Q: Reading Old Man Young, Muscle and how an initial high-rep set tires the slow-twitch fibers makes sense. But wouldn’t using a continuous-tension exercise be best for that first set? The blood-blocking [or occlusion] on those exercises you talk about in OMYM should tire and shut down the slow-twitch sooner, right?
A: That’s an interesting idea and one I addressed a few newsletters ago: “Occlusion and the Mass-Exercise Shuffle.” It’s great that you’re thinking about making our workouts more efficient rather than just blindly following…
Rational thought and experimentation in the gym should help you build muscle faster. Just don’t confuse experimentation with impatience. Some trainees change their workouts too frequently, not allowing important muscle adaptation for growth.
As for your question, it makes sense from a fiber-activation standpoint. Anything you can do to better fatigue the slow-twitch endurance fibers should produce a more optimal fast-twitch growth-fibers kick.
In that previous newsletter, I mention concentration curls, doing only the top two-thirds of the stroke to keep tension on the biceps throughout the “occlusion” set…
You could also try a high-rep set of leg extensions before sissy squats, the ideal exercise. Or cable flyes before dumbbell decline presses for chest or one-arm top-end laterals, pictured below, before one-arm incline laterals…
You may be thinking, “Ah-ha, that’s pre-exhaustion.” Not in the normal pre-ex sense. Here you are “pre-exhausting” the slow-twitch fibers. In normal pre-ex, you isolate the target muscle, then quickly follow with a compound, or multi-joint, exercise.
That type of pre-exhaustion was created by the late Bob Kennedy, publisher of the now defunct MuscleMag International magazine. It was also incorporated into many Nautilus machines by Arthur Jones.
For example leg extensions supersetted with leg presses. The argument was that by pre-exhausting the quads with the isolated extensions, your strong glutes can now assist in pushing the quads to work harder on leg presses.
That’s not what we’re talking about here. In my quad-occlusion example, a high-rep set of leg extensions exhausts the quads slow-twitch fibers by limiting blood flow. Rest 20 seconds, then follow with sissy squats, another isolation exercise, but one of Doug Brignole’s ideal quad moves.
For biceps, it would be the top-end concentration curls for about 20 reps, rest 20 seconds, then do a one-arm dumbbell or cable curl, with near zero resistance at the contracted position, for around 9 reps. That second set should now provide heightened fast-twitch activation.
There is another way to do it using only the ideal exercises. You may be able to guess. I’ll have the answer and examples tomorrow.
New: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
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Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
X-Rep.com
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