Advanced Hypertrophy Techniques 52/84

When a person first starts to try and gain muscle, they can start to put on some size relatively fast. Being new to lifting, your body starts to freak out and adapt super quickly to the stimulus that you're giving it. Anyone who has every tried to get big before has probably experienced this and it's pretty great. You start to see differences really quick and it feels awesome. But, obviously, these quick gains aren't going to last forever and eventually it can even become pretty hard to add even half of what you have already. Honestly, at this point you should heavily consider doing a maintenance phase and then starting over again. It's also probably time to switch up your program and let your body start to get a different stimulus. When you do this, there are a few advanced techniques you can use to break through some of these barriers and start adding muscle again.

Note: These are called advanced for a reason. You have no business trying these unless you have already been lifting hard for a couple years. Yes, you will see other people doing them but that doesn't mean that they are right.

Here are a few things you can try if you feel like you're ready.

Drop Sets

I would hope most people have heard of drop sets by now. They are very popular in the bodybuilding world because they make you look hardcore and they can hurt pretty bad. To do a drop set; pick a weight that you can do for 8-10 reps and do as many as you can under good technique, drop the weight by about 10% and do as many as you can again, then drop one more time and rep to failure. This technique will give you a huge pump and can spark some new growth.

High Rep Sets

Tom Platz is famous for having the best legs in bodybuilding. He is also famous for squatting 225 for 2 minutes straight. High rep sets can be another growth igniter if you use them right. Don't get stuck in the old myth that high reps are only for muscular endurance or toning. The super high time under tension can do some serious damage and create new growth and researchers have seen hypertrophy in sets as high as 100 reps.

Finishers/ Burn Out Sets

This is ending your lift with one all out set to failure on whatever exercise you're doing. Like most of these, you'll want to save this for the end of your workout and give it everything you've got. You can even force or cheat a few more reps out to get every last bit of energy used up.

Technical drop sets

A good example of this would be using a bicep curl and a row. Let's say you're finishing your pulling day with some EZ Bar curls. On your last set you rep to failure then immediately drop down and start doing rows with the same bar. You're basically going from a weaker exercise to a stronger exercise to squeeze whatever you can out of your biceps. You're last and shoulders will take some of the work but your biceps will continue to get fried.

Eccentrics/ Negatives

This one is my favorite and is the one that you don't need to be super advanced to use. I often program slow eccentrics in workouts for my clients who want to get bigger and/or stronger because it can be amazing for both. The eccentric, or lowering portion of the movement, is where almost all of the tissue damage occurs. And when the tissue gets damaged, it must rebuild itself and usually comes back bigger and stronger. For most people who want to get big, I recommend a 2 second eccentric on just about every exercise they do. Sometimes, based on what phase were in, that number can go up to 5 or even 10 seconds if I'm feeling particularly snarky.

I just want to reiterate, outside of the eccentrics you should have a lot of experience with lifting already before you even consider trying these. Most people have no business training to failure on any exercise and even if you do try these you should only do them for a short time. They are meant to spark growth and break plateaus, not become a regular part of your training.