The Beyond X-Rep by Holman Steve

IRON MAN Training & Research Center Presents
B E Y O N D
REP
MUSCLE BUILDING
by Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson

Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building was written to help you get
closer to your physical potential with sensible bodybuilding
strategies. Weight training is a demanding activity, however, so
it is highly recommended that you consult your physician and
have a physical examination prior to beginning a weight-
training program. Proceed with the suggested diets, exercises
and routines at your own risk.
Photography by Michael Neveux
Cover models: Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
Copyright © 2005 by IRON MAN Magazine and

Homebody Productions
All rights reserved.
The material in this document may not be reproduced in

whole or in part in any manner or form without prior written
consent from the publisher.
Homebody Productions
P.O. Box 2800, Ventura, CA 93002
www.X-Rep.com
www.BeyondX-Rep.com
www.X-tremeLean.com
www.X-traordinaryAbs.com
CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................4
Chapter 1—X-hilirating Muscle-Building
Observations.................................................................5
Chapter 2—X-treme Pumps and Pain to Gain.............11

Chapter 3—Hormone Surges and Fiber Slicing..........17
Chapter 4—Cut the Volume, Cover the Angles...........21
Chapter 5—Time-Bomb Training..................................25
Chapter 6—Stage Sets and Double-X Overload.........31
Chapter 7—X/Pause and X-centric Training................37
Chapter 8—Iso X and the X Fade..................................45
Chapter 9—Our X-citing Results and Findings...........49
Chapter 10—Split-Positions X-Rep Training................59
Chapter 11—X Q&A........................................................77
Bonus Chapter A—Analyzing Mr. Olympia’s
Workouts—From an X-Rep Perspective...................93
Bonus Chapter B—The Inner Workings of Steroids:

Mimicking Their Anabolic Power Without Drugs...103
Introduction
The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book showcased our gains with
X Reps and explained that mass-building technique in detail. It
essentially kick -start ed the X -Rep muscle-bu ilding
phenomenon—and the gains of muscle-building enthusiasts all
over the world. Our results with X Reps showed that, if used
correctly, it has the power to transform a physique in as few as
35 days. Trainees have reported incredible gains in size and
s t rength in only a few workouts due to finally being able to
overcome the nervous system roadblock during any set to failure
( i t ’s usually the nervous system that craps out first, not the
muscle). Power partials at the sweet spot along an exercise’s
stroke at the end of a set to exhaustion obliterate that roadblock,
allowing you to trigger new hypertrophic stimulation like never
before—so much so that many trainees said that X Reps are the
last word on building massive muscles. But are they?
Our latest research and experiments (or should we say X-
periments?) confirm the power of X Reps, but as any seasoned
bodybuilder knows, nothing works forever. You have to find ways
to jack up the intensity if you want X-traordinary growth.
So after more analysis and research we created new ways to
X-ponentially increase the intensity of the X-Rep technique. The
best of the best of those X-Rep hybrid techniques helped us
pack on nearly 10 more pounds of new muscle to our already
developed physiques (which is even more amazing when you
consider that Steve is now 46 years old!). These techniques can
do the same for you—take
your mass to the next level
at a rate that will astound
you.
Consider yourself in the
fast lane to X-treme muscle.
Are you ready? Let’s put the
pedal to the metal!
—Steve Holman and
Jonathan Lawson
Steve H. and Jonathan L.: Bigger IRON MAN Training &
and better in ’05 thanks to new
X-Rep hybrid techniques.
Research Center
4 Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building

CHAPTER 1
X-hilirating
Muscle-Building
Observations
Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building 5

It all started when we began analyzing the way the biggest
bodybuilders train for mass. These men are huge, so they have
to know a thing or two about getting extreme development—
just don’t ask them because they’ll say something like, “Do six
to 10 reps on a lot of exercises.” No wonder the failure rate in
bodybuilding is outrageous. It’s much more than that!
T h a t’s why we decided to observe rather than ask. We
watched them train, analyzed their techniques, read up on
training research and then applied what we saw to our own
workouts—well, sort of. Due to our drug-free status we had to
be more discerning and keep an eye toward science (we even
a n a l y zed how steroids work in order to get many of those
effects naturally, as you’ll see in an upcoming chapter). And
that’s when our gains began to skyrocket. More on that later.
First, let’s look at a few things we discovered when we opened
our eyes—like all the cheating that goes on (and we’re not
talking about steroids).
You’ve no doubt heard a mass monster at your gym or in a
magazine article go on and on about strict form, but when you
see him train, most of his reps look more like a re j e c t e d
Olympic lift. Ronnie Coleman, Mr. Olympia and one of the
biggest and strongest bodybuilders of all time, is the perfect
example. In fact, on some of his exercises the weight is so heavy,
t h e re’s ve ry abbre v i a t e d
m ovement. On shru g s, for
e x a m p l e, he loads up an
o u t rageous poundage,
s t raps onto the bar and
pulls for all he’s worth, but
Watch Ronnie Coleman train and

you’ll see that he does most of
his exercise in an explosive,
partial style, blasting the weight
through the key semistretched
position and only moving it
halfway or two-thirds of the way
up through the stroke.

his shoulders barely rise. It looks like arm-stretching torture
f rom the Middle Ages. (We’ll have a complete exerc i s e - by-
exercise analysis of his training toward the end of this e-book.)
To be fair, not all of his sets and reps are partial ra n g e
and/or explosive, but a lot of them are—especially on the big,
compound exercises like presses—and for good re a s o n :
Cheating is one way to trigger extraordinary muscle growth.
Say what?
Most scientists say that one of the big keys to muscle growth
is force. The more force you can get a muscle to generate, the
more growth you’ll stimulate. That’s one reason compound, or
multijoint, exercises produce more mass gains than isolation
m ovements do—you use more weight when a number of
muscles work together, and you can increase the poundage
m o re easily over time. That’s pro g re s s i ve overload. ( We’re
getting to the cheating part; hang on.)
But there’s more to it than just adding more weight to the
bar on the big exercises, much more. As we explained in UMW,
many re s e a rchers believe that the real growth trigger on
certain exercises is near the turnaround, where you move from
the negative stroke to the positive. Why? Because that’s where
the most force occurs. And where do m ost of the big
bodybuilders cheat or explode? Near the turnaround—bottom
of a squat or press, for example—which provides a wicked,
growth-jolting overload. (Force-plate studies show that as a
trainee recoils and then explodes near the bottom of a press to
re verse the direction of the bar, the force can more than
double. It’s a wicked hypertrophic shockwave!)
Think about it. At the bottom of an incline press your pecs
have to put the brakes on and then reverse the direction of the
bar. Lots of potential for maximum overload, or force, there.
The problem: Many scientists say that the pecs can’t quite exert
maximum force at the very bottom of the movement—there’s
too much stretch. That means the muscle must be elongated to
exert maximum force but not to the extreme. The key max-force
point, then, is just below the middle of the stroke but not all

the way down at the
bottom, stretch position
(and not at the completely
c o n t racted p osition, as
many people believe). It’s
at a semistretched point.
T h e re f o re, if you can
overload the position that’s
just above the stretch but
not quite to the midpoint,
you can si gnificantly
i n c rease the anabolic
power of any set.
Force-plate studies show that when a T h a t’s exactly what
trainee recoils and explodes near the many of the biggest
bottom of a press to reverse the bodybuilders do on almost
direction of the bar, the force can
more than double. That’s a e ve ry rep. Watch them do
tremendous stress overload on the incline presses, and you’ll
muscle right at the key semistretched see them re verse the bar
point. However, that’s a dangerous b e f o re touching their
practice. A better way to overload that
max-force point is with end-of-set X-
upper p ecs, exploding
Rep partials or one of the new X- upward from there. (Some
hybrid techniques. e ven bounce it off their
chests to get the bar to the
more advantageous max-force point.) By stopping a little short
and exploding, they hit the semistretched position with more
overload. That makes the exercise much more effective —
although it also makes it more dangerous.
What about Ronnie Coleman and the shrug example above?
By using a weight that’s too heavy for full movements, he only
works the bottom part of the stroke, never getting it near the
contracted position. Though he only works the stretched and
s e m i s t retched points and slightly above, he does it with
extreme overload. And that’s why his traps are gigantic! (He
actually uses a hitch at the bottom, but we’ll have more on that
Double-X Overload technique later).

One of Arnold’s favorite
biceps exercises was
cheat curls. Notice how it
overloads his biceps right
at the max-force point,
just below where his
elbows are bent at 90
degrees. That’s the X spot.
Arnold’s Olympia workouts contain a number of examples.

One of his favorite biceps exercises was barbell cheat curls.
He’d take a heavy weight, lean forw a rd slightly and then
explode the weight up to his shoulders. Where does the most
f o rce occur on a set like that? The semistretched position,
where the arms are not quite bent at 90 degrees—just below
the halfway point of the stroke (see the photo above). There’s
ve ry little resistance anywhere else during the entire curl.
Could that have been at least part of the reason for Arnold’s
giant biceps and incredible peaks? Possibly.
Eve ry exercise has its own sweet spot, and the biggest
bodybuilders seem to instinctively know where that key point
is and then exploit it for gigantic leaps in mass. (We explained
and identified the key exercise for each bodypart and its sweet
spot, or X position, in UMW.) They do a lot of their reps with a
slightly shorter range of motion and explode out of the
t u rn a round with heavy weight. (Watch Co l e m a n’s tra i n i n g
videos, and you’ll see a lot of that.) It’s precisely what gives
them excessive hypertrophic overload at the sweet spot of key
exercises. It shifts the muscle machinery into overdrive!
As you know if you’ve been to our Web site or read our other

e - b o o k s, we don’t advocate jerking and heaving giant
weights—especially if you don’t use things like grow t h
hormone to fortify ligaments and tendons. That’s the wrong
s t ra t e g y, despite what the pros do (re m e m b e r, even with
pharmaceutical help a lot of pros have been seriously injured
doing that, from pec and biceps tears to vertebrae blowouts to
shattered shoulders). So here’s what you should learn from this
discussion...
Muscle-building lesson 1: The semistretched point of an
exercise’s stroke is key. You need to overload that sweet spot,
especially on the big, compound exerc i s e s, if you want to
maximize your mass gains. The best way is with X-Rep partials
at the end of a strict set or Stage Sets, which are a series of
e x a g g e rated X Reps right off the bat that encompass the
semistretched position, and/or Double-X Overload, which is
the between-reps hitch method we saw Ronnie Coleman using
on shrugs at the semistretched point and that big Jay Cutler
uses on almost every exercise in his mass-building program.
We’ll review X Reps and analyze all the other X-Rep hybrid
techniques, as well as have more discussion on those two pro
bodybuilders’ training techniques, later in this e-book.

CHAPTER 2
X-treme Pumps and

Pain to Gain

Do the biggest bodybuilders always explode on their reps?
No, there are exercises that they ra rely cheat on—usually
isolation movements that create continuous tension, like leg
e x t e n s i o n s. What’s so special about continuous-tension
exercises? They block blood flow to the target muscle, which
can have a spectacular impact on muscle size and strength.
It’s called occlusion, and one study, which was reported on
in the Journal of Strength Conditioning Research (15:362-366),
applied it to subjects’ forearms by placing a blood pressure cuff
on their upper arms for two minutes. The cuff was then
removed, and the subjects did wrist curls. Results: Those who
had their blood flow impaired prior to exercise showed a 20
percent strength increase over the subjects who didn’t use the
blood pressure cuff. Yes, 20 percent!
What about muscle size? Rob Thoburn, an I RON MAN
c o n t r ibutor and muscle-science re s e a rc h e r, h as been
c o r responding with Japanese scientists who have been
experimenting with Kaatsu, or occlusion, techniques. Thoburn
reported that Takashi Abe, Ph.D., got a 7 percent increase in
quadriceps cross-sectional area in four months with standard
t raining, but when he used occlusion, he got an 8 perc e n t
increase in cross-sectional area—in only two weeks! That’s
right, better results in about one-eighth the time—two weeks
as opposed to 16 weeks. That’s about an 800 percent increase
in gains when blood flow was impeded. Wow! You can see why
the biggest bodybuilders include continuous-tension sets in
their routines—they force blood out of the muscle and create
those mass-and-strength-increasing occlusion effects.
Why does blocking blood flow produce such spectacular
increases in muscle size and strength? Part of it may be due to
the incredible rush of blood to the bodypart once blood flow
resumes (ah-ha, so maybe getting a pump does matter!).
Scientists have suggested that the bodypart bloodbath that
occurs post occlusion can produce everything from upgraded
release of heat shock proteins to alterations in muscle calcium
metabolism (calcium contributes to contraction) to greater

recruitment of fast-twitch
muscle fibers. Interesting—
and exc i t i n g — e s p e c i a l l y
when you do the math:
Let’s see, a conservative 8
p e rcent increase in quad
s i ze times 12 months—
Holy cow! That’ll double-
size your thighs in a year!
But hold on. You use leg
extensions in your quad Blocking blood flow to a muscle with
ro u t i n e. Why are n’t yo u continuous-tension movements can
create bigger gains in size and
getting 8 percent size strength—if you can stand the pain.
increases every two weeks
or even eve ry two months? Answe r: pain tolerance and/or
nervous system failure. See, part of the reason is that right
when the most occlusion is occurring—near the end of a
continuous-tension set—you stop. It’s a simple case of
t e rminating sets too soon—when you can’t get any more
complete reps—and that severely limits occlusion effects.
The big bodybuilders like Jay Cu t l e r, who do a lot of
continuous-tension move m e n t s, have exc e p t i o n a l
neuromuscular efficiency, or nerve-to-muscle connections, as
well as pain tolerance. So they can keep the muscle firing as
m o re occlusion occurs. (Legendary trainer Vince Gi ro n d a
always said that what separates the champs from the wanna-
bes is mental focus and pain tolera n c e. He was onto
something.)
It hurts like a mother when occlusion is occurring, as the
muscle gasps and sputters from lack of blood and ox y g e n .
Most of us mere mortals can’t stand the pain and terminate the
set way before we get a hefty dose of growth stimulation from
occlusion. The champs just keep pushing through the pain
barrier—but even they stop their sets too soon.
Yep, super pain tolerance and focus can only get you so
much extra stimulation on any given set. Their muscles crap

Stopping short on dumbbell
flyes gives the pecs
continuous tension and more
occlusion. That technique
was an Arnold favorite and
contributed greatly to his
unreal pec size.
out early—at least
sooner than they’d like—
partially due to nervous
system failure, which is
why they do so many
sets. Each additional set
gets them a tad more
stimulation—a shift in
f i b e r- r e c r u i t m e n t
o rde r—but i s all that
e x t ra volume re a l l y
n e c e s s a r y? Not if yo u
train a little smarter, as we explain later in this e-book.
Here’s something else to consider: If you can’t keep enough
tension on the target muscle during a set for full occlusion to
occur, you’ll minimize the anabolic effects even further. For
example, if you have weak nerve force in your pecs, you may
d i ve rt tension to your front delts near the top of dumbbell
f l ye s. That allows blood to move into your pecs, dera i l i n g
occlusion. If that’s the case, it may be wise to follow Arnold’s
lead and do only the bottom half or two-thirds of the stroke.
(By the way, Ronnie Coleman uses that partial technique on
almost all of his exercises, even squats, doing only the bottom
two thirds of each rep—it’s a supercharged occlusion workout.)
The biggest bodybuilders often use exercises or parts of
e x e rcises that keep max tension on the target muscle
throughout the set to get occlusion. Lou Ferrigno did it on
incline presses. Remember the scene in “Pumping Iron” when
he was training at that cave-like gym in New York with his dad
screaming at him (“Come on, Louie! Ah-nold’s nothin’!”)? He

was only doing the bottom two-thirds of the presses, achieving
occlusion and hitting that important max-force-generation
point—the sweet spot—on every every partial rep.
Another example from the current crop of champs is Victor
Martinez, an IFBB pro with spectacular delts. How did he build
them? Check out this quote from his Q&A column in the June
’05 Muscular Development:
“Pa rt i a l - rep lateral ra i s e s. The difference between my
version and standard dumbbell lateral raises is that I move the
weight only through the first quarter of the movement. Doing
them this way takes the traps completely out of it; it’s all side
delts moving the weight. Pl u s, I get to use much heavier
poundages, since I’m not raising the dumbbells up to peak
contraction.”
In other words, Martinez is using X Reps from the get-go. He
goes superheavy and does partials at the semistre t c h e d
position on every rep. And his delts are X-tremely massive!
Ronnie Coleman does the same maneuver on the Na u t i l u s
lateral-raise machine—semistretched-point partials, and Jay
Cutler does only the bottom part of his seated laterals, which
really look like seated dumbbell upright rows.
Something else to keep in mind: Rep acceleration, as well as
lack of neuromuscular efficiency, can take tension off the
target muscle. As mentioned above, an explosive rep can create
an overload at the fully stretched or the import a n t
s e m i s t retche d point (near the bottom of a press), but
momentum can remove a lot of the tension halfway through.
So while a number of pros use explosive movements on
compound exercises like presses, they may also do lighter sets
using partials for more occlusion (warmup sets and back-off
sets count).
On most isolation, or contracted-position, exercises, like leg
extensions, howe ve r, they almost always use relatively slow
reps to keep tension on the mu sc le, which maximize s
occlusion—although they may not realize that’s why they do it.
They do know the importance of the pump, though, and after a

The biggest bodybuilders like Jay Cutler, who
do a lot of continuous-tension movements,
have exceptional neuromuscular efficiency,
or nerve-to-muscle connections, as well as
pain tolerance. He X-Reps too, as you’ll see.
continuous-tension set,
blood rushes to the targ e t
bodypart like a flood surge
after a dam collapse.
Incidentally, while most
bodybuilders use occlusion
to finish off a bodypart—to
augment the pump created
by multijoint action—a
number of champs have
l e a rned that getting some
occlusion in the target muscle b e f o re a big exercise can
increase strength, similar to what the scientists did with the
blood pressure cuff. For example, Ronnie Coleman usually
does a number of high-rep leg extension sets before he moves
into his squats. Those preliminary continuous-tension sets of
20 to 30 reps each squeeze blood out of the muscle and then
cause a flood right after. Is he using occlusion to jack up his
size and strength? We say absolutely! (We’ll have more on using
occlusion as part of a quick, precise warmup sequence to
enhance muscle growth in the Q&A section of this e-book.)
Muscle-building lesson 2: While it’s important to
overload the semistretched position on every exercise, you
should also strive for continuous tension to block blood flow.
T h a t’s one reason to use isolation exercises after your big
compound move—for more concentrated continuous tension,
which produces si gnificant occlusion, or blood-flow
impairment, which in turn stimulates another level of muscle
growth. Note: Some isolation exercises require partial-range
reps to occlude the muscle properly, such as dumbbell flyes on
which you should do only the bottom two-thirds of the stroke
of each rep to maintain continuous tension. (That was an
Arnold favorite; see the photo on page 14.)

