All methods are known, but not all the effects for gaining muscle mass. Pre-fatigue for local muscle growth. The essence of this technique consists in preliminary fatigue of the target muscle or group with the help of an isolated movement. This is followed by a quick transition to the basic exercise. Let's say an athlete performs crossovers, focusing all attention on the pectoral muscles, after which he immediately begins to perform a bench press in a prone position with a large working weight.
In theory, the pre-fatigue method in bodybuilding looks great, but in practice it is a little more complicated. This technique works best when training a muscle group that is strong enough, and it is very difficult to develop it only with the help of basic movements. It is very bad when no exercise can be accentuated in a certain place.
One of the options for pre-fatigue is the double split. This training method consists in loading the muscle group after preliminary fatigue. According to the available practical experience, the maximum effect when using this method can be achieved when training the same group during one session. True, it should be noted that in this case, the stronger group will respond better to the load.
The essence of the pre-fatigue method
Exercise is able to stimulate fiber growth only when, under its influence, the biological factors necessary for cell growth are formed. First of all, this is the accumulation of creatine and hydrogen ions in tissues, as well as a high anabolic background created by hormones.
The first group of factors can be caused by physical activity, and the second is indirect. Muscle tension in a simple sense does not mean muscle growth. Otherwise, every person whose activity is associated with lifting weights would resemble a bodybuilder in his figure.
It is very important that at the same time the conditions for the growth of muscle tissue are created. This should be understood as a certain intensity of training and its duration until the onset of muscle failure. At the same time, it is important to find a middle ground in these indicators, since if they are small, then there will be no growth. At high and prolonged intensity, the athlete will simply fall into a state of overtraining.
As we said above, the pre-fatigue method in bodybuilding is to perform an isolating movement and then a basic one. Today there are two schemes for applying this technique:
- Performing several approaches of one movement (isolated) and quickly transitioning to the second (basic) movement also in several approaches.
- One set of isolated movement is performed and a quick transition to the set in the second exercise.
It is important that the load when performing two movements is focused on one muscle (group). Let's say calf extensions and squats develop quadriceps. Note that back in the seventies of the last century, the second scheme began to be actively used. This is due to the fact that when using it, you can significantly reduce the lesson time. Thus, we will now talk about the second scheme.
Let's take quadriceps training as an example. The basic exercise for developing this muscle is the squat. It allows you to use a large number of muscles. Everyone knows that in order to achieve hypertrophy of muscle fibers, it is necessary to work towards failure. This phenomenon is due to the lack of reserves of creatine, which is consumed during training. Also, a large amount of hydrogen ions accumulates in the tissues. As we said above, these factors are necessary for the creation of the myofibril, which is muscle growth.
When an athlete performs squats with a large working weight, then anaerobic glycolysis reactions begin to occur in the muscles involved, accompanied by the release of lactic acid. Each new repeat leads to the consumption of creatine phosphate, which donates its phosphate group for the synthesis of ATP molecules.
As a result, free creatine and lactic acid accumulate in the muscle tissues. The higher the training intensity, the more creatine phosphate is consumed and lactic acid is synthesized. Moreover, these processes proceed at different rates in each individual muscle. These processes are least active in the quadriceps.
It is to strengthen them in this muscle that the method of preliminary fatigue in bodybuilding is used, thanks to the implementation of an isolated movement. When doing leg curls before squats, the quadriceps fatigue and its strength potential drops significantly. This makes it possible, when performing a basic exercise, to achieve its failure before other muscles participating in squats.
At the same time, you should reduce the weight of the sports equipment, since the muscles will already be fatigued after performing leg curls. Simply put, the quadriceps will not have time to recover before doing the basic exercise. If you do squats in this situation, then more lactic acid and free creatine will accumulate in the quadriceps. All these factors will ensure the achievement of quadriceps fiber hypertrophy.
If it is important to acidify the muscles as much as possible when training legs, then during pumping of the chest and shoulder girdle, this can lead to catabolic processes. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the pre-fatigue method in bodybuilding with caution.
Also, this training system has another negative feature for "natural" athletes. Since there is a need to reduce working weight, the rate of synthesis of anabolic hormones will also decrease, since the stress will be less. For athletes using AAS, this is not of fundamental importance, since the anabolic background in their body is already high enough.
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