Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2565: Add 1/2 Inch to Your Arms in 30 Days

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Add 1/2 inch to your arms in 30 days Why do young lifters struggle to do this? (1:01) 6 Ways to Add 1/2 inch to your arms in 30 days #1 - Trade volume and frequency for arm training from other a...reas. (2:16) #2 - Do compound bicep and tricep exercises. (9:29) #3 - Do stretch exercises. (13:40) #4 - Trigger sessions on off days. (16:53) #5 - EAT and SLEEP a lot. (19:42) #6 - Add BFR once a week. (21:18) Questions: What is considered a “big” arm? (22:52) What is the best rep range for arm training? (24:14) Do cheat reps have any value? (25:30) Is the pump important? (26:56) Related Links/Products Mentioned Get your free Sample Pack with any “drink mix” purchase! Also, try the new LMNT Sparkling — a bold, 16-ounce can of sparkling electrolyte water: Visit DrinkLMNT.com/MindPump March Promotion: MAPS Performance or MAPS Performance Advanced 50% off! ** Code MARCH50 at checkout ** Prevent muscle loss with minimal training? Mind Pump #1417: How to Get Stubborn Arms to Grow Mind Pump #2100: Big Arms Masterclass Occlusion Training Tutorial- How to Increase Muscle Size Using Blood Flow Restriction – Mind Pump TV Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is mind pump. Today's episode, add a half inch to your arm. In the next 30 days, you can do it. Just listen to what we say This episode is brought to you by a sponsor
Starting point is 00:00:27 Element they make an electrolyte powder. It's the best one on the market No artificial sweeteners, no sugar and it has the right amount of sodium to actually make a difference and it tastes great It's the only electrolyte powder we work with go check them out By the way, if you go to drink element t.com forward slash mind pump You can get a free sample pack with any drink mix purchase also one day left for our sale this month Maps performance and Maps performance advanced or 50% off if you're interested Go to Maps fitness products calm and then use the code March 50 for the discount. All right, here comes a show Can you add a half an inch of solid muscle to your arms in 30 days?
Starting point is 00:01:06 We think so, it's hard, but it's possible. We're gonna tell you how in today's episode, but you need to be focused and follow the steps carefully, let's go. You can teach this? I think so. You have that bigger biceps to teach this? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:18 Yeah. Yeah. I think it is possible, especially if you're in your first few years of training. I think if you're like super advanced It gets a little bit more difficult, but you you can do this and I did this I did this I did this As a kid, I remember as a 17 year old kid I made this a goal in 30 days actually worked But it has to be very focused talk a little bit first before we get into the steps on
Starting point is 00:01:42 How to do this and what we would go how we would go about it but why do you think people struggle to do this like what do you think what are some of the greatest challenges or what are the things that keep the young kid who's trying to put an inch on his bicep why why does he struggle with that you think well I think one of the big reasons is that people don't consider because they'll throw everything but the kitchen sink at their arms but they don't modify the rest of the workout, so they over train. And-
Starting point is 00:02:08 Yeah, they're over training a lot of times. Yes, it's just, they're just over, so what ends up happening is they're doing a normal workout, plus they're adding everything on top of it to try to get bigger arms. It's actually the first point. The first point of this is that you should add volume and frequency to your arm training,
Starting point is 00:02:24 but you should take it from other parts of your training. In other words, you trade volume and frequency for arm training from other areas. So what you don't wanna do is take your normal workout, which if you're consistent with your workout, you're probably training, or you've probably found a rhythm where you're training with an intensity and a volume that's right around your
Starting point is 00:02:42 limit. Most people who are consistent do that, which is what we tend to veer. What you don't want to do then is just add more volume to that. Because although it may benefit the arms because it's too much total volume, you end up not responding really well. You over train the rest of your body. So you have to take volume away from other parts of the body
Starting point is 00:02:59 and then add it to the arms. In other words, the 30 day period is arm focused. I mean, you still train the rest of your body, but you're not trying to build the rest of your body. You're just trying to build the buys and the tries. You know? I'm reading all of the ones that you have on here, and it's like, I feel like every one of these points,
Starting point is 00:03:17 you have six points that you've written down, I can recall when this happened, like in my arm journey. Arms was like, obviously as a kid, that was like the main focus for quite some time for me. And I remember there were very key moments of, I don't want to say hacks, because it's not a hack, it's like science. Figured out like, oh, that makes sense. I can't just keep piling the volume on and expect my body to respond.
