This photo taken in the ’50s shows the classic lines of Steve Reeves that made him a perfect movie Hercules. The man had excellent genetics, and not just in the looks department. Check out at his wide shoulders, small waist,
Stretch to Etch Slashing Muscle Detail
Q: I’m trying to get that crisp division between my pecs. I want to be able to see the inner part of my chest muscles from the lower part all the way up to the collarbone. I do lots of cable crossovers, but I’m only seeing a bit of detail in my lower chest. Any suggestions?
A: One problem may be fat in the area. A bit of adipose covering the pecs will blur or negate any detail. You need to be fairly lean to see the chest-muscle division (cleavage) from top to bottom.
[Read more…]X-Rep Lies: Before and After Photos
Q: The before and after photos at your X-Rep site are pretty unbelievable. I mean, come on, four weeks to get those changes? You must’ve either lied about the time it took or manipulated the photos. You should be ashamed of yourselves. There’s too much of that deceptive crap on the Internet.
A: Ashamed? Actually, we’re very proud. Those photos are 100 percent authentic and accurate—no photo alterations, no steroids, and they were taken about four weeks apart. (The key technique that made it happen and a step-by-step how-to is coming up.)
[Read more…]Indirect Muscle Mass Effect: Boost Your T for Hypertrophy
Q: I’ve been reading that testosterone is the key muscle-building hormone, so what is the best way to get it up?
A: “Get it up?”
Muscle-Building Myths—Or Are They? (controversial muscle-building info)
Q: I heard that close-grip bench presses can build the inner pecs. But then a pro bodybuilder said that’s false. He said no exercise can build the “inner” pecs—or “lower” biceps for that matter, and that those are muscle-building myths. Which is correct?
A: While close-grip bench presses won’t direct development to the inner-chest area, some researchers suggest that putting a muscle into elongation, or stretch, against resistance can thicken the fibers at the insertion point. For example, doing flyes for more chest beef near the sternum… [Read more…]
Start Your Workouts With This
Q: I’m excited! I was looking for a 3-days-per-week program to use over the winter, and I think I’ve devised a great one. I’ll use the split-positions Phase 1 workout you outline in The Ultimate Super-Size Crash Course [Chapter 6], but I’ll start each workout with either squats or deadlifts. I remember you saying how that can increase overall mass gains. What do you think?
A: That sounds like a great winter size-building program to put to the test. For the uninitiated, the program split is simple: [Read more…]
Anabolic Primer: One Move Gets You Huge
Q: I’ve been using the POF-Power/Super-TORQ Mass Workout [in the Power-Density Mass Workout 2.0 e-book]. My mass gains have shot up significantly over the past several weeks. Alternating heavy POF work with Super TORQ [high-rep work on only one exercise] is producing the best growth response in years. My question is about the optional deadlifts that begin the Friday workout. Doing 8-10 reps hurts my back, so I’m thinking about using only one 15-to-20-rep set instead. Is that okay, or should I just train through the pain?
A: First, never “train through the pain” of injury. More on your lower back in a moment. Let’s address the question of reps… [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…]
Chisel in Freaky Muscle Size and Detail
Q: I’ve been using X Reps for about a month now, and I’m noticing new muscle in places like my inner chest and lower lats. Even my lower biceps are higher and fuller. Is that normal? I love X Reps!
A: While X Reps—end-of-set partials at the semi-stretch point of an exercise—are excellent at keeping tension on the muscle and activating dormant muscle fibers, they can bring out size and detail with new muscle density at the insertion point, such as the inner pecs…
Here’s a quote from Jacob Wilson, Ph.D., that we used in our X-Rep Update #1, that explains:
Partial-range reps in the lower range of a muscle [a.k.a. X Reps], can actually add sarcomeres to a muscle fiber, which would fill out the area of a muscle where it is inserted.
We believe that’s part of the reason we made such dramatic progress so quickly that first year we integrated X-Rep partials at the end of some of our sets—adding sarcomeres to muscle fibers creates much more muscle size and detail, and it obviously did that for us in only five weeks with the X technique (no drugs, not trick photography)…
A good example of X Reps is at the end of a set of chinups. When you can no longer do full-range reps, you lower to near the arm’s-extended position, and pulse up to near the halfway point, doing as many of those low-end partials as possible.
That area of the stroke, where the target muscle is semi-stretched, is where you activate the most muscle fibers. So at the end of a set, you get at many more growth fibers by gritting your teeth and grinding out partials in that key area…
In a study reported in the 1988 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, three groups of men performed isometric exercise for their biceps:
Group 1: trained their biceps isometrically at 25 degrees (the X Spot—0 degrees is full extension)
Group 2: trained their biceps isometrically at 80 degrees—just below the halfway point
Group 3: trained their biceps isometrically at 120 degrees—near full contraction
While all subjects showed strength increases throughout the range of motion—not just in the position trained—the group that attained the highest increase throughout the range of motion was Group 1. That’s the group that was doing a static X-Rep at the semi-stretch position…
That shows the extreme muscle-fiber-activating power of the X Spot and why adding end-of-set X Reps can make any set three to five times more powerful at building muscle mass for more size and detail. And that’s why we love X Reps, too!
Note: For more info on the info above, see the X-Rep Update #1 e-book, and for our massively successful original X-Rep experiment, see The Ultimate Mass Workout.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
ATTENTION OVER-40 BODYBUILDERS
One of the most interesting read-me pages on Testosterone and other muscle-building hormones we’ve seen is The Truth About Testosterone.
It even talks about a fruit, a specific part, that can up your T naturally. Cranking up your testosterone will not only get you jacked in the gym, but in the bedroom too—not to mention help rip up your midsection as it ignites fat burning. If that interests you, there’s more from our colleague and registered dietician, HERE.