Saturday, December 27, 2008

Having a Pump Does Not Mean You Will Gain Muscle

By Ricardo d Argence

Your back is firmly planted on the bench as you wrap your chalked hands around the cold, steel bar. Your training partner helps you un-rack the weight as you power the bar up and down, squeezing your chest and triceps on each grueling rep. You complete your 6 repetitions, re-rack the bar and stand up. Your chest feels tight and engorged with blood. You take a look in the mirror, thrilled with how full and vascular your pecs appear. You feel strong, powerful, healthy and motivated to blast through the rest of your workout with your newly achieved "pump".

So, what's exactly a pump? It's nothing but the tight, blood-congested feeling in a muscle after it has been intensely trained. Is the feeling that you get as blood becomes trapped inside your muscle. And it's a great, great feeling. But you don't go to the gym and perform all that effort for hours just for that feeling. And that feeling does not guarantee you'll achieve your gain muscle goal.

Don't worry if you achieve a pump during your workout, it's not a bad thing. It's nothing but the natural result of intense weight training. Its blood running trough your veins, that's all. But, if you go to the gym to get that feeling instead of focus on gain muscle, well, if you think that's the right way to get the look you desire, let me tell you one thing: you are wasting your time (and money), and you are completely wrong...

Which is better, the pump or the feeling of totally exhausting your muscles to the point of failure when it is nearly impossible to pick up a pencil? Good question because I can promise that one is asked a lot. People love the feeling of being pumped and the blood flowing thru their muscles. "Dude, this will give you a crazy pump!", a guy in the gym tells to another one in the gym, thinking there's no better way to make their muscles grow.

A pump is simply the result of extra blood within the muscle tissue. Think of it this way: if I took a pair of 10 pound dumbbells and performed 300 reps of a bench press movement, I would achieve an incredible pump. If muscle pumps meant muscle growth, then super light weight, ultra high rep programs would be the most effective way to grow. Any serious lifter with half a brain knows that this simply is not the case.

This is the way it should be: if you keep a record of your workouts and week after week you are increasing the weight you lift, if you can perform some rextra reps, you are in your way to that huge muscles you desire, even if you were far to achieve a pump. Remember that pump blood into your muscle tissue is not the goal.

Building muscle mass and strength is all about training with 100% intensity on every given set and then striving to improve from week to week. If you are able to consistently achieve this, your muscle size and strength will increase faster than you ever thought possible, with or without a pump. - 16004

About the Author: