The Pump

The Pump

Working with you, I will explain what I call the pump. As your personal trainer, I am educated to see when you are pumped and when to stop for the day. The only way to grow muscles is to allow them to rest or recover. This is something most people do not understand.

Regardless how intensely you think you are working, there is one sign that will never fail to tell you if you are working intensely enough: increased blood flow into the muscle, physiologically called hyperemia, a.k.a. "THE PUMP"! The pump is not just a "side effect" of exercise. For muscle-building purposes, the pump is the main goal of exercise. Working together, I will get you to this stage and you will be pumped.

No one can say for sure why pumping up an undeveloped muscle will make it grow, but experience shows that it does...every time, always, no exceptions! (all other factors like proper food and rest being equal, of course). By the way, testosterone is not necessary for this type of muscle growth to occur.

Testosterone is a hormone that creates new muscle fibers in boys as they develop into adults. These new fibers are made out of permanent structural proteins. Testosterone has little effect in creating new fibers in adults. The type of growth we are talking about here is the increase in the size of existing fibers in both men and women, not the creation of new muscle fibers. This enlargement of existing fibers is due to the addition of labile or temporary proteins (mainly actomyosin). The pump is the best way to deliver these proteins and other nutrients to the muscle fibers.

Achieving a pump requires strict attention to timing. I will schedule a routine to reach all muscle groups. Filling up your muscles with extra blood is like filling water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Fluid has to flow into the vessel at a faster rate than flows out of it. That means you can't take a break and start socializing while in the middle of working toward a pump. Your time with me is about the pump, we must stay focused together on this. We will work with maximum intensity until we achieve a pump. Then, when you can not get it pumped any more, we will QUIT EXERCISING that muscle. Nothing deflates a pump quicker than over-exercising.

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