How To Maximize Your Pump

Four Strategies To Boost Muscle Gains

Without a doubt, one of the more satisfying outcomes from intense weight training is the surplus of blood that rapidly fills your muscles as you train. This phenomenon, known as cellular swelling, or more commonly as “the pump” creates a euphoric feeling primarily because it provides a considerable, albeit temporary, increase in size of the muscle being trained— giving a sense of accomplishment that strokes the ego just a bit.
      However, a deeper look into this phenomenon shows that the pump is more than just a short-term increase in muscle size and boost to your ego. According to several studies, the pump actually stimulates long-term adaptations within the muscle, promoting substantial gains in size and strength.¹ Consequently, a better understanding of what causes the pump can be used to design a more effective training protocol that induces a superior muscle pump for greater gains in muscle mass and strength.

What Causes the Pump
      The muscle pump occurs when the veins that are taking blood away from the working muscles are occluded by the contracting muscle tissue, while the arteries that bring blood to the muscle remain unobstructed. This creates a greater influx of blood into the area that causes blood to pool in the obstructed veins. This pooled, venous blood flows into capillaries connected to these veins, where it then leaks out of the thin-walled capillary and into the muscle cell, causing it to swell or “pump up.”⁵

1) Continuous Muscular Contraction
      The optimal pump is achieved by a persistent muscular contraction, intense enough to occlude venous blood flow over a considerable period of time. The greater amount of muscular contraction time facilitates the pooling of more blood within the muscle for a better pump
      Training methods that increase muscular tension on the vein, which maximizes occlusion, promote a better pump. In fact, increasing the amount of time the muscle is under tension by performing the exercise in a more continuous, nonstop manner minimizes muscular relaxation, which effectively increases muscular tension for greater inhibition of venous blood flow. The capacity of this lifting style to induce venous occlusion was shown in a study by Tanimoto et al.⁶, where they demonstrated that low-intensity knee extensions with no rest phase induced venous occlusion— which decreased muscle oxygen levels more effectively than a second group performing higher-intensity knee extensions with a one-second rest period.
      Furthermore, a second study by Burd et al.⁷showed that a pump-inducing approach also increases muscle protein synthesis. In this study, a group of men performed leg extensions at 30 percent of their one-repetition maximum, with the concentric and eccentric portions lasting either six seconds or one second. Post-exercise muscle biopsies showed the slower leg extension movement had a greater increase in muscle protein synthesis, indicating that the more continuous six-second repetition enhanced venous occlusion for a greater pump that stimulated muscle protein synthesis.

2) Kaatsu Training
      In addition to muscular contraction inhibiting venous blood flow, there is another very potent way to occlude venous blood flow. This somewhat unorthodox technique, known as Kaatsu training, involves wrapping either elbow or knee straps just above the trained muscle to occlude venous blood flow from that muscle. For example, if you are training biceps, securely wrap an elbow strap at the very top of your upper arm or if you’re training the quadriceps, wrap knee straps at the top of your upper leg. Also, make sure not to wrap too tightly as this would also diminish arterial blood flow into the muscle, reducing the impact on the pump— not too mention the inherent danger of cutting off the blood supply to working muscles.
      Although restricting blood flow may sound unsafe, this type of training is very safe and very effective at increasing the pump when performed correctly. There has been an abundance of data showing that Kaatsu training stimulates considerable muscle growth and strength likely, in part, because of its ability to stimulate an incredible pump.^8-10

3) Higher Reps With Less Rest
      Weight training that relies heavily on anaerobic glycolysis for muscular energy production further enhances the intensity of the pump. This happens because anaerobic glycolysis, as the name implies, burns glucose within the muscle cell for energy without the use of oxygen. Anaerobic glycolysis produces an abundance of the metabolic byproduct lactic acid within the muscle cell, which tends to draw more fluid into the muscle, which enhances the pump.^11,12
      Training approaches that maximize this effect typically produce quite a pump. In general, very high-repetition sets combined with short rest periods accomplish this rather well. For instance, performing two exercises in a row, or supersetting, with the same body part using a 12-to-15-repetition range for several sets, generates plenty of lactic acid that will support a tremendous pump.
      Another well-known training method causing sizeable lactic acid accumulation is the drop set, where you perform an exercise until failure, drop the weight, and then continue the exercise with the lower weight, also until failure. Pushing the muscle like this will cause a tremendous demand for energy, driving lactic acid production and creating a fantastic pump.

