I am not a bodybuilder (I know, GTFO), and Im not going to say Ive “made gains” in the last 2 weeks (Im coming back from an injury so getting back to even, plus 2 weeks is nothing…), but I LOVE lifting this way. Full squats, front or back, every workout. Its pure Awesome, to wax wendler-esque.
Im not going to pretend I can do “the Broz system”, but lifting my mental block on squatting every workout and incorporating it the way I can has been awesome. My enthusiasm is going to mean I make gains.
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
FYI, this whole “hormonal response” thing, like it’s going to spike your test levels and all that jazz is a load of BS.[/quote]
More please.
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
FYI, this whole “hormonal response” thing, like it’s going to spike your test levels and all that jazz is a load of BS.[/quote]
More please.[/quote]
The “hormonal response” is infinitesimal and no where near any amount that would actually do anything nor for a duration of time to have any affect. Using this to hype up a program or exercise is a crock of shit, it’s been debunked countless times.
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
FYI, this whole “hormonal response” thing, like it’s going to spike your test levels and all that jazz is a load of BS.[/quote]
More please.[/quote]
The “hormonal response” is infinitesimal and no where near any amount that would actually do anything nor for a duration of time to have any affect. Using this to hype up a program or exercise is a crock of shit, it’s been debunked countless times.[/quote]
But bro if I take my PWO shake with maltodextrin my insulin spikes over 9000 and I gain 20lbs of muscle… Now if I squatted everyday I could probably be Mr O, but I’d rather stay natty and not take the creatine!
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
FYI, this whole “hormonal response” thing, like it’s going to spike your test levels and all that jazz is a load of BS.[/quote]
More please.[/quote]
The “hormonal response” is infinitesimal and no where near any amount that would actually do anything nor for a duration of time to have any affect. Using this to hype up a program or exercise is a crock of shit, it’s been debunked countless times.[/quote]
Oh yeah? Then how come squatting makes my weiner bigger?
Doesn’t it basically come down to the less eccentric TUT and the more you rely on the stretch reflex the quicker you can recover? You obviously couldn’t do dead start squats or 20 rep squats every day. Everyone who’s done ‘Starting Strength’ knows heavy 3x a week squatting is very doable with mediumish volume and reps though.
I reckon I could squat heavy/relatively high volume 2x a week IF I dropped my dedicated hamstring day. Also- olympic lifters squat as close to vertical back as possible, meaning less lower back involvement presumably meaning much much quicker recovery…
just my thoughts…
True I have not been able to dedicate as much energy to my hamstring workouts or dead lift but the lower back is a non issue and the squat continues to improve. I’m going to stick this out at for as long as the weight keeps going up.
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
True I have not been able to dedicate as much energy to my hamstring workouts or dead lift but the lower back is a non issue and the squat continues to improve. I’m going to stick this out at for as long as the weight keeps going up.[/quote]
I personally am starting to think more frequent squatting > deadlifting at all for building legs (and a big squat, obviously)… not sure on what action I’m going to take though, I still think a big deadlift may be of benifit for a bigger/stronger body in general…
[quote]jake_j_m wrote:
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
True I have not been able to dedicate as much energy to my hamstring workouts or dead lift but the lower back is a non issue and the squat continues to improve. I’m going to stick this out at for as long as the weight keeps going up.[/quote]
I personally am starting to think more frequent squatting > deadlifting at all for building legs (and a big squat, obviously)… not sure on what action I’m going to take though, I still think a big deadlift may be of benifit for a bigger/stronger body in general… [/quote]
Alternating front squat and back squat everyday has really been working well from me, I try throwing in some heavy deadlifts if I’m feeling good on the front squat days, this has only amounted to once a week and has become more infrequent as I have progressed. I am going to try and do rack pulls instead for a while and see how I feel after a week of that.
*as a side note, little bit of right knee pain on the lateral side today. The pain vanished after my warm up and has not come back since.
[quote]jake_j_m wrote:
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
True I have not been able to dedicate as much energy to my hamstring workouts or dead lift but the lower back is a non issue and the squat continues to improve. I’m going to stick this out at for as long as the weight keeps going up.[/quote]
I personally am starting to think more frequent squatting > deadlifting at all for building legs (and a big squat, obviously)… not sure on what action I’m going to take though, I still think a big deadlift may be of benifit for a bigger/stronger body in general… [/quote]
This has been my line of thinking. I like deadlifting for awesomeness, but I felt like it was taking too long to recover once my max got in the mid 400s. Since that was my goal when I started I dont know if it was a mental thing or if that is just the breaking point for my body (low back) on linear progression in the lift. In any case, with the constant squatting I feel like my legs can continue to get stronger without my low back getting super taxed.
