How to train for non-stop muscle growth
Any program will work if it's not completely idiotic, but you need to consider the basics. So before you think about what new exercise you might try, make sure the foundation of your training program is solid. Knowing how far you can go to muscle failure and what volume, load and frequency should look like will determine how effective your training will be. If just one of these aspects is off, your gains will stall.
1. use muscle failure conservatively
To muscle failure can be beneficial when used under the right circumstances and in the right doses. And it's not the only stimulus for growth - maybe not even the best. Sure, there's some research showing that the weight used isn't as important as training to muscle failure when it comes to muscle hypertrophy.
One experiment even showed that a weight in the range of 30% of the exerciser's maximum weight resulted in similar hyertrophy as a load equivalent to 85% of their maximum weight for the exercise in question. This would suggest that muscle failure is necessary to stimulate muscle growth. But, as always, it's not that simple. You can't ignore all the bodybuilders who have built a lot of muscle without going to muscle failure.
So is reaching muscle failure really the stimulus for muscle growth? Or is it just the result of taking what is necessary for growth to the extreme?
Here's why training to muscle failure seems to work: by the time you reach muscle failure, you will have exhausted each muscle fiber to the point where it can no longer produce enough force to overcome resistance. But muscle failure is not always based on exhaustion of the muscle fibers.
Muscle failure can also occur due to depletion of energy (either the phosphagens or glucose in the muscles) and at very high repetition rates, mitochondrial failure can also occur. And a common cause of muscle failure is over-acidification of the muscle. Lactic acid and hydrogen ions accumulate as a result of mechanical work. These impair the contraction of the muscle fibers. If this impairment is severe enough, you will reach muscle failure.
If you perform sets of 40 to 60 seconds (12 to 20 repetitions), this is probably what causes muscle failure. In addition, people with more fast-twitch muscle fibers reach this point much faster because they produce more lactic acid. So a person with more fast-twitch muscle fibers could reach muscle failure due to acidosis or contractile interference with sets as short as 25 to 30 seconds.
Reaching muscle failure does not necessarily mean that you have exhausted your muscle fibers to the point that they can no longer perform. Additionally, in many exercises, muscle failure does not mean that the target muscle reaches muscle failure. Muscle failure is more likely to be based on other factors: the muscles involved cannot produce enough force; the correct posture and training mechanics cannot be maintained, resulting in reduced training efficiency or CNS fatigue.
Bottom line: training to muscle failure can be useful for certain types of training and for certain individuals, but it certainly shouldn't be used for all exercises.
Sure, you can go to muscle failure to recruit more muscle fibers without having to use heavy weights. The central nervous system pretty much always recruits the slow-contracting muscle fibers first. If the weight is too heavy for the strength of these fibers alone, then the moderately contracting fibers are brought into play. And if the weight is even heavier, the fast-contracting fibers are added to the mix.
Muscle failure or not - achieve maximum muscle fiber recruitment
The average person needs to move about 80 to 85% of their maximum weight. People with a very strong dominance of fast-twitch muscle fibers or very high neural efficiency may be able to do this at 65 to 70% of maximum weight. Of course, this applies to normal repetitions.
If you train explosively, you can also recruit the fast-twitch fibers with less weight. The other way to recruit the fast-twitch fibers is to use muscle fatigue to make the weight heavier. In a normal set, you lose 1 to 4% of your strength per repetition. The longer the set lasts, the greater the loss of strength from repetition to repetition.
In a set of 20 repetitions, for example, you have a much greater loss of strength from repetition 19 to repetition 20 than from repetition 1 to repetition 2. This is due to the fact that more fast-contracting fibers are recruited in the later repetitions and fatigue more quickly. There is also a greater accumulation of lactic acid.
