Hey folks, got a question for you.
Can you think of a scenario where the development of one muscle group can interfere with the development of another?
Let me give an example for what I mean here: If one trains the legs and pecs hard, can you imagine a scenarion where cutting off his leg exercises (for example) will make his body turn “more resources” to his pec development (and I don’t mean the obvious case of not being able to exercise the pecs hard enough if training the legs as well).
I guess the answer for that is negative if all the hypertrophy conditions are optimal (nutrition, sleep, T level etc.), but what about sub optimal conditions?
D.
uummm…weird question, and not sure the best answer. But I have read a lot of studies saying that if you just workout upper body your gains will be slower than if you worked out lower body as well. Other than that I really dunno what to say.
If you excersise your mouth muscle (openingus undernoseum) instead of emphasising major movements, it will impair your overall development.
I have heard Don Alessi, I think it was him, that said that you should never train your calves and biceps in the same training session.
I think it is an interesting point!
In this article:
Tony Meazell states:
“The truth is, you must drastically decrease the work for other areas. All training requires recovery and stresses the body; you simply can’t make optimal gains in a body part while imposing a normal training load on the rest of the body.”
He sure seems to think you should put the rest ofyour body on maintenance if improving a special area is the main target…
I can’t find any refrences to back this up though…
Ian king agrees:
"This isn?t uncommon in the advanced lifter. The intensity and/or volume needed to take a given muscle group to another level negates the recovery capacity to give this level of effort to too many (if any other) muscle groups. Respect it.
My main rule for specialization is to rotate the specialization. That is, make sure the exercise that appears first on the first workout in your week or training microcycle is rotated over time. The second issue is to ensure the amount of time spent prioritizing any given muscle group is reflective to the needs, i.e. how far it?s lagging.
This is how I do it ? list the muscle groups in order of weakest (size or strength) to strongest. Then analyze the recent training (over a year) and attempt to allocate percentages to the amount of time you spend prioritizing each muscle group. Now compare your needs to reality. If there?s a discrepancy, modify your training! Remember, all things being equal, the weakest muscle group should have the greatest percentage of time in which it?s being prioritized."
Could be nice with refrences though
Are you asking this because you want to specialize on a certain bodypart?
Typically when one specializes, they increase the work for that muscle group. (ie. they do more volume). However, there is only so much volume you can do. If you have say 100 ‘units’ of recovery to work with, and it’s split up b/w your muscle groups, and you want to ‘specialize’, you’d be wise to decrease the volume somewhere else, so that in the end, you’re still working with 100 total units.
Case in point, let’s say you want to specialize on chest, and you normally also do regular delt work. I’d decrease, or eliminate delt work, and throw that extra volume you now have on your chest work.
Typically after one has a reasonable amount of experience, specialization is the best way to continue progress. Most people are constantly attempting to make everything grow at once, and unfortunately, they just don’t gain past a certain point. If they were to periodize/rotate their areas of specialization, while putting other bodyparts on maintenance, they’d improve more I feel.
I’m not sure if I understood your question as you intended, but you can still learn from what I just said.
Thanks for the answers guys!
And Thunder, yes, you understood my question all right. It seems that one “resource” I was looking for was the recovery units you (and the sources a:xus gave) mentioned. It was a theoretical question BTW, I have no intentions focusing on any specific muscle group.
D.
My leg training definately interferes with my upper body development. I put up 455 for 8 reps at a 3-1-3 tempo on the squat, but couldn’t even bench 185! I looked like a science experiement gone wrong, with my lower body belonging to a bodybuilder, and upper body belonging to a 10 old girl. Of course I wasn’t taking in enough calories, so this was less than an optimal environment…
Focus on your priorities if you must.
Cheers!
Your scenario was reported: the 20 reps Squat routine: A1-Squat: 1 set 20 reps, A2-Pullover,B-Bench Press + other few exercises. 2 workouts per week so enough recovery and proper nutrition.
This single set of Squats has to be very heavy. In short:“the development of the legs interfere positively with the development of the pecs and overall body”.