Arm Farm Friday Special Ep.07

 We welcome you back to Episode 7.

Today we will be bringing Mr Komatsu back in to talk all things Hypertrophy along with a nice little Arm filler of a workout.

The information that we have put into all the arm farm articles thus far can all be extrapolated out into training in general. Previously we’ve talked about drop sets, tempos, rest pause sets, degrees of flexion at certain joints and challenging different muscle lengths.   

A key component of arm training is trying to get bigger arms ie. hypertrophy.   

When training for hypertrophy there are three main components: 

1. Mechanical Tension 
2. Metabolic Stress 
3. Muscle damage*

*Muscle damage is more correlation rather than causation when it comes to hypertrophy, mainly a result of eccentric muscle contractions. 

Mechanical tension is essentially how much load we are putting through the target muscle. The goal is to put as much load through as much range of motion as possible. The more mechanical tension we can create the more stimulus we are sending to produce hypertrophy. 

Metabolic Stress is the build up of metabolites that are produced by muscles from repeated contractions over an extended period of time. Using a lighter load for higher repetitions and will produce more metabolic strength than heavier loads for a handful of reps. 

This leaves us with a bit of a conundrum, do we lift heavy weights for low reps or light weight for high reps? 

Why not do both? 

When structuring a training program for hypertrophy, if all our work is targeted to one end of the spectrum and negating the other we are leaving potential gains on the table. 

Incorporating a variety of loads, rep ranges and tempos, as well as different degrees of flexion to challenge different muscle lengths will give you the best results. 

With each of the Arm Farm Friday's you will have noticed your 'Big Movements' and your 'Pump Chasers'. Today we have named them as per what the stimulus would be to give you that framework of how you can set up your programs.

 

 

Arm Farm Ep.07

Again, all the exercises are hyperlinked for you. Click on the exercises to see a video from our YouTube.

 

Movement Prep;

KB Bottom Up Opener - 2 sets 20s each side
TRX Y-Raise - 2 sets of 12
Push Up - 2 sets of 6-12

Mechanical Tension (Big Movements);

A: Close Grip Bench Press - 4 sets of 6 (120 seconds rest)

B: Supinated Bent Over Row - 4 sets of 6 (90 seconds rest)

 

C1: DB JM Press - 3 sets of 12  (60 seconds rest)
C2: Standing DB Hammer Curl - 3 sets of 12 (60 seconds rest)

 

Metabolic Stress (Pump Chaser);

D: Standing DB Supinated Curl - 4 sets of 20-30 (60 seconds rest)

 

 

Written by Adam Komatsu.