Cracking the Muscle-Building Code: Milos Sarcev’s Hyperemia Advantage Training System
Buckle in. You’re about to get the biggest pumps of your life, and your muscles — even your most stubborn bodyparts — will grow like never before.
How? With the Hyperemia Advantage Training System, the brainchild of former world-class bodybuilder turned training and nutrition guru Milos “The Mind” Sarcev, a man whose competition resume is surpassed only by his client list — a who’s who of champion bodybuilders, from Flex Wheeler to Flex Lewis.
Sarcev talks about his first experiences using his Hyperemia Advantage principles, when he knew he had created something special: “I was getting mind-boggling pumps during my workouts, and then retaining that pump after the workout was over. I still had a full-blown pump hours after my training session was over. It was amazing!”
It was his “secret sauce,” as he calls it. And now he’s sharing his principles with the most diehard members of the JYM Army to help you reach your ceiling in size, strength, and striations. Consider Milos Sarcev your trainer now, as he’s officially a member of Team JYM — another brilliant mind alongside Dr. Jim Stoppani, PhD.
The Hyperemia Advantage Training System involves an all-out blitz in two major areas: intra-workout supplementation and heavy-duty hypertrophy training. Simple, but not easy. And well worth it for those willing to put in the work. Are you up for it? Good, let’s do it.
Your Golden Opportunity to Drive Muscle Growth Everyday
Trainers like to say, “you don’t grow muscle in the gym – you grow at rest.” Sure, you need rest and recovery and a good night’s sleep. But if you don’t take full advantage of that hour or so in the gym, you could have the best sleep of your life and not grow an ounce of muscle. Your training session is hugely important for stimulating muscle growth for one simple reason: blood flow.
“The human body contains about five to six liters of blood,” says Sarcev. “When you’re at rest, you maybe have 10% of that blood in your muscles – there’s really no need for more than that, since you’re not physically active or training. But when you start doing any type of physical activity, the blood goes to the muscle fibers that are being used. When doing a bodybuilding-style workout, you can accumulate up to 60%-70% of your blood in a particular muscle group you’re training. There’s only one time during the day when you’re going to have that level of accumulation of blood in the muscles: when you’re training.”
Don’t waste that precious time – 45 minutes, an hour, however long it is – going through the motions in the gym with the only nutrients in your system coming from the piece of fruit and bowl of oatmeal or yogurt you ate an hour earlier. This is the time to flood your muscles with a tsunami of growth-producing amino acids… and train your ass off!
Hyperemia Advantage Step 1: Saturate the blood with critical anabolic nutrients
You’re planning to train within the next hour. What do you do? Start sipping on the amino acids that are going to be delivered to your muscles while you’re training to make them grow. That’s just the beginning, though. You’re going to keep taking in those same nutrients, as well as quick-digesting carbohydrates, through the entire workout.
Sarcev explains why…
“During your workout,” he says, “you want to saturate the blood with specific nutrients that are pre-digested – anabolic and anti-catabolic nutrients like the amino acids creatine, beta-alanine, citrulline, essential amino acids (EAAs), and branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). And actually, it’s best to start taking these in before your workout so they’re already in your system when you start training. You also need to take in a carbohydrate source, something like glucose, that will very quickly get into the blood to trigger an insulin release. Those nutrients will be in the bloodstream at the same time as the insulin.”
One thing most people don’t realize is that insulin is an anabolic hormone. There’s a negative connotation surrounding insulin, but when you’re in the middle of a training session, with the goal of driving serious muscle growth, having a strong insulin release is to your advantage.
“The release of insulin is going to force all those anabolic nutrients into the muscles,” says Sarcev. “While you're training, every contraction during your workout – literally every rep – is opening up the cells so that they’re ready to take in those amino acids. The important thing is to have those nutrients available; if they’re not, you’re wasting the perfect opportunity to send them into your muscles where they can help build lean muscle mass.”
So, exactly what beverage can you drink to get all the anabolic amino acids and fast carbs Sarcev is talking about quickly into your system? He’s formulating an exclusive intra-workout JYM supplement as we speak, but in the meantime Pre JYM, Pre JYM X, or Post JYM BCAAs+ Recovery Matrix will do the job for amino acids, and Post JYM Fast Carbs will spike insulin release. Here’s what Sarcev has his athletes take before and after workouts:
Supplementing for Maximum Hyperemia and Gains Before, During, and After Training
Pre-Workout
- Pre JYM X – 1 scoop
Intra-Workout
- Post JYM BCAAs+ Recovery Matrix – 1 scoop
- Post JYM Fast-Digesting Carb – 1 scoop
Post-Workout
- Pro JYM Ultra-Premium Protein Blend – 2 scoops
Hyperemia Advantage Step 2: Match your aggressive supplementation with aggressive training
Okay, now it’s time to train. You’ve had your anabolic nutrients pre-workout, and you’ll continue to sip on them in the gym. Don’t let it go to waste. To get the full Hyperemia Advantage Sarcev talks about, you need the most blood possible going to the muscles. This is achieved by pulling out all the stops and creating a stretch overload on every last muscle fiber.
