If you do a one rep max set and you’re using super heavy weight, you’re thinking, wow, there's a lot of tension on the muscle. So that should automatically equate to muscle mass gains. But what I'm going to say is that you're going to notice that there's a sweet spot for rep range along with range of motion that gives you optimal constant tension and stretch on the muscle that causes you to get the most amount of gains.
And this is not necessarily just tension for its own sake, meaning just lifting heavy weight automatically gives you more muscle mass because, as we know, when you're in the lower rep ranges, a lot of times your body is really working on the nervous system and being able to fire the muscle hard, but it's not necessarily creating a hypertrophic effect. You may get some muscle mass for sure, and I encourage you to do strength type training for periods of time or strength rep ranges, but one thing's for sure that I've noticed is that if I incorporate constant tension under a stretch of the muscle belly, now this is not the same as full range of motion. Some people think, oh, if I'm going all the way down, I'm automatically stretching the muscle belly.
That's actually not true. Sometimes when you're going all the way down, you're going past the stretch of the muscle belly, and then you're starting to put that stretch on the tendons or the insertions of the actual tendons of the muscles, right? So one example could be if you're locking out on incline curl, that might actually be a detriment to you, although it might feel like you're getting a better stretch because you're feeling it right in the tendon insertions, right in the forearm, but you're not necessarily keeping that tension on the muscle belly as much. It's transferring a bit to the tendons, right? So what I'm saying is that it's a great idea to find out what range of motion or what technique gives you the optimal stretch in the belly itself of the muscle, not feeling it in the insertion points, but in the belly of the muscle, and then being able to continue repetitions of 8 reps or 20 reps or 30 reps, whatever it might be, under stretch.
So you're getting this muscle stretched and constant tension, meaning you're getting the belly stretched to its utmost capacity without transferring the tension to the ligaments and associated tendons, or the joints, right? But you're actually keeping that muscle under a stretch and under constant tension. And this is the best way to put on muscle mass gains, so this is something I found a lot of natural bodybuilders didn't pay attention to. Say they were doing leg presses, they would focus on going all the way up, almost locking the knees, in some cases they were, and then coming all the way down so their knees are hitting their chest, and they were so hyper-focused on going up all the way and down all the way that they weren't paying attention to where the muscles were most active that they wanted to hit.
So say the tension on the quadriceps is happening during almost to the top, and then most of the way down on the bottom, and then of course you could see that a lot of the muscle tension would be leaving the vastus lateralis, and going more to the medialis of the knee, and also transferring more to the hips, like as far as the hamstrings, and in some people's cases the gluteus, right? And these people wouldn't really pay attention to where the muscles that they wanted to hit were getting the most amount of intensity. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing all the way up and all the way down if that's what you want to do, but you may notice some weak links start to develop because you're not hyper-focusing the tension on the actual bellies of the muscles that you want to hit, right? That's why you see a lot of bodybuilders do these specific type of isolation movements in certain cases, because they're noticing when they're going all the way up and all the way down on a certain compound movements, that there's still a weak link happening, right? There's still a muscle that's not necessarily developing the way they'd like it to, to create that picturesque sort of physique. So in that case, you have to hyper-specialize, if that's even a word, right? But just specialize on trying to transfer tension into a certain area that you feel needs the most amount of work or emphasis.
Now, for each muscle group, it's going to be different, but the big thing I have found is that if you can create a stretch and a constant tension on the belly of the muscle, you're going to get the most results. So say, in skull crushers, a lot of times guys will go down right to their forehead and back up, right? But just something as simple as lifting the elbows back, like say I'm laying on my back right now, just lifting the elbows like this, now you're creating more of a stretch in the long head of the tricep and constant tension, you see? You don't have to rest at the bottom, you just go down to where you feel the tension still on there and then concentrically contract, contract and relax, contract. So basically you're not really relaxing, you're just lowering the weight slowly and then up and down, but you're keeping this under a stretch and therefore you're creating a higher level of intensity on the muscle belly and the tricep from doing that.
So this is really one of the principles that's the most important principle, in my opinion, for putting on muscle mass as a natural bodybuilder. At least for the hypertrophy side of your training. Of course you need to put on strength, of course you need to focus on increasing your ability to lift heavier weights, regardless of what rep range you're talking about, whether it's 10 reps, 15 reps, 8 reps, whatever, but aside from that, you still also need to take time to focus on the stretch of the muscle belly and the constant tension on there and that's how you're going to get much greater muscular development.
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