Destroy your genetic limits

A brief summary:

• Descending sets increase tension and metabolic stress a muscle is exposed to. Exhaust a muscle with a heavy set and then immediately perform more repetitions with lighter weight.
• Emphasize the eccentric (lowering) phase of an exercise to increase the time under tension. Perform heavy negative repetitions at the end of the last set of an exercise. - If you isolate one muscle, stretch the opposite muscle for increased power release
• Plan strategic unloading phases with reduced intensity depending on your needs.
• If your goal is to set a personal best, then develop an external focus. If your goal is to build muscle, focus on a better mind-muscle connection.

Beginner gains

When you start training, you will make progress very quickly. Almost any training program will lead to more strength and hypertrophy. But over time, the gains will diminish. Despite this, many strength athletes continue to train in the same way for years without making further progress. Continued gains in strength and muscle mass require you to adapt to a specific training approach. Follow these strategies and put yourself in the fast lane to a better body.

1. descending sets

Mechanical tension (i.e. the force applied by a muscle) provides the primary stimulus for muscle growth. It is the reason that training with weights makes your muscles grow, while aerobic training does not. During cardio training, there is simply not enough mechanical tension to stimulate hypertrophy adaptation. There is convincing evidence that factors other than tension are also involved in the growth process. Metabolic stress is one of these. Metabolic stress involves an accumulation of metabolic products (such as lactate, hydrogen ions and phosphate ions) and a decrease in pH levels as a result of intense anaerobic exercise.

Although the exact mechanisms are not yet known, scientists believe that increased muscle fiber recruitment, an acute increase in anabolic hormone levels, changes in myokines and cell swelling play a role in this process. Theoretically, training programs that generate high levels of mechanical tension in combination with significant metabolic stress should be best for maximizing muscle growth.

Metabolic stress is increased by training that relies on rapid glycolysis (the anaerobic burning of carbohydrates) as the primary energy source. The fast glycolytic energy system is prevalent in activities that last approximately 30 to 120 seconds - or between half a minute and a minute and a half. In resistance training, this would be sets performed with moderate to higher repetitions. During such training, there is also prolonged compression of the blood vessels, which further reduces the oxygen supply to the working muscles and increases metabolic stress. How can you use this information to your advantage? One proven strategy is to incorporate descending sets into your training program.

Here's what you should do:

Perform a heavy set to the point of exhaustion (generally in a repetition range of 3 to 10 reps) and then immediately reduce the weight and perform several descending sets. This will substantially increase metabolic stress and boost your metabolism.

Here is the way you should do this:

Perform a set to momentary muscle failure, then immediately reduce the weight by 20 to 25% and perform as many more reps as possible with the reduced weight. For an even greater metabolic effect, perform double descending sets by reducing the weight again by 20 to 25% and performing as many repetitions again until you reach the point of muscle failure. A word of warning: although descending sets are a highly effective training method, they can be extremely demanding on your neuromuscular system. Therefore, use them sparingly in the context of a periodization program.

Don't make every damn exercise a descending set exercise. Try to limit the use of descending sets to a select few sets in a given microcycle, listening to your body and watching for signs of overtraining.

2 - Maximize the negative repetitions

Don't focus exclusively on the concentric portion of the movement during an exercise while ignoring the negative repetitions (the eccentric portion of the movement). Resistance training is not just about moving the weight up. Lowering the weight can be just as important, if not more so. Scientific research has shown that negative repetitions have a greater effect on muscle hypertrophy than concentric training and there is evidence that maximum growth cannot be achieved unless eccentric muscle actions are performed.

This may be related to the fact that eccentric repetitions are primarily responsible for the muscle damage caused by training with weights. Although muscle damage can have a devastating effect on short-term performance, the associated inflammation and increased protein turnover has been shown to induce long-term hypertrophy adaptations. Many believe that structural changes associated with muscle damage influence gene expressions that result in a strengthening of the muscle, which protects that muscle from future injury.

Eccentric exercise also increases metabolic stress, with the greatest increases occurring at higher eccentric intensities. These factors help explain why negative repetitions send a stronger anabolic signal than concentric training, leading to increased protein synthesis.

Here's what you should do:

Include some heavy negative repetitions in your training program. These should preferably be performed at the end of the last set of a given exercise.

Here's the way you should do this:

Load the bar with a weight equal to about 105 to 125% of your concentric maximum weight for one repetition and perform as many negative repetitions as possible. Assuming that the muscle was not fully fatigued during the concentric, this supramaximal stimulus will help to create greater fatigue in the motor units and thus generate a stronger stimulus for muscle hypertrophy. Aim for a 2 to 3 second tempo, making sure you lower the weight in a controlled manner. A few extra heavy negative reps performed at the end of your last set is all you need to stimulate new muscle growth. You will need a training partner to help you move the weight up during heavy negative repetitions, as this is a supramaximal load. Just like descending sets, this strategy will work your neuromuscular system hard, so use this technique sparingly.

