Some months ago I made a try, I increased up my volume to what is reccomnded by the people who do this so called studies, Mev “minimum effective volume” is considered to be 10 sets per bopdypart…the results? Shrinkage and loss of overall fitness. . “Minimum effective volume”… I say “minimum effective bullshit”
1 Like
In the past, studies on exercise response have tended to report just the average response for the study group. But lately, I’ve seen some studies where the distribution of individual results is also reported, and these typically show high variability in individual responses, including cases where a small percentage of the study group lost size or strength, even thought the group averages increased. It reflects what I think many believe: not everyone responds in the same way to a given training regime.
2 Likes
Average Al,
I saw that round table. What I like about James Fisher and James Steele is that they remain open minded and do not try and dig themselves into a hole, while trying to defend a position that is becoming clear to everyone else is indefensible.
Also there was an agreement by both him and Brad that set totals for strength gains were less than what was needed for hypertrophy. Even Brad said that his recommendations were based on “optimising” hypertrophy only, and that MOST people would do fine with lower set protocols.
So I took from that, if, after the first six to twelve months, it is clear that you won’t be a mass monster and if you have other things to do with your life, then low / single set protocols will be enough.
Average Al,
As I’ve said elsewhere. We are a.prisoner of our genetics. Some may respond badly to ANY weight training protocol, but who’s to say that they wouldn’t be awesome with cardio work.
As Lyle McDonald once wrote somewhere…If you respond badly to a low volume resistance training program, what makes you think that you will fare any better by increasing the number of sets that you do?
sgg,
I assumed you meant Fisher and Schoenfeld.
What surprised me was they were not that far apart on many issues. It does seem that trainers who don’t come from the HIT tradition are coming around to the idea that lower volume routines (one set to failure or similar) can be pretty good, give excellent bang for the buck, and are good enough for most people.
Where it goes off the rails is when people enter the debate with rigid, all or nothing positions: one set is useless, you’ll never get jacked that way vs more than one set is a complete waste of time, and not a single person in the universe should ever do more than one set.
It does seem that one of the biggest weaknesses of using existing science to guide design an exercise program is that most of the studies look only at average response, and assume most or all will respond in the same way. But the individual doesn’t care what the average response was, only what his or her response will be. Perhaps some day, there will be ways to determine a priori what kind of responder you are, and that will make it easier to find the right kind of program. Until then, N=1 trial and error, and an open mind, are what we have…
1 Like
Is your beef with the idea of 10 sets per bodypart per week that you can’t grow with that amount of sets, or that you didn’t? Because, rest assured, you can grow, you just can’t train like you would if you were only doing 1-2 sets.
3 Likes
Average Al,
Yes the video conference was James Fisher and Brad. James Steele is James Fisher’s research partner on many papers.
Like I said what I like about Fisher and Steele is that they have a high level of intellectual honesty. Steele recently spent a lot of time retracting papers that he had worked on and published with Brazilian researchers, because it came to light that the data in at least one of them was very suspect. He even enlisted the help of Brad to do this. You have to admire that level of honesty and willingness to keep an open mind. There have been examples in the past of researchers who’ve basically dug themselves into holes trying to defend an untenable position.
1 Like
Sorry, but James Steele claims without factual evidence, and with empirical evidence contrary to his stated views, that resistance training is the safest and best way to increase the cardiovascular system.
This is rubbish! No endurance training athlete uses resistance training as a primary means of improving the CV System.
There is zero evidence that resistance training is superior to traditional cardiovascular training methods for training the CV System. Sure, any exercise is better than none, but do not be misled by two supposedly educated men that lifting weights is all one needs for CV fitness.
As Mark Twain stated: There are 3 kinds of lies, lies, damned lies, and statistics!
Looks like Mr. Steele is familiar with all three.
1 Like
I think you may be overstating what James Steele has said. Interested parties can review his conclusions and evidence for themselves via the following paper:
Resistance Training to Momentary Muscular Failure Improves Cardiovascular Fitness in Humans: A Review of Acute Physiological Responses and Chronic Physiological Adaptations by Steele, Fisher, McGuff, Bruce-Low, and Smith
Also, what competitive endurance athletes do to excel in their sport may far exceed what the average person needs to do to remain generally fit and healthy.
1 Like
@ AA,
I do not care what you think. We all think!
It is considered intellectually dishonest to make a statement that someone is overstating something without stating WHERE they are doing this!
It is common knowledge that elements of the HiT community promote resistance training as a stand-alone training modality. Mr. Steele is not the first, and certainly will not be the last, to promote this false view.
I never said or promoted resistance training as making no changes to the CV system. It is Mr. Steele who expounds on cellular ATP energy production as one of the reasons steady-state aerobics are not needed. He fails miserably to not account for other significant body processes accounting for CV improvements.
Resistance training is NOT the best or safest way to improve CV fitness.
I am passionate about the truth of exercise, especially cardiovascular conditioning.
James Steele is wrong about cardiovascular conditioning. He discredits the whole HiT community with his erroneous message. I will call him out!
Marc
OK… I was trying to be brief.
You state that:
"James Steele claims without factual evidence, and with empirical evidence contrary to his stated views, that resistance training is the safest and best way to increase the cardiovascular system.
This is rubbish! No endurance training athlete uses resistance training as a primary means of improving the CV System."
In the paper that I referenced, Steele outlines his reasons for believing that intense resistance training to failure can produce some of the same physiological adaptations to the cardiovascular system that come from traditional aerobic training. To say that he reaches that conclusion without factual evidence is not fair. He cites a number of research studies in the paper to support his conclusion.
No where in the paper does he make the sweeping statement that resistance training is the safest and best way to “improve the cardiovascular system”. Nor does he argue that resistance training alone is sufficient for endurance athletes that wish to compete in a specific sport.
If you have seen him make such claims elsewhere, perhaps you should provide a reference…
Oh boy, I was wondering how long it would take the cardio argument that went on forever on the old forum to end up on here. What’s next , Grants Max pyramid scheme? Hah!
Scott
My last word!
James Steele is all over the Internet stating there is no such thing as cardio. Please leave the coy card with the naive. The paper he helped to write is not worthy of any serious consideration.
I could care less how you spend your time exercising, with or without cardiovascular conditioning. My personal experience tells me cardiovascular conditioning is very important.
People have been training a very long time, and where endurance is required, cardiovascular conditioning will be there too, long after the misinformation of Mr. Steele is forgotten.
He tried to start a thread like that. It got deleted, which I applaud. The old site could have used more moderation.
He tried to start a thread like that. It got deleted, which I applaud. The old site could have used more moderation.
That’s good to hear!!
Scott
Not deleted. Moved into the Bigger, Stronger, Leaner forum because it wasn’t a question for Dr. Darden, which means it wasn’t appropriate for his coaching forum.
But that thread “coincidentally” quieted down as soon as other members asked for evidence of the method’s effectiveness. Weird.
2 Likes
We’ve been asking for that evidence for ages and that never slowed him down. Knowing what you said now he’ll just pose a question to Dr Darden to get it going again .
Scott
You can train hard or you can train for long but you can’t do both. I tried high volume several times and it didn’t work, end of story. Btw after a few months into hard training, going back to hvt split routines felt like a joke, all that fluff and puff…that’s not training in my opinion.
I am not convinced you did it correctly based on this statement.
If you think that high volume training is fluff and puff, I think you are not in the right intensity range. Perhaps you are not doing exercises like squats and deads for your high volume work (I can assure you high volume on these movements is far from fluff and puff).