My Critic said… “Touch your chest!!!!! C’mon”

Had an awesome workout in London a couple of days ago.

Found a gym with 132-pound dumbbells.

So I had to rep them in the good ole incline press.

Got 7 reps with these beasts!

I’m at 181 right now… added a bit of size to my physique with Kino Gains (Creatine HCL + Betaine).

The additional volume to the muscles especially helps with these heavy sets.

This set felt good!

So I posted it up on IG.

I always get a few critiques on my heavy sets for “not going deep enough” (that’s what she said, lol).

This was no exception.

The current fitness trend is “Stretch-Mediated Hypertrophy.”

It has been driving me nuts…

Fitness influencers are acting like if you don’t get a serious stretch in your heavy sets that you are leaving a lot of gains on the table.

I simply don’t buy into this.

It’s all based on a study.

The funniest thing is the study doesn’t even back their stance!

In order to get additional growth you are looking at 30 minutes of weighted stretching.

This meta-analysis looked at several studies.

It found a small effect when weighted stretches were performed for more than 30 minutes per session.

But the high number of studies where weighted stretched were done for less than 30 minutes?

No effect!

On my heaviest sets, I just like my elbows to slightly break 90 degrees.

This is just to make the lift safer.

For incline presses, I feel like going much deeper than this is a greater risk of injury without much reward.

Also, in the real world, most force is generated from a slightly shorter range of motion.

Imagine throwing a punch or pushing a heavy object.

You rarely have to push something from such a deep stretch.

So I lower until my elbows just break 90 degrees.

And use all the target muscles to contract hard to reverse that weight and press it back up.

I do the same thing with shoulder presses.

It works well!

I will oftentimes go a bit lower on the lighter warmup sets or the lighter work set.

If there is some benefit to lengthened partials (aka deeper reps) then I can do that on my lighter set and focus on going deeper.

Because if the bottom 1/4 is much harder than the rest of the lift – that limits you.

Save the deep stretch work for your lighter set (not the heavy set).

You can also maximize muscle from progressive overload and reap some of the activation from a deeper rep on the lighter weight set.

Greater strength gains, less risk of injury

But when the weights get heavy.

When I have 110, 120, and 132-pound dumbbells in each hand?

I will just lower until my elbows break 90 degrees.

The proof is in the pudding.

I’ve built my most muscular, powerful physique ever by lowering just below 90 degrees.

Hitting PRs on my heavy sets.

Taking Mojo, Nitro, and Gains.

I recommend doing the same.

Talk Soon,

Greg O’Gallagher

P.S.

Although stretch-mediated hypertrophy is a myth, there seems to be some evidence for “lengthened partials.”

However, it’s not due to the stretch per se.

With lengthened partials, you can target specific areas of a muscle.

For instance…

I’m going to experiment with training the bottom half of a squat.

This will target the quads closer to the knees.

I’ll share my findings in a future video or email.