Q: After reading your new page, my takeaway is that the ideal exercise for each muscle is a key to more mass with shorter workouts. Does that mean your 3-exercise system [Positions of Flexion: midrange, stretch, contracted] is unnecessary? Do I only need the ideal exercise for each muscle for the best gains?
A: The full-range, 3-move approach is not obsolete by any means, as the new ebook explains.
However, each target muscle does have an ideal exercise you should emphasize for ultimate mass gains.
As POF evolved over the years, the dominant, but misguided, thought was that the more weight you can use on an exercise, the better that exercise is for growth stimulation.
Not accurate. The real emphasis should be on the exercise that checks off the Top-5 Efficiency, Productivity, and Safety Factors (from Mr. America Doug Brignole’s 16) that are outlined in the Old Man, Young Muscle.
And sometimes those ideal exercises require only light weights—or no extra weight at all…
The bottom line is that the muscle does not know poundage; it only knows effort against resistance.
Quad training is a perfect example…
At most workouts you should lead off with one of the ideal quad moves, like sissy squats, the stretch-position exercise (you need very little extra weight because the line of force, resistance curve, etc. is damn-near perfect)…
Finish with a squat or leg press move (midrange for synergy) and/or leg extensions (contracted for occlusion).
That’s a total quad blast for more mass…
Keep in mind that the stretch-position exercise is not always the ideal for every muscle. For instance, for chest, it’s dumbbell decline presses, classified as midrange.
So the best mass-building strategy at most workouts is to lead with the ideal exercise that’s highlighted in the POF exercise list in the new ebook (pages 42-43).
Then you can follow with one of the missing positions—or both if you have the time and recovery capacity…
Steve is older, age 62, so he rarely includes all three positions. He does have an alternate full-POF workout he rotates in every third or fourth workout (that complete workout is also outlined in the new ebook).
He does make it a point to cover all the positions over a few workouts, as you’ll see in Old Man, Young Muscle.
There are a number of reasons, verified by studies, as to why the other exercise “positions” are good add-ons for more “layers” of mass…
One of the biggest reasons is “variation in muscle-fiber recruitment” (Fleck and Kraemer).
That simply means that different exercises can produce unique fiber firing due to different leverages and planes of motion. Squats vs. leg extensions, for example.
However, the bottom line is that emphasizing the ideal exercise is most important for the fastest growth stimulation.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
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