Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
People often ask why I use some “inferior” exercises along with the ideals…
“If the ideal exercises are so great, why not just use those and not waste time with less-ideal moves?”
Sounds good on paper, but there’s that variation-in-fiber-recruitment thing that I harp on a lot… [Read more…]
Yesterday I mentioned Mike Mentzer’s training style. While he tended to use a fast Speed Set tempo on his sets, despite saying otherwise, he often ended sets with slow forced reps and pure negatives… [Read more…]
Yesterday I discussed how neglecting stretch loading is perhaps the biggest muscle-building mistake you can make.
Too many bodybuilders focus on flex contractions, like the top of a leg extension. That isn’t nearly as good as stretch to trigger a growth reaction… [Read more…]
When you saw the subject line, you probably thought, “Overtraining.” But something else has come to the forefront as an equal or bigger error when trying to pack on muscle…
In fact, many recent studies are verifying this critical mistake, and faulty logic seems to be the culprit… [Read more…]
Yesterday I discussed one recent damage-reduction strategy: I’ve re-introduced Speed Sets.
Those sets with 1.5-second reps reduce the damage from “garbage negatives.”
If you lower the weight slowly on too many sets, you trigger excessive damage without a lot of hypertrophic return… [Read more…]
Q: Your newsletter on how you got sick after overtraining struck a chord. That happened to me also. What exactly were you doing different? Were you still using the workout from Old Man, Young Muscle?
A: I discussed a lot of damage reduction strategies in the newsletters prior to the one on overtraining. My illness spurred much of that, and I’m now applying those…
After I became ill and looked at my training, I realized I was using a bastardized version of the original OMYM workout… [Read more…]
Most of the best bodybuilders, like Mike Mentzer, have an amazing ability to concentrate. In this photo shoot, it took his laser focus to avoid the embarrassing appearance of the Haunted Loin Cloth. [Read more…]
Q: You said that maybe doing sets with a slow negative on each rep causes too much damage and can impair growth. But don’t studies show that lifting in one second and lowering in three seconds on all sets is best for mass?
A: My point is that a 1/3 tempo is the best rep speed for a few of your sets for each muscle; however… [Read more…]
Earlier this week, I had an interesting quote from Canadian strength coach and hypertrophy expert Christian Thibaudeau. Very knowledgeable guy, and his Instagram feed, @christian.thibeudeau.thibarmy, has lots of interesting tips, as well as observations—like this… [Read more…]
After the installments on damage control to enhance the hypertrophy process, the subject of Speed Sets stood out…
I mentioned that the Old Man, Young Muscle workout has two regular sets followed by one or two Speed Sets for each muscle. [Read more…]
