Continuous Muscle Building: What’s the Secret?

So, you’ve been working at building your muscles, but you’ve reached a plateau. Nothing seems to be changing despite your fitness program. Why? Well, it could be that you are simply repeating the same movement, imposing the same stimulus on your muscles.

There are several theories on the best way to build muscle. Those in the ‘volume camp’ say keep adding more work to your training; others in the progressive overload crew say gradually add more weight; and the high intensity group say go to failure. These approaches aren’t necessarily wrong, but they’re not the entire picture.

The most effective way to continuously grow your muscles is to confuse your body with change. Change the type of stimulus you impose on your muscle building regime and you will begin to see results. What do I mean?

Let’s consider the dumbbell curl. Whether you add more weight, increase the number of sets, or work to failure, at some point you will stop seeing change because your bicep will have become used to that specific movement – the dumbbell curl. In essence, your body will become used to the stimulus and will stop changing.

The answer to growth? Change-up the way you do a particular movement. The less experienced you are, the longer you can and should stay in a particular program. The more experienced you are, the more frequently you can change up your routine.

Here are some examples of stimulus changes for the dumbbell curl:

Lifting: To change the stimulus but still use the dumbbell, you might try switching between accumulation and intensification workouts. Accumulation workouts reflect higher volume, lower weights, higher reps, longer time under tension, shorter rest intervals whereas intensification workouts reflect lower volume, heavier weights, lower reps, shorter time under tension, longer rest intervals. Perform 12-15 sets in the accumulation phase and 4-6 reps in the intensification phase.

Tempo: You can also change the tempo of the movement in a rep. Slow down your eccentric movement (extension of the muscle) or the concentric movement (lifting/contracting). Apply some isometric holds during the set.

Resistance curve: Using the dumbbell again, add bands for different stimulation. This way the resistance will change during each rep to emphasize different parts of the movement. This resistance forces the muscle to change (the new stimulus) resulting in tearing and growth.

Training Methods: Do a combination of rest/pause with your movement. Perform reps of the dumbbell curl to failure, and then rest for 10-20 seconds, and repeat. Incorporate drop sets into your workout by performing reps of the movement to failure, then reduce the weight by 20-50 %, and do as many reps as possible with the lighter weight. Perform variations of the same exercise. For example, do a pronated curl (palms facing down); then a supinated curl (palms out, squeeze at the top, with your pinky finger touching your shoulder), and then a neutral curl.

If you spice up your exercise program every four weeks, and include in each new program weekly stimulus variation, your body will not get used to movements to the point of stagnation. You will see and feel the results.