Starting point is 00:03:44 I have to find a way to balance that out and then the other ones that you have down here I'm like I I remember like vividly like when I started doing that and like how much I saw a difference So like I love this as a cool Topic for somebody to go apply all of these in the next three days and feel confident that if you apply all these strategies You will get some you'll get there because I got, I could argue that I made that half inch gain each one of these steps. If that makes sense. Yeah, I think too, when you brought up the overtraining thing, like that was so prevalent for me and my friends because too, we weren't really getting good sleep and we weren't really
Starting point is 00:04:22 like eating like all this stuff, like there's more things we're gonna get, yeah, too, but it all aids in the recovery process. The actual building part of it was never something you can see. You just think immediately you just have to keep hammering those arms to death. Yes, I think, so with volume, so I'm gonna speak
Starting point is 00:04:38 generally, because this is very individual, okay, so I know this is a general statement, but so long as you control the volume and intensity for the rest of your body, and I'll put it differently, cruise with your training for the rest of your body. Your legs, chest, back, delts, like everything else is a cruise for the next 30 days, so you're just kind of training a little bit here and there. And by the way, you won't go backwards in those. You're not gonna go backwards. You won't. You know, that's what I mean by you're
Starting point is 00:05:05 still gonna work them out you're just gonna cruise with them so cut the volume way down and then when it comes to buy and try training you're doing you know ten sets for biceps ten sets for triceps three days a week. You can totally do that so long as the volume is controlled for the rest of your body. So you're gonna hit your arms three days a week with ten sets for both biceps and triceps, but the rest of your body is far less. I mean, you're going to be doing maybe six sets for chest and six sets for back and six sets for legs total
Starting point is 00:05:36 for the week. Most of the volume is for arms and that's what's going to make this happen. If you maintain the current amount of volume that you're training, and then you try to add and do 30 sets for buys and tries throughout the whole week, you're, you're not going to gain anything. It's just way too much for your body to overcome.
Starting point is 00:05:53 It's too much volume, too much intensity for the entire body. Cause we tend to think of volume and frequency and training to be site specific, like, you know, 15 sets for my biceps, they can handle 15 sets. But there is a whole body systemic effect from training that you also have to consider. In other words, if you hammer your legs and over train the hell out of your legs to the point, you can get to the point where the rest of your body won't respond just because of all the volume
Starting point is 00:06:20 doing your legs. Same thing is true for the rest of your body. Well especially when we're talking about trying to progress a smaller muscle that doesn't quite tax the CNS like those other ones do. So if you slam your leg, slam your chest, slam your back, and then all of a sudden you also increase volume on your arms, you're going to get nowhere right there. And we've talked about, at Nausium on this podcast, how little of volume you need to maintain the muscle mass. That was the big misunderstanding for me is I didn't understand that. I didn't-
Starting point is 00:06:49 You thought you had to keep it going. Yes. I had so much fear around not keeping my training volume and intensity up in fear that I would go backwards, in fear that I would lose all that muscle. And it's crazy how wrong I was and how far, how wide that spectrum is and how far to the right I was. I thought for most of my training career, I needed to be this much volume and intensity to keep all that muscle. The older I get and the more experience I realize, oh my God, I didn't need to do nearly any of that. I could have totally cruised on my, say, legs and chest and back for a month or two and put all that energy and focus on my arms and could have seen my arms rocket. Yeah, so this is true for any body part, by the way.
