What is Muscle Manipulation?
Grow bigger and stronger muscles in just 10 weeks. Dedicate your time and effort over the course of 10 weeks and shape up like you have never been before.
If you have been doing the same exercise, same weight, and same reps for months or years, naturally, your muscles will get into a comfort zone. Nothing is surprising about this, as all that’s mentioned are recipes for plateaus in growth and power.
Well, I am not a comfort zone guy and have decided to break through plateaus. My Muscle Manipulation program is the product of me stepping out of the familiar and certain environment. Muscle Manipulation training works on your muscles with light weights, heavy weights, low and high repetitions, straight sets, and more.
Muscle Manipulation is the perfect program to achieve a leaner physique while adding muscle w and dropping body fats. The program will get you out of your comfort zone at the same time maximizing its benefits.
Taking on The Muscle Manipulation Training Program
The program can be done in two options. Option 1: training can be done 4 days a week for 10 weeks. Choosing this option lets each muscle group worked on every 7 days. Option 2: training can be done 6 days a week for 7 weeks. The Muscle Manipulation is a four-day split, taking 4 separate workouts to train all the main muscle groups.
Workout 1 involves training the chest, abs, and triceps while Workout 2 works the back, biceps, forearms, and calves. Workout 3 is focused on shoulders, traps, and abs. And Workout 4 trains the legs and calves.
Exercise Arrangement
While the four workouts will train the same specific muscle groups in the same manner throughout the 10-week program, the selection of exercise, rep ranges, and exercise order will take turns every other week.
The workouts done in the “odd” weeks: 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 are the “heavy” workouts. During these weeks, the rep ranges vary from 3-5 reps per set to 9-11 reps. On the other hand, the workouts done in “even” weeks: 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 are the “light” workouts since rep ranges change from 12-15 reps per set up to 21-30.
The heavy workouts for each muscle group progress in a regular manner by doing multi-joint exercises followed by single-joint routines. Meanwhile, the light workouts start with the pre-exhaustion technique by doing single-joint exercises and end with big compound moves.
For example, when performing chest workouts, you will do bench press first and followed by reverse-grip bench press and incline dumbbell press (for heavy workouts). You will finish the routine with dumbbell flys and cable crossovers.
As for light workouts (highlighting chest as an example), you will start the workout with cable crossovers followed by low-pulley crossovers and incline dumbbell flys (these three single-joint exercises focus on working your pecs). Finish this with dumbbell and barbell bench press.
I implement the pre-exhaustion method every other week in the Muscle Manipulation program to work on strength gains and build the pecs.
Program Sequence
The Muscle Manipulation training works by drastically changing the weight and reps from the week before while the linear pattern is random commonly referred to as undulating periodization.
The program involves 4 types of game plan or periodization layouts: linear, reverse linear, undulating, and pendulum.
Linear periodization is a project that works by increasing the weight in each stage while the repetition counts drop.
The reverse linear is simply the opposite of linear periodization where the weight decreases and the number of repetitions per set increases.
Undulating refers to the fashion that is fluctuating, which means there are no specific reps and weight as these change up and down throughout the program.
And pendulum alludes to one part of the program where weights and reps change in linear function in one direction. For the second part, the weights and reps change in the opposite direction but linear fashion.
When you check this program, you will see the swinging pattern with weights and reps suddenly change up and down. But if you pay more attention, you will discover that it actually combines the linear and reverse linear periodization schemes to come up with an undulating plan weekly.
The 4-days-per-week training is the same as the 6-day plan but the latter is the compressed version. But I will cite the first former as an example.
For Weeks 1, 3, and 5, the weight increases while the rep ranges drop in a linear manner. See sample: Week 1 = 9-11 reps/set, Week 3 = 6-8 reps/set, Week 5 = 3-5 reps/set.
Now, for Weeks 2, 4, and 6, the weight drops each workout, and the reps increase in a reverse linear manner. For example: Week 2 = 12-15 reps/set, Week 4 = 16-20 reps/set, Week 6 = 21-30 reps per set. Incorporating these schemes create an undulating plan.
Training with a linear scheme for heavy workouts and a reverse linear scheme for light workouts will give you muscle and strength gains.
Higher Reps = Bigger Muscles
The Muscle Manipulation program involves some weeks of performing 21-30 reps per set. This may sound exhausting, but according to recent research, one who trains with a weight that allows completing 21-30 reps and taking each set to muscle failure is said to gain more muscle mass compared to those training with lower range reps.
This specifically designed training is guaranteed to give you gains in strength and size by incorporating high-rep sets. For more details about the high-rep program, click this link here.
Doing Just the Right Volume
For the “odd” Weeks 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, you will only be doing 2 sets per exercise and 5 for most major muscle groups. This will sum up to 10 sets per muscle group.
On the second set of each exercise, once muscle failure is reached, you will do a rest/pause for 15-20 seconds before picking up the weight again and resume repping to failure again. But after the rest/pause, you need to do a drop set by decreasing the weight to 20% to 30% and then back to failure again.
This technique turns 2 sets of training into 4 which are breakdown as follows: one straight set + going to failure initially on the second set + the rest-pause set + the drop set. Multiply these by 5 exercises and you will come up with 20 sets per muscle group.
But for the “even” weeks: 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, you will only be performing 12-15 sets per primary muscle group at a lighter weight. This will be enough for your muscles to take a break from doing the heavy workouts.
Rest Periods
Rest periods depend on your goals. For fat loss, you can rest for 60 seconds maximum. I suggest adding cardio acceleration to that minute. For muscle building, a minute or two rest will be enough. Take a maximum 3-minute break if you are after muscle strength.
Cardio Exercise
What type of cardio workout works well with Muscle Manipulation training? I highly recommend cardio acceleration regardless of the goal you want to achieve.
Any form of HIIT exercise also works well with Muscle Manipulation. You can either use the standard HIIT or Tabata technique at the end of the workout and/or on active rest days.
