-: The thing that's gonna tie
all of these hypertrophy stimuli
and therefore their adaptations together
is going to be tension
and how we use it, how much of it we create, how long
and the circumstances in which we create that tension
or where that tension is occurring.
So, if we were to look at what is the one thing
that you need to be monitoring in all of your programs
it is this tension.
We talked about it in the metabolic phase,
how it's important for understanding
how much fuel we're actually consuming.
There needs to be a certain threshold,
it's not time under tension,
it's time under significant tension
that is going to matter for all of these stimulus's
and in terms of calculating the volume
of what's actually being done.
So, we need a high volume of that significant tension
if we are going to stimulate
any of these protein synthesis based stimuli.
So that tension at the Z line,
there's a threshold where not enough tension,
you're not gonna get a stimulus there
and then we need a certain amount of that
for that stimulus to get strong enough
to actually create a significant move
into let's do protein synthesis
at an accelerated or greater rate,
it's gonna result in net gain in that mile fibular tissue.
So, we need a certain amount of tension
and we need a certain volume of work done at that amount.
Now an important thing to understand
is that when we're talking about tension
and we're talking about muscle,
it's the individual sarcomeres of those muscle fibers
that we're actually really talking about,
it's tension all the way down to the cellular level,
not just how much tension is in the bicep.
'Cause remember, if we put tension on an entire muscle,
that tension is divided up across a bunch of that tissue
and at no time really
are we using a 100-percent of our tissue.
We'll get way more into the detail
in terms of how much tissue is involved in a contraction
when we're in the neural phase,
but just understand that
when we're talking about tension,
it's how do we get the most amount of tension
on the individual fiber, how do we tax that,
how do we tax each individual cell within the muscle
if we want them all to hypertrophy or aprotrophy
as many of them as possible.
So there will be things where
load is a very important measure of tension,
but also fatigue, fatigue is going to be important marker
for tension as well.
So let's start getting through these,
the different types of things that we need to understand.
The first one is gonna be execution,
so when we look at execution,
the most important thing to understand
is that is dictating where this tension is going
in terms of what muscle tissue
is supporting an external load,
so that all has to do
with how well you set up in the exercise
and you know, how well you perform,
so think back to your course one,
your biomechanics and execution course,
all of those things on why execution was so important.
Now you can kind of see on a biochemical level
in an actual program design level,
why it's so important to understand
how to improve execution,
how to get the tension in the tissues that you want
because that's ultimately how you're going to control
that stimulus, the type of stimulus
and where that stimulus is occurring.
So read that,
otherwise tension not only just will distribute,
it's not distributing within the muscle differently,
it's distributing you know, within the body differently.
So if I'm trying to extend
the amount of stimulus in my pecs,
but my triceps are not doing more of the work
and my interior delts are doing none of the work,
stimuli in those cells
is not going to transfer over to these cells,
so not from a hypertrophy perspective anyway,
so we need to be able to keep the tension, increase it
and extend the tension where we want it
if we want to be able to increase the stimulus
for hypertrophy
and that all comes down to execution.
The next one on here is load.
So, it's been a fad lately to kind of make it
so it's just execution, it's not about load
like you create internal tension
or whatever you want, hogwash, load matters,
you need the external load in order to get this tension.
In terms of being able to like if I just sit here
and I just squeeze my bicep and my tricep together,
okay do I create some muscle tension, yes.
My feedback for that actually makes it appear
like there's more tension than there really is for one,
but two, right, a lot of this stuff happens within movement
and that in isometric
and so the eccentric is very important
and you know, doing an eccentric with eternal tension
is kind of an oxymoron.
You need load,
load is going to be a very, very important factor
in you accomplishing tension within that tissue.
Execution works with load,
these two things support each other.
If I execute, I put the tension where I want it
and then I use the load to get the threshold of that tension
to where it's gonna be an appropriate stimulus.
So having execution and not using sufficient load
is not gonna produce significant hypertrophy.
Using a ton of load and not controlling execution
is also not gonna produce sufficient hypertrophy.
Are there people out there that have lifted heavy weights
and hypertrophied
and they've trained like jackasses
for lack of a better term, absolutely.
But would they have gotten better results,
would their physiques look better
or more balanced or what not, yes.
There are people that, remember we talked about hypertrophy
and we talked about there are so many ways to shut it off.
The majority of your freak body builders,
people that put on muscle really easily,
they have actual defects in their regulatory mechanisms
that kind of shut hypertrophy down or shut it off,
which makes it easier for them to turn hypertrophy on,
stimulate those adaptions
because they don't have to go through
all the checks and balances.
From a just accumulating tissue perspective
that's advantageous.
So if you're going to be a bodybuilder
having those genetic mutations
and having that set up in your physiology
is very advantageous,
for any other aspect of life
it is actually disadvantageous.
So before you wish like,
man, I wish that you know, when I walked by a weight,
I just put on muscle really easily,
keep in mind that these are security protection mechanisms
that are somewhat broken.
Now granted, we live in a world today
where resources are not scarce
and we have a lot, you know, our healthcare
is much better than it was back in the Stone Age,
so there's less of a risk.