Starting point is 00:07:33 We're talking about arms today, but this is true for any body part. There's a big difference between what is necessary to cause muscle growth and what is necessary to keep muscle growth. Keeping muscle growth, I mean, there's lots of studies on this and they vary. Yeah. But every study done on this is shows significantly less volume is required to maintain than there is to build. Some studies show as little as one ninth the volume.
Starting point is 00:07:58 There's others show maybe one third of the volume. So in other words, whatever you're doing now, cut it down and then add it to your arm training and doing 10 sets for buys and 10 sets for tries on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, that's a nice general number. Of course, there's individual variance. That might be too much for some people and for other people that might be able to do much more. But I found what the people that I've worked with and myself, so long as everything else was controlled, that 30 sets total for that month with all the other volume controlled, it really does add muscle to the arms. And to add to this point, if you're listening to this and you're like,
Starting point is 00:08:33 wow, that's where I'm already doing that much, or 12, then you're probably the person who's doing too much on the other things. And what you might see is if you just scale back on some of those other muscle groups for a month, you will probably see gains in the arms. It's not, you need to, oh, the guy said you need to do this, so you're already doing that, so I'm gonna double it. It's like, well, no.
Starting point is 00:08:54 If you're not seeing results in your arms and you're already doing 30 to 40 sets of arms in the week, that probably points to you're either over-trained on everything else or underfed or under rest. There's something going on there and the answer is not piling more volume on. So an easy way to do this is you look at your total sets for the week. Now they're not all equal. This is not perfect, right?
Starting point is 00:09:16 A set of squats is going to hit you differently than a set of curls. But look at your total volume for the week and you trade sets is generally how you want to look at this. But of course, taking into consideration some exercises are more taxing than others. Now next up is to do compound exercises for both biceps and triceps. Close grip bench presses, dips, curl grip pull downs. I love curl grip pull downs or pull ups if you're really strong. A lot of people realize what a great bicep exercise
Starting point is 00:09:46 This is so good now. It's done differently than you would do like a supinated grip pull down So a pull down supinated grip you're sticking your chest out and you're squeezing your shoulders back You're emphasizing the lats when you're doing this as a curl. You're kind of rounding forward and you're curling down You're doing a curl on the way down It's a compound lift for the biceps, and it's very effective at building the biceps. Compound lifts for triceps, I don't think I need to make the case.
Starting point is 00:10:11 Think a lot of people know that dips in close grip bench press is a great exercise. But definitely don't skip out on the compound lifts. They're so good, they're so effective at building overall arm mass. When I figured this out as a youngster, I mean, it was like close grip bench press, like nothing made my triceps.
Starting point is 00:10:28 Blew my triceps up. Yeah. Blew my, that's why today I still put that as my go-to tricep move for gains. I just, for me, all the different things that I remember implementing here, this was an I remember this. I remember when I started doing close grip bench
Starting point is 00:10:45 press and I talk about how I like it on incline more than I like it on flat. Just personal preference. I just, the size that I put on my triceps, and this is late in my career, I'd already been training for some time. So this isn't like newbie gains coming on, but putting a lot of emphasis on it. And again, focusing on just getting strong in that lift. Like that was the thought was like, okay, I've implemented this a little bit in my routine here and there, but I've never made an effort, conservative effort, like can I get strong with this lift?