4) Enhance the Pump With Betaine and Creatine
      The compounds betaine and creatine are natural osmolytes found in the muscle cell that protect against dehydration by increasing cellular water retention through osmosis. The ability of both of these compounds to maintain hydration reduces the negative impact that dehydration has on exercise performance. Furthermore, they support a better pump by drawing more fluid into the muscle. Of course, this ultimately improves muscle hypertrophy, as increased cell volume triggers muscle protein synthesis and therefore muscle size.

     For most of Michael Rudolph’s career he has been engrossed in the exercise world as either an athlete (he played college football at Hofstra University), personal trainer or as a research scientist (he earned a B.Sc. in Exercise Science at Hofstra University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Stony Brook University). After earning his Ph.D., Michael investigated the molecular biology of exercise as a fellow at Harvard Medical School and Columbia University for over eight years. That research contributed seminally to understanding the function of the incredibly important cellular energy sensor AMPK— leading to numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals including the journal Nature. Michael is currently a scientist working at the New York Structural Biology Center doing contract work for the Department of Defense on a project involving national security.

Victor Martinez Master Class

Common Training Problems Answered

Rise of Victor’s Delts
 What was the toughest body part for you to develop? How long was it a weak point, and how did you eventually get it to match the rest of your physique?
 A lot of people don’t believe it when I tell them now, but my delts were not very good at all in my early years. It wasn’t like I wasn’t doing the right exercises. I did presses and laterals just like today, and my form wasn’t even bad. But I had no mind-muscle connection. I was moving the weights, but I wasn’t feeling any type of contraction in my shoulders. Once I figured out that was missing, I worked hard on making sure I felt the heads of the delts working during the exercises. I also started doing a wider variety of exercises to hit all angles, like upright rows, front raises and different variations of laterals instead of the same old standing side raise. That’s when they finally grew.

The Quest for Striated Glutes
 I’ve heard that certain exercises help bring out striations in your glutes, like deep squats, glute machines and walking lunges. Do you think they really make a difference, or is it just a matter of getting your body fat down to 2-3 percent?
 You do need to get your body fat down to practically nothing to see striations in your glutes, no doubt about that. But you also need to have those muscles developed. You can’t have striations in a flat chest, so how can you have striations in a flat ass? Squats, leg presses, lunges and step-ups will all help develop the glutes. Then you have to figure out how to get rid of pretty much all the body fat through dieting and cardio, which is easier said than done!

Massage: When Pain Is Good
 A lot of bodybuilders seem to use foam rollers now at home to get some of the same benefits you would from seeing a chiropractor or a deep-tissue massage therapist. I doubt it’s just as good, but for those of us who simply can’t afford those other types of therapies on a regular basis, do you think it’s worth doing?
 Put it this way. It’s better than nothing. You will be able to release some of the bound-up tissue and adhesions. The problem is, the roller isn’t precise. It’s really hard to try and target a small, specific area like a therapist could by digging in with a thumb or an elbow, plus they can attack it from every angle that way. I know a lot of you guys are on tight budgets, but even if you can only get a deep-tissue massage once a month, every other month, or if you’re totally broke, four times a year, it’s well worth it. Just make sure you find a therapist who works with athletes and isn’t afraid to really get in there and dig hard. A productive deep-tissue massage should be pretty painful. If it’s not, you’re probably wasting your time and money.

