[quote]jonnyblaze wrote:
I have a question that deals with the topic of “trainability” that you have discussed before. My sense is that many training systems that focus on changing up the rep schemes (the “Nothing works forever” crowd) are in fact chasing this phenomenon (for example, while you’re doing heavier/low-rep work, your trainabilty for moderate rep work increases and then you switch, and vice versa). It seems like your thoughts on autoregulation are in direct contradiction with this line of thinking, EXCEPT that you are a proponent of specialization, which inherently allows for an increase in the trainability of the muscles that are just coming out of the maintenance phase.
I guess my question then becomes, does the effectiveness of your lower-rep autoregulation system really ultimately depend on using periods of specialization? Or can the system be just as effective without specialization (or at least more effective than more traditional models of periodization)? If so, how is this quality of trainability increased while keeping the reps low? (maybe through other mechanisms like switching the movements over time, etc.?) [/quote]
Simply changing rep schemes will NOT restore trainability. The action of varying rep schemes simply to give your body a change in stimulus is flawed. You are simply training an energy system that might have been neglected, as you improve it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are gaining muscle or strength, but rather that the new energy system is becoming more efficient at fueling the movement and the body more efficient at getting rid of the metabolic by products.
The same holds true for always changing around your exercises. This often gives the ILLUSION of progress. When you switch to a new exercise, the improvements over the first 2-3 weeks are neural in nature (you basically become more efficient at doing the movement). It is only once the movement and fiber recruitment pattern is stable and engrained that maximal muscular growth can be achieved.
By changing your exercises too frequentely you get the false sense of progress because you are always in a state of learning a new movement, but the actual size gains are not significant.
Case in point… Bulgarian olympic lifters perform only 6 lifts in training, which are actually 4 lifts and 2 variations:
- Snatch
- Power snatch
- Clean and jerk
- Power clean
- Back squat
- Front squat
And their lifters still progress from year to year. In fact this model of training has now gained popularity among all the top olympic lifting countries, who have now disregarded the old system which included using a lot of different training exercises.
And look at the top bodybuilders. They are normally creatures of habits; they do not include much exercise, sets and reps variation in their training. Yet they are bigger from one year to the next. Heck, Dorian Yates stayed on the exact same routine for 5 years straight!
I think that the fact is that muscle growth and strength gains never occurs as fast as we would want. Changing your body is an emotional issue and it can never happen fast enough. So I think that the false sense of progress from switching from one program to the next feeds into that need for being reassured about our progress.
There is also the factor that since transforming our body is an emotional issue that never happens as fast as we would like, we tend to believe that the ‘next program’ might be the one that will unlock all that growth we’ve been dreaming about.
It is actually simpler than that… learn how to perform the perfect rep, autoregulate, change only when you need to accomplish a different goal. That’s it.