Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
Q: I’ve been using all-heavy training (6-8 reps) on everything up until now. I just started using your 4X method, and I swear I can already feel new growth happening. It’s also a relief on my tattered joints. I want to try it exclusively for a month or two. Will my weights increase or should I add sets? Just looking for the best “change to gain.”
A: Since this is your first time using the 4X mass method, you’ll get stronger as your muscle grow more adept at DENSITY training…
[Read more…]Q: I just got The Ultimate Fat-to-Muscle Workout e-book because of all the positive feedback I’ve seen. Looking over the program I notice that it’s a four-days-per-week system, but you only hit each muscle once. Is that really going to be enough work for each bodypart? I really want to lean out quickly and still build muscle.
A: If you traumatize a muscle enough, it will require several days for full recovery. And that’s one of the goals with that program…
[Read more…]Q: I heard that you guys prescribe high-rep sets to etch in muscle cuts. That’s wrong. I’m a certified personal trainer, and I learned that high reps do not make a muscle more defined. You can only do that with diet to thin your skin.
A: You’re correct that higher-rep sets don’t “etch in muscle cuts” per se; however, as we discuss in our Fat-to-Muscle e-book, high-rep sets, 15 to 20, do heighten muscle burn, and that lactic acid surge can increase growth hormone output. [Can J App Phys. 22:244-255. 1997.] GH has been shown in research studies to be an extremely potent fat burner. In other words, it thins the skin by reducing subcutaneous fat—and that eventually gives you more muscle detail.
[Read more…]Q: A friend of mine e-mailed me about your 3D Power Pyramid Program. He said he’s making great gains with it in both muscle size and strength. He explained it, but I wanted to come to the source to see if you think it’s right for me. I’ve been training for about 3 years, and I weigh about 160 pounds. My genetics are closer to Steve’s [smaller ectomorph] than Jonathan’s [more of a mesomorph]. Should I go for it?
A: That is an excellent program and one of our most popular because it’s balanced for both size and strength. It’s a simple two-way split that has you train four days a week—with Wednesdays and weekends off. Plus, you cover all of the 3D Positions of Flexion for each target muscle…
[Read more…]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.
[Read more…]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…]Q: I’ve been reading your e-zine for years, and I have almost all of your e-books. Great info, and thanks to you I have a lot of new muscle. 3D POF is great! My question is about rep ranges. You’ve talked about using lower reps, medium reps, and higher reps. I’ve read that the key to muscle growth is intensity, and that rep ranges don’t really matter. Can’t I just keep doing about eight to 10 reps, the best range for muscle growth, on all my exercises and train intensely, to failure, to make the best gains? Do I really need different rep ranges?
A: While intensity is the big key to forcing muscle growth, there is no doubt that the predominant fiber type in a particular muscle dictates its best rep range for fastest size gains.
[Read more…]Q: I’ve read a little on your Point-of-Flexion training, and it seems complicated. I was thinking about getting the 3D Muscle Building e-book, but I’m not sure I’ll understand it. I guess I really want to know two things: if it works and if I will “get it” once I read the e-book.
A: It’s actually “Positions” of Flexion, but “Point” of Flexion works too—same meaning. POF is far from complicated; in fact, it streamlines mass-building bodypart routines. POF gets to the “point”—you don’t waste time or effort so you have more recovery ability for maximum growth.
[Read more…]Q: The X-Rep workout program I’m using from the X-Rep Update #1 e-book is amazing. I added a couple pounds of muscle after only two weeks, and I swear I’m seeing new cuts and striations I’ve never seen on me before. Do you notice more size and detail when you use the fascia-expansion techniques?
A: Standard POF protocol is the midrange exercise, followed by the stretch exercise, followed by the contracted exercise. For example, bench presses (midrange), dumbbell flyes (stretch), and cable flyes (contracted). Merely switching the order of the last two exercises provides more of a stretching effect on the muscle-fiber encasements, which allows for more growth to occur…
[Read more…]Q: I’ve been reading about 3D Positions of Flexion, and it makes total sense. Most of the three-way hits for each muscle are straightforward, but I’m confused about midback. Is a row classified as the big midrange exercise? With a barbell row, the arms squeeze the shoulder blades at the top, which is the contracted position. Is a barbell row both a midrange and contracted exercise?
A: You need to look at the lats and midback together to understand the three positions of flexion for each. For lats, you use pulldowns or chins as the big midrange exercise. Then you follow with pullovers for stretch and stiff-arm pulldowns for contracted.
For midback muscle building, there’s no need for a midrange exercise—you get that on the pulldowns or chins for lats. Those exercises pull the arms down and back, which affects the lats as well as the midback…
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