These 3 muscle building mistakes will change your entire outlook on training to build muscle. Remember guys, it’s the simple small things that usually make the biggest impact.
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Today, I want to talk to you about the three things I wish I knew before I started lifting, which would have helped me get a lot more gains in my teenage years, and those three things are the three muscle building mechanisms: Mechanical Tension, Metabolic Stress & Muscle Damage. Now why are these important? Well, if you apply these three concepts to every single workout that you do, you’re not only going to see more gains, but you’re going to have much more efficient workouts as well.
#1: Metabolic Stress
The first mechanism I’m going to talk about is metabolic stress. Right now, I’m talking about bodybuilding. That is BUILDING MUSCLE, not strength, not how much weight you can lift on every single set, PURE MUSCLE BUILDING. Now when it comes to muscle building, if you’re resting too long in between your sets, you’re not maximizing the metabolic stress that you’re placing on your muscles. In order to do that, you need to keep your rest periods between about 60-90 seconds, and for those of you who can handle it, you can even go 30-60 seconds in between every single set.
The entire point of training is to absolutely obliterate the muscles you’re trying to work, and a lot of us get this backwards. A lot of us think that if we did a 100lb chest press on set one, if we can’t do 100lbs on the next set, then we failed the gym. That’s backwards thinking, because if you do a 100lb chest press on set one, and then you get to set two 60 seconds later, and you can do 100lbs again and it’s kind of easy, then you’re not lifting enough weight. It’s basically a useless set. If you are lifting so intensely for every single set that by set two or three you’re forced to lower the weight a little bit, it’s because you are causing muscle damage. If you want to get that pump that we all love, you have to keep those rest periods short.
Something I like to do for my workouts is I keep my timer with me at all times. I can get easily distracted at the gym, mainly because I have some friends that I like to talk to whether it’s about anime or TV shows or whatever, and I get distracted and before I know it, 3-5 minutes have gone by. If I were powerlifting or strength training then 3-5 minutes would be OK to rest in between sets, because you’re trying to lift as much weight as possible. You’re trying to increase your weight every single set when you power lift or strength train. When muscle building though, you’re trying to fatigue the muscle and break it down for regrowth. So all I do is push start on my timer, and then as soon as it hits 60 seconds or 90 seconds max, no matter what I’m doing I look at my clock, I say bye to my friends, and I do my set. That’s metabolic stress.
#2: Mechanical Tension
This should be self-explanatory, because it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s the amount of tension you’re placing on the muscles you’re training on every single set. A lot of us have a really bad habit – for example, let’s say you’re doing a dumbbell bent-over row – and the first set looks like you could have done it basically half asleep. You’re just kind of banging through the repetitions and by the time you finish your set of 8 repetitions, you look like you could have done 15 more reps because the weight was so light. If anything, you should take that set as a warm-up and not count it as one of your working sets.
A working set is a set in which, let’s say you’re doing 8 repetitions, by the time you get to rep 7, that should be a grinder, you should be having a hard time with it. By the time you get to the 8th rep, you might even need to use a little momentum to help you get it done – but you’re still in control – THAT is maximizing mechanical tension. A lot of us have this thought in our head that we’re supposed to increase the weight every single set when we go to the gym.
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46 comments
Mike Mathews author of bigger,leaner, stronger would beg to differ on all you just said
Thank u
Well explained 💪👌👍
Okay I have a good question. What I do Is do multiple different kind of work outs a day at a time. Example. I start off on bench then I do skull crushers then flys then sit ups then wrist curls. Then rinse and repeat. So am I missing out on gains by working out more muscles at a time? I go way over 90 seconds before I do the same lift again. I would be grateful of your feedback
Smashed the button!
Salute sir. 💪
Hey guys, I’ve recently started hitting the gym after getting a job in an office, I’ve become ‘skinny fat’ (oh dear) I’m sitting around 141 pounds at the moment, ideally I’d like to be around 160-165. I know I need to be in a caloric surplus to put more weight on and turn it into muscle, but my question is, do I need to be in a surplus all of the time? For example, say I’ve already burned 1500 calories without exercise. I’m about to head to the gym after only consuming 800 calories, would you recommend being in a surplus before working out? Or does it not matter as long as you end the day in surplus? Thanks in advance
Great information Scott!