Starting point is 00:11:14 And I just went on a kick for like six months of getting strong with that lift, and it was the best my triceps ever. Yeah, you mentioned those, you know, the bicep curl version of doing a chin up. Now add weight to that, do less reps, you know, the bicep curl version of doing a chin up. Now add weight to that, do less reps, you know. Also, like with dips, I do the same thing where you're adding weight and you're just, you're not scaling back your reps, so you're just very strength focused and you're adding
Starting point is 00:11:37 load to that. And you get the compound benefits as well. So I just think that anybody that's pursuing like getting bigger arms, a lot of times they they're just always their go-to is more reps. Oh yeah and those two or three lifts you just because there's a lot of talk and you've seen things in magazines like a lot of times people will say like it's a waste of time doing two or three reps for buys or tries. No not when you're doing a compound lift. But when you're doing a compound lift like so when you think of the close grip bench you're talking about dead I mean so when you think of the close grip bench you talking about dead I mean dips when you think about the close grip pull-up those the bodyweight dips or with weighted dips like man those three reps that bangers
Starting point is 00:12:13 for heavy three letters on that you work really well put mass on your great for low refs and the girl get by the way the curl grip pull-ups most people won't be able to do these okay so I might be able to do most people won't be able to do these. Okay, so you might be able to- Yeah, just body weights probably. You might be able to do supinated grip pull ups and you might be able to rep out 10 of those. But doing them with the technique that I'm saying, and I remember the first time I learned these, I watched professional arm wrestlers do pull ups
Starting point is 00:12:37 and I noticed their form was way off. I thought it was way off, it was very different, I should say. Traditional pull up, the way I learned it, the way I always taught it, it's a back exercise. Yeah, lead with your chest. And you're leading with your chest, you're bringing your scapula down, you're squeezing
Starting point is 00:12:49 your lats, you're trying to use your back. You're actually trying not to use your arms, especially if you're a bodybuilder, you're trying to use more of your back. And I'd watch these, these arm wrestlers who are all arms, right? Cause they're arm wrestlers and they would round their shoulders forward and they'd do pull ups
Starting point is 00:13:02 like this. And I remember thinking like, that is wrong. I thought, oh yeah, that's because they're attracted. That's because their arms are really strong. Try doing a chin up like that. It's really hard. So I recommend you try a pull down first
Starting point is 00:13:14 because you might hurt yourself. It's actually really difficult way of doing a pull-up to pull with your biceps that way, but it is a low rep exercise. Creates tremendous tension and compound lifts always lend themselves better to low reps than isolation exercises. So you could do low rep curls and tricep press downs, but they start to look ugly, form goes
Starting point is 00:13:33 out the window. They just don't lend themselves well to low reps, but the compound lifts definitely do. Compound lifts are great for the low reps. Next are to do stretch exercises. What's cool about this is those of us who've been in the space for as long as we have, we've always noticed that stretch exercises seem to build great muscles in the arms, right?
Starting point is 00:13:56 So like overhead tricep extensions. Like that's always a favorite among people who really like to develop their triceps. Curls, incline curls, that seem to be a favorite among people want to build their biceps. Well now we have studies that show that loading a muscle in a stretch position seems to have an additional hypertrophy benefit on top of what you would get from traditional exercise. In other words, loading in the stretch position seems to be more effective.
Starting point is 00:14:25 So in your workout, overhead tricep extension where you focus on the stretch and those incline curls where you're laying back and you're getting a real deep stretch at the bottom and then coming up, those are phenomenal exercises to add to your workout. So I'm going to add to this tip because of all the ones you have on here, it makes the most sense to compliment this tip. And that is where I found out how important it was to position my elbows in like three different positions for both my buys and tries for every workout. And really what that does is by moving the elbow position in those three different main points
Starting point is 00:15:03 is you're messing with the strength curve. You're messing with making sure that one of those exercises is putting the muscle in the stretch position. And then one is- When tension is highest. Yeah, when tension is the highest, one's in the lengthened position,
Starting point is 00:15:14 one's somewhere in the mid-range, is what's happening there. And that all falls into this tip. So like incline curl, preacher curl, barbell curl. Yes. Right, overhead tricep extension, close grip bench press, tricep press down. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:15:28 And that was like game changer for me. I wish I remember where I read it or who told me at first was just like, because before that point, I was guilty of, you know, doing two or three bicep exercises and tricep exercises with the same elbow position. You know, I'm doing the rope, then I'm doing the push down, then I'm doing reverse. I'm doing like these movements. Elbows are all positioned right by my side, like doing nothing up in front
Starting point is 00:15:50 of me, nothing above my head. Like, and that was like massive game changer was just knowing how to do that. In every one of my arm workouts is okay. That's the way I would approach the arms is like, okay, today I need, I need to make sure elbows positioned in the three main positions and really what it's doing is making sure that I'm attacking at least one in the stretched one in the shortened and one in the mid-range. Yeah so like a good workout programming would look something like this right if you're doing you're doing a bicep workout you do a few sets of the curl grip pull downs or pull-ups if you're really strong you would do barbell curls
Starting point is 00:16:25 and you'd do incline curls, right? You're hitting the bicep from different angles. For triceps, it might look like close grip bench press, overhead tricep extension, tricep press down. Different elbow position, plus we're including a stretch exercise, plus we're including the compound lift. Like that's really, really good. Yes.
