Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

If you want to grow bigger muscles you have to first learn the three options you have for doing it and then not get attached to any one. The biggest problem people have is that they get stuck on one particular method for building muscle and are afraid to explore other avenues for doing it. This happens because they see success with something and fear that veering from that will cause them to lose gains.

In this video, I’ll show you the three main methods of hypertrophy and how you need to explore each of them at different times in your training if you want to reach your true muscle size potential. I will show you the pros and cons of each that wind up costing you the maximum amount of muscle mass that you can pack on if you dwell in one method at the exclusion of the other two.

The three main methods of hypertrophy or muscle growth are progressive overload, metabolic stress and eccentric muscle damage. Each of these has their own benefits as well as drawbacks that tend to make them rely on each other for best results. We can start with progressive overload since it is the most basic of the three and is the one that you have likely been taught to pursue first when you initially began lifting weights.

The concept behind progressive overload is either adding more and more weight to the bar to increase your strength on the exercises that you are doing or to increase the amount of work that you perform in a single workout over time. You can also keep the amount of workload the same in your workouts but increase the frequency of your training to hit your muscles more often and take advantage of the 48 hour cycle of muscle protein synthesis.

The issue here is that this is not an endless road. You will ultimately hit a wall in terms of the strength that you develop or the size of the muscles that are performing the work. When you cannot add a single extra pound to the exercise what happens then? When your newbie gains are over and you cannot add another pound of muscle, what do you do then? If you make a mistake you may wind up adding more weight than you can handle and you either allow your form to fall to the point that the exercise is no longer effective or worse you wind up getting injured.

What people will suggest next is to pursue more volume and frequency at submaximal loads. They argue that you won’t be likely to hurt yourself because of the lighter tension on the muscles and that the increased workout sessions will lead to an overload needed to build muscle. Here is where frequency comes back to bite you. While you may not see anything but gains for awhile, ultimately the result of higher frequency is overuse injuries that derail you over time.

Here is where metabolic training becomes a savior. Not only is it a great way to train with injuries (since you can use lighter weights and in abbreviated ranges of motion) but you can use it to spark new gains because you likely never explored it enough the right way to use up all the potential gains you have in you from doing it.

Finally, you can use eccentric training to put back the tension overload on the muscles that has been missing by using the exclusively lighter weights of metabolic training and cause your muscles go grow this way as well. The key is not falling in love with any one method at the exclusion of the others since here again this muscle soreness created by this can prevent you from seeing the increase in frequency and volume that you would want to use for max gains.

If you are looking for a program that meshes all three perfectly so you can finally reach your true muscular potential, head to http://athl