Triceps Pump

Here’s how you can pump up your triceps…

Fastest Way Build Muscle

Let’s face it, the fastest way to build muscle is to take illegal steroids, spend countless hours in the gym and gorge on humongous amounts of food and protein supplements.

We’ll get to the fastest way to build muscle in a sane and natural way in a moment. But first, let’s dispense with the idea of illegal steroids.

If you go the hardcore route like today’s professional bodybuilders:

Men and Women alike risk:

• Severe acne, oily skin and hair.
• Hair loss.
• Liver disease, tumors and cysts.
• Kidney disease.
• Heart disease, heart attack, stroke.
• Altered mood, irritability, aggression, depression or suicide 
• Huge distended bellies
• Arrest

And just for the guys, we can add:

• Breasts (“bitch tits”)
• Painful erections
• Shrunken testicles 
• Decreased sperm count
• Infertility
• Impotence

Women have a special list of their own:

• “Man Face” caused by male hormones, extreme dieting
• Facial and body hair
• Baldness
• Enlarged clitoris
• Shrunken breasts
• Drier, coarser skin

Still, some people will take those risks in the quest to get big. Testosterone Nation says at least 30 professional bodybuilders have died prematurely due to things caused by the use of steroids.

Plus, the effects don’t last if you stop taking them. You’ve probably seen pictures on the web of pro bodybuilders while on steroids and then what they look like when permanently off the juice.

If not, Google for it. It’s shocking. They basically shrink back down to mere mortals and in some cases show the irreversible damage caused by the hormones.

Natural is the Only Sane Way to Build Muscle.

Let’s set the expectations:

1. Realize you’re not going to look like one of the 300 pound pros – be glad you will be healthy
2. You can definitely pack on some quality muscle, look and feel great
3. You can do it without illegal drugs

Supplements

There’s nothing wrong with considering legal supplements, as long as you use them according to directions and heed any health warnings. Check out this post for my recommendations on the two that have been generally proven to work best: Whey Protein and Creatine.

The post talks about men over 40, but these two items can work for women and younger/older men as well. Neither of them is a steroid or hormone, so there aren’t the side effects noted above.

How to Train

Recent study after study has shown that higher reps with lighter weight is the fastest way to build muscle. The evidence is becoming overwhelming. This is especially true for those of us training without steroids. And for people who are north of 40 in age.

The absolutely huge poundages that you see pro bodybuilders throwing around are not possible or advisable for drug-free mortals. Plus it’s just not necessary.

The Formula That Works is Easy

Try to screen out all the hype on the web and the fitness industry for a moment and view this with fresh eyes. There is absolutely nothing complicated about building muscle.

It does NOT require a complex course of action covered in a thick book with a ton of jargon, 12 DVDs, expensive equipment, compound movements, HIT, Cross Fit, giant tractor tires, rope rigs or coaches preaching at you.

Lighter Weights, Higher Reps

The old school belief that only heavy weights can build muscle is being pushed aside by growing evidence that the fastest way to build muscle is with lighter weights and higher reps. This doesn’t mean light weights. It means a level of resistance that takes you to failure in the 8 – 12 rep range.

If you’d like to see further backup, please see this post. There are several links at the bottom of the article to both scientific studies and articles in popular bodybuilding magazines. It’s compelling stuff by objective experts and all agree — lighter weights/higher reps is best.

My own life experience

I’m in my early 60’s and have been resistance training for nearly 5 decades. I’ve never used illegal steroids. At the same time, I’ve never been super lean, ripped or shredded, either. I have managed to build muscle mass and keep it.

Over the years, I’ve done just about every method and style of training, from Olympic to Power to Bodybuilding and hybrids in between.

For many of those years, my goals were at least partly ego-driven. I wanted to lift ever-heavier amounts of weight to prove I was stronger. It was always the way. Progressive resistance meant progressively heavier weights.