What Would I Change?
 Your genetics seem to be just about perfect. But since all great bodybuilders are their own worst critics, if you could magically go back and change any aspect of your structure, muscle shape, etc., is there anything you would alter?
 I guess I would have been more of a pure mesomorph who gained muscle very easily. Looking at me now, most people assume I got this big right away, but it took me years and years. When I was in my late teens I had already been lifting steady for a few years, and I only weighed 175 pounds. For my first couple of NPC shows, I was a light heavyweight competing around 190. It all worked out in the end because eventually I put the size on that I needed to, but since you asked— yeah, I would have liked to have done it quicker!

How Much Water Is Enough?
 We are told to drink a gallon or two of water every day. I am sure the amount of water we each need must vary depending on things like our size, activity level and the climate we live in. How do we know if we are drinking enough? Should we be drinking so much water that we have to pee every 15-20 minutes, or does that sound excessive to you?
 Nobody should have to take a piss every 15 minutes, that’s just ridiculous. What are you gonna do, wear those adult Depend diapers just in case you can’t make it in time? I think about a gallon or a gallon and a half of water a day is enough for most guys unless you’re in severe heat. I don’t even drink much water with my meals, mostly between meals because I feel it interferes with my digestion otherwise. If you’re getting thirsty you might need to be drinking more, but if not I wouldn’t worry about it.

Turning Hams Into Beef on Leg Day
 I really don’t have time to hit the gym often enough to split legs up into different workouts for quads and hams. At the same time, my hamstrings definitely lag behind my quads. I’ve been told to work hamstrings first on leg day, but when I do this the weights I use on squats and leg presses suffer a bit. Should I keep doing it anyway, or do you think I could do just as well training hams after quads?
Don’t forget that all those compound movements like squats and leg presses involve the hamstrings along with the quads. That’s why on leg day I make sure to start the workout off by warming them both up and doing leg extensions and leg curls. When I worked with Oscar Ardon, he had me do that and then come back to hams after quads were done and hit them with more leg curls and stiff-leg deadlifts. But if your hams are really lagging behind, you should probably just work them first and not worry that your compound movements are down a little in weight. That’s only happening because like I said, the hams do assist in squats and leg presses, so they’re pre-exhausted. It’s probably a good thing in the long run because a lot of guys wind up wrecking their knees and/or lower backs from going super heavy on squats too often.

7 Ways To Blast Your Delts Like Brandon Curry

Shouldering on to the Upper Echelon
 IFBB pro bodybuilder Brandon Curry's upper body in general is one of the best in the sport today, but the two areas that stand out above the rest are his arms and his shoulders. Here is what he does today for those boulder shoulders:    
 1) “Active Warm-up”
 Many bodybuilders will do just a couple of light sets of their first exercise on shoulder day, if that. This impatience to get right to the big weights not only hampers performance, but sets you up for injuries and problems with your joints and connective tissues down the line. Brandon takes the time to go through a fairly involved warm-up process that serves to get the entire shoulder girdle warm and primed for hard training. “I start on a seated lateral raise machine, facing away from it unlike the standard way, with the pads low on my elbows for about three sets of 20 reps,” he says. The second movement is a three-stage rep sequence performed with a low cable pulley and a bar or dual handles for an attachment. “Step one, I pull the bar up to chin level,” he explains. “Step two, I work the rotator cuffs by using them to externally rotate the bar up to about the top of my head, and the third and final step is to press that overhead.”

 

2) Smith Machine Behind-the-Neck Presses
 Before you jump to the conclusion that Brandon is wrecking his rotator cuffs by making this his bread-and-butter pressing movement most of the time, keep in mind that he’s taken cautions to turn this into a much safer exercise than you would think. “By starting off every shoulder workout with that warm-up that always includes rotator cuff work, I make sure they are never a weak link— and that allows me to press behind the neck with far less risk of injury,” he tells us. Another reason Curry isn’t taking any big risks here is because like my old trainer Charles Glass, he never uses an extreme range of motion that puts the shoulder girdle into an unnatural position..”

