Natural Bodybuilding as a Teen Roadmap

Training
204

I’m assuming this is the article you’re referencing [The Ian King Cheat Sheets - Part 2] and this is the passage you have in mind;

According to Ian, if an experienced lifter wants to bring up a certain body part, then he’ll need to prioritize. Beginners can make good progress training every muscle group and/or lift with the same intensity and volume, but as we all know, it gets harder to progress the more years you spend in the gym. The answer for the person of advanced training age is to do specialization work for that group of muscles while doing only “maintenance” work for the rest of his body.

(If this isn’t what you’re referencing, you can ignore the rest of this.)

I agree with this, and it aligns with what I’ve said earlier about advanced lifters slashing their frequency and volume to maintain what they have while focusing on their problem areas.

I don’t think it’s necessary to actually slash your total volume, though, until you’ve very nearly hit your genetic limit. For going from beginner to intermediate, I don’t think decreasing total volume is a good idea, but you don’t have to necessarily increase it, either. You can balance volume and frequency by decreasing the amount of volume you get in on any given session relative to the extent to which you’ve increased frequency.

For example, you lift 100lbs 1 time per gym session 3x/week, for a total weekly volume of 300lbs lifted. If you increase frequency to 6x/week, you can afford to drop your daily volume to 50lbs before your total weekly volume takes a hit.

This is just one example, though. The way I see it, volume must always be considered relative to intensity. For example, if your 1rm is 100lbs, then lifting 75lbs for 2 sets of 5 (option 1) is actually less volume than doing 85lbs for 2 sets of 3 (option 2). This may seem counterintuitive at first, seeing as with option 1 you are doing more total reps and more total weight (10 reps and 750 total lbs vs 6 reps and 255 total lbs), but this is only what I would call nominal-volume (and yes, I just made this term up. There may or may not already be a term for this, I don’t know, just roll with it for now)

This is nominal-volume as opposed to real-volume, which has to do with how many reps you’re getting relative to the total amount of reps you can do with a given weight in any one set. 75% of your 1rm, for most people, is going to be a weight they can manage for 10 reps, so 2 sets of 5 @75% intensity only puts them on-par with their AMRAP volume (which, as the term “AMRAP volume” implies, is the most amount of volume they can manage in a single set). 85% intensity, however, is typically a weight you can only manage for 5 reps, and therefore doing 85% for 2 sets of 3 gives you a net gain of 1 additional rep over your AMRAP volume, which is a 20% increase in real-volume.

Your body doesn’t know how much weight it has moved in total, it only knows how stimulated it has been, which is why it’s important to differentiate between real-volume and nominal-volume, as the former factors in the relative impact a given intensity has on your muscles, whereas the later is just a raw number of total work done.

All this is just a complicated way of explaining that, if recovery is an issue for you, you can deal with that problem by decreasing nominal-volume without decreasing real-volume by means of increasing intensity. Since you’re doing fewer reps and moving less total weight session-to-session, it doesn’t wear down your joints/tendons/ligaments as much, nor is it likely to tear up your muscles as much (keep in mind greater muscle damage doesn’t necessarily imply greater subsequent growth). But so long as you’re still netting the same relative real-volume, you shouldn’t experience any less gains as the result.

In short;

  1. As you get older/ more advanced, you’ll have to decrease nominal-volume and increase intensity, but you won’t have to, nor should you, decrease real-volume until you’re just about at your genetic limit and ready to be in maintenance/fine tuning mode.

  2. If you increase frequency, you’ll have to drop nominal-volume per session, however you can actually get away with an increase in total weekly real-volume by increasing intensity sufficiently. In this way you don’t impede your recovery ability, nor do you need to leave potential gains on the table.

205

As a side-note, this is something I’m very much impressed with in regards to CT’s article [This one here]. Your primary lift on any given day is also your “heavy work,” which he sets up as picking a weight you can do for 4-6 reps, doing a set of 4-6 reps, then a set of 2-3 and a set of 1-2.