You can get away with training that way for a long time in your life. But there comes a day when your joints can’t handle it and your body just can’t recover like it used to do.

Here’s me pushing heavy weight on the leverage bench in my mid-50’s. I screwed up the math in the video, but it’s a total of 520 pounds x 7 reps. My ego loved it, my shoulders are still complaining. 

Once it became obvious the days of heavy weights were over, I was forced to either adopt a new, more sane method of training or give up my lifelong passion.

The result? I had to try lighter weights, higher reps. Today, I have more quality muscle than I did at any other age. And I’m not beating myself up anymore trying to lift ever-heavier weights. 

I adopted the 8 – 12 Rep to Failure method, using weights only heavy enough to cause failure in those final reps. And only increasing the weight when I could do more than 12 good reps in the first set.

Turns out, I could have been doing that style all along and spared my shoulders a ton of grief. Oh well, live and learn.

There is a Trick to making lighter weights work

There is definitely a trick to this style of working out. It really requires that you get your head in the game and dialed into what you’re doing.

It is critical with this method to properly calibrate the amount of resistance so that you are able to do 8 – 12 repetitions per set and no more. Lighter doesn’t mean super light. Your goal is muscle exhaustion or failure on each set. That won’t happen by waving around super light weights.

Maintain high quality repetitions. No cheating or swinging the weights around. Your goal is to keep constant tension on that target muscle and exhaust it. The key is to feel that muscle, especially as you bring it to failure.

And ‘failure’ doesn’t mean passing out. It just means you can’t do another clean rep without a cheating movement. Don’t cheat.

Here’s the Trick

That can be easier said than done. After all, our minds are involved in this process, as well, and it is our mind that will determine if we’ve exhausted the muscle or not.

You’re focus is not increasing the amount of weight you use. It is on taking the target muscle to “failure” in each set. You can adjust the number of reps and the amount of resistance as you work through your sets.

You are not focusing on numbers. You are focusing on the feeling in your muscle.

You want to get into a mental groove called the Mind/Body Connection. Feel the pump. The amount of weight and the number of sets are just tools to get you to the pump.

One day, 12 reps might seem impossible. On another, you might find yourself doing 15 or more to reach exhaustion in that first set.

Decrease the number of reps as necessary to finish the final sets. If you can only do 5 reps on the final set, so what? As long as you feel the pump, you’re good.

Rest as briefly as possible in between sets.

Why Does This Work Fastest?

The real formula for building muscle has never changed. It goes like this: Muscle fibers grow in response to controlled damage that we do to them through exercises targeting specific muscles.

The muscle fibers ‘tear’ on a microscopic level. This damage is repaired while we sleep using the good nutrition we’ve put in our bodies as fuel. This is also where supplements like Whey Protein and Creatine come into play.

Exercise + Good Nutrition + Rest & Recovery = Muscle Growth.

It’s not about “No Pain, No Gain.” Forget pain. 

If you’re working hard enough, you will feel a bit sore. Think of that soreness as the “Pump.“ Get to know it as a good feeling. It’s a signal your body is sending blood into the muscle fibers with healing nutrients to build and repair them. Pump is good. Pain is bad.

If You’re Ready to Get Started

Try this workout. It will work the entire body over a 4 day period. You can do this workout at home with something as simple as a set of resistance bands, or a nicely equipped home gym or commercial operation. The equipment doesn’t really matter that much. It’s all about that mind/muscle connection.

A Note on the Featured Photo: It’s a classic Ford Coupe built up with a lot of muscle and fast. Like the car, I’m a life-long Detroiter. Not as old as that Ford, but still in good shape and running strong.

Thanks for visiting. How do you feel about lighter weights and higher reps?Please share your thoughts in the comments below. And sign up for email updates to get the latest.

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Best Ways Build Muscle

Lighter weights with higher reps is among the best ways to build muscle — if not the absolute best way — especially if you’re north of 50 in age.