Starting point is 00:16:41 Really good workout program because the exercises that you combine make a difference. The exercises make a difference. There are some that are better than others and then how you combine them make a difference. So this is the beauty of workout programming. Next up is to include trigger sessions on your off day. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday you're doing your arm workouts. Well here's what you do on Tuesday, here's what you do on Thursday, here's what you do on Saturday, here's what you do on Sunday. You get resistance bands and you give yourself a pump two or three times a day, that's it.
Starting point is 00:17:07 Not a workout, you just give yourself a pump. That's the key to this tip. The key to this tip is you're already doing plenty of volume and intensity with the workouts. You don't need more of that. This is more facilitating recovery, getting a pump. So the mistake whenever I teach this is then I find out later on the client is like treating it like,
Starting point is 00:17:26 yeah, they're like a workout. It's burning, they're getting sweat, and it's like they're trying to get, and they're thinking, oh, more is better, but that is not the desired outcome here. The desired outcome is you've already put the work in to grow, this is actually more to facilitate recovery. Pump some blood in there, keep oxygen, blood flow,
Starting point is 00:17:44 everything coming in and out of that muscle and that'll help facilitate recovery which will then help build and grow. It is not to do damage, it is not to like push and that's the mistake made when you when you prescribe. At my peak I would do three of these a day. I do three you know eight minute trigger sessions a day and it literally was I'm just gonna get a little bit of a pump three times a day and this literally was, I'm just gonna get a little bit of a pump three times a day and this, when you combine it with good workout programming, it really makes a big difference.
Starting point is 00:18:10 And people overlook this, it's cool because we now have data showing just how much this amplifies muscle protein synthesis. We have data to show how it improves health and a lot of the stuff as well. But do not sleep on the trigger sessions. I'm telling you right now, if you gain, if you could gain a half an inch through just the workout part, you probably can add another quarter inch from adding the
Starting point is 00:18:31 trigger sessions or close to that much. That's how much of a difference the trigger sessions makes. So don't sleep on them. It's a bit of an energy boost as well. It's like you do, like especially if you can spread it out three times a day, when you have your normal dips and like all of a sudden now you're pumping blood back and getting contraction out of your muscles. It's just enough to stimulate your body
Starting point is 00:18:52 and your body's more alert, everything's working more effectively, then you go back to a harder workout the following day and it's like, yeah, you don't feel like hammered at all. It's all refreshed. So generic tip to go with that. Again, it's a little generic overgeneralization here, but for most people this should work perfect, Yeah, you don't feel like hammered at all. It's all refreshed. So generic tip to go with that. Again, it's a little generic overgeneralization here,
Starting point is 00:19:07 but for most people this should work perfect, which is one exercise, three sets of 15 to 20 reps with the lightest band you can get. Like the real light orange one, which is typically the lightest one. Three sets of one exercise for the muscle group, 15 to 20 reps, that's enough. Very short respiratory.
Starting point is 00:19:25 Very short. Yeah. Very short. In fact, I normally do two or three exercises and I do it kind of like in a little circuit. I do bicep curl, overhead extension, lateral raise. And then I go around, I do three rounds of that done. Like get there. But make it buy and try. Yep. That's it. And then you literally, that's all you're doing. You're not trying to do any more than that. And that, that'll do the, do the job. Next up, uh, eat a lot, Eat in a surplus and sleep a lot.
