The One Technique That Will Maximize Muscle Mass

F

fitslug

0
Hey everyone.

I recently created a video on how you can help increase muscle mass through slight change in your workout routines. I also talk about WHY you need muscles... male or female.

This was the most asked about topic that was flooding my inbox. "How can i gain more muscle?"

The problem is most people focus on the CONCENTRIC part of an exercise. They fail to realize how important the ECCENTRIC part is.

Anways, more details here:

Thoughts/Rants/Comments are welcome here or on the video page.

Cheers.
 
the concentric part of the exercise owns the eccentric for overload, but the eccentric has the ability to recruit more muscle fibers. Both are important :D
 
limestix said:
the concentric part of the exercise owns the eccentric for overload, but the eccentric has the ability to recruit more muscle fibers. Both are important :D
Click to expand...

True... but there is a good reason why so many guys are stuck with 0 growth and at the same resistance level for like months in a row. lol

And most people focus heavily on concentric anyway, so it's and issue that doesn't need to be addressed all that much.

Thanks for the input though.
 
So what exactly is your reasoning for focusing on the eccentric? Or are you just saying that most people don't do it and they should?

Also wondering why you support the whole concept of toning and the myth of doing higher reps for 'tone' or that 'toning' is even possible
 
limestix said:
Also wondering why you support the whole concept of toning and the myth of doing higher reps for 'tone' or that 'toning' is even possible
Click to expand...

Did you watch the video? Because I said no such thing. High reps give you one thing... and that's muscular endurance.

Which is why in gymnastics Ill have my athletes do their conditioning at very high reps. This whole thing about toning... and when people look toned.

Its simple really, when your body fat % is low and you have some muscle mass you look toned. When you have very low body fat % and you have a lot of muscle mass you look RIPPED.... Simply speaking of course.

When you lift a lower amount of weight you don't experience the same amount of micro-tears in your muscle fibers as you do when you lift some heavy s**t. So your muscles don't end up growing to be AS big... but they still get stronger and SLIGHTLY bigger because you're still applying resistance to which they have to adapt.

Wow that was a mouthful.

As for my focus on eccentric.. yeah one reason is 95% of the people don't focus on it enough and another reason is that eccentric resistance has been a major factor in mine and every one of my client's success. Just passing that little tip on to you guys.

Next time you work out with weights... try the following tempo. 2-1-3

First number represents the concentric phase
Second number represents the isometric phase
Third number represents the eccentric phase

Oh... and don't forget to chuck your ego out the door. You will not be able to do as many reps as you are used to but your end result will be much better.

No go pack on some muscles!

Cheers
 
Why do you want to go 2 seconds on the concentric instead of just doing it as fast as possible. What are the benifits?
 
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I think Karky means *concentric* instead of *eccentric*.

If I'm correct in that assumption, I'd be interested in hearing too.

And I've trained a good number of clients myself and I'd say the lack of eccentric training is NOT the most notable reason people aren't realizing progress.

But maybe your experience is different.

In my experience, it's lack of continuity, lack of aligned nutrition relative to goals, and lack of focus in terms of progressive overload and manipulation of volume vs. intensity.
 
Tempo's are silly. Counting numbers in your head just wastes mental energy and ruins focus. The only thing you should be focusing on when under the weight, it moving the weight effectively. Explosive concentric, no pause, controlled eccentric.

Also, depending on the exercise, a fast eccentric can be very beneficial. Our muscles adapt and grow from different stresses; while we mostly focus on producing force, resisting force and deceleration are just as important. With a fast eccentric, we focus less on deceleration, which is what a slow eccentric focuses on, and instead we focus on resisting force. If you let the bar drop down fast on a bench press, you may not be doing a lot of deceleration, but as long as you stop it before it hits your chest, you are completely resisting the force which is equally as valuable, and if you are typically someone who does slow tempo work, it would be even more valuable.

It is a bit silly to blanket everyone saying one thing is better than another when it is always going to be on an individual basis, you know this as a PT//coach (assuming this is why you have clients).

