You want the biggest mass-building bang from each set. That’s efficiency of effort…
It’s the name of the muscle-size game for drug-free bodybuilders, especially if you’re older—like me at age 64…
Here are a few tips to jack up your gains with minimal sets and zero wasted effort…
1) Emphasize the ideal exercise for each muscle. These are the moves that have a near perfect resistance curve, place the target muscle in the optimal position for max-fiber recruitment, and reduce or eliminate joint strain.
2) Use the first set as a combo warmup and slow-twitch-fatigue/fast-twitch-priming mechanism. You get that with the STX method, doing set 1 in a higher reps range to failure, lifting in one second and lowering in three.
3) Stop all additional sets one rep short of failure. This helps reduce nervous system fatigue and muscle damage.
4) Do the ideal exercise unilaterally if possible. Training one side at a time enhances fiber recruitment by eliminating bi-lateral deficit—fewer fibers fire using both limbs simultaneously due to nervous system “confusion,” a.k.a. less focus.
5) Do your last ideal-exercise set as a Speed Set. That means each rep lasts only 1.5 seconds, which increases fast-twitch fiber recruitment from the very first rep.
I’ll show you how to apply the above for maximum mass-building effects in the next training newsletter.
Grow with the latest mass-building research:
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