Training: Big Finish

BIG FINISH Finishing off your routine with moves that take you to the limit is the fast-track route to muscular growth Story by: BILL GEIGER, MA Art/Images by: IAN LOGAN

Great endings— whether they occur in sports, on film or on your last date — are the memorable ones. Such was the case in the surprise finish to the 1999 film The Sixth Sense when the viewer discovered, along with Bruce Willis’ character, that he’d been dead all along. On the football field, Vince Young’s late heroics powered Texas to a thrilling win over USC in last year’s BCS title game. What does this have to do with your workouts? Everything. Sure, what you do at the beginning of your routine when your energy levels are highest has a profound effect on how successful you are at reaching your goals. But it’s what you do at the end that makes the difference between completing a workout that felt just good and one in which you’re completely fatigued, pumped and exhilarated, having left it all on the gym floor. That’s how you know you’ve fully exhausted the muscle fibers, putting them in the best position to benefit optimally from the ensuing recuperation/repair/growth cycle.

To put you squarely within that window of opportunity, here we prescribe a finishing move for each of your main muscle groups — an exercise or combo with which you complete that bodypart’s workout and take the muscle to its working limit. We recommend isolation moves rather than multijoint exercises, allowing you to concentrate fully on the muscle in question and eliminating assistive muscle groups. In addition, we favor using machines over free weights, alleviating the worry about having to balance a weight after your stabilizer muscles have already been worked overtime.

To crank up the pressure even more, we apply intensity-boosters such as drop sets and supersets to our finishing moves. This increased intensity means you can push every single muscle fiber to its threshold. Perform these finishing moves last for the appropriate bodypart, and if you train more than one bodypart in a workout, you can do a finisher for each. Sure, it’s tough, but that’s how you guarantee a fantastic finish. You may not have Vince Young’s moves, but you can still have an MVP workout — every workout.

FINISHER FOR DELTS GIANT SET: BENT-OVER LATERAL RAISE + LATERAL RAISE + DUMBBELL UPRIGHT ROW + OVERHEAD DUMBBELL PRESS

>> Here’s one in which light weights can be made to feel heavy. Since you do this set last, you don’t need to worry about using less weight; focus on making the muscle really burn. The giant set may use some of the same moves you already did in your workout, but that’s okay. Here, we’re training just for the pump.

START: Bend at the waist, knees unlocked, holding a fairly light pair of dumbbells just outside your legs.
MOVE: Do a bent-over lateral raise for rear delts, then stand up and go right into a lateral raise for middle delts. Immediately do an upright row, keeping your elbows high, then finish off with an overhead dumbbell press. When you’re done, don’t just stand there — raise your arms directly overhead and hold for 60 seconds.
SETS + REPS: Selecting the proper weight is crucial; going too heavy means you won’t be able to complete many reps, and going too light will make it too easy. Start with a weight that’s 10–15 pounds lighter than what you’d normally use for 10 reps of lateral raises. That’s a relatively easy weight for the first move, but that will help fatigue the muscle. You want to be able to do about 10 reps for each of the four moves. Don’t forget to raise your arms at the end. Rest about two minutes and repeat.

FINISHER FOR CHEST THREE-WAY CABLE CROSSOVER
>> This single-joint move is done over three angles. This cablecrossover tri-set comes from fourtime NPC Mr. Puerto Rico Mauricio Solis, 35, a personal trainer at Extreme Body Gym in Humacao who says it gives him an incredible pump. Use a weight about 10 pounds lighter on each side than you’d normally use for 10–12 reps.
START: Attach D handles to the upper-pulley cables and stand midway between the stations with your feet hip-width apart. With a slight bend in your elbows, pull the handles down until your arms are roughly parallel to the floor. Keep your head straight.
MOVE: Squeeze your pecs and bring the handles together in a wide arc directly in front of your lower abs, mimicking a most-muscular pose. Hold the peak contraction for a count, then slowly retrace the arc to the starting position. Bring the handles down to your midsection for the first seven reps, then bend over 90 degrees and do seven more with your upper torso parallel to the floor and your arms perpendicular to your torso in the finish position. Finish off by taking two big steps forward and performing similar to the first seven reps, bringing the handles out in front of your body as if you were hugging a barrel.
SETS + REPS: Do three sets of 21 reps each set.

