[quote]pat36 wrote:
I think you apply Waterbury’s HFT methodology to bodyweight execises, you will see good gains. [/quote]
Modi sais something that ties in with this:
modi wrote:
"…You are ignoring training frequency here. Gymnasts are hitting these muscles day in and day out and they are using positions that require significant muscle fiber recruitment.
Muscles don’t really care how you impose a demand. As long as you can overload them with the right intensity and frequency, they will respond…"
Well, these two thoughts combine.
I have never seen a gymnast hitting one muscle group once a week. And they do not need added weight in their exercises.
Their muscles come from the acceletarion, lifting fast and controlling the body in isometric and slow-motion maneuvers and figures.
They also get big because of the fact that they are under a mechanical disadvantage in some of their routines, like the rings, and their straight-arm movements, and ridig positions. And they train their routines 5 days a week.
Now, Robert P. wrote:
Goodfellow wrote: Which is why I was wondering if doing 3 sets of 80 push-ups would be just as beneficial as doing 3 sets of 8 on a bench press.
Why wouldn’t it be after all?
Robert P answers:
“…It wouldn’t be. To oversimplify: You are only using type I fibers which have very little growth potential. On the bench press, you can activate type II (a and b) which have much more growth potential…”
This would be true in the above mentioned example of a person doing 80 pushups for they are his 80 RM.
If I did pushups with a vest, or 45-plate duct-taped to my torso, or a thousand quartes in my pocket, as the examples were, I could only get 8 reps, and they would be my 8RM thanks to the added weight, and that’s when it would be much more beneficial or even the same at minimum, to an 8RM set of bench pressing.
This is in the case of the loading perspective, but let’s not forget Thib’s idea of Timed Sets, which came to my attention thanks to the Brazilian dude in the 1000 reps to big muscle thread. I read and re-read the article, and it makes sense to train with a weight that would allow you to lift for many reps, if you know how to use it.
Basically, I can do my pushups at a 1-rep-per-second speed he prescribes, and a pushup is roughly 60% of my bodyweight in terms of actual direct resistance to motion on the angle of force itself, let’s say that when you do pushups, the reistance the muscles meet is 50% of your weight, like Majin posted on the thread I mentioned, so a person who weights 200 pounds is only lifting 100-120 pounds per rep on each pushup. A dip would be 90% or 80% at the minimum, for the arms and shoulder have a biomechanical advantage to act as structural supports.
Now, in Timed sets, it’s all about time, the duration of the stimulus on the muscle fibers, or as he says “Train with T.U.T. but without tempo”…I can get a set of 40 dips and about 70 pushups, or more like 50-60 seconds of muscle stimulation on dips and 70-75 seconds of stimulation on pushups, and the loads range from 50% of my bodyweight to 80% of it, which could be well above my 20RM load in a flat bench press or decline bench press, which are the equivalent exercises.
Thib says to use , for the best approach to building muscle, sets that last 20-40 seconds with a load of 30-40% of your 1RM in that exercise, and as second-best choice, sets that last 40-60 seconds, with 20-30% of your 1RM for the exercise.
I know I am doing pushups and dips, which are way heavier than these prescriptions, but if I can get a set of 40 dips, I don’t see why not to use them, if I don’t go much closer to max reps, and stay under 40, i am getting the 20-40 seconds of stimulation he prescribes, and same goes for pushups.
And this is also efficient if I can do it 3 times a week, or 4, if I alternate pushups and dips so the stimulus is not always the same…add some slow increse in weights, to keep it challenging, and it will be 6 months before this routine runs dry in results, like they say EDT works all around the year, this routine can be used in the same way.
I just don’t know why people don’t see the relation between frequency and density per set with growth, it’s like the office, you want to get the work done right, and done today, yet everybody rants against working an extra hour to get the job done…ironic.
