By Joel Marion and Vince Del Monte
In the last two articles we’ve laid out 6 of the biggest reasons you may not be experiencing the results you DESERVE from your muscle building efforts, including:
1. Lack of frequency
2. Not enough “room” for muscle to grow
3. Muscular imbalances
4. No “down time”
5. Nervous system inefficiency
6. One-dimensional training
And today comes the fun part. Today, we’re going to FIX all of the above problems by providing you with some dynamite solutions to set your muscle building results on fire.
Are you ready? I hope so - let’s jump right in.
Solution #1: High Frequency Training
As mentioned in the previous article, the more you can stimulate a muscle to grow, the more it will grow. Revolutionary, I know.
But as simple as that sounds, so many people are still stuck training a muscle group once a week, and so many others don’t have a clue on how to effectively up the frequency of their training…so today, we’re going to provide you with some real solutions.
That said, what exactly are the major components to effective high frequency training?
1. Utilize a full body or half body approach (ie. upper body vs. lower body split)
2. Vary the stimulus with each session
And essentially, that’s it.
Here are two examples, one with a full body approach and one with a half body approach:
* Full Body Approach *
Day 1 - Full Body (6 movements, 4 x 10)
Day 2 - Full Body (6 movements, 10 x 4)
Day 3 - Full Body (6 movements, 3 x 25)
Day 4 - OFF
Repeat
* Half Body Approach *
Day 1 - Upper Body (5 movements, 4 x 10)
Day 2 - Lower Body (4 movements, 4 x 10)
Day 3 - Upper Body (5 movements, 10 x 4)
Day 4 - Lower Body (4 movements, 4 x 10)
Day 5 - OFF
Day 6 - Upper Body (5 movements, 3 x 25)
Day 7 - Lower Body (4 movements, 3 x 25)
Day 8 - OFF
Repeat
With the above two approaches, you stimulate each muscle group via multiple set, rep, and volume ranges throughout the week, up to 5 times weekly. The results are PROFOUND when compared to once weekly training. Seriously, if you’ve never done this type of training, get ready to experience, see and feel the results after just one week.
Solution #2: Loaded Passive Stretching
In our previous article we talked about fascia tissue being a limiting factor for muscle growth due to its lack of elasticity and regulatory feedback. We also mentioned that this tissue CAN be stretched, although few people know how to nor take the time to do it.
And here’s the best part: it requires ZERO additional time in the gym as you can do it between your work sets.
The technique, known as loaded passive stretching, is intense, deep stretching done while muscles are already in a “pumped” state to facilitate the stretching of the fascia tissue in order to create more room for muscle tissue to grow.
This is NOT normal, passive stretching. This is deep, heavy stretching done with an external load.
As an example, a loaded stretch for the pecs would be to: after a set of dumbbell bench presses, grab a pair of moderately heavy dumbbells and sink into the bottom position of a dumbbell fly. Now hold that position, not relaxing and not contracting, allowing the weight to stretch out your pumped pecs. Repeat the stretch in between sets of any chest exercise you do, up to five times per workout, but only when your chest is in an already “pumped” state (several sets in to an exercise).
This type of stretching is NOT fun and it can be rather painful, but it’s also very rewarding. Of course, should you try it, be mindful of the difference between “proper” pain and “injury” pain.
Solutions #3: Specialization to Correct Muscular Imbalances
The issue of muscular imbalances and regulatory feedback was discussed in our previous article as well, and the ideal solution here is to effectively “specialize” any lagging or weak body parts to balance out antagonist muscle inconsistencies. For example, if your pecs are overpowering your back, you’ll want to take some time off from training pecs directly (perhaps only doing a few heavy sets per week to maintain strength) while heavily concentrating on your back.
Here’s one example way to do this:
Day 1 - Full Body Workout
Day 2 - Back specialization
Day 3 - Full Body Workout
Day 4 - Back specialization
Day 5 - Light back recovery
Day 6 - OFF
Repeat
Bringing up lagging body parts is essential to your muscle building success while avoiding stalled results due to regulatory feedback, or even worse, injury. Start incorporating it today.
Solution #4: Structured Deloading
While frequency is important, it’s not possible to go “all out” and maintain that level of intensity while training frequently all the time. This is where structured deloading comes in.
Two of our favorite deloading protocols are:
1. The “Off” Week - Once every 3 to 4 months, take a week completely off from resistance training
2. The “Light” Week - Once every 4 weeks, half the total volume of the previous 3 weeks
For example, if you were doing 4 movements @ 4 sets of 10 for your main training cycle, for the deloading week you’d then perform 2 movements for 2 sets of 10.
Structured deloading allows you to go HARD during the “on” weeks without burning out, and also allows recovery time to set you up for “supercompensation” once your next training cycle begins. Supercompensation is just a fancy way of saying “take some time off, and then to compensate, your body will have an even greater adaptive response when you return to your normal training.”
Go hard and then back off; it works like a charm.
Solutions #5: Multi-dimensional Training
If you want to hit each type of muscle fiber along with each type of muscle growth, you need to break away from one-dimensional training by varying the stimulus given to your muscles by using a variety of training methods. Here are just a few different ways to activate different fibers and growth responses:
* Heavy Training
* Light Training
* High Volume Training
* Increased Time Under Tension Training
* Lactic Acid Training
* Density Training
* High Threshold Motor Unit Training
* CAT (compensatory acceleration training) - fast/explosive movements
* Varied Tempo Training
* Rest-pause Training
* Superset Training
* High Intensity Training
And the list goes on and on.
If you’re looking to truly MAXIMIZE your muscle and achieve the fastest results possible, then your training program must be comprehensive. It must target the full spectrum of muscle building stimuli, and unfortunately, most trainees only manage to target one or two.
Hello plateau.
Multi-dimensional training yields multi-dimensional results.
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