The pump

[PHIL HERNON]

How important do you feel it is to be pumped each workout?

 

[TooPowerful4u]

I feel lifting maximal weight is also just as important. Lifting maximal weight is going to incorporate the largest amount of muscle fibers, and is the only way to really hit the type 2b fibers.

The pump is important becuase it stretches out the tough fascial tissue that encompases the muscle and also delivers more nutrients to the muscles.

Both are equally important and both should be incorporated in each workout IMHO

 

[lucian]

pump

i feel the pump is important because you need that blood to bring the nutrients to the muscle. also to stretch the muscle fascia out while doing extreme stretching. plus it just feels great to be pumped. you also need to use heavy wts. but if you do the hernon/doggcrap training you lift heavy but when your done you also have a good pump with it. i also believe craig titus blood volume traning has its place also at certain times i training. it can be tweaked to fit in the henon/dc style too. so phil what do you think about the pump?

 

[Homer]

I use the pump to gage when my muscle is beginning to work maximally. The question is how far past the full pump and beginnings of failure do you go to have an effective workout to grow but not overtrain. I am still trying to find this area after many years and it changes depending on many things.

To answer the question though I think it must be there. A workout without the "pump" would feel inadequate.

 

[TooPowerful4u]

I use the pump to gage when my muscle is beginning to work maximally. The question is how far past the full pump and beginnings of failure do you go to have an effective workout to grow but not overtrain. I am still trying to find this area after many years and it changes depending on many things.

To answer the question though I think it must be there. A workout without the "pump" would feel inadequate.

Well i always start off my workouts with a big compound, do a high rep set or two to get a SLIGHT pump going and warm up the muscle. Then i go HEAVY and take around 4-5 mins between sets to maximally allow my muscle to restore energy, and i can lift MAXIMAL weight for a few sets. After that i chase the pump, i stop my workout when i feel the extreme tightness and pump start to subside, that means its fading, muscle fibers are no longer maximally contracting, damage has been done, time to rest n recover n grow.

 

[Homer]

TP4U-
Do you get a good pump from your heavy sets of the frist compound excerise? I follow a fairly similar routine but I can't spend the 4-5 mins between sets or the workout would stretch past my hour cutoff.

 

[Tman2002]

reply

nothing pumps me up like supersets.

 

[Conan21]

I don't think a pump is important at all. But if your doing a good workout you should get a crazy pump. Meaning the pump comes from effective training. its not something your seeking or trying to accomplish. its just something that happens.

it is good for capillary expansion but the main thing is fiber reqruitment and progressive resistance.


so just b/c u have a good pump doesn't mean you've trained good and just b/c you don't get one doesn't mean it was not a good workout.

example, curl 45 lbs straight bar 120 times and get a good pump but what did that set really do for u for strenght/growth? that set is more endurance based training

unfortunaltey i think alot of people do the super high rep training b/c the feel the pump alot more,alot of that is merely lactic acid.

U can get a tremendous pump from low rep training if you do the right workout. i'd rather get a pump from lifting very heavy weight than a lactic acid pump from super high rep training.

 

[LATS]

i very rarely get a "good" pump.. i have made good gains without it.. the muscle group of mine that gets a good pump is the triceps.. not much else..

 

[MikeS]

I agree with Conan in that you can curl 10lbs 100 times and get pumped like hell, but growth will not be great. So I think its only a bonus during the heavy compound sets, to me the most important sets since those type II fibers that respond to heavy-lowreps are most adaptive toward hypertrophy. But you also need to train the TypeI fibers next, and this is where I go for the pump.

 

[TooPowerful4u]

Ok yea, that is true 10lbs x 100 reps aint gonna do much, but cmon were being logical here. We know none of us are that stupid and gonna do shit like that unless its like abs.

ALSO (using myself as the example) after blasting away 4-5 HEAVY sets with your MAXIMAL weight utalizing 4-5min rest between sets to ensure its maximal, you have pretty much BLASTED and DESTROYED your type 2b fibers (the fibers with the largest potential for growth (100%)) and hit pretty hard your fibers with the second most potential for growth, 2a's (30%), so pretty much ANY extreme pump created after that, no matter how you did it, is gonna stretch the fascial tissue out, increase blood flow a ton(nutrients), and create a better environment for growth for those fibers you just beat the heck out of. ALthough i do feel heavier weights in a moderate/high rep scheme will facilitate a fuller and stronger pump.

