0:01 So, how long does a workout have to be
0:04 in order to build muscle? My question to
0:06 you would first be, how hard are you
0:08 willing to train? Guys, if you look at
0:09 the first thing, let's say a dumbbell
0:11 bench press. Now, if I were to just
0:13 simply ask you to perform a set to
0:15 failure, which I always do. I've been
0:17 asking you for 15 years to perform your
0:19 sets to failure, and I've been
0:21 consistent with that for a reason
0:23 because I know that you need an adequate
0:26 level of stimulus for that muscle to
0:28 even want to change. Right? There's an
0:29 old saying, if you don't challenge
0:31 yourself, you won't change yourself.
0:32 Well, let's just say we're getting
0:34 towards, let's say, a set of 12. And
0:36 your last two reps look like this.
0:38 That's a 10, 11,
0:40 11, and
0:41 and
0:44 12, right?
0:46 That's not enough. For every one of
0:49 those sets that you perform below
0:51 failure, you're going to need to perform
0:53 more of them in order to reach an
0:55 adequate level of volume or stimulus to
0:58 change. What I'd rather see is a set
1:00 that looks like this.
1:03 So, I'll kind of fast forward to the end
1:05 of the set for you and simulate what I'm
1:07 talking about. When I get towards those
1:09 final few reps, they should look like this.
1:12 this.
1:19 I'm really grinding through
1:22 here now.
1:24 Really fight to get up to the top here.
1:26 A lot of you would say, "There's no way
1:28 I can do another repetition on this.
1:29 There's no way I can get another
1:32 concentric." Try. The exercise has
1:33 built-in safety net here. You can always
1:35 drop the dumbbells if you have to, but
1:38 try. Go down again. Realize that there's
1:40 only a sticking point from here to about
1:42 here that you have to get through. And
1:44 you might surprise yourself that once
1:46 you do, the weights will go up again for
1:49 another repetition. Now, go down again
1:51 because each time I go down, I'm getting
1:53 at least another eccentric repetition.
1:55 And I know that I've got more eccentrics
1:57 in me than concentrics on any set
1:59 because I'm stronger that way. So now I
2:01 go up again. And if I can't get any
2:03 more, I can at least do a few
2:06 repetitions down here trying.
2:09 And finally, I reach failure. What did
2:11 that do? The weight that was in my hands
2:14 created tension. The time that I was
2:16 pushing in these elongated states, these
2:18 more stretched positions of the pec,
2:22 caused tension. There's no magic to
2:24 lengthen partials. That's nonsense.
2:26 That's not what that's about. It's a
2:29 matter of accumulating total tension.
2:32 And because you have two factors there,
2:35 stretching a muscle, that's tension, and
2:37 loading a muscle, that's tension. Those
2:39 are going to be more productive. So, by
2:41 giving myself a few additional eccentric
2:43 repetitions, more tension, and by giving
2:45 a few different partial repetitions,
2:48 more tension, I can guarantee that you
2:50 reach failure. And that's the key. I
2:52 don't know subjectively looking at you
2:55 how short of failure you actually were.
2:57 You thought one, I bet you it was four.
3:00 If you took Chris Bumpstead's brain or
3:02 mine with people that have experienced
3:04 training and we put it in your head at
3:06 the moment that you reach that first set
3:08 that I showed you and you said, "Yeah,
3:10 I'm done." I guarantee Bumpstead's
3:12 pushing four or five more than that. And
3:14 I'm likely pushing three or four because
3:16 I'm no bumpstead, right? But the fact is
3:19 there's more in you. And if you had the
3:21 brain and the willpower that knew what
3:23 you were capable of, you would do and
3:25 push more and get more out of that set.
3:28 When you do that, the volume comes down
3:30 because remember this, you either train
3:32 long or you train hard, but you cannot
3:34 do both. So as you increase the
3:36 difficulty level of the sets, then you
3:38 decrease the time you need to spend
3:40 doing them. Let me show you something
3:42 else. We have a technique here that we
3:45 call effective reps. What this means is
3:47 if I can get more of those effective
3:49 reps out, then again, I can shorten the
3:51 time that I have to do an exercise or
3:53 even a workout in general. So, if I took
3:56 the bench press again and I took a set
4:00 to failure all the way up and I go,
4:01 let's say, getting down towards the end
4:04 of the set, and I'm talking true muscle
4:06 failure, which means again, getting that
4:09 last rep, testing myself again. Can I
4:10 get another one? Maybe this time I
4:12 can't. Maybe I can't even get past that
4:14 sticking point. And I try another rep or
4:16 two. Just I can't. I can't. I've
4:18 reinforced that I've reached failure.
4:21 Great. The rest time. Now, if I keep
4:25 this rest time short, 30 seconds at
4:27 most, when I get back into this set
4:30 again, I am not going to need to go
4:32 through the third, the fourth, the
4:33 fifth, the sixth repetition to get to
4:35 those more difficult repetitions. I go
4:38 back into it now. first rep out of the
4:41 box, it's already difficult, right?
4:43 These are the ones that feel like the
4:46 ones that came at 9, 10, 11, and 12 on
4:47 the last set. Now, they're already
4:50 feeling like that on reps one, two, and
4:53 three. And therefore, these are those
4:57 growthinducing end of set, highintensity
5:01 repetitions that cause that growth.