3 - Stretching the opposite muscle

Scientific research has shown that too much static stretching can reduce your strength and speed if performed immediately before training. Imagine that you are shooting a rubber band. If you stretch the band too much, it won't fly as far as it would if it were tighter. The same thing happens to your muscles - reduce their stiffness and their force production will decrease. Another suspected theory associated with this effect involves reduced neural drive and a resulting reduction in the number of motor units available for contraction. But what if we turn this around and focus on stretching the opposite (i.e. the antagonist) instead of the agonist? This means that you stretch your quadriceps before you train your leg biceps. Or you stretch your triceps before you train your biceps.

By reducing the neural drive and preload of the antagonist, its force production is inhibited, causing it to interfere less with the contraction of the antagonist. Hypothetically, this allows the agonist to produce more force, increasing its performance. Scientific research has shown that this actually works in practice. These studies have found, for example, that vertical jump height in trained strength athletes is significantly higher when antagonistic stretching has been performed beforehand than when no such stretching has been used.

Here's what you should do:

Before you perform an exercise, stretch the antagonistic muscle for about 15 seconds. Perform 3 to 4 sets of this targeted stretching with about 10 seconds rest between each stretch and then immediately start your working set. Try to minimize the time between the last set of stretching and the start of the work set. This will ensure that the antagonist remains maximally inhibited during the execution of the following set, optimizing your gains.

4 - Unload on demand

You can walk into any gym and without exception you will see strength athletes using a "head through the wall" approach to their training, where they always go all out. They will go to muscle failure on every set and usually do a few forced reps afterwards. Volume and intensity remain consistently high.

The problem with this type of training is that it can limit your resources. Yes, training hard and heavy is essential if you want to become more muscular and stronger. This is the basis of the overload principle, which states that you need to keep challenging your muscles beyond their current capacity so that they have to adapt to the new demands. But if you think that the key to getting big and strong is to train with consistently high volume and high weights all the time, think again. Studies have shown that such an approach can impair IGF-1 and testosterone production at rest while chronically elevating cortisol levels, which will eventually lead to overtraining and psychological burnout. Progress slows down, stagnates and reaches a point where you even lose muscle and strength.

If you keep the revs of a car engine in the red zone for too long, you will eventually destroy the engine, right? Well, your body is not much different in this respect. It needs time to regenerate its resources. If you come to training strong and fresh, then there will also be an upward trend in your progress.

Here's what you should do:

Structure your training program to include regular periods of unloading with reduced intensity and volume. Try to keep things regulated. One strategy that works well is to gradually increase the intensity and/or volume over the course of a training block (generally a month or so) and then schedule an unloading week. This is also known as a gradual load, where your efforts increase and decrease to produce an undulating training pattern. Similarly, periodize your training to muscle failure so that you only go to the point of muscle failure occasionally and not every set. Key point: Keep in mind that recovery ability can vary from individual to individual. Genetics, nutritional supplements, the use of anabolic steroids and other factors play a role in this process. So make sure you are in tune with your body and adjust the frequency of your recovery cycles based on your individual response.

5 Refocus on your goal

Your focus influences your motor learning.

There are two types of focus of attention: internal and external. An internal focus involves concentrating your attention on a specific body movement, while an external focus involves concentrating on the effects that your actions have on your environment. There is research that shows that an external focus tends to promote superior results compared to an internal focus when it comes to learning a new skill. This is consistent with the view that an internal focus causes interference with the automatic control processes that regulate performance (i.e., overthinking technique in an exercise). An external focus of attention, on the other hand, allows the neuromuscular system to naturally self-organize a movement. It is believed that if you focus on the desired outcome, the neuromuscular system will inherently find the best motor scheme to accomplish a task. The result is improved force production and more accurate execution skills.

This does not mean that you should never use an internal focus. Studies have shown that using the mind-muscle connection, where you focus on the target muscle, increases the EMG activity of that muscle. This suggests that you can improve motor unit recruitment, and therefore muscle development, by using an internal focus of attention. The bottom line is that both an external and internal focus have their place in your training program and their use should be based on your training goals.

Here's what you should do:

Use an external focus if maximum strength or power is your goal. Visualize the end point of the movement and focus on moving the weight as explosively as possible to reach that end point. Assuming you have mastered correct exercise execution form, your neuromuscular system will do the rest. However, if you are looking to increase hypertrophy, then focus directly on the target muscle and feel it working throughout the duration of the exercise. This way you will maximize recruitment of the target muscles while minimizing involvement of the supporting muscles. While some lucky people can build muscle relatively easily, most mere mortals need to be a little more sophisticated to gain muscle mass and strength. Seriously consider these five tips and say "goodbye" to your plateaus.

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By Brad Schoenfeld
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/demolish-your-genetic-limits