He doesn’t explain this in the article, but this rep-range corresponds to a weight roughly 85% of your 1rm, which is the highest intensity you can go before your body has to increase rate-coding to respond to the greater load (CT must know this). He also sets up the set/rep scheme as such that you end up doubling (or almost doubling) your real-volume at this intensity. Both of these aspects of this program were definitely made intentionally, and it was smart of him to set the intensity for you main lifts to the maximum intensity you ought to* train at given this is a 6-day high frequency program, which would require low nominal-volume to maximize recovery.

*“ought to” in terms of maximizing muscle stimulation without going overboard

206

Two points before I go to sleep.

  1. Although I really like CT, he is ONE MAN, and he is being cited over and over and over again by the non-split camp as if his word is gospel. Meanwhile, those of us who have paid close attention to his work for a long time, have read articles from him in which he recommends the exact type of split-routine, low-frequency, and pre-exhaust training and exercise sequencing we discuss here! Though I like much of his work, some of it can be considered inconsistent if they don’t consider the context in which he writes or don’t consider that perhaps he himself thinks there is more than one way to fry a fish, so to speak!

CT, again, though I greatly respect him, I will say about him, from his writings, it seems sometimes as if he has a love-hate outlook on bodybuilding. That’s just the way he comes across. Absolutely no disrespect to the man though and I have learned A LOT from him.

  1. Those who live for bodybuilding, the ones who’ve been coaching people for a long damn time, and have had large success in doing so, and most of whom have been around doing their thing long before T-mag came about, all espouse the type of bodybuilding training we discuss here.

Non-bodybuilders here have the uncanny knack for citing CT, over, and over and over again while completely ignoring, not only the writings of, but the success of:

  1. Tom Venuto
  2. Scott Abel
  3. Dan Duchaine
  4. Clay Hyght
  5. Chris Aceto
  6. Otis Hollywood
  7. Dave Palumbo
  8. Shelby Starnes
  9. our very own Stu

And the list goes on and on, and they’ve all dealt with naturals and assisted people!

Go on and keep citing CT. I doubt even he, an intelligent man with an open mind would even want people to take his word blindly as gospel and not trying anything that actually works if it has shown to produce results! And again, in some of his articles, he writes about the very same style of BB training we speak of here, one of them not written long ago. Perhaps these non-split people love to quote him because he is one of the few staple authors on T-mag, while they overlook the hundreds of other training articles on here by BODYBUILDING writers.

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207

These are all off-hand objections. Do you find anything specific about what I said to be wrong, and if so, why?

Anyway,

  1. This is the first time I’ve ever cited CT for anything, ever.

  2. I’m not blindly following anything. In fact I clearly went into very deep detail about why I believe the things I believe, here. It’s nothing short of mind-boggling how anyone could read what I just wrote and write it off as blind-faith.

  3. Difference in application isn’t the same as a difference in principle. There are all sorts of programs anyone could make that will look very different from what I made for myself or CT made in his article, but so long as they’re made with the same training principles in mind, they aren’t actually contradictory, they’re just complementary.

  4. The extent to which these other authors have written things genuinely contradicting the training principles I’ve espoused ITT is the extent to which they are wrong. If this opinion bothers you, or any of them, I’m open to hearing any of you out. Just don’t be surprised if I’m not swayed by anecdotes and ad-homs.

208

So…I attempt to say that both camps are correct in one fashion or another, and ask why we can’t just leave the “discussion” there…and you have to come back at me with a condescending response that implies that I’m stupid?

Fantastic. Throws up hands in exasperation*

209

I myself enjoy a good pan-fry, where you “routinely split” the fish into sections for an ultimately better result.. What’s your favorite? :grinning:

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210

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Well, well, well… look what I dug up: The Training Split Roundtable - Part 1

211

Beer battered fried cod.

212

I’m eating pan-fried cod right this minute! Everybody else I know dislikes cod…you’re a good man, Brad!

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213

And look what else I dug up: The Training Strategy Handbook

Will the anti-split camp continue to endlessly cite CT, unaware of other statements he’s made?! Those of us who have hung out around here long enough know the deal.

