Extra push

We all find our selves hitting a plateau from time to time. The question is what can we do to break down the wall and of course get bigger? Some people will tell you to stop training take a break; I am not sure if I believe this is the right thing to do. The whole thing with over training in my opinion is way over done. I am not saying that it can not be done, but I know many people who train the way they are suppose to and hit a plateau. They are not over training the muscles have just adapted to there training method. Does this mean throw the whole routine away and start over? I do not think so; with a little push you can trigger growth again.
The thing that a lot of people do not realize is that our muscles have memory. What I mean is that they remember what we do through out a day and adapt to that. Look at it this way if they grow every time we lifted something all the bricklayers and ironworkers in the world would look like professional bodybuilders. Basically the body uses more energy to keep muscle on so it only takes on what it needs to get us through a day. Here are a few things that can give you that extra push you need to get mass muscle.
Lets start with the drop set; it is one of my favorites. What a drop set is you finish your last set with what ever rep range you are doing and immediately with no rest drop your weight down and do another set. It does not really matter how far you drop down your weight, everyone is different. Everyones level of muscle fatigue is going to be different so there is no real accurate number to tell you how much to drop your weight. Just remember that this set should also be to failure. Some times if you really are feeling like you want to exhaust your muscle do a third set immediately after the second. Do not do this on every exercise per muscle group just the last set of the last exercise.
The next method I am going to talk about is the rest pause set. This is exactly what it sounds like. On your last set of an exercise go to failure take a 10 second break and push out a few more. The way this has worked best for me is to up my weight slightly and do 3 sets of 10 but usually on the last set because I have upped my weight I can get 7 or 8 out then I rest 10 seconds and get the last few. Some people say you can do this on the last set of every exercise, but like the drop set I do it on the last set of the last exercise of what ever muscle group I am working on.
Another great method is fst-7. This is a system that Hany Rambod came do with to train professional bodybuilders, and after years of research he has got it down to a science. What fst-7 stands for is fascia, stretch, train and the 7 is for 7 sets. This is really designed for body parts that you are having trouble getting to grow. With this system you need to pick 4 exercises for a particular body part. Two of these exercises need to be compound movements and two of them need to be isolated movements. So to start off with you do one of the compound movements with 3 to 4 sets and 8 to 12 reps, try to go as heavy as possible. Next take an isolated movement and use the same sets and rep range as before. The third set is again going to be a compound movement and keep following the same set and rep range. Remember you want to lift as heavy as you can with these 3 exercises; also keep your rest period about 1 min in between each set. Now for the last exercise, this one is going to be an isolated movement. You will probably have to use less weight than you normally would on this exercise. What you are going to do here is 7 set of 8 to 12 with only 30 seconds of rest in between each set. This is going to get the blood rushing through the body part you are training and give an amazing pump. Some people like I said use this for trouble areas and some train this way all the time on every body part. Try it and see what works for you.
Well I hope this helps you to get past your plateau. These are some of the things I do to help me out. Just try them out for a while and see which is the best for you, we are all different and what may be great for me may not work for you. Anyway train smarter not harder.

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