Gain an inch on your biceps in one day!
Personally I think its a crock of crap...but then again who knows? They werent advertising any products in this article whatsoever...But still, this seems a little insane to me. What's your opinion of it? This article was taken from Muscle and Fitness magazine May 2004 Issue.
A little more than a year ago when I was i n the prime of my lifting career, I tried an arm program that purported to add an inch in size in 24 hours. Being young, ambitions and looking for every possible way to get huge, my lifting partner and I set out to tackle this insane nine-hour 90-set workout.
In short, we performed three triceps/biceps supersets every hour on the hour and two supersets on the half hour from 9 a.m. till 6 p.m . Combined with an elaborate eating plan, serious muscle soreness , nausea, light-headedness, and overall malaise, we proceeded to train like maniacs to gain that inch. And we did! In fact, two weeks later we still had nearly three-quarters of an inch remaining.
A few thousand hours of schooling, research, and training later, I decided it was time to ask why, and more importantly, to see if we could replicate the results in a lab setting while using a less intensive program. We decided that to do this routine in about half the time, we'd need to do two-thirds of the original volume to produce a similar effect. I, and four other men, regular lifters ages 22-35, took on the daunting task of doing 60 sets in five hours. This is our journey.
Let The Madness Begin!
We excercised at 20-minute intervals, manipulating the number of sets and the msucles time under tension each workout within each hour of the program. We chose only barbell and dumbbell excercises; since no one except the extremely dedicated (or insane) wants to hang out in a gym for five hours., this bad boy--still five hours long--is built for home. Youll need a bench, a set of dumbbells, a barbell, and assorted weight plates.
Each workout is a superset. Don't rest between excercises for more then the time it takes to put one weight down and pick another up; take about 90 seconds of rest between supersets. it's critical that you move quickly so you have time to rest between workouts. The first group of excercises takes nearly nine minutes to complete, allowing only 11 minutes to prep for the second group of excercises, by the end of the day, those 11 minutes will feel like 11 seconds! Control your rep speed as much as possible, and employ cheating only on the last rep or two. choosing the amount of weight to use can be tricky, but follow these general rules of thumb: For each excercise, choose a weight with which you canget the prescribed number of reps and maybe one or two more, but no more than that. As a starting point, you could use 70% of your one rep max for each move. Also realize that you may have to drop poundages as the day progresses, but dont ever go so light that the lift is no longer challenging.
After the first hour, we were all up three-quarters of an inch relaxed, a half-inch flexed. Each hour we re-recorded measurements. After our final sets, we were up an average of 3 quarters of an inch flexed and 1full inch relaxed. Of course, by the end of the program, bushing our teeth, scratching our backs, and anything requiring the arms to flex less than 90 degrees was next to impossible. In fact, our arms were basically stuck at an isometric hold of about 120 degrees for the rest of the day.
Twenty-four hours later we measured again. Results for most had not changed, as we averaged a half to three quarters of an inch across the boardboth flexed and non flexed. Good news though: We'd all returned to almost full range of motion. by the end of the week, with no workouts in between, the group averaged between a quarter- to half-inch gain.
Science Weighs In
Other scientific studies regarding this kind of workout simply doesnt exist. In the scientific community, the only people crazy enough to try this were in the lab with me that day. Yet some explanations could theoretically be responsible for the gains.
Lets first look at mechanisms for msucle hypertrophy. We know that muscle sizes increases by increasing the thickness of the myofilaments, or protein strands withing the contractile portion of the muscle. We also know that the number of myofibrils, the contractile structure made up of myofliaments increase with training. Some reasearch has shown that it may also be possible for muscle fibers themselves to split, known as hyperplasia., after which the new fibers increase in size, although this hasn't been welldocumented in human beings. Lastly, the entire cellular structure, all the pproteins, cell walls and other material that supports and anchors the contractile machine itself--increases in overall size and thickness via training.
So we know we can increase fiber thickness, but can it be done as quickly on this program? Technically, no.
Swell Gains
The most logical explanation for our gains lies in the way the body handles injury to a cell. When a muscle is damaged its swarmed with new satellite cells that go to work rebuilding tissue. At the same time, swelling begins to occur from increased water retention by the muscle fiber itself. This water retention appears to stay for a few days or more with very heavy resistance training. in fact, participants in a 1998 training study were reported to maintain tissue swelling for up to seven days post excercise! over a long enough period, however, the cell would surely return to normal size.
Thus, swelling seems to be the culprit, but the story doesntend there. The permenant effect, the reason we seem to have been able to hold part of our gains (one quarter to a half an inch) for several months at the time of this writing, is from our continued training. Since returning to our normal training programs, we've maintained the size, meaning we've maintained the overall volume of the tissue simply because we began another breakdown process before muscle fibers completely returned to normal. In the long run, this may post a problem , as efects of the swelling - repairing process can overcome your gains if you don't strike the proper balance of training and recuperatikon. Thats a matter of ongoing scientific discovery.
In the meantime, I would suggest attemping this program only at three month intervals, taking a full week off before resuming any excercise which the arms play a significant role. Needless to say, dont train if you still feel pain or tenderness or show marked brusing or swelling.
An inch in a day? As farfetched as it may seem, it actually is possible. I lived it--and now it's your turn to try it for yourself.
THE ONE INCH IN A DAY ARMOU ROUTINE
Time:0
Excercise: Standing barbell curl 3 sets 8 reps
--superset with--
Seated two hand overhead dumbbell extension 3 sets 8 reps
Time: 20
Seated alternating dumbbell curl 2 sets 12 reps
--superset with--
Two-Arm dumbbell kickback 2 sets 12 reps
Time: 40
"Crazy 6's" Barbellcurl"*** 1 set 6 reps
--Superset with--
"Crazy 6's" Lying barbell french press 1 set 6 reps
repeat this every hour for five hours total.
Rest 90 seconds between supersets.
*Time refers to the part of each hour the listed excercises are performed. For instance, "0" could be 2.p.m;, "20" would be 2:20 p.m. and "40" would be 2:40 p.m.
** use a low-back bench or chair if you have one; otherwise sit at the end of a flat bench.
***Crazy 6's use a six-second positive and six-second negative for six reps (total of 72 seconds of tension on the muscles.)
Phew.....thats all :lol: Whats you guys opinion on this article? :unsure: I just think its insane overtraining. :?:
