#lexx finally translates one of her memes

[lexosaurus]

Out of the kindness of my heart, I'm offering a translation of what Dash is saying below the cut. Warning, it's...a bit nerdy.

"You know, Fen-teeny-tiny, as far as hypertrophy's concerned, it's really all about the stretch you get when you do lat pulldowns."

Hypertrophy is a vocab word that simply means to increase the size of the muscle via strength training.

Stretch refers to the literal stretching, or lengthening of the muscle. There has been some research showing that focusing on training the muscle when it's in its lengthened position causes bigger muscle growth than its shortened position or even with full range of motion.

Lat pulldowns are an exercises that works the latissimus dorsi muscles in the back. They are the two large muscles that go down either side of your mid-back. You do lat pulldowns by sitting down, leaning back slightly, and pulling a bar attached to a cable down to your chest and back up.

So all together, Dash is saying that by focusing on the lengthened position of the lat muscles when doing the lat pulldown exercise, a person can achieve greater muscle growth.

"See, when most people do lats, they're using their arms too much. Not me. I get that full stretch on the lat when I do my pulldowns."

It's common for people who are doing lat pulldowns who maybe have incorrect form or are "ego lifting" aka using too much weight than they can probably handle, to have issues where the muscles in their arms take over the exercise. This would lead to someone perhaps not building nearly as much lat muscles as they thought they were. (I know, from experience, this is a VERY common beginner mistake!)

"It's how I get this dorito shape. Not that you'd know what a lat stretch feels like, Fen-twerp."

The lat muscles famously help bodybuilders to get that triangle shape that they so desperately work to build. When your lats get big enough, you can even do a "lat spread" which makes you seem even more like a triangle. If you think of a bodybuilder pose, this is what they're doing.

The dis to Danny I don't think needs any explanation lol.

"But it really is all about the stretch. When I work my triceps, for example, I always go overhead with my extensions because that's what gets you the best stretch on the long head. It's why my arms are so thick. Unlike yours, which are so thin I'm surprised this slight breeze isn't snapping them in half."

The triceps, which are located in the back of your arm opposite your biceps, are composed of three different sections of the muscle attached at different points to the bone called "heads": the long head, the lateral head, and the median head. Depending on which tricep exercise you choose to do, it can put emphasis on different heads. For example, the "cable pushdown" exercise that is extremely popular for building triceps at the gym puts emphasis on the lateral head, which is the biggest tricep muscle group. The overhead cable extension, which is when you face away from the cable machine with your arms over your head, seems to be the current rated best tricep exercise for hitting all three heads in their stretched, or lengthened, position. Which, as we've established, is great for maximum muscle growth.

"If you ever wanted to do a push or pull day with me, Fent-RPE-0, I could show you the ropes."

Push or pull day refers to the PPL or "bro split" which is an exercise routine that breaks your gym days into three categories: a push day where you focus on exercises that have a pushing motion to build muscles primarily in your chest, triceps, and shoulders (think dips and chest presses); a pull day which focuses on exercises that have a pulling motion to build muscles primarily in your back, biceps, and core (think pull-ups, lat pulldowns, and bicep curls); and a leg day where you do exercises to build muscle in the legs (like squats and deadlifts).

I don't think Dash does leg day so that's why he doesn't offer to do one with Danny.

RPE stands for your rate of perceived exertion, aka how hard on a scale from 1-10 you're pushing yourself. 1 means literally nothing, and 10 means you're pushing yourself to absolute muscle failure in your set. The dis here is that Danny has an RPE of zero, as in he doesn't do shit.

"My gym program is insane. Max failure on every set. You'd be so sore the next day. Not that I care, or anything, I'm just saying—"

A gym program is the routine that a someone will primarily follow to make sure that every gym session is efficient and that they cover all their muscle groups throughout their week.

Max failure refers to working the muscle till it gives out instead of hitting a specific number of reps—or amount of times you're doing that specific exercise before you can rest. A set is one round of doing that for x amount of reps (repetitions). So if I'm doing bicep curls for 3 sets of 8 reps, it means I'm going to do 8 bicep curls, rest for a few minutes so the muscle can recover, and then repeat that two more times. In Dash's case, he is going to do bicep curls until he can't lift his arm any more before he stops to rest.

Lexx Tidbit: Working to failure instead of just hitting a required number of reps can be a really great way to quickly build a lot of muscle. I personally train this way, where I'll choose my weight based on a range of reps I could realistically hit (say anywhere from 6-10 reps per set usually) and I'll work the exercise until the muscle it targets fails and I physically cannot do the exercise with proper form without resting for a couple minutes first. The downside to this is that your body is going to be VERY sore after, which is why I do not and never will recommend training this way to total beginners.

So....yeah. There you have it. A full translation of Dash's gymbro nonsense. I do not apologize for typing any of this or making your eyeballs read this. In addition to being a total Danny Phantom nerd, I am a fucking exercise nerd. And now you know exactly how much of a fucking exercise nerd I am.

every time i read more of your danny phantom themed gym bro nonsense i regret knowing how to read

*snorts a line of preworkout*

You know, Fen-teeny-tiny, as far as hypertrophy's concerned, it's really all about the stretch you get when you do lat pulldowns. See, when most people do lats, they're using their arms too much. Not me. I get that full stretch on the lat when I do my pulldowns. It's how I get this dorito shape. Not that you'd know what a lat stretch feels like, Fen-twerp. I don't even think you know what a lat is. But it really is all about the stretch. When I work my triceps, for example, I always go overhead with my extensions because that's what gets you the best stretch on the long head. It's why my arms are so thick. Unlike yours, which are so thin I'm surprised this slight breeze isn't snapping them in half. If you ever wanted to do a push or pull day with me, Fent-RPE-0, I could show you the ropes. My gym program is insane. Max failure on every set. You'd be so sore the next day. Not that I care, or anything, I'm just saying—