It’s really going to boil down to energy available (intake) vs. energy expended during the day.
For the body to ADD to itself (gain muscle) it’s going to have to think there is a NEED to add. In other words, you’re going to have to overload the muscle (make it absolutely work past failure). Then you’ll have to make sure that your intake energy is equal to the expended energy used during the workout, PLUS whatever you expended during the day with other activity, plus a little extra for reinforcement.
If you intake X, and then expend X plus Y, then the body will repair itself but it will not reinforce (make it stronger). It simply does not have the energy to waste in doing EXTRA work.
To bring this back into context, one method will work better for some over the other simply because you burn more more calories with longer light workouts trying to get failure than you do with quick heavy overloads. If you’re an “active” person, then what you think is a surplus in calories will actually wind up being maintenance with long duration workout styles.
That’s great for endurance, not so much for adding mass.
These statements are my own opinions and personal observations, so do keep that in mind.
I think the answer, for most people, is to weave in and out of both modalities so the body doesn’t adapt.
I’m interested in seeing how this year (2020) turns out. I’ve never done this style of training before – long workouts, light weights, tracking so religiously on a spreadsheet.
It’s taken me some time to get used to it – I don’t naturally love lifting for 90 minutes and never feeling that I’m going that hard. However, if it gets results, I’ll stick with it!
Been reading this thread for a long while and enjoyed it a lot, thought I’d throw my 2c in about heavy weight Vs failure for gaining size. It’s clear that both do work, but I think for most getting stronger is more effective long term.
As someone mentioned above going to failure is subjective and most people (myself included here) don’t really push hard enough to see proper failure, which, when you’re lacking mechanical tension means your relying solely on failure and then your missing growth mechanism.
However when you spend a year or two focused on getting stronger (in any rep range it will all count, but personally I’d say 4-8 range for compounds) it’s a tangible target with objective success or failure you either gained X amount on your squat/dead/bench/ohp etc or you didn’t.
You probably won’t end up looking like a bodybuilder at the end of it, but if you spend a year/2 years gaining 50kg/100lb on dead, squat and 25kg/50lb on bench/ohp (for the same number of reps) and eating to gain, it would be unheard of not to gain muscle mass.
I completely agree with this, as well as your point about having a tangible target. I love that part of strength training.
My issue with it, though, is that “getting stronger” can also be subjective. For example, I see a lot of guys thinking they’re getting stronger (my bench went from 250-275!), but in reality they’re just allowing their form to get worse. You see this especially with complex movements like the squat.
So everything in training, like everything in life, is subjective. It’s all complicated!
I agree to a point, but this is also self limiting you may gain 10-20lbs out of cheating your ROM but you’ll hit the ceiling on that pretty quickly and then you’ll either figure it out and get stronger and improve or be faced with objective failure to improve. Whereas you can spin your wheels thinking your smashing yourself and really only just be hitting mental, not physical failure which will feel subjectively like your doing it right. This is where I feel aiming for beating the log book and getting stronger for long periods wins out.
But like you say it’s not black and white and it almost always boils down to working your nuts off consistently for a prolonged period, in the gym in the kitchen and in recovery.
Yeah, it is true. Otherwise please post a video of a competitor repping lat raises with 15 pounds or leg extensions with 90.
Don’t forget the site we’re on, either. T-Nation has copious amounts of articles covering this topic in scientific detail for anyone interested. “Heavy weight” is going to be somewhat relative and individual for everyone, but no totally. If you’re not adding mass, then the proven recipe is to square away diet, form, and increase strength so that you can perform volume work and time-under-tension with more weight.
You clearly know what you’re talking about, so I mean this with all due respect, but I don’t think we should look at what the competitors are doing now, but rather what they did to get there. For example, no competitor is doing leg extensions with 90 because they’re already behemoths of human beings with crazy strength – but maybe they were doing those extensions with 90 (with perfect form) to build up to what they have now.
What would you define as a general “heavy weight” zone? Obviously there’s a big difference between 3RM and 8RM.
Fair point, and taken. I think we’re probably all talking about roughly the same thing.
If we consider “heavy” in relative terms, I would say it’s probably something like working near your training max, which I believe is considered to be about 75% of 1RM, give or take, and can vary per movement (someone feel free to correct me or provide more detail). Linear progression programs, with which I’m more familiar than other types, are usually very opinionated about these values.
I guess I was fixating earlier on “heavy” in non-relative terms. Serious mass is gained by objectively heavy weight irrespective of personalized training max. Brandon Hendrickson just isn’t doing 200 lbs presses, and neither is Antoine. You have to get stronger to get bigger.
In my own personal experience, when I have stalled on progression it’s been an issue of either form or diet or program adaptation. Assuming I am really getting after it.
You’ve mentioned strength training – is that a modality you’re currently in, or the typical foundation of your training? I’m interested in hypertrophy, so I’d love to hear what type of programming has worked the best for you in that regard.
