Avoid These Muscle Building Myths When trying to build muscle mass, it's important that you skip over these muscle building myths. They will not help you, at all, to gain muscle or strength. Do not waste your time “pyramiding”. Pyramiding involves going up in weight for a specific exercise until you hit a heavy set and then lowering the weight so that you can complete more sets and reps to failure. Can you see the flaw here? Why would you ever want to go down in weight if you have reached a certain high point? If overload were the key to getting bigger and stronger (which it is), why would we start doing more sets at a less weight than what you previously did? You are wasting energy and time. As soon as you have overloaded the muscle with a heavy, max set, why lighten the load and go backwards? People theorize that by performing more reps to exhaustion, they are forcing the muscle to work harder, which in turn will respond by growing stronger. This is not sensible, efficient, or productive. It’s a big waste of time. This, along with warming up to failure, is two of the biggest mistakes I see people do. I used to do them all the time too. But when I learned better, I did better. Its no coincidence that I’m lifting weights today that I never dreamed possible just a few years ago. My muscularity has greatly improved from the increased overload in that time as well. All because I have learned to warm-up correctly. Forced reps are another waste of energy in the gym. One or two forced reps after hitting muscle failure may be fine, but do not have your training partner continue to force you into lifting more sets when you already couldn’t finish the ones you were doing. Forced reps are when your spotter assists you on a lift to the point where they are doing most of the work, not you. If they are helping you lift the weight, you are not truly doing it yourself and you are not reaching true overload. They are taking weight off for you, to help you, so you are actually lifting less weight. Again, a forced rep after you hit failure is fine, but one is all that’s needed. Any more than that and your partner is not doing the set, not you. What we have learned in this part of the program is one of the most productive, results-producing principles you will ever learn, I guarantee it. Stop doing too many reps and sets before getting to the heavy ones. Involve acclimation sets on all of your exercises to get your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints ready for the progressive overload that’s about to come. Think quality of sets over quantity of sets. Its not the number of reps and sets that count, it is how you perform them. This was a Sample Chapter From... Simple Steps To Get Huge And Shredded---A proven muscle building program that shows you how to gain 15, even 20 pounds of solid muscle in just 9 short weeks. Personal trainer and natural bodybuilder Shawn LeBrun shows you how to diet and train in order to gain more muscle and shed more fat. Click here for more information on "Simple Steps To Get Huge And Shredded" Muscle Building Programs Home Page18 Whitney Ave Portland, ME 04102 All information on this site protected by Copyright(c) All Rights Reserved Shawn LeBrun Fitness/Muscle Building Routines To Build Muscle Fast 2002-2006