What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today I want to talk to you about how to build bigger biceps with lighter weights, because
it can absolutely be done.
As a matter of fact, it better be done if you're looking for your best bicep development
ever.
You see, metabolic training is a component of your training that has to be in place if
you want to see peak growth and development of any muscle that you're trying to develop.
Not just your biceps.
So let's see what it looks like in action so you can start to get a feel for what I'm
talking about.
This, right here, is a bicep curl, but it's a little bit different than a regular bicep
curl because the goal here, is to accumulate, not just repetitions, but to accumulate metabolic
breakdown.
In other words, increase metabolite production from rep, after rep, after rep.
As I start to fatigue I want to chase more fatigue, and chase more burn, and more burn,
and I want to be able to dwell in this.
You can see that I'm not just changing color, but this is what I'm actually doing inside
the muscle as I continue to lift.
Now the weight selection: I would take what I would normally use for five, to eight reps,
which would be about 60lbs, and I'm going to drop that down, in half.
So here I'm using about 25lbs, or 30lbs.
The goal is, you shave off the top 5%, and the bottom 5% of the range of motion because
I don’t want to give myself an opportunity to pause the momentum of this rep at any,
single point.
You see, if you go to the very top I can stop moving the dumbbells, or I could stop at the
very bottom.
That tends to be where we do that, but if I shave that off, and I give you the main
instruction of "Move the damned weight and never stop moving, keep the same tempo.
Up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and down."
You will start to feel that burn, and that is what you should be chasing.
Now I'll explain it to you in a second of why that is actually causing muscle growth,
but you have to realize, this technique is not one that we have to do in exclusion of
everything else, but it's one that we have to do in inclusion to the other methods that
we use, and we're used to using for training.
We know we need to add weight to the bar, we know we need to use heavy weights, we know
we need to be able to progressively overload – whether via weight, or volume – but
that is going to run into a wall after a point.
We need to have other methods.
This is going to compliment it and actually give you more growth.
I could apply this, as you see here, to an incline curl.
Same thing.
Just save a little bit off the bottom, a little bit off the top, and keep that dumbbell moving,
and we'll get the same response.
But there's another way that we could actually chase metabolic overload.
That is by taking the exercise where the peak tension occurs in the most contracted position
of that exercise.
So for me, for the biceps, it's a spider curl.
You can see here that via the position of my body on this incline bench, the peak tension
is occurring when that dumbbell is all the way up at the top.
The key here is not to let the muscle drain.
Get the metabolites to being production by having this high level of tension in that
state of peaked contraction, and stay there.
Go down as low as only the mid-range, and come back up to the top, and now do the same
thing.
Rep, and rep, and rep, and rep, and rep, and you'll start to feel this intense burn.
But what I'm saying to you is, this is what you need to chase.
When you get there, you don’t stop.
You dwell in it.
You try to sit there and revel in that pain, and discomfort because, again, that is where
the magic happens.
You could have turned the original bicep exercise into this same kind of exercise by adding
a band to the dumbbells.
By doing so, we've now complimented that strength curve to add an additional peak tension at
the top of the rep.
So now, how is all this happening?
Why is all this working?
Well, if you look here – this is our blackboard, by the way, guys – when you look here – forget
the white boards.
They're out of style.
You basically have a muscle cell, okay?
I'm going to keep this really, really simple.
Inside the muscle cell, the more you start to lift, the more you get the accumulation
of all our different metabolites.
I'm talking about potassium.
I'm talking about lactic acid.
I'm talking about hydrogen.
I'm talking about chloride.
All these things start to accumulate inside the muscle cell.
We know, from biology, that the more stuff that starts to accumulate inside of a cell,
the more that concentration is, the more there is a tendency for water to enter the cell,
to try to diffuse that, and try to equalize the concentration inside, and out.
So if we start to increase all those metabolites being produced here – again, lactic acid,
phosphate – all those things are starting to be produced, water wants to flow into this
cell to try to diffuse this.
There's too much concentration, and there's too little hydration, and water inside the
cell.
So all that starts to rush in.
Well, what happens at that point?
With all this water hydration rushing into this muscle cell you start to get outward
– inward, to outward pressure – on that cell.
So it starts to push on the walls in this direction.
Now, this isn't true muscle growth.
When this cell is starting to get pushed out this way, that's not the growth that you're
looking for, where you're going to walk away and get bigger, and feel stronger, and bigger
the next day.
What I'm talking about is, that is the stimulus because of the pressure on the cell that requires
that cell to adapt and respond by ultimately growing bigger.
So what you're chasing here, is this gradient, and by increasing this – the more that you
can increase these metabolites, the more you can resist that burn – there's more likelihood
that you'll be able to drive stuff into the cell.
The fluid is able to push out, and create a bigger, and bigger response.
Now guys, this type of training – as I said in the beginning – is not exclusive.
If you only use this and you're using light weights to accomplish this where are you going
to get your heavy weight training in?
Because all three methods of hypertrophy have to be in place if you want to see your best
results.
However, if you're not using light weights because you were told a long time ago that
it's impossible to build muscle with them, that is wrong.
It's actually 100% wrong and in order to see your best results you need to have all those
methods combined.
Eccentric overload, metabolic training, and also progressive overload using both volume,
and additional weight on the bar as your mechanisms.
Guys, if you're looking for a program that weaves all these in at the appropriate time
so you're not missing out on any one, and you're not listening to the "Broscience" you've
heard in the past that made you run away from the light weights for fear that you wouldn't
build muscle with them; that program is over at ATHLEANX.com.
All of our programs actually put the science back in strength.
If you click the link below this video you'll find our program selector tool.
That will help you to find the program that is most aligned with your current goals.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below.
Let me know what else you want to see here, and I'll do my best to cover it for you in
the days, and weeks ahead.
All right, guys.
See you soon.