Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
Q: Your recent truth about muscle growth newsletters were enlightening. You’re right about growth not being visibly noticeable on a day-to-day or even week-to-week basis. You also said that 20 pounds of muscle a year is spectacular, but didn’t Jonathan gain 20 pounds of muscle in only 10 weeks with the Size Surge workout?
A: Your memory serves you well. Yes, Jonathan did pack on an incredible 20 pounds of muscle in 10 weeks; however, he was regaining a lot of that beef… [Read more…]
In my excitement putting together my list of change-to-gain tactics, I left out a key one—probably because I only use it about once a month…
I meant to include it within #1, exercise switch, because it is just that—although more of an exercise shuffle… [Read more…]
You saw some of the problems in getting giant leaps in muscle mass for the average drug-free bodybuilder… [Read more…]
Yesterday I explained the misguided notion that you should be stronger and bigger at every workout. (Photo of Jonathan Lawson by Michael Neveux) [Read more…]
I’ve touched on the top-six change-to-gain methods below over the past few newsletters…
1) Exercise switch
2) Altered rep speed
3) Stretch overload
4) More or less rest between sets
5) Exercise shuffle
6) Rep-range change
Jonathan and I first began experimenting with Double-X Overload, or DXO, way back in 2005, the year after we introduced end-of-set X-Rep partials into our training… [Read more…]
Q: I remember a program years ago, I think it was called Cybergenics, that included explosive moves like jump squats. Do very fast reps increase muscle size like your Speed method?
A: You’re talking more plyometrics—ballistic reps. The Speed sets in Old Man, Young Muscle are just slightly faster regular sets using about a one-second lift and a one-second lowering—not explosive. [Read more…]
The last few newsletters I’ve been discussing researcher Chris Beardsley’s observations on how different parts of a muscle can grow. I won’t drop in his wordy, nerdy quote again, but I will paraphrase his science speak… [Read more…]
Mr. America/Mr. Universe Doug Brignole sent me into mind-bending mode by recommending that I delve into researcher Chris Beardsley’s work…
I’ve quoted Beardsley in this newsletter on a number of occasions, as he discusses many things that verify what I do in the gym, and his ideas have helped me tweak my workouts for significantly better mass gains—like [Read more…]
I’ve mentioned that going to failure—grinding until you can’t get another rep—can derail mass gains. Too much of that and you can’t recover by your next workout, which cancels out growth…
The reason is usually said to be muscle damage. Hitting failure on multiple sets creates a lot of trauma, but not just to the target muscle… [Read more…]
