Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
Q: I’ve been reading that testosterone is the key muscle-building hormone. Does the hormone boost come from intensity, more reps or what?
A: Arthur Jones, creator of Nautilus machines and the overseer of the Colorado Experiment that saw Casey Viator gain 60 pounds of muscle in only 4 weeks, always said that training legs hard can have a big “indirect muscle-building effect.”
What that means is that you could train your legs hard and see size gains in other muscles, such as [Read more…]
Dr. Jacob Wilson, who used to write for Iron Man when we worked there, recently performed a study with a technique we have recommended over the years—stretch holds, or Stat-X.
Dr. Wilson calls it “intraset stretching.” In his study, the subjects who included intraset stretching DOUBLED muscle thickness compared to those who did not use it. Amazing. [Read more…]
Q: I have your new ebooks, Anabolic Reload and Stretch Overload. Both are great, and the simple rest/pause add-on for progression has already helped me add new mass. But I overtrain easily, so I can’t keep adding those. Is there anything else I can do to keep my muscle growth moving forward without more volume?
A: First, bodybuilding is called “progressive-resistance” training because adding weight and/or reps to your exercises can increase muscle size… [Read more…]
Q: I’ve been following the current bodybuilding training trend of hitting each muscle once a week with lots of sets. Growth has been slow, but you’d think that with so much volume and intensity at one workout, it should take a full week for that muscle to completely recover, right?
Well, training each muscle with lots of volume once a week will produce some growth—if intensity is high enough to produce significant damage. The question is how much is enough?
Less volume for each muscle but with more frequent body part hits has proven a better, more sure-fire method for optimal hypertrophy in most cases and works as a sort of anabolic phasing… [Read more…]
Q: So glad you clarified many of the hypertrophic requirements for muscle size in Anabolic Reload [progression, exercise rotation, metabolic stress, etc.]. One that really got me thinking was volumization. I believe it was Vince Gironda who said that more work done in the same or less time creates mass quickly. My question is, What do you think about drop sets instead of rest/pause as the volume addition to each exercise? Seems like you get more work in the same time frame.
A: The drop-set method is one of the best hypertrophic tactics around because it does condense workload into a short time frame. Studies verify the [Read more…]
Q: I don’t always have time to go to the gym three times a week. That means I can’t always get in three full-body workouts, which I’ve heard is the best for muscle mass. Should I just do two full-body workouts with the big, basics, like squats, bench, etc. on weeks I can’t make it three times? Do you guys have an ebook with a 2-times-a-week program like that? I want to look like a bodybuilder, but time is hard to come by for me right now.
A: Three full-body workouts a week is the old-school standard for mass, but hitting each muscle only twice a week may be even better for many bodybuilders. According to Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D., one of the elite hypertrophy researchers… [Read more…]
Q: I’ve been using the Pure-Positions STX workout from the Stretch-Overload ebook. [Full-body workouts training one of the three positions for each muscle at each workout.] I’ve been growing better than ever, but I’m wondering if I should add an exercise for stubborn bodyparts. For example, while my arms have grown a quarter of an inch already (working great!), my shoulders still make it look like I have flat muscles. Doing just one delt exercise at each workout doesn’t seem to be cutting it. Suggestions?
A: Yes, you can add an exercise, but don’t get carried away or you’ll overtrain. Remember, you’re doing full-body workouts three times a week… [Read more…]
Q: You’ve said high-rep leg work can boost your T naturally. Will the first high-rep set on each exercise in the STX workouts boost testosterone even more?
A: It appears that that reason high-rep leg work boosts testosterone is due to heavy breathing, big-muscle stimulation, growth-fiber activation and muscle burn…
That was the reason that many bodybuilders of yesteryear often relied on [Read more…]
Q: Bench press seems to be the “measure of a man” even today. I’ve always sucked at it, but never really hurt for chest development. I prefer the decline alternative, just like you guys, but I also observe that many military guys have good chest development, many with pushups alone. How do you build a good chest if you suck at bench pressing?
A: Funny you should mention pushups. Steve has found that to be a great exercise to end his chest routine with—and he sucks at bench presses, too. Injuring his shoulder bench pressing powerlifting style in his 20s didn’t help matters. And it still hurts him… [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…]
