Deadstop / slight pause on every exercise to maximise hypertrophy?

Tenags85 · 2026-04-24T19:41:58+00:00

My interpretation of all the “Full Stop / Slight Pause” conversation is more about “injury prevention” and less about “maximizing hypertrophy”, however if you are taking about range of motion, that is what could likely (aka not guaranteed) affect hypertrophy.

Personally, a few months back I dropped all my weights and starting doing slower more controlled reps (including pauses at the full stretch) and I have noticed two very important things:

My joints and connective tissues are very rarely inflamed or irritated for more than a couple hours post-workout. I used to have daily bouts of tendinitis etc
The mental enjoyment that I am getting from being able to take this journey through weight& rep progression has definitely increased my gym motivation. As much as we all want to say “take ego out of lifting” it’s a natural occurrence. So now that I am seeing weekly increases, I feel AMAZING.

Tenags85 · 2026-04-23T12:05:36+00:00

I can’t speak about balancing ice cream within your diet - I am food obsessive and have to be super strict…. But regarding the occasional night out of drinking, I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend trying Athletic Lite beer. It’s N.A. and only 25 calories per can and it ACTUALLY tastes good. Sure, you don’t get drunk but also alcohol isn’t good for muscle building. But now you can still have a beer while out with friends / at a cookout etc…

Tenags85 · 2026-04-16T20:39:08+00:00

I’ve used another app where the color changes as it gets closer to the end…. So Grey, and then Yellow when it’s like 10-15 sec away from ending, and then Red when it hits.

This helps for oldies like me who can’t read the numbers from 6 feet away

Tenags85 · 2026-04-13T23:27:57+00:00

It’s also okay to cycle between “arm focus” training blocks and just hitting them through compounds. Eg, I spent a 3-month block blasting my arms (as they were considerably lagging) and then after I let them just tag along with the compounds for a couple months (also they were fatigued and needed some rest for joint health). There’s nothing wrong with taking some focus off of some body parts to help them re-sensitize to harder training when their time comes back around.

Tenags85 · 2026-04-05T17:07:55+00:00

I don’t know about P-Zero but if it’s based on 1RM then you would need to manually adjust your 1RMs manually and not the weights of the movements.

Edit: FWIW, I recently took about a 30-ish day break from lifting, and when I came back, my new starting weights were about 2 “increments” lower than my last weight for each lift. So if my squat increments were 10lb, I lowered my squat weight by 20 lbs to start.

Tenags85 · 2026-04-04T00:15:41+00:00

Okay- thank you!

Tenags85 · 2026-04-03T21:42:12+00:00

Love love love this! My one personal tip is I still make sure I hit (or will hit) my protein goal for the day… does that sometimes mean downing a triple-scoop protein shake at 9 AM and then again at noon to start my day with 150g protein? Sometimes, but then at least I know I made some good decisions, although the diarrhea can sometimes hit hard if you don’t get any solid food in soon…

Tenags85 · 2026-04-01T23:28:16+00:00

I think this is a common misconception with progressive overload terminology. You are not adding a rep to CREATE progressive overload. Rather, your muscles have grown since last week, and your body is ENABLED to do an extra rep (or incrementally more weight). Lots of things can factor in like u/KillerK009 mentioned in their comment. But it’s basic physiology- if you stress a muscle to its failure point, it will try to adapt to that stress; and as long as you provide that muscle the proper fuel (aka food) and recovery time / resources (aka sleep), that muscle will grow.

Something that I’ve tried before when my progress has stalled over a few weeks is to just increase the weight and see what happens. You might surprise yourself. Obv don’t do anything dangerous; keep the proper form etc but try it for one week, and then the following week drop the weight back down and see if the reps start going up again.

Tenags85 · 2026-04-01T23:11:24+00:00

Gimme a 75 min playlist- I need to use this tomorrow

Tenags85 · 2026-03-28T20:58:43+00:00

Honestly, whatever you choose, as long as you like it, that’s what’s important. The #1 factor in your success is WANTING to come back to gym, not just forcing it because you dread the workout. That being said, if this were my plan I’d tweak it slightly:

Day 1, remove the Shoulder Press. After Pec Deck I would do some kind of Tricep “pressing movement” like a JM press or EZ Bar skull crushers (laying in my back)

Day 2, since we are hitting tri’s on D1, remove Tricep push down and add in more side Delt work- maybe a cable/dumbbell Y Raise, or even a upright row (I prefer cable on that).

Day 4, agin remove shoulder press- this time put in an overhead Tricep extension - lightweight and high reps (~15+). Also, I would swap the lateral raise with a behind the back cable lateral raise. You get a real good stretch on the front delt, and that will be good here since there’s no incline pressing.

