Shock techniques for muscle growth
Muscle growth is something that happens only when muscles are stressed and shocked into growing. Over time muscles become resistant to adaptation even when using progressively heavier weights. Why? Well muscles are stubborn and they very quickly become accustomed to most forms of stress, especially bodybuilding and weight training.
When muscles refuse to grow or get stronger the body hits something called a plateau - a stage that stops you moving forward with your bodybuilding and strength training.
However, seasoned bodybuilders have, over time, developed a number of shock techniques to kick start muscle growth.
Shock techniques for muscle growth
Read the following shock techniques for muscle growth and use them sparingly in your workouts. Aim to use a single shock technique only once or twice per muscle group over a three week period. Any more and bodybuilders risk overtraining and regressing in muscle mass and strength.
1. Periodization
Periodization is something that should be used constantly in your bodybuilding training program. Periodization means that your training program and workouts focus on different aspects of weight training at varying times. For example, you can train for strength for 4 weeks, followed by muscle mass training for 4 - 8 weeks, the finally workouts aimed at improving muscle endurance for 4 weeks before the periodization cycle begins with strength again.
By including periodization in workout planning bodybuilders can shock their muscles and skip any danger of training plateau and stagnation in muscle growth.
2. Drop sets
Choose a weight that is 10% heavier than normal. Complete between 6 and 8 reps under control, stop and remove some of the weight from the barbell or dumbbells before continuing to crank out more reps. Stop once more and take more weight from the barbell or dumbbells before repeating a further set of reps without pausing. The aim with drop sets is to lift weights that totally exhaust stubborn muscles and shock them into muscle growth.
Drop sets are best used using a barbell or by using a series of fixed weight dumbbells as stripping the weights being used should be a quick progress that doesn't allow your muscles to recover before you continue to exhaust them further.
3. Supersets
There are two types of supersets; same muscle supersets or opposing muscle supersets.
Same muscle supersets require bodybuilders to perform exercises for the same muscle group back-to-back without rest. this technique completely exhausts a muscle group and also decreases the amount of time spend in the gym. This technique will require bodybuilders to lift a lighter than normal weight on the second exercise. However, fear not, the increase in intensity will compensate for a drop in weight and shock muscles into growth in order to cope with the new stress.
Opposing muscle supersets ask bodybuilders to choose two exercises, one for each opposing muscle, and then perform them back-to-back without rest. For example a bodybuilder may perform a bench press followed by pull ups without rest. This technique rapidly cuts down the amount of time spent in the gym. It also means more exercises can be added to your workout in order to further shock muscles into growth.
4. Negative reps
Negative reps require bodybuilders to have a spotter or training partner. During normal lifting a bodybuilder will lift and lower a weight under complete control. However, the lowering of a given weight stresses the muscles much more than lifting a weight. Negative reps take advantage of this by encouraging bodybuilders to load up a barbell with up to 20% more weight than they would normally lift. The spotter then aids their partner in the lifting phase of the rep while the performer takes all the stress of the weight during the lower phase of the exercise. Couple this with the idea that the eccentric phase (lowering phase) should be performed very slowly to total shock muscles into growth and you can see that this shock technique is both demanding and painful! You have been warned.
5. Pyramid sets
Many bodybuilders choose a weight in which they can perform 3 sets of 10 reps, aiming to reach muscle failure on the last rep of each set. Pyramid sets require a bodybuilder to start with a weight that allows 12 reps, followed by a set that allows 10 reps, 8 reps and finally 6 reps before the weight is lowered again to allow 8 reps, 10 reps and finally 12 reps.
So using pyramid sets a bodybuilder will perform sets of 12, 10, 8, 6, 8, 10, 12 reps respectively. Of course as the reps drop the weight should increase and the bodybuilder should aim to reach muscle failure on the last rep of each set.
Pyramid sets are very effective and have helped many a strength athlete and bodybuilder shock their muscles and move through training and muscle growth plateaus.
6. Pre-exhaust / pre-fatigue sets
In normal workouts bodybuilders are encouraged to exercise using compound movements (exercises that use many joints during the movement) before focusing on isolation exercises (exercises that use only one joint during the movement). This makes sense because bodybuilders can lift more weight using compound movements and so performing these first mean that bodybuilders and lifters have enough energy to devote to lifting heavy weights.
With pre-exhaust sets bodybuilders do the opposite. They perform supersets (exercises performed back-to-back with no rest) and complete the isolation exercise followed by the compound movement. This technique shocks the muscle into growth by forcing them to work past the point of muscle failure while performing a demanding compound lift without rest. This change will shock your muscles and create a huge lactic acid burn in the exercising muscles. You have been warned!
Once again DO NOT use these technique in every workout. If you feel you have hit a training plateau - you have used the same weight for the same number of reps in 3 or more workouts - choose one of the techniques above and use only one of twice in your next workout.
Latest health and fitness news
All news stories
Latest quizzes and tests
All quizzes &
tests
|
Home