FINISHER FOR QUADS AND HAMS LEG EXTENSION (WITH DROP SET) SUPERSET WITHWALKING LUNGE
>>The best measure of a good leg workout is not being able to walk up the stairs when you’re done. This intense superset, which is a favorite of Solis’, provides the added pleasure of burning the muscle from the innermost fibers. The moves help build quadriceps detail and separation.
START: Grasp a barbell or a pair of fairly light dumbbells and keep the weight(s) close to the leg-extension machine. Sit snugly in the machine so that your knees are just off the edge of the pad.
MOVE: Contract your quads to fully straighten your legs. Focus on the peak contraction and hold it momentarily; don’t explode the weight up just to let it quickly fall back. Allow the weight to pull your feet all the way down, but not to the point where the weight stack touches. Repeat until you reach failure, then drop the weight by 20%–30% and perform as many more reps as you can. Jump off the machine and do a set of walking lunges in an open space, taking a long stride and allowing your body to descend just short of your back knee touching the floor.
SETS + REPS: Choose a weight that allows you to do 12 reps on the leg extension and at least 10 steps per leg on the walking lunge. Rest two minutes after the lunges and repeat the superset twice more.

FINISHER FOR TRICEPS ROPE PRESSDOWN (CONTINUOUS REST-PAUSE DROP SET)
>> Perform this basic triceps move as a burnout. Start with a fairly challenging weight, then drop the pin one plate between sets. Do as many reps as you can, resting as long as it takes to reset the pin and shake out your arms — about 25 seconds only. Repeat until you’ve fried your tri’s.
START: Attach a rope handle to an upper-pulley cable and grasp it with a neutral grip (palms facing each other). Stand erect, pinning your elbows to your sides for the duration of the move. Allow the handle to pull your forearms up to where they’re just above parallel to the floor.
MOVE: Squeeze your triceps to press your hands toward your thighs, turning your palms downward (pronation) to spread the handles apart at the bottom to further contract the muscles. When you can’t do any more reps this way, simply keep your hands facing each other and perform as many reps as you can. Reduce the weight by just one plate and repeat. Continue this pattern of going to failure with pronation and then without, taking a short break and dropping the weight.
SETS + REPS: Do one long set, starting with a weight with which you can do only about 10 reps. Drop as many as 5–6 times — or until your arms feel as though they’re going to fall off.

FINISHER FOR BICEPS
>> This move is more than just a good mass-builder — it also helps chisel the kind of detail and refinement that make arms a standout bodypart, Solis says. You’ll add an isotension move between sets, a fancy way of saying you’ll flex your bi’s very hard.
START: Hold a pair of dumbbells by your sides. Have extra ones nearby in increments of 10, 20 and 30 pounds lighter than the ones you start with.
MOVE: With your elbows locked by your sides, curl one arm at a time, bringing the weight close to your shoulder — the key is to not allow your elbow to pull forward to ensure the front delt doesn’t assist with the move. Lower the weight and alternate sides. Once you reach failure, drop the weights, pick up the next lightest pair and repeat for as many reps as you can per set. Rest only after you take all four weights to failure.
SETS + REPS: Start with a weight that allows you to complete about 10 reps. After you finish the series of drop sets, rest for about two minutes, alternately flexing your biceps as hard as you can for 15 seconds, with 15- second rest intervals, then repeat the drop set.

FINISHER FOR BACK STRAIGHT-ARM PULLDOWN SUPERSET WITH STANDING LOW-CABLE ROW
>> This superset combines a good isolation move for the lower lats with a high-rep move done at a nearby cable station to deliver a knockout pump to your back.
START: Attach a neutral-grip V-handle to a low-pulley cable for the second half of the move and select a weight with which you can complete about 15 reps. Then attach a lat bar or a short straight bar to the upperpulley cable and stand erect about 2 feet or arm’s length from the bar. Use an overhand, shoulder-width grip, keeping your arms straight and your knees slightly bent. Pull the bar down until your arms are parallel to the floor.
MOVE: Pull the bar down until it approaches your thighs, feeling your lats do the work. Repeat for reps, then quickly move to the low cable, standing just more than arm’s length from the V-handle. From a slightly bent-over position with your feet wide and your back in its natural arch, pull the handle into your midsection, bringing your elbows as far back as you can. As you start to fatigue, speed up the pace.
SETS + REPS: Perform one set of the straight-arm pulldown for 10–12 reps, then quickly do a set of 15–20 rows. Rest about two minutes and repeat twice more. M&F