Muscle Science: Part II
A closer look at the science of building muscle.
In this edition of Momentum you’ll learn how to choose the best exercises for muscle growth and what technique to use to optimize muscle gains. If you missed Muscle Science: Part I be sure to read it here.
Over the years a combination of practical experience from bodybuilders in the gym and published research has shown us has a few things.
The first is that many, many roads lead to Rome.
That is, if Rome was a muscular physique.
The second is that while you can get results in a variety of ways, some of those ways may produce better or faster results.
So, while many roads lead to Rome there may be some roads that are faster and more efficient and some that have pot holes and detours.
Research has demonstrated the value in training the target muscle through a full range of motion that emphasizes the stretched or lengthened position and has a controlled eccentric portion of the lift.
A well designed hypertrophy program will optimize exercise selection and emphasize a bodybuilding centric technique.
Let’s look at these two training variables and give some guidelines to make sure you aren’t leaving any gains on the table.
Appropriate Exercise Selection
Get better results by picking better exercises.
Any great hypertrophy exercise will have the following things in common:
It targets the muscle through its full range of motion
It is easy to progressively overload over the long term
It is limited primarily by the strength of the muscle involved
It doesn’t cause excess joint pain (this part is highly individual)
Let’s go through a few examples to illustrate this checklist in action.
A push-up is not a great choice for muscle growth purposes of the chest. If you’re a complete novice you will make some gains for a little while but they will be short lived.
A push-up does not allow for full range of motion of the pecs because your chest or abdomen hitting the ground stops the motion short as opposed to hitting the end range, stretched position for that muscle.
One way to make the push-up a better chest hypertrophy exercise is to do deficit push-ups to increase the range of motion. This helps a little, but still leaves the push-up with other problems.
It isn’t easy to progressively overload over the long term. Sure you can add reps if you’re new to push-ups, but after a certain amount of time you can’t just keep adding reps and expect to make gains in an efficient manner. You could add load with plates on the back or with a weighted vest but these are limiting in that the weighted vest is a fixed load and plates on the back gets cumbersome.
Let’s say you’re doing deficit weighted push-ups. Great hypertrophy exercise, yes? It’s better than unweighted flat pushups sure, but a push-up may be limited by your core strength and ability to hold a strong plank position, not just by your chest muscles. We want to choose exercises that are limited primarily by the target muscle and nothing else.
Finally, and this part is highly individualized, it may cause unnecessary joint stress. If you get severe wrist pain doing push-ups then why are you using this exercise when you can pick 100 other exercises to get great, and better chest gains with without hurting your wrists.
A much better exercise for chest hypertrophy would be a plate loaded chest press machine.
Using this exercise, you can set up the machine to get a really big stretch on the pecs using the fullest range of motion possible. You can continuously overload the muscles by using more load or reps or a combination of the two in a very simple manner. Finally, there is no balance or coordination needed here so the movement is truly limited by the strength of the target muscle, the chest.
Here is another example specific to me:
A hack squat is a better choice than a barbell back squat for quad hypertrophy for me. I have a history of severe shoulder injuries. I can do back squats, but the rack position causes a lot of discomfort in my shoulders when I do them too often. So, why bang up my shoulders to train my quads and glutes? A hack squat allows me to hammer my legs without any discomfort to my shoulders. As an added bonus for the sake of muscle building, it doesn’t take into account the lower back or core strength needed to perform barbell squats. So, my ability to push heavy weights or high reps on hack squats are limited only by my quad and glute strength, not my core or lower back strength and not by my achy shoulders.
Here is an example specific to everyone:
A barbell RDL is a better choice for hypertrophy than a conventional deadlift. The conventional deadlift places no muscle under isolation and places no muscle through a large range of motion meaning no muscle is placed under a stretch. A barbell RDL targets the hamstrings and glutes through a large range of motion and gets them into their most stretched position making it a much more ideal exercise for muscle growth of the hams and glutes.
So, each exercise you use for muscle gain should fit the above criteria to be considered a great muscle building exercise. I’ll say them again… the exercise should:
Target the muscle through a large and complete range of motion
Be easy to progressively overload over the long term
Be limited only by the strength of the muscle involved
Not cause excess joint pain (this part is highly individual)
Want to learn how to choose the best exercises for you for goals other than muscle building? Read this.
Bodybuilding Technique
Get better results by using a bodybuilding centric technique.
Okay so we’ve picked great exercises, now how do we do them to get the best results? A bodybuilding technique will emphasize the stretched, or lengthened, position and utilize a very controlled eccentric.
Using the plate loaded chest press example from above, the stretched, or lengthened, position is when the hands are all the way back down near the chest and you feel a big stretch in the pec muscles. It is important that you get as deep into that stretch as you can on most exercises.
For squats of any kind, get as low as you can.
For RDLs, use smaller plates or stand on blocks to get the biggest range of motion you can.
For lat pulldowns reach as high up as you can on every single rep.
Get into a big stretch on every single rep and you’ll reap the muscle building benefits. If you don’t fear pain then try adding a pause in the stretch on every rep. Woof.
Want more of a reason to use full range of motion? As a bonus, you will also increase flexibility. Strength training through a large range of motion creates just as much improvement in flexibility as stretching.
In addition to pausing in the stretch position you should work as best as you can to control the eccentric portion of the lift.
The eccentric is the slow, lowering portion of any exercise. For squats it is the descent to the bottom, for bench presses it is the lowering of the bar to the chest, for lat pulldowns it is letting the arms drift back up to the straight position.
Research suggests that the eccentric should be between 2-4 seconds on every single rep. On upper body movements that naturally have a shorter ROM like curls or pushdowns 1-2 seconds is okay.
Take a look at this set of Face Away Cable Bicep Curls aka my favorite biceps exercise.
I control the eccentric on every rep and pause in the stretch.
Will this make you use less weight? Yes.
Will this yield better long term gains in muscle? Yes.
Will this make your sets harder and take longer? That’s what she said.
Will using less load in a more controlled manner through a complete range of motion reduce the risk of injury? Also yes.
Putting it All Together
To optimize muscle building choose exercises that train the target muscle through a large range of motion, are limited by the strength of the target muscle, and don’t cause excess joint stress. Use a controlled eccentric, between 2-4 seconds, and a pause in the stretched position on every single rep.
This is exactly the type of training we apply to the muscle building work in the BREAKING GAINZ FOREVER program.
Questions about building muscle? Leave them in the comments below.