1

It always amazes me how many people feel that their is a simplicity to the sport of bodybuilding. It is those same people that don't last for more than a month in the gym! They leave when they discover just how complex this sport really is! It goes beyond picking up a weight and curling or benching it. Far beyond! In order to be successful you must be efficient at creating extreme blood pumps, stimulating hypertrophy in type I, II a and b muscle fibers, increasing your strength, improving your neural system's efficiency, and on top of all that you need to have the ability to bring up parts that are lagging behind others. Symmetry is extremely vital! What if I were to tell you that there is a certain shocking method that can significantly improve each and every one of the areas mentioned above? Exactly, you would roll up your sleeves and be ready to get some serious growth! Amazingly, there is a shocking method that exists, that has the power to accomplish this! That method is what I refer to as the, " power partial, " principle. Lets get into it, shall we!?

Partial Reps

A partial repetition, is any rep performed less than the full range of the intended exercise. For example, only going down 45 degrees on a squat instead of 90 degrees ( parallel ). They can also be performed as 3/4's of a rep, half a rep, a 1/4 rep or even as little as 1/8 of a repetition. What is important to understand is that each of these variations has a significant place in the sport of bodybuilding. All of which will be discussed and broken down for you in the paragraphs to follow. I give you my personal guarantee, that by mastering this technique, you will pack on extremely insane new layers of muscle mass! So buckle up, cause its going to be one hell of a ride!

I remember hearing a story as a teenager that has intrigued and motivated me for years. There was a legendary power lifter. He was 100 pounds away from breaking the current world record. However, no matter what he tried he just couldn't break the plateau that he was in. Then it hit him! He picked up a shovel, went out to his backyard and dug himself a hole that was deep enough to fit almost his entire lower body. He stepped into the pit and set the ever elusive weight in front of him outside of the hole. At this range he could easily dead lift the weight because he did not have to use a full range of motion. Every workout he would fill the hole with a layer of dirt so that the dead lift was closer and closer to being done at a full range of motion. He did this until one day the entire pit was filled to the top and he was able to break the world record with a full rep dead lift!

As hardcore and motivating as that story sounds, I'm not going to actually have you dig a hole in your yard as I am sure your parents, wife or significant other would not appreciate this taking place. Instead I will apply a more systematic program that will give you tremendous gains in the shortest time possible!

I will use the squat as an example to explain this method below. However it can be applied to essentially any exercise! I prefer power movements though, like squats, dead lifts, bench presses, dips and bent over rows.

One sure fire way to create hypertrophy is to lift heavier poundage's. For instance, take a man who can parallel squat 250 pounds for 6-10 repetitions. If he becomes strong enough to lift 300 for 10 repetitions, he will without a doubt have larger legs. Its that simple. A quicker way to adapt to these greater poundage's is to actually lift with them. Unfortunately, it is obvious that this man could probably only lift 300 for perhaps 1-2 reps before hitting failure. However if he uses the partial repetition principle and performs a 45 degree squat rather than a parallel one, he can easily handle this kind of weight for 10-12 repetitions. This will train his neural system to be more efficient at lifting heavier poundage's and it will also stimulate a tremendous amount of fast twitch muscle fiber growth! In short, by doing this, his body will be able to handle this weight at a parallel range, at an extremely faster rate!

With this in mind, many trainers decide to incorporate heavy partial reps exclusively for weeks on end in order to strengthen their clients squats, bench presses and other power movements. However, I feel that an athlete will get much greater results, if he combines heavy full range sets with power partial rep sets. My reason is if you exclusively work for weeks in the top range of motion, then the lower portion of your squat will get weaker. Therefore I find it much more productive to begin by pyramiding up until you perform a normal heavy set of 6-12 repetitions on your squat. Follow this with 3-5 sets of extremely heavy partial rep squats. In a nutshell, the emphasis still is placed on partial reps, while the lower portion of the exercise remains not only intact, but actually increases in strength from week to week! By doing this you will find that the weight you use on your set of full rep squats gets heavier every week! And as I stated before, this translates to serious muscular hypertrophy!

Here is a sample program I would use with squats for a person who can currently lift 250 pounds for 10 repetitions.

Method I - Workout One:

3-4 sets. I prefer 20 reps with an easy weight followed by 15, 12 and finally 8 reps. None of these are to failure. I never even count warm up sets. They are simply performed to get blood into my legs and to prepare them for hardcore training. I usually follow this up with some intense stretching.

Set One: On the first set you should choose a weight in which you reach failure on a full range of motion for 10 repetitions. In the case we are currently using, that would be 250 pounds for 10 reps.

Sets Three through Six: If your normal full range of motion is parallel or 90 degrees, then this set you will perform your reps half way down, or rather 45 degrees. You will raise the weight a total of 20 percent. Therefore, you will perform 300 pound squats at half your normal range of motion until you reach failure.

