Q: Recently you mentioned using a pause at stretch on every rep of a set. You said you were giving it a try to see if it produced more muscle growth. I’m thinking about giving it a go. What’s your verdict?
A: To clarify, I’ve been using it on the first high-rep set of my ideal exercise—like dumbbell decline extensions for triceps…
I lower the dumbbells to the sides of my head, pause for a count, then drive up to near lockout. I pause at the bottom just enough to ensure a dead stop to alleviate any momentum…
That should allow more muscle fibers to fire, as you dissipate the elastic energy from your tendons that can reduce fiber recruitment.
It makes every rep more challenging to the muscle fibers, providing a new overload without increasing weight.
Incidentally, I’ve noticed that with the stretch-pause, my rep count did NOT go down. That’s interesting. You’d think my reps would drop—that I’d get more reps with more tendon action and momentum during a non-pause set. Not the case for me…
As I mentioned, my unscientific hypothesis is that perhaps more fibers are activated with the pause. That’s a good thing for more size. The harder the target muscle works, the bigger the growth spurt.
My experimentation with stretch-pause has also had me re-introducing alternating-arm exercises, such as standing alternate cable curls. Those produce an even longer pause, as one arm is being stretched for two seconds as the other arm is curling.
My “verdict” so far is that stretch-pause is an amazingly effective technique. I feel like I’m growing quickly again; however, that could simply be from introducing something new. It’s only been a few weeks, so “growth” may just be new inflammation.
I’ll have more to report in a few weeks after I’m acclimated to it—and I hope more muscular from this small change for bigger gains.
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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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Top 5 Tips To Bullet-Proof Your Shoulders
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