Like if you gain muscle frequently
don't be like, oh crap, am I unhealthy,
but understand that you should actually be more conscious
of how your training is affecting
other aspects of your health,
how it's affecting your inflammation,
how it's affecting your mitochondria, your cellular,
your chemistry, all these other things
'cause there's a lot of people
with a ton of muscle mass
that are very unhealthy
and live very dysfunctional lives
because essentially they put on
all of this metabolically taxing tissue
because it was so easy for them
'cause there's no kind of regulatory system,
but now their body's in a state
where they're quality of life is down,
they don't have enough energy.
You know, think back to when Jay Cutler did an interview
where he couldn't wait to retire
because he was just getting out of breath
going up and down the stairs.
He had had so much hypertrophy, so much muscle on his frame
that just day-to-day activities become exhausting.
So part of that probably has to do with other factors,
nutrition programs and peritonization,
all the things that
could have helped him carry that muscle better
and more efficiently,
but what I want to say
or the points that I want to get across
is that just because somebody has
managed to achieve hypertrophy,
not using good execution
or maybe not even using sufficient loads
or whatever you know, maybe not even training.
For those of you guys that follow football,
Ray Rice was a running back for the Ravens back in the day,
he had biceps like this big
and he's like, yeah, I don't ever lift weights
because I get too big,
right, freak, freak genetics, right.
So the guy you know did not lift weights,
just played football, but grew biceps,
like how much biceps do you use in football,
not very much American or European football for that matter,
so you know, don't take that approach
in terms of this is how this stuff happens.
Look at the signs, look at the biomechanics,
look at the chemistry
and be like, okay, this is what's gonna apply to everybody,
not just the .00001-percent of freaks on the planet.
Okay, tangent aside, okay looking at volume,
so once I use execution and load
to get a certain threshold of tension,
I need to be able to do that,
sustain that for a certain volume of time.
Two things are gonna happen with that,
like one, sometimes you actually get to the point
where you have to mentally endure the training,
but the more complicated thing is as you fatigue
your tendency is to break the execution,
to stop maintaining tension in the muscle that you wanted
and start transferring it to other muscle groups.
Or we change the tempo or whatnot,
we start using more momentum inappropriately.
Now remember, momentum is not good or bad it all depends,
but people tend to change the way they're doing it
as they fatigue.
That may be a good idea,
that may be a bad idea depending on the exercise,
but it's very important that understanding
that in order to achieve that volume,
you will need to maintain a certain degree of execution
or you will need to adapt your programming
to change the setup someway to help you keep executing.
Whether that's added stability,
whether that's super setting to a different exercise
that's easier for you to execute or whatever it may be,
you have to pick exercises,
you have to find ways where you can produce high tension
and sustain that high tension
if you really want to get these hypertrophy adaptations
in the lowest amount of volume possible.
We want enough volume to get it,
but if you're not able to get quality work done,
you end up having to do too much.
And remember we were just talking in the previous diagram,
anything extra, any extra inflammation,
any extra mechanical damage, any extra nutrients burnt,
resources wasted
does not necessarily guarantee extra hypertrophy.
In fact,
it usually almost never guarantees extra hypertrophy,
it usually guarantees less
because it's that much more that I have to recover from
and my goal is to be able to have my recovery what up here
and the stress way here,
that way I can super compensate,
that way I can make progress and be better.
We don't wanna just barely
be able to get back to maintenance,
so the more, excuse me, the more I can get done
in the least amount of volume
with the least amount of time per se,
more volume than time from a hypertrophy perspective,
the more I'm going to be able to train
at a higher frequency,
the more I'm going to be able to super compensate
from each individual workout,
so my net progress is ultimately going to be greater.
Last one on here is intent.
So with all of these three,
okay, we have execution, load, volume, intent,
what will say is when it comes to having load,
when we are looking at getting the most tension
out of that load,
how we try to move that load matters.
Whether you're trying to lift it as hard as you can,
whether you're trying to lift it slow and controlled,
whether you're trying to accelerate that load
as it goes through,
so you're intent needs to be proportionate
to the resistance profile of the exercise
and the load that you happen to be using
to maximize tension.
So the wrong intent, so trying to fling up up a weight,
when the exercise would then,
we'll say that creating momentum there
essentially nullifies the exercise,
well, then that intent is going to screw everything up,
even if you're setup is good.
This kind of you know, kind of lies in execution,
but I put it in here 'cause I just want you to understand
that the way you do a rep
has so much to do with the tension.
Where you're gonna create it, how much you're create.
So there will be exercises where you want to explode,
there will be exercises
where you wanna start off slow and accelerate through them
and there will be exercises
where you wanna maintain a little bit more control
or constant speed.
There are gonna be almost zero exercises
where our goal is going to be going slow
through the concentric.
Slow concentrics have no purpose in a hypertrophy programs
'cause slow concentrics by definition
are going to be at lower load, at a submaximal tension,
so none of that volume is going to matter,
it's only gonna be metabolic,
where it gets the opposite of what you want to do
if you're trying to get sensation in that Z line
that mechanical tension is occurring
or mechanical damage to stimulate those satellite cells,
you're not gonna be getting any of that
other than if you take it to extreme failure.
So you're doing very long sets and by that time,
you're gonna have a major metabolic stimulus
and that's gonna be the thing that's going to run
and ultimately it is just gonna block
the majority of any hypertrophy adaptations
that you would achieve.
So tempo and intent are gonna be very important
for managing that tension that you're achieving.