Every week you will try and raise the weight on the full range set. Even if its only a total of 5 pounds per workout. I have seen several people's strength levels literally shoot through the roof on this program! I usually utilize this method until I hit a plateau. Which takes approximately 8 weeks if I differ my training slightly throughout the process.

Method 2 - Workout One:

The other method that works equally as effective is to perform the half repetitions first, followed by the full repetition squats. In this case you would perform 5 sets of partial rep squats followed by one set of 10 reps using a full range of motion.

Methods combined!!

In order to avoid plateaus I will often rotate these methods with myself or my clients. For example:

By the end of the 8 weeks my strength will have increased incredibly! The only downside is that I may need to purchase a new pair of pants due to the extreme growth that will occur!

In this sport, you must be your worst critique. Success depends on your ability to:

1st. Analysize your physique. Usually the first thing I do in the morning is examine my body. Find its strengths and weaknesses.

2nd. I will review how my strengths became strengths so that I can continue down that path.

3rd. I come up with a game plan to bring my weaknesses up to par with my strengths. As a note, the first thing I do in this situation is apply the priority principle to the lagging body part. You can read about this by clicking here. I then go through my long list of weapons and choose the one that best serves my purpose.

A favorite of mine is of course the partial repetition principle. I will use it to literally pre-fatigue a lagging bodypart. For example, if I determine that my biceps peak falls behind its length, I will pre-fatigue its peak with a half movement at the top range of motion, before blasting it with a full range movement.

Lets take the barbell curl. It is the top range of motion that heightens the muscle. What I will do is to take the weight I normally curl and only perform slightly less than half repetitions, for 3 sets till failure at the top range of motion. The key here again is the " peak " of your biceps. With this in mind I will squeeze for about 2 seconds every time I get a peak contraction in the muscle. Following this I will perform 3 normal sets with the same weight in a full range of motion till failure. Here is the trick, because your lower biceps are semi fresh, their momentum will allow you to continue with this same weight even though the upper half of the movement is essentially spent! This is because the momentum that the lower range of the exercise will create will be sufficient enough for the peak of your biceps to handle the weight. In this situation you get the best of both worlds! You were able to stay with maximum poundage and blast the peak of your biceps twice as hard as they are accustomed to! Which of course translates to serious muscle growth! This method has done wonders for my muscles. Wonders! The gains are incredible!

Layout of workout:

1. Choose a weight you can normally curl in a full range of motion for 10 repetitions. When I say this, I of course mean that you would normally fail at 10.

2. Take this weight and curl it 10 times in the top half range of motion for 10 reps.

4. follow this up with a set of 8 reps in the top range of motion, rest and then get a set of 6 reps in the same range.

6. Perform 3 sets to failure with this same weight. You need to still get 10, 8, 6 reps for the sets. Simply because this is the whole point of the exercise, to blast your peak two fold. If you can't reach the target number of reps, apply the cheating method to your set. To read about this click here

The essence of bodybuilding could easily be defined as, the process by which one stimulates as much hypertrophy in as many muscle fibers as possible. That is our goal in this sport, to target as many fibers as we possible can, followed by rest and exceptional nutrition. It is this concept that inspired me to deem this magazine, Beyond Failure. Simply because failure does not mean that you have targeted a maximum amount of muscle fibers. And what better way to go beyond failure than to incorporate partial repetitions?

How to Properly Incorporate Them After Failure.

What you will need to do after reaching failure is to shorten the range of motion you are using so that you can continue on in the set. However, I must warn you, this is not and I repeat, not for the faint of heart!

_________________________________________________________________________________

" I am willing to bet that 90 percent of you reading this would never attempt what I am about to suggest! "
_________________________________________________________________________________

Example 1:

In case you haven't noticed by now, I am obsessed with the squat. And why not? Its the most effective mass building exercise on earth. However it is also the most painful! And as real as this fact may be, you will automatically double and perhaps triple that pain by utilizing partial reps past failure! I am willing to bet that
90 percent of you reading this would never attempt what I am about to suggest!

Begin by thoroughly warming up! After which, you should choose a weight that you can lift for 8-10 strict repetitions! As difficult as this exercise is most will be ready to rack the weight, but as I have stated so many times before, you have passed the point of no return! With this in mind let the pain begin! You will stand straight up with the weight still on your shoulders and rest pause for about 3-5 seconds. Use this time to get focused. Imagine your legs exploding! Tell yourself that this is what separates you from the competition. On that note perform half squats until you reach failure. Half way through the set your mind will completely turn against you, but your will must take over. This is a stage of conditioning only known to the experienced athlete! You should reach failure at around 8-10 reps. Wait don't rack it yet! Pause for 3-5 more seconds and rack out 5 quick 1/4 - 1/8 range repetitions! Kind of like the reps you see dumb asses doing who load up the bar with way too much weight and get 2 one 1/8 range reps. The difference of course here is that you will actually get unbelievable gains at this stage! All 5 reps, to put it bluntly will be hell. Each one will seem to drive you deeper and deeper into the gym floor, until you feel as if half of your body is buried! Once you reach this rep range set the weight up and crawl away from the rack! If your intensity is great enough this will suffice for the rack today. Follow this up with your normal leg extensions and hamstring curls and get ready to grow like never before!

note: The extremely advanced may repeat set. Again if you were 100 percent intense this should be enough. Also this is the extreme limit of this method of training. You can also just perform half reps to failure and then rack the weight. The 1/4 method is extremely advanced, however you will get a tremendous amount of growth wih the 1/2 method by itself as well.

