Any shorter, your muscles won’t be fresh enough for your next set. Any longer than that, and you’re going to spend way too much time in the gym. Keep rest periods relatively short – just long enough to recover and put full effort into your next set. (1) Performing your sets as indicated above will land you squarely in the optimal TUT range for building muscle mass. Research suggests that increasing TUT during your weightlifting sets by lifting with an intentional tempo can increase muscle protein synthesis and therefore increase hypertrophy. Then, lower the weight with control, and pause again for a second in the stretched position before repeating the movement. A great hypertrophy tempo is 2-1-2-1, where “2” refers to the lifting and lowering portions of the exercise and “1” refers to pausing in the contracted and stretched positions.įor hypertrophy, perform each rep by lifting with explosive force, pausing in the contracted position as you squeeze your muscle. You can increase time under tension by lifting with tempo. The optimal TUT for hypertrophy is 30-60 seconds per set. “Time under tension“ refers to the amount of time your muscles spend contracting and relaxing while lifting a weight. The first thing you have to consider when planning your muscle building routine are the training variables necessary for hypertrophy: This guide will show you how to sculpt slabs of muscle with only dumbbells as your chisel. They’re neither better, nor worse, than any other piece of gym equipment.

No way! It’s perfectly possible to get jacked with dumbbells.ĭumbbells are merely one tool in a muscle building toolbox. Or you belong to a commercial gym that doesn’t have a great selection of other weights or machines.ĭoes that mean you’re doomed to looking like a scrawny high schooler for the rest of your life? Maybe you’re building a home gym, and dumbbells are the only equipment you have. So you want to get jacked, but you’re limited to using only dumbbells for your workouts?

Muscle building workouts