It’s becoming the consensus opinion among experts (lots of links below to studies and articles). And its pushing aside the old school belief that only heavier and heavier weights can build muscle.

I know its right from experience. I’ve been training for nearly 5 decades now. Up till my mid-50’s, I focused on pushing the heaviest weights I could possibly handle. Heavier meant progress. Failing to progressively add weight felt like failure. Lighter weights were for aerobics people, not real lifters.

Here’s me back in the day. I include this video as proof that I really was an adherent of the hardcore, old school way of training. Heavy. Alone in the basement. (I messed up the math at the time. It’s a total of 610 pounds x 2 reps.)  

I found out the hard way that aging joints cannot recover from the extreme punishment that heavyweights can bring as quickly or as thoroughly as they did when we were younger. My shoulders ached and started making knuckle-cracking sounds when I moved.

Fast forward to today, in my early 60’s I have more muscle mass than I did at any other age. And no pain. It’s because I stopped lifting for my ego and started lifting smart.

I’ve been at the ‘new way’ now for about 6 years. It’s more fun training this way and it takes less time. You do feel soreness as a result, but not the pain of getting pounded by heavy weights.

That soreness is the legendary “Pump,” as blood rushes into the target muscles bringing healing nutrients and flushing out waste. The Pump is a great feeling. Soreness is good. Pain is bad.

In a nutshell the formula goes like this:

• 8 – 12 reps to failure in every set
• 30 – 40 seconds rest between sets
• High volume of work: 3 – 5 sets per exercise, 3 or more exercises per target muscle group
• Focus on one muscle group/area per workout
• Muscle exhaustion is the goal — feel the pump
• See the link at the bottom of this post for a sample 4 day routine

Big Distinction: Old School vs New Way

There’s still no end to the debate on this subject. And you’ll still find lots of arguments for the old school way. I’d argue for it myself just a few years ago.

Some of those arguments will be made by younger guys who imbibe on steroids. That’s a whole different ballgame. The juice helps them recover faster and no doubt packs on the mass. But it’s also extremely dangerous to your health and illegal.

We’re talking legal, natural methods on this site, and we lean toward what’s best for the older person.

Lighter Does Not Mean Light

At the same time, we’re not talking about aerobicizing here. When I say “lighter weights, higher reps” I don’t mean waving a tiny dumbbell around for 100 reps.

It does mean finding the right level of resistance to cause your muscle to fail between 8 – 12 reps. In this case, failure is a good thing. It means you can’t do another clean rep without cheating because you’re taking the target muscle to exhaustion. You take a brief rest and do it again. This is how we cause hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy is the process of causing microscopic damage to the targeted muscle fibers so that as they repair, and with proper rest and good nutrition, they grow just a bit larger each day.

Want More Proof?

Below are a sampling of studies and articles on this subject. They range from the academic to traditionally hardcore bodybuilding publications. All share in the conclusion that lighter weights & higher reps to failure is the best way to build muscle.

Remember: Lighter Weight does not mean Light Weight. It means a level of resistance that causes your muscles to fail in the 8 – 12 rep range (some say 12 – 15 reps, but it’s essentially the same idea).

MAYO CLINIC

The prestigious Clinic says that a single set of 12 repetitions with the proper weight can build muscle efficiently in most people and can be as effective as three sets of the same exercise. It recommends choosing a resistance level that causes failure to your muscles between 12-15 reps.

Going to failure is a common theme in each of these reports.

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA BIRMINGHAM:

As reported by the New York Times:

“Dr. (Marcus) Bamman says, you should push your muscles until they are exhausted.”

In this study, lifters used enough resistance to cause failure in the 8-12 rep range. Failure, or muscle fatigue, was noted as the key driver for muscle growth.

MUSCLE & FITNESS

5 Advantages to Lifting Light

“Studies show that decreasing the load on your lifts can lead to greater muscle gain…”

This article points out that not only does going lighter produce results, it provides a number of distance advantages vs. lifting heavy weights. Me and my aching shoulders could attest to that!

