Fast Muscle Growth: A Simple Specialization Plan

1. Select three muscles you want to improve dramatically.
2. On week one, train one of those priority muscles every day, or at least at every workout.
3. Always begin workouts with your priority muscle:
• Choose two exercises for that priority muscle. Use exercises that give you a strong mind/muscle connection.
• Do 3 sets of each exercise (6 sets total for the priority muscle)
• Do 6-15 reps per set, one rep short of failure. Change your reps every day:
• Day One: 6 reps
• Day Two: 10 reps
• Day Three: 15 reps
• Day Four: 10 reps + 5 rest/pause reps
• Day Five: 6 reps + drop set
• For the rest/pause sets, first do 10 reps. Rest for just 15 seconds and do 3 more reps. Rest another 15 seconds and knock out the last 2 reps. (Those numbers may vary a little. That’s fine.)
• For the drop set, do the first 6 reps, then, without resting, reduce the weight by 50% and do another set for as many reps as possible.
4. After you hit your priority muscle, do the rest of your normal workout, except for one change: reduce your number of sets by one on each exercise. This decreases workout volume slightly to accommodate for the added work on your priority muscle.
5. Every week, rotate to one of your other priority muscles.

A weekly rotation of three priorities greatly minimizes the risk of local chronic fatigue and desensitization (the muscle responding less and less to training). Hit a muscle hard for a week, then move on to something else.

So, let’s say you select:

• Building pecs
• Building biceps
• Building traps

Rotate these three priorities every week:

• Week 1: Pec focus
• Week 2: Arm focus
• Week 3: Traps focus

Then you’d repeat from week one. The rest of your normal workout is unaffected, except for dropping one set on each exercise.

Both volume and frequency increase hypertrophy stimulation as they go up… if you can recover from the workload. Frequency has a dual benefit when it comes to getting bigger.

First, frequency improves your capacity to contract a muscle, producing a lot of tension and recruiting more muscle fibers. Muscle recruitment is a skill. It responds to the same principles as other motor skills: frequency of practice.

The more often you need to produce a lot of tension with a muscle, the better you become at that task. And when you improve your capacity to recruit and feel a muscle, you make everything you do for that muscle more effective.

Frequency also works indirectly by increasing the overall weekly volume for a muscle without traumatizing it so much that you can’t recover.

Most lifters (and trainers) will be averse to this approach. But specializing your training to improve a muscle group doesn’t mean you have to stop training the rest of the body.

You can keep training the way you are right now (again, minus one set for your non-priority muscles), but you start each workout with the priority work. You’ll be shocked. Not only will it build muscle quickly, it’ll also increase your motivation to train.

When you start a workout with something super important to you, it’s fun. That positive energy carries on to the rest of your session, making you train harder and more consistently. This means faster progress overall.