How Long Does a Pump Last After a Workout?

Everyone who lifts weight can confirm that working out is about half mental and half physical. You have to prepare yourself mentally before lifting the weights. And one thing that improves our morale while working out is a muscle pump.

Basically…,

It serves as a mental boost that keeps me going in the gym, which is where I have to be to keep fit. So how long does a pump last? And can you make the muscle pump last longer? Or what are the key benefits of a muscle pump?

What is a Muscle Pump?

Generally, “muscle pump” is a popular gym slang for experiencing temporary muscle growth while working out thanks to increased blood flow. Basically, the growth is the outcome of an increase in blood flow to your muscle fibers; unfortunately, it is short-lived.

Why do we get muscle pumps? The straight answer is your increased blood flow to the muscle fibers you’re working on. 

Muscle pump is the outcome of muscle contractions and blood flow. 

Remember, as you work out, your muscle fibers will start contracting to move the weight. The muscle contraction, in turn, applies pressure on your blood vessels and restricts the amount of blood moving back to your heart.

Fortunately, the arteries are unaffected, so they continue supplying blood faster than your other blood vessels send to the heart, resulting in a muscle pump.

After all, while doing resistance training or an intense workout, your body will increase blood flow to the muscles.

For better results, you can also try blood flow restriction training sessions, which include restricting blood flow to the other body parts by blocking your blood vessels. 

You can restrict blood by wrapping a strap or band around the upper part of the limbs. So the more blood the band restrains, the better the muscle pump you’ll develop.

The extra blood supply helps supply the oxygen your muscles need to grow. As a result, your breathing and heart rates increase while you’re working out. This helps send blood-rich oxygen to your muscles.

How Long Does a Pump Last After Working Out?

Well, a good muscle pump can’t last for an entire day; they tend to last for between 2 to 3 hours after an intense workout. Therefore, if you play your cards right, you can enjoy a muscle pump for over 2 hours.

Generally, by doing things correctly, I mean start with a warm-up and finish your isolation exercises with a cooling-down session. Remember, you should stretch those muscles before working out, and you can mix compound exercises with isolation exercises for better results. But most importantly, you should stay hydrated while working out for a good muscle pump.

You should soak your muscle with over 100ml of water to maintain the muscle pump. 

Therefore, drinking water isn’t just important but also mandatory for building muscle pumps. Water is the lifeline of your muscle pumps. Some of the factors that can affect the duration of your pumped muscles include:

1. The Amount of Carbs Consumed

Generally, consuming more carbs can help the pump last longer, leaving you feeling fuller. Besides powering you through a workout, carbs leave your muscle swelling with glycogen. 

This is the leading reason bodybuilders consume carbs before their show, as it increases their muscle mass while helping their pump last for a couple of hours.

2. Your Body’s Hydration Level

Generally, dehydration can make it hard for you to work out, leave alone, and build some muscles. In fact, you’ll struggle to get a full pump, and if you do develop a pump, it won’t last longer. Therefore, you need to be properly hydrated to maintain a pump.

Taking something like a carbohydrate and protein drink or Gatorade while working out can come in handy when it comes to staying hydrated and maintaining the pump.

3. Type of Exercise

Other than staying hydrated and taking carbs, your workout type matters a lot. To achieve a perfect pump that will last for up to 3 hours, you’ll have to work your body with high reps to exhaustion. Make sure you maintain a short resting period between the workout periods.

On top of that, the weight you’re using for compound exercises doesn’t have to be heavy; in fact, body-weight exercises can work perfectly. But make sure you use isolation exercises when pushing your muscles to fatigue. 6 to 8 rounds of 15 to 20 pull-ups, rows, dips, and tricep extensions can do the trick for me.

Why Doesn’t the Pump Last Longer?

As aforementioned, blood moves to where it’s required the most. Therefore, your blood will move to the muscles being worked during your workout. But after you have finished your isolation exercises, the blood will move to other organs.

For instance, when working your biceps, your blood will fuel them with oxygen while you’re working out. And once you’re done, it will be diverted to other crucial body organs.

Why Do I Always Lose the Pump Fast?

The main reason why your pump rarely last, even after working out for over an hour, is how you train and eat. Generally, if you’re undereating or starving yourself, you will not get a pump.

Secondly, certain exercises are not conducive, especially when you plan on getting a pump. For instance, circuit training is not intensive enough to trigger maximum blood flow. Plus, compound movements that depend on momentum rarely send blood to any single part of your body, so you can’t get a pump.

For maximum pump you should try using bodybuilding style workouts for the maximum pump. Now that we know how to get a muscle pump, we need to find out how to make the pump last after working out and making it last.

How Can I Make My Muscle Pump Last Longer?

Even though it’s temporary, you can make your pump last for over 3 hours in several ways. Sure, a pump can be temporary, but it can help boost your morale, and the more you maintain it, the more motivated you’ll be. For your pump to last longer, you should do the following:

1. Incorporate Isolation Exercises

Generally, compound exercises like deadlifts and the snatch can increase your strength, but they’re not ideal for building a muscle pump. So if you want your pump to last after your exercise, you should incorporate isolation workouts like kickbacks, extensions, rows, flies, and curls.

These workouts are designed to focus on certain groups of muscles at a time. And if done correctly, you will develop a perfect pump that’ll last.

2. Do More Reps and Sets of Isolation Workouts.

To get a bigger pump, you need to do more work. So instead of doing 3 sets of 10 reps, you can try 4 sets of 25 reps or 5 sets of 12 reps. Doing more will give you a better chance of your pump lasting longer than natural.

