Gaining size
Hi there guys this is Neil Deighton im back with another video, this time I've had a question about gaining size. I'm a bit smaller than usual at the moment so some of you might be thinking "what the hell do you know about gaining size" but there was a time where I was a lot bigger last year and I've always trained, for the last few years, for physique as well as strength - I think of myself more as a powerbuilder. I want a physique that backs up the strength.
So the actual question is:
"I've read and heard many people say that to get big it’s just best to get strong and lift heavy weights, however I've decided to take a different route and focus on working the muscle, time under tension, failing the exercise, getting a good contraction and im now lifting much less weight for higher reps and more volume and growing faster than I ever have before, what’s your views on this?"
Now my first thoughts on this are previously when you were training you weren't putting enough stress on your muscles to get that adaptation, simple as that. Getting stronger by lifting bigger weights will increase muscle size if using the correct rep range. If you’re mainly using singles and doubles chances are you aren't going to get the muscle gain, you're going to get more neural adaptation. But if you start using a higher rep range - six to twelve reps, even higher 15 reps or 20 reps on compound movements then you’re going to get gains in muscle size as you get stronger. As you get stronger the reason you're going to get stronger is because of these gains in muscle tissue. There's going to be very little neural adaptation unless you're a beginner or new to the movement.
Now the problem is obviously, you can only get stronger for so long, you're going to hit a wall eventually where you can't get stronger, so what do you do here? Well if you like that system of training, personally I do, but im from a powerlifting background (I like to lift heavy weights), I change the rep range up or you could....Please watch the video for more.
Overview: Discussion on how to gain size. Is higher volume best for size or are you better off training with heavy weights for that increased muscle growth? How important is time under tension to gaining size? What other factors influence muscle growth and achieving that increase in size?
