Just wondering if it was in my head or not. Probably is. I switched and have only done 2 shots but today I feel like I’m buzzing/amped up. Not a bad feeling at all, in fact rather like it (unfortunately that is the ex druggy in me). May just be placebo though.
Whether it’s placebo or not, who cares – it’s making you feel better! I’ve never understood why people sweat that detail. If you feel good, it’s working 
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Crowdsourcing: favorite arm hypertrophy workouts? Gonna crush one at the local gym tomorrow morning.
Supersets tris and bi’s with reps 12-15, 3-4 sets with 3-4 different exercises and finishing with last set of last exercise triple dropset superset usually with cable pressdowns and cable curls
Thanks, brother! Here’s what I ended up doing…the pump was real! I couldn’t get through the whole workout though, had to start work and I was at 80 minutes before the final (giant) set. Talk about a long arm workout! Pipes were ready to burst 
Haha. Thats my main reason for doing it that way is the pump. Keeping rest between super sets around a min or shorter really takes it another level also.
Yeah dude, there’s something about a good pump in a douchey bro workout that takes me back to the early days of lifting, when I was 19 and no idea WTF I was doing (squats, deadlifts, OHPs? never)…great memories.
Only 5 days left in this 8-week challenge! Man, it’s flown by. I’ll be posting before/after stats/photos next week, but now I’m starting to think about next steps moving forward. Regarding training…
I think I need to lift less – not for scheduling reasons, but for my overall health and longevity. Particularly toward the end of this 8 weeks, I have been flirting with the line of overtraining, on the verge of injury. I’ve never even come close to this line before, but I can tell my body is ready to say “fuck you” and break down.
Though it’s great that I’m insanely psychologically driven to lift these days (God bless you, testosterone), I probably need to give my body more recovery. It’s very hard for me to accept this because it’s the exact opposite of what we see all around us in society and even in the gym – so much laziness, fuckarounditis, mental weakness, and excuses. But I’ve been averaging 80-90 minutes of hard lifting, 6 days a week – 4 heavy days, 2 hypertrophy days – in addition to roughly 15K steps a day.
Thoughts on what is an appropriate amount of training volume for my next phase? Recommendations on what type of programming to employ? Though my goal continues to be a gradual body recomp, I’m very open to suggestions here!
Keep in mind that I have more T in my body than the average guy, though I’m not on a steroid dose (200 mg). I was thinking 60 minutes, 4 days a week, with more active recovery (such as yoga or lighter forms of cardio) on the other days may be appropriate.
I would have a really hard time forcing myself to skip the weights!
I would suggest 2-3 exercises per group, 3-5 sets of 8-10 reps for each large muscle group. 3 sets of 12-15 reps for smaller muscle groups. You can hit each group as often as you like as long you give it 48 hrs between sessions.
Also, focus on lightening the weight and using time under tension to your advantage. Slooooow reps (2 secs per lift phase or greater pausing for a sec on each end) and get PERFECT form.
Thanks for the suggestion. So you think, on average, it’d be best to hit each group 2-3 times per week? To me, that denotes either a 6-day PPL split or a 3- or 4-day full-body split. Just trying to figure out the details as I plan things out
Man, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’ve never really focused on this previously, but Ben Pakulski talks about it often, as does Kai Greene. Based on their accounts – and these guys obviously know what they’re talking about! – the mind-muscle connection, light weight, and really getting your head “inside” the muscle group, is such a pivotal part of building mass. They don’t seem to care at all about what weights they’re using.
I think I may emphasize the 3-1-1 tempo (maybe even 4-2-2) in my next phase, though I know there’s debate about whether tempos matter at all for hypertrophy (see this video for a summary).
Everyday works best. It jsut makes sense. Gives body what it can handle. Less is better.
HCG only for fertility otherwise don’t add more moving parts. It’s easier to Dial in with less. Many men have issues with HCG. If it was where many love it we would probably all take it.
I usually run a 6 day ppl (personal preference) but either of those works. If your schedule permits and you like the “two a day” style, you could even run a 3 day morning/evening schedule and take off on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Strictly up to you as long as you give each group enough recovery time.
Without going into too much geeky shit, hypertrophy requires around 30-45 seconds of time under tension per set to properly tear down the muscle fibers. Powerlifting sets are great for increasing strength on the fast twitch muscle fibers, and you don’t want to ignore increasing strength on certain phases of your progression, but straight up building mass requires choosing a weight that pushes you to failure on each set, and putting the muscle under a heavy enough load for a long enough time to properly tear down the fibers without ripping, or otherwise injuring the tendons or causing debilitating trauma.
I have found that 8-10 reps with slow tempos put you right where you need to be, and it’s easier to dial in the weight. It should feel light on the first few reps, then almost impossible by the 10th rep.
If you get to 10 slow reps for all three sets, two workout sessions consecutively, it’s time to go up in weight.
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I dot his every other week with negatives.
Strength baby. Hold it up there for a second longer and reverse the moment super slow.
5 seconds.
God that shit makes you strong and lose calories as well
Great explanation of hypertrophy and time under tensions. Thanks for sharing that! Your knowledge is vast.
I was relistening to Dorian Yates on Joe Rogan earlier today. Yates was talking about how, even in his Mr. Olympia heyday, he lifted 4 days a week for 45 minutes at a time, but his intensity was so on-point that he felt like he was on the verge of death by the end of those workouts – incapable of doing any more. He said the marathon workouts are pointless and just don’t work as well. I also heard Chris Bumstead talk about this recently: how he used to do 90-minute chest workouts, but now does it in about half the time, and has seen better gains that way because he’s able to consciously channel more intensity during his working sets.
I’ve been debating whether I should shift more so to that type of training. Granted, Dorian was going pretty heavy, and I don’t want to end up with injuries, all broken down when I’m older like Ronnie Coleman. I also struggle to see how you could get enough volume in with 4 days a week at 45 minutes, but obviously Dorian made it work! He said he was heavily influenced by Arthur Jones (the one-set-to-failure guy) and Mike Mentzer (Heavy Duty).
The struggle for me is that I work out alone in my garage gym and don’t have a spotter, so that makes extreme heavy lifting very risky and probably impractical.
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Have you played with rest times? It can make a big difference as well. 30-45 second rests between sets are short enough to put you still on the same fibres, your body doesn’t have enough time to adapt to what you just did. Sounds like BS, but changing rest periods has an impact.
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Definitely not BS! Rest periods play a huge role. I’ve been working with 120 seconds for heavy workouts and 60 seconds for hypertrophy workouts, but will be switching the timing of these up as well.
Yes I have and you’re absolutely right. There’s a ton of ways to manipulate hypertrophy. I generally keep rest periods to less than 1 minute unless I’m going for strength training, then it’s 2 minutes or so.
The only exception for me is squats and deadlifts. I have asthma so I don’t even time the rest between those sets. I just wait until I can breathe again! lol
Lol! Lunges (especially DB split-stance, rear foot elevated) are what really gets me going. Heart pounds outta control!
For most of my training, it was straight up strength. However, certain things we mixed in 30 second rests for event specific reasons. But I know if it’s your goal, you can manipulate fibre types by adjusting rep schemes and rest schemes.
This will be an interesting variable to play with. I feel like I am finally learning how to add muscle mass (hormonal optimization is obviously huge in that equation), and I expect I’ll add plenty of it in the coming decades, given my relative youth (27) and love for training.
However, I aim to achieve that “dense” look (more like Dorian, though I’ll obviously never get close to that big) and not the “bubbly” inflated look, which I view as more effeminate. Tough to balance this with trying to avoid injuries and pain in the long-term.