Sounds like your mind to muscle connection with your lats is either lacking, or you’ve created some poor motor patterns with them.
Or let me state, shoulder width is fine, but getting slightly closer means the lats are going to possibly get more lengthened.
This is one of those things that’s easier to show in person than explain on the net.
Is that normal that sometimes I have lats soreness after intense OHP days?
If you’re contracting them super hard then no. But again, that means you’re using the overhead press in a more integrated way than to build the delts.
@The_Mighty_Stu can you clarify a little more here. When you say “plenty of sets” are you actually saying you did more than 10-20 sets of intense sets for a muscle group. Or are you and @Paul_Carter actually running in parallel with your comments here.
I dont have your or Pauls credentials (hence why I am asking) but I have been playing this game since the early 90’s and tried many different approaches over that time, also trained along side some decent bodybuilders (in their time) and never saw guys doing that many sets.
A thought that occoured regarding intensity and frequency.
With intensity, working to failure and pushing reps/weighht PRs being the spark for growth.
Let’s keep it simple and compare, say, a PPL and a full body split. 3 days a week, let’s take a generic “pull” workout:
-pulldowns
-rows
-weighted chinups
On a PPL split, you’d do each one on the same day. You’d push as hard as possible the pulldowns, reaching failure, then do the same for the other two. But since there’s overlap, since they share a good amount of the same muscles being used, there’s also localized cumulative fatigue to take into account.
This means you can probably go balls out on the first exercise, but even if you work to failure on the following ones, you’re not really moving the most weight or doing the most reps you could if you were fresher.
On the other hand, if you do these exercises on separate days, you could reach failure in each one separatily, and push the reps/weight PRs while fresher.
So to make a random example with invented numbers, it could be something like (the top sets):
-pulldowns: 225x8 PPL; 225x8 full body
-rows: 200x6 PPL; 200x9 full body
-weighted chins: +40lbs x6 PPL; +55lbs x6 full body
Basically, in one case you’d be able to push failure more aggressively, back to back on the same day and really reach exhaustion while limiting overlapping in the following days and managing recovery.
In the other scenario, the magnitude of muscular failure is reduced in each workout, but you’re still going to failure while being able to push PRs more easily, with the chance of screwing up recovery a bit if you don’t manage overlapping.
Now, I understand that Paul is obviously all for the first scenario, but two points elude me:
-why is the first scenario better (strictly speaking for hypertrophy here), why is a metric fuckton of concentrated intensity on a single session better than a diluted amount on multiple sessions?
-if this is it, how to handle it when a session has very different muscle groups involved? The above example is easy in the sense that all three exercises are aimed at lats and upper back. But what about a push day where someone has chest, shoulders and triceps? At that point, your work does get spread with less focus, even if you pick stuff that involves more musculature
Hope I’ve made myself clear
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Probably worth clarifying what you mean by muscle groups. Pushing (chest, shoulders, tris, etc), Pulling (lats, biceps, traps, etc) and legs (hams, quads, etc)?
Ooops should have just said ‘per muscle’ which was what Pauls comment says.
Just throwing my 2 cents in. Anyone ever read “Training for Mass” by Gordon Lavelle? His book is all about HIT and using it as an approach for bodybuilding. If you google his name you’ll see a ton of his images from shows he’s done.
In the past year I’ve gone back to an HIT approach of PPL, where I am lifting 5 to sometimes 6 times a week to up the frequency since it seems that the latest research is showing that the effectiveness of upping frequency in natural lifters.
HIT is certainly tough to wrap your head around when you have been lifting with a high volume approach for so long. I think a lot of the “HIT jedi” nonsense comes from how off the charts crazy Mentzer started getting towards the end of his days when he was advocating lifting like once every 10 days or something lol.
All that being said, as anyone who has had success in lifting (bodybuilding, powerlifting, general fitness) would say, what’s really important is having set goals and monitoring your progress to those goals. Without that, you’re really just spinning your wheels for shits and giggles.
