Discussing how pushing to failure and beyond can cause too much muscle damage and stifle growth had me thinking about my past training…
Way back in college, when I was working out Mike Mentzer Heavy Duty style—all-out sets with forced reps—my training partner Bill and I always stopped our main quad exercise early—about two reps short…
We did that because we knew barbell squats were dangerous—losing the weight at the bottom could do more than just damage the muscles. Plus, the owner of the gym was a madman who would have thrown us out into the parking lot, his toupeé hanging on for dear life.
What’s interesting is that both of us had pretty good quads. In fact, our quads were our best muscle groups. Well, his were full and sweeping, as he squatted more upright; my butt was my best, quads second.…
Was it because we weren’t inflicting as much damage on quads (and in my case, glutes) as the rest of our muscles, which were subjected to forced and even negative reps every workout?
A few years after that, I met my wife-to-be, and she began training with me. She wasn’t all that into it—looking to just spend time with me, I guess—and enjoy my dragon breath from too many protein shakes. It was fun, but…
I was still insistent that she at least push to positive failure because “that was the only way to gain muscle.”…
She did as I asked—at least I thought she did. She was actually faking failure, pretending to hit the wall to avoid much pain, while I was pushing every set to the limit, having her give me forced reps on most work sets…
What’s interesting is that while her genetics are a bit better than mine, she got significantly better results in both muscle size and strength than I did—and I’m the one with the testosterone-producing gonads. (I still had those because we weren’t married yet)…
Gaining muscle was a pure struggle for me, but it seemed to come easy for her. WTF?
All these years later I’m wondering if it was because she was holding back on all of her sets—not really going to failure—while I was an inflamed ball of muscle damage after every workout. Here’s a shot of her from back in the day—quality is bad because I ripped it from an old video…
While all of the above could be coincidence, there may be some substance there. Too much intensity may beat down immensity, at least to a degree…
And by the way, I’m pretty sure my wife still fakes it.
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Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
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