It's unprecedented times with Coronavirus lurking the streets and gyms closed down left right and centre. Many people have had to readjust their training styles to fit their circumstances, and for many people that has meant a big pause in their muscle gains - or so they think. It is still very possible to put on muscle using no just bodyweight or household equipment - all you've got to do is Chase The Pump!
What is a "Pump"?
When working out, constant tension and contractions are caused within the muscle. As this happens, a rush of blood from the arteries is sent to the active muscles to fill the cells with necessary nutrients to create the force of energy needed to handle the resistance. Simultaneously, the muscle contractions restricts the amount of blood released from the veins in order to keep as much blood in the muscle cells as possible. This causes the concentration of blood plasma in the muscle and its cells to "swell", causing a swollen pump effect on the muscle.
This increase of blood (or water) in the cell can be attributed to cell hydration, and with greater cell hydration, muscle protein synthesis is stimulated via mTOR**, particularly in your fast twitch muscle fibres which carry a higher potential for growth. On top of this, the increased swelling of the cell nucleus and membrane rebuilds the cell structure over time to expand, and to reinforce anabolic pathways to respond to this excess swelling. In layman's terms, while there's more blood pumped into your muscle, there is more stimulus for hypertrophy gains and the cells in your muscles increase, thus promoting muscle growth!
**mTOR is what regulates protein synthesis and cell growth in response to growth factors, nutrient intake, energy levels, amino acids and more.
Now we know the science behind the pump, how can it be achieved? Here's a few ways, and you can see some examples of these near the bottom of the blog:
Time under tension - restricted range of motion
Contrary to popular belief, one way of getting a pumping to restricting your range of motion to maybe between 25% & 75% of your contraction - these are the zones in which your muscle is under the most amount of tension, hence you'll want to be spending as much time here in your reps as possible.
Time under tension - Eccentric/negatives
When contracting the muscle there are 3 different phases; the Isometric phase where the muscle stays the same during contraction; the Concentric phase where the muscle shortens during contraction, and the Eccentric phase where the muscle lengthens during contraction. Putting these into an example of a bicep curl, the concentric phase is when you curl the weight upwards towards your shoulder, the eccentric phase would be when you lower the weight back down until your arm is straight again, and the isometric phase would be if you lifted the weight half way and held it in place.
The (arguable) order of difficulty for these phases are: Eccentric > Concentric > Isometric
On the eccentric phase, you can lift up to 1.75x more than you can on the concentric phase, which is why focusing on the eccentric phase of any lift is prominent when building muscle. You want to spend more time focusing on a controlled, slow eccentric movement to optimise the muscle utilisation - you can do this by counting to 3 or 5 during each eccentric contraction. Now admittedly, with eccentric phases you would need some additional weight to really feel the benefits of an eccentric contraction - main reasoning being because you can lift 1.75x of what you can lift on the concentric phase.
Time under tension - Isometric/Pause reps
Although Isometric contractions are meant to be the easiest, these can still be used to create a tension building movement. A pause rep can occur at any point of the contraction to eliminate momentum and make the overall contraction harder. Using a bench press as an example, if at the end of the concentric phase you were the hold the bar in place for a second or two (so the bar should be on your chest or a few centimetres above your chest, then perform the eccentric part of the lift, you'll notice that drop in momentum makes the movement much harder and you'll fatigue a lot earlier than if you were to perform the movement without a pause.
Dropsets/Supersets
Adding additional sets will increase volume as well as the tension and blood flow to your muscles. The more work your muscle is doing = the more blood pumped into your muscles. If done correctly your muscles should feel like they are so pumped that they could burst! Dropsets and supersets all involve adding additional sets or reps after your initial set, and the closer to failure that these sets are done, the bigger the pump (and lactic acid!).
Reduced rest periods
Reducing rest periods mean your muscles and cells have less time to blood to flow out through your veins. As stated above, the more time your muscle cells stay hydrated with blood, the more stimulus for muscle and cell growth. Performing normal sets with less rest in between increases intensity and keeps blood present in the active muscle for longer, all contributing to creating a pump.
Ok, so taking it back to present day, we are all home bound without access to weights or resistance (well most of us anyway). In which case, let's take a few bodyweight exercises that you can do at home and incorporate the above techniques to demonstrate how you can build more muscle from these workouts:
Squats
Pulses - these are air "bounce" squats which are performed somewhere between 25 - 75% of a normal squat and keep constant tension on your legs, therefore contributing to Time under tension - restricted range of motion
Supersetting squats with lunges or pulses - this adds more volume and reps to your squats, challenging your muscles and keeping constant tension
Push ups
Reduced range of motion - keeping constant tension on your chest and triceps
Isometric hold at the bottom of the push up phase for a few seconds - loss of momentum will create additional tension during the eccentric phase of the push up
Supersetting with more narrow/wider variations of push ups - extra volume added to pump more blood into the muscle
Pull ups
Controlled eccentric contraction - slower movement during the eccentric (lowering) phase of the pull up
Supersetting with another variation of pull ups
To summarise:
You can still gain muscle without weight by utilising methods to activate the pump during your workouts. These can be done by:
Time under tension - Restricted range of motion
Time under tension - Eccentric/negatives
Time under tension - Isometric/Pause reps
Dropsets/Supersets
Reduced rest periods
If you have any questions, send an e-mail to MOB FIT at mobfituk@outlook.com