FLEX online

Flex tackles the age-old question of light vs. heavy and comes out squarely on the lighter side.

Flex says that the majority of your workouts should be in the 8–15 range for best results.

McMASTER UNIVERSITY, Hamilton, Ontario:

Excerpts from a 2010 study:

“These results suggest that low-load high volume resistance exercise is more effective in inducing acute muscle anabolism than high-load low volume or work matched resistance exercise modes…”

Again in this study, failure was recognized as the driver for muscular growth.

SCIENCE DAILY 2016

An article on McMaster University’s latest study in 2016:

Lighter weights are just as effective as heavier weights to gain muscle and build strength.

This is one of the latest studies (2016) on the subject. It points out that it is becoming apparent that lighter is better, contradicting decades of old-school messages that heavy weight was the only path to muscular growth.

So what are you waiting for?

If you’re not already working out, it’s time to get started. No excuses. You don’t need expensive gear or a gym membership to get going. And you don’t need to lift Herculean amounts of weight.

There are lots of “how to” articles on this site under the menu category “Workout Guides.” Check them out. This one shows a 4 day routine that can be done with with just about any equipment, including inexpensive resistance bands.

What are your thoughts on light vs. heavy?

Please share them in the Comments below. You can also drop me a line at Brian@BoomerMuscle.com. I’ll be glad to help if I can.

Click here and get the 5 Keys to Feeling Stronger — Right Away! Supercharge your workouts. Subscribe now and get the 5 Keys — totally free, no hassles.

Is it Ok to Work Out with Sore Muscles

Is it ok to work out with sore muscles? YES! In fact, a certain type of soreness should be your goal as you’re trying to build muscle.

It’s important to know the difference between Pain and Soreness.

Pain is bad, Soreness is good.

It’s a signal from your body that there is a real problem. If you feel genuine pain, you should immediately stop and tend to it.

Soreness is different. I like to think of it as a “pumped up” feeling in your muscles. It’s a signal that the process of hypertrophy is taking place. Blood is rushing into your muscle to flush out waste and bring nutrients to repair the microscopic damage your training has done to the target muscle fibers.

That’s what you’re to training to accomplish, and the pumped feeling is a sign that it is happening.

If you’re just starting out to build muscle, this sore feeling may be new to you. You may mistake it for pain. So how do you tell the difference? Tough question to explain if you’ve never felt the soreness pump before. 

Pain

Pain causes a sharp sensation in your joints or muscles. It makes movement difficult. This could be due to an actual strain in the muscle. This could limit your ability to move and send a sharp pain signal when you try.

Muscle strains generally heal themselves, but should not be aggravated by more training. If the sensation lasts more than a couple days and continues to cause you great discomfort, it might be time to see a doctor, physical therapist or chiropractor. That sounds like Pain.

Soreness

Soreness is more of a dull, swollen sensation in your targeted muscles. It can happen the same day as the workout, or even a day or two later. You’re feeling the ‘burn’ as lactic acid builds up in your muscle due to taking it to failure against resistance. You will see it referred to as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or DOMS.

No Pain, No Gain?

In the old days of bodybuilding, Arnold Schwarzenegger was famous for saying “No Pain, No Gain.” Taken literally, that statement is just flat out wrong. No Pain Ever is our motto.

But to be fair to Arnold, what he was trying to say is that muscle growth doesn’t happen without Hypertrophy. And that’s the process of causing microscopic damage to targeted muscle fibers so that the body’s natural healing process builds them back again just a bit stronger than before.

That’s a mouthful. And it doesn’t rhyme like ‘no pain, no gain.’ But I believe that is what he actually meant to convey.

If you’ve trained before or are currently, you probably know how to tell the difference. It’s going to be more difficult if you’re new to putting your muscles to work. But don’t let soreness deter you. 