CHAPTER 3
Hormone Surges
and Fiber Slicing

Which exercises create the most mass? Any big bodybuilder
will tell you it’s the compound, or multijoint, movements. The
body’s muscular structures are designed to work together to
p roduce maximum forc e. Compound movements re q u i re
muscle synergy, or team work, so they’re more natural—more
ergonomic—and allow greater overload. They also blast up
testosterone output if you work them hard. (We described the
best ones for each bodypart in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-
book.)
Those are the reasons the biggest bodybuilders construct
their workouts around the core exercises—like squats, rows,
presses and so on. As we discussed in the last chapter, they also
rely on continuous-tension isolation exercises for occlusion,
pump and muscle burn. The burn is directly linked to growth
h o rmone re l e a s e, as ve rified by a study published in the
Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology (22:244-255; 1997), a
connection that may have something to do with higher blood
lactic acid levels, which are partially responsible for muscle
burn. Or it may be the occlusion effect —or both.
Why is GH important? Because it synerg i zes with other
anabolic horm o n e s, like testostero n e, to make them much
more potent. (It also helps burn bodyfat at a greater rate.) So, if
you can max out GH and testosterone at the same time, you
create a supergrowth environment, which is what the big men
do. (Okay, many of them do it with syringes too, as well as in
their training, but that’s beside the point.) Whether they realize
it or not, they get a testosterone release with compound
movements and a GH surge with burn-igniting continuous-
tension exerc i s e s, whether it’s part i a l - range compound
exercises or isolation moves that keep the pressure on.
Does that mean a program of compound-only exercises is
inferior to one that includes isolation moves? Possibly, from a
hormonal standpoint—and from an occlusion standpoint as
well if you lock out on all sets, which relieves target-muscle
tension—but there are ways to get more muscle burn on
compound exerc i s e s. If you add X Reps to the end, yo u

automatically get some occlusion and a severe muscle burn.
You may or may not recognize the name Tom Platz. He’s
known for having the most spectacular leg development ever,
even by today’s freaky standards. His quads looked like giant
striated water balloons hanging off his hips. Inhuman! With
one leg flex he could make onlookers’ eyes widen to the size of
pancakes and their jaws hit the floor. How did he get the mind-
numbing development that made people go into Looney Tunes
shock? One reason: He was notorious for taking his sets past
failure with power partials, usually near the stretch position of
certain quad exercises.
For example, on hack squats he’d crank out reps till failure,
and then he would move down near the bottom, turnaround
position and pulse, feeling his quads stretch and burn for what
seemed like an eternity (end-of-set partials; that’s familiar.)
Platz also used that technique on leg extensions, at both the
top and bottom positions. Leg curls too. And all the pain paid
off big—the man’s legs grew to phenomenal proportions! Sure,
genetics had something to do with it, but so did his attention
to detail and tremendous effort with stretch- and
semistretched-position overload—and his emphasis on stretch
may have triggered muscle cells to replicate.
Yes, it’s possible that a lot of his extreme eye-popping size
may have had something to do with
muscle fiber division, or hyperplasia.
How’s that? Well, one study done by
Antonio and Go n yea in 1994 showe d
that fiber splitting can occur fro m
s t retch overload—and more fibers
would equ al more mass potential.
Here’s what John Hansen, Mr. Natural
Olympia, had to say about that study
Tom Platz’s freaky quad development may
have at least partially been caused by
hyperplasia, or fiber splitting. Stretch-position
overload has been linked to that phenomenon
in animals.

and fiber splitting in his book Natural Bodybuilding:
“Most of the research on hyperplasia has used animals—
such as birds, rats and cats—as subjects. Jose Antonio, Ph.D.,
p e rf o rmed a study on a bird in which he used weights to
p ro g re s s i vely overload one wing and stretch the anteri o r
latissimus dorsi muscle. The overload scheme started with a
weight that was 10 percent of the bird’s weight and increased it
by 5 percent up to 35 percent. Two days of rest preceded an
increase in weight. After 28 stretch days, the study recorded the
greatest gains in muscle mass ever in an animal or human
model of tension-induced overload—a 334 percent increase in
muscle mass with a 90 percent increase in fiber number.”
Wow! We mentioned earlier how Arnold overloaded his pecs
in the stretch position with partial flyes. He would only pull the
dumbbells up about halfway out of the stretch position and
then lower back down for another rep—like exaggerated X
Reps. That gave him occlusion via continuous tension, but
perhaps even more important, it created a severe rapid-fire pec
stretch. Could he have been triggering hyperplasia in his pecs
with extreme stretch overload? Hmm. His pecs were certainly
among the most massive ever.
Platz and Arnold are examples of legendary bodybuilders
who intelligently emphasized stretch overload at almost every
w o rkout. Could that be why they excelled at building
i n c redible muscle mass at a time when steroid use was
minimal? It may be at least part of the reason. They may have
created some fiber splitting—and the more fibers you have, the
bigger your muscles can get!
Muscle-building lesson 3: While semistretched overload
is important, you also need stretched-position exercises to
ramp up anabolic hormones and perhaps trigger hyperplasia,
or fiber splitting. It’s another layer of growth production that
can get you bigger much faster! (We’ll identify stretch-position
e x e rcises for each bodypart later in this e-book and the
Double-X Overload tactic that can supercharge their mass-
building power.)

CHAPTER 4
Cut the Volume,

Cover the Angles

Most of the champs tend to train with lots of sets. Why is
that necessar y—or perc e i ved as necessar y? Most do it
instinctively, but it’s because of what muscle physiologists call
the size principle of muscle fiber recruitment. We explained it
thoroughly in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book, but here’s a
quick review: When you do a set to failure, the first few reps fire
the low - t h reshold motor units. Then, as they fatigue, the
medium-threshold motor units kick in. Once those start to give
out, the important high-threshold motor units finally fire.
In other words, you don’t get to the fastest-growing fast-
twitch fibers till the last few reps of any set to failure. That
explains why experienced bodybuilders always say the last few
reps are the most important—without the painful finale you
barely scratch the surface of fast-twitch recruitment.
There’s a glitch, though. Once you get near the end of the
domino effect—low- to medium- to high-thre s h o l d — yo u r
nervous system craps out before you blast enough of the fast-
twitch fibers to trigger significant growth. That’s why scientists
say that any set to failure hits only 30 percent of the fast-twitch
f i b e r s. Less if your neuromuscular efficiency sucks. Yo u r
nervous system, short-circuited by fatigue, stops you short
every time. Researchers believe it’s a protective mechanism.
So what do most bodybuilders do to get around it? They do
set after set to failure or close to it. With each additional set
they get a slightly different recruitment pattern and get a few
more fast-twitch fibers involved, if they’re lucky. But talk about
inefficient: They have to do all those pre l i m i n a ry reps to
activate the motor-unit domino effect just to get at a few more
fast-twitch fibers. Then they do it again and again and again,
getting only slig htly more growth stimulation via fiber
recruitment with each set of the same exercise.
A better way is to do only one or two work sets with X Reps
tacked onto the end at nervous system exhaustion. That way
you leapfrog nervous system fatigue and keep the key fast-
twitch fibers firing right at the important max-force point. As
we’ve said, with that strategy you make each set three to five

times more effective as standard positive-failure sets. So two
sets on any exercise gets the job done. But what about training
a muscle from different angles, which the pros do a lot of?
Using different exercises can attack different fibers, and the
more fibers you can get growing at once, the bigger you’ll get.
What we’re saying is that you do need multiangular training
once you’re more advanced in order to stimulate more of the
muscle (but probably not as much as you think; more on that
in a moment). Ok a y, you probably want some scientific
c o r ro b o ration. He re’s a quote from Designing Re s i s t a n c e
Training Pro g ra m s by Steven J. Fleck, Ph.D., and William J.
Kraemer, Ph.D., two of the most respected researchers in the
strength-training field:
“If the body position is changed, the order of recruitment
can also change (Gri m by and Ha n n e rz 1977). The order of
recruitment can also change for multifunctional muscles from
one movement or exercise to another. Recruitment order in the
quadriceps for the performance of a knee extension is different
f rom that for a squat. The va riation in re c ruitment ord e r
provides some evidence to support the belief held by many
strength coaches that to completely develop a particular muscle
it must be exe rcised with seve ral different movements or
exercises.”
Does that mean you have to do every exercise known to
man for every bodypart in order to max out growth? No, you
see each muscle has three distinct positions, or arcs, of flexion
from which you should train it to maximize fiber recruitment—
m i d ra n g e, contracted and stretched. Those familiar with
Steve’s work over the past decade and a half recognize that as
Positions of Flexion.
A midrange movement is usually a big multijoint exercise
that triggers the most fiber activation. Examples include squats
for quads and decline presses for lower chest.
Co n t racted-position movements are usually isolation
exercises that provide continuous-tension occlusion effects.
Examples include leg extensions for quads and cable

crossovers for chest.
Stretch-position movements fully elongate the target muscle
against resistance, which can trigger anabolic hormones and
possibly muscle-fiber spitting. Examples include sissy, or limbo,
squats for quads and dumbbell flyes for chest.
Muscle-building lesson 4: You must train a muscle from
three distinct angles—midrange, contracted and stretched—in
o rder to maximize fiber activation. Eve ry exercise for each
bodypart falls into one of those categories—and if you add X
Reps and X-hybrid techniques, which we’ll explain later,
correctly, you only need one to two sets in each position to
maximize size stimulation very, very quickly!
Positions-of-Flexion Biceps Program
Barbell curls with a slight
cheat train the midrange
Midrange position, concentration curls
work the biceps in their
contracted position, with
occlusion, and incline curls
(below) work the biceps’
stretch position, which can
trigger fiber splitting and
anabolic hormone release.
Stretch
Contracted

CHAPTER 5
Time-Bomb Training

Unless you’ve read The Ultimate Mass Workout and/or tried
the X-Rep technique correctly, you may not realize just how
powerful it is. At the end of a set to failure, when the important
growth-oriented high-threshold motor units start to kick in,
your nervous system fails. That’s when most people stop a
set—when they can’t get another full-range rep—and growth
stimulation is minimal. But with X Reps, instead of stopping,
you lower the weight to the max-force-generation point and
continue to fire out partials. That’s how you leapfrog nervous
system failure and continue to recruit fast-twitch fibers. Here’s
how you do a standard X-Rep sequence on Smith machine
squats:
After a warmup your knees are lubed, you’ve got blood in
your quads, and your legs are ra ri n’ to go. First you do one
smooth set to positive failure, which is more of an extension of
the warmup and primes your nervous system with a heavy
work weight. No forced reps; no X Reps; stop at positive failure.
Now comes the money set. After about a three-minute rest,
get comfortable under the bar and unhook the safety catches.
Your feet are slightly in front of your hips just wider than
shoulder width and toes pointed out slightly. Inhale as you
lower to a count of two to a point to where your hamstrings
touch your calves—upper legs past parallel to the ground—and
then quickly reverse the action as you exhale. Don’t bounce
with the weight; it’s more of a controlled explosion. The weight
should reach lockout in about 1 1/2 to two seconds. As soon as
you hit lockout, or close to it if you’re doing partials, begin the
next rep.
Continue with that cadence till you stick. At that point your
partner should step in so the bar stalls for only a millisecond.
He should apply enough pressure to the bar to keep it moving
all the way to lockout. Note that we said the bar should keep
m oving. That so-called forced rep should not—not!—be a
s l ow-motion tort u re tactic. Your partner should prov i d e
enough help to keep your rep cadence intact for a smooth
finish on your final rep. Otherwise your X Reps could suffer a

s e ve re shortfall—and yo u
don’t want to shortchange
max-force-point overload!
At lockout take a deep
breath and lower to a point
just below parallel. Now
s q u e eze the bar hard into
your traps, innervate your
quads to the max and pulse
t h rough about an ei ght-
inch range with X Re p s.
Think of these as controlled
m i n i - e x p l o s i o n s. Yo u
should feel your qu ads
screaming by about X-Rep
number five. If not, yo u
may be too high on the
s t roke; tr y going a little X Reps can be brutal on the big
deeper so you get a bit more exercises and may require partner
assistance.
stretch in your quads. When
your quads are fried and you can no longer pulse, hold the
weight statically for a few seconds down low, squeeze your
quads as hard as you can, then—Bam!—rack it. You may have
to rack it low if your partner can’t help you get back to the top,
but that’s one reason you do these on a Smith machine. (The
other is that X Reps are impossible at the end of a set of free-
bar squats due to a leverage shift.)
You’ve just done more to stimulate growth in that one set
than most people get in three or four of the haphazard variety.
Think about all the energy you save, energy your body can now
channel into recovery and growth, thanks to getting the job
done with half or a quarter of the volume! It all comes down to
overloading the max-force generation point. Just the way
Ronnie Coleman instinctively tries to overload that point on so
many of his exercises. On an X-Rep set, however, instead of
jerking or heaving every rep, wait till the end of the set and

attack that key mass-building sweet spot safely and efficiently.
Getting more fast-twitch-fiber invo l vement and energ y
c o n s e rvation is only part of X Re p s’ extra o rd i n a ry powe r,
h owe ve r. There’s occlusion too. Because X Reps are part i a l
m ovements and create continuous tension, you get some
occlusion at the end of every set you use them on, even if it’s a
f u l l - range multijoint exerc i s e. Pa rtials create continuous
tension. And if you use X-Rep partials at the end of a set of a
continuous-tension isolation movement, like leg extensions,
you occlude the muscle even longer than if you stop at failure.
As we mentioned earlier, most people are forced to stop
their sets too early to reap all the size-and-strength-building
benefits of occlusion, but if you grit your teeth and continue
with X Reps, you’ll force longer occlusion times and your gains
can skyrocket. So if you don’t have the superior neuromuscular
efficiency of a pro bodybuilder, X Reps can help you overcome
that limitation.
Power partials at the max-forc e - g e n e ration point attack
more fast-twitch fibers with fewer sets and block blood flow for
occlusion-growth effects—and where there’s occlusion, there’s
usually burn. That’s the growth hormone connection. If you’ve
been bodybuilding for any length of time, you know that it’s
difficult to get a burn on compound exercises. Not anymore. If
you add X Reps to the end of a set, you can trigger muscle burn
at will—on just about any exercise. That means you can get
t e s t o s t e rone release and a GH surg e, a double-barre l e d
anabolic blast.
And if there is such a thing as hyperplasia, or fiber
splitting—the jury’s still out—X Reps may be a key player (or
splayer, in this case).
X Reps produce spectacular muscle-building and shredding
results, as the gains Jonathan Lawson and I made in only one
month in ’04 clearly show (see next page). I RON MAN
Pu blisher John Balik said, “X Reps are the single most
important muscle-building concept to come along in years.”
But now there’s more—X-Rep hybrid techniques that can

take you to the next level. We’ve experimented with a number
of new X-Rep-style training methods, and we got bigger and
better after we honed them and harnessed their power. (We
discuss them in the next few chapters.) Check out our new
results below—no drugs, no trick photography.
Muscle-building lesson 5: Change on a regular basis can
create faster adapation, i.e. growth. That’s the reason you need
a variety of X-Rep techniques in your mass-building arsenal.
Switch them up often, providing your muscles with different
stress overloads to cope with, and you’ll grow like never before.
1-month X- Bigger
Rep results and
in ’04. better
in ’05!
Experimenting with X Reps gave us amazing gains in only one month in

’04. In ’05 we mixed it up, experimenting with new X-Rep hybrid
techniques like X/Pause and X First Stage. Results: We both were almost
10 pounds heavier than in ’04—in the same extremely shredded condition!
1-month X- Bigger
Rep results and
in ’04. better
in ’05!

Muscle-Building Lessons Review
Lesson 1: The semistretched point of an exercise is
key. You need to overload that sweet spot, especially on
the big, compound exercises, if you want to maximize your
mass gains. Many of the biggest bodybuilders in the world,
like Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler, use it on almost every set
of every exercise. We’ll have more analysis of their training
techniques later in this e-book.
Less on 2 : While it’s important to overload the
semistretched position on every exercise, you should also
strive for continuous tension to block blood flow on at
least some movements. That’s one reason to use isolation
e x e rcises after your big compound move—for more
concentrated continuous tension, which produces significant
occ lu sion, or blood-flow impairment, which in turn
stimulates another level of muscle growth. Examples include
leg extensions and leg curls.
Lesson 3: While semistretched overload and continuous
tension are important, you also need stretched-position
exercises to ramp up anabolic hormones and perhaps
trigger hyperplasia, or fiber splitting. It’s another layer
of growth production that can get you bigger much faster!
(Remember the bird study that created over a 300 percent
increase in muscle mass in only 30 days? Our new Double-X
Overload tactic on stretch-position exercises mimics that and
can supercharge mass gains. Very exciting!)
Lesson 4: You must train a muscle from thre e
d istinct angl es—mid ra nge, contr act ed and
s t re t c h e d—in order to maximize fiber activation. Eve ry
exercise for each bodypart falls into one of those categories—
and if you add X Reps and X-hybrid techniques, you only
need one to two sets in each position to maximize size
stimulation very quickly!
Lesson 5: Change on a regular basis can cre a t e
faster adapation, i.e. growth. That’s the reason you need a
variety of X-Rep techniques in your mass-building arsenal.
Switch them up often, providing your muscles with different
s t ress overloads to cope with, and yo u’ll grow like neve r
before.

