Brightman Fitness

yes, these things are the reason for the bags under my eyes.

also yes, if you do the opposite of these, you'll almost certainly get really ffffffffing good results 💫

if I had to pick one biceps exercise for the rest of my life

if I could only put one biceps exercise in all my clients' programs

it's the low incline DB curl.

Most people train their biceps in the mid-range with standing curls, cable curls, or in the shortened range with preacher curls.

They feel good, but they miss the key ingredient for actual growth: tension under stretch.

Your biceps cross the shoulder joint. That means they're fully lengthened when your arm sits behind your body.

So...

1. You load a muscle in a stretched position
2. That tension creates mechanical signalling
3. Metabolic and structural adaptations follow

→ All of that together is what we label stretch-mediated hypertrophy.

You're not getting that with your standard curls.

So get this one in.

stop running if your goal is to actually look like you go to the gym.

it's not that you CAN'T build muscle with running in your programme.

and it's not that you CAN'T get lean with running in your programme.

it's more that you won't - especially if you're trying to be any good at running.

if you've not built any significant muscle so far, the worst thing you can do is start spreading your bets across two opposing goals.

so trying to be a 'hybrid athlete' before you've even mastered one is a good way to ensure you end up doing neither.

all the hybrid athletes with great physiques you look up to in the space cut their teeth in the gym, lifting weights, progressively overloading, and having a huge focus on building muscle or strength (which will have some carryover if done at high enough volumes over time).

go back on most of these guys' profiles and you'll see them training for hypertrophy, I can almost guarantee it.

when mum says 'will you join my run club while you're here?' there's only one answer 🫶🏼

12 months to completely change your physique, confidence, mindset for the rest of your life.

or just 12 months to stay where you are.

your choice!

comment 'muscle' and ill show you how Chris did it 🤝🏼

DM 'coach' to break the cycle 🔁

the goal isn't to coach you forever.

it's to get you where you want to be, and make sure you have the tools to go it alone from there.

Stop overthinking your rep ranges.

If you’re unsure what rep range to train in, just live between 6 and 10 and get brutally strong there.

That range gives you the best of both worlds: heavy enough to recruit the high-threshold motor units that actually grow, and enough reps to accumulate meaningful volume without falling apart.

Higher rep ranges? Mostly unnecessary.

They give you too many ways to hit failure that aren’t the target muscle: fitness, burn, stabilising muscles fatiguing before the target muscle, boredom?

They also contribute a lot more fatigue than lower rep ranges, because you have to do more total reps to actually reach the 'good' ones.

So here’s the rule:
– Big, multi-joint lifts → stay closer to 6.
– Smaller, 'isolation' lifts → drift towards 10.

Then just get stronger across those movements for months and years on end.

That’s where the real physique is built, not in the perfect tempo or rep count.

never get lean enough 👉🏼 bulk too soon 👉🏼 get too fat (without building muscle) 👉🏼 cut too harsh 👉🏼 fall off 🔁🔁🔁

the endless cycle that thousands of guys are stuck in every year.

if you never complete ANY of these phases properly, I promise you you will wake up in your 30s, very dissatisfied with your physique DESPITE spending the last 10 years in the gym.

comment 'PLAN' and let's make sure that doesn't happen.
(or if it's already happened, let's fix it)