THE KEY TO MAXIMUM MUSCLE STIMULATION

THE KEY TO MAXIMUM MUSCLE STIMULATION

by

Paul T. Burke, M.Ed.

Maximum Muscle Stimulation (MMS) is a phrase that I coined explaining any bodybuilder’s goal when going into the gym. It is my belief that if you want to create Maximum Muscle Hypertrophy (MMH), then the fastest way is to employ MMS at each training session, with each muscle group. Combine MMS with a diet suited for you and adequate protein and rest; and the magic of muscle hypertrophy will come as fast as a stalk of corn growing in the long straight fields of Nebraska’s farming country.  

What do I mean by Maximum Muscular Stimulation (MMS)?

1. First, examine your muscular-skeletal make up, and look at each body-part closely as if looking at the schematics to a house that you want to build. Start at the foundation, and systematically work your way up to the center and then up to the roof of the structure. You now must develop, or find and master an exercise for each body part based on leverage Advantageousness for each limb; the thoracic muscles (front and back); and, conclude with an overall assessment of the tendency of your fibers to be more on the slow-twitch (fast and explosive) and/or slow-twitch (slow with endurance being a predisposition).  Define your joints and muscle-belly length and overall size and circumference for each area. This is all for developing the perfect exercise combination for your entire body, and yet, muscle to muscle perfecting the two or three exercises that you find are not only easy for you to do, based on leverage advantage, but also the one’s that make you feel comfortable in and you don’t have to struggle with to make a perfect fluid, rhythmic, non-stop set after set, heading toward total muscle failure.
2.  In your mind, look at your body and visualize what you honestly believe it will look like in its’ peak form. Identify with a past or present bodybuilder who has developed his body to a Mr. Universe level; however, not someone who you want to look like; rather, someone that you might be able to look like as a finished product knowing what you know about your muscular skeletal make-up. Knowing all of the subtle and obvious details of your body; and bringing in some visualization will give you a new outlook; a fresh start on how you are going to go about training from now on. The key to anyone’s success is to find, not only the right exercises, but how you are going to do them.
3. If there is no exercise that you can find to give you this leverage advantageousness for a certain muscle; i.e., such as a person with long-arms and narrow shoulders trying in vein to build his chest by doing heavy barbell bench presses. This person must use Bio-mechanical logic to create an exercise to suit him, and thusly bring his level of intensity up to match, perhaps his triceps that are more than likely very good because of the length of his arms and the triceps attaching all the way down to the elbow are doing a good deal of the “pressing” when doing Barbell Bench Presses; while the chest lags behind. This person might consider doing heavy dumbbell declines (to shorten the stroke) or be daring and do heavier dumbbell presses lying on the floor. Now, I do not have narrow shoulders, but I do have long thick arms and the only way to get my chest to grow is to do this very exercise: Dumbbell presses lying on the floor. I also pump up my biceps between each set, very quickly by doing some Preacher Curls to make a “cushion” for my arms when they touch the floor, and biceps hits my forearms and there is a bit of a “spring” to the drive upwards. I drive the dumbbells back up and down in this fashion; never stopping, always pushing harder and harder and squeezing half-reps, when no more full-reps can be accomplished and thus, without breaking the rhythm, I continue but, half-reps and a few quarter-reps are accomplished until there is nothing left. I call this Maximum Muscular Stimulation. It must be done with your bio-mechanical imagination (and go outside of the “laws” of bodybuilding creed and dogmatic ideology of what I call “The Old Paradigm.”). Thus, one must create an exercise that suits you if none of the standard ones give you what kind of stimulation and ultimate hypertrophy that you are looking for. The first key: Using imagination to create a new way to do an old exercise; or, create an entirely new exercise suited for your specific body part.
4.  Thus, for each weak body-part; you have to become very imaginative and creative, so much so that what exercise you create gives you the same feeling and ease and results that the ones that you do with ease do. And, please, do not ever ask a person with a great pair of arms or a great chest how they got those muscle groups so large. They had the huge amount of cross-fiber, the thick joint near the muscles, the right amount of slow-twitch fiber and the right biomechanics for almost any standard exercise to blow those muscles into the stratosphere. No, if you have a weak body part and nothing seems to help it; you have to be the creator of your own exercise. You want to remember, that there is no such thing as a standardized “Full range of motion.” The range is whatever your muscular skeletal system requires; and, what you can conceive that actually works to achieve MMS. Also, there are no fast and hardened rules at all, per se. Let us look at an example of breaking some more “rules” to gain advantage to reach MMS and create huge muscles.
5. Let us look at forearms. Now, I have 17 ½” forearms, pumped up and flexed. I might do the same exercises as most people do, but the duration of a set and yet the simplicity of this exercise will make you ask yourself: How? Why? First, the key words are duration and intensity in any exercise that I do and that you should keep in mind when training this way. In other words, I use the word duration rather than reps, because I don’t count reps, I merely hang on and do as many full-reps, half-reps, quarter-reps, squeezes and so on before I put the bar down with whatever muscle I am working. With forearms, if you have the guts, you can make them grow freaky big real easy—just follow this method.

            Example: Forearms: I take between 125-145lb. on a barbell and grasp the bar a little less than shoulder width. I sit on the edge of a bench that allows me to have my feet planted firmly on the floor in front of me. I place my forearms on my thighs and my hands hang out beyond my knees (right at the articulation point where wrist and hand move, but my hands will never go lower than that the entire time). With the bar in both hands, I begin to move the bar upward with my wrist and ulna flexor and pull it up as far and as fast as I can; all the while squeezing the bar as hard as I can. I only let the bar down to where my hand is parallel to my thigh. (In other words, I don’t go “all the way down,” or as some might call it, do “a full range of motion.”) I immediately bring it up as much as I can after letting it down to parallel. I continue this, one squeezing rep after another until it begins to burn and then I shorten the stroke even more and more; until, I am just moving the bar up and flexing the belly of my forearm as fast and as hard as possible---squeezing the bar as if I were holding on to the edge of a cliff with just my hands. At some point, I feel like I am going to blow the side of my forearm bellies out and I put the bar down; forearms pumped so, that I cannot move my hands. If I were to count “repetitions” it might come out like this: “Standard Full Range of Motion” Reps”:0; Half-reps 15; Quarter reps; 10; moving the bar a fraction of an inch up toward my forearm and down a bit:10-12. Do you see what I am getting to here? This works for me, and but for a few exceptions, it seems to work for everyone. The key is to forget about a standard range of motion, for it will be different for each person. Think about what you are doing and always analyze how you are doing an exercise. Is there a better way? Is there a way that may work for me only? Is there a way I can put more into each set? All these questions should be going into your make-up exercise routine.

Good Luck and hit it hard!

For help, contact Paul at: www.paulburkefitness.com