Q: I’ve trained many ways. Heavy got me some muscle and strength, but my workouts dragged on forever. Chronic aches and pains were also a problem. Your [moderate-weight STX method] makes sense, but I worry about the fatigue from the high reps on the first set and the short rests. Have you found it to be a problem?
A: With heavy training, you do multiple warmup sets—with extended rests between. That makes workouts “drag on forever.”
But even with long rests, warmup sets still cause cumulative fatigue and nervous system stress. And also some damage from multiple slow eccentric strokes—lowering every rep strictly. All of that affects your first hypertrophic work set, which should be your BEST effort…
With STX, you use a moderate weight on Phase 1 for 15 reps to failure—early reps act as a warmup, with the last five reps producing hypertrophic mechanical tension. You’re completely FRESH—very efficient…
Your first set is your ULTIMATE set for maximum hypertrophy stimulation, so why not be at your freshest to fire maximum high-growth fibers at the end?
After a short rest, you dive into Phase 2, a speed set with a fast-but-controlled tempo to near failure.
In 2 to 3 minutes, you achieve total hypertrophy stimulation with less danger. And fatigue is not significant and will NOT hamper your results. In fact, it forces the high-threshold motor units to fire…
Those 2 phases also enhance hypertrophy due to high blood flow, a muscle-fiber array cascade, myotatic-reflex fiber innervation on the speed phase, and more. We’ll look at those in the next newsletter, but first…
Here’s respected hypertrophy researcher Stuart Phillips, Ph.D.:
If you like lifting heavy weights, great. They ‘work’ to make you stronger and grow muscle. But let’s be clear: Lighter weights, when lifted with high effort, do the same things. Especially metabolic health. This has been shown countless times in men and women, older and younger.
So if you want to or like to lift heavy weights—you feel like a badass doing it—power to you. [But] the “need” for it, as a number of studies have shown, just isn’t there.
If you still have your doubts about STX, why not give it a test run. You may be surprised at how good you feel and muscular you look, no gym campouts or future joint surgeries required.
NOTE: For more on STX, along with complete workouts, see the X Shop.