I’ve got to agree with MR here. We (both societally and specifically here in the forums) seem overly concerned with finding the most efficient way to do things, whether it’s eat, train, or whatever. Even worse, there’s a tendency to explain away the success of other methods by saying “There’s no telling how much better he might have been had he followed modern methods.” It’s true, the bodybuilders and athletes of the past might have been better with modern methods. But they might also have been worse off. Moreover, one of the points Ian King, Charles Staley, Charles Poliquin, Jerry Telle, and others make repeatedly is that the ideal way to work out changes after about 6 workouts–the best strategy is by definition only the best strategy of the moment. This applies to diet as well. There is no one ideal diet (not even Massive Eating/Don’t Diet), and the best diets are frequently made more effective by introducing cheat meals. Perhaps the real question is “what has been reliably demonstrated to work,” not “what’s the optimal way.”
Some thoughts:
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It doesn’t matter what other people are doing in the gym or how long they work out. I get looks, stares, questions, haters and admirers when I perform my Renegade workouts. But they work for me. And I’m the one making progress and changes over time, while they look the same, always.
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Getting stronger to get bigger is key, to a certain degree. I don’t think you necessarily have to have high levels of strength in order to get bigger. Yes, some will grow with heavy weights and low reps (Powerlifters, those with more fast-twitch fibers, finding what works best for you, i.e. Goldberg and Steve Coppola, etc.). While others will make better progress on moderate poundages and moderate rep ranges and higher volume.
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In many cases, the volume of work will be more important than the amount of weight used.
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Training is the stimulus, but rest and nutrition will be the keys to long-term progress.
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I agree with many of char-dawg’s points.
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Sorry, but genetics, body type, etc., do play a role in your overall success.
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Goldberg is right. If you believe it, you can achieve it. It’s a mindset. It’s a battle. And you have to put your mind to work to achieve your goals whether it’s to get bigger, stronger or a little of both.
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I think the key to the training stimulus is finding what works best for you (low reps or high reps, low volume or high volume) and following a consistent and periodized plan over time.
Sorry about that last post - couldn’t help myself.
Chris, thanks for brining up the point about changing what you are doing. Although this has been a topic of another thread, many people do benfit from changing their workouts on a regular basis.
Nate’s got some good points, too. What may work for one person may work for another. Genetics definately play a role.
What about fiber type? Whether you have more IIA, IIB, etc. can make a difference.
Why are we even talking about this? I mean, if you go into the gym and do 100-rep sets of deads all the damn time, or you go in and do 5-rep sets of deads all the damn time, you’re gonna get bigger!
In both cases, you’re working your ass off, and your body is going to compensate. Ever seen a good sprinters legs? I know a few guys who sprint (and DON’T train their legs with weights, that much anyway) who have legs I would KILL for, and I squat my ass off every other day in the gym.
Go do sets of 100 squats so you fail around the 100th rep, and tell me your lets won’t get any bigger.
“Moreover, one of the points Ian King, Charles Staley, Charles Poliquin, Jerry Telle, and others make repeatedly is that the ideal way to work out changes after about 6 workouts–the best strategy is by definition only the best strategy of the moment.”
Tell that to the people who make great gains using the same basic 5-6 movements all year round without periodization simply by adding fractional plates every workout.
-Zulu
Zulu I wholeheartedly agree with that last statement for once. Micr-loading is very beneficial. And you should keep the same basic compounds year round.
I heard that if a young person,lets say 17 starts to lift huge amount of weights he’ll stop growing, is that true?
No, it isn’t.
-Zulu
Zulu-
Many of the people making great gains with just fractional plates are making gains in strength but not in mass. Are there exceptions? Of course. But the vast majority of people out there do far better on periodized programs.
Following up my own post to Zulu here. No argument that you should keep the same core lifts, or at least variations on the same core lifts year-round, but changing your loading protocol, split, recovery, tempo, etc. from time to time generally proves highly beneficial.
To Chris:
I see your point but we will never know. It’s just hard for me to believe that they would be worse off. I just know how much a difference nutrition has had on my physique and the impact it has had on my leaness.
"Many of the people making great gains with just fractional plates are making gains in strength but not in mass. Are there exceptions? Of course. But the vast majority of people out there do far better on periodized programs. "
I doubt it. Once you start using fractional plates, strength increases no longer come from neural adaptation but rather from hypertrophy.
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Following up my own post to Zulu here. No argument that you should keep the same core lifts, or at least variations on the same core lifts year-round, but changing your loading protocol, split, recovery, tempo, etc. from time to time generally proves highly beneficial."
I was merely pointing out that you don’t even have to switch things around in order to make progress. After all, weren’t you talking about not criticizing the gains people make on seemingly bad routines? Or was that someone else?
-Zulu
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most people who are using fractional weights using them to extend a basic cyclestarting with light weights, and moving to heavier weights (and then adding fractional weights to continue to increase the load)? Isn’t this just another form of periodized training?
You can stick with the same basic lifts, and still make gains, while having a periodized program. There are other variables to alter other than lift selection (Volume, rep range, load, bar speed, etc.).
Dan
JasonL:
Part of my point was that nutrition itself differs from person to person, at least to a degree. There are those, for example, who actually get and stay leaner eating 40/30/30 at every meal than on a Massive Eating/Don’t Diet regimen. Also, the old guys were a lot more nutrition-savvy than we give them credit for. New knowledge frequently creates new blind spots–hence the “cutting edge” revival of some of the classic odd lifts, GPP, etc.
