Online, everyone is trying to grab your attention.
Trying to convince you that you’re making some catastrophic mistake.
With fitness, they’ll say:
“pushups are killing your gains” or “bread is making you fat”
In reality, there are very few things that are both commonly done AND are seriously limiting your progress.
This is one of those rare things.
I know because I did it myself for years, and even embarrassingly coached other people to do it in the past
It’s important to learn because the man who knows how to build muscle will feel more motivated to keep working out, and have a tremendously better physique in 2-3 years than the man who doesn’t.
I talk more about this in the Skills section of my free guide, Body Recomp 101
“3 sets of 10”
I started building significantly more muscle when I stopped making this mistake…
Here’s how to spot it and what you should do instead.
If your workout log looks something like this:
That’s a red flag to me as a coach.
You’re arbitrarily stopping sets at nice round numbers.
And since you’re not seeing any rep decay (rep drop off from set to set) that also tells me that you’re probably not training very hard.
That’s going to put a massive damper on your ability to build muscle.
Because your muscles don’t count reps.
It’s not like moving your arms up and down 10 or 12 times is inputting some kind of cheat code that tells your muscles to grow.
Your muscles don’t speak that language.
They speak the language of mechanical tension and motor unit recruitment.
Think of your muscle as a bundle of tiny little machines that can turn off and on to pull on either side of each other.
Those are motor units, and increasingly more of them get activated as you train harder.
When you drive high degrees of mechanical tension through your muscle fibers, that is a clear signal for growth.
When you activate a ton of motor units in muscle you’re trying to train, that’s a clear signal for growth.
So here are the 3 things I want you to do differently, if you want to grow muscle faster:
1. Observe, Not Orchestrate
I want you to coach yourself.
Think about observing your body’s performance as a third-person on your next workout.
You’re not planning how many reps you get.
You’re just recording it.
Take your usual 25 lb dumbbells and give a nearly all-out effort with them.
Do as many good reps as you can with them.
Record how many reps you got.
This is what you’ll do with all your training from now on.
Give your best effort, and keep track of what happens.
For stuff that’s going to fall on you, like leg press or bench press, you can leave an extra rep or two in the tank to be safer.
Film yourself in the gym to see how hard you’re actually working.
If the dumbbells never slowed down at all during the set, and it looks like you could’ve done 5 more reps at the end, you might be leaving more on the table than you think.
It’ll also give you insight into what your technique looks like.
Self-Coaching is how I managed to lose 50 lb of body fat this year.
If you want a 45-day plan to be your own fat loss coach, check out Four Point Fat Loss
2. Set a Rep Range (Not Rep Target)
Instead of just aiming for 3×10 on DB bench press, your new goal will be to aim for 8-12 reps per set.
Now as long as your reps end up within the rep range, you’re using the right weight.
If you’re able to get more than 12 reps on all your sets of DB Bench Press with the 25s, it’s time to increase your weight the week after.
That’s called double progression.
Here’s what it looks like in practice:
3. Improve Performance Over Time
Some people have just never pushed hard at physical tasks in their life.
Maybe you were never in sports, or worked a manual labor job.
Training hard probably won’t come naturally to you.
Someone who was on the rowing team in university and already knows what it’s like to dig deep and keep pushing when things get hard.
This is a concept I heard from Geoffrey Schofield.
He says that training hard is not a natural skill that you’re born with, but it’s something you can learn.
And it’s definitely easier for people with an athletic background.
Here’s a simple recipe to to learn how to train hard.
Aim to beat your previous performance when you come into the gym.
Look into your logbook when you’re about to do your set of DB Bench Press.
If your best effort from last week was 35 lb for 11 reps, shoot for 12 (or even 11 with better technique).
Don’t abandon your technique when it gets hard.
Give it your best effort.
This is both highly effective for building muscle and improving your ability to train harder over time.
Even if you’re sandbagging your efforts in week one, two, or three.
Eventually you’re going to have to do a seriously hard set to continue besting your performance.
And as you keep beating your log book week after week, you’ll keep getting stronger, more jacked, and better at pushing yourself.
Start keeping a logbook of your training today.
It’ll help you get real results from your workouts.
More about that in next week’s letter.
Hope you have an excellent weekend.
– Matteo
PS: for the first time in about 6 months, I’m going to take on board a couple of 1:1 coaching clients.
If you’re feeling stuck doing this on your own…
And want to lose slabs of body fat while putting on muscle you can see and feel…
Apply for coaching by clicking here
