Advanced Rest-Pause for Arm Hypertrophy

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

Hey CT,
If implementing an arm day 1 x a week to focus on bring arms up, if using ‘Advanced Rest-Pause Training for Bodybuilders’ protocols from the article Forced Growth: A New Way to Build Muscle my questions are:

  1. How much volume should you use per muscle (biceps and triceps) using the rest-pause methods on this day? You mentioned in a past forum post that you wouldn’t do more than 6 rest-pause sets per muscle. Is this a good indicator?

  2. Do mechanical drop-sets have a similar response to hypertrophy to rest-pause drop-sets? Can they be implemented as well?

Im looking to focus on hitting arms just 1 x week now as ive read that biceps and triceps respond better to less frequency so looking to hit arms at the end of the week see how that goes.

Thanks again for the help,
PK

2

This is simply not true. Not that you’ve read it but that less frequency is good for arm hypertrophy (or any hypertrophy for that matter). If I may I would suggest something totally different.
It will differ depending on how you program your workouts over the course of a week. But it would benefit you to do a few sets every workout but alternating Triceps and biceps.
Example:
Monday: biceps
Tuesday: Triceps
and so on.
The real trick is in how you do it. You’ll want to do 2 prep sets of 8-10 reps, coming close to failure but not quite. Do a 3rd set that brings you to failure. Either ONE rest pause set OR ONE drop set. Only 3 sets total then call it a day. That will give superior results to an arm day.

Cheers

3

That is a lot. That is the upper limit. I would start with 3. Something like 3 exercises per muscle; 2 regular (non rest/pause) sets and one rest pause set per exercise.

1 Like
4

They work via a similar pathway. So the same volume rule apply. The total sets with an advanced method will be 3 per exercise (as explained above). You can do 2 of the 3 sets as rest/pause and 1 as the mechanical drop set or vice versa, for example.

5

Yes and no.

Physiologically speaking there is no reason why biceps/triceps would respond better to infrequent training, muscle is muscle.

HOWEVER since the biceps and triceps are hit indirectly when you are training back (biceps) and chest/shoulders (triceps) then they might still grow optimally from hitting them directly only once a week.

Is it me or do you only ask question about arms? Which is an amazingly mind-numbing subject for me.

6

Ok great, doing the 3 exercises was what I was keen to do…

For the 3 exercises for the regular sets leading into the rest-pause sets, are they done as warm up sets or till failure?
For example:
Set 1- regular set (warm up or till failure?)
Set 2- regular set (warm up or till failure?)n
Set 3- rest-pause set

Thanks

7

Ok cool I can put the mechanical drp-sets in as well…

Just so I get this right, you would use the same template as above, 3 sets per exercise, 2 regular and one mechanical drop-set or rest-pause set?

For the session either using mechinal drop-set on 2 exercises and rest-pause on 1 exercise or vice versa?

Thanks again

8

It is me, arms are a weakness of mine, just trying to find a method that works for me. I’ve been reading some Charles Poliquon articles and he suggests forearms and calves respond well to frequency while arms respond best to direct work 1 x every 5-7 days… So I’m interested to see how I go 1 x week as I feel I get a better contraction in arms the less frequent I directly train them…

Thank again
PK