[quote]Modi wrote:
Go Heavy,
I’m not questioning whether Vandal or your program works, my question was for Vandal to explain his total volume. I was under the impression that he believed in 80-100 reps per muscle group per week, and it seemed to me that he was using 400+ reps per week. I just wanted to know which it was. I find I train mcuh higher than 80 reps per week and at a high intensity too. I just like to know that people back up what the believe in.[/quote]
People spend entirely too much time thinking and not enough doing… especially beginners. For the advanced, we’ve already put the time in and experimented for years. Now is the time for us to contimplate a little bit. Begineers should just get a few lessons then head on in there and get going.
Numbers smumbers. Doesn’t really mean shit. You can do 80 reps a week all high intensity and less than 12 reps per set then also do another 600 in the low intensity endurance zone; say you were doing 100 rep bodyweight raises a night just to keep your calves loose. So what does that say for a total rep volume index? Probably throw it out the window because there was still a good 80 high intensity reps in there.
Think about calves. You know how many reps you actually do on them a week? Probably thousands… add in every step you take in a week. You walk approx 5-6 miles during a round of 18 hole golf.
It all boils down to the total force on the muscle… whether it be measured by reps, volume, weight… whatever doesn’t make a difference.
I have said before that reps don’t mean shit. A powerlifter can accomplish more hypertrophy in 1 rep a week than a bodybuilder could do with several hundred reps a week. How? Simply by the amount that the muscle was stressed.
People need to start thinking in terms of stress and force rather than reps, sets, exercises… muscles don’t give a shit about any of that. Muscles don’t care about tempo either… a muscle will find the least path of resistance to complete a task. If you do a bench press, your muscles will find the easiest way to move the object. If you have powerful delts, then it will use them first, so much for the bench press being the best chest builder for you. For you it might be dumbbell presses or flyes or push ups or how about a pec deck. Muscles only respond to resistance. Place your muscles under strain that they’re not used to and the machine will adapt.
I think in this body building forum, too much emphasis is placed on specifics and not enough on the basics. How many threads or articles are written on pain thresholds or the pain barrier? This is the important stuff. This is what forces muscles to grow when you subject them to this.
I don’t give a fuck all what exercise, what rep range, what weight, what tempo, who’s superspectacular routine, who’s advice… none of that matters. the only thing that matters is this… if I can’t push myself past a pain threshold or a comfortable weight my body can handle, then I’m not going to get results. Period.
I can get results and practicly the same exact results on anyones program in here, including my own that I make up when the effort level and mindset is the same. The main thing I do is try to beat my muscles with my brain not my program. That’s the difference maker. The rest of this stuff is just sideshow and more about a comfort level of exercising to suit your style or needs. The basics will never change.
Push your muscles past their normal path of resistance and they will adapt to the change and either grow stronger or bigger. Your muscles are usually smarter than you are. They won’t quit lifting that weight, but I guarentee you will. If you can “go thru the pain barrier”, you would be surprised how important this basic element in muscle building is. That’s all it is.
This is why these “crazy systems” work. Because nobody else is doing them. They are doing the norm. Well, the body responds to something not normal. 500 push ups a day is not normal and if subjected to that kind of torture you would benefit big i’m sure. Doing 4 or 5 dropsets of continuous stress on the muscle for say 40-50 reps in a minute is not normal and the body will change to go thru this type of resistance. Even these guys that use those 10 second rep bench press are using something the bodyis not used to. Another good form of pushing thru the pain barrier.
Now these are all shockers so to speak so they will work. What you can do is become good at these movements and when that happens then you really respond because you can really add the intensity by just increasing the load. I think too many people do dont increase the loads and push their bodies thru the baisc that we use all the time, that’s why these shocking systems work… because the body is not used to this kind of training at all.
Now you could get the same results with a normal routine and exercise your body has been doing for 10 years, you don’t need to change the exercise and shock it… but you need to increase the intensity and load… and most people will not do this because they have never learned the value of pushing thru the pain barrier. These crazy systems helps you get there almost accidently.
If I tell you to do 5 sets of max out push ups every night for a week, you probably wont do them. If I say to do 5 40 total rep dropsets of bench presses 3 times a week, you probably won’t do them. If I say to do 8 sets of 8-12 reps on the chest press machine and try to go heavier than your usual this week, you probably will do them because that is what you CAN do and you know you can get thru it with even just a little more effort even if you have to add a little bit of resistance to make it progressive.
TRY something your body CANT or DOESN’T want to do and CONSISTANTLY and you will have the basics 101 of GHF’s training philosophy. I’m old school…“No Pain, no gain”… just be smart and don’t injure yourself. There are ways to do an exercise that requires tremendous amout of pain threshold and completely safe… but who wants to do that right?