Trick to bring up lagging muscles. Lift them frequently and different rep ranges. Have you been trying to get a specific muscle to grow and you can’t seem to get it to?
1. Make sure you can feel the muscle work. Without making the mind to muscle connection, you’re playing the lottery. Some exercises you may not feel it working until you are using higher rep ranges. Another tip would be to stretch the ANTAGONISTIC muscle group. If your biceps are tight, you may not feel your triceps fire as hard. This is called reciprocal inhibition. Sometimes if the opposing muscle is super tight( in this case the biceps), it prevents the muscle you’re trying to work from working to its full capacity(the triceps). Its like trying to use a muscle when its in a stretched position. If you try to flex your tricep while flexing your bicep it just doesn’t work!
2. Use different rep ranges. The reason for this is because muscle rep ranges aren’t necessarily a 1 size fits all thing. Some respond better with higher rep ranges due to what they’re used for. For posterior delts, I have even used sets of 100. It will definitely make them grow. Time under tension is an awesome tool, use it!
Type 2 fibers fire for less than one minute, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they stop firing after 6-10 reps, do different rep ranges period! Overload a muscle to make it grow, forget about a perfect rep range, it doesn’t exist.
3. Lift the muscle group frequently. Lifting something one time a week and having expectations for it to grow to its full capacity is just insanity. While lifting other body parts, the muscles that you want to grow may be working synergistically (together with other muscles), but it’s probably not enough. I would suggest hitting the body part 2 to 3 times a week and depending on the muscle group, spreading out 9-15 sets throughout the week with different rep ranges. This would be on top of your normal lifting routine. Do them at the beginning or end of your normal routine.
4. Stimulate don’t annihilate. If you’re hitting a muscle group you want to hit it just enough to tear down the muscle tissue to get it to grow. While annihilation to the point of serious DOMS may help the mind to muscle connection, it’s not going to contribute to the best growth.
5. Hit the muscle group frequently until it feels like it’s getting smaller and weaker, then take a break. I like to hit the muscle group I want to bring up for a solid month to 6 weeks every other day , then have it resume back to normal after. You’re trying to accumulate some fatigue in the muscle group and then give it rest to allow super compensation to happen.
6.Stretch the muscle after your workout. While the muscle is filled with blood, it is taking up more room in that area than when its not being worked, if you stretch it in this state, it allows for more room to grow! Plain, simple and effective!
7.When you’re done with the first muscle group, pick another one to focus on. We all know once you get to your goal , you always need to set a different one. Pick another body part to bring up! It’s like building a perfect house, it doesn’t happen overnight, it happens brick by brick!
If its not growing , follow this question protocol. Nothing changes, if nothing changes….
good luck!
Recent Comments