Although not the sole purpose and focus for everyone who attends the gym, many individuals lift weights to achieve the end goal of enhanced strength and muscular hypertrophy. The problem with weightlifting is that it can quickly become monotonous and boring. There are only so many ways you can lift weights and only so many variations of the same exercise. You have to find ways to keep both your mind and body guessing, not only to enhance motivation levels but also continually shock the target muscles to keep on developing. One alternative method from your traditional set repetitions is a strategy known as burnouts. In a nutshell, this means working the target muscle or region to exhaustion. This is generally thought of as an effective method to develop both muscular strength and size. This article considers the use of the burnout strategy within a weight training session, including the theory behind why it works and the various benefits it offers to traditional lifting methods. There are also other similar training methods to the burnout known as pyramids and drop sets. These variations invoke similar responses; however for the purpose of this article only burnouts will be contemplated.
Building Muscle With A Burnout Session
To perform a burnout for any given exercise you should commence at the base which involves reduced resistance and higher repetitions. Gradually you should alter the balance of these 2 variables whereby you reach the peak and perform lower repetitions at an enhanced resistance. You then work back down to the base again before finishing. Allow no more than 20-30 seconds rest in between each set otherwise your muscles will start to recover which is not the desired outcome of this exercise method. One of the many advantages of the burnout method is that it can be applied to every single gym based exercise. As long as you have a means of enhancing the resistance, you will be able to perform the burnout successfully. So why is the burnout so effective at building muscular mass? This exercise strategy places further demands on any given muscle compared to traditional lifting methods. Internally, this creates a spike in the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone, as the name aptly suggests, is a hormone responsible for stimulating growth and repair processes. Ultimately, the greater the release of growth hormone, the greater rate of protein synthesis. Due to the stresses and strains created on the target muscle through burnout sessions, this strategy isn’t suitable for everyone. Novices should ensure they have developed a suitable foundation of strength before attempting such training methods. Even experienced gym users should tread carefully with this method and take care not to overload any given muscle. For this reason, the burnout method is best utilised infrequently, rather than every single session.