CHAPTER 6
Stage Sets and

Double-X Overload

We decided to start our X-Rep hybrid discussion with Stage
Sets because it’s similar to how Ronnie Coleman trains, and we
mentioned his training in many of the previous chapters. He
essentially does partial reps, from the semistretched point up to
only about two thirds of the way through the stro k e. It’s
essentially explosive nonlock partials on most exercises.
We got rather excited when we noticed his training style on
his “Redemption” DVD because it verifies a lot of what we’ve
been preaching about with X Reps—and it also answers a
common question: What if you do X Reps first—or at least
exaggerated X Reps—without preliminary full reps? Answer: It
can build big-time mass.
In past years, before X Reps, we noticed that every time we
i n t roduced Stage Sets to our w ork o u t s, we got su dden
muscularity and vascularity increases—and now we know why:
The technique is essentially a unique type of X overload—an
intense out-of-the-blocks blast right at the max-force point.
He re’s how an X-Rep Stage Set works for Sm i t h - m a c h i n e
incline presses. You position yourself on the incline bench, grip
slightly wider than your 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 piston-like exaggerated X Reps right
off the bat through the max-force point, which is what Coleman
does, but we take it a step further.
When you can’t do another exaggerated X Rep—you should
get about 10 of those lowdown partials—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.
Are Stage Sets better than standard X Reps—those power

p a rtials you do at the end of a positive - f a i l u re set? No t
necessarily. As we’ve said, full reps can prime the muscle for
optimal fast-twitch fiber recruitment at the end of the set. In
other words, it appears the first full reps or near-full reps on a
standard set make your end-of-set X Reps a more powe rf u l
fast-twitch switch, which is due to the size principle of
recruitment that we’ve covered in an earlier chapter and in
UMW. Basically, it’s a motor-unit cascade that makes X Reps
more power packed!
Ne ve rt h e l e s s, Stage Sets have their place and when we
began mixing them into our program we once again saw better
mass gains. He re’s the sequence we usually used when we
wanted to incorporate this new, potent X-Rep mass attack:
1) Warmup Sets. Do two progressively heavier sets—use
50 percent and then 80 percent of your work-set weight to get
your nervous system primed to fire the most muscle fibers
possible on your first work set. (T here’s more on precision
warmup sequences in Chapter 11.)
2) Positive-failure
S e t . Do a standard
positive-failure set (you
can add X Reps to the
end, but only if yo u’re
a d vanced and have
good recovery ability).
3) Stage Set. Do a
second work set, but
this time use the Stage
technique de scri b e d
a b ove — e x a g g e rated X
Reps to exhaustion first
f o l l owed by top-end
reps with concentrated
l o c k o u t s. (Yo u’ll feel it Stage Sets can provide more
working, we guarantee semistretched-position overload as
it!) well as anabolic occlusion.

[ Note: The Staged technique, as described, w ill be
impossible on some move m e n t s, such as upright rows. We
insert this technique in the upcoming routines only on the
exercises that work best with it.]
We said above that you may want to add X Reps to the first
work set—if you’re advanced. Doesn’t that contradict what
we’ve said in the past—that you should do your first work set to
positive failure only? Not really. We said that because the first
set is designed to prime your nervous system for your second
work set that includes X Reps. We’ve discovered that if you’re
fairly advanced and know how to warm up properly—heavy
enough to get your nervous system jacked, but not so heavy
that you fatigue the target muscle—you should be able to get
the full-blown mass stimulation from X Reps on your very first
work set. Then your Stage Set will act as a bonus blockbuster
mass builder to really kick your mass-building machinery into
gear!
X-aggerated X + X Reps. That’s a lot of Xes, but it’s a good
description of another version of this hybrid technique. With
X-aggerated X + X Reps, you still do the first stage, moving
through the semistretched position with exaggerated X Reps,
but when you hit nervous system exhaustion, instead of
moving to lockout, you move to the X Spot, or semistretched
point, and perform X Reps. That’s more brutal than regular
Stage Se t s, so be pre p a red for some X-cruciating pain. It’s
w o rth it though . Yo u’ll see muscular results almost
immediately.
Now back to our friend, Ronnie Coleman. We’ve mentioned
his mass training and how it’s heavily dependent on max-
f o rce-point overload. He does a lot of part i a l - rep sets with
explosive turnarounds at the semistretched point, the X spot,
never getting close to lockout on any exercise—and his mass is
incredible! It verifies a lot of what we’ve discovered.
Well, after watching his “Redemption” DVD, we picked up
on something even more exciting, a simple exercise tweak that
could pack incredible new mass on your physique—and

another X-Rep hybri d Bottom.
technique.
Double-X Ove rl o a d .
First, you have to realize that
Co l e m a n’s traps are
absolute ly freaky! On the
DVD he’s working out in a
s t ring tank top, and we’ve
n e ver seen such gigantic
t ra p s. They sit on h is
shoulders like tw o-ton
boulders! What does he do Top.
for them? Only three sets of
behind-the-back barbell
s h rugs—would you believe
11 reps with 745 pounds?!
Now, that’s not a real unique
e x e rc i s e, and he does ve ry
few sets compared to his
other bodypart hits, but his
t raps are arguably his best,
most freaky muscle group. Is
it genetics? Coleman’s Double-X Overload
Maybe, to a degree, but he tactic on shrugs—a hitch at the
also has a unique way of bottom of each rep—have
p e rf o rming his shru g s, helped him develop outrageous
traps! It’s basically an X Rep at
the semistretched point
between every full rep. Also
notice that he doesn’t move the
bar very far even on his “full”
reps (see photos above)—yet his
traps are huge. Check out the
still from his “Redemption” DVD
when he was wearing a string
tank top (left). Amazing!
(Coleman’s DVD is available at
www.Home-Gym.com).

something he doesn’t do for any other exercise (and after
seeing the size of his traps, we have to ask, Why not?). Here’s
what he does: When he stands erect with the massive weight
suspended at arm’s length behind his legs, he pulls up only a
few inches, shrugging with a very limited range, but when he
gets to the bottom semistretched position—this is the
important part—he double hitches. He uses that controlled
m a x - f o rce-point double blast on eve ry rep of eve ry set of
shrugs.
Could it be that his double overload at the semistretched
position is creating extreme anabolic reactions in his upper
back? Remember, there have been scientific studies correlating
stretch overload with hyperplasia, or fiber splitting. Could his
double-hitch method be triggering muscle-fiber replication as
well as max-force-point overload for a double-whammy mass-
morphing effect? It sure looks that way!
Think about it. His traps are incredible, yet he only does
three sets for them. How about this: On Jay Cutler’s “Ripped to
Shreds” DVD, he uses the Double-X Overload technique on
almost eve ry exercise! We’re convinced it’s how Cutler has
overcome many of his genetic limitations to become one of the
best bodybuilders in the world.
We’re very excited about these observation, and after trying
D o u b l e - Xes in the gym we can honestly say that you will
almost feel growth happening (is it hyperplasia?). For example,
the next time you do leg curls, lower to the bottom
semistretched point on the first rep, pull up only about 10
inches, lower to full stretch again, and then pull the weight up
for a full rep. Continue that sequence on every rep, Double-
Xing at the bottom turnaround. At nervous system failure, you
can add standard X Reps—if you can stand the burn.
Double X Overload obviously works for Ronnie Coleman
and has allowed him to build amazing trap mass with very few
sets (Ronnie, you’ve got to try it on other exercises!). Give it a
go and watch yourself grow!

CHAPTER 7
X/Pause and
X-centric Training

Ou r first foray into X-Rep hybrid techniques was X
Overload. What we did was take a set to nervous system failure,
rack the weight, add 10 to 20 percent more poundage, then
crank out a heavier X-Rep-only set. We thought that would
overload the X Spot and create some exceptional new gains. It
sure looked good on paper.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot out of it—and we were
puzzled. Why didn’t it ramp up our mass gains? Then it hit us:
By stopping at nervous system failure, we were derailing the
size principle of muscle fiber recruitment and not extending
the set with occlusion. We did get some strength out of it, but
that may be because of the tendon and ligament work we were
getting on the heavy X-Rep-only set. It was essentially like
doing a second partial low-rep set (sets in the one-to-four-rep
range are notorious for building more strength than size for
that very reason).
Then, as luck would have it, we ran across some of Mike
Mike Mentzer used a technique he
called rest/pause, taking six-second
breaks between max singles. That
never did much for our muscle size,
so we retooled it into X/Pause
training, a more severe form of
standard X-Rep work.

Mentzer’s writings on Heavy Duty training and rest/pause. His
technique was as follows: a heavy single, rest six seconds,
another heavy single, rest six seconds, another heavy single
with help if necessary, rest six seconds and a final heavy single
with a reduced poundage and/or with help from a partner.
Once again, that sounds like a strength-building regimen,
and that’s exactly what we found when we tried it as outlined
by Mentzer. But we also realized that he made good gains with
it (perhaps because of his superior neuromuscular efficiency),
his reasoning being that the pauses between all-out efforts
helped clear the target muscle of lactic acid and other waste
products that can short-circuit the nervous system and cause
premature failure. That got us thinking...
What if you did a regular set to nervous system exhaustion,
tacked on X Reps to force the muscle to continue to activate
fast-twitch fibers, and then rested for six seconds. After that
short pause you take the same weight and blast out an X-only
set. Bingo! We saw mass increases almost immediately.
We think the reason X/Pause works and X Overload doesn’t
work so well is because the X Reps tacked onto the first part of
the set better deplete the muscle and add more occlusion. Also,
because the rest is so short—six seconds as opposed to a
longer rest to change the weight on X Overload—the size
principle is still intact and fast-twitch fibers continue to fire
efficiently without overbearing tendon and ligament support.
To review, here’s how to do an X/Pause set on close, parallel-
grip pulldowns: Strap on to the pulldown bar and wedge your
thighs under the support pads. Pull the handle down to your
chest and then release almost to lockout before pulling it back
d own to your chest. At nervous system exhaustion, which
should occur at around rep nine, move to the semistretched
point, just shy of lockout, and do X-Rep partials, pulling the
bar down about eight inches in a controlled, explosive manner.
When you can’t do anymore X Reps, stand up, let the weight
stack down, but don’t release the handle. Count off six
seconds—one-thousand one, one-thousand two, etc.—then

reposition yourself under the thigh-support bars and crank out
an X-Rep-only set, getting as many of those semistretched-
position partials as you can stand.
The pain is not fun, but you have to remember that you’re
using intensity to supercede volume. In other words, you’re
t raining harder so you don’t have to train longer. We’re all
about efficient mass building, and the X/Pause technique does
the trick quickly—just don’t abuse it. It’s severe!
X - c e n t ric Tr a i n i n g . And speaking of intensity, almost
e ve ry trainee knows that you can lower much more weight
than you can raise. In fact, a few decades ago negative-only
training, doing only the lowering part of the exercise, was very
popular for building strength. Why? Because you can use 20 to
50 percent more weight than a normal positive/negative set
and eccentrically overload the muscle. It produces unbearable
soreness, but that’s only part of the drawback. For a number of
exercises you need a couple of strong, willing helpers to lift the
weight into position on every rep so you can lower it. (Imagine
a guy on each side of the bar as you squat, picking up the
weight for you after you slowly sink to the bottom position. We
don’t think they’d stick around too long.)
We’ve discussed negative, or eccentric, training at the X-Rep
s i t e, but to understand the X-centric hybrid technique, we
should re v i e w. We mentioned watching the most massive
bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman explode with heavy
weights. That puzzled us for a long time. They weren’t getting
full contractions, so why in the heck were they growing? Okay,
there’s the anabolic steroid connection, but it had to be more
than that because the way they were training appeared to do
little for total-muscle stimulation.
After thinking it through, we realized that by exploding to
get a heavy weight up, they automatically created more
overload on the negative—the lowering, or eccentric, part of
every rep. They could lift more, so they had to lower more. That
had to be the key. Sure, their control was minimal, but maybe
having to fight, even a little, to slow down that heavy weight so

A new study shows that fast lowering of
resistance creates more muscle growth
than slow, controlled movement—but it
may not be the speed that triggers
results. It’s probably the extra overload
at the semistretched point on the stroke
caused by stopping the fast downward
movement at the bottom.
it didn’t rip muscles and

joints was the key. After
all, scientists have often
said that the negative
part of a rep is the most
important.
If our thinking was
correct, heavy negative-
only training should
produce outstanding results in size and strength. Nope. The
studies comparing heavy negative-only sets to standard
positive/negative work don’t show much difference in results.
The spectacular size and strength increases from heavy
negative-only training just don’t happen. The studies find that
negative-only training with heavier weights produces about
the same results as regular sets. That blew our theory out of the
water.
Then researchers compared regular positive/negative sets
to positive-only (concentric) sets—only raising the weight.
What happened? Standard positive/negative work won every
time. The mystery continued: From the first studies it looks like
negative work is nothing special. But when negative work is
missing, gains are near zero. Why?
It’s not that negative work is more important than positive
work; it’s just necessary to trigger more growth—at least more
than positive-only work—because the most important point in
many exercises is near the turnaround, when you shift from
n e g a t i ve to positive. With positive-only work there is no
turnaround, that critical directional shift.

When you do positive-only work, you just lift the weight. In
other words, maximum force production doesn’t occur at that
key turnaround point in the stroke. You do get a little overload
there with positive-only work—when you have to drive from a
dead stop out of the bottom of a press, for example—but not as
much as when you have to reverse the movement of a weight in
that position. That semistretched shock is the missing element
in positive-only training, which is why it does little for muscle
growth.
But hold on! Heavy, negative-only work doesn’t include a
turnaround either—you just lower a heavy weight. So shouldn’t
it produce the same meager results as postive-only work?
No, because overload at the turnaround point is not missing
from heavy negative-only work. Think about it: You’re much
stronger during the negative phase of a rep than the positive.
So negative-only sets require you to use much more weight
than in a standard set—usually more than your one-rep max,
in fact. That means you do overload the turnaround point with
a much heavier weight—there is semistretched shock. No, you
don’t reverse the movement, but you do have to slow it down
(at least you’d better! That weight is friggin’ heavy!).
A recent study ve rifies the importance of turn a ro u n d ,
although the re s e a rchers seem to miss that result. Jo s e
Antonio, Ph.D. discussed it in his Anabolic Drive column in the
October ’05 issue of IRON MAN:
“Twelve 24-year-old subjects performed maximal resistive
lengthening isokinetic exercise with both arms for eight weeks,
three days per week, during which they trained one arm at a
fast velocity and the other at a slow velocity. Type 1 muscle
fiber size increased in both cases. Type 2a and 2x muscle fiber
increased in both arms, but the increases were greater in the
fast-trained arm.
“The researchers concluded that training using fast (3.66
radians per second) lengthening contractions leads to greater
h y p e rt rophy (growth) and strength gains than slow (0.35
radians per second) lengthening contra c t i o n s. The gre a t e r

hypertrophy seen in the fast-trained arm may be related to a
greater amount of protein remodeling.”
Why do we say the conclusion is askew? Well, from the
results it appears that training faster stimulated more muscle.
But is the speed of movement really triggering extra growth or
is it max-force overload right at the semistretched position?
Realize that when you move fast, it takes more effort to stop
the resistance and/or reverse it. In fact, research indicates that
when a trainee standing on force plates moves fast and uses
momentum, the actual weight he has to re verse at the
turnaround of a rep can be double or triple the poundage he’s
lifting. The reason? Gravity plus momentum. As the weight is
quickly lowered and then heaved at the turnaround to reverse
its direction, the force is multiplied two- to threefold.
How does that cause more muscle growth? Exc e s s i ve
overload at the ke y hypert rophic point. The key fiber-
activation point on the stroke is near the turn a ro u n d — t h e
semistretched point, where maximum force generation can
occur.
When you move fast through the negative phase of the
stroke, as in the study, it takes more effort to reverse or stop the
poundage at that max-force point, so you achieve more target-
muscle overload right at the muscle’s sweet spot. (Imagine
dropping a heavy weight through the eccentric phase of a leg
curl and then stopping it right before your legs are straight—as
opposed to lowering it slowly under control.)
Obviously, training fast is much more dangerous than using
a slower, controlled cadence. We prefer to train safer and still
get all the benefits of max-force-point overload that occur with
fast training. In other words, we don’t recommend fast ballistic
movements; instead we use X Reps and the X-hybrid tactics.
While the conclusions may be askew, the above study along
with our other forays into negative training did help us devise
X-centric training, which allowed us to get bigger and stronger
in ’05. Here’s how it works on chins:
When you hit nervous system exhaustion on chins, move to

near lockout and do as many X Reps as possible. When you
crap out, use a chair or stool to put your feet on and get back
into the top position of the chin. Lock into it, take your feet off
the stool and do a four-second negative. When you reach the X
Spot, near the bottom, pulse with X Reps. You may only be able
to do one or two of those slow negatives plus Xes, but what an
incredible mass-kicking method!
We’ve never tried it, but you could do a few X Reps on every
rep of a pure-negative set too. For example, you tie about 20
percent more weight around your waist for those chins, climb
to the top, lower slowly and then do about three X Reps near
the bottom. Do four or five of those pure negatives plus Xes,but
be careful—you’ve guaranteed to get mighty sore—and your
lats may be ripping out of your shirt before you can say wicked
V taper.

CHAPTER 8
Iso X and X Fade

In The Ultimate Mass Workout we made the case for doing X
Reps at the top of contracted-position exercises, even though
we’ve said over and over that the semistretched position is the
best spot for ultimate muscle fiber recruitment (see, we said it
again). Here’s our reasoning:
“We know that an important point on the stroke for
[stretch- and contracted-position] exercises is full elongation
on stretch-position exercises and full contraction on
contracted-position exercises. Therefore, you should do your X
Reps close to those points.
“For example, on incline curls, a stretch-position exercise
for biceps, when you can no longer do full reps, you pulse just
a b ove the stretch position. On concentration curls, the
contracted-position movement for biceps, once you hit failure,
use your free arm to get the dumbbell up into the contracted
position and pulse at that key point. While we made the
a rgument that elongation is important for max forc e
production on X Reps, you already get that on midrange and
stretch exercises. So X Reps in the contracted position will
p rovide another unique muscle-building stimulus. …
Re m e m b e r, many re s e a rchers believe that the best grow t h
stimulus occurs when the muscle is semi-elongated, so X Reps
in the fully contracted position may not be ideal—just unique.”
That last statement is important and the reason that after
using X Reps at the top of contracted-position exercises, like
concentration curls, leg extensions and leg curls, we felt like
something was missing and that our gains could be better. We
kept asking ourselve s, “If the semistretched position is so
c ricically important for muscle growth, why are n’t we
emphasizing it on contracted-position exercises as well?”
Despite the explanation from UMW, we knew we had to do
something to change our Iso-X strategy—using X Reps in the
c o n t racted position only—to something that blasted the
s e m i s t retched position in addition. X Reps at the max-
contraction point made some sense, but doing them at the
semistretched point seemed even more beneficial, especially

The X Fade has you do X
Reps in the top contracted
position, then move to the
sweet spot, the semi-
stretched point near the
bottom, for more X Reps.
after all the tra i n i n g

analysis and
experimentation we’d been
doing. (Heck, Ro n n i e
Coleman almost neve r
m oves to the contra c t e d
position on any exercise, as
you’ll see when we analyze
his training routine toward
the end of this e-book.) That’s how the X Fade was born.
It started out as a three-position X-Rep sequence. At
nervous system exhaustion the trainee got help to the top,
contracted position and pulsed for three to four X Reps. Then
he lowered to the middle of the stoke and pulsed there for
another three or four X Re p s. Fi n a l l y, he lowe red to the
semistretched position and did X Reps there till the pain was
too much. That ended the set (usually with horri f i c
screaming!).
In the beginning we liked that triple-X method, but then we
realized that we weren’t getting a heckuva lot of Xes in the last
position—and that was the most important spot for fiber
activation, the semistretched point! By the time we got there,
the target muscle was spent, the burn was too intense, and we
just couldn’t do our X Reps near the bottom the justice they
deserved. So the X Fade become a two-position fade instead of
three.
Our new, improved version: At nervous system exhaustion
we get help to the top, contracted position for X Reps, fire out
as many as possible, then lower to the stronger semistreched
point and do X Reps there. Ah, much better with noticeably
better muscle-size results. Here are all the X-hybrid tactics...