However, these oly lifters dont seem to have the 3-4-5 bench-squat-deadlift ratio that you see in PLing. There is much less of a spread between the dead and squat (and of course they dont focus on bench), making me think my expectations for improvement on the DL should be modest.
I did speed deads for some sets of 2 after my back squats after reading some more BRoz QnA yesterday, and Im going to see when I feel like doing them again and plan on a max attempt in like a month.
In any case, I think squats are pretty important for awesomeness too, so I can focus on them for a little while and leave the DL on the backburner.
I’m sorry but with a max squat of 245 squatting just over bodyweight everyday is really not the same thing. It’s the equivalent of doing pressups every day and saying you added 1 to your press up reps? When you squatting over 2 x BW 7 days a week for a couple months you can talk about the merits of such a program.
[quote]milktruck wrote:
[quote]jake_j_m wrote:
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
True I have not been able to dedicate as much energy to my hamstring workouts or dead lift but the lower back is a non issue and the squat continues to improve. I’m going to stick this out at for as long as the weight keeps going up.[/quote]
I personally am starting to think more frequent squatting > deadlifting at all for building legs (and a big squat, obviously)… not sure on what action I’m going to take though, I still think a big deadlift may be of benifit for a bigger/stronger body in general… [/quote]
This has been my line of thinking. I like deadlifting for awesomeness, but I felt like it was taking too long to recover once my max got in the mid 400s. Since that was my goal when I started I dont know if it was a mental thing or if that is just the breaking point for my body (low back) on linear progression in the lift. In any case, with the constant squatting I feel like my legs can continue to get stronger without my low back getting super taxed.
However, these oly lifters dont seem to have the 3-4-5 bench-squat-deadlift ratio that you see in PLing. There is much less of a spread between the dead and squat (and of course they dont focus on bench), making me think my expectations for improvement on the DL should be modest.
I did speed deads for some sets of 2 after my back squats after reading some more BRoz QnA yesterday, and Im going to see when I feel like doing them again and plan on a max attempt in like a month.
In any case, I think squats are pretty important for awesomeness too, so I can focus on them for a little while and leave the DL on the backburner.[/quote]
Yeah, for sure if I were powerlifting I wouldn’t drop deadlift just to squat more, but bodybuilding, I think proper deadlifts can be used sparingly but SLDL being far better for hamstrings and rack pulls OR romanian deadlifts/none deadstart variations (eg. done with straps) are probably better as a lower back/back thickness exercise while still allowing reasonable CNS survival. I just think more people, including myself, need to accept a huge deadlift is not the most important factor in a huge back/legs, even if it helps somewhat…
IMO
I’ll just chime in, something to share, though nobody will read it hopefully :o)
I’m actually squatting twice every day since the article came out. And heck, in the last 3 days, I was having high volume-high intensity lower body workouts every fucking day. Woke up this morning wiped out, hypoglycaemic, inflamed.
BUT: there are positive consequences:
Now, I must admit, that due to my borderline anorexia and addictness to treadmills and ellipticals, I’ve actually lost some weight, mostly fat. Strength maintained, even improved in some areas (esp. lower body-chest, shoulders gotten weaker) In thelast few days I’ve been flying, today it’s all messy, with brain fog, dizzyness. But it was rare, thereby I judge: this whole routine can be done, even without gear if you ACTUALLY EAT something on the way… Like half an ox for breakfast, a pig for dinner, etc…
I’ll say that the strength gained is mostly from neuromusc. adaptation. It happened with me before, when I was having fun wit squatting every day, and I’ve lost that strength when switchedback to lower frequency.
Most of the hypertrophy came at the adductors (but, it can be just local inflammation…), as always from squats.
I’m not the guy who should evaluate anything, as… Well, I don’t train like a BB. Do snatches, cleans, swings, squat every day, use TRX, but I love the gym, HS machines, rope curls, and the counter-weight smith machne too. Love to tax muscles with hard work, love the feel of the pump. Just at the end, who want to grasp too much won’t get anything.
I must also admit that I’m weak and pathethic as hell. But, I’ve spent lot of time under the bar, discussed iron with people more experienced and advanced. Just my love affair with being skinny, with conditioning type stuff and regular cardio always prevented my progress after a certain bw (cca. around 90kg).
Next month I’ll go back to medschool, thereby I’ll stop doing this volume-amount of work, and it’s possible that I will only be able to train 5 days per week or so, with less lower body stuff. I dedicate this post just for fun: I know it’s uninteresting, but at least I’ll have some proof that I’ve actually squatted every day twice for a short period 
I know this thread is old, but I’ve been doing a lot of research on the Broz methodology and I wanted to share some information that I found to be extremely valuable. So, I made an account just to post this.
Also, as has been mentioned by others in the thread: this is not a bodybuilding methodology. It shouldn’t be spoken to with a bodybuilding frame of mind. That’s wrong. Strength and size are different things. Read about them.
