Here are the methods that are 99% likely to take your muscle growth to the next level. Take it and use it! The more the athlete progresses, the harder it will be in the future. All athletes know the plateau state, in which the muscles do not want to grow, and the strength indicators do not increase. Today we will look at techniques for increasing bodybuilding progress. They are all proven to be effective and used by many athletes.
Forced repetitions to increase progress
This technique is one of the most powerful and allows you to quickly overcome the plateau state. It is difficult to say now who was the pioneer when doing forced reps, but it doesn't really matter. What is important for us is the fact that the technique works and is very effective.
Failure training is very popular in bodybuilding, as it allows you to effectively achieve muscle hypertrophy. Everyone knows that this is the main goal for a bodybuilder. Muscle failure is a condition where the athlete is no longer able to perform the repetition on their own.
However, this does not mean at all that the muscles are unable to continue working. They cannot just lift the same weight. From this we can conclude that some of the fibers of the muscle tissue are not yet tired, and they need to be used in work.
It is quite simple to do this, and your belaying comrade needs to take on part of the weight of the sports equipment, thereby somewhat reducing its weight. You can then perform a few more repetitions.
Mike Mentzer was the first to use forced repetitions in his training. Then he created his own training system, which was based on this method.
Many people know the name of Dorian Yates, who became the winner of Olympia six times. This athlete began to use the Mentzer system, which, by the way, is called Heavy Duty. After that, forced repetitions became a very popular means of achieving progress among athletes. The use of forced repetitions is justified for gaining muscle mass and increasing strength indicators. When working on terrain, it is ineffective. Also an important nuance of the technique is the need to use a weight close to the maximum. This allows you to effectively develop not only muscles, but also the central nervous system. In addition, this technique can be used to train almost all muscles in the body. You should not use forced reps only when training your back, for example, in T-bar rows or bent-over dumbbell rows, as this significantly increases the risk of injury.
But there are still some limitations to the use of forced reps. This technique should not be used by novice athletes. There are several explanations for this:
- At the initial stage of training, the muscles of beginners already grow well.
- They need to focus on the technical side of all exercises.
- It will be enough to work on failure to progress.
Also, when using forced reps, you will need a belaying companion. Of course, in some exercises, you can do without outside help, but you need to remember about the possibility of injury.
And the last negative point when using this technique is a large load on the cardiovascular system. If you are not prepared enough, it is very easy to overtrain when using forced reps.
Even experienced athletes keep this in mind and do not use forced reps all the time. It is quite enough to use this medoka once or at most twice a week.
Negative repetitions will increase progress
This technique is no less effective in comparison with the previous one. The principle of negative training is that the athlete lifts the sports equipment with the help of a belaying friend, and lowers it independently. Scientists have established in the course of numerous studies that muscles are capable of lowering significantly more weight than lifting. This fact is used in negative training.
For the growth of muscles and strength indicators, the execution of movements in the negative phase is more effective than in the positive. In this regard, it should be said that this principle is partially used in the technique of forced repetitions, which we talked about above.
It should be noted that forced repetitions are still used a little more often in comparison with negative training. This is primarily due to the need for an insuring comrade. Negative training should not be used by novice athletes.
Increasing progress with the "rest-pause" method
No less effective technique for gaining muscle mass and strength indicators than those described above. It is well known that a small number of repetitions from 1 to 3 is very effective for gaining mass, but not so well for muscle growth. But the situation will change radically if you perform several sets of 2 or 3 reps with minimal pauses between approaches.
This will increase strength indicators and achieve muscle hypertrophy, since as a result you will perform about 7-10 repetitions. It should also be noted that this technique is very well suited for the development of pushing muscles such as the quads, shoulder girdle and triceps.
Of course, when using the rest-pause technique, you should also use it infrequently. As in the case of forced repetitions, a couple of times a week is enough. This is a high-intensity method and if you use it frequently, you will simply overtrain. It should also be noted that although it is recommended to use a lot of weight, it is very difficult, say, to squeeze the bar to failure, and then repeat the set after 15 or 20 seconds of rest. If the working weight is reduced, then this will be quite achievable.
You can visually familiarize yourself with the techniques for increasing progress in bodybuilding in this video:
