Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
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…]
Q: Your discussion on Speed Sets has me experimenting. Should I do the second set of each exercise with those 1.5-second reps? That would give me half my sets in regular 1/3 tempo and the other half Speed. It seems like that would help reduce damage overall from negative-stroke work.
A: That will be an interesting experiment to see if you start to add mass faster due to reduced damage from fewer so-called “garbage negatives”…
They’ve been called that because even on sets to failure, at the end the negative stroke is still fairly easy—not enough resistance to tax the muscle much but still doing damage as the actin-myosin pairings drag over one another causing “friction.”
Speed Sets eliminate those garbage negatives as the eccentric stroke is quick—less than a second; however…
One type of exercise I don’t recommend Speed Sets for is most stretch-position moves, like incline curls, dumbbell flyes, etc. (For a complete list of stretch exercises, see the Positions-of-Flexion Exercise Matrix on pages 42 and 43 of Old Man, Young Muscle.)
The reason is that putting the target muscle in a fully elongated state makes it more vulnerable to injury, as in tendon tears, etc. But…
You can do the stretch moves slightly faster than 1/3—for example 1/2 or even 1/1.
Just stay in complete control of the weight—no heaving, jerking or throwing. Remember, 1/1 means lift in “one-thousand one” and lower in “one-thousand one.” That’s still a controlled tempo…
Use your best judgement as to which stretch exercises you feel are the safest for a faster rep speed. For me and my bum shoulder, for example, doing dumbbell pullovers faster than 1/3 is a no-no.
While 1.5-second reps are my ideal choice for Speed Sets, any increase in negative-stroke tempo should produce a reduction in muscle damage with more recovery substrates left for mass accumulation. At least that’s the theory.
Sculpt your perfect physique: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best stretch and contracted add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos, and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
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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…]
Q: You’ve talked about doing different things on the last set of a 4X sequence, like rest/pause. Are there ways to change the other sets in the sequence for variety? I’m a big fan of “change to gain,” so I like as much variation as I can get. By the way, 4X training is incredible—I’ve gained almost 10 pounds in six weeks using it with POF. Thank you!
A: Yes, change to gain—if your workouts are the same, your results will be lame. (Maybe we should’ve been rappers—Nah.)
We’ve experimented in the past with a unique approach to 4X—but it’s not for the meek. Remember, for 4X you use a weight with which you can get about 15 reps, but you only do 10; rest 40 seconds between sets then do it again. Here’s the hybrid drill:
Set 1: Raise the weight in one second and lower in six, getting around eight reps. That’s what we call an X-centric, or negative-accentuated, set. (Note: That’s almost a minute of time under tension.)
Sets 2 and 3: Use a normal cadence—one-second positives and three-second negatives, going for 10 reps. (40 seconds TUT)
Set 4: Use a speed cadence—about one second for the positive and one second for the negative.Get as many as you can—probably around eight to 10, depending on the exercise. We call this a speed set.
The late Olympic coach and muscle-building expert Charles Poliquin said that the most underused mass stimulus is rep cadence—and the above gives your muscle three different ones to deal with as well as unique tension times—and you use the same weight on all sets…
The X-centric reps on the first set act as an excellent warmup, pushing a lot of blood into the target muscle with a tension time of almost a minute and providing a good stimulus to the nervous system with slow negatives.
They also provide muscle-building benefits right off the bat—you get myofibrillar stimulation with the slow negatives and sarcoplasmic expansion with the long tension time. That’s the double-dose of muscle growth we’re always harping on.
Next you do sets 2 and 3 with a standard cadence—one up and three down. Tension time is around 40 seconds.
Then, on the last set, you do more explosive-style reps, but you still control the weight. The 2-second-reps tempo is speed style and has been shown in studies to activate dormant 2B power fibers, so be prepared for some major fiber churn and burn. Good luck getting 10 reps on this set.
We recommend trying it on just the big midrange movement of a Positions-of-Flexion workout because it can be so traumatic. If you try it on all 3 POF exercises for a muscle, do a 3X sequence for the stretch- and contracted-position moves—only one standard set instead of two. It’s another mass tactic to get you huge.
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Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
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Q: I know you suggest one second to lift and three seconds to lower. Do you ever use a slower lifting cadence, like lifting in three or four seconds instead of only one? Wouldn’t that produce more tension time for unique muscle-growth stimulation?
A: Yes, it can be a great variation for more mass creation as well as a fat-burning catalyst. But the big reason to slow down on the lifting stroke is for more strength. [Read more…]
The photo below of Larry Scott and Freddy Ortiz was taken circa 1962 in front of Vince’s Gym in Studio City, California. [Read more…]
Q: I have two questions. I’m using The Ultimate 10×10 Mass Workout, one [Ultimate] exercise per muscle. Killer results so far, with 40-minute workouts, but I was wondering what should I use as my rep speed on 10×10 sets? Also, is there anything I can take so I tolerate the burn a little better? I think I could make even faster gains if I could push further past the insane burn to get at more fibers.
A: Our former colleague, the late olympic coach Charles Poliquin, said that one of the most underused get-bigger triggers is rep-tempo change, or cadence manipulation. Since you’re only doing one exercise for each muscle, we suggest you vary the cadence throughout the 10×10 sequence… [Read more…]
Q: In the 3D HIT program [listed in the X-traordinary Arms e-book], you say to end each bodypart with one slow, higher-rep set of an isolation exercise for tension and occlusion. You also mention drop sets for those exercises. Which is better, one higher-rep set or a drop set?
A: Keep in mind that doing a drop set is a volume increase because it’s two sets back to back. For example, on concentration curls for biceps, you do a set of 10 reps to exhaustion, grab a lighter dumbbell, and immediately rep out again, getting about six more reps. Is that better than one set of 12-15 reps? That depends…
[Read more…]You know our mantra: You can trigger bigger gains with one small change. But let’s multiply that for even more mass. We’ve got 3 simple things to get you growing immediately… [Read more…]
It’s always interesting to see studies that come out on muscle activation with varying protocols. One of particular interest is from the National Strength & Conditioning Association [May 29, ’15]…
It compared two protocol, but with the same time under tension and load, 60 percent of 1-rep max. The exercise was Smith-machine bench presses, and the subjects were experienced resistance trainers… [Read more…]