We’re not doing burpees and planks and downward-facing dogs here. We’re talking big lifts like squats, presses, and rows, plus isolation moves like flies, curls, raises, and pressdowns to force the strongest muscle contractions possible. We’re talking supersets, giant sets, drop sets, forced reps – all the intensity techniques that the biggest, most shredded physique athletes on the planet use to get ripped. This is what bodybuilders mean when they say they’re “chasing the pump.” Only Sarcev is taking it to a whole other level.
In his Hyperemia Advantage workouts, both types of hypertrophy are in play: myofibrillar hypertrophy (where the contractile parts of the muscles grow) and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (where the volume of fluid in the muscles increase). Practically nothing is off-limits in one of Sarcev’s workouts – just ask his clients! High volume, high intensity, lots of blood flow to the working muscles, lots of pain. He’s throwing the kitchen sink at each and every muscle group.
“To create the highest level of hyperemia, I use a combination of heavy-duty training and giant sets,” says Sarcev,” in addition to applying different types of stimulation by changing rep tempo, angles, grip, stance, rep range, strength curves, you name it.”
Milos Sarcev’s Hyperemia Advantage Training Toolbox
A quick cheat sheet of some of Sarcev’s favorite intensity-boosting gym principles:
Supersets – two exercises performed back-to-back with no rest. The two moves can train opposing muscle groups (ie, chest and back, biceps and triceps) or the same bodypart (technically a compound set).
Tri-sets – Three exercises for the same muscle group performed consecutively.
Giant Sets – Four or more exercises for the same muscle group performed consecutively.
Drop Sets – After reaching failure on a set, immediately decreasing the weight and continuing to muscle failure again with the lighter weight.
Forced Reps – After reaching failure on a set, having a training partner assist you in squeezing out a few more painful reps.
The Best Training Splits for Massive Muscle
Truth bomb: Anyone who says a bodypart split – or what some might mockingly call a “bro split” – isn’t functional or doesn’t work has never done one correctly. Either that or they’re trying to sell you a membership to their overpriced functional fitness boutique gym, bootcamp class, or online subscription streaming service. It’s trendy to say bodypart splits don’t work in the age of Peloton and CrossFit (two companies, ironically, that have recently come upon hard times, but let’s not get petty here). Never mind that those who repeat the anti-bodybuilding dogma almost never possess arms larger than 14 inches.
Milos Sarcev, his dozens of clients past and present, and damn near every elite-level bodybuilder since Arnold are clear evidence that bodypart splits can and still do work when properly fueled and intelligently implemented. If it worked in the 1970s, it will damn sure still work today.
Needless to say, Sarcev is a believer in bodybuilding-style split routines, where only one or two muscle groups are trained in a given workout. With the volume and intensity he packs into his programs, trying to tackle any more than that in a single session would be counterproductive. Rest and come back to the gym later that day to train another muscle, perhaps? Sure, but there would need to be several hours and multiple meals separating the workouts.
Sarcev typically prescribes six, nine, or 12 total workouts per week for his clients, broken down over a seven-day period like this:
6 Workouts Per Week
One or two muscle groups trained in each daily workout.
- Monday: chest and calves
- Tueday: quads
- Wednesday: delts (shoulders) and calves
- Thursday: arms
- Friday: hamstrings and glutes
- Saturday: back and traps
- Sunday: Rest
9 Workouts Per Week
Alternating between training once and twice daily for six days (including extra work for weaker bodyparts).
- Monday: chest (a.m.); front/side delts and calves (p.m.)
- Tueday: quads
- Wednesday: back (a.m.); rear delts and traps (p.m.)
- Thursday: arms and calves
- Friday: chest and side delts (a.m.); hamstrings and glutes (p.m.)
- Saturday: back and rear delts
- Sunday: Rest
12 Workouts Per Week
Training twice a day, six days a week.
- Monday and Thursday: chest and calves (a.m.); delts (p.m.)
- Tueday and Friday: quads (a.m.); hamstrings and glutes (p.m.)
- Wednesday and Saturday: back and traps (a.m.); arms and calves (p.m.)
- Sunday: Rest
Supplements + Training – You Can’t Have One Without the Other
Supplements and training go hand in hand. To get the best results from the workout, the supplementation needs to be on point before, during, and after the workout. On the flip side, if all the amino acids and fast carbs are going into the body to maximize growth, the training needs to be high volume and intense enough to not let those nutrients go to waste. We want them going into the muscles, not getting pissed after the workout!
Low-volume, low-intensity, half-assed workouts won’t get it done. The training needs to be as aggressive as the supplementation, and vice versa.
The Proof is in the Pudding, Not the Publishing
Go ahead, poke holes in Sarcev’s Hyperemia Advantage System. Ask for his study references, grill him on methodologies. Remind him he doesn’t have a PhD, then call his theories “bro science.” Where were his methods tested? In the gym, with his own body and hundreds of clients, over the course of the last three-plus decades.
”I’m not a scientist or a PhD, nor have I done any double-blind university studies,” says Sarcev. “But I also don’t need a research study to prove that water is wet. Everything that I’m preaching makes perfect sense if you stop and think about things logically. More than that, my principles have been working for real athletes for many years. That’s the proof! Everyone who trains should take advantage of increased blood flow to the muscles that only happens during training.”
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