Change Up Your Boring Workout to Promote New Muscle Growth
For many people, this article will be a “duh” feature. However, I think we all fall into a routine at the gym and some people forget about different workout techniques to help stimulate the muscle and promote new muscle growth. Many people get stuck doing three sets of 10 reps and then after they reach 10, they put the weight down (even if they haven’t fully exhausted the muscle being worked).
To get the most of out each workout, you need to fully stimulate and break down those muscle fibers to create change. If you are simply going through the motions and just putting in the time without the effort, you aren’t going to see much change in your physique at all or even any further muscle growth.
If you are fairly new to fitness, some of these techniques mentioned below you might have never heard of before. So, in an effort to help people of all fitness and strength levels, here are some tried and true training methods to break down muscle fibers in order to rebuild them and make them stronger and bigger. It’s time to get your swole on!
*Note: you don’t need to use this with every exercise you plan on hitting at the gym, you can pick and choose one or two exercises per workout.
1. Drop Sets
When it comes to hitting those deep muscle fibers, introducing drop sets into your program might be the ticket in helping you achieve new muscle growth. The concept is simple and while the process would be sped up with a training partner, you can have a go at this on your own.
In order to utilize this technique, all you would need to do is load up the bar or machine with a weight. For instance, let’s say you are doing 225 on the bench. After you finish your set, strip off a 45 from each side so you are left with 135 and immediate rep out as many as you can without resting. This would count as one complete set.
You can utilize this technique on a machine as well. Simply set the pin at your usual weight and after you complete your set, move the pin up (to lighten the weight) and rep out as many as you can. You could even take it one step further by creating multiple drop sets where after your first is complete, you lower the weight again and continue pushing out reps until failure.
2. Forced Reps
For this technique, it is best to have a partner assist you with the movement and here’s why. Forced reps are additional repetitions that follow muscular exhaustion and failure. How you utilize this method is by having your training partner aid you in additional reps after you would have normally ended your set. For instance, if you are benching and on the 10th rep is where you fail, your partner would come in to help you push a couple extra reps out by aiding in the movement. Your training partner would have a hold of the bar and help pull it up off your chest to fire every last muscle fiber in your pecs to promote massive muscle growth.
3. Eccentric Concentration
Too many times at the gym I see people swinging the weights up and down on movements such as the biceps curls. You won’t see much muscle growth from them at all. They use momentum to get the weight up and then allow gravity to simply drop the weight back down to the individual’s side. This is not only a great way to never see the results you want, but it also can cause injury. So, with eccentric concentration, you are focusing on the eccentric (when the muscle is elongating) portion of the movement.
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Using the biceps curl, this would be the portion where you slowly resist the weight on the way back down towards your side. You can use a 1-2 second concentric part of the movement and then the eccentric is where you want to resist the weight for around 4-5 seconds on the way down. Keep in mind, if you were using something like 30-pound dumbbells for your biceps curls, you’re going to probably need to lower the weight slightly to allow for a controlled eccentric motion. If you use your normal weight, you might end up only resisting down on the eccentric portion for 2-3 seconds due to the overload on the muscle.
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