Hello again, so I’m back with part 2 of Hypertrophy, in Part 1 we discussed some exercises, sets, reps, grips, form. Now you’re comfortable with those and hopefully a good few weeks into your training since fatmas 
we can move on to some different types of training you can do to keep your muscles guessing and not become stagnant. You should also be coming into your own now in the way you are training your muscles weekly are u splitting them up? Are training 2 or 3 muscle groups every 3days? Or 2 muscles a day or even 1? All these ways are fine as long as each muscle gets at least 3 days rest in between, this is vital for growth as the growing is done as soon as you put that Dumbell down. Here is an example of what I’ll give my clients,
Mon- Back/traps
Tue- Chest/Core
Wed-Rest
Thurs- Legs
Fri- Biceps/Triceps
Sat- Shoulders/ HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)/ Core
Sun- Rest
This Is for Intermediate + but I believe that everybody is different in the way their body deals with training so play around with different routines through trial and error until you find what’s right for you.
Ok, so now you’ve got your training split into action you’re training hard each muscle group and BANG! It’s been 2 months since you really saw any noticeable progress/ gains. This is called reaching a plateau in your training, your muscles have become very used to the same stimulation week after week and are no longer challenged how they were used to, they’ve become Stagnant. Not good. But don’t worry, that’s the beauty of having the right ammunition to combat this problem and it comes in the form of “Negatives”, “drop sets”, “pyramids”, “giant sets”, “twenty-ones”, “partial reps” “forced reps”, and “supersets” ,, these are by no means all of the techniques out there but ones I have chosen for best results. You can use one or two of these for each muscle in a given workout, and vary which ones you use depending on the day.
These are all nice ways to end exercises for a particular muscle group, so you could add whichever ones you felt were appropriate to your standard workout. This variety will not allow your muscles to adapt to your workout and thus you will prevent stagnation.
NEGATIVES- Negatives are an extremely effective way to add size and strength. They are so effective because they stimulate muscle fibres that normally aren’t worked. To perform a negative you need a weight that is more than you can lift up. You start at what is normally the end of the rep and slowly lower the weight. If you choose the right poundage, you will be able to hold the weight in place for a few seconds, and then unable to resist it’s decline.
There are two ways to have a weight heavier than you can lift. The first is to just grab it off the rack, have a spotter set you up, and go for it. The second is to perform some reps to absolute failure, and then have your spotter put up the weight so you can lower it for the negative. Note you may feel sore not one but two days after performing negatives; this is normal and known as DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness.
DROP SETS- these are a nice way to finish up a workout for a particular muscle, and they will give your muscles a pumped up feeling. Drop sets are easy enough to do; you start an exercise with a high weight you can only do once or twice. Do as many reps as you can, then have a partner strip off a few kilos quickly and again, do as many reps as you can. If you do it right you will end up using a few kilos or even just the bar and barely be able to lift it. If you have no spotter to strip the weights for you then the cables are a great alternative.
GIANT SETS- a workout in themselves for one muscle group. For every muscle except your back you could get away with doing only a giant set as the workout for that muscle. This is because a giant set is essentially three exercises performed successively for a particular muscle. The best way to illustrate a giant set is by example: if you were to work out your biceps using a giant set you could choose three bicep exercises (your favourite ones if you want) figure out what weights you can do for each of them and then take off a few kilos from each. Then arrange the exercises in order so you lift the most weight first and the least weight last. So for Biceps in would do for example: Barbell curls hammer curls and reverse curls, and in that order doing 10 reps of each with no rest. Then give yourself 2 mins and then perform another set.
TWENTY-ONES- a technique used to work every part of a muscle, rather than just one range like the middle range. The full range of a rep is from a fully extended position to a fully contracted position. Using the bicep curl as an example, the low range of the rep would be having your arm fully extended and your elbow locked straight, while the high range would be with your bicep fully contracted and your hand as close to your shoulder as possible. If you are doing a regular curl, any weight you choose will not be enough to stimulate your biceps whole range. For example if you choose 20kg and you can do 12 reps, by the end of the 12 reps you will be too tired to continue. However, you know that if you had to lift the weight only slightly, (maybe you start resting off your leg and lift a few inches) or if you started with the weight almost all the way up and had to lift it up to your chest you could have.
This means your bicep was fatigued in its middle range but not in its upper and lower ranges. This is where TWENTY-ONES come in. To perform 21s you do 7 reps in the low range, 7 reps in the middle range, and 7 reps in the upper range. So if you were doing bicep curls you would start fully extended, then 7 reps where you came up 30 degrees (a few inches) then 7 reps in the mid range from 30-60 degrees, and finally do 7 reps from 60 degrees to the point where the bar is touching your chest. Keep repeating until you can’t do ANY reps in ANY range. So, if you couldn’t do any in the bottom or middle ranges but could in the upper range, keep going until absolute failure!!
PARTIAL REPS- are an exercise in one particular range of a muscle. Maybe you feel that you want to build a particular part of a muscle or work on a weakness in a certain range. Once again 
let’s use the biceps as an example. Usually, people do various types of curls for the biceps and work primarily the middle range. This builds general thickness in the bicep but neglects the bottom especially. When you see a really built bicep it has thickness right next to the inner part of the elbow.
To build this thickness you would want to perform partial reps from a fully extended position where you lifted the weight 30 degrees. Partial reps are essential when you feel that you have pretty good muscularity but you really want to add thickness and definition to all parts of the muscle.
FORCED REPS- forced reps, like negatives are a way to completely tire out your muscle fibres. It’s probably a good idea to save these for the last exercise of a muscle. You need a partner to do forced reps, but the rest is easy as pie perform your set as you normally would, but when you can’t go on have your partner assist you. Keep performing reps with your partner’s assistance until the partner is lifting all the weight.
SUPER SETS- last but not least we come to super sets. Like giant sets supers are a group of exercises performed with no rest between. However, supers will work two separate muscle groups. When you perform a super set choose two muscles that oppose each other. A good example is a super set using biceps and triceps, which are opposing muscle groups. Two or three exercises are standard, so either one exercise for each muscle or two for one muscle and one for the other. A common super set for the bis and tris would be as follows; first 10 reps of skull crushers followed by bicep curls (most people can use the same bar they used for skulls) and finished with tricep press downs on a cable machine. Do this with no rest between sets, and 2 mins rest after the super set.
So there you have it!! Enough here to really get you going, keeping it intense and varied your muscles have no choice but to grow!! Of course coupled with a sound nutritional programme you can’t fail. If you have any questions regarding nutrition for Hypertrophy please drop us a mail!!!
