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by Christian Thibaudeau | 12/16/14
Tags:
Bodybuilding
Powerlifting & Strength
Do these statements sound familiar? They should. And chances are, you
probably believe one of them.
But what if this belief was actually holding back your muscle gains and
strength development? What if you could progress faster by disregarding
this belief?
A "New" Way
Olympic lifters snatch, clean & jerk, and squat pretty much every day.
Top CrossFit athletes hit the whole body daily to some extent. Russian
powerlifters do the bench, deadlift, and squat multiple times per week.
In short, it's simplistic to believe in the "train, rest the muscle for 72-96
hours, train again" model.
Here's what I've found. When I hit the same muscle group two days in a
row, I would always feel a much better contraction on the second day
and get a better pump. Afterwards, the muscle stayed pumped-looking
for a lot longer. But if I did a third day in a row for the same muscle I'd
feel flat.
A few years ago I got to work with bodybuilder Daryl Gee, preparing him
for the Mr. Olympia. Daryl needed to bring his back up, and fast.
I had Daryl hit the back super hard on day one. The very next day I
"broke the rules" and had him begin his workout by again training his
back, only this time with light "pump work."
The results shocked me! I started using that approach for all the major
muscles: heavier work for the big compound exercises on day one, then
15-20 minutes of pump work for that same muscle the next day.
Since then, I've tested this system on myself and many of my athletes
and bodybuilders. There's no question: the system works.
3 Reasons Why It Works
There are three main advantages to doing a second bout of resistance
training 24-36 hours after the first stimulation.
Simply put, after a training session, protein synthesis and breakdown are
both elevated. For the first four hours, protein breakdown can be
elevated more than synthesis. But for the rest of the duration, synthesis
becomes higher up to 24 hours and returns to normal within 24-36 hours
of the first stimulation.
The caveat here is that it only works optimally when proper workout
nutrition is used. And if you do the right kind of workout along with good
workout nutrition, protein degradation will be low to non-existent,
resulting in a lot more protein synthesis. That means muscle gain.
The more nutrients you shuttle to the muscles involved in the first
workout, the more they'll grow. Not to mention that a boost in amino acid
uptake will itself increase protein synthesis.
2 – Enhanced Feedback
If you train a muscle again while it's in this state of increased awareness,
you'll feel that muscle to a much greater extent. This can be a very
useful for those who have a harder time contracting a specific muscle.
For example, if you don't recruit your pectorals as well as your triceps or
deltoids when bench pressing, doing isolated pectoral work the day after
you bench press can help you improve your mind-muscle connection
with that muscle.
Remember that if you can't feel a muscle properly when lifting, you likely
aren't stimulating it optimally. So investing in improving your mind-
muscle connection with a lagging muscle is very important for your future
gains.
The day after being stimulated with heavy work, a muscle is more
responsive to training.
However, if you train that muscle with less traumatic training methods –
lighter weights, focusing on the quality of the contraction and on muscle
fatigue/pump instead of performance – you will actually get a better
response than you would if you did the same work with a completely
fresh muscle.
For example, let's say that you bench pressed heavy on Monday and
found that you could blast the weight off your chest but grinded the
lockout. Using this method, the next day you'd perform bodybuilding-type
work for the triceps to start your workout.
By the same token, if you're focused more on building muscle mass and
you have a lagging muscle group, train it two days in a row. In the first
(harder) session do your regular workout. Start the next day's workout by
doing 10-15 minutes of isolation pump-style work for the lagging muscle.
How to Put the Double Stimulation Method to Work
You can use this approach for three main purposes:
This is the application to use if you want to increase the gains you get
from your main workouts. It requires that you split your training into
synergist groups:
Note that you could take days off during the week. If you do, don't do the
pump work at the beginning of the workout. You have to do it within 24-
36 hours of the main session.
Low intensity pump work should be just that. The goal is not to kill
yourself or go balls out. Save that for your main workout.
It's simply to drive more nutrient-rich blood into the muscles worked the
previous day. You also want to keep this first part of your workout under
15 minutes.
If you're using this first approach, it means that you'll need to pump all
the muscles trained the previous day. Since you must do this in less than
15 minutes I suggest doing it as a circuit with one exercise for each of
the muscles trained the day before.
If you do 8-12 reps with the constant tension method, it means that each
set should last at least 30 seconds and up to 50 seconds.
This is an easier approach to plan since you'll only do the feeder workout
in one or two sessions a week. It'll be easier to include rest days and will
allow you more leeway in selecting your training split.
It's fairly simple. First, choose one or two stubborn muscle groups in a
training cycle. Then, every time you train one of these muscle groups, do
a second stimulation session 24-36 hours later.
Since you're only doing one muscle group in your stim session, you don't
have to do a circuit. In 15 minutes you can do two exercises using either
straight sets of 8-12 reps with the constant tension rep style, or intensity
techniques like drop sets, rest-pause, partials, etc.
Your focus here isn't so much on a muscle that's visually smaller than
the others, but one that's a weak link in a big compound movement. For
example, your triceps could be your weak muscle in the bench press, or
weak glutes could be a limiting factor in the deadlift.
Every time you perform a big lift, ask yourself which muscle is the
weakest of the prime movers. Now, begin the next day's workout with
isolation work for that muscle.
Since our goal is to develop strength and not necessarily size, we use
slightly different loading parameters to correct the weakness: