Looking for new ways to spur more muscle growth? Look no further, Sean’s got your back.

When looking for ways to build more muscle we have to first look at what builds more muscle in the first place. The factors which influence muscle growth through training are mechanical tension (the amount of weight used), volume (sets x reps), and metabolic stress (the burn, the pump, and the swole).

We’re going to look at 3 ways to attack those factors and start seeing progress.

If you haven’t used intensive techniques before you’re in for a treat. Simply put, they work. They do this by allowing you to use more weight, extending the set past failure, and maximizing muscle damage.

Drop Sets

A drop set involves completing the required reps in a set and then immediately lowering the weight about 10-20% to pump out more reps. There can be a single drop, double drop, or even a triple drop.

This extends the time under tension and really pushes the pump to an extreme level. Drop sets are best done with smaller movements such as curls and triceps extensions, although they can be used on bigger movements such as dumbbell bench press variations and row variations.

They’re seriously taxing so I’d save the drop set for the last set of your exercise.

Example:

Barbell Curl
65 pounds 3×10
Immediately after last set drop 10 pounds and perform 10 or as many as possible
Immediately after that drop 10 pounds and perform 10 or as many as possible

Rest-Pause

A rest-pause set involves you completing a required number of reps, resting 10-15 seconds, and then pumping out more reps with the same weight. 10-15 seconds allows some of the waste products to clear from your muscles along with recovering some energy to get more reps in.

This allows you to get more reps in with a heavier weight. Heavier weight + more reps = more muscle damage and more growth.

Like the drop sets they can be done for a single, double, or even a triple rest-pause and are great with smaller movements. Rest-pause is also great with large movements but due to the fact that you’re using them to pretty much go to failure it would be wise to limit the reps and number of pauses. When you limit the pauses and reps for larger movements they are called clusters.

Example:

Dumbbell Bench Press
50lbs 3×6
After completing the 6 reps put the dumbbells down and rest 15 seconds then pick them up again and get a few more reps

Clusters

Clusters are great for muscle growth and strength as well. They are essentially rest-pause with set pauses and reps. They allow you to get more reps in with a heavier weight than usual.

Imagine you can only deadlift 225 pounds for 5 reps. I give you a cluster which looks like: 225 x 4 + 2 + 2 (This means you lift it 4 times, rest 10-15 seconds, 2 times, rest 10-15 seconds, and then 2 more times). You just did 8 reps with something you could previously only do 5 with! More muscle tension and more volume. You can see how this is great for muscle building.

Example:

Bench Press

185 (4+2+2) x 3 sets
For each cluster perform 4 reps, rack the bar and rest 15 seconds, perform 2 reps, rest 15s, and then perform 2 more reps.

Up the Intensity

There are more ways to kickstart some more muscle growth than just straight weight and the old 3 sets of 10. If you’re looking for some new methods and to spice it up give these intensive techniques a try.