3. Vary Your Workout Selections.

Instead of following your usual routine, you can make some small changes for long-lasting pumps. For instance, if you love standing barbell curls and have been doing it for a few months, you can try changing to a preacher curl. You can alternate it with dumbbell curls for several weeks for better results.

Generally, there are no ideal workouts that can help you achieve a pump. Therefore, the bests option is to alternate your routine with some unique workouts that you have never tried before.

4. Increase the Pace of Your Routine.

Instead of taking long resting periods between sets, you can incorporate shorter resting periods. Resting for a maximum of 40 seconds can push your muscles and force your system to pump more fluids to these muscles, leaving you with long-lasting pumps.

5. Use Drop Sets

Drop sets can be an exceptional way to extend your set by adding reps while reducing the weight. For instance, you can start with a heavy weight that you can easily do 12 reps with and then do a few sets. When you start feeling tired, you can lower the weight and increase the reps for more effect.

This will help you do more sets until you exhaust your muscles. Do this with isolation workouts and repeat the process.

6. Use Supersets

Another technique that can earn you a long-lasting pump is the supersets. Basically, a superset is when you do different workouts with no rest. You can do a set of triceps pushdowns followed by another set of bicep curls before returning to pushdowns and then repeat the sets while increasing the number of reps.

With supersets, your biceps will be resting while working on the triceps. Luckily, the resting period is minimal, resulting in a huge pump.

7. Don’t Cheat When Lifting Weights.

The most effective method of getting a pump is by doing isolation workouts. But if you keep on cheating or bouncing through your movements, your pump will be non-existent or short-lived. You should also avoid using your hips and legs to cheat.

For long-lasting pumps, you should slow down your reps and make sure you do them correctly.

8. Maintain Tension While Working Out.

Another reliable way to get your pump to last is by creating tension throughout your exercise. Basically, this means focusing more on the concentric as much as you do on the eccentric part of your workout.

When bench pressing, you should create tension by lowering the weight slowly instead of bouncing the barbell on your chest. Creating more tension while working out can result in exceptionally pumped muscles.

9. Skip Cold Tub

Ice baths and cold showers are a fad these days, but immersing yourself in cold water can have a negative effect on your workout’s anabolic response. 

And that’s because the cold reduces the amount of blood flowing to your limbs.

Instead, the blood is moved to your internal organs, where it improves the temperature of these organs. You should always stay warm, which means a hot shower after your workout. You can increase your body temperature by remaining in motion while working out.

10. Take Muscle Pumping Supplements

Did you know that there are supplements for improving your pump?

Supplements like creatine monohydrate will let you lift more weight and even complete more reps and sets. In the process, you’ll end up with better and bigger pumps.

There are lots of supplements that can improve your pump, so when picking the best option, you should watch out for these ingredients:

• Betaine: Another supplement ingredient that can do wonders for your pump is Betaine. Unfortunately, it’s ineffective in healthy individuals.
• Arginine: this amino acid increases blood flow to your muscles, making it easy for you to develop a pump.

11. Include Nitric Oxide-Boosting Foods in Your Diet Plan

It’s a known fact that Nitric oxide can improve the amount of blood flowing in your body, which in turn will result in an exceptional pump. Some of these foods rich in nitrate include arugula, spinach, and beets. These foods will give you the turbo boost needed to build muscle pumps.

Will a Pump Help My Veins Show?

Generally, a pump will help your vein show in certain areas since it will increase blood flow in certain parts of your body. But for them to remain visible, your body fat percentage has to be low.

Basically, the body fat percentage of women should be between 15 and 17%, while for men, it should be lower than 10%. This means consuming more weight losing foods.

Does Getting a Pump Means That You’re Gaining Muscle Mass?

Well, does muscle pump mean muscle growth? It’s crucial to acknowledge that there are lots of factors that determine muscle growth. In fact, the most crucial one that helps with hypertrophy is lifting heavy loads. Therefore a pump works synergically with lifting heavy loads resulting in muscle growth.

Generally, achieving pumps by doing short rest periods and high rep sets can stimulate hypertrophy. Therefore, when you develop a muscle pump, you’re gaining some muscles. So the best strategy for gaining muscle is to start with heavy weights and develop a unique pump before proceeding to lighter weights.

You can also finish with some high-rep isolation workouts and short resting periods for better results.

Conclusion

Pumps are the holy grail of bodybuilders; in fact, it’s their badge of honor as it’s the first sign that your muscles are growing. Therefore, most of us do everything humanly possible to get a muscle pump while working. But for better effects, you should try alternating between compound and isolation workouts.

Unfortunately, muscle pumps are temporary and can only last for a maximum of 3 hours. Luckily, there are several ways you can make your pump last, with the most common one being drinking water and carbs. You can also avoid ice baths as they do force blood to move to other body organs to keep them warm.

Luckily developing pumps can be a great sign that your muscles are growing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my muscle stop feeling pumped after a few hours?

Generally, our muscles get pumped after working out thanks to the water and blood that has been pushed into the muscles. But after you have finished training and are well rested, your muscles won’t need these fluids in such qualities. Therefore, your body stops pumping fluids to these muscles.

Are daily workouts necessary for muscle pumps?

Working out daily plays a major role in developing muscle pumps. But you should rest at least 1 day per week to stay fit. However, if you’re up to working out daily, then you should go for it, but make sure you don’t overdo it.

Should I continue working out even after I start feeling sore?

Lifting heavy weights can help you build some muscles, but once you start feeling sore, then you should opt for lighter workouts instead of intense exercises. Lifting lighter weight will give your muscles time to recover. You can relieve the tension by doing things like swimming and walking.