X-Rep Hybrid Techniques Cheat Sheet
STAGE SETS. Do the two-thirds of the exercise’s stroke that
includes the semistretched point first, like the bottom two
t h i rds of squats; at nervous system exhaustion, move to
lockout and do the top one third of the stroke to exhaustion.
( Note: This technique works best on exercises with bone-
support lockouts; for example, squats, bench presses, overhead
presses. You can also do the first stage—that encompasses the X
spot—and then at nervous system exhaustion move to the X
spot and continue with standard X Reps. Stage Sets don’t work
well for exercises that have continuous tension.)
DOUBLE-X OV E R LOA D. Use a hitch, or X Re p, at the
semistretched point between every full rep. For example, on
shrugs you move the bar down to the lowest point, pull up a few
inches, move the weight back down to the lowest point and then
do a full rep. You can use this technique on almost any exercise,
even squats; however, you may have to lighten the weight. It’s
ideal for stretch-position exercises and may trigger fiber spitting!
X / PAU S E . Do you r normal set to ner vous system
exhaustion, blast out X Reps at the semistretched position and
then rack the weight. Count to six, then take the same weight
and grind out more X Reps at the semistretched point till you
can’t move the weight.
X-CENTRIC TRAINING. Do a normal set to nervous system
exhaustion, blast out X Reps, then get the weight back up—to
the top of chins, for example—with help. Lower the we i g h t
slowly for about five seconds and at the semistretched point do
three or four X-Rep pulses. Get the weight back up again and
repeat the slow negative plus X Reps. Do that till you can’t lower
through the negative phase with control.
X FA D E. This is more for continuous-tension isolation
exercises (contracted), like leg extensions and leg curls. Do a
normal set to nervous system exhaustion, then get help to the
top contracted spot. Do X Reps there, then lower to the
semistretched point and do X Reps at that key point till the
muscle is spent.

CHAPTER 9
Our X-citing
Results and Findings

Since our ’04 X-periment, when we first began using X Reps,
we’ve made some startling discoveries that increased our gains
s i g n i f i c a n t l y. Yo u’ve already read about the X-hybri d
techniques that helped take our intensity and muscle mass to
the next level in ’05. We also used a different split that had us
working legs only once a week.
What?! Haven’t we said that working a bodypart once a week
doesn’t work for most people and has never given us results?
That’s correct, but there’s a minor detail that makes the strategy
viable, at least for quads. They seem to need more recovery
time, especially if you’re doing cardio—and during our ripping
phase in the summer months, we do lots of cardio, and it all
involves legs.
We snapped to the need for more leg recovery time when we
saw a new study reviewed by researcher Jerry Brainum that
appeared in the August ’05 IRON MAN. Here’s an excerpt:
“In a study presented at the 2004 meeting of the National
Strength and Conditioning Association, researchers from the
Un i versity of Alabama examined just how long it takes to
recover from a weight-training workout. Fifteen men and 15
women were tested for strength recovery at 48, 72 and 96 hours
after a weight workout consisting of three sets of eight
repetitions done with weights equal to 65 percent of one-rep
maximum in the bench press and leg press.
X-Rep hybrid
techniques
helped us take
our muscle mass
to the next level
in ’05, but we
had to be careful
with them. They
are powerful and
can trigger over-
training if they
are abused.

“Analysis showed that 66.7 percent of the male subjects
needed 96 hours for full recovery on the leg press. In contrast,
93.3 percent of the men showed full recovery on the bench
p ress after 72 hours. As for the female study subjects, 66.7
percent recovered on the bench press after 72 hours, while only
46.7 percent showed full recovery on the leg press at the 96-
hour mark.”
We do a few more sets than three for our quads at any one
leg workout, and we add intense X Reps. Plus, like we said, we
were doing lots of leg-related cardio during our ripping phase.
All that considered, we figured once-a-week leg training should
be about right—and we we re correct. Our strength start e d
moving up on almost every exercise, and our legs got more
shredded and vascular.
Du ring our ’05 ripping-phase split our once-a-week leg
workout occured on Wednesday. We split the upper body over
two days, Monday and Tuesday, and then repeated the split on
Thursday and Friday. We tried to minimize the overlap, but
unfortunately we still got some. Here’s how our ’05 ripping-
phase split looked:
Monday: delts, traps, midback, rear delts, biceps,

forearms
Tuesday: chest, lats, triceps, abs
Wednesday: quads, hamstrings, calves, lower back
Thursday: delts, traps, midback, rear delts, biceps,
forearms
Friday: chest, lats, triceps, abs
The major overlap occured with back. We trained traps and
midback one day, and then the following day we worked lats.
Biceps also got some overlap: We worked them that first day
directly and with midback and then they got some indirect
work the next day, when we worked lats.
Despite the small amount of overlap, we liked this split. And

the once-a-week leg training on Wednesdays kept our program
in the five-day workweek schedule we must use because we
can’t train on weekends (Steve has kids on club soccer teams
and Jonathan teaches at car-racing schools).
What we failed to consider was that compared to ’04, we
were training our upper-body muscles more frequently. Last
year a bodypart would get hit once a week every third week,
like a built-in re c ove ry rotation (see The Ultimate Ma s s
Workout for that program). In ’05, training legs only once a
week, we trained our upper body muscles twice a week every
week. Add to that the more intense nature of the X-Rep hybrid
techniques we were using, and you see why we believe we may
h a ve been ove rt raining to a degree this year (but we still
managed to pack on almost 10 pounds of muscle! We’re
convinced we could’ve packed on more.):
•In ’04 we were doing the first work set to failure, and then
adding X Reps to the second work set.
•In ’05 we used the more severe X-hybrid techniques, and
on some of our compound exercises we did the first
work set with X Reps at the end, paused for six seconds
and did more X Reps (the X/Pause technique), and then
we did the second work set in Stage style or Double-X
Overload. That’s much, much more intense than ’04!
Let’s quickly review those X-hybrid techniques so you can

see how much more severe our ’05 program was. Here’s how we
used X/Pause on Smith machine incline presses. After doing
two progressively heavy warmup sets, we loaded the bar with a
poundage that we could get about nine reps with. When we
reached central nervous system exhaustion, we lowered the
bar to the max-force point, just above the chest, and pulsed,
firing the bar up to about the middle of the stroke on each X
Rep. We usually got about four to six, then we racked it. After a
six-second pause, we would unrack the bar again, take it down
to the X spot and blast out about three more X Reps.Talk about

overload!
That six-second rest gives some of the fatigue time to
subside, but it’s not long enough to take the stress off the fast-
twitch fibers. In other words, they will still be engaged when
you continue the set with more X Reps.
Now for the Stage Set. After about a two-to-three-minute
rest we reduced the poundage slightly. He re’s the stage
protocol: We would rep out on the bottom two-thirds of the
stroke first, which encompasses the X spot. At nervous system
exhaustion we pushed the bar to lockout, usually with partner
a s s i s t a n c e, and then we would do the top one-third of the
s t roke to lockout. That’s a weak area, so a little part n e r
assistance was usually necessary on each of those reps. You
may think the top range is mostly triceps on incline presses,
but by doing the bottom two-thirds of the stroke first, we
essentially pre-exhausted our pecs, so we really felt the top-
range partials in our chests—believe us! It’s a wicked burn.
A Stage Set is a unique way to extend the tension time—you
get to attack the semistretched position, or X spot, first in the
set, albeit with a more exaggerated X-Rep movement. Stage
sets work nicely on most compound exercises that have a
lockout position—presses and squats for example. The
problem is, on exercises that don’t have a lockout position,
where there is continuous tension throughout the rep—like
rows and pulldowns—in order to use the stage technique, you
have to do the contracted-position phase first and finish with
the third of the stroke that includes the X spot. That just
doesn’t work as well, so we used other X-hybrid techniques on
those. For example, the Double-X Overload technique—full-
range reps with a hitch at the stretch position. (As we said, big
Jay Cutler uses this technique on almost every exercise, and it
may be a key trigger of hyperplasia, or fiber splitting, necessary
for extreme size.)
To use the Double-X-O technique on cable upright rows, for
e x a m p l e, we pull the bar to the chest, lower to the arm s -
extended position, pull up about eight inches, lower to full

extension again, then do another full-range rep. That hitch at
the bottom provides more overload at the key semistretched
point on every rep. You can even end with standard X Reps—if
you can stand the burn.
We also incorporated the X Fade on almost all of our single-
joint contracted-position exerc i s e s, like leg extensions,
c o n c e n t ration curls and pushdow n s. As we mentioned in
Chapter 8, the X Fade is tailor-made for those exercises, and we
often used it on a second set after a standard set done with X
Reps in the semistretched position.
Once again, a review is in order. Here’s how we used an X
Fade on leg press calf raises: We did a straight set to nervous
system failure, and then added X Reps near the stre t c h
position. After a brief rest—two to three minutes—we did
another set to central nervous system exhaustion, but this time
instead of lowering to the X spot, we got the weight into the
top, contracted position, usually with partner help, and did X
Reps there, then we lowered to the semistretched position and
finished with X Reps at the sweet spot.
An X Fade enables you to stress different areas of an
exercise’s stroke with the powerful X-Rep technique. The only
problem is that you hit the semistretched point at the very end
of the set, after you do X Reps at the higher position on the
stroke. That means fatigue may prevent you from getting a lot
of overload at the important semistretched point—but that’s
precisely why you do X-Fade sets second, after a standard X-
Rep set, which emphasize semistretched-point overload. Heck,
you could even use the Double-X Overload technique on every
rep, then do an X Fade. That may sound insane, but intensity is
the name of the game if you’re after X-treme mass!
All of the X-hybrid techniques helped make our ’05 ripping
phase our most successful ever—despite a bit of overtraining
(we think we could’ve done better with a different split, as
you’ll see in the next chapter). How effective? Well, you saw our
photos in Chapter 5 and at the beginning of this chapter. We
did our annual photo shoot in mid-June, almost three weeks

earlier than in ’04. It’s a testament to our X-Rep strategy and
the X-Rep hybrid techniques, which helped us get bigger and
leaner faster in ’05. We were both about 10 pounds heavier
than in ’04 but in the same ripped condition. That’s especially
impressive for Steve, who was right at 200 pounds the day after
the shoot. He’s never weighed that much in such shredded
condition in his life—and he was just shy of his 46th birthday!
Ne ve rt h e l e s s, we think—make that we know — we can do
better, as you’ll see in the next chapter (and we want you to
come along for the ride to pack on more size).
If you want to try the pro g ram we used during our ’05
ripping phase, it’s on the next few pages. Keep in mind,
however, that despite our gains, we felt as if we may have been
overtraining, especially if you compare it to our ’04 X-periment
program that we listed in The Ultimate Mass Workout. You may
want to try reducing the sets and/or plugging it into the split in
the next chapter, which still trains legs once a week but
provides the upper-body muscles with more recovery time.
What are we going to do next? That’s what the next chapter is
all about!
[ Note: The pro g rams on the next few pages may look
somewhat complicated; however, each workout contains only
about 25 work sets total. Considering the intensity of the new
X-hyrid techniques, as we explained above and in previous
chapters, we’ve simplified the program based on our findings
and results and distilled it all into the new streamlined version
in the next chapter. That’s the one we suggest you use, as it’s
the program we’ll use in our next mega-mass phase—and we’ll
update it at X-Rep.com n the X-Blog.]

’05 Ripping Phase Routine
Monday and Thursday:
Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms
Rack upright rows or seated laterals (first set is a drop
with X Reps; second is with X/Pause) 2 x 10(6), 10
Forward-lean laterals (X Reps; second set is a drop) 2 x 8-10, 8(6)
Smith-machine behind-the-neck presses
(X Reps; second set Staged) 2 x 8-10
Superset
One-arm cable laterals (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Incline one-arm laterals (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Superset
Cable upright rows (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Shrugs or Nautilus shrugs (X Reps or Double-X O) 1 x 8-10
Machine rows (second set with X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Behind-the-neck pulldowns (X Fade) 1 x 8-10
Superset
Bent-arm bent-over laterals 1 x 8-10
Bent-over dumbbell rows (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Bent-over laterals or standing uncrossovers (drop set; X Reps) 1 x 10(6)
Preacher curls (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Cable curls with Biceps Blaster (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Concentration curls (drop set; X Reps or X Fade) 1 x 8(6)
Rope hammer curls (drop set; X Reps or X Fade) 1 x 10(6)
Superset
Reverse wrist curls (X Reps) 1 x 15
Forearm Bar reverse wrist curls
or dumbbell reverse wrist curls 1x8
Aftershock superset
Wrist curls (X Reps) 1 x 15
Forearm Bar wrist curls or dumbbell wrist curls 1x8
Rockers (drop set every other workout) 1 x 15-20(8)

Tuesday and Friday: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs
(Friday Add Calf Work)
Smith-machine incline presses (X/Pause; second set Staged) 2 x 10, 8
High-low cable flyes (drop set to high cable flyes with X Fade) 1 x 10(6)
Superset
Decline-bench presses or wide-grip dips (Staged) 1 x 8-10
Flat-bench dumbbell presses (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Middle cable flyes (drop set to low cable flyes with X Reps) 1 x 10(6)
Narrow, parallel-grip pulldowns (second set with X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Superset
Chins (X-centric) 1 x 8-10
Dumbbell pullovers 1 x 8-10
Superset
Pulldowns (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Rope rows or machine pullovers (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Decline extensions (second with X Reps in press position) 2 x 10, 8
Tri-set
Rope or elbows-flared pushdowns (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Stiff-arm kickbacks 1 x 8-10
Bench dips (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Tri-set
Cable pushouts (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Stiff-arm kickbacks 1 x 8-10
Bench dips or parallel-bar dips (X-centric) 1 x max
Incline kneeups (X Reps) 1 x 15
Superset
Incline kneeups 1x8
Bench V-ups 1 x max
Ab Bench crunches 1 x 8-10
Tri-set
Ab Bench crunches (drop set; X Reps) 1 x 8(6)
Freestyle twisting crunches 1 x 15
Bench V-ups 1 x max
Friday only
Seated calf raises (X Reps) 2 x 8-12
Standing calf raises 1 x 20-25

Wednesday: Quads, Hams, Gastrocs
Smith-machine squats (second or third set with X Reps) 3 x 10-12
Leg extensions (drop set; X Reps) 1 x 10(8)
Leg extensions (X Fade) 1 x 8-10
One-leg leg extensions (X Fade) 1 x 8-10
Hack squats (feet high and wide)
or leg presses (feet high and wide) 2 x 10, 8
Leg curls (drop set; X Reps) 1 x 10(8)
Leg curls (wide with X Fade) 1 x 8-10
One-leg leg curls (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
Hyperextensions (X Reps) 1 x max
Dumbbell stiff-legged deadlifts (Double-X O) 1 x 10-12
Leg press calf raises (X Reps; second with X Fade) 2 x 15-20
Superset
Hack-machine calf raises (X Reps) 2 x 8-12
Standing calf raises (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Machine donkey calf raises
or leg press calf raises (Double X O) 1 x 12-15
Seated calf raises 2 x 20-25
Low-back machine (X Reps) 1 x 10-15

CHAPTER 10
Split-Positions
X-Rep Training

As we mentioned and you saw in the last chapter, our
annual photo shoot occurred in mid-June, almost three weeks
earlier than in ’04. As we explained, we included new X-hybrid
techniques—X-centric training, X/Pause, Double-X Overload
and X Fade—which we believe are the reasons our results came
much faster during our second X-periment. We we re both
bigger than at our ’04 photo shoot but in the same, or perhaps
better, condition—shredded! That’s impressive, especially for
Steve, who’s a middle-aged hardgainer. He finally saw the scale
hover in the 200-pound range in his hardest, leanest condition
e ve r. Jonathan dialed it in too, with more muscularity at a
heavier bodyweight.
We were very happy that we improved, but the question
remains: Could we have been even better? Muscle just
shouldn’t be that difficult to build. Sure, w e’re fairly advanced,
so gains won’t be 20 pounds a ye a r, as they we re in the
beginning of our lifting careers—or could they be? After
analyzing everything we do, and reviewing all we’ve learned,
we have to ask ourselves, Why the heck not?!
One of our strategies created an ah-ha moment was how we
approach our mass-building phase, usually in the winter. We
continue to hit it fairly hard five days a week (which may be a
problem too; more on that in a moment), but we also try to
maintain visual contact with our abs. We’ve always thought
that staying fairly lean makes it easier to get shredded as
summer nears; however—and this is a big however—it also
makes muscle much, much more difficult to build.
Huge muscles are a luxury for the human body, not a
necessity. Before your metabolism will permit a lot of lean-
mass gain, your body has to be damn sure famine is never
going to happen. In other words, you need a fairly large calorie
surplus—of the right nutrients—to kick your body into
anabolic ove rd ri ve and prevent it from burning muscle for
energy. Just as important, those calories have to be spread out
over the course of the day every day. Hunger is an absolute no-
no. Keep your body in positive nitrogen balance and positive

quality calorie abundance, and if your workouts are intense
enough to stimulate growth and you get enough recove ry —
Bam!—new muscle should appear very quickly.
Bodybuilders who got huge before the stero i d - i n s a n i t y
e ra — A rnold, Da ve Dra p e r, Larry Scott—used to appro a c h
winter as a muscle-feeding/building fre n z y. A good laye r
covering the abs was considered a necessary evil during a max-
muscle-building phase. These days that’s not so much the case
because a lot of bodybuilders cycle anabolic stero i d s
throughout the winter. The right pharmaceuticals make excess
calories a minor player. Sure, the body needs something to
w o rk with, but thanks to drugs it’s always in anticatabolic
m o d e, being overly efficient with all the muscle-building
blocks it receives. (No, it’s not fair, but it’s reality.) You can see
where we’re going with this: We’ll be shoveling in more muscle-
building calories during our mass-building phase, which
means we’re throwing ab visibility out the window. More on
our mucho-mass-diet strategies in a moment. Let’s segue into
training, as our new split is rather ingenious, something we
adopted before the end of summer—and it’s a gain maximizer!
We’ve never been able to come up with a perfect recovery-
oriented split, mainly because we can’t train on the weekends.
We’ve said that, ideally, we should be on a three-on/one-off
split, with a leg-training workout falling between two different
upper-body workouts. If you do the math, you’ll see that you
can’t use that split without training on the weekends. One of
our solutions was to still train on a three-way split, but train
f i ve days in a row, Monday through Fri d a y, picking up the
missed sixth workout the following Monday and continuing
with the sequence.
That five-day plan worked well for us in ’04, but the new
re s e a rch we mentioned in the previous chapter about legs
needing more re c ove ry time had us rethinking things. In a
nutshell the research tells us that we should get better gains
hitting a leg workout only once a week, especially when we’re
using X Reps and X-hybrid techniques that jack up the

intensity and muscle damage significantly.
We used that strategy for the last few weeks of our ripping
phase over the summer, and it worked extremely well, even
when we were doing cardio on a daily basis. If we put on quad
s i ze then, we should get even better gains over the winter,
c o n s i d e ring our cardio cutback. Ok a y, let’s rewind and go
through our new mega-mass-building strategy point by point.
1) Mega-Mass split. So what’s the ingenious split we’re so
excited about? Here it is, no weekend training, no bodypart
overlap (we’ll outline the program in a moment and explain
the A and B designations—it’s not as complicated as it looks,
trust us):
Week 1
Monday: Workout 1A (delts, midback, biceps, forearms)
Tuesday: Workout 2 (legs, lower back)
Wednesday: Workout 3A (chest, lats, triceps, abs)
Thursday: Off
Friday: Workout 1B (delts, midback, biceps, forearms + calves)
Weekend: Off (with cardio)
Week 2
Monday: Workout 3B (chest, lats, triceps, abs)
Wednesday: Workout 1A (delts, midback, biceps, forearms)
Thursday: Off
Friday: Workout 3A (chest, lats, triceps, abs + calves)
Week 3
Monday: Workout 1B (delts, midback, biceps, forearms)
Wednesday: Workout 3B (chest, etc.)
Thursday: Off
Friday: Workout 1A (delts, midback, biceps, forearms + calves)
Week 4
Monday: Workout 3A (chest, lats, triceps, abs)
Wednesday: Workout 1B (delts, midback, biceps, forearms)
Thursday: Off
Friday: Workout 3B (chest, lats, triceps, abs + calves)
Repeat Week 1

