What’s Holding You Back From Building Muscle? An Exercise Scientist Explains
You're finishing your last set of bent-over rows. Your back feels good mid-set, but before you know it, your grip gives out because you just completed heavy deadlifts, making it impossible to finish your set. In this situation, your grip and forearms are what we call the limiting factor — a "muscle-building roadblock," if you will.
However, there is a way to avoid this from occurring and preventing you from making the hypertrophy progress you want. According to exercise scientist Dr Mike Israetel PhD: 'Good technique is technique in which the target muscle is the limiting factor. Because there are many different ways to move even in the same exercise. And especially if you're built a little different, that keeps the target muscle limiting factor.'
How Exercise Choice Can Affect Limiting Factor Muscles
In a YouTube video, Israetel explains that our choice of exercises can come into play. 'If I'm trying to get a big back,' says Israetel, 'doing some cable rows, and instead of my back being a limiting factor, my grip is loosening and I'm losing my grip. I could do five more good reps for my back, but zero more good reps with my hands, and I just slip. That's a problem, because on paper I'm training my back, but in reality I'm not letting my back get even remotely close to muscular failure, which is where it grows the most.'
The solution for this scenario? Use lifting straps or select better exercises to hit your back.
'There are a lot of different things that are good technique,' explains Israetel. As an example, if you complete single arm rows with a super tight grip and small range of motion, you'll work your biceps and forearms more than your back (which isn't useful if you want to train your back closer to failure). But by adjusting the technique so you loosen your grip and get more range of motion, letting your scapula slide forward with each rep, you can work your lats harder and therefore prevent the grip, biceps and forearms from potentially becoming the limiting factor.
How Exercise Order Can Affect Limiting Factor Muscles
There is also another way a muscle (other than the one you want to grow) can become a limiting factor. For example, Israetel says that if you have squats in your programme and leg extensions, and you want to perform squats well, then squats should take priority in the order of exercises. 'First exercises will generally get the highest stimulus compared to later exercises,' he explains. 'So, if you want a huge squatting stimulus, do it first. If you want a huge leg press stimulus, do that first instead of squats. First exercises will make the muscles trained more likely to be limiting factors in later exercises.'
In other words, the muscles used in the first exercises of your programme may limit the exertion in future exercises. Therefore, it's important to reverse-engineer your programme based on your goals and start your training session with movements that make your target muscles the limiting factor.
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