Reach Your Peak: Tips For Maximum Muscularity

Going to the gym week after week can be a rewarding experience, but only if you’re making gains. Unfortunately, getting more muscular is hard. And many people plateau. After a while, it can feel like you’re just beating your head against a brick wall.

Getting results is hard. But it’s not as hard as many people think. The key is to vary your routine. Here are some key elements for improving your workouts.

Use Supersets

Supersets are where you pair two exercises together and do them back to back. You could mixed pull ups with arm curls. Or you could do front squats followed by lunges. The idea here is to maximise blood flow to the muscle in order to force it to grow. Many bodybuilding websites recommend that you train antagonistic muscles when you do supersets. That is, you do a set on your biceps and then a set on your triceps. But some research suggests that this might not be the best approach. Working the same muscle group in a slightly different way over two sets might be preferred.

Nonetheless, super-setting in all its many forms has proven effective for the best in the business. And, therefore, it should be effective for you.

High Rep Movements

High rep movements are a great addition to your workout during the cutting cycle. High reps help to bring out the muscle more and improve vascularity. They give you a great pump in the gym and certainly make you look good. But they’re also a sensible choice for people who are in the lean phase. High rep movements require less recovery time than heavy weight workouts. And minimal recovery is what you want when you’re creating a calorie deficit.

Use A Pre-workout

Pre-workouts have become a popular addition to most bodybuilder’s nutritional regime. They contain a range of dietary supplements designed to maximise the effect of your workout. For instance, they contain caffeine, designed to boost energy and focus. And they also contain arginine, an essential chemical to get nutrients to muscles.

Pre-workouts are also an excellent way to cut down on the overall number of individual supplements you take. For instance, most pre-workouts come with creatine and a host of other muscle-building supplements, all in one drink.

Add Drop Sets

Drop sets are designed to help push your muscles beyond failure. Do your set as you normally would. Then, when you can’t push out another rep, immediately lower the weight. Keep doing reps until you can no longer do any more on the lower weight and then drop the weight again. Do this three or four times until the muscle is exhausted.

Because drop sets are so demanding, you need to be careful how often you use them. Most professionals recommend that people use drop sets a couple of times a fortnight. If you get them right, you’ll certainly feel the effect the next day.

Maximise Time Under Tension

Ronnie Coleman is perhaps the greatest bodybuilder of all time. But how did he get so big? Well, one of the things he focused on was what is known as time under tension. Time under tension is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the amount of time that your muscle fibres are having to work to lift a weight. Science is now showing that time under tension is actually critical for growing muscle. According to the data, it forces the muscle to recruit more motor units. And because of this, there’s more opportunity to force the muscle to grow.

Those who want their muscles to have a full look spend a couple of workouts a month trying to maximise time under tension.

Focused Recovery

It’s been said time and time again by trainers and professional bodybuilders. You don’t grow in the gym; you only grow during recovery. That’s why top athletes spend so much time focusing on their recovery period.

How much recovery you need will depend on your overall health, age and genetics. Some people need a lot of recovery after a workout. Others need less. Most people can manage three or four workouts a week without overtraining. Some can handle five or six. Others may only be able to cope with two intense workouts if their recovery is slow.

Don’t Rest So Long Between Sets

Building muscle requires that you continually shock them with new stimuli. Doing a set, then waiting a couple of minutes, then doing another set, isn’t the best strategy. Your muscles quickly become used to the stimulus, and they stop getting stronger and growing.

Cutting your rest time is great for two reasons. It keeps your muscles guessing what you’re going to throw at them next. And it ups your metabolic rate, helping you to get leaner and more defined.