Any type of training that requires you to attempt physical tasks that test your abilities to withstand and endure pain is almost always advantageous for your goals. Bodybuilders know pain, they seek out pain and walk the fine line between what is necessary and what is hazardous for sustaining health while instigating new growth.
No Pain No Gain
There is no way around the fact that to get to the top of the pack and to separate yourself from the masses; you’re going to have to live a life of pain both in and out of the gym. The pain I’m referring to is a good pain, not the type that is so crippling that it keeps you out of the gym but just enough to know that you’re alive and well and on your way to building significant amounts of muscle. The following scenarios are the types of “pains” you should be searching for and welcoming into your life. Anything other than these and you’ve gone into the wrong pain zone.
Set Pain
Set pain is the feeling you get when you are deep into your set. Your muscle feels great, feels full and feels strong yet pain is always present. It’s a burning sensation, or a swelling feeling that is commonly referred to as the pump and this exact type of pain is what becomes very addictive to a bodybuilder. We love this pain because of the simple fact that we know muscle growth will occur as a result. The key in utilizing and exploiting this type of pain for growth is to try your best to train through it. Most people will stop at the slightest inclination of pain setting in; the ones who don’t and do their best to push through it are the ones walking around your gym that you wished you looked like.
Concentric – Eccentric Pain
Very closely related to the set pain described above is the concentric – eccentric pain that occurs during each repetition within your set. These types of reps are excruciating and often fail to get completed because of the enormous effort it takes to complete a set in this fashion. Here’s what you need to do to use this pain to your advantage. On every single rep you’re going to have two pauses; one during the eccentric and one at the end of the concentric. On the eccentric phase of the rep, you’re going to hold the weight in the fully stretched position of the muscle and keep it there until the pain sets in. Resist the pain for as long as you can before driving the weight back up. Once at the top of the concentric, stop and squeeze the muscle as hard as you can again until the pain sets in. Resists that pain for as long as you can and then repeat until your set it over. You think you know pain until you’ve tried this.
Acute Muscle Soreness – DOMS
After the work has been done the next phase of the pain zone you should be waiting for is either the acute muscle soreness that can occur immediately after the workout (this is usually a white-hot throbbing type of pain) or pain that will follow in the days to come known as delayed onset muscle soreness (which can make the simplest of physical tasks a significant and uncomfortable chore). If you experience both then consider the workout that caused this grief for you a success. If you only experience either of the two then consider the workout that caused you the grief a success as well. Pain in the aftermath to me means that you did what you were supposed to do and your body will repay you in new-found growth.
Getting yourself into the pain zone and beyond is no easy task. To help get me there and to help me blast right through the pain barriers that my body is using to try to get me to stop and impede my progress, I use a phenomenal product called Beta-X. I’ve been using this product for quite some time now; my muscles are fully saturated with it so with each new session I’m able to push further than what I did the previous workout which to me is a sure sign of great things to come.
The first time I read that Beta-X was “forced reps in a bottle” I knew this was the product for me. Give it a try if you’re into pain and into training past that pain. And to steal a line from one of my favorite movies, once you do use Beta-X you’ll be thinking to yourself, “Pain don’t hurt.”