Anyway I'm not trying to rag on you, just saying:

-give some reasoning for your advice (thanks for clarifying)
-toning is a myth (high reps do not prevent building muscle, it's all about diet)
-tempo's blow for building mass
 
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toning is not a myth...people just mis-use the term and misunderstand how to go about it.

tempo's don't blow - controlling the eccentric and concentric phases of the muscle is important. lack of control leads to injury as well as cheating yourself on the exercise.
 
meh. I just think tempo's are a big distraction. The mind has a huge effect on your strength, power, endurance, and especially intensity, and therefore, your results. Counting tempo's doesn't let you 'get in the zone' as well as you could if you focused only on moving the weight. And I sure didn't say anything about losing control, I agree that control is what is important on the eccentric. Explosive concentric, and controlled eccentric, however fast that may be, as long as the control is there. The control being there means you are really decelerating and resisting the force rather than just lowering the weight to get to the next rep. I don't think slowing the eccentric provides benefit, just tiring you out quicker and slowing your workout thereby lowering your workout intensity.
 
i also would love to hear why you believe a 2 second concentric is more beneficial than just beasting it as fast as you can =3
 
fellas...we talked about this already. In fact, it's a discussion going on in other threads. Nature vs nuture. nutrition vs weight training. Concentric vs eccentric.

It is never one versus the other, but a combination of both. I took from the video that no one ever concentrates of the eccentric phase...a phase that is equally as important as the concentric phase. Which has been the truth for as long as I can remember.

The tempo is taught to people who do not understand this, and as trainers, we are making sure that they are emphasizing on each type of contraction. I love the stroutman. He is pure in ever forum and journal he is a part of, but I'm sure he can appreciate that most athletes and recreational athletes are injured in the eccentric phase of a muscle contraction...and this is is trainable.
 
fitslug said:
Did you watch the video? Because I said no such thing. High reps give you one thing... and that's muscular endurance.

Which is why in gymnastics Ill have my athletes do their conditioning at very high reps. This whole thing about toning... and when people look toned.

Its simple really, when your body fat % is low and you have some muscle mass you look toned. When you have very low body fat % and you have a lot of muscle mass you look RIPPED.... Simply speaking of course.

When you lift a lower amount of weight you don't experience the same amount of micro-tears in your muscle fibers as you do when you lift some heavy s**t. So your muscles don't end up growing to be AS big... but they still get stronger and SLIGHTLY bigger because you're still applying resistance to which they have to adapt.

Wow that was a mouthful.

As for my focus on eccentric.. yeah one reason is 95% of the people don't focus on it enough and another reason is that eccentric resistance has been a major factor in mine and every one of my client's success. Just passing that little tip on to you guys.

Next time you work out with weights... try the following tempo. 2-1-3

First number represents the concentric phase
Second number represents the isometric phase
Third number represents the eccentric phase

Oh... and don't forget to chuck your ego out the door. You will not be able to do as many reps as you are used to but your end result will be much better.

No go pack on some muscles!

Cheers
Click to expand...

That's exactly what we did when I did gymnastics in the olden days, and we also worked out with weights and were told to concentrate on the eccentric :)

I can attest to the fact that it works.
 
Concentrating on the eccentric makes sense, at least to this newbie. I usually force myself to slow down on the way down, but I'll try counting and see how it works for me.
 
limestix said:
Tempo's are silly. Counting numbers in your head just wastes mental energy and ruins focus. The only thing you should be focusing on when under the weight, it moving the weight effectively. Explosive concentric, no pause, controlled eccentric.

Also, depending on the exercise, a fast eccentric can be very beneficial. Our muscles adapt and grow from different stresses; while we mostly focus on producing force, resisting force and deceleration are just as important. With a fast eccentric, we focus less on deceleration, which is what a slow eccentric focuses on, and instead we focus on resisting force. If you let the bar drop down fast on a bench press, you may not be doing a lot of deceleration, but as long as you stop it before it hits your chest, you are completely resisting the force which is equally as valuable, and if you are typically someone who does slow tempo work, it would be even more valuable.