Starting point is 00:19:46 Like, if you do everything perfect and you're not eating enough protein, enough calories, and if your sleep is crap, you can forget about all your gains. You'll go backwards. So, anytime you're trying to build muscle, anytime you're trying to work on a weak body part or see a massive difference,
Starting point is 00:20:03 especially in a short period of time, you need to bump your calories. You need to put yourself in a calorie surplus. So for most people that's adding two to 500 more calories a day than you're used to eating. We're only talking about 30 days here. Yeah, 30 days, that's it. So 200 calories if you're a female, probably 500 calories if you're male. In addition to what you're currently eating, hit your target body weight and protein and get eight and a half hours of sleep.
Starting point is 00:20:27 That's your target. Every single night, this is just as important as a workout for building muscle. So in my experience, the two most common things that are keeping people from seeing the results, the people that want this, right? The guy or the girl, whoever saw this episode, was like, I wanna hear that, I'm interested.
Starting point is 00:20:43 The two things that have kept them from being able to do this is either the first one we talked about over training. So too much intensity over volume and the other one is under eating. And many times it's a combination of both. Many times I've got somebody who's doing all the work because they're trying to grow the arms
Starting point is 00:20:59 and they're overdoing the work. And then they're also not consistent with getting enough protein and calories to support what they're doing. It's, and then they're also not consistent with getting enough protein and calories to support what they're doing. It's like the perfect recipe for plateau and not seeing results, is you're training too hard, too much, and then on top of that,
Starting point is 00:21:13 you're also not feeding what the body needs to recover. Those are the two most common. Yeah, and once a week, here's the last one, once a week in one of the workouts, do a few sets of blood flow restrictive training. Uh, this is, it's intense. Ooh yeah. Uh, so what this essentially is, is you'll use it.
Starting point is 00:21:32 I like using knee wraps for this. You use a knee wrap, you kind of tie it around the top of your arm, above your bicep and tricep, tight enough to where you could feel some of the pressure. Then you get really light dumbbells and you do a bunch of reps of curls and a bunch of reps of tricep press down, and you do three rounds of that. What happens is the... Significantly lighter weight. Very light.
Starting point is 00:21:50 The knee wrap, it includes blood outflow. So the muscle gets filled with blood, but it can't pump it out. So the pump gets really intense. It stretches the fascia. It sends muscle building signal, and it's done with very, very lightweight. This, by itself, by the way, is one of the fastest way to add you're living in that
Starting point is 00:22:08 burn oh it's everything that the hypertrophy burn provides it's it amplifies that yes I'm pretty sure there is a video floating around where I have incredible hair and I'm working with Sal's son yeah you can probably find guys are very handsome back there. You can probably find the video somewhere if this short window can add it to this. I think we did a long time ago on exactly how to do this. So if you're not sure how to set it up, I know that we've done a video on this. But it'll add size to, it works real well for calves too,
Starting point is 00:22:38 in a very, very short period of time. But literally just do it once a week though. Don't get carried away with this. You get carried away with this, you can overdo it as well. But one, you know, few sets for buys and tries at the end of one of your workouts. Get a crazy pump, burn, whatever. Then take off the wraps and there you go.
Starting point is 00:22:52 We have a few questions here. The first one is, what is considered a big arm? Yeah. You know what? All relative. Yeah, you know what's funny? So with a man with a lean 16 inch arm, a lean 16 inch arm that's defined, is more, it definitely looks better.
Starting point is 00:23:13 It's more impressive than a kind of smooth 18 inch arm. Okay, so definition and muscularity make a big difference. Huge difference. Yes, huge difference. So typically in the world of muscle building, like if you get up to 17, 18 inch arms, you got big arms, right? But more important than that is shape and definition. Like shape and definition is what makes all the difference. The most compliments I got on the size of my arms when they were at least an inch to two inches smaller than what
Starting point is 00:23:40 they've been before. Because you were ripped. Because I was ripped. Yeah. Because I was so lean. When you are lean and your delts are built, you have good delts and you're lean, separates that, it makes the arm, and let's be honest, at the end of the day, I think most of us that want big arms or are chasing that, it's less about the inches, even though that's the way of the young people.
