Asking for a Friend: Anybody Know How Long a Muscle Pump Lasts?
Whether you want to look better on the beach or admire your hard earned gains for longer, here's how long a muscle pump lasts.
Whether you want to look better on the beach or admire your hard earned gains for longer, here's how long a muscle pump lasts.
How long does a pump last?
You’re not the first person or the last to ask this question. It’s been asked by teenagers going to on Spring Break without parental supervision and it’s been asked by the parents ditching their kids at a summer camp for a week away at the beach. It’s been asked by anyone whose tried any level or type of strength training. Why? Because there’s no feeling quite like seeing results from hard workouts, and the fabled muscle pump delivers them—but only for so long.
So, how long does a pump last (or, more to the point, what the hell is a pump)? It depends.
A pump—or muscle pump—typically lasts between two and three hours after the conclusion of a training session. Depending on intensity, personal anatomy, and nutrition, some will experience shorter or longer pumps, but for most people the enlargement of the trained muscle group will keep for a couple hours.
To be clear, no research we’re aware of has approached this question directly, so there aren’t peer-reviewed sourced that dictate this estimate. Perhaps this is because the duration of a pump is of less scientific, clinical, or fitness importance than what it means for building and maintaining muscle.
Thus, the two to three hour “pump” window is a generalized estimate. Luckily, there are ways to maximize it. Those ways start with understanding what’s happening to your target muscle group, and why.
In their study detailing the potential hypertrophic benefits of achieving a muscle pump, researchers Brad J. Schoenfeld and Bret Contreras defined it in the following, easy-to-understand terms: “In simple terms, the pump represents an increase in intracellular hydration that causes the muscle fiber to swell.”
That hydration is hyperemia, or increased blood flow, happening in your target muscle group. On top of that, because each contraction (or repetition) demands more and more oxygen, your blood vessels will expand to make room for more blood in the area that’s being worked. In the end, that area is visibly larger than it would be in a resting state.
Generally speaking, the key to a big pump is volume, not weight. A few sets (2-3) with lots of reps (15-20), middling weight, and minimal rest (a minute) will give you a good pump. A few sets with heavy weight in the lower rep range (5-8) won’t be as effective.
One of the most effective set-rep combos for a consistently big muscle pump is the drop set. It’s pretty straightforward, but can be quite taxing if you’ve never tried it. Begin the set at high intensity, complete a medium rep range (8-12), immediately drop the weight by 25 percent or so, and do another set. Repeat this process once or twice more each time you complete a set. The sets become “easier” due to significantly lower loads, but eliminating the rest period—save the seconds required to lower the weight—more than makes up for it in terms of intensity.
Better pumps are achieved through volume—which can be hit with a high number or sets, or techniques like drop setting—but not all exercises are equal in their ability to flood the muscles with oxygen-rich blood. The best are those that maintain tension through the duration of the movement; in other words, there isn’t a “break” period in the exercise.
Example: a standard push-up increase in tension as you descend toward the ground and thrust your torso back up, but at the top of the push-up the muscles your targeting—largely the pecs and triceps—are under very little stress. So the standard push-up is not the ideal quick pump workout. The same can be said for other classic movements like the barbell bench press, EZ-bar curl, and barbell squat. The solution? Some exercises naturally cannot be adjusted into a constantly tense movement, but most can.
For our original example, the humble push-up, simply cut out the top of the movement and only push yourself halfway up the traditional range of motion. This will not afford the pectorals a rest period at the top of the workout and increase intensity in a fairly dramatic way.
You can expect a muscle pump to last two to three hours, but you can puff your muscle up even more if you focus on volume of reps and sets rather than ultra-high weighted exercises.