AGAIN, this is NOTHING against CT, rather it is pointing out context and that CT has written god knows how many articles and stated different views throughout the years.

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214

I’ve always respected Christian and many of the other writers on here, but you have to realize that authors cater to their audience. As the target audience of this site has alternated between hardcore bodybuilding and general fitness, so have the articles presented.

The other names you listed above are all bodybuilding - authors, Bodybuilders,and trainers of Bodybuilders. I would assume That’s why you see just an obvious agreement among them.

S

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Current Bodybuilding Training Thread 2.0
215

More from the most recent article cited.

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216

If you don’t want to debate this topic, you don’t have to. Nobody asked to you meditate peace in this thread. If this makes you feel stupid, so be it. That’s not my problem.

217

@BrickHead is all that supposed to mean something to me? I already laid out the training principles I abide by. If these programs you posted were built in accordance with them, then I agree with them. If they weren’t, then I don’t. I don’t care who wrote them or how many times any given author has changed their mind in the past. This doesn’t mean anything to me. It says nothing about the soundness of my position. You’re saying a lot of tangential things, but you’re never actually engaging with the meat of my arguments. How do you ever expect me to conclude that I’m wrong and you’re right if you never actually engage with what I’m saying?

218

@BrickHead

Just leave it alone, man. Ryu will never change his opinion or even concede that both opinions can be correct. This thread is pointless.

219

Don’t be sore. Just because you’re conflict-averse doesn’t mean the rest of us ought to be.

220

What makes you think I am only speaking to YOU in this forum? If I wanted to address things with you specifically, I would reply directly to you! I didn’t. Rather I am speaking to everyone who cares to read my posts on the matter considering you’re not the only one in here interested in making gains for yourself or to help others and this topic has been discussed at length in another currently ongoing thread as well. I have stayed away from being rude, and I don’t want to be going further, but I don’t know how else to point out that you’re not the only one in on this conversation. Even the guy who started this thread, which we’ve all manage to wreck and derail was unsure of what to do because of conflicting statements.

As I said, if you don’t like splits, don’t freaking do them! But I would advise anyone who is interested in physique or bodybuilding COMPETITION to ignore what you have to say on training, not as an insult at AT ALL, but because it has not shown to provide the best results for these endeavors and there’s a reason why the best prep coaches in the business all use splits, pre-exhaust, and proper exercise sequencing!

It reminds of the shit thrown around by Jason Blaha stating that carb rotation diets have no merit, even though he himself decided to have a nice, slovenly 10,000 calorie refeed when he was still at about 20% body fat, only later to bash such caloric rotation. Yet all the best in bodybuilding use carb rotation for their clients and themselves!

How’s this: put your money where your mouth is, turn yourself into a bodybuilder while working on your weak points over the next half year so you can show the superiority of your ways! Put up a before pic, which would be a current one, so you and all of us can best subjectively find what you can improve on in a mature fashion and shred down while bringing up some of your symmetry. Friendly challenge! Perhaps we can see if just banging away with high frequency and protein synthesis with hardly any isolation work or pre-exhaust and exercise sequencing in mind.

Friendly challenge.

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221

Are there other people ITT you’re arguing with? Because if not it’s pretty obvious why I’d assume these posts are apropos to me, given they relate directly to things I’ve (alone) said here.

I already know you advise people to not take my advice. I advise they don’t take yours. That’s how disagreements work. I’m already on the same page as you on this.

I don’t care what Jason Blaha says about things. I’m not Jason Blaha.

I’ll likely be putting up progress pics periodically, anyway. I don’t plan on cutting until spring, though. I have to keep my diet cycles in line with when I compete in powerlifting, after all.

Also, I never said anything about not doing isolation work, and I haven’t said anything at all either way on “pre-exhaust.” You must have someone else in mind, here.

222

You seem pretty self centered and narcissistic and controlling.

225

Thanks for that response, Stu. I’ve had to revamp pretty much everything I thought I knew about lifting/application recently.

Gems like these certainly help.

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