T-Minus 13 days until Decembulk. Seriously, the number one muscle building holiday of the season is approaching.
That means that there are some principles you need to know in order to build as much muscle as possible, without the extra fat. We want lean beef, Baby.
All the things I mention in this blog post are common mistakes that I see everyone do. It’s cool though, because after reading this, I expect you to never make them again. Capiche?
Muscle Tension Through a Full Range of Motion
If you want a muscle to grow, then you need large amounts of mechanical tension. Arnold knew this in the 70’s, and researchers are just discovering it now. I don’t care who you listen to, just know: it works.
If you don’t know what I mean by tension, then you’ve come to the right place.
Go to the mirror right now and flex your right biceps. With your left hand, feel the hardness of the muscle. When it’s flexed, it’s hard. You want to keep your muscle flexed and hard through the full range of motion during a lift. If it’s a biceps curl, keep all your tension in the biceps. If it’s an overhead press, keep all the tension in your deltoids.
You get the idea.
If you have trouble doing this, practice contracting the muscle at different body positions. For example, with the biceps, you could practice flexing them with your arm bent at the elbow at 90 degrees, 20 degrees, and 180 degrees (arm straight). If you have proper control over the muscle with your mind, then once you add weight, it’ll start to grow like weeds.
Don’t Cheat on Your Rest Periods
If you’re trying to build muscle and your workout says to rest for 90 seconds between exercises, and you only rest for 45 seconds because you think you’re ready, then you’re cheating. There’s a reason why you rest for a certain period of time.
When you lift weights, you use different energy systems and tax your body in different ways. For example, if lifting heavy for strength, you always want to have long rest periods. They can even be as long as 10 minutes between sets.
For building muscle, it’s a different story. Your rest periods will dictate two things: hormonal response and overall hypertrophy.
With hormonal response, the two hormones affected are growth hormone (GH) and free testosterone (FT). Generally, the more GH and FT you have, the bigger your muscles will grow.
As for overall hypertrophy, the two types affected are sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (muscles getting a lot bigger without much added strength) and functional hypertrophy (muscles getting bigger and stronger).
Instead of getting uber geeky and going super in depth on each one, here is a table I’ve adapted from Christian Thibaudeau’s The Black Book of Training Secrets:
| Rest Period (seconds) | Effect on Hormonal Response | Overall Effect on Hypertrophy |
| 60 | Important Increase in GH | Very effective for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy |
| 90 | Significant Increase in GH | Very effective for muscle growth with some strength gains |
| 120 | Slight increase in GH and FT | Most effective for functional hypertrophy |
Don’t Eat Like a Pig
You may not appreciate this, but you can’t eat like shit and expect to build muscle with no fat. As a general rule:
Shit in = Shit out
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but maybe it takes a rocket scientist to tell you to stop eating like a pig 100% of the time.
The real secret to building quality muscle is eating good quality foods 80% of the time, and eating all your other favourite cheat foods 20% of the time, but in the evening. This is known as carb backloading, and is John Kiefer’s baby.
Generally, in the evening, you have already trained and are able to handle eating cheat foods. It’s also the time when your fat cells are less sensitive to insulin. This means that they have a harder time storing fat. If you lifted weights earlier, then your muscles are sensitive to glycogen storage. Anytime you are storing something in your muscles, they’re going to get bigger.
Sound Off
When it comes to Decembulk, building muscle is of utmost importance. Seriously, that’s what Decembulk is all about.
This Decembulk, make sure you create dirty amounts of tension in your muscles, use appropriate rest periods, eat clean 80% of the time, and you will gain some quality muscle.
By the way, I’m releasing my most effective muscle building system I’ve ever written, and I’m putting it on sale (and basically giving it away) Nov 20th. If you want to take advantage of this, go to this page ASAP, and then thank me later:
Click here to go to the Decembulk Presale Waiting List
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