The best medicine for genuine soreness is to keep staying active and doing your workouts.

Learn to associate that feeling as the “pump” you’re aiming to create and recognize it as a sign you’re efforts are paying off.

For more perspective, check one of my favorite resources, Web MD.

And for more of my take on the Muscle Pump, check this out.

Ever been sore after a workout? What are your thoughts on Pain vs the Pump? Please share below or drop me a line at: Brian@BoomerMuscle.com

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Muscle Pump Workouts

The legendary “Pump.” That amazing feeling in your muscles as blood rushes in and tells you its growing. Muscle pump workouts are the key to growing new muscle.

I’ll reveal the secrets to how you do it in a moment.

We are going to pump you up

First let’s set the stage. Arnold Schwarzenegger first popularized the “Pump” back in the 1970’s by saying it was the greatest feeling you could have in a gym (and comparing it to orgasm).

Later Hanz & Franz on Saturday Night Live would parody Arnold with their “We are going to pump you up!” catchphrase and skits.

So the idea of the Pump has been around for some time. Bodybuilders have sworn by it for decades as a sign that hypertrophy (muscle building) is taking place.

A couple of years ago, some intriguing initial research was published in the Strength and Conditioning Journal that was co-authored by Brad Schoenfeld, Ph.D, C.S.C.S. He is a well-known fitness expert and owner of the website Lookgreatnaked.com.

The research studied 64 people, both men and women over a 16 week period. Basically, it found that resistance training does indeed cause a “pump” that is tied to hypertrophy, or the muscle building process.

The blood flowing to the muscle being worked is bringing oxygen and nutrients to help repair the microscopic damage that the training has caused. It is also flushing out waste products in lactic acid and carbon dioxide.

The Secret: Muscle Pump Workouts

The method of training used in the study is similar to what we promote here on BoomerMuscle.com. Using lighter weights and working to muscle failure in each set, with repetitions in the 8 – 12 range.

Subjects did 3 sets of each exercise with 60 – 90 seconds of reset between sets. They used a combination of weights, cables and machines.

What equipment you use is not really important, as long as you are creating resistance that brings your muscles to failure in that 8 – 12 rep range. Resistance Bands are just as good as barbells.

Isolation exercises, like bicep curls, are generally more effective than compound movements like squats at generating the pump.

Check out this post for a sample workout: Simple Workouts you can do at home. I’ve structured these workouts so that each day, you keep a fairly intense focus on specific target muscle groups.

That approach runs contrary to many of the popular fitness schemes out there today. But I do it this way for one purpose: to focus on exhausting the target muscle groups and getting to a Pump. We want to really focus on those specific muscles and feel that pump.

Give it a shot. It will pump you up!

Check out the BoomerMuscle Facebook page where I share lots of current articles on building muscle as we age.

Click here to get the 5 Keys to Feeling Stronger — Right Away! Supercharge your workouts. Subscribe now and get the 5 Keys — totally free, no hassles.

Lifting Light Weights vs Heavy Weights

There is no doubt about it. Lifting light weights is superior to heavy weights. You will grow more muscle and reduce the risk of injury at the same time.

This is especially true for Baby Boomers. Multiple studies have proven that we can and will grow muscle by using lighter weights in the 8 – 12 Rep range. Of course, we also need to eat and rest properly.

As reported by the New York Times:

“Our lab and others have shown repeatedly that older muscles will grow and strengthen,” says Marcas Bamman, the director of the UAB Center for Exercise Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In his studies, men and women in their 60s and 70s who began supervised weight training developed muscles that were as large and strong as those of your average 40-year-old.

Dr. Bamman says, you should push your muscles until they are exhausted.

In his studies, volunteers used weights calibrated so that the lifters could barely complete a set of eight to 12 repetitions before their arms or legs grew leaden and they had to rest. They repeated each set two or three times and visited the gym three times per week.

The prestigious Mayo Clinic also reinforces that using the 12 Rep range has been proven to build muscle. 

