Articles
How to Grow Stubborn Muscles
How do you know if a muscle is stubborn? Much of the time, when someone thinks they have a stubborn muscle, it isn’t actually stubborn, they just aren’t training it properly. Sometimes growing stubborn muscles is as simple as following a better workout routine or choosing better lifts.
But our muscle-building genetics can vary from muscle to muscle, and most people have some muscles that are truly stubborn. So just because you’re building muscle overall, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of your muscles will grow at the same speed. It doesn’t even mean that all of your muscles will grow at all. You may leave some in the dust. Why is that?
And how can we grow those lagging muscles? Fortunately, there are five fairly simple methods that tend to work quite well at bringing up lagging muscle groups.
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Starting Strength vs StrongLifts 5×5: What’s the Difference?
What’s the difference between Starting Strength and StrongLifts 5×5? Which workout program is better for beginners, which is better for building muscle, and which is better overall?
There are a few key differences between Starting Strength and StrongLifts. The first is the volume. Starting Strength uses 3 sets of 5 repetitions (3×5) as its main set and rep scheme, whereas StrongLifts uses 5 sets of 5 repetitions (5×5), giving it a much higher training volume. In theory, that should make it better for building muscle, but does it?
Another difference is that Starting Strength uses power cleans to develop power, whereas StrongLifts uses barbell rows to build the back. Again, this seems to favour StrongLifts for building muscle, especially in the upper body, but is that true?
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Review of StrongLifts 5×5 for Building Muscle
One of the most common questions we get is whether StrongLifts 5×5 is good for building muscle. More often than not, the question is coming from a skinny guy who’s new to lifting weights and is just getting started with barbell training. Is StrongLifts a good workout routine for a beginner who’s trying to get bigger and stronger?
The other people asking us about StrongLifts are often intermediate lifters who are seeing impressive increases in their squat strength, but they’re concerned that their bench press is lagging behind, and they’re worried that their upper bodies aren’t growing at the same pace as their hips and thighs. Why is that?
Finally, StrongLifts claims that doing low-rep sets on certain compound lifts builds bigger, denser, stronger muscles than all other training methods. Is there any truth to that? Is StrongLifts the best way to build muscles that are big and strong and hard?
Now, just to be perfectly upfront: this article is pedantic. If you get stronger at the big barbell lifts, eat enough protein to build muscle, and eat enough calories to gain weight, you will indeed grow bigger and stronger. The main principles that lay the foundation of StrongLifts are good ones. But how good are those 5×5 workouts for building muscle?
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The Close-Grip Bench Press Guide
The close-grip bench press is an assistance lift for the bench press done with a narrower grip. This narrower grip shifts the emphasis away from your chest and onto your upper chest, shoulders, and triceps. Powerlifters often use it to help them build a bigger 1-rep max on the bench press, but it can be quite good for gaining muscle size, too.
So, when and why should you do the close-grip bench press?
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The Romanian Deadlift (RDL) Guide
The Romanian deadlift, also known as the RDL or stiff-leg deadlift, is a deadlift variation that’s used in hypertrophy training to pack muscle onto the hips and hamstrings.
So, what is it, how do we do it, how does it compare against the conventional deadlift, and why is it so popular among beginners, bodybuilders, athletes, bikini models, and powerlifters?
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The Bent-Over Barbell Row Hypertrophy Guide
The barbell row, also known as the bent-over row, is one of the more popular compound lifts, and it’s commonly used in both strength training and bodybuilding programs. But most people don’t realize that powerlifters and bodybuilders do different variations of the barbell row. Even within bodybuilding, there are several different ways of doing them, with some designed to build a thicker back, some designed to build bigger biceps, and some designed to limit lower back stress.
In strength training routines, the barbell row is an assistance lift for the deadlift, used to strengthen the hips and lower back. In bodybuilding routines, the barbell row builds muscle in the upper back, spinal erectors, and forearms. Both styles of barbell row can be useful; both are great lifts. We’ll teach you the pros and cons of each.