After several repetitions with 60% of your maximum weight, you can recruit just as many muscle fibers as you could with a weight of 80% of your maximum weight, because the weight becomes heavier relative to your current strength potential as you fatigue. During a set of 15 repetitions using 60% of your maximum weight, the repetitions will feel like this:
Parameters at 60% of 1RM weight
- Repetition 1: feels like 60%
- Repetition 2: feels like 62%
- Repetition 3: feels like 63%
- Repetition 4: feels like 64%
- Repetition 5: feels like 65%
- Repetition 6: feels like 66%
- Repetition 7: feels like 67%
- Repetition 8: feels like 68%
- Repetition 9: feels like 70%
- Repetition 10: feels like 72%
- Repetition 11: feels like 74%
- Repetition 12: feels like 76%
- Repetition 13: feels like 78%
- Repetition 14: feels like 80%
- Repetition 15: feels like 83%
Remember that maximal voluntary muscle fiber recruitment occurs at 80 to 85% of 1RM weight. On repetition 14, 60% feels like 80% due to accumulated fatigue. At repetition 13 or 14, you recruit all the muscle fibers you can due to fatigue. What would happen if you continued the set with 50 repetitions until you reached muscle failure? The additional repetitions would feel like this:
- Repetition 15: feels like 83%
- Repetition 16: feels like 85%
- Repetition 17: feels like 88%
- Repetition 18: feels like 91%
- Repetition 19: feels like 95%
- Repetition 20: feels like 100%
Muscle failure would probably occur on repetition 20. The first 13 repetitions up to what feels like 78% are what you use to prepare your body for the repetitions that count and with these repetitions you prepare for the exhaustion that forces your body to recruit muscle fibers with a higher threshold. Repetitions 14 to 18 are the productive repetitions where you have full recruitment and can stimulate/exhaust the muscle fibers that are most receptive to growth.
The final reps are the danger zone where you are likely to reach muscle failure. These repetitions put much more stress on the nervous system and dramatically affect your capacity to do more work. Think of each set where you reach this point as the same type of set where you would move your 1RM weight.
It's important to understand this: Going to muscle failure has the same neurological effects as using your max weight because you reach muscle failure when the relative weight of the resistance is slightly higher than your strength potential at that moment. In other words, the repetition at which you reach the point of muscle failure is the repetition at which you can no longer move the weight despite maximum effort.
Training to the point of muscle failure while building muscle is like a powerlifter always attempting maximum reps in their training. Neurologically, it has the same effects because the last repetition is a repetition with maximum effort: it can be effective, but it will also burn you out quickly. Going to muscle failure is just a form of insurance. It helps you make sure you've recruited as many muscle fibers as possible. The thing about an insurance policy, however, is that it costs you something. The cost is neural exhaustion and ultimately hormonal exhaustion.
If you have to do it, then you should know which exercises it's okay to go to muscle failure on. Only do this with exercises that have low neurological demands - mainly isolation exercises and exercises on machines. Avoid going to muscle failure in multi-joint exercises.
2. the load: choose the right weight
Ronnie Coleman once said that the only way to build muscle fast is to achieve a pump with heavy weights. This may sound simplistic, but it tells you a lot about the choice of weights during training.
The bottom line? You need to use weights that are heavy enough for you but still create the muscle tension necessary to generate a pump. And there are two ways to mess this up:
a. Using weights that are too heavy
This will not give you a solid pump. There is a point at which you can still do the work with more weight, but you won't feel the target muscle working properly. And the tension is distributed to other muscles and even tendons.
Moving maximal or near-maximal weights that don't generate a pump and during which you don't feel the target muscle properly can be used to improve strength and muscle hardness. However, this cannot be your primary training approach if your goal is to build muscle.
b. Using weights that are too light
This will not lead to maximum muscle growth if used as a primary training method. Using a light weight can allow you to perform repetitions with constant tension: slow repetitions with a deliberate hard contraction of the muscle. You can also perform sets with high repetitions, descending sets and supersets and achieve a huge pump. But the weight is not heavy enough to generate maximum tension.
Using light weights to achieve a crazy pump can help stimulate muscle growth by increasing nutrient uptake by the muscle and mTor activation. But it can't be your primary way to train if you're trying to build maximum amounts of muscle.
Try to find someone who has built an impressive amount of muscle with just light pump training. These people do exist, but they are often older and have a long history of previous heavy training. If you already have a lot of muscle, then you don't need as much heavy training to further improve your body. But don't look at what the heavy guys are doing now, look at what they've been doing their whole lives to get to where they are now.
Challenge yourself without losing the feeling of intense muscle contraction. This is the key to building muscle mass. Try to challenge yourself to anything between 4 and 8 hard repetitions per set, focusing on 6 to 8 repetitions. This will be hard enough to stress your muscles enough, but it won't be so hard that it shifts tension away from the target muscle. It will also give you enough mechanical work to achieve the muscle fiber exhaustion that leads to muscle growth.
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and temporary gains
When scientists studied exercisers who trained to muscle failure, they found similar gains in exercisers who used 30% of their maximum weight and those who used 80% of their maximum weight. However, the same study also found that those who trained at 80% of their maximum weight built about twice as much strength as those who used 30% of their maximum weight.
This should tell you one of two things: either the lighter weight stimulated more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (an increase in cell volume without the actual muscle fibers getting bigger) or their neural factors weren't trained as much. In both cases, this is a major disadvantage.