Zulu:
Where do you get the idea that by the time you’re using fractional plates, all the strength increases are attributable to hypertrophy? What I’ve seen in the real world just doesn’t bear that out. Granted, most of the people I’ve seen using the fractional plates were doing HIT-style routines which are infamous for producing more strength than hypertrophic adaptations. On training, I agree that you don’t need the constant change-ups to make progress. I consider them helpful, but I’m more than willing to respect the fact that not everyone does. More power to them.
I’d say the strength/size correlation has to do more with muscular recruitment capabilities then anything else. The average person can probably only recruit 50% of their given motor units in a given task. Elite o-lifters and powerlifters may approach 90%. You gotta be strong enough to recruit those dormant muscle fibers before you can hypertrophy them through a bodybuilding program. Higher reps don’t do much for muscular recruitment/relative strength. It’s no wonder that athletes such as Powerlifters, O-lifters, and gymnasts blow up when they start serious bodybuilding…they’re muscular recruitment capabilities and relative strength are typically out of this world. I do believe that for long term progress gaining strength is important but, having said that, I don’t think hypertrophy is necessarily dependent on it…what exactly causes hypertrophy is rather complex (muscular damage, disruption of electrochemical homeostasis)and there is obviously more then one way to stimulate it. I could easily train and eat in a fashion in which I gain a significant amount of muscle whilst either maintaining or losing strength and could also lose muscle while gaining strength as I’ve done both and seen others do both in the past.
Kelly:
the number I heard are in the 20(untrained)-50(athletes) range (Pavel tstatsuline)
beside that, you are on the money. thats why maximal efforts will be beneficial for mass seekers as well.
The numbers I used I took from Bompa and some other german texts. I hard those #'s from Tsastsouline as well but I have a hard time believing that elite lifters at the very peak are still only using 50% of their absolute strength…by the way, for those who are curious.
I have some new information that I have experienced with myself. After 6 months of a conditioning program, I went directly to a hypertrophy program. Problem was, I lost too much strength during the conditioning program, and I have been struggling on the hypertrophy program. I’ve realized that I’m missing something that I should have done. After the conditioning program, I should have gone directly to a strength-based program and then to a hypertrophy program.
This is also recommended by Don Alessi in the recent paper version of T-mag. In his Iron Dog column, someone asked what type of training he should follow while on a cycle (androgens) to maximize gains. Don first stated that he needed to clean up his diet (use T-dawg diet), get lean (under 11 percent for men) and focus on a 3-4 week strength program, such as “Meltdown II” or his Olympic lifting aticle, “Bodybuilding’s Best Kept Secret.”
He said that prior to the cycle, you want to make a 3-5 percent strength increase so it will maximize your gains when beginning androgens and following a higher volume hypertrophy program (6-12 rep range, preferably training twice a day). After peaking, you cut back volume and and train in the 8-12 rep range. Of course, during your cycle, he recommends increasing carbs to 50 percent of your total and adding an additional 5,000-7,000 calories per week.
Since I’m going to be using 4ADEC for a 10-week cycle, I am using Don’s advice and taking the next three weeks to increase my strength (using Meltdown II). Once I begin my cycle, I will be back to my Renegade Mass program. I’ll keep you posted.
By the way, I’m on my second week of MAG-10. I haven’t noticed any mass increases yet. But here is one thing that MAG-10 does seem to do: It causes a strength increase (when training heavier and with lower reps). So this will be a nice way to increase my strength in the next three weeks before gaining the lean body mass…without the fat!
Baggs, real nice to have you around! It’s always great to get your awesome insight and experience! Back to you in just a sec…
Nate Diggity, you really hit on a great point that I’m going to try to expand upon (basically, you beat me to the punch, ya terd!)
Kell, you said [quote]“It’s no wonder that athletes such as Powerlifters, O-lifters, and gymnasts blow up when they start serious bodybuilding…they’re muscular recruitment capabilities and relative strength are typically out of this world.”[/quote]
CT obviously showed that it’s plausible to gain muscle and lose fat when dieting on a hypertrophy/strength-related training program (i.e. OVT). Since Chris is a powerlifter, he attributed such success to a very novel training stimulus (i.e. he’s never utilized bodybuilding training like this).
While that is definitely a possible explanation for such outstanding results, I like your comments and explanation for such, Baggs.
Typically, the traditional periodization scheme (well, for athletes anyhow) involves a hypertrophy phase followed by a strength and/or power phase(s), which is then followed by peaking. Obviously the needs of an athlete are different than that of a bodybuilder.
That being said, if we’re talking about bodybuilders, many of whom do not periodize or vary their training protocol markedly, my line of thinking is that a power phase and/or a strength training phase should be followed by a phase of higher volume geared towards hypertrophy to target the exact mechanism that Kelly pointed out. If you can recruit more Type II fibers and subsequently activate more IIb (which then will shift to IIa) during the more intense phases, then the phases of higher volume will be more efficient.
Just some random thoughts open to discussion…
Timbo,
Sorry to spoil your turds, but you definitely hit the nail on the head with your explaination.
Typically, those seeking mass are told to follow their hypertrophy training with strength training. But the opposite would elicit a better response to hypertrophy.
Good thoughts!