Heavy Duty and muscle failure

Edited by Ivan Mercolini

Muscular failure and techniques to increase intensity

Reaching muscle failure in a series means, for the weightlifter, to get to the point where for how much grit, anger you put to us you can no longer complete the repetition. You will say: the desks know it too. But then, I say, why is it never applied? To give in, does not mean to get to the point where repetition becomes a little longer, so let go. To give in, does not mean making a puff and then giving up. Surrender means that even if you put a gun to your head promising to shoot you if you don't go ahead, you won't be able to do it. I play the title of Model Trainer that 90% of the readers of this essay do not actually fail in training. He believes he does it, but in reality he does not push hard enough not having enough motivation and / or self-discipline to do so. And consider that positive failure is not everything.

We have said that in order to give optimal hypertrophic stimulation we must carry out a high intensity peak in the lowest volume. So to make the series really intense, deep, and productive, we can do half repetitions to burn alias "burns", in number of one or two. Performing a burns means performing the series with maximum concentration: once you reach the point where you realize that you are not able to perform another complete repetition, you do not go completely into a negative phase, but only a little and then looks positive. You perform this technique a couple of times until you realize you can no longer even hold the weight (isometric yielding) and you go down completely closing the series. I give an example that is easy to explain even without figures. Let's take the side openings (crucified from an orthostatic position) for the intermediate multi-layered bundles of the deltoid: an exercise that everyone knows. Seen from the frontal plane, the movement starts from 0 ° (arm conveyed to the body) and reaches 90 ° (arm perpendicular to the torso). Therefore it goes in positive from 0 ° to 90 ° and in negative from 90 ° to 0 ° as many times as there are repetitions of the series. Well, if at the seventh repetition at the 90 ° position you will realize that you will not be able to perform another full excursion, go down only about 20 degrees, then start again in positive. Do it a couple of times until you reach the isometric failure.

If instead you can count on the presence of a spotter then you can take advantage of the forced repetitions, even in this case in number of one or two. When you have reached the positive failure, your partner will help you complete one or two more complete repetitions. But be careful: helping doesn't mean that he should do it with his efforts, helping means that he will VERY slightly accompany you to finish the executions and will ONLY intervene when you have actually surrendered, urging you to get away with your own willpower. Translated in a nutshell, this means: you can cheat in front of the other weightlifters in the room, you can cheat yourself and blaming yourself for some gland if you don't grow up, but you can't cheat in front of the physiology that regulates your body: o dates high intensity, or flab. And I repeat: you will not compensate for this lack by performing other series, but will only prolong the effort towards a resistive stimulus, which will have less and less hypertrophy as you increase the series and depending on the actual intensity developed.

I now speak of another technique to increase intensity. A technique that I find very profitable and well present in the HEAVY DUTY: the pre-fatigue. This technique consists in performing a series of isolation concerning a main muscle in superseries with a multiarticular series where, in addition to the muscle just mentioned, the auxiliaries also intervene. The aim is to literally exhaust the affected muscle in a small volume. For example: crosses on bench + thrusts on a bench with barbell (pectoral), legs extension + legs press (quadriceps), side openings + slow back with dumbbells (deltoids), pullover or pulldown + pull-ups (backbones). In fact, when we perform a multi-joint exercise alone, the weakest link in the chain is the one that gives way first. For example, if we perform a series of bench presses, we will finish the series not because it sold the bib, but because it gave up the triceps. In the pull-ups, the biceps or the forearm yields before the backbone. By performing a pre-fatigue we will ensure that in the multiarticular series what was the main muscle becomes the weak link in the chain, forcing it to yield completely.

So, imagine the scene that I will now describe in romantic terms: perform a series of high intensity legs extension, for about 8 repetitions. You come to failure, but your vs. spotter, with sadistic slowness invites you to perform two more repetitions. The quadriceps bursts, but nevertheless, WITHOUT RECOVERY TIMES, jump on the legs press and perform another eight terrible repetitions + two forced repetitions (always with a light and slow aid of your spotter that will intervene only when it is absolutely certain that you have really surrendered and you're not pretending). At the end of this super set it is mandatory that you turn your head and feel ill, but you will be happy to learn that you have performed perhaps for the first time, a series useful for your muscular development. Now, it is clear that there are other techniques to increase the intensity of a series, but I believe that these three are the most usable and suitable for the HEAVY DUTY.

Now I come to the point: I illustrate in the following chapter some HEAVY DUTY cards I have adapted. I will also show an example for girls even if, as I said, I do not consider this method valid for them, lacking the neurological, psychological and hormonal presuppositions to develop the required intensities and aggressiveness. The fact remains that in some cases it could be effective. I will leave to the reader and her PT the due evaluations.