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Cheat to Grow?
How many times have you heard a mass monster at your gym or in a magazine article go on and on about strict form, but when you see him train, most of his reps look more like a rejected Olympic lift? (“Are those bent-over power cleans?” Watch Ronnie Coleman row, and you’ll get the idea.) Or, on some exercises the weight is so heavy, there’s almost no movement at all. On shrugs, for example, you usually see a big man load up outrageous poundages, strap onto the bar and pull for all he’s worth, but his shoulders barely rise. It looks like arm-stretching torture from the Middle Ages.
To be fair, not all of his sets and reps are explosive and/or partial range, but a lot of them are—especially on the big, compound exercises like presses—and for good reason: Cheating is one way to trigger extraordinary muscle growth. Say what? Most scientists say that one of the big keys to muscle growth is force. The more force you can get a muscle to generate, the more growth you’ll stimulate. That’s one reason compound, or multijoint, exercises produce more mass gains than isolation movements do—you use more weight when a number of muscles work together, and you can increase the poundage more easily over time. That’s progressive overload. (I’m getting to the cheating part; hang on.)
Blah, blah. Keep adding weight to the big, compound exercises like squats, and you’ll grow. So what else is new? Plenty! There’s more to it than that, much more (like flying a 747). For example, many researchers believe that the real growth trigger on certain exercises is near the turnaround, where you move from the negative stroke to the positive. Why? Because that’s where the most force occurs. And where do most of the big bodybuilders cheat or explode? Near the turnaround, which provides a wicked, growth-jolting overload. (Force-plate studies show that when a trainee hitches or jerks near the bottom of a press to reverse the direction of the bar, the force can more than double.)
Think about it. At the bottom of an incline press your pecs have to put the brakes on and then reverse the direction of the bar. Lots of potential for maximum overload, or force, there. The problem: Many scientists say that the pecs can’t quite exert maximum force at the very bottom of the movement—there’s too much stretch. That means the muscle must be elongated to exert maximum force but not to the extreme. The key max-force point, then, is below the middle of the stroke but not all the way down at the bottom, stretch position (and not at the completely contracted position, as many people believe). It’s at a semistretched point. Therefore, if you can overload the position that’s just above the stretch but not quite to the midpoint, you can increase the anabolic power of any set. (Keep that semistretched position in mind; it’ll be a recurring theme.)
That’s exactly what many of the biggest bodybuilders do on almost every rep. Watch them do incline presses, and you’ll see them reverse the bar before touching their upper pecs, exploding upward from there. (Some even bounce it off their chests to get the bar to the more advantageous max-force point.) By stopping a little short and exploding, they hit the semistretched position with more overload. That makes the exercise much more effective—although it also makes it more dangerous.
What about the shrug example above? By using a weight that’s too heavy for full movements, the bodybuilder only works the bottom part of the stroke, never getting it near the contracted position. Though he only works the semistretched point, he does it with extreme overload. And that’s why his traps are gigantic!
Arnold’s Olympia workouts contain a number of examples. One of his favorite biceps exercises was barbell cheat curls. He’d take a heavy weight, lean forward slightly and then explode the weight up to his shoulders. Where does the most force occur on a set like that? The semistretched position, where the arms are not quite bent at 90 degrees—just below the halfway point of the stroke. There’s very little resistance anywhere else during the entire curl. Could that have been at least part of the reason for Arnold’s giant biceps and incredible peaks? Possibly.
Every exercise has its own sweet spot, and the biggest bodybuilders seem to instinctively know where that key point is and then exploit it for gigantic leaps in mass. They do a lot of their reps with a slightly shorter range of motion and explode out of the turnaround with heavy weight. (Watch Coleman’s training videos, and you’ll see a lot of that.) It’s precisely what gives them excessive hypertrophic overload at the sweet spot of key exercises.
Am I saying you should start jerking and heaving giant weights? Absolutely not! Let me say that again: Don’t jerk heavy weights—especially if you don’t use things like growth hormone to fortify ligaments and tendons. That’s the wrong strategy, despite what the pros do (remember, even with pharmaceutical help a lot of pros have been seriously injured doing that, from pec and biceps tears to vertebrae blowouts to shattered shoulders). There’s a better way to max out your mass—one that doesn’t expose you to injury the way jerking excessive poundages does. (I’m getting to it; keep reading.)