Starting point is 00:24:00 Nobody asks you the tape measure, nobody cares. Yeah, nobody, it's like what they look like. And so I can tell you right now being lean and having good shoulders adds to having great arms more so than adding an edge to your soft arm. What is the best rep range for arm training? You know, so if you're going to go lower reps, it's the compound lifts, but the, the typically all rep ranges are valuable, but typically rep ranges between eight to 15 are probably best just because a lot of the exercises
Starting point is 00:24:28 are isolation. You can do low rep isolation exercise, just the form tends to go out the window. I mean I'm just gonna say that where the gold is at is the one you don't do. So when Justin made the point about the dips and the pull, like what's so cool about that is if you heard that and you've never loaded
Starting point is 00:24:46 and done one of those extra and then three reps of dips or three, like you're going to get a huge bang for it. Now, if you're the type of person that loves to lift heavy and you always train three to five, six reps most of the time, then you're going to see tremendous value in 15 to 20 reps and superset type stuff. So it really is, because again, all rep ranges. Shake your style up. Yeah, whatever it is that you lean more towards, try leaning more towards the other direction. And in this short, we're talking about 30 days, right?
Starting point is 00:25:13 I have 30 days to give you a half an inch to an inch on your arm, what am I doing? Well, if I'm coaching you, I'm gonna ask you, are you the guy who's more likely to do the three reps on the dips, or are you the guy who's more likely to superset? A point to our size and then I'm gonna push you in that direction. Yeah, we didn't talk about supersets. That's another big one Next question is do cheat reps have any value not really
Starting point is 00:25:35 I mean, you know, there's arguments for and against it But I think she I think there's definitely people who know how to maintain tension who know how to hit the target muscle properly and with a cheat rep. There's people who have this skill and this ability. Typically they're advanced lifters. Bodybuilders can do this really well. But I typically advise against them because I don't see value. There's really no value outside of the fact that you're using more weight. And I think if you use less weight with stricter form it's just as valuable. Not only that Sal but if you use like this the theory behind why these have any value whatsoever if you apply that to the compound list we talked about you're gonna get all that so like I think seeing someone do a
Starting point is 00:26:18 cheat rep on strict by like where your standard bicep curl is not a good idea. Now if you had to cheat your way up to a pull up because your body weight or the 30 pound kettlebell you're pulling up is so heavy, like you're gonna get more out of that than you would do in an isolation exercise that you're rocking or swinging cheating. Does that make sense?
Starting point is 00:26:36 Yeah, I just, I don't recommend it. I think the people who can do cheat reps really well are really advanced and they know how to maintain tension. Like, and they, and I think they would get just as much value going strict. I agree. On the value ladder, this is the bottom. Yeah. This wasn't in our list for a reason. That's right. Next question is, is the pump important? Very important. Now, it's less important as a muscle building signal, although there's evidence that shows that the pump
Starting point is 00:27:08 might actually trigger some muscle growth itself. It's more valuable, though, as a sign that everything is right. Okay, so if you're getting a really- You're connecting to the muscle. Yeah, if you're getting a really good pump, you're probably well hydrated, well fed, well rested, not over-trained.
Starting point is 00:27:24 If you're working out and you can't get a good pump, then it's probably one of those things is off. So again, it's less about the pump making the muscle grow, although again, there's some evidence that shows that it may do that as well. But for me, if I can't get a good pump, it's like, okay, what's off? Why am I not able to get a good pump?
Starting point is 00:27:43 Am I hydrated enough? What's happening? That's it, 100%. Look, if you like the show, come find us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump. Justin, I'm at Mind Pump to Stefano, and Adam's at Mind Pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,
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