There are several techniques that bodybuilders use to build muscle size. Powerlifters and strength athletes can also benefit from these methods as an increase in muscle size often correlates with an increase in strength. Since muscle size is an important part of strength building, the following techniques for building muscle size will be discussed in this article:
Load
Stretch
Squeeze
Pump
Fatigue
Load
Powerlifters use heavy weights because they are striving to get stronger. At the same time, you will often hear bodybuilders say that if you want to get big, you have to get strong, and you have to lift heavy weights to get strong. Not all bodybuilders lift heavy, but most do at some point within a workout, or within a phase of a training cycle. No one can deny that heavy training is a legitimate way to add muscle size.
When training heavy, your goal is to shoot for a weight that challenges you to complete 5 or 6 reps while using basic exercises such as squats, leg presses, bench presses, overhead presses, rows, and deadlifts. If you succeed at getting strong at these lifts, chances are good that you will develop a substantial amount of overall size.
Stretch
There are exercises that force your muscles to get a full stretch under load. Most bodybuilders are going to include movements such as flyes with dumbbells or machines that force the pec muscles to really stretch. There are movements such as lat pulldowns and pull ups that force you to stretch your lats. Many bodybuilders also prefer to go as deep as possible on squats or leg presses in order to feel a stretch in their glutes, hamstrings, and quads.
It is important to know that exercises that put the muscles into a deep stretch position can be dangerous when using very heavy weight. For this reason, I do not recommend that you combine heavy loading with exercises such as flyes and deep squats that place the body in an extreme position where joints, tendons, and ligaments are in a vulnerable position. You are better off using lighter weights and more reps when doing exercises that require a deep stretch.
Squeeze
Bodybuilders also like to do motions that produce a tight squeeze or tight muscle contraction at the end of a lifting motion. Pec decks, cable crossovers, leg extensions, and preacher curls on a machine are all exercises that bodybuilders commonly use in order to get a hard squeeze at the conclusion of each rep. Most back exercises are good for producing a hard squeeze if you make a deliberate effort to pull your shoulder blades back and squeeze them together at the end of each rep.
When emphasizing a hard squeeze at the end of the lifting motion, bodybuilders generally pause and hold the weight while in a fully contracted position for one to two seconds.
Pump
The pump tends to promote muscle size and is generally derived from loading, stretching, and squeezing the muscle. It also comes from choosing exercises that cause you to feel a strong contraction in the muscle being worked. Exercises that cause the muscle being worked to feel as though it is about to pop out of your skin are often the best exercises for producing a pump.
If your goal is to get a good pump, it’s generally going to take at least four sets to pump up unless you are able to get a good pump from only doing one or two high intensity sets. Most bodybuilders who focus on the pump do 8 to 12 reps per set, and often only rest about a minute between sets. Some like fast reps, and some like slow reps. It’s up to you to find which produces the best pump.
Many lifters also find that getting a good pump is dependent upon being well fed, fully hydrated, fully rested, and fully recovered between workouts.
When you start to feel like a muscle is fully pumped, you must be aware of how long you can maintain that pump. Many bodybuilders find that if they repeat too many sets after the pump is initiated, they start to lose their pump. Vince Gironda was a famous trainer who believed that it was detrimental to repeat sets to the point of losing your pump as it was a sign the the nervous system was in shock due to over training. Some bodybuilders can maintain a pump for a long time while others cannot. You must go by the response of your own body.
Fatigue
If you want to maximize your muscle growth, you will need to produce a substantial amount of fatigue within the muscles. This is why bodybuilders often perform a lot of sets for each muscle group, and are more likely than powerlifters to push to failure on some of their sets. At the same time, you can overdo it with too much fatigue to the point where you upset the hormonal balance of your body and burnout your nervous system with too much fatigue. You don’t have to stay in a state of fatigue for set after set throughout your workouts. Once a specified muscle has been trained to a state of fatigue, stop working the muscle unless you know that you benefit from prolonged fatigue. It is also important to know that you don’t need to fatigue your muscles in every workout if your main emphasis is to build strength. You may find that pushing your muscles into a state of fatigue once every two weeks is sufficient to increase your muscle size.
If you feel your strength training efforts could benefit from adding more muscle size, consider which of the techniques that were discussed in this article can be incorporated into your training. Best of training to you.