Notice that we hit legs once a week, on Tu e s d a y, which
b reaks up the two different upper-body sessions. Then
Thursday is a complete rest day, and Friday is a repeat of
Monday’s bodyparts. We never work upper body two days in a
row, which should make for some awesome progress.
How does all of that pan out on the recovery scale? Check it
out:
•Monday bodyparts: 96 hours, or four days, to Friday
•Tuesday bodyparts (legs): 168 hours, or seven days—
although weekend cardio affects leg recovery. ( We’re
also adding a mini-calf blast to our Friday workouts
because calves recover much faster than the upper-leg
muscles.)
•Wednesday bodyparts: 120 hours, or five days, to the
following Monday
As we said, Friday is a repeat of Monday’s workout but—and
this is important—with different positions, which brings us to
our next strategy and explains the A and B designations on
upper-body workouts (we could see that was puzzling you).
2) Split-positions training. Upper-body workouts are
categorized as either A or B. In the program in this chapter,
you’ll see that the A workouts contain a big midrange exercise
and a contracted-position movement for each bodypart. For
example, the 1A delt routine has dumbbell upright rows, the
big midrange, multijoint exercise, followed by forward-lean
l a t e ra l s, a contracted-position delt move. At the next delt
w o rkout, 1B, we use the same midrange exerc i s e, dumbell
u p right rows again, but this time we follow with a stre t c h -
position delt movement, incline one-arm laterals.
That’s how it is for every upper-body muscle group. The
m i d range exercise stays constant, but the second exerc i s e
alternates between a contracted-position movement and a
stretch-position movement. Remember, change is necessary
for growth. Here’s an example from the 3A and 3B workouts for
upper chest: The A workout has Smith-machine incline

presses, the constant midrange exercise, followed by incline
cable flyes, a contracted-position upper-chest move; the B
workout is Smith-machine incline presses again, but that’s
followed by incline dumbbell flyes, a stretch-position exercise.
With split-positions training you cover all the positions, or
arcs, of flexion, but over two workouts (a Positions-of-Flexion
p rimer is on page 76 if yo u’re not familiar with that mass-
training protocol). That provides a lot of variety, unique stress
and more recovery, since you don’t work all three positions at
every workout. It’s a system that provides optimal recovery—if
you divide your workouts correctly.
We use the split-positions approach for every upper-body
exercise. That way the target muscles get some unique stress at
every session, à la Ronnie Coleman (he also alternates between
two routines for every bodypart). In the routines that appear at
the end of this chapter, the A workouts are
m i d ra n g e / c o n t racted, and the B w orkouts are
midrange/stretch. Ingenious. (Modest, aren’t we?)
3) Mega-Mass nutrition. Recovery is also about nutrition
and getting the right compounds in sufficient quantities to fuel
intense workouts and provide a surplus for growth. Yes, we’re
still depending on our X Stack postworkout combo—RecoverX
plus Cre a Sol (www. X - Stack.com). That’s got eve rything we
need to take full advantage of the after- t raining anabolic
window; however, there’s also research that says you should
feed your muscles d u r i n g your training. That makes sense
because the bodyparts you train last get the most from your
postworkout drink. Think about it. The bodypart you train first
has to wait almost an hour or longer for refueling. In reality the
first bodypart’s anabolic window is almost closed by the end of
your workout (and you thought it was best to work yo u r
weakest bodypart first). The solution is to drink as you train
(no, not beer!—although the Mexican beer Dos Equis means
two Xes. Hmm.).
Our recipe? We’re going to mix about a scoop of RecoverX,
about a half scoop of CreaSol (titrated creatine) and a scoop of

GAKIC together in a water bottle and sip it throughout our
workouts, trying to down most of it early on. The RecoverX and
Cre a Sol will feed and refuel the muscles as we blast them,
especially those that get hit early in the session (they won’t get
cheated any longer). GAKIC, a Mu s c l e Tech product, is an
ammonia buffer that has given us some amazing stre n g t h
increases, which we reported on in the IM Research Team in
the November ’05 IRON MAN. The problem with GAKIC is that
when we took it before the workout, it wore off about two-
thirds of the way through. With continuous fueling as we train,
we should be able to sustain the higher power output we’ve
been experiencing early in our workouts with no drop off.
We’re also going to have one or two scoops of Pro-Fusion
protein powder before bed. It’s a mix of micellar casein and
whey proteins, so it should provide our resting muscles with
more recovery and growth-promoting building blocks as we
s l e e p. We’ve never done that because of the fear of exc e s s
calories making us fat. Now we realize that it’s necessary to
prevent catabolic actions during the sleeping/fasting phase of
the day in order to max out muscle growth. (Many scientists
believe that more than 75 percent of muscle growth occurs
because of catabolic pre vention as opposed to anabolic
a c t i o n s — h ow much muscle is your body burning when it
d o e s n’t have ac cess to amino acids, like during sleep?
In t e resting.) We just have to learn to accept some exc e s s
baggage (bodyfat) as a necessary evil if we want to pack on the
most muscle possible over the winter.
4) Mega-Mass variation. We mentioned that the split-
positions approach will keep the stress on our muscles fresh,
but what about the powerful X-Rep hybrid techniques that
helped us add more muscle very quickly during our ’05 ripping
phase? You bet we’re going to use them. In fact, they should
work even better during the winter when we’re not restricting
calories. We plan to rotate those various X-Rep techniques—X-
centric training, X/Pause, X Fade, Stage Sets and Double-X
O verload—on most of our exerc i s e s, especially the big

midrange movements that stay constant. For example, we’ll
use Smith machine incline presses at eve ry upper- c h e s t
workout, but one workout we may do standard X Reps at the
end of the second set, the next workout we may use X/Pause or
a Stage Set. If you follow our Mega-Mass program, you don’t
have to pick a technique out of a hat. We’ve provided the best
X-Rep technique for each exercise, and you can stick to those
for every workout on the second set. But if you want to get
creative feel free. The more variation the better.
Also notice that we usually only do one set with X Reps or an
X-hybrid technique. That’s because X-Rep methods are very
potent and intense—they can cause ove rt raining if abused.
And on compound, or midrange exercises, the big multijoint
movements, the first heavy set to nervous system exhaustion
s e rves to prime the central nervous system to perf o rm
optimally on the second set, which includes X Reps or an X-
hybrid technique. Remember, don’t get carried away with X
Reps. (More on doubling up on X Reps in Chapter 11, X Q&A.)
As you can see, our Mega-Mass strategy is built on a surplus
of quality calories, optimum recovery, va ri e t y, overload and
intensity. You’ll definiely want to follow our lead and make a
big move into the X-treme growth zone with us. We suggest you
p rint out the pro g ram, a separate page for each day (and
maybe print out the X-Rep Hybrid Techniques Cheat Sheet on
page 48 too). Put the workouts in order, on a small clipboard
with a pencil, and follow the sequence with us on Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (if it looks as if you may have
to miss a Friday workout, train on Thursday instead; the small
bit of overlap is better than missing a workout). We’ve even
provided space at the right to jot in your poundages for each
exercise (when it gets too messy because you just keep getting
stronger and stronger, print out a clean page and fill in all your
weights). We’ll no doubt be modifying and changing things as
we go, so check out our X-Blog at www.X-Rep.com often.
Can we (and you) add another 20 pounds of muscle in the
coming months? It’s very possible! Prepare to grow!

X-Rep-Hybrid Mega-Mass Program
Workout 1A: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms Poundage
(M) Dumbbell upright rows
or wide-grip rack pulls (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
(C) Forward-lean laterals (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
(M) Dumbbell presses (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(M) Cable upright
rows (Double-X O + X Reps) 1 x 10-12
(C) Barbell shrugs (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 10-12
(M) Nautilus rows (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
(C) Bent-arm bent-over laterals (X Reps) 2 x 10-12
(M) Behind-the-neck pulldowns
(Staged, bottom first) 1 x 10-12
(C) Bent-over laterals (Double-X O) 1 x 8-10
(M) Cable curls (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
(C) Concentration curls
(X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
(M) Rope hammer curls (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
(C) Barbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
(C) Barbell wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
(C) Rockers 1 x 15
Add to Friday’s workout

•Where X-Reps or an X-hybrid technique is designated, use it only on one

set, the second set if two sets are designated.
(M) = Midrange, (C) = Contracted, (S) = Stretch

Workout 2: Quads, Hams, Gastrocs, Low Back Poundage
(M) Smith-machine squats (X Reps;
Double-X O on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
(C) Leg extensions (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
(S) Sissy squats (X Reps or Double-X O) 1 x 10-12
(M) Leg presses or hack squats
(feet high and wide) 2 x 8-10
(C) Leg curls (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
(S) Bottom-range stiff-legged deadlifts
(Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(S) Hyperextensions (X Reps) 1 x max
(S) Leg press calf raises (X Reps) 3 x 15-20
(C) Hack-machine calf raises (X Reps;
X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 12-15
(C) Standing calf raises (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(S) Machine donkey calf raises (Double-X O) 1 x 12
(S&C) Seated calf raises 2 x 15-20
(S&C) Low-back machine (X Reps) 1 x 8-12


Workout 3A: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Poundage
(M) Smith-machine incline presses
(Staged, bottom first) 2 x 8-10
(C) High cable flyes (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-12
(M) Dumbbell bench presses (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(C) Low cable flyes (X Reps) 1 x 8-12
(C) Middle cable flyes (X Fade) 1 x 8-12
(M) Parallel-grip pulldowns (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
(M) Chins (X-centric or Double-X O) 1-2 x 8-12
(S&C) Machine pullovers (X Reps;
X Fade on second) 2 x 8-10
(M) Decline extensions (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(C) Pushdowns (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Superset
(M) Incline kneeups 2 x 10
(M) Bench V-ups 2x8
(C) Twisting crunches 2 x 10-12



Workout 1B: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms Poundage
(M) Dumbbell upright rows
or wide-grip rack pulls (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
(S) Cable laterals (X Reps) or
incline one-arm laterals (Double X O) 2 x 8-10
(M) Dumbbell presses (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
(M) Rack pulls (X Reps) 1 x 10-12
(S) Dumbbell shrugs (Double-X O) 2 x 10-12
(M) Nautilus rows (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
(S) One-arm dumbbell rows (Double-X O) 2 x 10-12
(M) Behind-the-neck pulldowns (X Reps) 1 x 10-12
(S&C) Uncrossovers (X Reps) 1 x 8-10
(M) Preacher curls (X Reps; 2nd set Staged) 2 x 8-10
(S) Incline curls (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(M) Incline hammer curls (Double-X O) 1 x 8-10
(C) Dumbbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
(C) Dumbbell wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
(C) Rockers 1 x 15



Workout 3B: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Poundage
(M) Smith-machine incline presses
(X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
(S) Incline flyes (Double-X O) 2 x 8-12
(M) Wide-grip dips (X-centric) 2 x 8-10
(S) Decline flyes (Double-X O) 1 x 8-12
(S) Flat-bench flyes (Double-X O) 1 x 8-12
(M) Parallel-grip pulldowns (X Reps;
X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
(M) Chins (X Reps) 1-2 x 8-12
(S) Dumbbell pullovers (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
(M) Decline extensions (Staged) 2-3 x 8-10
(S) Cable pushouts or overhead
extensions (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
Superset
(M) Incline kneeups 2 x 10
(M) Bench V-ups 2x8
(S&C) Ab Bench crunches
or full-range crunches 2 x 10-12



We’ve had a number of trainees request home -gym
programs that include X Reps, so we’re including a version of
our Mega-Mass routine that uses only basic exercises that are
available in most bare-bones home gyms. For more on setting
up a basic home gym, see IRON MAN’s Home Gym Handbook,
available at www.Home-Gym.com. We have an X-Rep e-book
in the works specifically for home-gym trainees coming soon.
X-Rep-Hybrid Mega-Mass Home-Gym Program

Workout 1A: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms Poundage
Dumbbell upright rows or
wide-grip rack pulls (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Seated forward-lean laterals (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
Dumbbell presses (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Barbell shrugs (Double-X O) 2 x 10-12
Bent-over barbell rows (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
Bent-arm bent-over laterals (Double-X O) 2 x 10-12
Bent-over laterals (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Dumbbell curls 2 x 8-10
Concentration curls (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
Hammer curls 1 x 8-10
Barbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
Barbell wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
Rockers 1 x 15



Workout 2: Quads, Hams, Gastrocs, Low Back Poundage
Squats (nonlock; last set Staged) 3 x 8-10
Leg extensions or hack squats with a
quad squeeze at top of each rep (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Sissy squats (Double-X O) 1 x 10-12
Hack squats (nonlock) 1 x 8-10
Leg curls (X Reps; X Fade on 2nd) 2 x 8-10
Bottom-range stiff-legged deadlifts
(Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Hyperextensions (X Reps) 1 x max
Donkey calf raises, standing calf raises
or one-leg calf raises (X Reps;
Double-X O) 3-4 x 15-20
Seated calf raises 2 x 15-20


Workout 3A: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Poundage
Incline presses (X Reps; Staged) 2 x 8-10
Incline flyes (squeeze at top of each rep) 2 x 8-12
Dumbbell bench presses (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Decline flyes (squeeze at top of each rep) 1 x 8-12
Flat-bench flyes (squeeze at top of each rep) 1 x 8-12
Parallel-grip chins (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Chins (X-centric or Double-X O) 1 x 8-12
Undergrip rows (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
Decline extensions (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Kickbacks 2 x 8-10
Superset
Incline kneeups 2 x 10
Bench V-ups 2x8
Twisting crunches 2 x 10-12



Workout 1B: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms
Dumbbell upright rows or
wide-grip rack pulls (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
Incline one-arm laterals (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Dumbbell presses (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Rack pulls or dumbbell shrugs (X Reps) 2 x 10-12
Bent-over barbell rows (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
One-arm dumbbell rows (Double-X O) 2 x 10-12
Bent-over laterals (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Preacher curls (X Reps; Staged) 2 x 8-10
Incline curls (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Incline hammer curls (Double-X O) 1 x 8-10
Dumbbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
Dumbbell wrist curls (X Reps) 2 x 15
Rockers 1 x 15



Workout 3B: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs
Incline presses (X/Pause) 2 x 8-10
Incline flyes (Double-X O) 2 x 8-12
Wide-grip dips (X Reps) 2 x 8-10
Decline flyes (Double-X O) 1 x 8-12
Flat-bench flyes (Double-X O) 1 x 8-12
Parallel-grip chins (X-centric) 2 x 8-10
Chins (X Reps or Double-X O) 1 x 8-12
Dumbbell pullovers (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Decline extensions (Staged) 2 x 8-10
Overhead extensions (Double-X O) 2 x 8-10
Superset
Incline kneeups 2 x 10
Bench V-ups 2x8
Ab Bench crunches or
full-range crunches (X Reps) 2 x 10-12


Note: On any exercise in either program we may choose to

do a drop set in place of a straight set to enhance the workload
and pump. A drop set is doing a set to exhaustion, decreasing
the weight and immediately doing a second set to exhaustion.
We may do X Reps on the first set, the second set or both. Drop
sets help increase capillary beds in the muscle and are
excellent for building intermediary muscle fibers.

Positions-of-Flexion Primer
With a Positions of Flexion protocol you train each target

bodypart in three positions—midrange, contracted and stretch—to
complete the full-range muscle-building chain. Each of those
positions has a specific purpose, as follows:
Midrange: Stimulates the bulk of the muscle fibers with synergy,
or muscle teamwork. When a number of muscles work together—
such as the chest, triceps and deltoids during bench presses—the
target (chest) is more effectively stimulated with heavy overload.
The human muscle structures are designed to work in tandem for
maximum power output, so these movements are simply more
natural than forced isolation. Examples include squats, bench
presses and chins. Best X-hybrid technique for midrange exercises:
X/Pause, Double-X Overload, Stage (on those with bone-supported
lockout, like squats and bench presses).
C o n t r a c t e d : Here you place the target muscle in the most
advantageous position for it to contract. These exercises usually
have continuous tension, so they are perfect for extreme occlusion.
Examples include leg extensions, cable crossovers and leg curls.
Best X-hybrid techniques for contracted-position exercises: X Fade,
Double-X Overload.
S t r e t c h : Here you put the target muscle in its ultimate
elongated, or stretched, state against resistance. Examples include
flyes for the chest, stiff-legged deadlifts for the hamstrings and
sissy squats for the quads. The stretch forces the activation of the
myotatic reflex, which is believed to cause the recruitment of
reserve muscle fibers in the target muscle. When the target is
stretched with a quick twitch to reverse the movement, the nervous
system receives an emergency-response signal, and the muscle is
put in a hypercontracted state. This can recruit reserve muscle
fibers, which means more of the target muscle is stimulated to
grow, a perfect way to end a bodypart workout. Important bonus:
Stretch overload has also been found in research studies to trigger
hyperplasia, or fiber splitting, in animals. Best X-hybrid techniques
for stretch-position exercises: Double-X Overload (an X Rep
between every full rep, which emphasizes the stretch).
Note: For more information on POF as well as other POF
routines, see Train, Eat, Grow: The Positions-of-Flexion Muscle-
Training Manual, available at www.Home-Gym.com.

