From Paul Carter Forum. Does grinding weights kill my gains?
What we know is that moving sub maximal weights with great velocity activates the high threshold motor units. So it’s important to use enough weight so that there’s carry over to the bigger weights later, but not so heavy that it taxes the sympathetic nervous system so that systemic recovery takes a big dive.
When that happens, there’s a depression in neural output so your ability to move big weights is diminished. Getting out of this kind of recovery debt can take a couple of weeks. This is why you will often hit a big PR, then see a dive in your ability to lift big weights, even feeling weaker, then it leveling back out to your normal range a few weeks after that. That’s homeostasis finding equilibrium again and going back to your strength “set point”.
You can get as strong as you’ll ever get using low reps in the sub 90% range, without ever having this setback happen. So use your volume work in the 65-85% range but move those weights as explosively as possible.
From Thib’s Forum. Should I weighted jog for gains?
By definition “jogging” cannot be high intensity. Sprinting is high intensity.
Honestly using weighted jogging to build muscle is like using a spoon to dig the foundation of a house. Technically it can work but it is probably the worst tool to do the job.
It might work with totally sedentary individuals who don’t train at all and are not physically active because for them it does represent an overload. But for anybody who is physically active or training the effect will be minimal.
There are several ways of stimulating muscle growth, and weighted jogging does not meet any of them except for total beginners.
PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD: Basically here you stimulate adaptation by having the muscle perform more intense work than it is used to. While there are many other ways to accomplish that, in resistance training we normally talk about adding weight. Here’s the thing: if you have been training hard, jogging with weights is not really an overload as far as the intensity is concerned. In the sedentary person who doesn’t do anything physical, yes it will be. But not for someone who trains. “Yeah but what if I use loads of weight?” first of all unless you have perfect running mechanics, muscle activation and a core of steel, using too much weight while jogging will kill your joints. But even if you can do it, you are not even creating and intensity overload, even with a 50lbs vest… you can do a lot of work (weight x distance) but not a high intensity of contraction compared to what you achieve in the gym.
MTOR ACTIVATION: You can also trigger muscle growth via mTor activation. While every resistance-training method will activate mTor to some degree, the two that have the most significant impact are accentuating the eccentric and loading the muscles in a stretched position. None of these occur with jogging, loaded or not.
GROWTH FACTOR ACCUMULATION: Another pathway that can stimulate muscle growth is releasing growth factors inside that muscle. Two things will have you release these growth factors: accumulation of lactate inside the muscles and deprivation of oxygen. The later cannot really occur since jogging is by nature aerobic. The former (lactic acid//lactate build-up) rarely occrus, it can happen when you have to climb a steep hill or sprint. But it’s not normally something that will happen most of the time.
MUSCLE FIBER FATIGUE: As Dr.Zatsiorsky says:“A muscle fiber than is recruited but not fatigued is not being trained”. So you need both: recruit a lot of fibers and fatigue a lot of fibers. During normal muscle actions the body recruits muscle fibers according to the size principle: the smaller/weaker muscle fibers are recruited first. If they are not strong enough to meet the force production demands, stronger fibers will be recruited. Here’s the thing: with weighted jogging the need for force production is pretty low. So there is not need to go with the strongest fibers (those that can be hypertrophied more). Not only that the smaller/weaker fibers (slow twitch fibers) are also those with the most endurance. So it becomes unlikely that they will tire out so much that you need to bring in those fast twitch fibers into play. Now, slow twitch fibers have a low growth potential. So even if you were able to fully fatigue the slow twitch fibers with weighted jogging, you still would not stimulate much muscle growth.
Not only that, the drawbacks/negatives of that method to get very few benefits on muscle growth makes it a no-no IMHO.
It puts a lot of stress on the knees and hips which can lead to injuries
It will expend a lot of calories, making it a lot harder to reach a surplus allowing you to grow at an optimal rate
It can spike cortisol to a high degree, making it even harder to build muscle in the long run
I’ve used weighted WALKS for cardiovascular improvements and weighted jogging with Crossfit competitors who use it in competition, but never as a way to build muscle.
I’m afraid that you will have to squat and deadlift.
