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Major Muscle Expansion

Q: Your e-zines on fascia stretching are very interesting. I’ve been using your suggestion of supersetting a contracted exercise with a stretch exercise. It feels awesome, and I’m already seeing more muscle expansion, like on my inner chest. My question is, Why should I do actual full reps on the stretch move? Why not just hold in the stretch position so it’s a constant stretch on the pumped muscle?

A: We get excited and proud when bodybuilders take an idea and run with it. Congratulations. That’s an excellent variation that could make the fascia-expansion supersets even more effective—a Static X on the stretch exercise.

For the uninitiated, our fascia-expansion technique is engorging the target muscle with a contracted-position exercise, like leg extensions—blood pours into the muscle immediately after due to occlusion—then you quickly move to a stretch exercise, like sissy squats, to elongate the pumped muscles. That helps push out and stretch the fascia, the fibrous tissue that encases the muscle. It’s believed that a tight fascia restricts muscle growth, so loosening it can allow faster unbridled size gains.

We like your idea of a stretch hold, or Static X, but if you’re doing two supersets as we recommend, you may want to do the stretch holds on only the second round. That’s because you still want to get some of the force-generating benefits—fast-twitch activation—on the first set of the stretch move, which you best achieve with movement.

With that slight tweak, here’s how your 3D Positions-of-Flexion triceps routine might look:

Midrange: Lying extensions, 2 x 9-12

Fascia-Expansion Superset 1
Contracted: Pushdowns, 1 x 9-12
Stretch: Overhead extensions, 1 x 9-12

Fascia-Expansion Superset 2
Contracted: Pushdowns, 1 x 9-12
Stretch: Overhead extensions (Static X set), 1 x 30 seconds to 1 minute

Jonathan Lawson, triceps pushdowns and overhead DB extensions - Major Muscle Expansion

There are a number of ways to vary that. For example, as we’ve mentioned, you can do a drop set on the contracted-position exercise, pushdowns in this case. That can give you an even bigger pump before you move to the stretch-position exercise. The bigger the pump, the more the fascia is stretched when you elongate the muscle during the second exercise. Either way, by the second round your triceps will be full and look like two overfilled water balloons on the backs of your arms. As you mentioned, it does feel awesome.

Once again, good thinking—and keep experimenting to keep growing. [Note: For the 3D POF exercises for every bodypart, see the e-book 3D Muscle Building, and for more on the latest stretch-overload research, see the Freak-Physique Stretch-Overload Workout.]

Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.

—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com

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Stretch Overload Results

Q: In the first chapter of the Freak-Physique Stretch-Overload Workout e-book [The Latest Stretch-Overload Research] you mention the animal study that produced a 300 percent muscle mass increase after one month of stretch loading. That is incredible, but are there any other studies that show stretch overload results?

A: When it comes to stretch-induced muscle growth, we always mention that particular animal study because it’s the most impressive—triple sizing a muscle after a month’s worth of stretch-overload “workouts” is phenomenal! And it shows the importance of stretch-position exercises for triggering extreme muscle size quickly. Stretch overload results can be pretty phenomenal.

[Read more…]

Muscle-Building Mistake You Can’t Afford to Make

Q: A lot of bodybuilders go all power in the off-season. They push for more strength so size will follow. I’m thinking about using the Phase 1 program in Size Surge for that purpose—mostly big exercises with heavy weights training three days a week so I get plenty of recover-and-grow time. Would that program be okay to use for the entire 10 weeks instead of moving to Phase 2?

A: You’re right, even Arnold used to do a two-to-three-month power phase in the winter—but it wasn’t heavy low reps on every exercise, as we’ll explain. That’s the problem with the way most trainees do it: They go heavy on ALL exercises all the time for too long and neglect critical sarcoplasmic size, which can be a big muscle-building mistake… [Read more…]

What routine should I do next?

Q: I have a few questions: 1) After the beginner’s guide [Quick-Start Muscle Building] what routine should I do next? 2) Is it unusual to “feel” bigger as you go [through the Quick-Start programs]? It’s like an awareness of my muscles that I’ve never had—strange but nice. 3) I’m unclear on what to do if I’m sore and it’s time to work that muscle again—like my chest is still really sore, it’s chest day again tomorrow, so do I work it or skip?

A: Great questions. We suggest you follow up with the 3D Muscle Building e-book after the beginner’s guide (Quick-Start). There is a 10-week program in it that Jonathan used to add a lot of muscle quickly (see his before and after photos below). You can try it as it’s listed, the exact way he used it, or the retooled version with X Reps. If you just started lifting, however, we recommend his first non-X-Rep version in Chapter 1 until you have about six months of training under your belt… [Read more…]