CHAPTER 11
X Q&A

Q: Can a skinny hardgainer type use X Reps and get
results?
A : Ab s o l u t e l y, and St e ve is a perfect example. He’s an
ectomorph, smaller bone structure who has a hard time putting
on weight, and he made the best gains of his entire training
career when he started using X Reps—at age 44!
X Reps work for virtually everyone who uses them correctly.
And hardgainers are no exception. In UMW we said that many
researchers believe that less than half of the fast-twitch fibers
are involved in any all-out set. That’s right, a single set to failure
is not very efficient for stimulating growth. And it’s even less
efficient for hardgainers, who get maybe 20 to 30 percent fiber
activation because of their poor nerve-to-muscle connections.
In other words, their central nervous system craps out even
earlier than the CNS of other bodybuilders on any given set,
leaving most of their fast-twitch fibers snoozing.
Re m e m b e r, the faster- g rowing fast-twitch fibers activa t e
toward the end of a strict set, as dictated by the size principle of
muscle fiber recruitment, but hardgainers get at very few of
those fibers because their below-average nervous system shuts
down early.
Can they just load up on more sets to compensate? If you’re a
hardgainer, you know that’s impossible because hardgainers
also have a less-efficient recovery system—they can’t tolerate a
lot of work. What about just a few more sets with more
explosive movements, which could help activate more fibers?
Bad idea. As we said, most hardgainers have poor
neuromuscular efficiency. That means explosive-style training
isn’t very effective and is often dangerous. They must do their
sets with strict style—and that does very little to overload the
important semistretched position (near the turnaround) of the
big mass-building exercises.
So it appears that the harder a hardgainer trains, the less he
gains because he overstresses his recovery ability and/or gets
injured when he tries to explode with heavy weights to overload
the sweet spot of certain exerc i s e s. It’s the fru s t ra t i n g

hardgainer paradox.
X Reps work for hard g a i n e r
because they help him ove r ride the
i n h e rent neuromuscular deficiency
somewhat and ove rload the
s e m i s t retched position in one set.
That makes the X-Rep set two to five
times more effective at triggering fast-
twitch-fiber growth—and many of the
X - h y b rid techni ques do an eve n
better job of that. That’s why they’re
so very important for hardgainers.
X-Reps power partials at the sweet Steve is proof that X
spot of each exercise gets at much Reps work big-time for
more of the muscle in any one strict hardgainers—and old
guys too. He’s 46!
set—and you don’t have to do set after
recovery-draining set. The end-of-set partial technique is an
absolute godsend for hardgainers.
Here’s why it works: When your nervous system craps out,
leaving so many growth fibers unused or understimulated (70
p e rcent in some cases), you move to the key point in the
exercise’s stroke, like near the bottom of an incline press, and
keep firing the muscle—pulsing in a very short five-to-10-inch
range. You essentially leapfrog nervous system fatigue and get
at a much larger percentage of muscle fibers with those power
pulses at the target muscle’s maximum-force-generation point,
where fiber activation is optimized. In other words, you get a
quantum leap in mass-building efficiency without having to
add sets, just what hardgainers need for jacking up growth
stimulation to exceptional levels without volume overkill. In
fact, X Reps can help slow-to-grow bodybuilders trigger more
size increases in a few months than they have experienced in
years. Exciting stuff!
Q: You guys usually suggest at least two warmup sets
prior to most compound [or multijoint] exercises. Do I
just take a lighter weight and do the same number of

reps or what?
A: That’s a very important question because small details
can add up to bigger re s u l t s. Even something as seemingly
insignificant as a proper warmup can be the differe n c e
between anabolic acceleration and stagnation.
For example, we’ve discussed occlusion, or blocking blood
flow to a muscle, and how scientists found that it can jack up
strength significantly. In our X-traordinary Abs e-book and in
Chapter 2 of this e-book we discussed how researchers placed
a blood pressure cuff on subjects’ upper arms for two minutes.
The cuff was then removed, and the subjects did wrist curls.
Results: Those whose blood flow had been impaired showed a
20 percent strength increase over that of the subjects who
d i d n’t use the cuff. Ye s, 20 percent! ( T h e re have also been
amazing size increases from occlusion, as we described in
Chapter 2.)
That indicates significantly better fiber recruitment. Along
the same lines, studies on warming up muscles found that
doing a number of lighter sets prior to heavy work can help the
t a rget muscle contract much better than without those
p re l i m i n a ry sets—about 20 percent better, in fact. Hmm,
there’s that 20 percent figure again.
So could occlusion merely be acting as a warm u p ?
Absolutely! After all, a warmup is simply a means of priming
the pump—pushing blood into the muscle so it will perform to
the best of its ability on the heavy sets. If you block blood flow
instead of (or in addition to) doing some lighter pumping sets,
you end up with a warm, ready-to-fire muscle. Either way you
get a rush of blood to the bodypart immediately after.
Now, the qu estion becomes how you can use that
information to set the stage for the most grow power from your
w o rk sets. (Keep in mind that you want to max out
hypertrophic stimulation with the fewest work sets necessary
so you don’t drain your re c ove ry system with too much
volume.)
We’ve said in the past that for big multijoint exercises like

squats and bench presses you should do two warmup sets. Do
the first one with about 60 percent of your first work-set weight
and the second with about 80 percent. But there’s more to it
than percentages. We’ve seen bodybuilders in the gym jerk
through their warmups, wasting lots of time jabbering and not
paying attention. Trust us, they’re severely limiting their gains
and creating the need to either do more warmup sets, more
work sets or extensive rehab work once they get injured.
We’re convinced that if you take care of a few details on your
warmup sets, two is all you need on multijoint exercises to
stimulate more muscle growth (how about 20 percent more?).
Here’s how to make it happen:
Warmup set 1: Take 60 percent of your work-set weight

and do 10 reps—five full-range reps and five partials.
Go from full stretch to complete lockout on the first
five. Then do the second five only through the bottom
two-thirds of the stroke, without locking out. That will
lube your joints and get the blood pumping (partials
produce occlusion).
Warmup set 2: Up the poundage to 80 percent of your
work-set weight. Do four full-range reps followed by
four nonlock partials for occlusion. (Individual strength
may vary; if four plus four feels too taxing, try three plus
three. Remember, it should be a fairly nonstressful set
that doesn’t tax your strength but amplifies it.)
At the end of each warmup set you should feel blood
f l owing to the target due to occlusion from the nonlock
p a rt i a l s. That blood increase will make your work sets
significantly more effective. For example, on bench presses
you’ll push the bar from your chest to just above the midpoint
of the stroke on your partials.
If you don’t feel blood moving to the target, especially after
the second warmup, you may have done your warmup reps too
fast. Keep each rep fairly slow and controlled to activate your
nervous system, get your mind in touch with the target muscle

and prime the pump.
That quick, efficient warmup strategy can get you bigger
gains from your heavy work, and it will take fewer work sets to
get the fast-twitch blast you’re after.
Q: W hi ch is b etter, volu me tr aining or sh ort ,
abbreviated high-intensity-style workouts?
A : High-intensity workouts or higher- volume methods?
Both will work. Legendary bodybuilder Bill Pearl used to train
with 20 or more sets per bodypart, but he never trained to
exhaustion on any set. It just didn’t suit him. He got at more
muscle fibers by doing set after set. Others prefer to do fewer
sets and push harder—for example, past centra l - n e rvo u s -
system exhaustion with X Reps—to hit the majority of fibers.
When you do that, you have to scale back the vo l u m e. As
Nautilus creator Arthur Jones used to say, You can train long or
you can train hard, but you can’t do both. There is a lot of truth
to that.
Is one style better than the other? It depends on you—your
body, preferences and personality. Bill Pearl probably wouldn't
have gained much on an HIT-oriented routine—because he
would’ve hated it and quit if that was the only way. Luckily for
all of us, there’s more than one way to grow. We prefer to get it
done as quickly as possible and get out of the gym. We’re
efficiency minded, so X Reps and the X-hybrid techniques help
us make that happen—and we certainly can’t complain
considering the gains we’ve made—more in the past year than
in the previous four!
Q: What the heck is an uncrossover exercise?
A : It’s a great re a r-delt and midback movement with
continuous tension, something you don’t get with bent-over
dumbbell laterals—the resistance goes to almost zero on those
at the key semistretched point. Here’s how to do the much
more effective uncrossover: Stand in the crossover machine
and grab one of the upper handles with the opposite hand,
holding it at the opposite shoulder. Now step over to the other
side and grab that handle with the opposite hand, bringing it

to the opposite shoulder so your arms
are crossed over your chest. Move to
the middle of the cro s s ove r
a p p a ra t u s, step back about a foot,
and extend your arms out and above
your head, hands together and cables
crossing. With a slight bend in your
e l b ow s, pull the handles back. Us e
your midback muscles, squeez i n g
your scapulae together as you pull,
and your rear delts to get the handles
back. In the finish position yo u
should look like you’re doing a back Jonathan midway
double-biceps pose with bad form— through an uncross-
and your midback muscles and rear over. You can do them
sitting or standing.
delts will be contracting hard.
Q: W hat are your thoughts on the Bowflex? I’m
thinking about buying one. Can it deliver a wo rk o u t
good enough for someone using it to gain muscle and
look better?
A: A Bowflex is just okay as a stand-alone home gym. Some
exercises are good; others aren’t so good. My main gripe is that
the max-force point for most muscles is near the semistretched
point—for example, near the start of an incline press when
your hands are close to your shoulders. The way the Bowflex is
designed, with rods that increase pre s s u re as you extend,
there’s less resistance at that key point and more at the top of
the movement, where the rods are maximally flexed. It’s the
same with pulldowns and row s. From that standpoint it’s
mandatory to incorporate X Reps at the max-force point when
you hit nervous system exhaustion on most sets to stress the
muscle optimally. Otherwise, you’ll be getting even less max-
force-point overload than if you used standard barbells and
dumbbells (because the most force occurs at the top of the
stroke on most Bowflex exercises).
If I had to use a bare-bones home gym, I’d get an adjustable

bench and the heaviest selectorized dumbbells available—like
a Powe r Block. That gives you the most ve r s a t i l i t y — e ve n
though the setup doesn’t look nearly as cool as a Bow f l e x .
[ Powe r Block selectori zed dumbbells are available at
www.Home-Gym.com.]
Q: You guys say that the incline one-arm lateral raise
is a good delt exercise. Why, and how do you perform it
correctly?
A: We conside r incline one-arm lateral raises an
indispensible movement because it allows you to get some
stretch in the medial-delt head. Regular dumbbell laterals lack
resistance down at the bottom; the real overload doesn’t occur
until your arms are about a third of the way up through the arc,
arms away from your torso. Also, the resistance is pulling your
arms down at the bottom not across as it should for medial-
head resistance.
Due to the nature of dumbbell laterals and its arc of
movement, when your arms are hanging straight down, gravity
pulls the weight toward the ground, putting more stress on
your traps not your delts. One-arm cable laterals are a better
solution for semistretched-point overload (bottom of the
stroke) than standing laterals because the cable pulls your
hand and arm across your torso rather than straight down like
a dumbbell; howe ve r, torso twisting and leg thrusting can
make the exercise less delt specific and more of a trap builder.
And like regular dumbbell laterals, if you use enough weight to
blast the strongest low position, you won’t be able to move
your arm very far without some heaving—but it’s still a decent
delt exercise.
Which bring us to the incline one-arm lateral raise. You sit
sideways on a 45-to-55-degree incline bench, leaning your
nonworking side against it. Now your torso is at an angle. With
a dumbbell in the hand of your outside arm, move the
dumbbell down in front of your body till it’s just lower than
your waist. Don’t allow your arm to move all the way down till
it’s perpendicular with the floor; that will take tension off your

The incline one-arm lateral raise, a great stretch-position
exercise for the medial delt with critical X Spot overload.
delt. Reverse the movement right when the dumbbell is even

with your hip area that’s against the bench. Then raise it till
your arm is just about parallel to the floor. A slight bend at your
elbow is acceptable.
You get resistance when your upper arm is close to your
body due to the angle of your torso. And you raise it to
parallel—but because your torso is angled, that top position is
really only about two-thirds up the arc of a standing lateral
raise. You’re essentially working the bottom two-thirds of the
lateral raise stroke and—this is the important point—you’re
getting lots of overload at the turnaround when the dumbbell
is in front of your hips at the bottom of the stroke.
By the way, a version of the incline one-arm lateral was a
favorite of Arnold’s, which may explain why he got so broad
and had that eye-popping width, even when he was fully
clothed. That’s a ve ry impre s s i ve feat considering that his
clavicles were fairly narrow.
Q: What exercise can I substitute for toes-pointed leg
curls, the midrange movement for calves listed in your
Train, Eat, Grow Positions-of-Flexion book?
A: There really isn’t one—and even toes-pointed leg curls
a re n’t a true midrange exercise for calve s. We’ve re c e n t l y
discovered that leg-oriented cardio is the best midrange work
for calves, especially walking hills and sprinting. We’ve noticed

that w hen we start i ncreasing our cardio as summer
a p p ro a c h e s, our calves get considerably better. We’ve also
discovered that less-padded running shoes, like Nike Free, are
best for calf stimulation, whether you’re running or attacking
calf raises in the gym. Shoes that are adve rtised as “like
running barefoot” give you a more natural movement, and you
get less rebound at the important max-force point near the
bottom of the stroke. That means your X Reps will be much
more effective as well—if you can stand the pain of Xing on calf
work.
Q: I’ve bought many of your books and e-books, but I
h a ve questions about training to failure, which yo u
suggest in your X-Rep training. Isn’t it a bad thing? I’ve
read that it’s not required to gain muscle and it can
cause central nervous system fatigue. If that’s tru e,
wo n’t t rai ni ng to failure indu ce burnout and
overtraining?
A: As we mentioned in a previous answer, training to failure
isn’t necessary; howe ve r, it does make building muscle less
time-consuming. It has to do with the size principle of muscle
fiber recruitment. When you do a set, the low-threshold motor
units fire first, followed by the mediums, followed by the high-
threshold motor units (the pure fast-twitch fibers). If you don’t
go to failure, you don’t make much inroad into high-threshold
territory.
You can activate a few more fast-twitch fibers by doing
additional subfailure sets and getting a different recruitment
p a t t e rn — d i f f e rent fibers may be brought into play on
additional sets; however, we’re more interested in finding the
most efficient way to train (we have jobs and families, for
crying out loud—who has time for three-hour workouts?), and
we believe that way is to limit training to only a few sets to
f a i l u re, perhaps one or two of those being X-Rep sets. It
appears to be the best way to activate as many fast-twitch
fibers as possible without spending excessive time in the gym.
Does it cause nervous system burnout? Not if you keep the

volume low and the training frequency sensible. You should
also use phase training—after six weeks or so of all-out
workouts, do the same routine with the same poundages for a
week, but stop all sets two reps short of failure. Or take four to
five days off. Either tactic will help regenerate your nervous
system, and yo u’ll come back feeling bigger and stro n g e r.
In c i d e n t a l l y, using a volume approach can also cause CNS
burnout, so no matter how you train, do incorporate phase
training into your mass-building strategy.
We also recommend that beginners break in to intensity
training to avoid overstressing the CNS—they need to build up
to this type of exertion, as described in the beginner section of
The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book.
Q: What’s the deal with soreness? I work out one day,
I’m sore the next—and it’s even worse on day two. As a
beginner, and a hardgainer, should I avoid working out
again if I’m sore? Or is it okay to train after two days of
rest if I’m only slightly sore?
A: Soreness is muscle damage; however, it’s probably okay
to hit a muscle when it’s slightly sore (there are even studies
that say it’s beneficial to train a muscle two days in a row, but
we’re not big fans of that idea). Nevertheless, you shouldn’t be
getting extremely sore after eve ry workout. What could be
happening is that you’re not hitting your muscles frequently
enough. That means they’re regressing before you train them
again—they superc o m p e n s a t e, stagnate and then re ve rt to
status quo before you hit them again. It’s as if you’re starting
from scratch every time, which explains the soreness. It’s the
perfect example of the phrase “spinning your wheels.”
Try training muscle groups more frequently, like twice a
week or once eve ry five days, as we outline in the Sp l i t -
Positions Pro g ram in Chapter 10. By the way, there are no
studies connecting soreness to muscle growth, so don’t think
you need to get sore to grow.
Q: In The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book you say to
do one positive-failure work set, rest, and then do a

second positive-failure work set with X Reps—but I’ve
been using Xes on the first work set with great results. I
do two pro g re s s i vely heavier warmup sets, my first
work set with X Reps at the end, and then one or two
standard sets. What I’ve noticed is that additional sets
after the initial X-Rep set are more effective due to a
kind of preexhaust effect that comes from working in
the X zone on my very first set. Can I continue doing my
first work set with X Reps, and then add an X-hybrid
technique to my second work set?
A: We’ve noticed that the more experienced we get with X
Reps, the better they work on the first work set. It probably has
a lot to do with neuromuscular adaption—your nervo u s
system gets atuned to getting in the groove earlier, like right
after a semiheavy warmup set (80 percent of your first work-set
weight; see the previous Q&A on proper warmup).
So if you’re a fairly advanced lifter, doing X Reps on your
first work set should be fine. Should you add a X-hybri d
technique on your second set? That can work, too, but you
have to be careful. X Reps are powerful, and most of the X-
hybrid techniques are even more potent. For example, if you
do your first work set with X Reps and your second with
X/Pause, yo u’re hammering the target muscle with a lot of
heavy partials right at the max-force point. That could trigger
ove rt raining. Using X-centric training, slow negatives at the
end of a set with X Reps on each, is also very taxing due to all
the power partial work combined with slow negative tension.
Other X-hybrid techniques aren’t as grueling, and you may
be able to use them on your second work set with great results.
For example, we’ve experimented with doing our first work set
with X Reps at the end, and then doing the second set Stage
style. We often use the same weight as the first set.
For that first stage we move the bar from the bottom, hitting
the semistretched position, to just above the midpoint. We
usually get about eight, and then we have to help each other
move the weight to lockout, where we do the top third of the