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Paul never started out saying 10-20 sets. That is where the mistake is now being made. He stated studies said between 10-20 was the range but he, said
“At the same point, anyone who is doing 20 sets for legs in a training week probably isn’t training very hard, or is a recovery outlier. I poured over more than a dozen studies in the last few months that looked at the volume to growth relationship and if you really break them down, you’ll see that about 10-12 sets per week seems to be the optimal dose. Then I followed that up by talking to about a dozen smart and well developed lifters, and all of their “work sets” added up to just about that amount. On average it was about 8-10 true work sets a week for a muscle group.”
“My article that just launched to day was written around a study that proves that very thing. The group that did 10 sets a week grew like weeds and gain strength like crazy. The groups that did 15 and 20 sets a week? Not so much.”
“My article today goes into that. 10 sets for a muscle group a week is going to be enough for pretty much everyone”
"To circle back to agreement, I really do think that if guys narrowed down their total volume in a SESSION to something between 8-12 working sets, they would see far more progress. However they want to split that up is really up to them. But limiting the total work sets to 8-12 in order to preserve the system taxation would be ideal."
20 sets would not be low volume. What coaches recommend ranges much higher than that? Even Mike Israetels (Max recoverable Volume) MRV: is not much higher and he only recommends shorter cycles.
“Most people seem to encounter serious recovery problems above 22 sets per week”
The 10-20 weekly sets is nothing new Lyle Mcdonald has been writing about that for decades.
Don’t quote me, especially out of context.
The research (if you’re looking at all of it) has constantly said that it’s going to be somewhere between 10-20 sets. That’s a big range. In more studies than not, the lower and moderate volumes did better or at least as well as the higher volume groups. And I’ve been consistent in saying that.
My stance has been to err on the lower side of that. But again, we’re talking a range here. So if you’re going to quote me, do so in context.
Between 8-12 sets is going to be enough for the majority of people. And that falls in that 10-20 range erring on the lower side of it. Again, it’s a range.
No one said it was new, dickbag. We got it man, you swing from Mike’s jock. Understood.
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I think you missunderstood what I was asking. My question to Stu was about what sort of volume he was seeing other bodybuilders and what he himself were actually using and whether that was worlds apart from the range.
Researchers compared the muscle activity of the lats during both types of rows. Lat muscle activity during the inverted row was about 60% greater than during the barbell row , which means it stimulated more muscle fibers to grow bigger. The scientists also reported that the inverted row didn’t stress the lower back as much as the barbell bent-over row. Builders with back pain rejoice!
What about a 25yo v 45yo?
I would think a 25yo would benefit from 12 to 15 sets while a 45yo would be better off staying in the 8-12 range.
EMG is basically worthless. We covered that in one of the Swoley Trinity podcasts.
It’s a really shitty way to look at what movements stress what muscles most effectively.
I would like to ask for some clear statements concerning Paul‘s cited research and the definition of „ our agreed upon intensity“ as a driver!
Sets and sets differ vastly as far as intensity goes, and the required recovery needed as well !!!
Let me say, as an example, 1rep of 85%, 1 rep 75%, one set all out followed by a 50% set ( as Paul wrote in his 5 years guaranteed gains ) as opposed to 3-4 sets with 8 close to failure or 1 set to failure regardless of reps ( max 20 plus) surely is a different…
This is where I am missing a bit of clarification concerning the sited research and for example the „proven reps for hypertrophy“ as found on tnation.
Is there a question in there?
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8-10 sets of how many reps, and which kind of intensification in these reps, are we talking about in this whole discussion?
Which plan would you advise?
That’s something each person has to figure out overall.
Something we went over in this last podcast. At some point you have to take the data, look at it, and then experiment in the gym to find out what is going to work best for you. I consistently drive home that theme because there’s no “right” answer for everyone. That’s why all of this serves as guidelines and you guys, a LOT of you, need to stop trying to be hand held and told and go in and experiment. That’s the only way you’re going to know what methods work best for you right now.
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