5:03 That's an effective rep. I don't care
5:06 that my overall rep count went down. I
5:08 rest again 30 seconds. I get back into
5:11 it again. What happens? Fewer
5:14 repetitions for sure. But each one of
5:17 them at that high end, right? That one
5:19 that has the high effort required to
5:22 perform them. Now I'm accumulating a lot
5:26 more of these effective repetitions and
5:29 in doing so increasing the intensity and
5:30 shortening the length of the workout.
5:32 There are other techniques where you can
5:36 actually slow down the reps a little bit
5:38 to increase the overall intensity.
5:39 You've probably heard of time under
5:41 tension, but you have to be careful
5:44 there, too. Because slowing down or
5:46 manipulating your time to an exaggerated
5:48 amount where it actually starts to limit
5:50 the amount of weight that you can
5:53 actually use on the exercise is going to
5:55 not really result in more muscle
5:58 hypertrophy because you're taking down
6:00 both of those stimuli. Number one, I
6:01 said the amount of weight in your hand
6:03 creates the tension on the muscle. So,
6:05 if you get too light in order to
6:06 accommodate whatever technique you're
6:07 doing, then you're not going to build
6:10 muscle. The same token, you do want to
6:13 try to accelerate as much as possible on
6:15 the concentric part of the lift in
6:16 general when you're trying to maximize
6:18 hypertrophy because it recruits those
6:20 type two fibers, the ones that grow
6:22 bigger and stronger. So, by manipulating
6:24 a slow speed and by lightening the
6:26 weight because you do that, you're going
6:28 to actually compromise that. However, I
6:30 don't just focus always on, let's say,
6:32 building bigger muscles because I know
6:34 that part of this game is not just
6:36 looking better, but feeling better. As a
6:37 physical therapist, I know how important
6:40 it is with all the considerations people
6:43 have like joint issues. How do we still
6:44 train and still get the benefits of
6:46 intensity and therefore shorter
6:48 workouts? Well, there's a technique that
6:51 we use called a trap set where you would
6:53 take that weight, right? Something
6:55 between your 10 and 12 rep max. And what
6:57 you do is you do apply a tempo here
6:59 where you press up at one second and
7:01 come down at one second. And the second
7:03 rep is up for two seconds. So a little
7:06 bit slower, come down for two seconds.
7:09 Right? Go up for 3 seconds
7:12 and come down for 3 seconds. And then
7:14 we're going to peek out at 4 seconds. So
7:18 one, two, three, four, and come down.
7:21 One, two, three, four. Then you just
7:23 reverse your way back down again. Going
7:27 to four, two, three, four. And down.
7:33 Two, three, four. Up and three. And down
7:36 in three. Right. Up and two.
7:38 And down in two, and then faster at the
7:41 end. Up in one, and down in one. So,
7:44 what that's doing is it's still allowing
7:46 us to experience the faster repetition
7:49 starting and ending that set, but we're
7:51 grading that muscle recruitment because
7:54 people that do have injuries don't have
7:56 necessarily the ability to do that
7:58 safely. So, when you allow that to grade
8:00 up, you're able to have the protection
8:02 of the joint in the process and still
8:05 have a high intensity set. Again, even
8:06 some of the slower repetitions,
8:08 especially eccentrically, are providing
8:11 more stimulus because that same weight
8:13 is being applied over a longer period of
8:15 time and spending more time in those
8:17 high tension areas where they're more
8:19 stretched. So the bottom line is that
8:22 technique is perfect for somebody that
8:25 has some issues, some joint issues or
8:26 pains where they can go a little bit
8:28 more slowly, but not where they're
8:30 sacrificing the weight so much in the
8:32 process that they're actually completely
8:34 eliminating the stimulus for growth. So
8:36 there's different techniques for
8:38 different people that will allow you to
8:40 grow, but you got to know which ones to
8:43 use. But the intensity techniques ensure
8:46 failure. And failure is going to be the
8:48 only objective way to sort of level the
8:51 playing field so that I know you're
8:53 working out at a hard enough level of
8:55 intensity. And when you do that, yes,
8:58 the workouts can be short. The only way
9:00 they're going to be short though is if
9:01 you're bringing that effort. And it's
9:03 what we've been preaching here forever.
9:04 We don't bounce back and forth at
9:06 Athlete X in terms of whether it's good
9:08 or whether it's not good. We've always
9:10 said if you train hard, you do not have
9:12 to train long because you can only do
9:13 one of them. If you're going to train
9:14 hard with intensity techniques like
9:16 this, you're going to be able to train
9:17 for a much shorter period of time. If
9:18 you're looking guys, we have programs
9:20 that have incorporated this since the
9:22 very beginning of time. All of them with
9:23 safety as one of the factors we look at
9:25 always as a physical therapist. You can
9:27 find our programs including our new
9:30 athlet program coming this week over at
9:31 ax.com. All right, guys. I hope you
9:33 found it helpful. Make sure you're doing
9:34 something to increase the intensity of
9:35 your workouts if you want to get more
9:37 from them. All right, guys. See you soon.
