Best Way to Increase Tension

[Sub7]

Gentlemen,

I apologize in advance for the oversimplification that you will find in this thread but please bear with me for just a moment as I explain.

We have discussed what the most important factor for muscle growth is on numerous occasions and often times end up with a debate between "tension is the most important thing so you must lift heavy" vs. "tension on the bar is merely a means to the end, each fiber can only generate the tension it feels, so lifting heavy is not what's its cracked up to be". I belong to the second camp and here is why.

What I am having a logical problem with is the fact that almost no one's best growth experience comes from routines that maximize tension. When we look at ourselves or the hundreds of people whose training we have observed, very few people's favorite routines seem to be maximizing tension.

If we wanted to maximize tension heavy singles would be the best. How else can you maximize tension? OK now don't shoot me on the spot saying that some metabolic work is required and that we as bodybuilders have to perform more than one rep. If so, you can do multiple singles. Do you find it undesirable to do a single max rep, then wait, then do another one? Don't you have time for that? Fine, Mike Mentzer suggested a long time ago that we can do a single max rep, rest 10 seconds, reduce the weight just enough so we can do another rep and finish as many of such reps separated by 10-second intervals as we desire. The method has been around for quite a while and will surely maximize tension more than any other method I can think of (please correct me if I am wrong and explain what other method could expose the muscles to more tension). Many people have tried it as did I, but not a single person I know stuck with it. Sure, if one searches hard and long enough, one can find some posts on message boards where people say "they really liked it" but how many people stuck with it really? So tension is maybe not all that it is hyped up to be, or else Mentzer's version of the rest-pause should have produced wonders...

HST proponents may say that tension is all good and fine but the muscles become conditioned after a while and some sort of strategic deconditioning is needed. If such were the case, people would be having great growth at least for a while by either doing heavy singles or Mentzer's rest pause as described above, but after asking and observing a relatively large number of people who tried this method, I fail to see even such short-term evidence.

Also, a lot of you are personal trainers or train friends and family members. Think about it for a second: If an actor came to you and said "I need to buff up for an upcoming movie and we're starting to shoot in 3 weeks. Add as much muscle to my frame as possible in 3 weeks" what would you do? Getting conditioned to heavy weights is not a problem because he is only concerned about short-term growth. Would you train him with maximal tension in that case?

Or another question for you all: You will be going on vacation for a month and will have no access to a gym. Before you go, you wish to train as hard and productively as possible so that when you come back you still have as much muscle as you possibly can. In that case again, conditioning is basically a non-issue as you would get decontioned during your time-off anyway. Would you use heavy singles or rest pause in this case?

As far as I can see, the answers to these questions are usually "no". So there seems to be a good amount of disconnect between what people think should work (tension) and what the same well-educated people do in real life.

Your ideas on this would be greatly appreciated...

Sub7

 

[leegee38]

Not really an answer to your question Sub, but sort of an addendum:

I've noticed some common traits from most of the really large, muscular guys I've trained with over the years, both drug assisted and natural.

1. Most of them trained with a relative quick motion. Even Mentzer did not perform reps as slowly in his prime as he later recommended.

2. Most of them did not use a full range of motion.

3. Most of them did a lot of reps, not lower than 8. Despite this, most of them used weights that no one else would ever call "light".

As I said, this is not an answer, but it does tend to argue against the max tension of heavy weight being the ultimate stimulus for hypertrophy.

 

[noobie]

This subject is way out of my league, but I thought that when the load gets so high(ie with HST during the later 5's and negatives) that you would not have to worry about ROM because there are so many more muscle fibers recruited to lift that weight. And to answer Suby's question for me at least, it's because the load is so great that I don't need to maximize the tension to get my results? I don't know if that's clear at all,

my miniscule basic understanding is that tension is less of an emphasis as long as you train heavy while still incrementing the load(causing more microtrauma) and frequently to keep your body in the most anabolic state. That's what I would do for short term for movie stars, and for long term, as long as the load is always increasing, and deconditioning occurs, there will be constant growth.

just my 2 cents

pzhang

 

[yshemesh]

Multiple Singles - bottom line - not practical. here's why :
1. you can't repeat enough singles in one workout to give you the desired metabolic effect.
2. time consuming (rest pause is not an option since load keeps diminishing as you go)
3. you'd be prone to injury
4. you'd have to be a master in technique and very experienced in order to exert maximal force on the 1st rep.
5. impossible for people who wokrout at home/don't have a spotter.