascia-stretching theory makes sense.
Some trainers put bodybuilders through rigorous and often painful stretching routines in an attempt to loosen that fascia constriction, often combining that with rolfing, a gouging massage technique. It’s like pre-stretching a balloon before you blow it up—it’s easier to inflate.
Other trainers have bodybuilders do up to seven sets of a finishing exercise, with very little rest, to elicit a bigger pump. Forcing more blood into the muscle can stretch the fascia from the inside. (We have a faster, more efficient painful method coming up.)
To answer your question, yes, stretch-position exercises do make the fascia more pliable. We’ve often suggested going back to a stretch-position exercise after you’ve trained the three positions of flexion for a muscle, grabbing
You’ve got a big pump from ending with a contracted-position exercise, like leg extensions for quads; so why not go back to sissy squats, get down in the low position and hold to stretch the fascia and add to stretch-overload anabolism (stretching has been shown to increase anabolic hormones in muscle tissue)?
We’ve come up with an efficient way to get fascia expansion: You simply reverse the order of the last two POF exercises and superset them (a sample routine is coming up). You get a big pump immediately after the first exercise (contracted) due to occlusion, and then you go to the stretch-position move that gives you some extreme fascia stretching. That way you loosen the fascia while still getting the other anabolic triggers from those key movements (tension/occlusion and stretch overload).
For example, for quads, you start with two sets of squats. That’s your big midrange exercise. Now comes the big bang—you superset leg extensions (contracted) with sissy squats (stretch), rest for 2 1/2 minutes, then do the superset again.
The occlusion you get from the extensions heightens blood flow immediately after you stop the set. As you get off the machine and position yourself for sissy squats, your quads should be throbbing as the pump ensues. With your quads full and pumped, the stretch action of the sissy squats will be even better at expanding the muscle and its fascia, making it more pliable. A second round, with even more blood in your quads, continues the muscle/fascia expansion.
If you want to take it a step further, you can do a drop set on the first exercise. Here’s a 3D POF lat program with that more ”pumped-up“ version of the fascia-expansion technique:
Midrange: Pulldowns, 2 x 9-12
Fascia-Expansion superset
Contracted: Stiff-arm pulldowns (drop set), 2 x 8(5)
Stretch: Pullovers, 2 x 8-10
Be sure not to move too quickly to the second exercise in the superset; it takes about 10 seconds for the blood to engorge the target muscle so you get the best fascia-stretching effects—and unleash new unbridled muscle growth.
Note: The best contracted- and stretch-position exercises to use for fascia-stretching supersets are described and analyzed in the POF bible, the 3D Muscle Building e-book.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
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