We love our workouts—or at least we have a love/hate relationship with them…
We like to train, but the pain to gain—torching and scorching muscles—is a teeth-clenching necessity for hypertrophy. It hurts… [Read more…]
Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
We love our workouts—or at least we have a love/hate relationship with them…
We like to train, but the pain to gain—torching and scorching muscles—is a teeth-clenching necessity for hypertrophy. It hurts… [Read more…]
It’s an old joke…
Patient: Doc, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Then don’t do that.
That should be posted in every gym. Unfortunately, people think that it’s a good thing to power through pain… [Read more…]
Many bodybuilders live by the “no pain, no gain” credo. But some types of pain can smother hypertrophy.
In fact, one minor nagging ache derailed Steve’s muscle-building progress for months…
Steve was having neck pain. It was low-grade, throbbing, and consistent—so much so that he had trouble sleeping and even got frequent headaches.
In the gym, it affected almost every exercise. It wasn’t so severe that he couldn’t train—it was just annoying enough to feel it on almost every rep of every exercise.
And that type of low-grade pain derails focus and intensity, which means less muscle stimulation at every workout.That’s not good.
He thought he had pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve and that it would eventually heal. It didn’t…
[Read more…]Q: I like the idea of training quads by doing front squats supersetted with back squats. My quads get almost a pre-ex effect from the strict fronts, then my glutes get better leverage on the backs to drive my quads for more growth. But I’m not very strong on fronts and can get a lot of reps when I immediately go to back squats after. Should I just do high reps on the back squats—say 6 on the fronts and 12-15 on the backs? [Read more…]
Q: I’m a big fan of Position-of-Flexion mass training. Hitting the three “angles” for each muscle just makes so much sense, and I know stretch overload builds mass (bird study, etc.). That brings me to my question: The overhead triceps extension with a barbell, dumbbell, cable or two dumbbells, hurts my elbows. My triceps need fullness and sweep, so I don’t want to skip that stretch-overload exercise. What can I do to avoid the old pain-to-gain myth? [Read more…]
Q: I’ve been using 4X sequences, 10 reps per set, and your new downward-progression 4X [12-10-8-6, adding weight each set, 45-second rests]. Both have been working great with some obvious mass gains (people have been commenting at the gym and when I’m out around town—love it!). My problem is that on some exercises the heaviest set on DP 4X hurts my joints. Like on bench presses, my shoulder can’t take it. Should I just drop the 6-rep set?
A: When you say bench presses, we assume you mean with a bar and not dumbbells. DBs may not cause pain because of freedom of movement. [Read more…]
One of the toughest parts of building your physique is staying stoked to hit the gym—and not just hit it, but power drive it over the wall every time you work out. That can be especially tough in the winter when you’re all covered up and not necessarily thinking of your lean-machine spring and summer body… [Read more…]