HOMER : yes i do start off with a 20 rep set in my warmups to start off with a SLIGHT pump. My heavy sets are rep range, 5-8. I like to use a lot of special tactics like drop sets, etc... *my fav is putting close to my 3RM on there, do 2, strip 20lbs do 2, strip 20lbs do 2, until i reach 10 and have a good spotter cuase ul probably need help on some of the reps, then im destroyed*. I feel even though my rest periods are long, i do maintain that slight pump the entire way through. Its just not a super tight pump, i hit that after my heavy sets are done.

 

[mike1107]

Well i always start off my workouts with a big compound, do a high rep set or two to get a SLIGHT pump going and warm up the muscle. Then i go HEAVY and take around 4-5 mins between sets to maximally allow my muscle to restore energy, and i can lift MAXIMAL weight for a few sets. After that i chase the pump, i stop my workout when i feel the extreme tightness and pump start to subside, that means its fading, muscle fibers are no longer maximally contracting, damage has been done, time to rest n recover n grow.

same here for me

don't you feel it's harder to have good pump when using heavy weights ?

anyway, I work heavy year round whether the pump comes or not

but I must admit I like to feel pumped

 

[huge-inc]

PUMP

I enjoy the pump(the orgasm of lifting) but don't deem it necessary...what I also like is that deep burning when doing high reps or drop sets.

 

[JonnyO]

I feel lifting maximal weight is also just as important. Lifting maximal weight is going to incorporate the largest amount of muscle fibers, and is the only way to really hit the type 2b fibers.

The pump is important becuase it stretches out the tough fascial tissue that encompases the muscle and also delivers more nutrients to the muscles.

Both are equally important and both should be incorporated in each workout IMHO

I feel training intensity and proper form are more important that lifting maximal weight. Lifting more weight your recruiting other muscles into play and taking away from the targeted muscle just trying to move the weight and could lead to more of a chance of injury. I like to lift heavy as well, but for me heavy will be to failure at around 8-10 or 10-12 or 12-15 reps depending on what exercise it is.

 

[TooPowerful4u]

I feel training intensity and proper form are more important that lifting maximal weight. Lifting more weight your recruiting other muscles into play and taking away from the targeted muscle just trying to move the weight and could lead to more of a chance of injury. I like to lift heavy as well, but for me heavy will be to failure at around 8-10 or 10-12 or 12-15 reps depending on what exercise it is.

Heavy wieght is never used at the expense of form. I personally use smith machine for benching instead of freebar, just to insure i have to concentrate on form that much less, and the muscle that much more. It has made a huge difference too. Only bodypart i use loose form on is shoulders, becuase i feel it much more beneficial to overload the muscle with a little swing on laterals or upright rows.

 

[Conan21]

TP4U

I'm not sure you what you mean by you can be sure you've "blasted" and "destroyed" your 2b fibers from doing a a few HEAVY sets. What do you mean by heavy? Heavy is relative to the % of your 1 RM. that is really the only way to judge "how heavy" it is for "you", the individual. furthermore i don't know why so many peoples goal is to blast and destroy their muscle tissue into submission. you can tax those fibers extremely well without ever hitting failure. with certain workouts.

Dmirtri Medneleyev, a russian scientist said that science does start untill you start measuring.

So i'm not sure doing 4 sets of a very high % of your max is going to guarantee you've provided ample stimulation to a given muscle in all cases.