Biceps: barbell curls, dumbbell curls, machine curls, preacher curls.
Legs: squats, leg presses, leg extensions
Back, dead lifts, pull downs, barbell rows
shoulders: Military press ( ouch! ) Dumbbell shoulder presses
calves: standing and seated calf raises
traps: shrugs of any sort
triceps: dips! lying triceps extensions

I cannot stress the importance of an extreme blood pump enough! It forces your body to have to adapt to a greater flow and most importantly it delivers extremely vital nutrients to your muscles! In the future I will dedicate whole articles to the importance of a blood pump alone! As a quick recap, here is a quote from my article on supersets that will further enhance your comprehension on this concept of bodybuilding:

_________________________________________________________________________________

Our vascularity not only contributes to a muscles overall size but also to how well the muscle functions. A pump will build more capillaries in a muscle, which gives it more size and also makes it way more efficient at getting rid of waste products and pumping in needed substances for growth, such as creatine and glutamine. For your appearance new vascularity will be a sure sign to every one that you are in tremendous shape. You will be surprised at how a few new veins can bring you compliments such as " Damn, you're looking huge and ripped today!"

_________________________________________________________________________________

There are many ways to create a mind boggling, eye searing blood pump! However, none are more effective than partials. There is a special method I use to further enhance this methods effects on blood flow.

30 second method

1. I make the pump my main concentration! This simply means that nothing at the point of the exercise I am performing is more important than pumping as much blood into the muscle as I can! Nothing!

2. In my opinion, the best way to intensify the pump is to perform extremely quick and short partial reps. It should take about a quarter to half a second to perform one.

As far as blood pump is concerned I usually first choose a weight that allows me to get 8-15 repetitions. When I reach failure I will rapidly pump my legs up and down. Mind you I am still in control. The weight isn't leaving my feet. Otherwise, I perform them as quickly as possible while still maintaining control. I will continue to pump my legs for a total of 30 seconds. The range of motion is usually half a rep for 15 seconds followed by 1/4 to even as little as 1/8 of a rep for the final 15 seconds. Again I don't care about the rep, I care about the blood pump! I stop at 30 seconds, hence the name 30 second method. Invented by yours truly!

I prefer using isolation exercises to carry out this torturous method. My personal favorite area to improve, using a blood pump is my forearms. Nothing is more impressive than a pair of huge and vascular forearms. Again, this concept can be used on any body part. Below are my favorite exercises for each.

Traps: You want huge traps! Try using this method on dumbbell shrugs after failure! They will be popping out of your body like mountain peaks!

hamstrings: be careful using it in this area. Hamstrings are susceptible to injuries. I perform the reps a bit slower when working this muscle. And the exercise I prefer is lying leg curls.

shoulders: any lateral movement. Front raises, side laterals, bent over laterals

Triceps: machine press downs, cable press downs, and behind the back dips

calves: I prefer standing and donkey. I feel that the blood pump is much more intense during these exercises.

Again, I primarily use this method as a way to improve an aspect of a muscle group. However you should
also understand that any shock to your body will ultimately result in muscular hypertrophy. Therefore you can use the following method with a specific area of a muscle group in mind or the overall concept of added mass
in mind. When I say " over target " I mean that during a course of an exercise you should give the " desired " aspect of that body part more attention.

Example: Shoulder Width

If my chief concern during side lateral raises is to " cap " off or peak my side deltoid then I will perform a one and a half rep, with the half rep being in the upper range of motion. I would begin by lifting the dumbbells all the way up until I have reached a state of peak contraction. At this point I would slowly lower the weight half way down and pause for a second, followed by raising the weight back to a peak contraction, after which I will lower the weight all the way down and start the process over until I have reached failure. This is by far one of the best ways possible to cap off your side deltoid. It is this aspect of training that is strongly desired for many athletes in the sport. And as a bonus, you will look 10 times better when wearing a tank top!

Conclusion

A strong argument can be made that this is the greatest shocking method known to man! It doesn't matter what your current goal is, whether that be mass, vascularity, strength, improved symmetry or a combination of them all, this giant in the field of bodybuilding can be your greatest ally! With this in mind, heighten your senses and harden your mentality! For there is nothing easy about this method of training, but when the smoke clears you will stand with a new layer of muscle mass! If you have any questions, you can get them answered first class in our forums or by emailing me.

Power Partials

Introduction

Partial Reps

Method I - Workout One:

Method 2 - Workout One:

Methods combined!!

Layout of workout:

Example 1:

30 second method

Example: Shoulder Width

Conclusion