stroke, trying to squeeze the pecs
at the lockout position on each
one. Now if you add X Reps to the
end of that sequence, you may be
pushing the limits.
The same goes for Double-X
Overload. After your first work set
with X Reps, you can reduce the
weight by 10 to 20 percent and do
every rep with a hitch at the max-
force point. That double-bang at
the max-force point betwe e n
every rep is excellent for stressing We’ve found that more
the muscle right where it needs it advanced trainees may
most for more growth; however, if benefit from doing X Reps
on the first work set, after
you go further and add X Reps to a semiheavy warmup.
the end of that Double-X- Should they add an X-
Overload set, you may be pushing hybrid technique to their
it. second work set? That
Re c ove ry and intensity may depend on the
t o l e rance is an individual specific technique and
individual recovery ability.
c h a ra c t e ri s t i c. When we’re
motivated, we often go overboard and flirt with overtraining,
but when we’re pushing ourselves to the brink, we try not to
exceed three weeks of that type of insanity. Most of the time we
prefer a straight set followed by an X-Rep set or X-hybrid set
(the more seve re the better, like X/Pause), or an X-Rep set
followed by a straight set or a set with one of the milder X-
hybrid techniques, like Stage or Double-X Overload.
Q: You say that Stage Sets are n’t good to use on
exercises that have continuous tension, like pulldowns.
But what if I do the bottom two-thirds of the stroke to
failure, then follow with the top one-third, where the X
Spot is?
A: Well, you’re essentially doing a normal set with X Reps,
only yo u’re stopping your standard reps short, before the

semistretched point, or X Spot. That’s not so good because you
want to include that semistretched point on every rep—it’s the
most important point for growth stimulation—then blast it
further with X Reps when more full reps are impossible.
So to improve on the example you just gave, instead of
doing the bottom two-thirds, make it the bottom three-fourths
so you move to the X Spot on every rep before you reverse the
movement of the bar. Then at exhaustion, do X Reps at that X
Spot, up near the top. That’s standard X-Rep procedure on
pulldowns and rows. You can also use the Double-X Overload
technique on those and other continuous-tension exercises,
using an X Rep between each full rep, then end with X-Rep
partials at the semistretched point.
Q: Does ove rloading the max-force point of an
exercise create a different type of growth from what
you get by blocking blood flow?
A: We know what you’re getting at. Overloading the max-
force generation point of an exercise may provide unique fast-
twitch-fiber activation, while occlusion may do things like
pump up fluid volume and increase capillary beds—two
s e p a rate layers of growth. Pl u s, with its influx of blood,
occlusion may cause endurance fibers to take more of the
initial load during a set of an exercise, so you get more growth
in those fibers as well as fast-twitch hypert ro p h y. That’s
another mass layer.
It appears that the champs get big by maximizing a number
of growth factors, or layers, which is what we explained in the
first few chapters of this e-book. We’ve also tried to explain why
adding X Reps, or power partials, to the ends of sets of certain
exercises is a much more efficient means of attaining pro-style
mass than simply doing set after set on multiple exercises.
Here’s a bit of a review: By adding X Reps to incline presses,
you take the pecs past failure at the key max-force generation
point, getting much more fast-twitch-fiber activation than if
you stop at positive failure. It’s the best way to move past
nervous system exhaustion and fatigue to get more fast-twitch

fiber action. Yo u
also create some
postfailure
occlusion with X
Reps because
p a rtial pulses
keep tension on
the target muscle.
You can almost
feel the blood
being squeeze d
out with each
pulsing action.
We’ve found a number of pieces to the
You also g et mass-building puzzle with our testing and
some stre t c h experimentation in the gym: Positions of
overload with X Flexion, X Reps, X-hybrid techniques and so
Reps, which may on, but there’s still lots to learn. Keep up
h a ve a with our latest findings at www.X-Rep.com.
connection to
hyperplasia, or muscle-fiber splitting. Remember, you do X
Reps at a semistretched point, so they seve rely stress the
muscle when it’s in an elongated state, which may help initiate
hyperplasia—and the more fibers there are to grow, the bigger
your muscles can eventually become. (Double-X Overload, an
X Rep between every full rep, on stretch-position exercises is
proving to be a very powerful size building technique, probably
due to that stre t c h - overload/muscle-mass connection! As
we’ve mentioned, Jay Culter, one of the biggest bodybuilders in
the world, uses that technique a lot in his size - b u i l d i n g
routine.)
Much of our analysis also gave credence to the Positions-of-
Flexion muscle-building method—working a muscle with
midrange-, stretch- and contracted-position exercises. You can
trigger the most fiber activation with compound, or midrange,
exercises like presses, especially when you add X Reps to the
end of a set. Then you can get the best occlusion effects with

continuous-tension contracted-position exerc i s e s, like
crossovers. Add X Reps to those, and you increase occlusion
time and its size- and strength-building effects. Finally, you can
use stretch-position exercises for even more occlusion,
dormant-fiber activation (thanks to the myotatic reflex, an
e m e rgency response tri g g e red by fu ll stretch ag ainst
resistance) and perhaps more fiber-splitting action. Exciting
stuff!
We’re not saying we’ve found the answer, although POF plus
X Reps and X-hybrid techniques may be the training Holy Grail
for a number of bodybuilders, but we will say we’ve pieced
together a huge section of the mass-building puzzle. We’re
getting closer to finding the final pieces as we keep
experimenting and learning. We’ll keep you posted on new
discoveries in the pages of IRON MAN magazine, the IM e-zine
and via our X-Blog at www.X-Rep.com.

BONUS CHAPTER A
Analyzing Mr.
Olympia’s Workout
From an X-Rep
Perspective

T h roughout this e-book we’ve mentioned how Ro n n i e
Coleman, Mr. Olympia, trains with an emphasis on
semistretched overload. Those observations were the result of
watching his latest DVD, “The Cost of Redemption,” which is an
ungodly display of muscle mass and raw strength captured by
videographer Mitsuru Okabe. In fact, his mass-training style is a
prime example of max-force-point overload on almost every
exercise.
Re m e m b e r, the max-force point is the place along an
exercise’s stroke at which the target muscle has the most power-
output potential. It’s essentially the most important point of
any movement because it’s where the most fiber activation can
o c c u r — m o re force equals maximum muscle invo l ve m e n t .
W h e re is that point? Well, it’s usually at the semistre t c h e d
position, near the turnaround of a rep—almost at the bottom of
an incline press, for example.
When a muscle is semistretched—not fully stretched, but
almost—the muscle fibers are perfectly aligned for ultimate
p ower generation. In simple term s, if you want to tri g g e r
e x t reme mass, you need to overload that point somehow.
Coleman
Coleman and
does that
his incredible i n s t i n c t i ve l y
traps! with heavy
p a rt i a l - ra n g e
re p s. Fo r
e x a m p l e, he
does only the
bottom half
of a benc h
p ress stro k e.
In fact, he
almost neve r
does full-
range re p s.
Th at means

he slams that mass-morphing sweet spot with severe overload
on every single rep. To drive home that point, we thought it
would be interesting to discuss his workout day by day...
Workout 1
Calves. He begins with seated calf raises, and the first thing
t h a t’s noteworthy i s that he never gets close to full
contraction—not even on his first, lighter sets. He works from
just above the middle of the stroke to down just short of full
stretch—the semistretched point. He does the same thing on
one-leg leg press calf raises; however, it’s interesting to note
that on all calf exercises, even the seated va ri e t y, he double
bounces when he gets to the highest point, which for him is
just above the middle of the stroke. There is still some stretch
in the calf muscle at that point, but not as much as closer to
the bottom of the stroke, as dictated by X-Rep protocol.
So from a scientific standpoint he might get better results
double-clutching at the semistretched point, down near the
bottom where the most fiber activation can occur (the Double-
X Overload technique). That’s exactly how he trains his shrugs,
double-dipping at the bottom stretch and then only moving
the bar up a few inches before he lowers and double bangs
again—and his traps are absolutely enormous! Could his calves
get even better with extra semistretched-point overload? We
think so. (Incidentally, as we’ve mentioned a number of places
in this e-book, Jay Cutler, Coleman’s biggest nemesis in his
quest for more Olympia titles, uses the Double-X-Overload
technique on almost every set, holding and hitching at the
semistretched point between groups of reps or single reps. As
we said, he may be triggering hyperplasia, or fiber splitting,
instinctively at every workout thanks to that unique tweak that
has the power to create a freak physique!)
Delts. He kicks off shoulder work with seated dumbbell
p re s s e s, using a seat with back support. He dri ves the
dumbbells from ear level, the semistretched point, to about
eight inches above his head, far short of lockout. (It’s during

this exercise that you get to hear his first surprising and
somewhat humorous battle cry, “Yeah, buddy!” He loves that
stuff, no matter how painful the set.)
He does four sets of part i a l - range dumbbell pre s s e s,
increasing the weight on each till he’s using the 160s on his last
set for seven reps. (Yes, 160-pound dumbbells!) His first three
sets are all in the 10-to-12-rep range. It was rather shocking to
see that Coleman prefers higher reps on almost all of his sets,
but it’s probably to hammer the target muscle with more
tension time.
Speaking of higher re p s, here’s a big surprise: A fter
dumbbell presses he goes to the Nautilus double-shoulder
machine and does lateral raises, only the bottom half of the
m ovement (semistretched point again), for about 20 re p s.
Then he follows immediately with presses on the machine,
turning his palms out (ouch) and moving the bar from ear level
to just above his head, no lockout, for about 20 reps. He does
three of the high-rep combo sets—and his delts get pumped to
the extreme.
For front delts he does a few progressively heavier sets of
alternate dumbbell front raises, stopping each rep at about eye
level. His reps start at 15 on the first set and creep down from
there.
Uncrossovers are next. What the heck is an uncrossover? We
explained them in the X Q&A section, but here’s a quick review:
You stand in the middle of a cable crossover, the cable handle
from the opposite side in each hand, your arms crossed at
midforearm in front of your face with a slight bend at each
elbow. You uncross your arms and drive your hands out to your
sides at shoulder level, keeping the slight bend at the elbows.
After a few reps you should get a wicked burn in your rear-delt
heads and midback. Coleman does four sets, increasing the
weight on each and decreasing his reps, going from 15 down to
eight.
Next it’s bent-over cable laterals in the same cro s s ove r
machine but using the low handles—and zero full-range reps.

He does only half reps from the stretch Holy
point to about halfway up. In other #%@!
w o rd s, his arms never get close to
p a rallel to the floor for complete
contraction. He does four sets of these
stretch-emphasis delt/back burners.
A re you seeing a pattern? The
s t retched and semistretched points
appear to be critically important for
building mass. Co l e m a n’s tra i n i n g
indicates that in a big way—even more
strongly on the next exercise.
Tr a p s. To finish, he blasts out heavy behind-the-back
barbell shrugs. He does them while holding the Olympic bar
behind his legs rather than in front, and he uses a tremendous
poundage that rattles the power rack at the end of his sets;
howe ve r, his shoulders barely move. He only does bottom-
range partials—and his traps look like eight-ton boulders
sitting on his shoulders.
He starts with 445 pounds and does 15 reps. Then he bumps
it up to 645 for 12 and, finally, 735 for 11. And as mentioned
above, he double-clutches at the bottom, stretched position on
every rep, providing serious Double-X Overload at the max-
force point.
Our primary thought at the end of his workout, other than
shock and awe, was this: Considering the impressiveness of his
traps, which may be his freakiest bodypart, we wonder why he
doesn’t try the double-clutch semistretched-overload tactic on
more of his exercises. Could it make him even larger? Scary
thought, but it’s very possible considering it’s connection to
muscle fiber replication.
Workout 2
Quads. Coleman starts with four progressively heavier sets
of leg extensions to warm up his knees. He does 30 quick reps
on each set. As before, it’s, “Yeah, buddy!” as he primes his

knees, his quads (with occlusion) and his mind for squats.
Prepare to be impressed! He does five progressively heavier
sets on squats: 225x12, 405x10, 595x8, 745x4 and 800x2. Whoa!
But even more impressive is that he doesn’t use a power rack.
He shoulders the bar from heavy-duty power stands and then
squats without any safety catchers—other than his training
partner and the Metroflex Gym owner, neither of whom look
too thrilled about having to pull 800 pounds off of Ronnie if he
misses.
Oh, and did we mention that all of his reps are down below
parallel and only partial range? Yep, it’s semistretched-position
overload, never pushing close to top-end lockout; however,
Coleman does take quite a bit of time between heavy sets, as
he wraps his knees and squeezes into a power suit. Still, 800 for
two deep reps nonlock style is amazing.
Another eye-popping display occurs on leg presses. He does
four pro g re s s i vely heavier sets with his feet close and in
nonlock style. On his last set he appears to have every 45 in the
gym piled on, and a calculator is brought out to determine that
he was using 2,250 pounds—for eight reps! Yep, more than a
ton.
Ha m s t ri n g s. Those leg pre s s e s, with feet high on the
p l a t f o rm, provide a good transition to hamstring work. He
begins with one-leg leg curls, once again doing only the
bottom two-thirds of the movement (semistretched point) and
no pauses. His reps are rapid fire, and he alternates legs for
three sets of about 15 reps apiece.
Stiff-legged deadlifts are last on his day-two agenda, and the
theme slapped us in the face again: He only moves the bar
f rom ankles to knees—stretched-position part i a l s. And his
weight is relatively light. It looked to be only about 275 pounds
for all three sets. He appears to be using the exercise as more of
a stretch-emphasizing movement, and as we keep saying
throughout this e-book, stretch-position work has been linked
to hyperplasia, or fiber splitting, in the lab. Perhaps that’s one
reason Ronnie is so dam n h uge—maybe stretch and

semistretch focus has produced considerable replication of
muscle fibers. ( The same can be said of Jay Cu t l e r, who
e m p h a s i zes stretch even more than Coleman.) In t e re s t i n g
concept, which is why it’s part of our mega-mass program!
Stretching. Even more evidence of Coleman’s attention to
muscle elongation: He ends this workout with hamstring and
adductor stretches.
Workout 3
Abs. Coleman’s ab routine is an almost endless giant set. He
does bench cru n c h e s, bottom two-thirds of the move m e n t
o n l y; bench kneeups, bottom range only; standing cable
crunches and twisting crunches. It appears as though there’s
no specific order; he just does whichever exercise he feels like
doing—but he still emphasizes the semistretched point on
almost all of them, never holding a contraction and almost
always just doing partial-range, rapid-fire reps.
C h e s t. He begins with bench presses, five pro g re s s i ve l y
heavier sets—and his range is almost shorter here than on
most other exercises. It looks as though he’s moving through
only the bottom half of the stroke, exploding on every rep at
the low, semistretched point.
How much does Mr. O bench? At this workout his last three
sets were 315x12, 405x10 and 495x5. Not too shabby.
For incline presses it’s a repeat performance as far as range
goes—partial, max-force-point emphasis. He does only the
bottom half to two-thirds of the stroke, often reversing the
Coleman’s bench press
range is from the chest
to just above the
midpoint of the stroke
on every rep. That
allows him to hit the
semistretched point
more quickly and keep
continuous tension on
his pecs for anabolic
occlusion aftereffects.

movement of the bar and exploding on it before it touches his
chest. He does three sets: 225x15, 315x12 and 405x8 plus one
forced rep. Forced reps are a rare occurrence.
Next up: decline presses. Bottom half of the stroke only, and
he does three sets: 225x15, 315x15 and 405x10. He lowers the
bar to his low-pec line on every rep.
Tri c e p s. He begins with quick-hit one-arm ove rh e a d
extensions in a seated position. He lowers the dumbbell to just
off his shoulder, hand at about ear level, then drives it up till
his hand is just above his head, not even close to lockout. He
just keeps pulsing in that middle ra n g e, kicking out of the
semistretched position, for three sets of 12 to 15 reps.
Machine dips are next. Here he sits and grips wheelbarrow-
typ e handles. The fulcrum is at the middle of the two
handlebars, and the weight is at the opposite end. He drives
the handles from the semistretched point, hands up next to his
pecs down to well short of lockout. He does those pistonlike
reps for three sets of 12 to 15 reps.
Narrow-grip pushdowns finish off his triceps. Not to belabor
the point, but (you guessed it) his range of motion is from
about the middle of his chest (triceps’ semistretched point) to
just short of lockout. He fires out 10 to 15 reps with zero pauses
for three sets.
Workout 4
Calves. He starts the day with some high-rep calf work in
his home gym, once again doing short, pulsing reps through
the bottom range only and double-clutching each rep at about
the midpoint (Ro n n i e, try double-clutching closer to the
bottom, where the X spot is; I swear yo u’ll like it!). After
pumping up his calves, he’s off to the gym.
Back. Wide-grip lat pulldowns are first. That may be the
exercise he uses the fullest range on. He pulls from just shy of
lockout, semistretched point, down to his middle chest. The
explosive heave just before lockout at the top of every rep really
overloads that max-forc e point for some seriou s mass

stimulation in his upper lats. You can see it happening. Unreal!
He does four sets of 12 reps, the last with the stack plus a 45
pinned to it.
Behind-the-neck pulldowns are next, although they’re really
behind-the-head pulldowns. He never pulls the bar past ear
level, and he releases to just short of lockout. He does three
sets of 12 reps here.
Cable rows follow—rapid-fire reps from the forward-lean,
semistretched position and pulling the parallel handle to near
his upper abs as he straightens his torso. He does three sets of
12 again, and on his last set he rows the stack plus two 45s that
are pinned to it.
To finish off back, he goes for some serious stretch (and
maybe some critical fiber splitting, or hyperplasia). Cro s s -
bench dumbbell pullovers, with one ’bell, give his lats some
wicked elongation, especially when he gets to his last set,
pulling a 160-pound dumbbell from back over his head to just
over his eyes. He does three sets of 12 again, partial-range with
a considerable stretch emphasis (how could you not
emphasize stretch with that amount of weight?).
Biceps. He begins attacking his mountainous biceps with
machine curls. It looks like an old Nautilus machine with an
EZ-curl handle, but he doesn’t do full-range reps. He curls from
the semistretched point, arms just bent out of the straight-arm
position, to just above the middle of the stro k e — n o
contraction emphasis at all. His reps are partial, pistonlike
max-force-point-overload reps for all three sets.
Next up are alternate dumbbell curls. Nothing special here,
just rocking the weight up in a see-saw motion. Each of the
three sets seems extremely long because of the alternating
arms—one arm rests while the other curls—plus the fact that
he does 10 full reps on every set.
Last is a unique cable curl. Instead of facing the we i g h t
stack, he turns his back to it so the cable runs down between
his legs. He bends over slightly at the waist and curls from the
s e m i s t retched point, never straightening his arm s, to just

above the midpoint of the stroke—like slightly exaggerated X
Reps. He performs three sets of 15, 15 and 11 reps.
Then he hits a few poses—an incredible impromptu display
of raw muscle size and separation, despite his being months
away from the Mr. Olympia.
Mass-Building Lessons
So what can we learn from all of this? First and foremost, it
a p p e a r s, as we continue to say over and ove r, that
s e m i s t retched- and stretched-position overload are much,
much more important than squeezy contractions—at least in
the massive Coleman camp. We’ve been explaining why in this
e-book and the rest. Coleman’s training verifies a lot of what
we’ve discovered the past few years at the IRON MAN Training
& Research Center.
Next, continuous tension appears to be a very big player in
building muscle. When Coleman does partial reps, such as
nonlock squats or pre s s e s, the target muscle never gets a
breather. The technique creates occlusion, or blocked blood
f l ow, and that produces a skin-stretching pump as well as
spectacular anabolic responses in muscle tissue.
One thing you don’t learn on the DVD is that Co l e m a n
usually trains with two different workouts for each bodypart,
an A-and-B approach (sound familiar?). He rotates them to hit
the muscle with different stress at eve ry session. In other
words, we only described half of his workouts. The others hit
the same bodyparts but usually with different exercises, similar
to our new X-Hybrid Mega-Mass Program in Chapter 10.
The last thing we picked up on is that Coleman is one heck
of a personable guy and loves training. You can see it in his
eyes and hear it in his voice. “Yeah, buddy!” is now a common
battle cry at all of our X-Rep workouts.
Note: Ronnie Coleman’s three-hour-and-15-minute “The
Cost of Redemption” DVD is available for $29.95 plus shipping
from Home Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008, or visit www
.Home-Gym.com.

