This article, in just 4 words, contains the best tip you’ll ever hear for building muscle.

You ready for it?

And when I tell you, will you put it into practice?

I hope so.

Here it is. Just 4 words…

 

 

4 WORDS: MAKE YOUR MUSCLES WORK

 

What I mean is that for each and every rep, in each and every set, it is the INTENDED MUSCLE that should be worked…and worked intensely.

“Yeah Mark, I get it”, I hear you say.

Really?

Are you REALLY doing this?

Because if you’re not, there’s no need to go looking for new exotic workout techniques. Your lack of size gains is due to an obvious cause: the intended muscle in every set is not being worked thoroughly.

So what exactly do I mean?

Let’s take the example of lying cable curls. Here’s a video of me performing this movement. Also, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

 

 

The goal of any effective exercise is to recruit the maximum number of muscle fibers in the intended muscle and ensure constant tension.

If we can do this, we can maximally stimulate growth in the intended muscle.

 

WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO

 

So here’s what I want you to do: During your next workout, for every single set, close your eyes and focus your mental attention on the muscle being worked (the biceps in the above example). Really concentrate on making it work.

Get a good full range of motion and contraction at the top. Then take that set, with this level of focus, to positive failure between 8 and 12 reps.

Positive failure simply means the last positive/lifting part of a rep you can complete with a full range of motion.

And there you go! You’ve just completed a growth-stimulating set!

 

If you have to lower the weight to do this, so be it. This is not above lifting the heaviest numbers. It’s about muscle stimulation.

I’ve said before in previous articles that people who train mostly for growth/aesthetics, should replace the word “bodybuilding” or “weight lifting” with “muscle stimulation”.

If every time you entered the gym, you told yourself you were going there to stimulate muscle fibers to grow, you would train differently and your results would improve.

You would recruit more muscle fibers, create more metabolic stress, generate more micro-tears to individual muscle fibers and as a result…produce more growth stimulation. It really is that simple!

 

THE “NUMBERS GAME WILL RUIN YOU

 

I’ll finish this with 2 quotes. 1 from Kai Greene and one from Rich Piana. These are taken from my article, “Feel the Muscle, not the Weight“.

Fitst, from Kai…

“Your primary goal is not to lift weights, you’re not a weight lifter…for the people out there who don’t know the difference, a bodybuilder is primarily concerned with contracting his muscles. He contracts his muscles against greater and greater resistance [over time] and by doing that he is able stimulate hypertrophy [growth]. A ‘weight lifter’ is just concerned about moving weight so he can boast to you about how much he curls, how much he benches…”

Another great quote on this issue is by Rich Piana. He said:

“Numbers will ruin you if you get caught up in the number game. All that matters is how you execute the exercise – squeezing, stretching, getting a good pump.”

Then talking about a guy doing heavy bench presses for low reps, he goes on to say,

“You feel good. You’re like ‘yeah’. But as far as chest development? You haven’t done a damn thing. You got nothing accomplished, nothing! Waste of time.”

It’s true. I know so-called “strength trainers” (and I’m sure you’ve seen some on the web) who’ve been training for over a decade…with very little to show for it. They look like someone who’s been training for a few months. All those years and they got nothing accomplished!

I’ll finished with this…

The numbers are important in so far as your personal numbers should be incrementally increasing over the years.

But HEAVY ASS weights for low reps where you feel ZERO tension on the intended muscle are useless for building muscle. You’re wasting your time and getting nowhere…and you’ll probably end up injured.

Build your muscles, not your ego.

 

START BUILDING MUSCLE WITH T.H.T. TRAINING – IT’S FREE

 

Now you know how to do your sets correctly, it’s time to put it all into one free training package and really start building muscle. Download Targeted Hypertrophy Training and start growing like all these guys.  It’s 100% free. No catches…

NOTE: You don’t have to go to your email to confirm anything. Once you click the button, you’ll be taken straight to the download page 😀 I operate a ‘Strictly Zero Spam‘ policy.

 

Train With Intensity (I mean it!)

Mark

P.S. Would you like a bigger chest? Given what you’ve just read above, if you’re not afraid to train intensely, I have put together a “hyper-intense” Chest Blast that saw my “lab rats” gain up to 3 inches on their chest in over 7 days. Get more details here.