About pump

[Theomacho]

Would someone agree with me that too heavy weights will make the pump impossible to achieve.

To make a long story short I've been training for years and lately I've been training quite heavy with little progress. So sometime this winter I decided I would change my scheme and try to put on some weight when I felt better. So I made a new program and jumped from heavy 5 rep sets to 12 rep sets. Today was my first session since a 2 week illness and I felt weak, but full of energy. I was doing lat pulldowns when I realised I didn't have the energy to get a satisfactory workout for my muscles. So I used a little less weight and went through the set like there was no tommorow. And I felt something I haven't felt for years. PAIN!!!! :ogre: There it was, a little taste of the pump I remembered having in my starting years.

Could this be what have hindered my progress, me never really decided if I should do heavy strength training or pump for muscle growth. Would somebody say pump comes with moderate resistance and not so heavy you barely have the energy for the last rep?

Discuss pump. And can some really buff dude please trample all over this place shedding light to the issue and crush damned people like myself.

[Rahf]

Pump does not necessarily mean muscle growth but it is associated with it. I'd say you need to vary your training. Doing the same amount of sets and the same amount of reps year in and year out is doomed to fail.

[Theomacho]

Pump does not necessarily mean muscle growth but it is associated with it. I'd say you need to vary your training. Doing the same amount of sets and the same amount of reps year in and year out is doomed to fail.

Well that's not what I've been doing and that's not what I want to discuss. I just wanted to give some background info. Now I want to hear glorious stories about pump. And I must say I do believe pump is the way to go for muscle growth in most cases, wouldn't you agree?

[NightHunter]

No...

[Gusch]

Pump does not necessarily mean muscle growth but it is associated with it. I'd say you need to vary your training. Doing the same amount of sets and the same amount of reps year in and year out is doomed to fail.

I'd go as far as to say that pump has absolutely nothing to do with muscle growth. I can get a pump from duing endless reps of pushups whoever gets muscle growth from that is a total beginner or whatever.

[mr popular]

the pump assists muscle recovery and growth, but not by itself. It is supposed to come after your heavy sets, in order to push nutrients into the damaged muscles, and also to stretch the fascia allowing more room for growth.

and Rahf: Actually, many bodybuilders make progress from year to year with the same program, only occassionally varying a few sets, or exercises. It continues to work as long as you continue increasing the weight and challenging yourself.

Theomacho: if you haven't felt pain in that long, you probably aren't pushing yourself, which would be the cause of your stagnated progress. When you lift heavy, you are still supposed to go BALLS OUT and push through the pain barrier.

My personal recommendation is always to do everything, not just pick one side or the other... Do your big heavy sets, then if it's a big muscle group do some moderate ones, then finish off whatever the target muscle group is with infinite sets to achieve a heavy pump.

I may not be particularly buff compared to some people, but here is a picture of me when I was 15lbs lighter than I am now, so you can judge for yourself whether or not my advice is valid:


http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=howtolureinthepreyqz5.jpg

[Theomacho]

the pump assists muscle recovery and growth, but not by itself. It is supposed to come after your heavy sets, in order to push nutrients into the damaged muscles, and also to stretch the fascia allowing more room for growth.

and Rahf: Actually, many bodybuilders make progress from year to year with the same program, only occassionally varying a few sets, or exercises. It continues to work as long as you continue increasing the weight and challenging yourself.

Theomacho: if you haven't felt pain in that long, you probably aren't pushing yourself, which would be the cause of your stagnated progress. When you lift heavy, you are still supposed to go BALLS OUT and push through the pain barrier.

My personal recommendation is always to do everything, not just pick one side or the other... Do your big heavy sets, then if it's a big muscle group do some moderate ones, then finish off whatever the target muscle group is with infinite sets to achieve a heavy pump.

I may not be particularly buff compared to some people, but here is a picture of me when I was 15lbs lighter than I am now, so you can judge for yourself whether or not my advice is valid:


http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?image=howtolureinthepreyqz5.jpg

Well you see I was a fan of strength so I did mad heavy 5 rep sets and had good gains in strength for a while, but I didn't put on any weight so i figured it was time for some mass. Since no matter how much you can force your muscles to contrect you need the amount of tissue to be able to generate great force. So I recently started following the 20 rep squat program to get some mass and especially for my skinny legs. Thing is I almost didn't ease the weights anything at all as I started doing rep sets. No matter how hard I pushed myself I felt like I didn't get everything out of the sets. It's not that there was a pain or some mental threshold that I couldn't pass. My body simply gave up after a while and from my experience that means your trying to do to many reps with heavy weight I mean I did 12 rep sets with 80 % of my max.

And how the hell am I gonna take that picture seriously? If that's really you then you need to cool down and stop acting all important.

[Syn]

bah, your all gay, the way to go for muscle growth is muscle hypertrophy, it's the only way to do it, the pump just pushes blood into your muscles, it doesn't really help with muscle growth, it just makes the muscle appear bigger. if a pump was all you need for muscle growth, then wouldn't bodybuilders just get pumped up like they do before a show and be done with it?