“Choose a weight or resistance level heavy enough to tire your muscles after about 12 to 15 repetitions. When you can easily do more repetitions of a certain exercise, gradually increase the weight or resistance.

Research shows that a single set of 12 repetitions with the proper weight can build muscle efficiently in most people and can be as effective as three sets of the same exercise.”

Pretty definitive stuff. I can also add my own life experience.

I’m in my early 60s and have been lifting weights for about 5 decades. In that time, I’ve done just about every method and style, from Olympic to Power to Bodybuilding and everything in between.

For many of those years, my goals were at least partly ego-driven. I wanted to lift ever-heavier amounts of weight to prove I was stronger. And you can get away with that for a long time in your life. But there comes a day when your joints say ‘no more.’

That day came for me in my mid-50’s. I was forced to either adopt a new, more sane method of training or give up my lifelong passion.

Coincidentally, I adopted the same 8 – 12 Rep Range method discussed above. 

• 8-12 repetitions per set to failure

I tend to do a higher number of sets than Dr. Bamman recommends, but I’ve been at this a long time.

There is a Trick to making lighter weights work

There is definitely a trick to this style of working out. It really requires that you get your head in the game and dialed into what you’re doing.

It is critical with this method to properly calibrate the amount of resistance so that you are able to do 8 – 12 repetitions per set and no more.

Maintain high quality repetitions. No cheating or swinging the weights around. Your goal is to keep constant tension on that target muscle and exhaust it.

Here’s the Trick

That can be easier said than done. After all, our minds are involved in this process, as well, and it is our mind that will determine if we’ve exhausted the muscle or not.  

One day, 12 reps might seem impossible. On another, you might find yourself doing 15 or more to reach exhaustion.

Our minds love to play tricks on us. The difference in reps possible could be any number of factors, including fatigue levels and simply how your mind feels from one day to the next.

So this method of training is as much about what’s going on in your head as it is the body movements.

It helps to think about each set as a form of meditation, staying dialed into the feeling in your muscle and mindful of each rep as you do it. Feel the pump in those target muscles!

The numbers don’t matter

It’s not about how heavy the weight is or really even how many reps you can do. That’s why it’s expressed as a range of 8 – 12.

I have certain exercises I perform where I might be doing 5 sets in a row. Sometimes, those final sets don’t come close to 8 reps.

But so what? As long as I am achieving exhaustion in the target muscle, I am on track.

So that is the trick. It’s all in your head, to some extent. And it takes a strong Mind/Muscle Connection to keep your head in the game with an honest read on your level of exhaustion on each set.

Over time, adjust the amount of resistance so that you are always in that 8 – 12 rep range on each set. 

Try to tune out all the conflicting noise in the fitness industry and tune into your mind and muscle. Connect the two and feel it!

Here’s a workout routine with simple diagrams on how to do the exercises.  I designed this workout to be super simple. You can do it anywhere with minimal equipment. You can do all the exercises with Resistance Bands alone if you choose.

If you belong to a gym, or own a your own gear, you can perform these movements on machines or with dumbbells. If you have nothing, pony up and buy a set of Resistance Bands. They are very inexpensive and today’s bands are great — like a whole gym in a small bag. You can get a great, whole body workout with them.

Your muscles don’t have any brains. They don’t know or care how you create the tension on them, they only feel that you’ve done it. It can be in a multi-million dollar gym or in your basement with bands. Doesn’t matter.

Give the workout routine a try! Remember, it will take some time.  Make this part of your lifestyle and schedule. The workouts don’t take a lot of time, 30 – 40 minutes. But the results for your life can be huge.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Or drop me a line, I’ll answer any questions you may have and help you get started: Brian@BoomerMuscle.com.

Click here and get the 5 Keys to Feeling Stronger — Right Away! Supercharge your workouts. Subscribe now and get the 5 Keys — totally free, no hassles.