Información Cualitativa

William Litz took his physique from a soft 220 to a hard, abs-blazing 210 in only eight weeks using X-Rep partials and stretch overload. His legs responded nicely too.

BEFORE AFTER

Larry Scott often extended his sets with partials at the top and bottom positions for more tension time.

Model: Larry Scott \ photo courtsey of Robert Kennedy

(continued from page 115)

Photos courtesy of William Litz

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www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2007 119 than just burns, which were usually

performed in the contracted posi-tion. As I said, I like to do X Reps in the contracted position too, but I think the stretch position takes priority. That’s the beauty of X Reps;

they can be tailored to any move-ment and can work at various posi-tions.

Doing heavy X-Rep-only sets, as Ferrigno did on incline presses in “Pumping Iron,” can attack the stretch position and wake up sleep-ing pec fibers. Hittsleep-ing that bottom stroke of the rep on the Smith ma-chine will give anyone an unreal burn. Holman and Lawson describe standard X Reps as end-of-set par-tials. So you would do a full-range set to exhaustion, lower the bar to

near your chest, and then fire off eight-inch partials in the stretch-po-sition range. Once again, incredible burn.

What about top-end X Reps on presses? The top of pressing move-ments is almost all triceps, so if you’re hitting chest, stick with bot-tom-range partials. Work in and around that bottom half of the rep, banging out as many partials with constant tension as you can.

Machines can make the technique more effective. On Smith-machine inclines, for example, you can focus on pushing without balance issues, so you have more control. All it takes is two bottom-end sets with X Reps on Smith-machine inclines, and my chest is toast.

X Reps are spawning many varia-tions called X-hybrids. I mentioned Double-X Overload earlier. Oth-ers include various pulse-pushing methods performed at certain areas along the range of motion and/or in combination with other techniques like multirep rest/pause, also known as Dante’s D.C. training. The evolu-tion is excellent because all good training methods should be flexible enough to be tailored to a trainee’s individual needs.

Here’s an example of how I’ve adapted the X-Rep concept to my leg press calf raises, an approach you can easily use on donkey or standing calf raises.

Start with two warmup sets. Then stretch each calf for 30 seconds and then 60

sec-Ronnie Coleman uses continuous-tension exercises in his workouts, but he rarely holds the contracted position.

Holman and Lawson’s X-Rep concept primarily stresses the bottom, semistretch point at the end of a full-range set.

Models: Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman

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122 APRIL 2007 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com onds. For the first work set load a weight that lets you crank out 10 to 12 reps. At full-range exhaustion let your heels sink as far down as they will go and hold the stretch for 10 seconds. Now push the footplate up as far as you can and do five pulsing X Reps. Hold the fifth X Rep in the full stretch po-sition for 10 more seconds. You can stop there if the pain is too intense; I usually don’t quit.

I get the weight back up by hook or by crook to the top and do five squeezes at the contracted position;

then I lower and hold the bottom stretch for yet another 10 seconds.

At that point I’ll stop, have my partner strip off a few 45s and then immediately crank out 12 more full reps. On rep 12 I lower and hold the stretch for 30 seconds. But I’m not done.

I jump/hobble off the leg press and on to a wooden block, where I do more freehand stretches. I do a deep stretch for 60 seconds on each calf followed by a few bodyweight calf raises.

Ouch! Two rounds of that torture, or something similar, is all I can take. I finish with one set of seated calf raises for 50 to 100 reps, usually with just a 45 on each side. On the last rep I hold the contraction as

long as possible before racking the weight, and I’m usually sobbing like a little girl—but a little girl with very big calves!

X Reps combined with static stretches aren’t fun unless you’re the kind of person who enjoys being tied up and flogged (but that’s re-ally none of my business). Despite the pain they cause, X Reps and X-hybrid techniques are some of the best training tools I have ever used, and I recently proved just how effective they are. After allow-ing myself to indulge in a doughnut diet (I don’t suggest it—it’s tasty but not that great for muscle size), I found myself in very brutal shape.

I needed to get lean and add some size in a hurry. X Reps combined with stretch overload and extreme stretching transformed my physique in eight weeks (see photos on page 118). I went from a fat 220 pounds to a tight 210 with abs in only eight weeks. You can see that I dropped bodyfat while adding lots of muscle and strength, something I’ve always found difficult to do.

I noticed immediately that X Reps work very well with fascial stretching (popularized by trainer John Parrillo and more recently by Dante). The intense stretching helps loosen the fascia surrounding the

muscle, thus allowing more space for the muscle to grow. Often lifters who have a stubborn muscle group will find that the fascia surround-ing that particular muscle is too constricting. Stretching and stretch-overload exercises, as well as X Reps, can help remedy the situation somewhat.

Why burns fell out of favor is beyond me, as all top bodybuilders used the technique in the 1950s and

’60s. It clearly produced amazing builds in the decades before chemi-cal warfare became the norm. Now X Reps and other current methods take that old technique and run with it—to painful and strange places where huge bodybuilders roam.

Note: For more on X Reps, visit www.X-Rep.com.

Editor’s note: William Steven Litz is vice president of R. Litz &

Sons Co. LTD. and is the founder of Cobra-Gym Training Systems. He’s been training for 15 years and for the past eight has trained clients of all ages—from high school ath-letes to senior citizens to top-level powerlifters and national-level bodybuilders. He offers online- and personal-training consultations and is in the process of opening a new state-of-the art strength-training facility. IM

Partials, Burns and X Reps

The biggest bodybuilders usually start bench presses in the lockout position but don’t lock out again till the end of the set. Bottom partials stress the low, semistretch point of the stroke for continuous tension and maximum fiber activation.

Model: John Cowgill

(continued from page 119)

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