 

3) Arnold Presses
 About every third or fourth workout, Brandon switches his overhead press up from the Smith and does Arnold presses instead. “One thing I love about the Arnold press is that you don’t have to go anywhere near as heavy as you would with a standard dumbbell press to get the right pump and burn in the delts.”

 

4) Seated Lateral Raises
 For those of you bored to tears with lateral raises, Brandon has a nice variation you need to try at your next shoulder workout. The Prodigy sits on a flat bench sideways. “The reason for this is that I can’t lower the dumbbells all the way down, which forces me to keep constant tension on my side delts,” he says.

 

5) Unwinding Presses
 This next exercise is one Brandon got from the writings of Canadian bodybuilder and strength coach Christian Thibaudeau. Curry calls these “press-outs,” but Thibaudeau calls them “unwinding presses.” If you thought your side delts got toasted from those seated laterals, this will make you think someone injected them with 10 cc’s of battery acid. It’s a little complicated to explain, so I will let Brandon walk you through a proper rep:
 “Start with a dumbbell in each hand with a hammer grip, so your palms are both facing in toward your head. With a controlled tempo, press the dumbbells up but only at a slight angle, say 30-45 degrees, while at the same time pronating your arms so that your palms end up facing the floor at the finish of the rep. You also want the back end of the dumbbells a little higher than the front, like you’re pouring water out of pitchers. Hold that position for one or two seconds and then bring them back to your shoulders by reversing the movement.”

 

6) Rear Lateral Raises
 In the early years of Brandon’s bodybuilding career, his rear delts were a glaring weak point. “Once I saw that, I made them a priority and trained them first on shoulder day for several years, until they were where they needed to be,” he tells us. Today he works them later in the workout. Though he used dumbbells for this photo shoot, over the last couple of years he has mainly used the rear delt machine. “I just get a really good feel with it and I can control the motion better,” he says.

 

7) Rear Delt Pulldowns to the Face
 Brandon’s final shoulder movement is another one he picked up from Christian Thibaudeau, and again it’s not something you see everyone doing. He clips on a double-D ring attachment to the high pulley or a lat pulldown, and takes a grip with both knuckles facing toward each other as shown. As he pulls this down toward his face, both his side and rear delts get a final, searing torch. “I really believe in high volume and the importance of a pump for stimulating growth, and this is the perfect way to cap off those two heads of the shoulders.”

 

The 5-Week Split
 After trying many different body part combinations and frequencies, Brandon has arrived at one that seems to work perfectly for him. For three weeks, he trains every body part twice a week. Then for two weeks, he reels it back to training everything once a week. “The first phase works well, but near the end you start to get overtrained. That’s when you switch to training body parts less frequently and adding more rest, so you can recover. By the end of each phase, I’m really looking forward to the next one, and so far the results have been fantastic.”

 

5-Week Training split

Weeks 1-3
 Monday:              Quads, hams and calves
 Tuesday:              Chest and back
 Wednesday:       Shoulders and arms*
 Thursday:            OFF
 Friday:                  Rest
 Saturday:             Quads, hams and calves
 Sunday:                Chest and back, etc.                      
 *It isn’t unusual for Brandon to skip this training day every other rotation, as shoulders and arms are very much strong points for him already.

Weeks 4-5
 Monday:              Chest
 Tuesday:              Back
 Wednesday:       Legs
 Thursday:            Shoulders and arms
 Friday:                  Rest
 Saturday:             a.m. Quads         p.m. Hams and calves
 Sunday:               Rest, repeat                      

Shoulder Routine
Active Warm-up                                 Rotator cuff exercises, cable upright row/external rotations/press
Smith Behind-the-Neck Presses         4 x 8-10
Cable Upright Rows and Presses       4 x 10-12
Seated Dumbbell Laterals                   4 x 10-12 partial, 10-12 full-range
Press-outs                                         4 x 10
Rear Delt Machine                              4 x 12
High Cable Rear Delt Pulls                  3 x 12