Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
Q: I just got The Power-Density Mass Workout 2.0, and [Mr. America] Doug Brignole’s one-exercise-per-muscle training is interesting, to say the least. And his interview [Chapter 4] makes a lot of good points for high-rep sets.
A: Yes, his “Super TORQ” method can rack up some impressive gains. It helped Doug get into the best shape of his long bodybuilding career, and he won the Muscle Beach International Over 50 competition while using that routine (see photo below).
[Read more…]Q: It’s hard for me to believe that a few partial reps at the end of a set [a.k.a. X Reps] can do anything measurable for muscle gains. Isn’t doing an additional set just as good or better for muscle growth?
A: At first glance, you’d think so; however, once you understand muscle physiology, you see the enormous muscle-building effects that can occur if you extend a set correctly. It all starts with the size principle of muscle fiber recruitment…
[Read more…]Q: I’m using The Ultimate Fat-to-Muscle Workout because I need to get ripped quick. It feels great, I’m seeing more muscularity, and people are commenting on how lean I’m getting. The thing is, I’m really sold on 10×10. I just bought and read The Ultimate 10×10 Mass Workout, and it sounds awesome. I even tried it on arms, and mine just blew up bigger than they’ve ever been. My question is, Can I add 10×10 to the Fat-to-Muscle Workout somehow?
A: We can tell you’re very motivated, and that’s more than half the battle to getting the ripped, eye-popping physique you’re striving for. You just have to be careful not to overtrain. That said, keep in mind that the 10×10 method is very taxing, which is why we usually suggest you use it on one Ultimate Exercise per bodypart, no other work for that muscle.
[Read more…]Q: I just want the best workout program for building muscle. Please simplify all the rhetoric and just tell me which one is the absolute best.
A: That’s easy. There is no best routine. It’s the nature of how the human body adapts. We always say it takes
That’s the reason our own programs are constantly evolving—a new exercise, a new X-hybrid tactic, a drop set, etc. And after 10 weeks or so, we often move to a new program from one of our e-books (Jonathan recently went all the way back to our first X-Rep transformation program, with a few new alterations).
[Read more…]Q: I’ve been lifting for about 1 1/2 years, trying to build a mass base, but it’s just not happening very fast. I like the idea of 3D Positions of Flexion [training each muscle in its midrange, stretch, and contracted positions], but almost everyone I talk to says to stick to only the big, basic exercises and forget about isolation moves. Should I just continue using the big basics and hope I build size and strength, or is now the time for me to try 3D POF?
A: Using only the big, basic exercises, what we call midrange-position moves like squats for quads, is fine for, say, a six-week phase every so often (like winter); however, we firmly believe that those who make big gains using only big exercises have an abundance of pure fast-twitch fibers and exceptional nerve-to-muscle connections (neuromuscular efficiency). They are genetically gifted, unlike the majority…
[Read more…]Q: I’ve been hearing a lot about muscle stretch and how it’s uniquely anabolic. What’s the best way to build mass with this information—a freehand stretching routine?
A: Freehand stretching routines can do okay things for muscle growth. In fact, a recent study showed muscle hypertrophy from ONLY freehand stretching, but it wasn’t extreme…
[Read more…]Q: You’ve said high-rep leg work can increase testosterone. Will the first high-rep set on each exercise in the Anabolic Reload STX workouts boost T even more?
A: It appears that reason high-rep leg work boosts testosterone is due to heavy breathing, big-muscle stimulation, growth-fiber activation, and muscle burn… [Read more…]
Q: I’ve been hearing a lot about muscle stretch and how it is uniquely anabolic. What is the best way to build mass with this information—a freehand stretching routine?
A: While freehand stretching routines can do okay things for muscle growth, a much more effective mass-building route is doing a workout of all stretch-position exercises with weights.
That way every bodypart will get the anabolic acceleration of [Read more…]
Q: I’m 62 and have been using the Stretch-Overload Pure Positions Workout [Monday contracted, Wednesday midrange, Friday stretch]. It felt great at first, training one exercise per muscle at each workout, but after three weeks I started feeling like I was losing ground muscle-wise. And I was more tired than usual. Should I take a week off, and then start again? Maybe I just need a downshift sooner than most because of my age.
A: Taking a layoff every three weeks might work, but it also might have you staying in one place as far as the size of your physique. You want to be able to extend your hard-training phase to at least five weeks before you need a downshift.
You can do that by [Read more…]
Q: I am making solid gains with the Pure Positions routine in the Stretch Overload ebook. Training the midrange exercise at one workout, contracted at the second, and stretch at the third is some killer change to gain each week. My question is, you have STX [high-rep set followed by a lower-rep set and rest/pause set] for every exercise. Your most impressive ebook, IMO, is Super-Size Crash Course, with TORQ, Progressive-Speed 4X, and, my favorite, Downward-Progression 4X. Can I use those instead of STX every so often for even more variation?
A: Absolutely—in fact, we encourage it because all of those are amazing unique mass methods. Remember, something in your workout must change if you want to continue to gain…
Switching to different mass attacks is the best way. Why? Because it’s [Read more…]
