Lets Assume Overtraining Doesn't Exist

Training Bodybuilding
21

What is “satisfactory progress”

Its like when someone says “_____ program worked well for me” what is well?

The whole point of this is that rather than be happy with slow and steady progress, which tends to be more slow and less steady, why not shoot for more.

If you can gain 2lbs in a week, why be happy with .5lbs. And if upping your frequency a bit leads to a greater increase in strength, why not do it. Sure ______ program with _______ amount of calories might get you satisfactory progress, but with a little experimenting you may get greater than satisfactory progress.

22

[quote]dankid wrote:
What is “satisfactory progress”[/quote]

Well, you are either satisfied with your current rate of growth or you aren’t. That is something only you can answer.

[quote]
Its like when someone says “_____ program worked well for me” what is well?

[/quote] “well” is getting you one step closer to your goals, whatever they may be. If you have more muscle as the result of doing a particular routine, then it has been a success. No need to dismiss it as a failure if you expected to gain 2lBs and it has only yielded .5 of a lb. What matters is overall progress.

[quote]
The whole point of this is that rather than be happy with slow and steady progress, which tends to be more slow and less steady, why not shoot for more.

If you can gain 2lbs in a week, why be happy with .5lbs. And if upping your frequency a bit leads to a greater increase in strength, why not do it. Sure ______ program with _______ amount of calories might get you satisfactory progress, but with a little experimenting you may get greater than satisfactory progress. [/quote]

The point is, nobody can predict whether one program will yield more results than another. So why weigh one program against another?

If are confident that there is a more efficient way of training, then fine. But if you believe that, then surely you either think there is something lacking in your current training or you are dissatisfied with how much muscle you have gained.

Besides, thinking in those terms is the wrong way to go about it. It isn’t about whether one program will work better than another, but how close you can get to the goals you have set yourself. Progress over, say, a year would be more of an indicator of progress than looking at weekly averages.

Again, I recommend that you read up on Dogcrapp training: I’m not telling you to do it, but the philosophy behind it will clarify a lot of things.

23

[quote]dankid wrote:
I agree with everything everyone has said. Was just spouting out some of the things ive been thinking about lately.

I know everything could be simplified to eat more, and progress in all the major lifts, but some of this sparked my interest.

The big thing that im thinking of trying is trying to see if I can overtrain myself. I’ll eat a ton, rest a ton, and work out as much as I can. (within reason)

I did something similar to this in high school. All I would do was power cleans and bench press. I would mix things up with the weight and grips, but if I remember correctly I was doing both lifts 3-5 times per week, and working out M-F. I never overtrained, and I got decently strong.

I was 16 years old, 5’10" 150lb skinny ectomorph, but I could bench and clean 225. Not great but decent. I couldn’t gain much weight then, but my chest blew up and to this day it is still large in proportion to everything else.

I know nobody likes to here all of these theories, so maybe if I spend more time overtraining, i’ll have less time to sit and home and ponder these things.

Last thing for now. People mention things like, just eat and lift heavy and you’ll grow, and this is true to a point. And there is no possible way of ever coming up with this Optimal plan, but I still think its important to try different things.

If you aren’t gaining weight, then sure its because you aren’t taking in enough calories, but you also might not be working hard enough. It sounds counterproductive, but extra work, will likely equal extra hunger, and if you get the right mindset going, extra work, plus eating everything in site, may be the equation for greater growth.

And most importantly, if you are eating a lot, gaining weight, and your lifts are going up significantly, then you are growing. [/quote]

I think BENCHING 5 times a week, flat benching, is pretty much askin to fuck up your shoulders if you don’t have way more pulling to go along with it. I’m doing the same thing as you right now, well not the same, but i’m trying to push how much work I can do in a week and not worrying about overtraining until I get there.

Basically I’m trying to find out how far I can go before I start feeling like shit, gonna back off for a couple days, then try to flirt with that line again until I can push it farther, etc.