The next thing to consider is how the barbell row compares against the dumbbell row and the t-bar row. Does the barbell row have any special advantages or disadvantages?
Finally, we’ll teach you how to do the barbell row properly, in a way that’s great for gaining both muscle size and strength.
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The Guide for Skinny Guys With Belly Fat
Why do some skinny guys have belly fat? If you aren’t overweight, why is fat accumulating, and why is it clustering in your midsection? There are a few reasons this can happen and five things we can do to fix it, but all of it boils down to one term: nutrient partitioning.
In this article, we’ll explain why you’re gaining belly fat instead of muscle when you gain weight and why you’re burning muscle instead of fat when you lose it. If you can fix these two things, you’ll gradually become leaner and more muscular instead of skinnier and fatter.
Then, after covering nutrient partitioning, which will gradually get you in shape, we’ll talk about how to turn up the dial so that you can build muscle and burn belly fat much faster.
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The 3 Best Exercises for Building Bigger Forearms
Forearms are one of those extremities that only extremists remember to train. The average lifter assumes that including some barbell rowing, strapless deadlifting, and weighted chin-ups in their workout routines will be enough to build bigger forearms, and although that can certainly help, the results are often underwhelming, especially for those with naturally thinner wrists. These are great exercises, but they aren’t great forearm exercises.
Your grip muscles are in your forearms, yes, but they’re fairly small, and making them stronger won’t make your forearms much bigger. And barbell rowing will bulk up your brachioradialis muscles, which are in your forearms. Those are beefier muscles, and they can definitely make your forearms look bigger, but they’re unlikely to be a limiting factor when you’re rowing, especially if you’re focusing on pulling with your upper back muscles, and especially if you’re using lifting straps. And so, again, your forearms might not grow all that much bigger.
Plus, even if you strengthen your grip and build bigger brachioradialis muscles, you’re still neglecting the vast majority of the muscles in your forearms—the forearm flexors and extensors. And so your forearms may stay fairly thin until you start doing dedicated forearm exercises.
So let’s talk about how to train your forearms, the best forearm exercises, and how to make the best forearm workout.
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When Should You Lift to Failure?
Should we lift to failure when trying to gain muscle size? That’s a tricky question, and the answer depends on the situation. For example, experienced lifters are able to lift to failure more safely, but they stimulate more muscle growth by stopping just shy of failure, at least on compound lifts. Beginners, on the other hand, can build muscle faster by lifting to failure, but since they don’t have the skill to take compound lifts to failure safely, training to failure is best reserved for isolation lifts.
The situation grows murkier when we consider that it’s often better to leave reps in reserve when lifting in lower rep ranges, whereas lifting in higher rep ranges often demands that we push closer to failure.
Perhaps most importantly of all, it’s often hard to estimate exactly how many reps we’re leaving in reserve, and if we misjudge our efforts and fail to push ourselves hard enough, we may wind up failing to stimulate any muscle growth whatsoever.
In this article, we’ll cover the research looking into training to failure as it relates to gaining muscle size, discussing the nuances of when you should and shouldn’t leave reps in reserve.
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Exercise Machines Vs Free Weights for Gaining Muscle Size
Are exercise machines as good as free weights for stimulating muscle growth? It’s often said that free weights engage more overall mass, do a better job of activating our muscles, and give us more general strength. Is that true? And if so, does that mean we should avoid exercise machines?
On the other hand, machines are often thought to do a great job of isolating certain muscles, many of them are designed to have an ideal strength curve for stimulating muscle growth, and some machine lifts, such as the leg extension, can’t be mimicked with free weights. Is it true that there are advantages to exercise machines, and if so, does that mean that we should use them instead of free weights, at least on certain lifts?
Finally, the big compound free-weight lifts can be hard to learn, especially for beginners. Should a beginner start with the barbell back squat, bench press, chin-up, and barbell row, or should they start with easier exercise machine variations, such as the leg press, chest press, lat pulldown, and cable row?
In this article, we’ll cover the pros and cons of using exercise machines for gaining muscle size, how they compare to free weights at stimulating muscle growth, and if/when you should use them.
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