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is lost more quickly than hypertrophy of the actual muscle fibers. So even if you can increase your sarcoplasmic hypertrophy to further increase your gains, most of your training should be aimed at making your muscle fibers bigger, which will make your muscles bigger and stronger.
Neural efficiency is also important. The more efficient you are at recruiting your muscle fibers, the less fatigue your body will require to build the maximum amount of muscle fibers. The faster you can recruit fast-twitch muscle fibers during a set, the easier you will recover, which will allow for either more volume or a higher frequency.
3 - Volume: Know how many sets you should perform
For hypertrophy, using sets of 4 to 8 repetitions per set and performing 2 to 3 work sets is best. And if you increase the weight slowly, it could be 2 slightly lighter warm-up or preparation sets and then 2 to 3 challenging work sets. Four sets can also work well.
In terms of weekly volume per muscle group, Brad Shoenfeld has presented data showing that performing 10 sets or more per week results in more muscle growth (+9.8%) than performing 5 to 9 sets (+6.6%) or less than 5 sets (+5.4%).
A safe assumption is that 10 to 15 sets per week is optimal for maximum hypertrophy. This could mean performing 5 or 6 exercises per muscle group with 2 to 3 work sets. More than this could compromise your gains.
The weekly volume can be split into 1, 2 or 3 weekly training sessions. You can either spread the volume evenly or do more volume for one muscle group on one day and less volume on another day.
The volume per training session also depends on the glycogen status. If building muscle is a priority, we want to avoid depleting glycogen stores too much, as this triggers catabolic actions that impair muscle growth. So if carbohydrate intake is low, the volume per training session needs to be reduced. On the other hand, using a workout drink that contains the right carbohydrates can increase the volume you can tolerate during a training session.
The point of diminishing returns
Yes, volume is important if you want muscle growth. Performing 10 sets per muscle per week will give you almost twice as much growth as performing 5 sets or less per week per muscle. But don't overdo it. Using too high a volume will not stimulate additional gains as long as you are not using steroids.
4 - Training frequency: How often you should train
Frequency is king. This is true for hypertrophy and even more so for strength. Scientists have come to the conclusion that training a muscle at a higher frequency is superior to training at a lower frequency. Train each muscle twice a week for maximum growth.
Keep in mind that some muscles can be trained significantly even if they are not the main focus of an exercise. The pectorals are trained by a close bench press, even though this exercise primarily trains the triceps. This does not mean that all muscles should be trained three times a week, but that they should be trained at least to some degree on two or three days for maximum growth. Here is an example:
- Monday: chest and upper back
- Tuesday: lower back, quadriceps dominant
- Wednesday: no training
- Thursday: shoulders, biceps and triceps
- Friday: No training
- Saturday: back, lower body (posterior muscle chain dominant)
- Sunday: No training
With this training split, each muscle is trained twice a week and the biceps even three times a week if you take into account the stimulation for the biceps on the back days.
The weekly workout
Take a look at the training frequency of elite weightlifters and top athletes. Most train 4 or 5 days a week - with the exception of Olympic weightlifters who require more frequent training of their technique. If these people - who have superior genetics and are in their prime - are making optimal progress with 4 to 5 days of training per week, what makes us think we can cope with more?
Training 5 days a week or more is best temporarily during an overreaching phase for a few weeks before a vacation or for people with a low stress life. But someone who is under a lot of psychological stress or who works physically should stick to 4 training days per week.
A smart training split can have you train each muscle group to some degree twice a week with only four workouts per week. It would also be possible to achieve this with three training sessions, but the daily workload might be too high, which can lead to a lower quality of work towards the end of the training session.
Rest days
They are important for maximum muscle growth, optimization of glycogen stores and neuronal regeneration - all of which are necessary for optimal training performance, which in turn is necessary for muscle growth. A healthy immune system and a healthy hormonal system require rest days. The schedule of training and rest days that I recommend is as follows:
- 2 days of training
- 1 day off training
- 1 training day
- 1 day off training
- 1 training day
- 1 day off training
- Start again from the beginning
References
- Mitchell, C., Churchward-Ve
- nne, T., West, D., Burd, N., Breen, L., Baker, S., & Phillips, S. (2012). Resistance exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men. Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985), 113(1), 71-7.
- Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2016). Effects of resistance training frequency on measures of muscle hypertrophy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Medicine. doi:10.1007/s40279-016-0543-8
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/how-to-train-for-non-stop-muscle-growth
By Christian Thibaudeau