Some say that getting a pump is essential for building muscle. If you want to make your muscles grow as fast as humanly possible, getting one should be the aim of your workouts. A good muscle pump is a sign that you’ve had a good workout, and that growth is sure to follow. Others will […]
Slow Reps for Muscle Growth: Does Super Slow Training Work?
Some say that super slow training is the fastest, most effective way to make your muscles bigger and stronger. In a traditional weight training routine, you normally take 1-2 seconds to lift a weight and a little longer than that to lower it. With super slow training, each rep lasts somewhere between 10 and 20 […]
Is Training to Failure Necessary for Muscle Growth?
One study that caught my eye this week, from John Sampson and Herbert Groeller at the University of Wollongong in Australia, looked at failure versus not-to-failure training and its effect on gains in size and strength. Sampson and Groeller took a group of 28 untrained men and assigned them to one of three groups. All […]
The Overload Principle and Muscle Growth
What is the overload principle? And how can you apply it to your workouts to make your muscles bigger? Here’s everything you need to know. What Is the Overload Principle? The principle of progressive overload refers to the idea that you need to constantly increase the demands you impose on your muscles in order to […]
The Full Range of Motion Myth: My Secret Love of Partial Reps
You’ve probably been told that if you want your muscles to grow, all the exercises you do should be taken through a full range of motion (ROM). Going from “full stretch” to “peak contraction” is necessary to stimulate the maximum amount of growth in the shortest possible time. Anything less is cheating, and you might […]