iron addict
New member
As a trainer here is an example of something I hear quite often by new trainees a few weeks into their new programs. OK, I gained 20 lbs on my bench press, how come my chest isn’t bigger yet?
Well the answer has a few parts to it. The first one is that most initial gains on a new move or new loading pattern of an old move are mostly neural adaptations.
The second part of the answer is that after going up in weight, you must do workouts for a period of time with the higher weight before your body builds more muscle to accommodate for the additional weight.
The third part is that for many trainees, a good amount of weight to the bar has to be added before more muscle is accrued, and a sub-category of the third part is that MANY trainees simply do not add mass on a linear scale, by that I mean as the amount of weight lifted continues to climb, mass does NOT accumulate in a straight-line fashion. MANY people grow in spurts and the weights will climb and climb, and the trainee keeps looking in the mirror wondering WTF? And BAM, over a short period of time, he will add a lot of mass. That’s just the nature of how things work for a good percentage of the trainees out there. So don’t despair if you just added 15 lbs to your bent rows and your back isn’t any bigger, or 30 to your squat and your legs aren’t the size of tree trunks. As long as diet is there to back up the training the growth WILL occur. Just keep your focus on adding weight to the bar and you will succeed!
Iron Addict
Well the answer has a few parts to it. The first one is that most initial gains on a new move or new loading pattern of an old move are mostly neural adaptations.
The second part of the answer is that after going up in weight, you must do workouts for a period of time with the higher weight before your body builds more muscle to accommodate for the additional weight.
The third part is that for many trainees, a good amount of weight to the bar has to be added before more muscle is accrued, and a sub-category of the third part is that MANY trainees simply do not add mass on a linear scale, by that I mean as the amount of weight lifted continues to climb, mass does NOT accumulate in a straight-line fashion. MANY people grow in spurts and the weights will climb and climb, and the trainee keeps looking in the mirror wondering WTF? And BAM, over a short period of time, he will add a lot of mass. That’s just the nature of how things work for a good percentage of the trainees out there. So don’t despair if you just added 15 lbs to your bent rows and your back isn’t any bigger, or 30 to your squat and your legs aren’t the size of tree trunks. As long as diet is there to back up the training the growth WILL occur. Just keep your focus on adding weight to the bar and you will succeed!
Iron Addict
