Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
Q: I haven’t seen you mention Speed Sets in the newsletter. Are you still using them? You have them in Old Man, Young Muscle.
A: In the spirit of change to gain, absolutely. I generally do speed reps on the last set for a body part…
While studies show that the best rep tempo for building mass quickly is lift in one to two seconds, lower in three, using a different cadence can produce unique size effects… [Read more…]
Q: I’m astounded by Jonathan’s Size Surge transformation in only 10 weeks. His arms got huge, and he said his gains really took off during the second phase when he started using Positions of Flexion. I was thinking that I should do POF for arms in phase 1 too. Like for biceps, he has two sets of barbell curls and two sets of concentration curls. Wouldn’t I make better gains if I did two sets of barbell curls followed by one set of incline curls [for stretch] then one set of concentration curls? That’s the same number of sets, but now it’s full-range POF. I could do the same for triceps too.
A: That sounds like a good plan—at least until you realize one reason phase 2 in the Size Surge program works so well is because the muscles get a progressive-shock size effect when you shift to full-range training for the last four weeks. In other words, you force more growth adaptation to happen when you add stretch-position exercises like incline curls for biceps and overhead extensions for triceps at week 7… [Read more…]
Q: You have V-handle pulldowns as the Ultimate Exercise for lats [in the X-traordinary X-Rep Workout]. I do those for the power pyramid then wide-grip pulldowns for a density drop set. But I feel the wide-grips in my lats more. Can I reverse the order and do the wide pulldowns for the pyramid, then the V-handle pulldowns for a density drop set?
A: Absolutely! Your question is similar to one we had for chest before. In that case, we suggested switching the order at every workout to emphasize a different line of force for optimal size effects. You could do that with lats also (and it will help your arms look huge too, as you’ll see in a moment)… [Read more…]
