Q: I’ve been lifting for about 1 1/2 years, trying to build a mass base, but it’s just not happening very fast. I like the idea of 3D Positions of Flexion [training each muscle in its midrange, stretch, and contracted positions], but almost everyone I talk to says to stick to only the big, basic exercises and forget about isolation moves. Should I just continue using the big basics and hope I build size and strength, or is now the time for me to try 3D POF?
A: Using only the big, basic exercises, what we call midrange-position moves like squats for quads, is fine for, say, a six-week phase every so often (like winter); however, we firmly believe that those who make big gains using only big exercises have an abundance of pure fast-twitch fibers and exceptional nerve-to-muscle connections (neuromuscular efficiency). They are genetically gifted, unlike the majority…
Remember, the big basic exercises are geared to elicit max-force generation, which primarily builds the anaerobic fast-twitch fibers at one level. If you can’t contract a lot of those fibers or you simply don’t have a lot of them to begin with, you have to use a more efficient mass-building approach, like 3D POF (if you want bigger, fuller muscles so you look like a bodybuilder).
As we explain in the 3D Muscle-Building e-book, you still focus on the big midrange exercise, doing it first—rows, chins, squats, bench presses, etc.—but you follow with stretch-position work and contracted-position exercises. Those two unique mass builders develop the muscle via different pathways than the basic force producers.
Stretch-position exercises are decent force generators, but they’ve also been linked to hyperplasia, or fiber splitting, and anabolic hormone release in muscle tissue. We discuss the animal study that produced a 300 percent muscle-mass gain in only one month in most of our e-books, but in X-Rep Update #1, we analyze it even further, with some interesting conclusions…
The amazing muscle gains in that study were produced with very little movement, only progressive stretch overload with more of a pulsing action at muscle elongation. Perhaps very little movement is necessary on stretch-position exercises—just pulses with progressively heavy weight, as in the study (see the X Update e-book for more info). Nevertheless, it shows the incredible mass-building power of stretching a muscle against heavy resistance, something you don’t get with most big compound, or midrange, exercises.
Obviously, the research shows that stretch-position exercises provide a lot of unique anabolic stimuli, so if you just do the basic exercises, you miss this important hypertrophic trigger.
Then there are contracted-position exercises, like leg extensions, leg curls, concentration curls, and pushdowns. Those build mass at a different level as well. They provide continuous tension, which results in occlusion, or blood-flow blockage, and that alone has been shown to build muscle size. Choking off blood flow to a working muscle activates a lot of different fiber types, and it also develops the cell mitochondria and capillary beds.
All of that adds another layer of muscle size. (And as we’ve said, tension/occlusion may be as important or even more so for hardgainers with many more endurance-oriented fibers that pure fast-twitch ones.)

So, yes, you should still use the big, basic exercises, but also add stretch- and contracted-position moves—at least for a few training phases during the year. That will give you fuller, more complete muscular development no matter what your genetics. Even if you don’t have a lot of pure fast-twitch fibers, you can still look like a ripped, well-developed bodybuilder when you peel off your shirt.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
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