I Tried Rich Piana’s ‘Feeder Workouts’ Before Bed for 14 Days — Here’s What Happened

Ever wake up and wish you could transform your lagging muscle group within 14 days with minimal additional effort? This was the question I set out to answer.

The late Rich Piana was a larger-than-life figure in the bodybuilding world who left behind a unique training philosophy. He was known for his raw honesty, his dedication to massive size, and his unconventional methods.

Piana popularized the concept of ‘feeder workouts.’ These workouts are short, light, high-repetition sessions that you can perform any time during the day, but not too close to your main workout. Most people prefer doing them before going to bed as finishing the day with a pump can increase muscle gain.

In this article, I take you over my experience of testing the effectiveness of Piana’s feeder workouts for 14 days and their results on my muscle fullness, potential gains, and recovery. I’ll also share how you can adopt this technique to your own routine. We have a lot to unpack, so sit tight and read on.

What Are Rich Piana’s Feeder Workouts?

Feeder workouts generally involve performing 50-100 repetitions, targeting the lagging muscles. You basically focus on a specific muscle, pump as much blood into it as possible, and then rest after completing the recommended reps. You are not allowed to take a break during this workout.

Piana recommended getting through these workouts as quickly as possible without compromising your training form. He used lighter weights and went full-send during these sessions.

The goal here is to flush the muscle tissues with blood, lactic acid, and nutrients, inducing a muscle-ripping pump. Research shows that muscle swelling induced by metabolic stress can result in hypertrophy over time. (1)

This is also how these workouts got their name. You are essentially feeding your muscles more nutrients and oxygen, which are essential for muscle recovery and growth, by increasing the blood flow to them.

Consistency is very important in this training routine, as you must feed your muscles daily to get the best bang for your training buck.

Although you will be pumping out these reps using a fast tempo, you must prioritize a deep mind-muscle connection to maximize muscle contractions and subsequent adaptations.

Since this training program was designed by Piana for weaker muscle groups, I decided to try it for my arms. I had been following a powerlifting split before starting this challenge, which led to muscle tissue loss. Now that I was stronger, I knew I could regain that lost tissue quickly.

The 14-Day Experiment: My Feeder Workout Protocol

Piana kept these workouts remarkably simple, often using basic movements. I chose to do the same. This is what my workouts looked like:

Week 1

I did these feeder workouts six days a week to ensure optimal training volume to maximize muscle stimulation and results. Since my recovery was on point, one day off from training was all I needed.

I used a pair of 15-pound dumbbells during this challenge for two reasons. First, performing 100 non-stop reps with this weight is brutal. Also, this is all I had in my home gym.

Exercise	Reps
Dumbbell Bicep Curls	50
Dumbbell Tricep Extensions	50

Week 2

I focused on the biceps brachii and the lateral tricep head in the first week and biased the bicep brachialis, brachioradialis, forearms, and the medial and long tricep head in the second week to ensure overall development.

Exercise	Reps
Dumbbell Hammer Curls	50
Dumbbell Overhead Tricep Extensions	50

There is no hard and fast rule to how you structure your feeder workouts. For instance, folks with lagging triceps can perform 60 reps of tricep extensions and 40 bicep curls to plug the gaps in their physique.

Also, feel free to switch the order of the exercises. I recommend training the weaker muscle group first before the fatigue starts to set in.

Week 1: Welcome To The Sore City

Now that you have all the details about my feeder workouts, it is time to dive into my experience with this 14-day challenge.

Days 1-3

To be completely honest, I was a little nervous going into this feeder workout challenge. As an experienced lifter, I realize the gravity of performing 100 nonstop reps of an exercise.

I felt a surge of blood rushing to my bicep by the first 20th rep of this workout. This was when I knew these 14 days would be pure hell.

This also impacted my sleep initially as it shot up my cortisol levels and heart rate, and I was highly active.

I woke up with significant delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) on the second day, and the soreness increased gradually by the time the next feeder workout rolled around. That said, my arms felt slightly fuller, especially after the workout.

Days 4-7

The initial shock wore off around Day Four, and the routine started to feel more manageable. However, all this additional work led to mental fatigue towards the end of the first week.

The good news was that the pump was still there, the soreness almost negligible, and my sleep was going back to normal. Taking the final day of the week off definitely helped relieve some tension and gave my body time to recover. I was also looking forward to the new exercises to break the monotony and shock my muscles further.

Since seven days isn’t enough time to expect any major changes in your physique, I did not bother taking arm circumference measurements. However, the added training volume and frequency resulted in an improved muscle definition, which got my hopes high for the next week.

Diet and Recovery

Remember, irrespective of how hard you train, you cannot achieve your transformation objectives if you’re not eating a balanced diet and resting enough. You break down muscle tissue during your workouts. They grow back bigger and stronger while you are resting and have enough raw material in the form of nutrients in your system to support new growth.

I used this total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) calculator to determine my ideal calorie and macronutrient intake. You should do the same.

Plus, I ensured that I was sleeping for at least eight hours each night to give my muscles enough time to recuperate from the madness.

No matter who you are and what you do, you cannot overlook the importance of recovery in a high-volume and frequency workout routine like Rich Piana’s feeder workouts.

