Everyone has a muscle that is lagging behind the rest. For me it is my calf muscles but for others it is their biceps or their pecs or their deltoids. In this post I want to look at how to build up lagging muscles.
How to bring up lagging muscles
Having a lagging muscle is really annoying. For bodybuilders it makes your whole physique look uneven and it can even cause health problems. If you have one muscle smaller than the others it is likely that your body will be out of balance and you will probably have a pinched nerve somewhere.
So, if you want to build up one of your lagging muscles here are a few things you can do.
1. Hit that muscle first
The best time to hit lagging muscles is first in your workout when your body is fresh, you are full of energy and you are focussed. If you wait until later in your workout you are likely to only use a lighter weight because you are too tired to hit it with something that is going to make it grow.
2. Pre exhaust the surrounding muscles
One trick I was taught a few years ago is to pre exhaust the surrounding muscles so that they don’t “take over” during the exercise. For example, if your triceps are lagging behind everything else you might want to do a few sets of chest isolation exercises before you do bench press or dips so that your triceps are forced to do more of the work.
I am not really sure about this method as I have never stuck to it long enough to see any results. If anyone reading has I would love to hear about it in the comments.
3. Hit them with a different type of exercise
One of the best things to do is hit the muscle with a different type of exercise. You may have been using the same exercise for 10 years and have to face facts that it isn’t working. Try a new exercise - intense reps, 100 repetition lifts, super slow reps, martial arts, sprinting, etc. The new style of stimulation might be enough to get it up.
Conclusion on lagging muscles
I would love to hear about more methods of bringing up lagging muscles. Everyone has a different opinion about how to do this and some of the ideas are really interesting. If you can think of anything not mentioned above then leave us a comment.
May 19th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
i squatted wrong for years. like many people, my knees came out over my toes, and the rest is history. this obviously built my quads (and f’d up my knees). i’ve still never really recovered from all those years of wrong form. the result is that my quads dominate my legs to this day.
all that to say, i pre-exhaust my quads on EVER leg workout to be sure to fully engage my glutes and hams in my traditional deadlifts and squats. to anyone else thinking of pre-exhausting, just know that it WILL reduce the amount of weight you’re able to do in a given lift, had you started with that lift before pre-exhausting. screw your ego, suck it up, back off to a lighter weight, and get that form awesome!
May 19th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Few things you need to mention:
1. Hit your largest muscles (Legs/Back/Chest) with heavy, compound movements such as squad, deadlifts, and bench (Dips are also good).
2. Cycle weeks, have 1 week “Heavy” where you go for 5-8 reps and another “light” week where you aim for 10 reps per set.
3. Switch up exercises frequently and keep your intensity up!
-MV
May 19th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I’m in favor of more and more isolation exercises….
May 19th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Great tips guys! I am impressed with your knowledge. I love all of your tips and they are all very sensible.
RT
May 19th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I know if I have lagging muscles, the first thing I do is exactly what you said, and that is to target that muscle in the beginning of your routine. Secondly, I like to really seperate my routines so that I am really focusing on one or two particular body parts a workout session. I don’t like to do an upper body day and then a lower body day or whatever, I focus in on the muscles I want to hit. I spend an entire day on biceps and triceps alone - hit them hard and then let them resst and grow for an entire week. Too many peopel think that hitting the muscle more every week will make the muscle bigger, while they are actually doing the exact opposite to their muscle. A lot of people over work their muscles and don’t give them enough rest which never allows the tissue that you broke down to actually heaql, regrow, and get bigger. Also, I like many people have fallen into the trap of a routine, but I have a little way to swith it up. First off, I try to go heavier every week, even if it is just by five pounds - if I can’t I am not going to push myself, but I try to up the weight every time I hit the gym. Also, their are certain exercises in my routine that I don’t like to take out, so some days I do them last or other days I do them first. Some days I will stay at a steady weight for 10 - 12 reps, other days I go at a lighter weight for like 15 - 20 reps, other days I follow the 15, 12, 10 , 8 rep routine upping my weight each set. Even just changing the weights, the number of reps or the order they are in your workout will all help you to continue to build muscle while doing the exact same exercises in your routine. Lastly, I do the same exercise but with different bars or machines. For example if I want to hit the tricep - I like many people love the V Bar extensions. However, sometimes I will use the handle or sometime I will just use a rope or whatever. It is almost the exact same exercise no matter what bar you use, but each one hits the muscle in slightly different areas and keeps the muscle guessing which is the key in building muscle. There is just two pieces of advice I would like to add along and that is first off to keep a journal because you can look back and see when you have stopped progressing or what exercise helped you get bigger. Secondly, come up with your plan ahead of time, the exercise, the order, the weight, etc… so you know exaclty what to do when you go into the gym. Personally I have pages saved on my computer with the exercise I want to do and then every few eeks just mix up the order and everything I said earlier, print it out and go to the gym. Now, when I go to the gym not only do I know exaclty what I want to do, but I also don’t think to myself “I am too tired to do this.” I have pre set goals and I follow it - never comprimising my workout. Hope this will help someone out there.
-Dan
May 19th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Dan - fantastic comment! Really great tips in there, thank you for posting.
RT
May 20th, 2008 at 6:57 am
i like get ripped soon’s idea about alternting heavy week-light week-heavy week…
i would suggest that the light week be aiming for 15-20 reps, as dan suggested, though. think you’re all big and strong. Can you squat 1.5x your body weight for 5 reps? put on 135 and try to do 20 clean reps…talk about a blow to the ego…but legs that are on chiseled and on fire.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
No need to thank me for the popst RT but thanks. We are all here to help each other - thats why I am here and I have one more thing to add and that is that I, like Jason said earlier like to do a lot of isolation exercises. So ,mamny people love compound exercises becasue it works different body parts, but I don’t like to do too many compound exercises. You can overwork certain muscles which can lead to injury and lack of growh as I mentioned earlier. Also, when doing a compound exercise you are letting other muscles do the work for you.
Also, personally dumbbell exercises are often best as well because not only does it take other muscles out that you use when you have a straight bar. For example, if you do a shoulder press with dumbbells instead of a straight bar or Smith Machine, you pretty much take your triceps out of the equation now putting a lot more focus on the shoulder - which is what you want. You are not looking to train triceps when training shoulder - all it does it let you get more weight up there because you are using more body parts and may think you are progressing when you really are not.
This is not to say never to use a straight bar, but look to isolate body parts, especially lagging ones. Lastly, don’t add too much weight. If you are addingm ore weight than you can handle, that can not only lead to injury, but it can also lead to you losing your mechanics and mechanics of your exercise are half the battle.
In conclusion, I like to just make sure of two things. One, that I isolate lagging body parts and secondly that mechanics are good.
May 30th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
These are some exceptional tips. Hitting your muscles with different exercises is crucial to building muscle mass. Your muscles become accustomed to certain routines, and therefore it’s harder to tear down the muscle fibers. So you need to hit your muscles differently to stimulate them again. I’d recommend switching up your routine every 6-8 weeks.