This is a mouthful, but if you are serious about this routine, you must read it. This is what I came here to post:
[quote]Tim Pinkerton wrote:
I was having a discussion on another forum late last year about overtraining and CNS recovery. I am not a doctor and didn’t know the exact reason why this type of training works, but along came Brent. Brent has a Ph.D. in Neurobiology. He answered the questions in terms everyone can understand. I emailed him to say thanks for explaining to everyone, including myself, of how and why it works. His email reply:
"I’m the one who should be thanking you. Your posts on GoHeavy (back in 97-99 when I was originally training using this method) are what got me interested in all of this. To see a contradictory opinion that made sense really opened my eyes. It may not have seemed like anyone was paying attention back then, but I was. My coach thought I was nuts. LOL
My experience using myself a guinea pig is what sparked my interest in physiology in the first place. For what it’s worth, thanks for your influence, a little bit went a long way."
What goes around, comes around. Here is what he posted, along with a few others’ responses. Thanks again for the education!
Post 1)
In the “dark times” it’s just as I said, a lot like “withdrawal” from substance abuse. If you want the specifics, I’ll try to lay them out for you as best I can. Maybe this will clear up some of the misconceptions people have about what actually happens when you lift weights. Then again, maybe monkeys will fly out of my behind…
Most people think the only part of the body to adapt to lifting are the muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. In fact, the brain also adapts to whatever stress you put on the body. It physically changes its structure and ability to deal with chemicals which directly relate to your physical activity. If you are a runner, you’ll get better at making and using chemicals which deal with running. You’ll also develop and affinity for extremely short shorts, politics, FOX news, granola, etc.
One thing that pissed me off about IA is his insistence that the CNS fatigues in some way. Bulls**t. People are still taught that the nervous system runs off of electrical impulses like a power cable. It doesn’t. The nerve impulses (synapses) run off of chemicals (neurotransmitters). If these chemicals are not present, there is no signal between brain and muscle. The reason you can measure electrical impulses in the nervous system is because the electrical impulse is a BYPRODUCT of this chemical reaction. Its called an electrochemical reaction.
A large part of how strong we are is the ability to create and deal with a higher concentration of these neurotransmitters. The nerves develop more receptor sites to connect with them, and the glands learn to make more of the neurotransmitters themselves. Only then do you get a stronger impulse.
When you start placing demands on the brain to lift maximum weights every day, it says “oh crap I need to learn how to make and use these chemicals or he’s going to kill us.” So it goes through an adaptive period where it shuts down some functions and tries to upgrade. These are the “dark times”.
The main chemical in muscle contraction is SEROTONIN. It actually regulates how HARD the muscle contracts, which is why only the heaviest weights seem to effect our mood, the reason why people shy away from maximal lifting and cower from the imaginary symptoms of overtraining.
Serotonin just happens to be the main feel good hormone in the body. It directly effects your mood and mental outlook, your happiness and willingness to train. Your sleep, appetite, and also effects the cardiovascular system (your heart rate increases when you are supposedly overtrained - this is why). The serotonin cycle in the brain gets screwed up when drug addicts go into withdrawal (most recreational drugs artificially influence the serotonin pathways, which is why they are so much fun). There are other neurotransmitters which get effected by this (acetylcholine for example), but serotonin is the big one.
So, when the body receives a demand to lift heavy things on a daily basis, the brain shuts down the serotonin receptors to upgrade them. The brain structure changes take a few days to a few weeks. Changes in individual nerves happen quickly, a few days at most. This is why the dark times occur. Its the adaptive period that’s needed for the brain and body to get to the next higher level. Natures little joke is obviously making us feel like crap when we are actually improving.
The body is trying to get us to stop the stress so it isn’t forced to remodel the whole place, but that’s exactly what you want. That’s why its so important to keep pounding away through it all. You want the greatest adaptation to take place.
Guys who are afraid of this response are guys who are lifting because they like the way it makes them feel. If you do lighter workouts, this serotonin is raised, but there is no signal to adapt. You feel high. Basically lifting weights becomes like a drug. People feel better doing light useless workouts, just like they feel better taking a hit of crack. I think this is why no one wants to try lifting the Bulgarian way. They are addicts.
You asked me about cortisol. There are no good and bad hormones. There are only hormones specific to your physical activity. Do you know why cortisol is released in weight lifting? Cortisol controls the blood pressure and concentration of blood sugar.
With short bursts of intense lifting (singles and doubles), blood sugar is not the primary fuel. Blood sugar only becomes an issue when you are doing higher reps. Cortisol is released mainly as a way to cope with these high reps, a way to shuttle more fuel (blood sugar) into the muscle tissue by using higher blood pressure. This is one reason bodybuilders have their posing trunks in a bunch over it. Cortisol is dealt with just like serotonin. The body tries to adapt to using it, and all the bodybuilders run and scream. If they stuck with it they’d go through a response much like the Dark times, and they’d be able to handle more high rep sets afterwards.