Week 2: The Final Push

My body started adapting to this new routine at the beginning of the second week. This is a day-by-day breakdown of how it all went down:

Days 8-10

Now that my body was used to doing 100 consecutive reps in a single feeder workout, I focused on developing a deep mind-muscle contraction and squeezing my muscles as hard as possible at the peak of each rep while performing the hammer curls and overhead tricep extensions.

This change resulted in more intense muscle pumps compared to the previous days. My energy levels were also much better and I had no trouble falling asleep anymore.

Initially, I had experienced fluctuating energy levels throughout the day. This was no longer the case, and I felt ready for my regular workouts each morning.

Both my daily workouts started feeling more efficient and I completed them with greater ease.

On Day 10, I caught a glimpse of my arms in the mirror, and they were noticeably fuller and more diced. My T-shirts now fit snugly around my arms, which was one of the primary objectives of undertaking this 14-day feeder workout challenge.

Days 11-14

The next few days delivered more excitement as I started noticing a slight improvement in my arm vascularity after the workouts. The increased blood flow from the higher reps seemed to be making a visible difference.

Also, the pump remained strong throughout these feeder workouts, improving the rate of hypertrophy.

I focused on keeping my diet clean and sleep consistent. Late-night movies and binge eating were a big no during these 14 days. Overlooking these aspects could directly impact recovery and performance in upcoming workouts.

The pumps were consistent throughout this training program. I would end each day with arms so pumped that I couldn’t even touch my shoulders — a tried and true way of testing if you have achieved optimal vasodilation after an arm workout.

The pump is important because it stretches the fascia (the connective tissue surrounding the muscles), allowing for greater muscle expansion. (2)

My Results: What Happened After 14 Days

With all of that out of the way, let’s now talk about the results because this is why we put ourselves through so much trouble.

After 14 days of grinding through Piana’s feeder workout before bed, I saw the following improvements:

Muscle Group	Starting Size (inches)	After 14 Days (inches)	Gain (inches)
Left Arm	15.2	15.5	0.3
Right Arm	15.3	15.7	0.4

I tracked my upper arm circumference (left and right) before and after this two-week challenge and witnessed a respectable 0.3 and 0.4-inch improvement. These are small gains but add up over time.

My strength peaked as I could now do an extra three reps with 25-pound dumbbells in my top set during my regular bicep curl workouts. This also resulted in improved overall physical performance in day-to-day activities like carrying groceries.

Finally, my arms looked denser and more vascular, boosting my overall confidence.

This brings us to the elephant in the room — the long-term feasibility of feeder workouts. Although these workouts are simple and effective, their repetitive nature and the overall volume could cause mental fatigue, a loss of motivation, and increase the risk of overuse injuries.

In my opinion, this approach is effective for short-term gains, but it is not a replacement for a well-balanced training routine.

Feel free to start this training program to fix gaps in your physique but don’t make it a part of your long-term routine. I’d recommend limiting feeder workouts to four weeks on a stretch.

Things To Consider Before Starting the Feeder Workout Challenge

 

Two weeks is a relatively short period, and your results can vary depending on various factors like:

• Personal Factors: Everyone is unique and your results can vary from mine because of your genetics, age, gender, current fitness levels, and diet. You must try different things (exercises and reps) until you find what works best for you.
• Overtraining Potential: It is easy to let your ego get the better of you during a program like this. The goal here isn’t to lift super heavy but to focus on muscle contractions to maximize pumps. Doing too much significantly increases the possibility of overtraining.
• Choose the Right Muscle To Train: Some people use this technique for their already strong muscles, which increases muscle imbalances and can hamper your physique aesthetics. Consider this a short-term solution to bring up your lagging muscles.
• Prioritize Recovery: It is normal to feel sore and fatigued during this program. However, take a day off from training if you feel exhausted and drained. This is your body telling you it needs more time to recover.

Piana was all about the “whatever it takes” mindset. He’d do things that others deemed crazy to achieve his objectives. The feeder workout was one of those things.

Piana’s hype about the pump after completing a feeder workout was accurate and the high reps and no rest time resulted in pronounced and lasting pumps. He claimed that the pump would lead to growth over time, and he was right.

Conclusion

Rich Piana’s feeder workouts helped me add 0.35 inches of lean muscle mass to my arms in just 14 days. This is a big feat since I used 15-pound dumbbells and the sessions didn’t last more than 10 minutes. This challenge also improved my physique aesthetics and overall confidence.

Unlike me, you don’t have to start this challenge with 100 reps. Start small, with something like 50 reps, and increase the training volume as you gain more experience. Stay consistent and persistent for up to four weeks and you’ll be rewarded with mindboggling results.

If you have any questions about Rich Piana’s feeder workouts or need help implementing them into your routine, post them in the comments below, and I’ll be happy to help!

References:

1. Hirono T, Ikezoe T, Taniguchi M, Tanaka H, Saeki J, Yagi M, Umehara J, Ichihashi N. Relationship Between Muscle Swelling and Hypertrophy Induced by Resistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2022 Feb 1;36(2):359-364. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003478. PMID: 31904714.
2. George T, De Jesus O. Physiology, Fascia. [Updated 2023 Mar 12]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568725/

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