I’ve been lifting for a few years now, so adding weight to my exercises is rare. I know that “progressive resistance” is important for muscle size, so do I just put up with slow progress, force it or what?
Bodybuilding is called “progressive-resistance” training because adding weight and/or reps to your exercises can increase muscle size. Consider it a stealth progression…
We say “can” because getting stronger does not always mean getting bigger. Strength may also be the result of neuromuscular adaptation – nervous system efficiency – or better coordination/leverage.
Nevertheless, there’s no question that to make stealth progression for bigger muscles, something in your workout must change, forcing your muscle to cope with new hypertrophic demands.
So what’s the answer?
As researcher Jerry Brainum said recently, “Adding more training volume, as in additional exercises, sets and reps, does constitute a form of progressive-resistance exercise.”
So our answer to you is additional training volume – BUT you shouldn’t just add full-on sets to every exercise randomly. The volume increases should be almost imperceptible so you don’t trigger overtraining, hence the reason it’s a form of stealth progression.
That’s why our preferred progressive-volume method is rest/pause add-ons – that is, rest 10 seconds, then rep out again with the same weight…
You can gradually increase volume by building on those rest/pause add-ons for specific exercises over the course of many weeks.
After you build up to a certain volume, back off, change programs, then build up again…
We provide rest/pause-progression parameters in Anabolic Reload. Remember, you will slow or stop muscle gains if you increase volume by too much too fast…
That’s why rest/pause is the best way to pack on eye-popping mass.
For more on rest/pause stealth progression, a look at the latest hypertrophy studies along with a complete “ultimate-mass” program that incorporates that research, check out the new Anabolic Reload Mass Workout e-book.
It’s jam-packed with information that can help you get the best muscle gains of your life–new mass-building info you can use to get huge.
Till next time, train hard–and smart – for BIG results.
–Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com