24

[quote]That One Guy wrote:

I think BENCHING 5 times a week, flat benching, is pretty much askin to fuck up your shoulders if you don’t have way more pulling to go along with it. I’m doing the same thing as you right now, well not the same, but i’m trying to push how much work I can do in a week and not worrying about overtraining until I get there.

Basically I’m trying to find out how far I can go before I start feeling like shit, gonna back off for a couple days, then try to flirt with that line again until I can push it farther, etc.
[/quote]

Ya it was a bad idea, but hey I was in high school, and it was the cool thing to do. I hardly train pushing now and have been just focusing on posterior chain for the most part.

My pullup strength is now greater then my bench strength, but i’ll be working on improving all around. Ive fooled around with programs similar to what im going to try, but not exactly. The closest thing ive done to it was one of Pavel’s programs I think it was 5x5x5.

Right now what ive come up with to begin with, is a 3-day A-B split.

each day will be full body.

The A workout will focus on upper body push, and lower body pull, with “assistance” or minor exercises for upper body pull, and lower body push.

and the B workout will be the opposite.

There is not going to be a set plan, but instead i’ll do what I want within those muscles being targeted. It could be ramping up to a ME set, then decreasing 10% and doing one more set. It could be rest-pause, or EDT style circuits.

Heres an example of what I might do for my first workout.

A) Flat barbell bench 2 x 6-10
B) Face pull 2 x 12-20
C) Rack Pull 2 x 6-10
D) Leg press 2 x 20-40

It would be a quick and intense workout and then i’d be out of the gym. Then next time, i come back to the A workout I can do the same thing with more weight, reps, sets, or I can do something completely different like EDT and get a little more volume with heavier weights in to prepare to beat these weights.

Either way the focus is on progress, and not on working muscles for the sake of working muscles. If a set of 40 on leg press does not in some way lead to bigger weights, then there is no reason to do it.

After a 2-3 week period of getting use to the exercises and getting a feel for how strong i am in some different lifts, i’ll do a short phase of 2-3 weeks where I try to progress rapidly in 2-3 main lifts. I’ll shoot for huge improvements in my 6-10 rep max and eat like crazy. Then i’ll back off and go to maintenance and prepare to do it again.

I’ll have to see what happens, but im really thinking the way to train is to go from maintenance to a short period of focusing on rapid progression, and then back to maintenance.

I’ll think of starting a log on here, that way everyone can see me succeed, or fail. It doesn’t matter either way as long as I try.

Here’s poliquin’s super-accumulation program

http://www.T-Nation.com/article/bodybuilding/the_superaccumulation_program&cr=

Im not brave enough for that one yet though.

25

OH and roybot, I have been reading up on DC methods over at intensemuscle. I think its a great program and there are enough people that swear by it to give it credibility. But at the same time there are just as many people that swear by high volume training.

It makes no sense to argue over which one is better, because neither is. Instead it is better to understand both, and use what is going to work best for you.

26

[quote]dankid wrote:
OH and roybot, I have been reading up on DC methods over at intensemuscle. I think its a great program and there are enough people that swear by it to give it credibility. But at the same time there are just as many people that swear by high volume training.

It makes no sense to argue over which one is better, because neither is. Instead it is better to understand both, and use what is going to work best for you.[/quote]

I didn’t argue that one program is better than another, and I already said that I wasn’t recommending that you go to a gym and do actually do DC training.I told you to look at how Dante developed his system. You will find that, in the devising of it , he addressed pretty much everything you are trying to rationalize in this thread.

I’m not trying to engage in a debate with you here. Gerdy and Prof. X have already told you that you are overcomplicating things. That should be enough. If you are confident that controlled periods of overtraining is the best approach for you, then do it (just for the record, I don’t see how you propose to synchronize this style of training with non-linear growth spurts, if that is what you intend to do: that is just what I assumed you were planning from your first post).

27

I think I understand what you’re trying to do and yes, the best/only way to do it is to try it yourself because writing down ideas goes only so far.

However, I don’t understand why you are not doing Poliquin’s program? It’s basically forcing your body artificially into a growth spurt through messing up your body/hormones. It’s also a successful/tried program. So why not just do that?