The magical muscle “pump.”
As eloquently as Arnold put it, it can be quite a pleasurable sensation.
But does it have any benefits to your actual muscle gains?
Let’s dig straight to the science.
When lifting weights, or really any other force producing mechanical function, muscle
tension and contraction is created.
Blood flow increases to the working muscles, filling it with nutrients needed for contractile
force against the active resistance.
Simultaneously, muscle contraction occludes the veins of the working muscles, constricting
the amount of blood and byproducts being removed.
The blood plasma concentration thereby increases, filling the interstitial spaces around the
muscle, raising its extra-cellular pressure gradient.
The increased gradient ultimately causes a rush of blood flowing into the muscle cells,
causing a swelling effect, aka “the pump.”
In short, a pump is achieved by keeping your muscles under resisted tension and decreasing
rest.
This means mucho blood into the muscle and not so mucho blood leaving it.
But are bodybuilders really seeing any hypertrophy benefits from chasing the pump?
Research so far is pointing towards the direction of: it might.
One theory looks at osmotic changes within the cell, or increased cell hydration.
Cell hydration, such as increased blood flow from lifting, can act as a regulator for protein
accretion, meaning with greater hydration, muscle protein synthesis is stimulated while
reducing protein breakdown.
Fast-twitch type 2 muscle fibers, in particular, are extremely sensitive to changes in cell
hydration.
Fast-twitch fibers carry a much greater potential for growth compared to their slow-twitch counterpart,
lending to the possible benefit of pump-induced hypertrophy.
The other pump theory of muscle growth deals with the structure of the cells themselves.
The increased swelling from the pump causes the cell’s membrane to heavily expand, threatening
the membrane’s integrity, thus threatening cell survival.
In response, the cell begins reinforcing its cellular structure and activating anabolic
pathways similar to that of mTOR.
Increasing mTOR-like pathways mean potentially increasing muscle growth.
Along with this, studies also suggest that the increased blood flow improves amino acid
transport to the targeted cells, furthering along the potential for growth.
On top of these theories is also the fact that achieving a pump is a pretty good indicator
of proper muscle engagement.
You know you're working the right muscle if the muscle achieves a pump.
So research looks bright for the pump, but it’s not definitive.
More future studies are needed to guarantee its effects.
But if you want to achieve the pump, here are things to consider.
First, remember that it’s all about creating constant tension.
The pump is based on maintaining muscle blood accumulation to the point of excess swelling,
which is achieved through increased “time under tension.”
You can manipulate time under tension in multiple ways.
One is actually avoiding something you’ve probably been taught to do, and that’s lifting
through the full range of motion.
Usually, both ends of a range of motion will create opportunity for diminished tension.
With the biceps curl as an example, you can see the tension on the biceps in the beginning
is close to zero.
As you move along the range, tension increases, reaching its highest point at the middle,
and then again decreasing close to zero at the top.
Instead of going full range of motion, stopping just before reaching the top and bottom of
the range can better assure you maintain tension.
And the type of exercise matter as well, as some creates tension in its entire range of
motion while others will have varying tension throughout.
The next is sustaining tension long enough to create an effective pump.
In the reps and sets video, you will see that 8-12 reps are considered optimal for building
muscle, and its further reinforced with the chase of the pump.
8-12 reps with a moderately heavy weight tend to elicit an effective intensity and time
under tension for pump promotion.
Decreasing rest time between sets to somewhere between 30-60 seconds is also important to
maintain swelling.
And finally, you can also utilize methods such as drop sets and pyramids, where you
decrease the weight you’re lifting within a single set.
As you exhaust lifting your starting weight, you can subsequently reduce the load with
a help of spotters and proceed to get in more reps within the set.
If done right, your muscles will feel like bursting from your skin.
Pump game successful.
Give it a shot and see if it works for you.
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