Q: I’ve always believed that with low-volume workouts, you have to take all work sets to failure. But you say [in Old Man Young Muscle 2 ] that stopping two reps short is best. Why stop if you’re still taxing fast-twitch fibers?

A: Actually, with the Slow-Twitch Exhaustion method, you do take the first 15-rep Phase 1 to failure…

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If you’ve been lifting a while, you know how slow muscle gains can be. It’s why so many get frustrated and quit…

But could it be an efficiency factor? Most have no idea which exercises have the most mass-building bang, even advanced bodybuilders…

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Here’s a recent quote from hypertrophy researcher Chris Beardsley on end-of-set partial reps:

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Q: You’ve mentioned that your former training partner [Jonathan Lawson] hated higher-rep sets. I do too. If you were still training with him, how would you customize STX for him with only lower-rep training?

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The key to growing massive muscles as quickly as possible is this: Accumulate enough growth reps without overtraining.

Some call them “effective reps.” Those are the hardest 3 to 5 reps at the end of any set that you take close to failure…

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You no doubt do pushdowns to put size on your tri’s—using a V-bar, rope, or straight bar…

But a version that can get you even bigger, sleeve-stretching results is the two-arm cross-cable pushdown…

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The Internet is full of crazy exercises and self-proclaimed gurus…

But there are also legit science-based trainers whom I respect and often quote here—as well as implement some of their stuff…

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Q: I’ve been a fan of yours since you were at Iron Man magazine. The evolution of your training ideas is impressive and reflects your ability to embrace new findings. Lately you’ve been promoting ideal exercises for each target muscle [which are almost all isolation]. I’ve tried most of them and have achieved new gains. But what’s your take on the studies that show compound [multi-joint] exercises produce the same hypertrophy as isolation?

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Q: Great newsletters on abbreviated workouts when things are tough. Nervous system overlap got my attention. I’ve been on your OMYM2 workout for a few months and have seen good growth. My question is, Does cardio on Monday affect the upper-body workout on Tuesday? You said that research shows nervous system stress on one day affects the next day’s activity, so should I switch and do the weight workout on Monday after the Sunday rest and cardio on Tuesday for better hypertrophy?

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