Your chalked hands are poised to grip the glistening, cold bar as your back presses firmly against the bench.
Your training partner helps as you un-rack the weight, and you move the bar up and down, squeezing your triceps and chest muscles with each grueling rep.
Re-racking the bar after working through 6 reps, you plant your feet firmly on the ground and stand up.
Engorged with blood, your chest muscles feel firm and tight.
Looking in the mirror, you are impressed with the appearance of your vascular pecs.
Powering through the remainder of your workout is a cinch, considering the new “pump” and how powerful and motivated it makes you feel.
The fact is a pump is the best feeling in bodybuilding.
For those who are still new to this, a pump happens when blood gets trapped in your muscle tissue during resistance training.
Whether or not this does a lot for stimulating muscle growth is open to debate, regardless of how powerful a pump can help make you feel.
Ultimately, getting a pump is simply what happens when you focus on weight training intensely, and there’s definitely nothing wrong with it.
However, keep in mind that the myth that a pump indicates a successful workout and helps in stimulating muscle growth is absolutely baseless.
Don’t try and waste your time gauging a pump as a marker for a great workout.
I’ve heard countless lifters share stories on their massive pumps and offer advice on how to get the best one possible.
“If you want a huge pump, you’ve got to try this!”. "
Those who have been bodybuilding for a long time have certainly heard it before.
Even though a pump feels awesome, it does not do anything in terms of stimulating muscle growth.
A pump is nothing more than the result of extra blood that is trapped inside your muscle tissue.
Ultimately, if I got a pair of 10 pound dumbbells, I would easily achieve an incredible pump by performing 300 reps of a bench press movement.
Look, if muscle pumps really meant something, the trick for stimulating muscle growth would be light weights and high reps.
All it takes is some basic knowledge of bodybuilding to realize that this is not the case.
So how do you know if your workout is stimulating muscle growth?
It’s not that hard….
Check out last week’s workout records and compare the weights and reps to this week.
Are you progressing?
Did you change up anything by adding more weights or increasing the number of reps?
If your answer is positive, rest assured that your workouts are successful and effective at stimulating muscle growth, regardless of whether or not you felt a pump.
Every week, your job is to give 100% on every given set and always work to constant improvement, if you want to build strength and muscle mass.
If you do this consistently, stimulating muscle growth will be easy, with or without a pump.
After reading this, I hope any confusion relating to “pumps” and their role in stimulating muscle growth has been cleared up.
These days, finding a reliable online source for muscle-building information has become quite a challenge.
If you want to learn the truth behind 14 other common, counterproductive "myths", visit www.MuscleGainTruth.com.
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