In this case, cortisol is specific to the activity bodybuilders, not power or olympic lifters. Keep your reps low and you never have to worry about it. (It has nothing to do with total volume, only reps in the set.)
That’s funny what you mentioned about the Bulgarians having huge adrenals. It makes sense. They adapt by getting larger and stronger just like anything else. That’s also a great argument against limiting genetics. Someone else would look at normal sized adrenals and say they would obviously be overloaded by stress. The Bulgarians entire organism changed in response to their lifting. Form follows function. Awesome stuff.
The adrenals don’t only release cortisol, they release adrenaline as well. Adrenaline acts as one of the triggers to this adaptive period. You should go read the lecture by Ivan Abajiev
He explains this whole adaptive period and how it effects more than just the musculature. Go read the paragraphs which start with:
“So this is our aim when we are training athletes, that we would build up all those organs and muscles needed for a certain performance, not only the muscles, but the whole cardiovascular and other systems that support the working of the muscles in order for a better performance. The adaptive process however, does not only include all the lungs and the heart and the other organs that I mentioned.”
So I hope I explained that all well enough. Bottom line, from a physiological standpoint - BROZ IS RIGHT. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Take care.
(p.s. - If you think maxing squats daily is tough, try typing all of this out on a phone!)
Post 2)
Originally Posted by dordoree
Electrical impulse IS neurotransmitters. “People are still taught that the nervous system runs off of electrical impulses like a power cable. It doesn’t. The nerve impulses (synapses) run off of chemicals (neurotransmitters).” You are wrong, there is no neurochemical reaction, it is just movement of ions. Serotonin doesn’t do anything in muscle junctions firing, it’s mostly GABA and ACh. Neurobiologists mostly work on cell system so you cant take a cell viewpoint on a body level because there are too many variables. Also, I think a neurobiologist saying serotonin is the main chemical in muscle contraction is just wrong. In vertebrates, the signal passes through the neuromuscular junction via the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. I really don’t know that much I just know your statement on serotonin and NMJs are wrong. I mean you say sero makes muscles fire and then say it makes you happy so its like a drug addiction. It’d be great if you can possibly provide sources regarding your statement. Thanks
Well, I think you missed the point just a bit.
One thing you find out in graduate school is that the vast majority of what you were taught as an undergrad was wrong. lol You say you don’t know much, so I am guessing you’ve had an introductory biology course on this topic. Youâ??re missing a few facts.
Yes, there is a neurochemical reaction before every nervous impulse. The movement of ions you refer to is a byproduct of these reactions, just like I said. Otto Loewi proved this over 80 years ago, and it is common knowledge in neuroscience. Im sure Wikipedia can tell you all about it.
Serotonin does indeed play a role in muscular contraction. Again, it is just as I said, it determines how hard the contraction is. Acetylcholine fires the muscle, Serotonin determines how hard it fires. Here are some research papers that confirm this.
I honestly don’t know how much clearer I can make what I wrote. If you want to know the ins and outs of this, stop contradicting information you know little about and spend a decade of your life earning a PhD like I did. Thanks.[/quote]
[quote]Seouldier wrote:
First I’d like to give some of my training history:
23 years old
185 pounds
2.5 years of real training
My diet is High fat, High protein, and very low Carb (45/45/10, most days)
Goals are to increase strength and mass and eventually compete in a bodybuilding competition
I just started doing Broz’s squat everyday for the last 2 weeks, mostly just to work on technique, I have switched from parralell to going ATG now. I have never intended to be an olympic lifter or powerlifter but am very interested in the hormonal response that squats produce. I do not train twice a day so I alternate between front and back squat.
The results: not only has my technique improved greatly just from practicing squats everyday
but I have added 10 pounds to my backsquat and front squat. Besides strength gain I have seen hypertrophy and seperation in my quads especially the medialis and intermedius.
Questions: Has any other bodybuilders tried something like this? And does anybody know by experience or literature if the hormonal impact produced by squatting goes down if the frequency is increased by everyday?
Thanks!
[/quote]
You can squat all you want (everyday seems massively overkill, but that’s just me).
Just up your calories dude. Especially carbs. Eating super low carbs is not ideal for packing on weight.
Bulking is getting over the fact that you’re not going to be shredded while you bulk is key. Gain that solid mass all winter, then dial it in for showtime baby!!! But that doesn’t mean get fat lol…
that was a pretty good post man
Thanks for that, Hypoxide. I too believe that much too much is made of “overtraining” and “cps burnout”. A specific lift is like any other skill, you improve as often and as intently as you practice it.
umm, i don’t really know what to think about broz’s concepts but i will say that ive hurt myself in the past by ramping into high frequency routines too quickly.