I’ve always been curious about this.
Great video sir Scott. 😊 your new follower from the philippines.
Liked for anime
Scott can you teach us on how we could lift heavier for dumbbell shoulder presses. Is there a hidden technique?
Lmao Scott is a weeb, I didn't see that coming.
Informative video friend…thanx
18-24 sets?? nobody does that much volume with 8 reps max for each set.
No hating, but am I the only one here who thinks that Scott has smaller arms compare to his upper body when relax and in front?
Hi Scott, good video thanks. I have a question for you regarding training frequency. I want to grow my arms. If I train my biceps and triceps every days versus every second day, will I achieve better gains? Have there been any clinical studies done to address this query?
Congrats on 2 million subscribers man!
Thanks #SCOT. You taught me a lot of #effective tips.
In other words: stop bullshitting in the gym.
And I would add: stop focusing on numbers. Lift as heavy as you can and still be in a rep range of 6 to 15 and do as many reps as you can. Either go to failure or like 1 rep short of failure but if you leave 5 reps in the tank, you're bullshitting. If you could do 5 more reps, that's a warm up set.
And if you can do less reps every set: congratulations! You have successfully broken down the muscle. People are so fixated on some number like "4 times 8" that they basically do 3 warm up sets and randomly stop their sets after 8 reps because their program says so.
The same goes for sets. Why stop the exercise if you still feel like you could do another set? Fuck your program. Do as many sets and reps as you can, push the muscles to the limit. And then go home and eat like a maniac. People don't make gains because theyre not training with nearly enough intensity.
How do you know if you have majority of slow twitch muscle fibers or not?
Respect
Starting with too heavy of a weight is a big mistake… that's what most people do… causes joint strain… what's needed is when you're able to go up in Reps that's when you need to do then go up in weight on subsequent sets… it's best not to do stupid sets!
you can tell scott likes Dragonball Z lol
Great advice Scott , thanks for the help
Scott's a weeb too. <3
The youtuber Jeremy Ethier debunks the first point made here, showing that using longer rest periods between sets actually create more muscular growth due to the fact that you can move a greater amount of total volume in each workout:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To2NIrc9QAM
It's hard to find natural people period in every aspect of life👍
The 3 things 1) Bah-bell 2) Bah-Bah shop 3) Bah-bell Bah-cep curls
thumbs up for the "see you guys" at the end
I can't thank you enough for this video, this is a game-changer.
this is so important, thank you!
Scott: Do you have any progressive resistance training suggestions for us who are over 80?
Recommended total sets per muscle are way too high.
I feel like I do these things, but that i've hardly grown over a 2 year period. this sucks
Great tips Scott. I've been training a long time and I still tend to forget these simple effective principles. Thank you so much.
why is he shirtless?
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Great tips. Thank you
This is freaking valuable!
He said get distracted talking about anime lol… pretty cool
Two anime i highly recommend bro
Attack on titans and kimetsu no yabia
I gotta tip.
Dont follow them dudes in the magazine. If you natural.
Why fake an accent? Your old videos proves you never had this accent before
9:45
does anybody know if when he says 18 to 24 sets, for bigger muscle groups, he means per workout session? I think so, but I would like to have this confirmed.
But if you life heavy and take longer breaks to recover in between before the next heavy set, you will ultimately reach a point where you can't do any more sets because you taxed out your muscles just the same as you would have if you had taken shorter rest ,and as result of that, fewer reps. So really you're doing same amount of muscle damage, just in a different amount of time . If anything, shorter rest periods will actually give you a false feeling that you're done, but that's only bc the muscles are TEMPORARY done,….but if you rested for 3 min after that last set, you probably still have some in you. That's why after I'm done with my workout (heavy sets, long rests), my limbs can barely function outside the gym. It's bc they have nothing more to give. They are really taxed out even with long rests.