I know there are all kinds of routines floating around out there and everybody has there choice of which is better.However rest and recovery are drilled into everybody’s head as being the key to growth along with nutrition.Trick the body and switch reps and sets and seqence of muscles groups every few weeks and you will grow.Well then,what do you say to the cyclist who has quads like tree trunks,the rower with the mushroom back,or the gymnast with the upper body from the gods.These athletes train all day everyday.They have to hit the same muscle every time or they ain’t gonna row, cycle,etc.What is your opinion on overtraining in these circumstances cause i sure as hell ain’t going to critisize them.My point is i think the body can adapt to any stimuli no matter how long or how often and nutrition is the key more than anything.Back in the days of yore i bet man didn’t say,well dear i can not go get deer today and carry home many miles cause i am on my rest day.He just did it and i bet if he was here today he would not be a little boy!!! any comments?
Cyclists with quads like tree trunks? From my experience, not many. When I was riding hard ALL the time, my quads had good development, but only seemed large relative to everything else that was absolutely emaciated. They’re bigger now, along with everything else. The only cyclists I knew who had “huge” thighs were the track sprint cyclists (Curt Harnett, Ken Carpenter), who actually train similar to a strength athlete.
Brider is right. Keep in mind the energy systems utilized during rowing and cycling compared to weight trianing. One is mostly aerobic work while the other is anaerobic. Also the actual “muscle damage” from such aerobic work doesn’t require the same recovery and rebuilding that weight training does.
However, the Westside training methods involve multiple workouts/bodypart/week. I believe Dave Tate is contributing an Article on the same topic for this week so keep your eyes peeled. Peace.
brilliant comment - no warrior ever worried about whether he was “overtraining”. I believe that, within reason, the body will adapt far greater than we typically challenge it. In faith, Coach Davies
lets look at some large muscular animals. lions, tigers, gorilas, bears, etc… are all BIG STRONG AND LAZY! they move as little as possible so they can maintain their muscle. the muscular animals that are hunters, hunt quickly and ferociously then they sleep and do as little as possible. maybe they are smarter. read about how man survived and how they ate. peace
Here’s a related article you might like http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/coachsci/vol13/rushall7.htm Mike Spracklen is coaching in Canada now.
I agree that the body will adapt to handle the stimulus as well as the frequency of the stimulus. Look at the quads of high-level volleyball players. Maximal jumping is anaerobic, explosive, and also involves a big eccentric component when you land, so you’d think it would be easy to overtrain by jumping every day. My experience was that if I trained too much outside of regular practices (too much lifting, too frequent plyo training), my jumping might get a bit ‘flat’…but that doesn’t mean my quads would get smaller…they would just grow and grow and grow.
This all implies that more is simply better. Just never stop training and you will win the Mr. Olympia and the World’s Strongest Man in 6 months. Instead of sleeping, do snatches and power cleans, for functional strength of course. Muscles grow not while they are resting, but during hard exercise. Each time I type a word I do 5 burpies and snatch an odd shaped object (like an asymetrical stone). Every time I click my mouse, I do depth jumps, and I live in a high rise.
well, the best gains that I ever got, was after i read an excerpt from (gulp) mentzer. I tried his one set to failure and was pretty disappointed. So rather than lift every 7-10 days or whatever it was I decided to do this EVERY DAY. I did all my usual warm ups and usually did two sets to failure and then added drop sets on either thursday or friday and didn’t lift all weekend, and my gains went through the fucking roof! I also employed this method of training (just one set to failure) when I went on my fat fast. I couldn’t afford the androsol and all that so I made sure to work every muscle everyday to try to cut down on the muscle loss, and it worked! One set to failure may not work the way mentzer wanted it to but it works (for me) when you up workouts. I guess the key phrase is that “it works for me”. I most likely would stop seeing positive results if I did this all the time but now I use it only twice a year, during december and for my spring time keto diet.
What’s with this hysteria about overtraining? Somebody read my article & see what you think. At my roofing job, I’ve been packing 15000lbs on my shoulder 100lbs at a time, doing wheelbarrow walks, etc. Put in 10hr days & my upper & lower arms, shoulders & upper & lower back have never been bigger or stronger. Like the foreman says “JUST BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING HARD DOESN’T MEAN YOU DON’T HAVE TO FUCKING DO IT!!”