There is also alot of literature and studies that show mixing too many training parameters into a given workout can be conterproductive, going by ur reference as of hitting low reps and then using high reps later on in the workout to "chase the pump". this can confuse your bodies adaptive mechanisms by using such a wide variation of training intensities. other than getting a good "pump" i'm not sure it does much else.

let me give you an example. I hear people on here say that most people follow a HIT workout w/o knowing it. they may do a set of 15. then a set of 12. then a set of 10. then 8, then maybe 6. and then these HIT people say well it was only the last two sets that did them any good. they are overtraining and doing too many sets. why not just do a super low volume workout and just do the 1 or 2 productive sets. although they may be doing too many sets if they are using multiple exercises, that notion could not be farther from the truth. volume is important too. people believe in a balanced diet. why not follow a balanced workout too.

in actuallity all rep shcemes have their place. it wasn't that that the sets of 15, 12, 10 were not productive. its that there was too much variation in a given workout. and that is the reason why alot of bodybuilders fail or they have to rely on using a lot of drugs to achieve a certain level of developement. Powerlifters quanitfy things where as bodybuilders do not. what exactly is the training effect some one is trying to acomplish with this workout (15,12,10,8,6,4)? size? strengh? endurance? a mix of all three? it doesn't work like that. you need to train for each seperatley. if you look look at olympic lifters who are trying to get their weight up to peak for a contest they follow hypertrophy protocols and slowly change their training to gear it for maximal strengh over the coarse of 3 or 4 phases. each phase is seperate.

If the trainee believed in and followed the law of repeated Effort. his workout might have looked like this. Here is an example of a broad pyrmaid in which the intensity is spread only across a 10-12% bracket. it adds some variety to your training but this is a focussed workout that is geared for hypertrophy as well as some functional strength.

set 1-----------8 reps-----------78% of 1RM
set 2...............6 reps-----------82%
set 3----------4 reps.................87%
set 4----------4 reps.................82%
set 6----------6 reps------------82%
set 7----------8 reps------------78%

By keeping the intensty spread not too drastic. you will respect the law of repeated effort, and the body's adaptive mechanisms will not be confused by the wide variety of training intensities.

now before you go and argue this, realize that these principles are a staple and building block of all olympic weightlifters, powerlifters, and many other strenght athletes. West side barbell uses the law of repeated effort as a staple in their training. I think we can all concur that the best way to build bigger muscles is through progressive resistance. so why not apply some basic powerlifting proven scientific methods to do so? heavier weights, not the pump is what will builder bigger muscles. you may get a great pump by doing all sorts of things in ur workout. but the pump was merely that. a pump.

so to reiterate, the pump is not important to chase after doin very low rep training.

the PUMP should happen with most idividuals but its merely an effect of the muscle being worked out. and not something sacred or a goal of a workout.

 

[bigbadasian]

Reply

|--[\\\]>--------- To me, its more mental than anything. if on a certain day, i feel weak in my workout, i'll still feel ok about it, IF i get a nice pump. mentally, if i get a pump i feel like i actually did s'thing rather than being weak on my lifts.

 

[big4nuthin]

Just enough of the right PUMP

When I train, the pump usually starts to build right after my first work set on any given workout. If all is right, it will continue all the way through. A nice consistent full and tight feeling. The only time I felt like it was too much is when I ran A-50's with IGF-1, and insulin. Man, that was some painful shit. My pumps flow from one muscle group to another. However, it's most noticeable with the last muscle group trained, which is why on chest, delts, and tri days, my triceps are completely blown up and my chest flattens out when I leave the gym. Leaving me with a feeling that I just got an incredible tricep workout, when chest is what I was really trying to build!

 

[Jbomb]

The pump is really important to me. I mean, for example on squats, I get much more out of doing 315 for 20+ reps A-to-A....pushing alot more blood into my legs as apposed to doing 495 for 8 reps. Try doing 225 on flat barbell bench for as many reps as you can....pump out of this world.

 

[New_Mass]

full pumps!

I agree with Conan in that you can curl 10lbs 100 times and get pumped like hell, but growth will not be great. So I think its only a bonus during the heavy compound sets, to me the most important sets since those type II fibers that respond to heavy-lowreps are most adaptive toward hypertrophy. But you also need to train the TypeI fibers next, and this is where I go for the pump.

agree big time,
to get to the type II fibers the type 1 fibers will be taxed first which brings on the Pump! this pump lets you know you have isolated the targeted muscle group which sets the ground work for an all out assault on the type II fibers therefore getting a maximum pump possible and growth. (damn i get a rush just thinking about this effect)