You’ve heard it before, you have to constantly shock the muscles into growth. This can mean different things for different people. Some people actually “Shock” their muscles with electricity. Do you remember the belts that went around your waste that were made to shock your abs and force a contraction? It did make your muscles contract, but not any better than good old fashioned crunches, but that’s another topic for another day.
What I want to do here is answer a question about shocking the muscles, or keeping your body guessing. The short answer is yes, you do have to “Shock” your muscles to make them grow, but this isn’t nearly as dramatic or difficult as it sounds, or as crazy as most gym rats make it out to be.
1.When a physical factor is presented to your body, your body naturally reacts to it. Think about being exposed to the sun for too long, you get sunburned. After running a distance, you get winded, but then something amazing happens.
2. After a certain amount of time, and this time varies for every individual, your body grows accustomed to certain factors, and it adapts to these factors, becoming more and more tolerant of the factor. This means that after repeated sun exposure, you start getting tan, and after running daily, you can run farther and faster.
3. When the body adapts to the factor, it needs more and varying levels of the factor to maintain the adaptation. You might have a tan, but if you stay out of the sun, you don’t need it and your tan fades away. If you stop running, your ability to run far and fast will start to fade; because your body doesn’t need to be able to run this way anymore.
The adaptations are based on what your body needs. The bad part is what you want, and what your body needs are usually two different things. Your body will adapt based on what it needs, not on what you want. This can be altered, if you know how to do it. My Mental Edge Muscle Building Program tells you how to merge what your body needs with what you want, to produce rapid, favorable results.
The previous rules apply to muscle growth. When you lift weights, your body reacts to it and you get sore. After a certain amount of weight training, your body adapts to the new stress by increasing muscle mass to increase strength. You have to continually present your muscles with different stresses to make sure it keeps adapting (growing), and that your muscles don’t fade away.
So as you can see, you must constantly give your muscles a stress load that they are not used to. Once you do this, they will adapt to the new stress, and then you will need to stress them even further. Basically, you have to keep giving them something they are not used to, so they will keep adapting (growing).
This isn’t very difficult to do, and luckily, you don’t have to do it all that often. Studies show that the body adapts and stops responding to certain weight training routines within a few days. This means that if you do the same reps, same weight, and do everything the same as the last workout, your muscles will not grow, they don’t need too, there is no new stress to adapt too. The bottom line is that something has to change.
There are several things that you can change to keep your muscles adapting, or “keep the body guessing.” The list below is only a few things that can be changed to shock your muscles. Remember, you only need a shock to the muscles, don’t electrocute them. When trying to shake things up, you only need to change one of the factors below. Every few weeks, try focusing on changing one of these factors.
- The amount of reps – More or less, and adjust your weight accordingly
- The amount of sets – Same as above, more sets =less reps per set
- The amount of weight – Try to add weight/tonnage every workout
- The amount of time for each set and for the workout as a whole – Try to reduce
- The amount of rest between sets – Reduce this time
- The frequency of your workouts- Change from MWF to TRS, or MWS
You don’t have to hang upside down from a metal pole with your legs between your arms and do a pull up to hit your biceps at a different angle. Simply focus on changing the reps, sets, weight, or any of the factors listed above to shock your muscles, and you will be constantly forcing your body to adapt and grow more muscle.
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