How many times have you heard a mass monster at your gym or in a magazine article go on and on about strict form, but when you see him train, most of his reps look more like a rejected Olympic lift? (“Are those bent-over power cleans?” Watch Ronnie Coleman row, and you’ll get the idea.) Or, on some exercises the weight is so heavy, there’s almost no movement at all. On shrugs, for example, you usually see a big man load up outrageous poundages, strap onto the bar and pull for all he’s worth, but his shoulders barely rise. It looks like arm-stretching torture from the Middle Ages.
To be fair, not all of his sets and reps are explosive and/or partial range, but a lot of them are—especially on the big, compound exercises like presses—and for good reason: Cheating is one way to trigger extraordinary muscle growth. Say what? Most scientists say that one of the big keys to muscle growth is force. The more force you can get a muscle to generate, the more growth you’ll stimulate. That’s one reason compound, or multijoint, exercises produce more mass gains than isolation movements do—you use more weight when a number of muscles work together, and you can increase the poundage more easily over time. That’s progressive overload. (I’m getting to the cheating part; hang on.)
Blah, blah. Keep adding weight to the big, compound exercises like squats, and you’ll grow. So what else is new? Plenty! There’s more to it than that, much more (like flying a 747). For example, many researchers believe that the real growth trigger on certain exercises is near the turnaround, where you move from the negative stroke to the positive. Why? Because that’s where the most force occurs. And where do most of the big bodybuilders cheat or explode? Near the turnaround, which provides a wicked, growth-jolting overload. (Force-plate studies show that when a trainee hitches or jerks near the bottom of a press to reverse the direction of the bar, the force can more than double.)
Think about it. At the bottom of an incline press your pecs have to put the brakes on and then reverse the direction of the bar. Lots of potential for maximum overload, or force, there. The problem: Many scientists say that the pecs can’t quite exert maximum force at the very bottom of the movement—there’s too much stretch. That means the muscle must be elongated to exert maximum force but not to the extreme. The key max-force point, then, is below the middle of the stroke but not all the way down at the bottom, stretch position (and not at the completely contracted position, as many people believe). It’s at a semistretched point. Therefore, if you can overload the position that’s just above the stretch but not quite to the midpoint, you can increase the anabolic power of any set. (Keep that semistretched position in mind; it’ll be a recurring theme.)
That’s exactly what many of the biggest bodybuilders do on almost every rep. Watch them do incline presses, and you’ll see them reverse the bar before touching their upper pecs, exploding upward from there. (Some even bounce it off their chests to get the bar to the more advantageous max-force point.) By stopping a little short and exploding, they hit the semistretched position with more overload. That makes the exercise much more effective—although it also makes it more dangerous.
What about the shrug example above? By using a weight that’s too heavy for full movements, the bodybuilder only works the bottom part of the stroke, never getting it near the contracted position. Though he only works the semistretched point, he does it with extreme overload. And that’s why his traps are gigantic!
Arnold’s Olympia workouts contain a number of examples. One of his favorite biceps exercises was barbell cheat curls. He’d take a heavy weight, lean forward slightly and then explode the weight up to his shoulders. Where does the most force occur on a set like that? The semistretched position, where the arms are not quite bent at 90 degrees—just below the halfway point of the stroke. There’s very little resistance anywhere else during the entire curl. Could that have been at least part of the reason for Arnold’s giant biceps and incredible peaks? Possibly.
Every exercise has its own sweet spot, and the biggest bodybuilders seem to instinctively know where that key point is and then exploit it for gigantic leaps in mass. They do a lot of their reps with a slightly shorter range of motion and explode out of the turnaround with heavy weight. (Watch Coleman’s training videos, and you’ll see a lot of that.) It’s precisely what gives them excessive hypertrophic overload at the sweet spot of key exercises.
Am I saying you should start jerking and heaving giant weights? Absolutely not! Let me say that again: Don’t jerk heavy weights—especially if you don’t use things like growth hormone to fortify ligaments and tendons. That’s the wrong strategy, despite what the pros do (remember, even with pharmaceutical help a lot of pros have been seriously injured doing that, from pec and biceps tears to vertebrae blowouts to shattered shoulders). There’s a better way to max out your mass—one that doesn’t expose you to injury the way jerking excessive poundages does. (I’m getting to it; keep reading.)