It is a bit silly to blanket everyone saying one thing is better than another when it is always going to be on an individual basis, you know this as a PT//coach (assuming this is why you have clients).

Anyway I'm not trying to rag on you, just saying:

-give some reasoning for your advice (thanks for clarifying)
-toning is a myth (high reps do not prevent building muscle, it's all about diet)
-tempo's blow for building mass
Click to expand...

I agree that counting tempos can be a distraction. That's why a training partner could do it.

I've had great sucess with pausing at the bottom of the bench press to develop my power off the chest. Though, I don't count, I just pause for a while.

And about controlled concentric, it's pretty hard not to control it unless you are going explosively (thought I'm not quite sure what you mean here Malkore. Maybe you mean to go fast before the technique and stability is down. For example someone pushing all they've got on the bench press when the bar is swaying from side to side). If you lift heavy and as fast as you can, it's still not going to be so fast that the weight gets away from you. One thing though: A lot of people forget to deacelerate after a fast concentric. If I bench press explosively and I don't deaccelerate my shoulderblades will pop forward at the top which isn't a good thing since I want to keep them tucked in to be stable.

What is your view on Toning, Malkore? I think that it has become another word for cutting and "toned" is just "defined". I've usually stopped arguing semantics and now I just ask what they mean by "to tone" because different people mean different things by the word, which is a shame, because then the word becomes difficult to use and understand.
 
limestix said:
Tempo's are silly. Counting numbers in your head just wastes mental energy and ruins focus. The only thing you should be focusing on when under the weight, it moving the weight effectively. Explosive concentric, no pause, controlled eccentric.

Also, depending on the exercise, a fast eccentric can be very beneficial. Our muscles adapt and grow from different stresses; while we mostly focus on producing force, resisting force and deceleration are just as important. With a fast eccentric, we focus less on deceleration, which is what a slow eccentric focuses on, and instead we focus on resisting force. If you let the bar drop down fast on a bench press, you may not be doing a lot of deceleration, but as long as you stop it before it hits your chest, you are completely resisting the force which is equally as valuable, and if you are typically someone who does slow tempo work, it would be even more valuable.

It is a bit silly to blanket everyone saying one thing is better than another when it is always going to be on an individual basis, you know this as a PT//coach (assuming this is why you have clients).

Anyway I'm not trying to rag on you, just saying:

-give some reasoning for your advice (thanks for clarifying)
-toning is a myth (high reps do not prevent building muscle, it's all about diet)
-tempo's blow for building mass
Click to expand...

I agree that counting tempos can be a distraction. That's why a training partner could do it.

I've had great sucess with pausing at the bottom of the bench press to develop my power off the chest. Though, I don't count, I just pause for a while.

And about controlled concentric, it's pretty hard not to control it unless you are going explosively (thought I'm not quite sure what you mean here Malkore. Maybe you mean to go fast before the technique and stability is down. For example someone pushing all they've got on the bench press when the bar is swaying from side to side). If you lift heavy and as fast as you can, it's still not going to be so fast that the weight gets away from you. One thing though: A lot of people forget to deacelerate after a fast concentric. If I bench press explosively and I don't deaccelerate my shoulderblades will pop forward at the top which isn't a good thing since I want to keep them tucked in to be stable.

What is your view on Toning, Malkore? I think that it has become another word for cutting and "toned" is just "defined". I've usually stopped arguing semantics and now I just ask what they mean by "to tone" because different people mean different things by the word, which is a shame, because then the word becomes difficult to use and understand.
 
FunctionalTrain said:
The tempo is taught to people who do not understand this, and as trainers, we are making sure that they are emphasizing on each type of contraction. I love the stroutman. He is pure in ever forum and journal he is a part of, but I'm sure he can appreciate that most athletes and recreational athletes are injured in the eccentric phase of a muscle contraction...and this is is trainable.
Click to expand...

I would agree for the most part. My point is however, that in my opinion, it's not the primary issue to blame for lack of muscular development.
 
mreik said:
This thread feels doomed, lol..
Click to expand...

It was doomed the second I posted, Mreik ;)
 
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