[Theomacho]

bah, your all gay, the way to go for muscle growth is muscle hypertrophy, it's the only way to do it, the pump just pushes blood into your muscles, it doesn't really help with muscle growth, it just makes the muscle appear bigger. if a pump was all you need for muscle growth, then wouldn't bodybuilders just get pumped up like they do before a show and be done with it?

Hypertrophy yes that's why I'm doing my 12 reps.

[Rahf]

Hypertrophy ranges = 6-12 or something like that. You need to eat as well you know. To gain muscle you have to gain weight. I'm sure you're aware of that though.

[Steve]

Rep ranges also have nothing to do with muscle growth actually haha. You just need to damage your muscles for them to grow. So basically you could be doing one set of one rep of an incredible weight with perfect, slow form and it would still be just as good as doing 2 sets of 8 reps.

[Syn]

yeah, I love how people like to say you can achieve a certain goal with rep ranges and such (rahf, I'm dissapointed in you) it's all about your own personal body, and how it reacts to certain weights

[rock_ten]

Total volume is ofton correlated with muscle growth. Also sometimes volume-density, but some consider it unimportant.

Theomacho, do some organised program that is periodised and allows for backing-off etc.

[Theomacho]

Rep ranges also have nothing to do with muscle growth actually haha. You just need to damage your muscles for them to grow. So basically you could be doing one set of one rep of an incredible weight with perfect, slow form and it would still be just as good as doing 2 sets of 8 reps.

I find it hard having good form when doing one rep with "incredible" weight. Anyway thanks for posting Steve. There are a lot of ppl playing experts here talking about things a little off topic and It makes me regret making this thread in the first place. I don't give a shit what you think about certain things not concerning me thinking doing too heavy 12 rep sets isn't good enough.

[Gusch]

Rep ranges also have nothing to do with muscle growth actually haha. You just need to damage your muscles for them to grow. So basically you could be doing one set of one rep of an incredible weight with perfect, slow form and it would still be just as good as doing 2 sets of 8 reps.


And there are tons of training programs backing up what you said.
I'm not with the "one set of one rep" but rep range is definitely not all that important.

[-Pat-]

Pump is hypertrophy etc

[Rahf]

yeah, I love how people like to say you can achieve a certain goal with rep ranges and such (rahf, I'm dissapointed in you) it's all about your own personal body, and how it reacts to certain weights

I never knew I had your approval..

I'm not saying I live by the 6-12 but that is still rep ranges people move to have "optimal" (I hate that word) hypertrophy. One perfect rep with a heavy ass weight will still provide it but the gains will be inclined to strength rather than hypertrophy. Or so the wise men say. I don't care frankly, I stay >5 reps and I'm happy with that.

[mr popular]

Why anyone would limit themselves by an exact rep range seems like an excuse to half-ass every workout to me...

i train in the 4-10 rep range. I basically pyramid all of my exercises through 3-5 sets, increasing the weight and dropping the general reps each set from about 10 to around 4-6 (depending on how big and/or dangerous the exercise is haha)

When I reach my working weight on the final set, I aim to get the weight up at LEAST 3 times, but I don't just stop at three... I will push myself to total functional failure--where I cannot do another rep without killing myself--usually this will fall around 5-6 reps. And I do this every week until I can do 8-10 reps, then I increase the load for my working weight for next time. I do this for most of my exercises in all of my workouts throughout the week, except the very last "pump" exercise which is whatever the hell I feel like doing to push as much blood into the target muscle as possible...

If I stuck to some exact number of reps for every set, I would never be able to progress the way I do because I'd never know when my body had become strong enough to lift a heavier weight.

My point is, it is retarded to limit yourself by some sort of "perameters".

[hamelkarl]

One picture to show you all!

http://www.bodybuilders.com/dexter1.jpg

[Theomacho]

One picture to show you all!

http://www.bodybuilders.com/dexter1.jpg
And his opinion is?
Why anyone would limit themselves by an exact rep range seems like an excuse to half-ass every workout to me...

i train in the 4-10 rep range. I basically pyramid all of my exercises through 3-5 sets, increasing the weight and dropping the general reps each set from about 10 to around 4-6 (depending on how big and/or dangerous the exercise is haha)

When I reach my working weight on the final set, I aim to get the weight up at LEAST 3 times, but I don't just stop at three... I will push myself to total functional failure--where I cannot do another rep without killing myself--usually this will fall around 5-6 reps. And I do this every week until I can do 8-10 reps, then I increase the load for my working weight for next time. I do this for most of my exercises in all of my workouts throughout the week, except the very last "pump" exercise which is whatever the hell I feel like doing to push as much blood into the target muscle as possible...

If I stuck to some exact number of reps for every set, I would never be able to progress the way I do because I'd never know when my body had become strong enough to lift a heavier weight.

My point is, it is retarded to limit yourself by some sort of "perameters". I find this interesting only a few people I know pyramid their exercises sometimes and they never mention it so I'm not sure they're even aware of it. I would like to see if more people than you find this method effective.

[hamelkarl]

He's a famous powerlifter and do competition in bodybuilding! I don't think that you must neglect what you aquired in powerlifting! don't forget!