10×10 Muscle Expansion

Q: I just read your e-book X-Rep Update #1 and your Ultimate 10×10 Mass Workout. I’m thoroughly impressed. What great info. I learned a lot and am applying many of your methods. I was especially intrigued with the fascia-expansion workout in X Update. It makes sense to end a bodypart routine by supersetting the contracted-position exercise with a stretch one to make room for extra growth to happen; however, I can’t superset in my crowded gym. What do you think about just ending each bodypart workout with 10×10 on a stretch-position exercise to expand the fascia?

A: Man, we love it when bodybuilders use their heads and come up with a killer idea. That’s an excellent way to use 10×10 to get a major size surge, one we hadn’t considered. It’s an ideal solution for trainees who want to continue to use heavy weight on the big exercises but still add on 10×10 to get a big bang in muscle gains.

Your idea adds a new dimension to Hany Rambod’s FST-7 method. He suggests ending each bodypart with seven quick sets of an isolation exercise, like leg extensions, to engorge the muscle with as much blood as possible. According to Rambod, that stretches the fascia from the inside. The fascia, which are fiber encasements, constrict growth—like a tight sausage casing—so stretching them can loosen them and unleash a new level of growth quickly.

Your idea is similar but maybe even better: You do a few heavy sets of a midrange exercise, like chins for lats, and a contracted-position move, like stiff-arm pulldowns. Now you’ve got a major pump going. Then you end with a stretch-position exercise, like pullovers, for 10 sets of 10 reps to elongate the fully-engorged muscle over and over. Talk about extreme fascia expansion—but that’s just the tip of the hypertrophic iceberg.

By ending with a stretch move for 10 sets of 10, you’ll be getting an extreme amount of target-muscle elongation—100 reps worth, to be exact. That produces other key mass-building reactions, like anabolic hormone release in muscle and possible fiber splitting. Remember the animal study that produced a 300 percent muscle-mass increase from only one month of stretch-overload workouts? You’re mimicking that effect, which, as researchers showed, can produce incredibly fast size results.

[Note: For the uninitiated, to incorporate 10x10, take a weight with which you can get about 20 reps but only do 10; rest for 30 seconds, then do 10 more, and so on until you complete 10 sets in about 10 minutes. The first few sets will be easy; the last few will be brutal. For more information and programs, see The Ultimate 10x10 Mass Workout e-program.]

—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com