BONUS CHAPTER B
The Inner Workings

of Steroids:
Mimicking Their
Anabolic Power
Without Drugs

Let’s face it: Steroids enable an athlete to leapfrog hormonal
roadblocks and reach a new level of physical prowess—fast—a
level that was impossible without drugs. Hold on! Impossible
without drugs? That may be a bit pre m a t u re. In fact, if we
analyze the way steroids work and do everything in our power
to mimic those effects naturally, many of us can get results
similar to what happens when we’re on mild anabolics (we say
“mild” because there’s no way to get your body to produce five
times its normal testosterone output, which is the amount a lot
of bodybuilders inject). You read that right: steroidlike results
without the steroids. Adopt the 10 ’roid-mimicking techniques
we’ve got here, and you’ll experience new muscle growth, a
strength explosion and a rush of self-confidence. We have—
and now we’re often accused of using, but we don’t. We
consider those accusations the ultimate compliment for a
d ru g - f ree athlete! [Note: The intros in italics are from Jerry
Brainum’s “Anabolic Steroid Primer” that appeared in IRON
MAN magazine, used with permission.]
Anabolic-hormone Surge
•Simply put, anabolic steroids are either testosterone itself
or synthetic versions of testosterone.
• Recent studies confirm another route through which
anabolic steroids increase muscle size: augmented release of
other anabolic hormones in the bo dy, such as grow t h
hormone and insulinlike growth factor 1 (IGF-1). Th e
primary anabolic hormones in the body appear to have a
synergistic effect in building muscle.
It should be obvious that to start the steroid-mimicking
process, you want to kick your testosterone into high gear, as
t h a t’s what steroids are—synthetic versi ons of that
anabolic/androgenic hormone. You also want to increase your
growth hormone so you get a synergistic anabolic effect, as GH
boosts testosterone’s potency and vice versa. Triggering an
insulin uptick at specific times during the day can also amplify
those effects even more.

The anabolic synergy of those three hormones is the reason
so many bodybuilders’ drug stacks include all of them—and
the reason there are so many 250-plus-pound behemoths
stalking the stages of pro bodybuilding shows. Boost yours
n a t u ra l l y, and at the right times, and yo u’ll grow as neve r
before.
The mistake most drug-free bodybuilders make is thinking
that any type of weight workout they do gives them optimal
s u rges in the anabolic horm o n e s. Su re, almost any type of
intense weight training increases testosterone and GH to some
degree, but we’re after maximum output. To get steroidlike
e f f e c t s, you g otta have si gnificant amounts of both
testosterone and GH coursing through your system.
And that’s not just an educated guess. In one study men
who took both GH and testosterone showed lean-mass
increases three times greater than those who took testosterone
alone.1 Getting that anabolic triple whammy takes specific
strategies, not random workouts.
Te s t o s t e ro n e. Intense anaerobic exercise is the key to
increasing testosterone production. And research indicates
that you get the biggest test surge when your pro g ram is
dominated by multijoint exercises, such as squats. In fact, the
l a rger the bodypart yo u’re training, the more testostero n e
release you get. Also, you have to do enough volume, but you
don’t want to overdo it. Common wisdom is that workouts
lasting more than about an hour and 15 minutes cause a
testosterone crash, probably due to elevated cortisol, a stress
hormone that smothers anabolic hormones and eats muscle.
You want to stop the workout before cortisol goes into muscle-
munching Pac-Man mode.
So here are your first two steroid-mimicking strategies:
1 ) Make sure your workout is dominated by the big
compound exercises, two to three sets of eight to 10 reps. Do
squats for quads, chins for lats, rows for midback, upright rows
and presses for delts and bench presses for chest. (Those are
the midrange exercises (M) in the Mega-Mass routines, the

ones with which you kick off each bodypart blast.)
2) Try to keep most of your workouts at about an hour. If
you use one or all of the cortisol-control strategies coming up,
you may be able to push some to an hour and a half.
Gr owth horm one. Re s e a rchers belie ve that GH
supercharges the anabolic properties of testosterone, and the
study that got the triple-gain results verifies that. So how do
you get your pituitary gland to secrete more GH and crank up
test’s effects? Studies indicate that there’s a direct correlation
between higher blood lactic acid levels and GH release.2 That
means the more muscle burn you induce, the more GH you
can stimulate.
To go for the burn, use supersets, drop sets and/or X Reps
on some sets. Also continuous-tension exercises, that keep
blood choked off from the muscle that help concentrate the
b u rn — t h e re’s resistance through the entire range of
movement. Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler both get that on
most of their exercises by using only a partial range of motion,
especially on exercises that have lockout—they never get close
to locking out so the muscle can rest. Obviously, exercises that
enable you to lock out and rest at one end of the movement,
such as squats, can produce burn if you don’t go to lockout, so
the partial technique is a good one for GH release. Single-joint
isolation exercises (contracted-position movements in POF
protocol) also produce muscle burn.
So your third steroid-mimicking strategy is this:
3 ) Use an isolation exercise along with part i a l - ra n g e
compound movements for each target muscle. Drop sets, X
Reps and the various X-hybrid techniques can help intensify
that muscle burn, which, in turn, can increase GH.
•The answer lies in research showing that large doses of
steroids, such as those commonly taken by athletes, incr ease
the number of androgen receptors.
Any kind of intense weight training can increase androgen
receptors; however, there’s evidence that elongating a muscle,
as when you use a stretch-position exercise like stiff-legged

deadlifts for hamstrings and overhead extensions for triceps,
does a bang-up job of increasing IGF-1 receptors in the
muscle. IGF-1 is a highly anabolic metabolite that can occur as
a direct result of GH. In other word s, steroids incre a s e
androgen receptors in muscle, and stretch-position exercises
can accomplish some of that same action. That’s why stretch-
position movements are mandatory for maximizing the
s t e roid-mimicking effects of weight training. And stre t c h
overload has also been linked to hyperplasia, or muscle fiber
division, so exercises that stretch the target muscle can trigger
muscle growth in a number of different ways. And the Double-
X Overload technique can make stretch-position exerc i s e s
even more powerful in both of those areas.
That gives us one more steroid-mimicking strategy:
4 ) Use stretch-position exercises to increase andro g e n
receptors on muscles and to perhaps spur hyperplasia. And the
Double-X Overload X-hybrid technique to some sets to
s u p e rc h a rge their mass-building effects. St re t c h - p o s i t i o n
exercises include sissy squats for quads, stiff-legged deadlifts
for hamstrings, pullovers for lats, shrugs for midback, one-arm
incline laterals for delts, ove rhead extensions for tri c e p s,
incline curls for biceps and flyes or wide-grip dips for chest.
(Stretch-position exercises (S) are included in the Mega-Mass
programs in this e-book.)
•Steroids work by binding to specific cell receptors called
androgen receptors. That initiates a cascade in the cell that
results in upgraded muscle protein synthesis.
That means you have to do your best to jam-pack yo u r
muscles with amino acids—which leads us to the infamous
storage hormone known as…
Insulin. It can cause your body to store fat in fat cells and
amino acids and creatine in muscle cells. That upgrade in
protein synthesis is one of the main reasons steroids build
muscle quickly—and precisely what you want in order to
create steroidlike effects naturally.
To get the anabolic reactions without fat storage, you need

to trigger an insulin surge after you train but minimize those
surges at all other times of the day. Use a shake made with
s t raight whey protein and/or hyd ro l y zed whey and simple
carbs. Go for about 60 grams of carbs and 40 grams of whey.
Immediately after an intense training session your muscles are
like bone-dry sponges ready to soak up nutrients, so give them
what they crave in that anabolic window. ( We use the X-Stack,
available at www.X-Stack.com, which also includes five grams
of titrated creatine.)
Fasting has also been shown to create an import a n t
anabolic window, so you may want to experiment with getting
fast protein and fast carbs in the morning as soon as you wake
up. Try 20 grams of whey protein along with 30 grams of simple
carbs, like grape juice. (Or use a half serving of the X-Stack; it’s
designed for optimizing the postworkout anabolic window, but
it works well in the morning too).
To minimize insulin surges throughout the day, eat six small
protein-based meals spaced a few hours apart. Overfeeding at
any one meal, no matter what the macronutrient percentages,
causes an insulin surge at the wrong time. Don’t gorge yourself.
A l s o, avoid eating carbs alone. Simple-sugar snacks cause
insulin to skyrocket.
The basic rule is that each of your six meals should have at
least 20 grams of protein, a medium number of carbs—low-
glycemic carbs are best—and a small amount of fat, preferably
good fat from nuts or fish, for example.
Okay, add three more steroid-mimicking strategies to the
list:
5) Get some fast protein and fast carbs as soon as you wake
up to take advantage of the secondary anabolic window
created by the overnight fast (unless you raided the fridge at 2
a.m., which means you didn’t fast).
6 ) Drink a postworkout shake that has 40 grams of fast
p rotein (whey) and 60 grams of fast carbs (high-glyc e m i c
sugar) to spike insulin immediately after every workout and
drive amino acids into your muscles (the X-Stack).

7) Eat six small meals a day, each with at least 20 grams of
p rotein—30 to 40 is better. That will keep amino acids
circulating—you never want recovering muscles to be starved
of those building blocks—and avoid insulin surges that can
cause fat deposition. Re m e m b e r, steroids increase pro t e i n
synthesis, and the only way to maximize protein use without
them is to make sure there are enough aminos available to
your system at all times to swing the anabolic/catabolic
balance in favor of growth.
Catabolic-hormone Blockade
•Androgens bind with low affinity to glucocorticoid cell
receptors, the cell receptors that interact with corti s o l .
Anything that interf e res with cortisol activity, such as
anabolic steroids, would tilt the balance toward anabolism,
not catabolism.
Enemy number one in your quest to mimic steroid actions
without taking drugs is cortisol, which smothers anabolic
actions, diffusing your GH and testosterone output. One way
to combat cortisol is to sip a high-glycemic-sugar mixture
during your workout. (We mentioned that as one of our mega-
mass strategies; we’re using a half serving of our X-Stack along
with the new supplement GAKIC, that’s an ammonia buffer,
which helps you get more re p s.) He re’s what Eu ro p e a n
researcher Michael Gündill said about that strategy: “Blood
glucose levels tend to fall during training. As a result, insulin
s e c retion is re p ressed while the secretions of cortisol and
glucagon are enhanced. You want to re verse the situation,
which is easily accomplished by increasing your carb intake
before your workout and/or using a carb drink through the
session.”
A study re p o r ted in mid-2002 ve ri fied that dri n k i n g
c a r b o h yd rate beve rages during high-intensity interm i t t e n t
exercise decreases cortisol levels.3 Even Kool-Aid will work, but
we suggest some fast protein added to the mix to feed the
muscles. Research scientist Jose Antonio, Ph.D., has written

about athletes drinking flat Coke (regular, with sugar, not diet)
d u ring workouts to bolster energy—and no doubt blunt
cortisol release. If you try it, make sure the carbonation is out,
or you could get nauseated.
There’s one more steroid-mimicking strategy:
8 ) Sip a hig h-carb-and-protein mixture during yo u r
workout (diluted X-Stack).
Sleeping It On
• C o rtisol receptors in muscle far outnumber andro g e n
receptors. So a true anticatabolic effect would require larger
doses of anabolics.
Once again, your best bet for building muscle steroid-free is
to minimize cortisol, maximize anabolic hormone output and
enhance recovery whenever and wherever possible. That way
you optimize your androgen receptors (remember, you can
build new ones with stretch-position exercises) and minimize
the cortisol receptors. Do that as often as possible—even when
you sleep—and your gains should skyrocket.
Yo u’ve already seen a number of ways to maximize
anabolism and de-emphasize catabolism during the day, but
how do you stay in control while you’re sawing logs? Dreaming
of Carmen Electra giving you a hot-oil rub will no doubt raise
your testosterone, among other things, but if Dennis Rodman
s h ows up, your cortisol will soar. Instead of focusing on
Ca rmen, simply try to get eight to 10 hours of sleep each
night—and make sure it’s uninterrupted, sound sleep. Even
minor sleep disturbances can alter the hormonal response
yo u’re after—which i s maximizing growth h orm o n e,
testosterone and IGF-1.4
If you have trouble sleeping soundly, you may want to try a
melatonin supplement. Melatonin is a natural horm o n e
secreted by the pineal gland in the brain, and it can intensify
REM sleep, the good, deep sleep you’re after, and boost GH
levels.5 Two to five milligrams before bed may help, but use it
infrequently, as your body could develop a dependence on it if

you use it every night.
If you’re not interested in melatonin, you may get similar
effects with a cup of caffeine-free green tea. Bonus: Green tea
has also been shown to help burn fat and improve anti-oxidant
activity. If you have a small bladder, however, tea before bed
may do the opposite and cause a sleep interruption. In other
words, you’ll be cursing your loss of REM sleep as you take aim
at the dark silhouette you hope is the toilet.
You also want to minimize cortisol release as you sleep.
You’re already aware that it can burn muscle during a workout,
but keep in mind that it can turn shut-eye catabolic as well. For
people who work out, cortisol tends to rear its ugly muscle-
wasting head in the first few hours, so take about 400
milligrams of phosphatidylserine, or PS, before bed. PS is a
n a t u ral lipid that’s been shown to help control cort i s o l
release—a for- real all-natural muscle booster due to its
anticatabolic properties. As we’ve seen, one reason anabolic
s t e roids are so effective is that they interf e re with cort i s o l
l e ve l s. PS does that in a slightly different way with similar
anticatabolic results.
By minimizing cortisol during sleep, yo u’ll set up an
anabolic environment. Ah, but as you know, growth can’t
happen if hypert rophic building blocks are n’t ava i l a b l e,
namely, amino acids. To make sure your body has the muscle-
repair materials it needs through most of the night, take a
micellar casein-and-whey protein drink before bed. That mix is
what’s known as complete milk protein and provides a trickle-
feed effect thanks to casein’s slow-digestion properties. (That’s
a must for our mega-mass strategy as well.)
Your final two steroid-mimicking strategies:
9) Get eight to 10 hours of sound sleep a night. Melatonin or
green tea before bed may help.
10) Make sleep more anticatabolic by controlling cortisol
with a PS supplement before bed. Make sleep more anabolic by
trickle-feeding your muscles amino acids during sleep—drink
a micellar casein-and-whey protein shake before bed (we use

Pro-Fusion protein powder in water). Note that you don’t want
too much protein right before you hit the hay because you still
want a fasted state when you wake up to create an anabolic
window (see item 6). Try about 20 grams of micellar casein-
and-whey protein before bed. Also, you don’t want to get so
much liquid that you wake up to pee. You want re s t f u l ,
uninterrupted sleep.
Go over this checklist often. By following all 10 rules, along
with our Mega-Mass programs in this e-book, you should get
some of the best muscle-building results of your life, no
p h a rmaceuticals necessary. How about 20 pounds of new
muscle in the coming months to radically change yo u r
physique? Let’s get to it!
References
1 Blackman, M.R., et al. (2002). Growth hormone and sex
s t e roid administration in healthy older women and men.

JAMA. 288:2282-2292.
2 Mulligan, S.E., et al. (1996). Influence of resistance exercise
volume on serum growth hormone and cortisol concentrations

in women. Journal of St rength and Conditioning Re s e a rc h.
10:(4): 256–262.
3 Bi s h o p, N.C., et al. (2002). Influence of carbohyd ra t e
supplementation on plasma cytokine and neutro p h i l

d e g ranulation responses to high-intensity interm i t t e n t
exercise. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise
Metabolism. 12(2):145-156.
4 Forsling, M., e t al. (1999). The effect of melatonin
administration on pituitary hormone secretion in man. Clin

Endocrinol. 51(5):637-642.
5 Mougin, F., et al. (2001). Hormonal responses to exercise
after partial sleep depri vation and after a hypnotic dru g -

induced sleep. J Sports Sci. 19(2):89-97.

E-books Available at www.X-Rep.com
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The Ultimate Mass Workout,
featuring X-Rep Training. Here it
is: The original X-Rep manual. You
may think you’ve tried it all to build
muscle, but until you ignite the
anabolic fuse with The Ultimate Mass
Workout and X Reps, you haven’t
experienced explosive growth. This
program maximizes all the elements
your body requires for an extreme
hypertrophic response—the single
best exercise for each muscle, precision workouts,
neuromuscular target training, capillary-expansion tactics,
anabolic hormone activation and maximum muscle fiber-
recruitment techniques. It’s all here, waiting for you to light
the fuse and create your own ultimate muscle-size-and-
strength X-plosion.

The Beyond X-Rep by Holman Steve

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The Beyond X-Rep by Holman Steve

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IRON MAN Training & Research Center Presents

by Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson

Photography by Michael Neveux

Cover models: Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson

Copyright © 2005 by IRON MAN Magazine and

The material in this document may not be reproduced in

Chapter 2—X-treme Pumps and Pain to Gain.............11

Bonus Chapter B—The Inner Workings of Steroids:

4 Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building

Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building 5

Watch Ronnie Coleman train and

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Arnold’s Olympia workouts contain a number of examples.

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X-treme Pumps and

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Cut the Volume,

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Experimenting with X Reps gave us amazing gains in only one month in

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Stage Sets and

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it didn’t rip muscles and

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Iso X and X Fade

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after all the tra i n i n g

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