Byron Knows Best - FT4- Build Muscle Fast

Building muscle is one of the most heavily talked about topics on fitness posts online and everyone is looking for the magic formula to inflate those biceps. But, what us trainers see all too often is the same people coming into the gym and repeating the same workouts, with the same weight, same reps, same sets, having a good natter with friends and then off for a shower. Just because you have been in the gym for an hour doesn’t mean automatic results. Too many people amble around the free weights either chatting or playing on their phone - if you want to build muscle, you have to earn it! Nearly every muscle building client I’ve ever had skips the number one rule for gaining lean muscle – progressive overload.

Overload basically means to increase the stress on the muscle and central nervous system with every single workout forcing an adaptive response and growth. Unless you’re working hard - you’re not growing! Put simply our bodies respond to new stresses, and most of the workouts trainers see in the gym aren’t intense enough to inspire change. Think about it, if you push a muscle or a group of muscles to the limit and you can lift 50 kilos for ten reps, why would the muscle grow if your lifting anything less than this? They simply don’t need to.  There are several ways to achieve overload. I’ll outline a few examples below. You should be including at least one of these methods during every workout if your goal is to pack on lean muscle…

Weight and Reps

Pretty obvious right?! The more weight a muscle can handle using good form, the higher the adaptive response. For example if you can bench press 60kg for 6 reps one week, aim for 65kg for the same amount of reps the next. Then slowly increase that weight further over time. Your body will simply not change if you continue to bench 60kg. To have the strength to lift an uncomfortable weight for reps is a sure fire way to bulk up those guns.

Time Under Tension

This is a vastly overlooked and yet very effective training method for building muscle quickly. Time under tension is the length of time a muscle is under load. While performing straight reps, the average tempo (or cadence) is one second up, then one second down. Therefore, a set of 8 reps lasts 16 seconds. Slowing down the reps eliminates momentum (swinging) from the lift and burns out every single muscle fibre. During a 16-20 second set you only work the slow twitch muscle, which fatigues very slowly. The intermediate and faster fatiguing fibres, which many believe are responsible for most growth, remain largely untouched. Simply slow down the reps to tap into the full energy available from the muscle, thus forcing the muscle to adapt and grow for the next workout.

Forced Negatives

There are three stages to every lift; 

• Positive stage (lifting up) where the muscle shortens.
• Isometric hold
• Negative stage (lowering down) where the muscle lengthens

Physiologically are muscles are around 40% stronger during the negative phase of a lift than the positive. That’s why pushing the bar away from you when performing a bench press requires so much more effort than lowering it back down. A simple way to get the most out of an exercise is to work towards failure (where you can’t perform one more rep) then continue the set only performing the negative portion of the lift. Pull ups are a good example - Pull yourself up then lower yourself down to failure, then jump up, bypassing the positive phase of the lift, and let yourself down slowly. You may need a spotter, but this technique can be used for any exercise. 

Rest Pause

Now be warned, this  method will show you just how hard, hard work really is! The idea of rest pause is to take you well beyond failure. The theory behind it is simple, the practise is anything but. Simply perform a controlled exercise, using good form, to failure, then take a 5-8 second break and squeeze out another few reps. Then take another 5-8 seconds and do another. When you can’t perform another rep using proper form the set is over. Using methods such as this to overload the muscles beyond their usual capabilities has been proven to break more muscle tissue down, forcing your muscle and central nervous system to adapt to take the increased work load you ask of it.

These are just a few examples on how progressive overload will help squeeze the most out of every workout. Don’t make the mistake of going to the gym just to socialise. If you want to grow, leave your phone in your locker and get to work!

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