Volume/Intensity Fusion Solution

The problem with most brief hardgainer routines is that they don’t give you full-range work for complete development of every muscle—multiangular training, as in Positions of Flexion. They also usually don’t give you extended time under tension to develop capillaries and other endurance components in the muscle structures—it’s been scientifically proven that hardgainers have more endurance-oriented muscle fibers and, therefore, require longer tension times.

Performing one exercise per muscle group for low reps will do almost nothing in the mass department for these skinny folks. The Volume/Intensity-Fusion solution, however, makes it possible for anyone to attack all aspects of muscle growth without spending hour upon hour in the gym every day—an excellent program, even for hardgainers with less-than-stellar recovery ability.

Wait! How can more work, as in volume, trigger new growth in so-called hardgainers, trainees who have limited recovery ability and who overtrain easily? The answer is that when hardgainers use a volume-oriented routine, they keep all sets at medium intensity—that is, subfailure training—to minimize cortisol output. That way they can get optimal fiber stimulation with six to 10 sets per body­part without exhausting the nervous system or burning valuable muscle tissue.

While training to failure is a key growth stimulus, it also triggers excess cortisol production, as it increases the stress level of a workout. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and when output is high, your body eats up muscle tissue for energy.

So if higher-set, medium-intensity training works, why not just do lower-set medium-intensity workouts to minimize cortisol? You’ll minimize cortisol, all right, but you won’t get enough mass stimulation. Lower-set training doesn’t activate the key growth fibers unless you go to failure and beyond, a function of the size principle of fiber recruitment.

The principle states that with any set you recruit the low-threshold motor units first, followed by the mediums and, finally, the highs, which kick in at the end of the set. Those high-threshold units activate the fibers with the most growth potential, so going to failure and beyond, such as with X-Rep partials added to a full-range set to exhaustion, helps you dig deeper into the high-threshold motor-unit pool. That means you don’t need as many sets to get optimal mass stimulation.

What if you stop the set short, as in subfailure sets? You don’t tap into as many of those high-growth fibers—but you do hit a few at the end of the set. That means you can and should include at least a few subfailure sets in your program—to get at a few more growth fibers. Interestingly, the order of recruitment changes with each successive set. Three or four subfailure sets equals one or two all-out sets beyond failure.
Back to hardgainers: Here are the reasons that doing higher-set, medium-intensity subfailure training can increase their mass:

1) Lower cortisol output means less catabolic muscle wasting, a godsend for cortisol-overproducing hardgainers.
2) You ensure that you get a full pump in the target muscles, which can increase capillaries. That, in turn, increases muscle size.
3) You trigger complete development in all muscle structures—if you use full-range-of-motion training like Positions of Flexion, in which you do a midrange-, stretch- and contracted-position exercise for each bodypart.
4) You activate even more high-growth muscle fibers.

While item 1, controlling cortisol, is a big piece of the hardgainer puzzle, achieving maximum fiber activation in each muscle is another. Using full-ROM training contributes to that. With its stretch-position exercises that trigger emergency fiber response and full-range-of-motion training, POF can go a long way toward activating as many growth fibers as possible with only a few sets. That said, most hardgainers have low neuromuscular efficiency to begin with—their nerve-to-muscle connections are below average—so it’s impossible to contract large masses of fibers during any one set. They have two choices:

1) Increase the volume—do more medium-intensity sets.

Or

2) Increase the intensity—do low-set routines that include set-extending techniques like X Reps for each bodypart.

Which is better, higher-set, medium-intensity workouts or lower-set, high-intensity sessions? The truth is that either can build neuromuscular efficiency so you gradually train more and more muscle fibers; however, some trainees, especially those who have a low pain threshold, have a better chance of hitting the target with 10 shots instead of just one.

That’s not to say that you should avoid low-volume, high-intensity training. As we said, both approaches have muscle-building merit. Suntanning is a good analogy. You can increase the darkness of your tan by increasing the volume, tanning more frequently and/or gradually increasing the time you expose yourself to the sun each time you go out. Or you can increase the intensity for shorter sessions—intensifying the power of the sun’s rays by putting oil on your skin, tanning in a tanning bed or sunbathing closer and closer to the equator, where the sun is closer to the earth. You can’t tolerate too much of the latter at any one time, so it must be brief.

As the name suggests, the Volume/Intensity-Fusion program merges, or fuses, those two muscle-building forces. If you choose to experiment with it, keep in mind that volume, even at medium intensity, can trigger overtraining just as high-intensity work can, so after about six weeks you should switch to low volume with medium intensity, total subfailure training, for one week to recharge.

The Volume/Intensity-Fusion routine provides two different workouts for each bodypart—medium-intensity volume sessions alternated with short, high-intensity all-out blasts. Each one, be it volume or intensity, covers all the Positions of Flexion for a full-range-training effect. The variety is excellent for the mind and the muscles, which grow continuously as they adapt to the varied stresses at each workout. (To continue the suntanning analogy, it would be like basking in the warm Southern California sun for 1 1/2 hours in the late afternoon and at the next session sunbathing near the equator for 15 minutes.)

The logic behind the program is sound—you get the best of both worlds. Try it as outlined, and you may be pleasantly surprised—even shocked—at your new growth. Many hardgainers who’ve tried this approach have been amazed by their progress!

Note: The workouts are listed as 1 through 6. You can train Monday through Friday with weekends off, following the sequence and picking up with workout 6 on the following Monday, with the cycle beginning again on Tuesday. Or you can train only four days, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, following the sequence of workouts and repeating the cycle, as described.