My muscle-building results in a pathetic home gym—only 50-pound PowerBlock dumbbells, an adjustable bench, and a doorway chinning bar—have people asking me this…
So if you had more weight, what would you do differently?
Good question. First, I would keep my initial high-rep set and the short rests between sets…
That’s because I want to stay away from trying to use overly heavy weights. The research says big weights aren’t necessary. In case you missed it…
Below is the graphic from a recent study in the European Journal of Sports Science (Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., a scientist we highly respect, is one of the researchers)…
Notice that the higher-rep sets built muscle as well as or better than heavy lower-rep sets.
The 40 percent of a one-rep-max weight got the same or better hypertrophy results compared with an 80 percent 1RM weight.
In other words, if you can curl 100 pounds for one rep, doing 40 pounds for 20-plus reps gets you the same mass gains as using 80 pounds for six reps.
All sets were to muscular failure, which is important, as that trains as many muscle-fibers as possible in each set. See the Size Principle of Muscle-Fiber Recruitment, explained in the new ebook.
So you can build loads of mass without the mega-weight injury potential—or later-in-life aches, pains, and possible joint surgery.
That said, what I would do differently is to add a bit of weight on each set; however, due to the short rests between sets, the poundage addition would not be much—just enough to provide more progressive overload…
Oh, and I probably would not use that pyramid method at every workout. Gotta keep it interesting—change to gain.
Incidentally, that’s how Mr. America and 2019 Drug-Free Mr. Universe Doug Brignole trains. He starts with up to 30 reps on his first set, then adds a bit of weight every set to bring his reps down on each.
It works well for him. He won that Drug-Free Mr. Universe title at age 59—no barbell squats, no overhead presses, no bench presses, no rows. He used only the “Ideal” exercises, ones I incorporated into my workouts shown in the new ebook.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
3 Workouts a Week, 35 Minutes Each for Jacked Mass
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