MAXIMUM TENSION TRAINING

[pittbull]

MAXIMUM TENSION TRAINING

by Scott Mendelson, CMT, Certified Master Trainer




Do you desire Hulk-like muscle size or the power of a thousand glorious muscular Stallions straining mightily against 1000 reins?

Either way, wild Stallion or wild Hulk, they require different training. Let there be no doubt that achieving great muscle size is not the same as displaying great Stallion speed-strength. Otherwise, bodybuilders would both be built and move like the famous, movie-star racehorse, Seabiscuit.

Power is the ability to apply force over a distance per unit time. Strength is that ability to apply maximum force regardless of time. If you bench 600 pounds you are stronger than a guy who benches 400 pounds. By the same token, if you bench 600 pounds in 2 seconds and move it two feet, but if you later move that same 600 pounds that same 2 feet, but do so in just 1 second, man, you’ve become twice as powerful! You are the proverbial Kazmaier-Hulk-Stallion! Yes, the Kazmaier-Hulk-Stallion.

All that being so, it does not change physiological fact, to develop significant strength, power, muscle size, or combinations thereof, heavy weights are a prerequisite. No one develops great size or speed without ponderous iron. You’ll develop local muscle endurance, better coronary perfusion (with lower peripheral vascular resistance) without them, but neither of the aforementioned qualities.

HEAVY IS AS HEAVY GOES!

It takes heavy loads to hypertrophy muscle fiber cross section and, concomitantly, heavy weights require the highest motor unit activation.

To a great extent, training for strength facilitates muscle size. And indeed, much more so than does training strictly for power (speed-strength). But some bodybuilders, in their efforts to enter pump Heaven, have gone too far, going too high in their reps and not pushing the resistance to heavier failure. Fact is there’s not a bodybuilder who ever won the A, U or the O who did not push enormous weights, no matter what the bulk of their repetitions were (generally 8-15 reps).

Increasing strength builds muscle size through maximum tension overload. Increasing your average training weight in any exercise places greater tension on the muscle moving said load. Now, you might not be aware, but it’s generally “tension” that induces tissue remodeling and subsequent muscle growth, as a result of minor muscular damage.

Indeed, the sum processes of building muscle size depend upon “breaking down and building back up” the repair process. This re-growth can only take place against a back drop of proper training, nutrition and recovery time (sleep, rest from training, etc).

DENSITY FOR IMMENSITY TENSION IS A KEY!

Without maximum muscle tension and especially eccentric contraction, there’s minimal micro-damage and no growth. (Don’t expect any of the blubber-houses training at ‘Curves’ on that hydraulic crap, to ever gain a pound of muscle.)

Muscles adapt to some extent. Continuous “high rep loading” (12 and higher reps) is dysfunctional to muscle size, especially fast twitch fibers. Instead of the 12-20 status quo training, try some maximum tension blasting!

While not necessarily a one-to-one ratio, there is a proven correlation between strength and size. The leaner, very strong lifters may be only 4-5% body fat percentage points and 4” of waist circumference from battling Ronnie Coleman on stage and, as a matter of fact, the reverse is true as well. Indeed, within 6 months of getting the feel of singles, Ronnie Coleman could best 90% of the world’s powerlifters in the deadlift and the bench. I mean this guy has deadlifted 800 pound for two reps and bench pressed 225 pounds for 76 non-stop reps! Holy pec power.

A scientific view of the situation reveals that heavy maximal tension training blasts the fast twitch type (simplified as your 2a and 2b) muscle fibers. The FTF have a much greater propensity for density than slower twitch fibers.

MAXIMUM TRAINING, MAXIMUM RECOVERY

Maximum recovery is as important as training. The best training recovery aids are “FTS” (food-time-sleep) without much delineation among either. Sleep and time seem well understood, but food/supplementation provides theoretical debate.

One part of just one interesting theory ties endocrine responses to blood amino acid levels and in fact, the level of specific amino acids, at that. That said, the theory goes like this: During training, the pituitary, thyroid and hypothalamus measures varying blood amino acids and commands your endocrine system accordingly. In general, the more positive your amino acid balance, the more your brain promotes anabolism and ramps up testosterone. Specific deficits include a deficit of L-glutamine and L-leucine and the other 2 branched chain amino acids: L-valine and L-isoleucine and L-taurine for muscle belly volume. The greater the shortage, the more your brain promotes catabolic responses, including the much dreaded release of cortisol-type substances.

And now for, my commercial time as allowed by Professor Everson: The above is precisely why I developed 100%MR, (100% Muscle Recovery) in concert with two well-known exercise physiologists (the ones who did not invent useless, post-exercise, sugar drinks)! While there are a few glutamine powders and many BCAA capsules and even one or more BCCA/Glutamine powders, 100% MR provides immense loads of pristine BCAA (leucine, valine and isoleucine), pharmaceutical grade glutamine, taurine, tyrosine and valuable vitamin B complex, all to immediately spike your post training muscle vortex. All of this is provided without supra-physiological levels of sugar.

A post workout dose of 100% MR shunts to muscle the physiological ideal material matrix exactly as predicated by de-glycolated (drained), fast twitch fibers.

MAXIMUM TENSION WORKOUTS. HOW ABOUT 4-5 SETS OF 5-7 REPS, NOT YOUR FATHER’S 4 SETS OF 15.

If you’ve been in a non-Hulk, muscle-gaining rut, I want you to try something new: my maximum tension training. Instead of doing your endless sets of 15 reps every day, try 2, warm up sets and then 4-5 sets failing between 5-7 reps at approximately 75% of your one repetition maximum (1-RM). But, do this only 3 days a week and give yourself enough rest!

This new stimulatory tension will be a powerful stimulation of muscle. Remember, most bodybuilders experienced their greatest gains in size at the same time their strength went up the most!

12 WEEK MAXIMUM TENSION TRAINING

Note: Rest 2-3 minutes between sets. Workout three days a week with a middle day off.

Day 1 (Monday) SETS REPS

Close grip bench presses 5 6-7
Bent-over rows 5 6-7
Long pulley rows 4 6-7
Seated dumbbell presses 4 6-7
Barbell curls 4 6
Dumbbell curls 3 6
Crunches 3 25
Day 2 (Tuesday -Rest)

Day 3 (Wednesday)

Squats 5 5-7
Leg curls 5 6-7
Deadlifts 4 6-7
Leg presses 4 6-8
Leg extensions 4 8
Standing calf raises 3 7-10
Reverse leg raises 3 25
Day 4 (Thursday-Rest)

Day 5 (Friday)

Dumbbell shoulder presses 5 5-7 \
Lat machine 5 5-7
Tricep extensions 4 6-7
Triceps pushdowns 4 6-7
Seated lateral raises 3 7-8
Hyperextensions 3 7-10 weighted

[StrappingYoungLad]

Another fine post.

[pittbull]

TY!!!!!

[babybull34]

Great post, Pittbull!