X Files Archives - X-REP.COM

Old Men, New Muscle (with 2X-per-week training)

Q: I’m 62 and have been using the Stretch-Overload Pure Positions Workout [Monday contracted, Wednesday midrange, Friday stretch]. It felt great at first, training one exercise per muscle at each workout, but after three weeks I started feeling like I was losing ground muscle-wise. And I was more tired than usual. Should I take a week off, and then start again? Maybe I just need a downshift sooner than most because of my age.

A: Taking a layoff every three weeks might work, but it also might have you staying in one place as far as the size of your physique. You want to be able to extend your hard-training phase to at least five weeks before you need a downshift.

You can do that by [Read more…]

Study: Forgotten Muscle-Mass Trigger

It’s becoming clear that muscle elongation is very important for accelerating hypertrophy to a new level.

In other words, loaded stretching can provide another layer of freaky size quickly.

An older study that we often reference showing that was performed by Jose Antonio, Ph.D., et al.—and it produced incredible muscle size increases. Here’s what he said about it: [Read more…]

Progression Loading to Up Your Mass

Q: I am making solid gains with the Pure Positions routine in the Stretch Overload ebook. Training the midrange exercise at one workout, contracted at the second, and stretch at the third is some killer change to gain each week. My question is, you have STX [high-rep set followed by a lower-rep set and rest/pause set] for every exercise. Your most impressive ebook, IMO, is Super-Size Crash Course, with TORQ, Progressive-Speed 4X, and, my favorite, Downward-Progression 4X. Can I use those instead of STX every so often for even more variation?

A: Absolutely—in fact, we encourage it because all of those are amazing unique mass methods. Remember, something in your workout must change if you want to continue to gain…

Switching to different mass attacks is the best way. Why? Because it’s [Read more…]

Testo-Jack, Hyper-Hypertrophy Workout

Q: I’ve been reading that testosterone is the key muscle-building hormone. Does the hormone boost come from intensity, more reps or what?

A: Arthur Jones, creator of Nautilus machines and the overseer of the Colorado Experiment that saw Casey Viator gain 60 pounds of muscle in only 4 weeks, always said that training legs hard can have a big “indirect muscle-building effect.”

What that means is that you could train your legs hard and see size gains in other muscles, such as [Read more…]

Study: This quick hit can double your muscle growth

Dr. Jacob Wilson, who used to write for Iron Man when we worked there, recently performed a study with a technique we have recommended over the years—stretch holds, or Stat-X.

Dr. Wilson calls it “intraset stretching.” In his study, the subjects who included intraset stretching DOUBLED muscle thickness compared to those who did not use it. Amazing. [Read more…]

Size Principle Reload

Q: I’ve made the best mass gains of my life with your 4X method. I know you guys got new size with it too, so my question is, why Anabolic Reload STX (slow-twitch exhaustion)? I realize that it also does not require heavy weights, but is it better than 4X?

A: First, both methods accomplish the same thing: full-blown fiber hypertrophy with slow-twitch-fiber pre-exhaustion, triggering more high-growth fast-twitch fibers to fire on the last sets.

It’s the Size Principle of Muscle Fiber Recruitment… [Read more…]

Quick-Rep Modification for New Mass Acceleration

Q: I have your new ebooks, Anabolic Reload and Stretch Overload. Both are great, and the simple rest/pause add-on for progression has already helped me add new mass. But I overtrain easily, so I can’t keep adding those. Is there anything else I can do to keep my muscle growth moving forward without more volume?

A: First, bodybuilding is called “progressive-resistance” training because adding weight and/or reps to your exercises can increase muscle size… [Read more…]

Anabolic Phasing: Muscle Hypertrophy Tsunami

Q: I’ve been following the current bodybuilding training trend of hitting each muscle once a week with lots of sets. Growth has been slow, but you’d think that with so much volume and intensity at one workout, it should take a full week for that muscle to completely recover, right?

Well, training each muscle with lots of volume once a week will produce some growth—if intensity is high enough to produce significant damage. The question is how much is enough?

Less volume for each muscle but with more frequent body part hits has proven a better, more sure-fire method for optimal hypertrophy in most cases and works as a sort of anabolic phasing… [Read more…]

Volumizing Muscle Tissue (significant size increases)

Q: So glad you clarified many of the hypertrophic requirements for muscle size in Anabolic Reload [progression, exercise rotation, metabolic stress, etc.]. One that really got me thinking was volumization. I believe it was Vince Gironda who said that more work done in the same or less time creates mass quickly. My question is, What do you think about drop sets instead of rest/pause as the volume addition to each exercise? Seems like you get more work in the same time frame.

A: The drop-set method is one of the best hypertrophic tactics around because it does condense workload into a short time frame. Studies verify the [Read more…]

The Ultimate 2-Times-a-Week MASS Workout

Q: I don’t always have time to go to the gym three times a week. That means I can’t always get in three full-body workouts, which I’ve heard is the best for muscle mass. Should I just do two full-body workouts with the big, basics, like squats, bench, etc. on weeks I can’t make it three times? Do you guys have an ebook with a 2-times-a-week program like that? I want to look like a bodybuilder, but time is hard to come by for me right now.

A: Three full-body workouts a week is the old-school standard for mass, but hitting each muscle only twice a week may be even better for many bodybuilders. According to Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., one of the elite hypertrophy researchers… [Read more…]