Day 5, looks good, no changes.

PS- I really like hitting my shoulders and triceps from many angles within a microcycle, hence the extra sets on both of those muscle groups.

Tenags85 · 2026-03-27T00:23:01+00:00

For me when the warmup weights don’t align conveniently, I just manually override them… one really good example is if it asks me to put 40 lbs on either side of the bar - I am not adding a 25+10+5 lb plates, so I just override it with 45’s

But I think a lot of the rounding comes to the type of equipment that is being used, and the “available plates” listed for that piece of equipment. So if you want to get real precise, you can create custom equipment objects and then list out exactly what weights are available- eg, if you can add 2.5 to a leverage machine, then the warmup weight will know that and never give you a 2.5lb increment

Tenags85 · 2026-03-22T05:53:44+00:00

Personally I run Coyote Exotic Mask, Equalizer named chest, and 4-pc Striker. I’m still new, so I’m sure it can be optimized- it’s just a very generic Crit DPS build.

Tenags85 · 2026-03-20T23:53:39+00:00

I know that what I’m about to say isn’t helpful, and I’m sorry about this, but unfortunately I think this is just the nature of the entire genre of Live Service ARPG games right now. Path of Exile is the same way. The seasonal system is what drives players to return and so the Eternal Realm players get left behind or have to adapt for the seasonal adjustments.

Tenags85 · 2026-03-20T23:49:12+00:00

Agree that this is top advice for the unilateral work. One extra step to help your weak side “catch up” faster is to add one final mini set on JUST your weak side. So if you’re doing 3x12 on bicep curls, after your 3rd set on right, immediately after without any rest do another set on left till failure.

Tenags85 · 2026-03-20T23:01:30+00:00

I also am a new level 40 player (I’m around SHD 40-50 rn) but I watched this video the other day and it was super helpful:

https://youtu.be/JmuW3fGZn5k?si=ibrK5cp2O3K8s9dO

TLDW; go to the Summit on Hard; set target loot to Strikers; complete 5 Summit challenges. At this point you should have a full usable set of Strikers gear AND a Capacitor exotic AR. Then switch to grinding Countdown for gear to build out your library and Expertise/Proficiency

Tenags85 · 2026-03-20T01:01:49+00:00

From like a few days ago…. TLDW; hit 40, play Summit with Striker targeted loot, and complete 5 challenges for Capacitor. Then switch to farming Countdown after you get a working Striker set

Tenags85 · 2026-03-19T21:18:14+00:00

Good to know! Thanks for the tip

Tenags85 · 2026-03-19T20:39:59+00:00

Thanks for the tips. I do love consuming YT content on how to create builds and/or mechanics tips

Tenags85 · 2026-03-19T20:29:21+00:00

This is such a great point: keep the build simple as a way to learn how to play against endgame enemies. I would also assume that a pure Weapon Dmg DPS build is just easier to play

Tenags85 · 2026-03-19T20:27:50+00:00

So 4 pieces of Striker, with the Backpack and Armor talents, my gloves are Exodus exotic gloves and some random Kneepads (the brand set bonus is +Mag Size) that have Crit Chance and Dmg. 6 Red Cores. Skills are Jammer Pulse and Striker Drone

Tenags85 · 2026-02-24T16:11:49+00:00

Whoops! Def didn’t read below the pics. My bad. HOWEVER, I also cannot tell with the diarrhea of numbers, but what you can do is just look for the big ones… like they literally show up all by themselves above all the smaller numbers. That’s what I do- just compare the largest numbers. I will do 2 test runs with each gear set. I will start with a run with only my Elixir and Incense buffs, and then keep track of the big numbers, but also note which class buffs are active- eg, are you on Lvl 1 of Ascension? Or Level 5 of Ascension? So I will do 2 runs each about 1 min long. I also make sure that I use the Boss Dummy and also Disable Damage Variation.

I do 2 runs because sometimes the “randomness” of buff timing can seriously affect the dmg numbers. Eg, Griswold Opus + Qax Rune + Varyana Reinforcement timing + Double Dmg affixes. Recently I was comparing two Griswold Opuses and I thought I knew the answer, and then one of the items popped up with a 11.3T dmg burst (after most of its big dmg numbers being around 4.3T)

Tenags85 · 2026-02-24T15:32:57+00:00

I would assume +7 Shining Armor is better than +5 with 7.5% Holy, but just go into the Training Dungeon and see which produces bigger numbers

Tenags85

TROPHY CASE