In the same way a small fraction of a second is crucial in a sprinter’s race during a 100 metre dash, fractions of seconds can mean success or failure in a bodyduilding process. That seconds will make or break your body’s muscle growth response in the gym.
That’s right, your workout session maybe lasts for about an hour, but there’s a small fraction of time in your session that really matters and that’s something you have to know in order to achive the best results. How you handle that seconds would mean poor, mediocre or great results.
Let me try to explain. Every set of execises that you perform in the gym will give you benefits on the last 1-2 reps. Why? Because muscles respond to stress, so, the first reps you perform are nothing but a mechanism to trigger the stress your muscles need to grow.
Reps 1-4 are only performed in order to get to reps 5 and 6. But there’s more than meets the eye in that. The last reps you perform in a set actually are the ones that will determine if the results of your workout are or not the results you desire.
What’s important then, is to overload the muscles on reps 5 and 6. And the most important thing to achieve better results is try to keep that stress level as long as you can at the end of each set.
The best way to trigger your body’s adaptive responses is training until your muscles cannot move the weight another inch. Drop the weight some seconds before the guy next to you and you will see the difference between his and your muscles after some weeks.
So, if you perform 10 sets per workout, and the last six seconds are the ones that mean success or failure, there you have that 60 seconds i’ve been talking about. That crucial 60 second will give you, or not, the muscular growth youre looking for.
So, your success will be measured by this really short period of time, and the amount of effort you are willing to exert during this time.
The closer and closer that you can come to muscular failure, the more dramatically your body will respond. Two seconds, five seconds, maybe another one rep, or two, would actually mean a great difference.
You have to train really hard and with full effort every single day. When your muscles aches and you can feel they’re burning, if you feel the weight really heavy, that’s the right moment to give your maximun effort until true muscular failure is reached.
You must train hard and with full effort at all times. When the weight feels heavy and your muscles ache and burn with discomfort, you must push through and continue until true muscular failure is reached.
That’s the right moment to give your maximum effort. If you give up then, if you take a rest, then you are compromising gains. If you dont, you’ll achieve the best possible results.