I love training. There are so many angles, rep schemes, intensifiers you can add to a session that it’s sometimes hard to stop. As a 37 year old natural lifter with a goal to compete once at some point by 40, it’s a struggle to balance my push to go balls to the wall and when to make it short and sweet.
Disclaimer, i often train with or around “assisted” lifters and find myself pushing as hard if not harder. I also know if I compete chances are most guys I am standing next to will be on something as well. I seem to respond well to volume but my labs always show slightly over reference range on every marker that indicated muscle inflammation. Sometimes way high.
I know there are several natural competitors here and was curious if you structure your training differently to allow for more rest. Seems a lot of natural bodybuilding sites and even this site champion more frequency and less volume for naturals. Also a lot of advice leaning toward a push/pull or upper/lower split vs the body part split. Any thoughts on one vs the other?
Recovery is such an individual thing it’s impossible to classify all natural lifters or all steroid users together.
If you are getting bigger and stronger, and you’re not shuffling around like a zombie with your joints all beat to shit, then you’re recovering just fine.
I trained naturally for much longer than I’ve been ‘assisted’, so I think I’m a decent person to answer your question, given that I’ve been on both sides.
I personally don’t think training should be particularly different for a natural lifter and an assisted one. I think the factors that matter more are age and level of development. Even though I’m now assisted, I’ve actually lowered my training volume from when I was younger and natural. Steroids have not kept my joints from getting beat up over time. I’m also much stronger than I was 5-10 years ago, so the loads I’m putting my body under are significantly higher.
Regardless, I think most generic bodybuilding splits are suitable for both natural and assisted lifters, pretty much equally. What you need to do, as someone in his late 30’s, is invest in your recovery between sessions, and you should use things like wraps and sleeves to keep yourself healthy during workouts. Get massages, chiropractic work, eat clean, all that kind of stuff. That matters more for reducing inflammation than almost anything else.
Your labs are out of reference range because reference range is for ‘normal’ people. The reference ranges are somewhat arbitrary, and you should expect to sometimes be out of range, simply because you are a bodybuilder. It comes with the territory. You’re doing things to your body that are essentially MEANT to cause inflammation. Weight lifting does that. No real way to avoid it. It’s just all about management.
I Made my best Gains in my late 30’s when i stopped buying the BS about naturals and overtraining and just busted my ass with plenty of volume and counted on a stellar diet to allow me to recover. 2-3 lbs of stage weight every year even after 15 years of pre-competitor training.
In hindsight I wasted plenty of time reading the latest articles on how naturals “should” train.
Most competitive naturals train similar to assisted people, barring some who use glaringly ridiculous volume and redundant exercises. You know, the standard split routines with four to five-way splits and two to four exercises per muscle group and three to five sets per exercises. I got my best results with this standard protocol and proper exercise sequencing, exercise choice, and pre-exhaust.
What markers of muscle inflammation are you referring to? Personally I’ve learned to ignore abnormalities unless there are symptoms or dysfunction in the body unless they are severely abnormal or foreshadow something that might have awful consequences in the future. As my former physical therapist said, "There are all kinds of tests showing abnormalities going on in the body, much of which people don’t even know they have or feel and in many cases it’s good they don’t.
Decrease your volume when necessary if you need “active rest”. When I had to cut back, I just shave some sets off my workout.
When I made the best gains, I actually heeded the advice of Jay Cutler, and he was quite genetically gifted and drug assisted. So much for ignoring those who have top notch genes and use drugs.
“Also a lot of advice leaning toward a push/pull or upper/lower split vs the body part split.”
This topic has been beaten to death on here and I think you might have been around for much of the discussion. Let’s put it this way: there are hardly any natural competitive bodybuilders who use an upper-lower split and the most glaring problem with it is unbalanced development.
Great feedback, much appreciated. Lot’s of answers inline with my thinking and current training. I was having a debate with a friend who was critical of my training volume, granting he is not all that impressive himself despite working with a solid coach for years. It was pretty funny that an article on this very topic was posted yesterday so it sparked my thinking.
I for one love a body part split. I feel it allows me to get a better mind muscle connection when I am focusing on one area and can really work it from many angles with different techniques. Recovery at this age is key and i do trigger point and deep tissue work every other week and certainly feel 2 days a week of rest is more than enough.
It’s funny because Brad (@BrickHead) and I have chatted at length about how much time we wasted being derailed by the latest articles and trends when we were younger. I increased My training volume a surprising amount when I “got serious”, but had already been training 10+ years, was in my mid 30’s, and was 100% clean,… which according to so many online articles won’t work and I shouldnt have been able to mke steady yearly gains like I consistently did from then on - lol.
There seems to be so much out there about how the approach should be different but I really never understood why. I personally love to kill myself in the gym. I handle the amount of volume I do well and recover just fine. I leave the gym feeling wrecked but very rarely am I overly sore the next day (except legs days lol). It’s always more of a well stimulated feeling rather than annihilated. I have seen more changes in my body since focusing on a body part split and upping the volume over the last 2 years than in the whole decade or so prior.
that’s because people like to sell you workout plans, or try to make things more complicated to make themselves more necessary. I can promise you, this shit is waaaay less complicated than most trainers and coaches make it out to be. I seriously just wing it every time I go to the gym. Sometimes I’ll have a vague idea of a few things I might do that day. But I’ve been lifting like this for years now, and I’m a world class strongman competitor, lol.
I am normally a plan it out kinda person. I have always been one to work better with a program in mind and my entire gameplan mapped out before I get in the gym. That was always a great approach for me when I was powerlifting but lately I have been winging it as well. I have a sense of what my workout is but have really been going by feel and just keeping things fresh, trying new movements, angles and intensifiers as I go. It’s been really fun not being so rigid in training.
I have been flirting with the idea of going the online coach route and likely will in a few months because I love learning from people I respect but the “wing it approach” has been such fun!
When I tried thinking of how to hit every muscle and every workout and got caught up in the details I made absolutely no progress and was spinning my wheels.
Once I switched to every workout I’m going to squat something, press something, and pull something, and then do some “bro stuff” I got to where I am now.
It won’t win me any BB competitions, but it’ll keep me plenty strong and in shape.
Keeping It Simple is the best thing I ever did for the gym lol.
you impress me so much, man. I remember when you first came on this site. I thought you were gonna be just another dude who never makes progress because he can’t get out of his own head. But you listened, you adjusted your mentality accordingly, and it worked. There are very few folks on this site who have made the kind of progress you have in the last few years.
In the beginning I was just overthinking. But once I got it into my head that people were getting big and strong before all these crazy programs, internet, etc. I knew I was just missing a strong foundation.
Especially after seeing numerous logs such as yours, @T3hPwnisher , @Evolv , @MarkKO, and especially @ActivitiesGuy I knew all that was truly missing was just busting my fucking ass and not making excuses. Everyone has a different style of lifting and I just had to bust ass until I could find my own.
If you’re referring to CT’s article then I think he points out a key element that’s missed by a lot of people. If you want to try The push/pull 6 days a week approach then you have to push yourself to failure and beyond. If you hold back then it won’t work. He stated that clearly in the Strength article. Most people (myself included) struggle to really push to that point of failure when doing low volume work.
He also says you can run that program 4 days per week so hitting everything twice can still work.
I think the biggest argument for the high frequency, low volume approach is that high volume might not be necessary. I haven’t seen CT say it doesn’t work; it just might not be necessary.
I’ve recently accepted that the program I enjoy the most will generate the best results. If I don’t like what I’m doing then I tend to slack off.