@robrandazzo Yeah I don't understand this at all. Maximum pump for me IS training to failure (not 100% ultimate true mechanical metabolic failure whatever the fuck) on as many sets as I can tolerate.
So if you're properly chasing the pump. I.e. going for the fatest most skin tearing pump possible you absolutely are wrecking yourself.
Anything less than this method of chasing the pump means your chasing like 70% pump.
I'm on TRT I've used gear. I've used every single pump product. From cialias to viagra to creatine to everything that goes into any imaginable pre-workout to anadrol pre-workout.
And I've done years training natty with none of this.
You're half assing or in otherwords NOT chasing the pump of you're not reaching failure utilizing slow temp rep pacing at a moderate intensity across multiple sets.
An example 60 reps as few sets as possible. It's arbitrary, it really depends on the muscle the intensity/volume you can tolerate.
But we'll just say tricep rope downs or hammer curls. First set is 15 reps. We're talking like 6-8 second it burns like a motherfucker reps. And by your 8-10 set you're doing 5 reps before you literally can't do the 6th rep.
THIS is chasing the pump. Idk how the fuck anybody else does it, so excuse my language but nothing will put literal stretch marks and growth faster on you're body than doing this. Natty or not the method doesn't change. Your "supplements" just enhance how long you can go at it. And how fat you're end pump will be.
But to say chasing the pump doesn't result in hypertrophy is bullshit. And to claim its somehow different than regular hypertrophy training. It's largely like 80% the same. Because if you're doing you're hypertrophy training at an intensity and volume that will lead to growth the pump is literally inevitable. And if you focus specifically on the pump. Its the same shit.
Once you hit failure. But dif your 60 reps or whatever. Then you drop set until you hit 5 pounds all the way from 60 or whatever and are literally fucking crippled. Then you start doing partial reps or isometric holds whatever is more appropriate for the exercise.
Literally this IS both the most optimal hypertrophy and pump chasing method. But as far as hypertrophy specifically ignoring your pump, volume/intensity/fatigue have to be balanced.
You can't literally obliterate your arms like that 3 days a week.
After a while you can only manage that level of brutality once a week.
And obviously this doesn't apply to squats or deadlifts.
You can attempt high volume squats and deadlifts like 531 BBB if you're a psychopath and want to risk your back.
Not trying to be an asshole. I'm pointing out that hypertrophy and chasing the pump when done correctly ARE largely the same exact thing. Powerlifting and doing high intensity low volume is the exact opposite and a different camp. But once you start dropping the weight and increasing reps and sets but maintaining a certain closeness to failure and you're not momentum swinging reps but doing them slow and controlled. This IS the same as the most optimal way to chase the pump.
I know this is getting extremely redundant and you're all free to try and tell me I'm wrong and argue this whatever. But utilizing hypertrophy techniques such as partial reps and drop sets after reaching failure and your main set goals to further tear the fibers up or whatever were calling it now IS the same thing as the most optimal way to chase the pump.
So I really wish we'd get off this chasing the pump doesn't build muscle bullshit. Because you're not chasing the pump correctly or doing your hypertrophy correctly if you think they're 100% two different animals. There's like an 80% overlap in volume rep range techniques intensity between the two. It's an absurd thing to say chasing the pump doesn't do shit.
I literally look like the Michelin man with an absurd alpha swole walk after hitting pull day. And that's not me being an egotistical asshole. That's how inflated my lats are afterwards, as in i cant put my arms down closer to my sides. And my backs huge.
Watch how Kai Greene or alot of other guys hit arms for hypertrophy and BB. Drugs aside that's EXACTLY what you do for chasing the pump. It's the same thing as his hypertrophy.
I'm just over this but the research paper said bullshit. Vast majority of training research papers are on beginners or elderly people because they're trying to prove a drug or supplements results. Then the other ones that aren't are on poor sample sizes have poor setups. I.e. people of differing body weights heights BF levels. Etc. Most of them are poorly controlled.
Read the papers, keep them in mind. Take them with a grain of salt and look at what's consistent between everyone bigger and stronger than you. Drugs and natty. Look at what they consistently do. Prioritize this and then supplement that with research.
Keep in mind chasing the pump does NOT mean you ignore progressive overload. And you're an idiot if you think that's what it means.
Chasing the pump means you've made the metabolic demands temporarily so great that your body had to dilate every blood vessel in the tissue to force more nutrients energy, blood oxygen and glycogen into the tissue. And you're a fool if you somehow think that isn't hypertrophic.
Chasing the pump for this very reason also increases vascularity and vein size in that area as an adaptation so that it can more efficiently be fueled in the future. Which also allows it to recover and grow faster from enhanced nutrient delivery.
To make your metabolic demands so great that your body has to maximize blood forced into it, mean doing hypertrophic training techniques such as drop sets to failure after your main progressive overload sets. Doing partial reps after initial failure. Doing isometric holds or slow releases after failure.
It basically involves beating the fuck out of the muscle and when it fails. You lower the weight until you can do it again. You're trying to maximize the failure. Until you can't curl a 5 pound dumbell after you did your 50 pound hammer curls.
If you're trying to chase the pump by just doing 10 easy reps for 10 easy sets. Then yeah you're doing it wrong and you're receiving no stimulus from that.
I'm not gonna say anything else. Go downvote me because the research says. Hypertrophic training maximally and chasing the pump maximally are the same thing are largely two parts of the same animal. 80% overlap. The other 20% is some people do not train to failure and then dropset and continue to destroy themselves in that manner. Some people strictly do 3x10 sets or whatever and this isn't the most conducive to pump chasing.
Obviously as you're 1rm goes up you have to use a lower starting % of 1rm because of the CNS fatigue. (Yes CNS fatigue, go dropset 200 pound cable rows all the way to 5, every bar of weight 0 rest inbetween, youll be exhausted soaked in sweat and your back will be ripping out of your shirt)
And to say chasing the pump style of training is bullshit. Then you have the wrong picture of what that actually means in your head.