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Before moving into the practical of how to build muscle faster, let’s explain the concept behind “stretch-focused training”. Whenever you lift weights, your muscles contract to lift the weight up and then stretch in order to lower the weight back down. The muscles can sense the stretch in the contractile units and, in response, kickstart a complex process that tells the body to build more muscle. This is what researchers now term “stretch-mediated hypertrophy”.
But is there evidence that it can help you gain muscle fast? Yes, and here are 4 studies I want to look at. First study: participants who performed only bottom half of the curl experienced 2.6x more biceps growth than those who only performed the top half of the curl. Second study: the group who only performed the bottom half of the leg extension saw better growth than those who did the top or the full range of motion! Further proof of the stretch-mediated hypertrophy (third study): participants who did the overhead cable extensions experienced about 1.5x more growth than those who did cable pushdowns. Fourth study: those who did seated hamstring curls saw better growth than those who did lying hamstring curls.
How do you go about applying all this to potentially build muscle faster? I have 3 training tips for you. The first tip applies to all your exercises. We know how important the bottom position of an exercise seems to be for growth, so don’t cut it short. Also, make sure you’re actually controlling the weight down to the bottom position, and then when you get there, don’t cheat or bounce out of it using momentum.
The next tip when it comes to how to maximize your gains has to do with your exercise selection. Note: you don’t need a bunch of special exercises that will provide more “stretch-mediated hypertrophy”. You’re already doing them. The tried and true exercises like bench press, curls, and squats all put your muscles in a deep stretch position given that you perform them with a full range of motion. However, there are some muscles that can potentially benefit from being stretched to a greater degree. These are what’s known as “bi-articulate” muscles. So for these muscles, you’ll want to make sure you’re doing an exercise that puts them into that position of “extra stretch”. But until more muscle groups and exercises come up in future research, here’s the 4 muscles and exercises I’d be comfortable recommending you incorporate.
The first two are the hamstrings and triceps. Using exercises like seated leg curls and any sort of triceps overhead extensions can provide a greater stretch and help you build muscle fast naturally. The biceps is another muscle I’d add to this list. One of its heads, the long head, can be positioned into an even greater stretch by performing a slight incline curl or a behind the body cable curl. Although there isn’t direct evidence on this yet, it does seem likely to provide a benefit. Lastly, the glutes. While there’s no direct evidence yet, romanian deadlifts, squats, and split squats will likely be your best bet since they challenge your glutes in that all important stretched position.
Last but not least, we have more of an advanced tactic that I like to call “lengthened partials”. Before I share the technique though, just realize you don’t want to use this on big exercises like squats, deadlifts, and overhead press and you also don’t want to do this very often since it can be quite fatiguing. But every now and then, such as during your very last set for a “safe” exercise such as a dumbbell press, flyes, leg extensions, triceps extension, and biceps curl, try this out. After you reach the point where you can’t do anymore full range of motion reps, continue your set by performing half reps at the bottom position to stress your muscle in that stretched position until you reach failure.