What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
So if you're ready to start lifting lighter weight and build twice the muscle, then I'm
ready to help you.
And it starts by watching me do this overhead press.
See if you can spot how lifting the weights, the way I am right now, is going to help to
unlock more muscle for you.
It's just an overhead press.
Did you spot it?
If you didn’t; look again.
Here, you can see that in one hand I have a 50lb weight, and in the other hand I have
a 25lb weight.
Now, this is called "Offset Loading".
Besides the obvious increase of core activation – because my body is going to have to stabilize
and prevent the heavier side from tilting down – we have a lot of other ways we can
utilize these two dumbbells, and the pace in which we move them to create an increase
in muscle mass.
Now, I don’t care which exercise you apply this to.
I'm going to show you a number of ways to do that here.
But if we look at, even our first exercise – we'll take the side lateral raise for
your shoulders.
I can show you what you're really trying to focus on.
You have three options.
The first is: you can take the light weight and try to slow it down, and move it at the
pace of the heavier weight.
Here, you're looking for muscular control.
Let's face it, when we lift weights in the gym many, many times we're swinging the damned
things all over the place.
But if you force yourself to slow that down, that lighter weight is now going to have to
add some muscular control – the manual muscular control from you – which is going to lead
to more muscle hypertrophy in the long run.
Think about it.
Gymnasts, ballet dancers, all the people that impeccable body control, and muscle control;
they usually have pretty big muscles where they do have that control.
You want the same thing.
You can opt instead to move the heavier weight at the pace of the lighter weight.
Meaning, you're going to speed that damned thing up.
We know if you take a weight that's heavy and you add the factor, and the element of
speed you're going to increase your power.
The more powerful you become, the more hypertrophy you're going to build.
Why?
Because you're tapping into the type II muscle fibers that are capable of providing you with
this increased size.
So you want to make sure you do that.
However, we have one other option.
I've covered this before as part of our metabolic training.
That is: you can take both of the weights and slow them down, as I'm doing here, for
the ultimate muscle control.
You see, we want to eliminate all momentum here.
In this particular exercise I'm literally just forcing the middle delt to do the work
of lifting that dumbbell up.
Even 10lbs here feels incredibly heavy.
But here's the cool part.
Because of the way our bodies are wired, if you can elicit that type of control on one
side of your body you can let the other side go along for the ride.
So now you're doubling the weight.
It's half of what you would normally use for your "heavy weight", but the fact is, this
is still quite a challenge, realizing how hard it is for that light dumbbell – that
10 pounder – to even do what I'm showing you here.
But neurologically, we're wired to have one side help out the other.
This is actually a principle that we use in stroke rehab to help bring about any kind
of movement in a paralyzed side of the body.
We can elicit that form using the ability of the side that can move, and this is what
you're doing here.
Now again, it doesn't just apply to the delt.
You can apply it to a lot of other exercises.
If you look at the chest here, we can do it with the bench-press.
You offset load.
Take a heavy weight, take half, and you start pressing.
Again, the obvious; we're hitting the core here on the lighter dumbbell side because
you're trying to prevent your body from falling off to the heavy side.
But you can see here, no matter how you decide to do it, you want to focus on one of those
three techniques.
And again, you always have the option of dropping the weight down entirely and going for that
ultimate muscle control, and that really great activation of the chest.
Again, it would carry over here to a dumbbell curl as well.
Look, the core obviously has to work, and control this, but just forcing yourself to
sometimes slow down, or sometimes speed up, and become more explosive is going to provide
a stimulus for growth.
Anything that you're not used to doing, or training right now is going to provide you
with the overload that you need to cause that response.
You want to do leg work?
You do lunges.
Getting offset loading n lunges is incredibly difficult.
Why?
Because our core, again, wants to tilt our body to one side.
You want to train your hips, and your legs, and your entire lower body to be stable no
matter what position your body is in.
Here, in this functional split position, is a great way to train your body.
Finally, you can do your triceps.
Same thing in a tricep extension here.
Utilize the same principle.
You pick the speed, you pick what your goal is, but all three of them will ultimately
lead you to more muscle growth.
Guys, science is what guides what we do here at ATHLEANX, and it's what guides us in all
of our programs.
If you haven't already started training like an athlete, head over to ATHLEANX.com, get
one of our training programs, and do that.
And if you haven't subscribed to our channel here, guys, it's what we try to deliver to
you week after week, every, single time we post a video here.
It's something that's going to help you to get better gains.
Make sure you subscribe to the channel, and of course, check out one of our latest videos
over here.
All right, guys.
I'll see you back here soon.