Set the Stage for Growth

Q: You refer to Stage Sets in your blog. What are they, and can they help me get bigger?

A: We discuss Stage Sets and how to implement them in our second e-book, Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building, which also covers the X-Fade technique, Double-X Overload and X/Pause. Once we began using Stage Sets and other X-hybrid techniques within the program outlined in that e-book, we gained another 10 pounds of muscle the year after our initial X-Rep transformation.

We believe we made such great gains because many of those tactics, including Stage Sets, gave us both a power and a density component in one set—so we were building the key 2A fast-twitch muscle fibers that are most prevalent in the biggest bodybuilders. Here’s how we explain Stage Sets for incline presses in the e-book Beyond X.

“You position yourself on the incline bench, grip slightly wider than shoulders. Unhook the safety catches and then lower the bar to about an inch above your upper chest. From there you drive it back up, but only to just slightly higher than the midpoint of the stroke. When you reach that point, lower back to the semistretched position, and so on, doing low-range partials till you can’t stand the burn. You’re essentially doing pistonlike exaggerated X Reps right off the bat through the max-force point….

“When you can’t do another exaggerated X Rep—you should get about 10 of them—get the bar to lockout, with help from your partner. Now you do the top stage of the stroke. First, squeeze your pecs hard, contracting them in the lockout position. Then lower through about the top one-third of the movement, blast back to the top, and squeeze your pecs again. Flex at lockout on every one of those top-end reps.”

This is a great way to do exaggerated X Reps and get top-end squeezes for a longer tension time. In other words, you combine both power and density for more muscle immensity.

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