I have never been able to add strength or mass without eating in at least a slight calorie surplus. I aim for 1.3 grams of protein for every lean pound of bodyweight and then eat a lot of good fats. I’ll add in carbs if I start to get exhausted during the week. Every time I have tried to add strength or mass in a calorie deficit I’ve failed, and I have heard the same thing from every other gym rat I know, for what it’s worth. I would recommend eating with and for your program - your food intake should support your programming, and when one changes so should the other.
As for programming I really like what some people refer to as “powerbuilding.” It’s usually comprised of a core focus on olympic barbell lifts with accessory work chosen to either support those barbell movements (things like hip thrusts and rows) or for hypertophy/bodybuilding (stuff like fly’s, curls, etc). Right now I’m on a 5/3/1 variant called nSuns that I love. I’ve tweaked it a bit to be a 4-day program where I hit press, deadlift, and squat twice per week each - once for strength and again for volume). I have seen the fastest strength and mass gains I’ve ever seen with this program.
My Monday’s look like this:
Bench Press - 8 sets for strength
Incline Dumbell Press - 8 sets for volume
Bicep Curl - 4x8-10
Lateral Raise - 4x8-10
Triceps Extensions - 5x10-12
Chest Fly - 4x8-10
Bent Over Raise - 4x8-10
Chin Ups - 4 sets to failure
30 min high intensity cardio
So I go in and attack my main barbell movements first, and then grind out my accessory work next before I nearly puke on the elliptical. I then repeat for three more days, moving to a focus on squats with sumo DLs, then back to a strength pressing day and end the week with a standard DL session followed by volume squats. Each day has its own assortment of accessory work capped off by 30 min high intensity cardio. I love it and like I said I’ve never seen faster gains. If you run a 5/3/1 powerbuilding program and eat right you will absolutely gain mass. Especially if you’re on exogenous testosterone.
This would most definitely work. @bkb333, if you decide to run this type of program, make sure you are NOT in a deficit. This could be very counterintuitive without the proper caloric intake.
For you personally, what little I know about your history, I would approach something like this by bumping up to 2800 calories / day the first couple weeks, and omitting the cardio. Then add in the cardio once per week and bump up the calories to around 3200 / day.
At full programming the way that @spinup has it written here, you will probably need to be around 3500-3800 cals a day, maybe even a touch more on workout days and tweak over time to match your comp changes.
Yeah given the difficulty @bkb333 has with putting on mass and his already being lean, I would agree - eat like a horse. You will cut later, and you apparently lean out pretty easily, so no worries. I don’t actually have to eat as much as he’s suggesting here which is what I was hinting at in my earlier post about body types. I just bulk very easily.
Although lunatics like Mike Israetel and John Meadows often go harder than this kind of programing, this is about as aggressive as most people can get with training unless they’re genetic freaks or running full blown cycles (some young guys can go pretty hard naturally). One of the things that clued me in to having hormonal issues was that I began failing this kind of programming. I would totally crash after a couple weeks.
I like the powerbuilding philosophy a lot – seems like the best of both worlds. Because I’m a serial program-hopper, I’m forcing myself to stick with Mike Israetel’s program for all of 2020, but I may move toward something like this when that’s done. FWIW, I like his program, but I don’t love it.
This does look like a ton of volume. How long does it usually take you? Seems like by the point of those chins, I’d be getting like 2 good reps lol. I echo Dex’s question.
My issue with eating like a horse is largely related to body image. I was a fat kid, so when I start to get too fluffy, the psychological stuff trips me up. I’m fine getting up around 15%, but when I’m pushing 20% or higher I just don’t feel confident. That said, I don’t think there’s any need to get that high in BF to put on good mass.
If you struggle to eat but want cals, cheese! My go to bulking agent, goes with pretty much anything savoury. Also it’s difficult for me as a life time skinny dude to empathise with you on getting a bit fluffy, but try and do a sustained period of slow bulking, like year(s) long.
I’d second breaker on that sort of programming but pretty much all my mass is due to 5/3/1 with higher rep accessories, for years (my biggest issue is consistent training, have been thorough several off periods over the years, but fairly consistent the last couple), it works consistently, and I started out on higher rep stuff when I started and spun my wheels.
Clearly though we’re quite different I don’t well program hopping and love bulking (hate cutting screws with my head and I always break before I get lean!)
The formative years can really mess with your head. There was a girl I had a massive crush on in middle school, and she had no interest until I lost weight in high school. Almost as soon as I leaned out, she was super into me. Actually ended up taking each other’s V-cards.
Obviously it works the other way, too, like with @alex_uk – lots of guys who were self-conscious about being thin struggle with cutting. I, on the other hand, hate bulking.
Yep. It’s a really great modality, isn’t it? I love how purpose-driven linear progression programs are, and 5/3/1 won’t tear your shoulders up.
Depending on the day I spend between 75-90 minutes on strength training and 30 minutes on cardio. It’s going to depend on what accessory movements you pick and how quickly you move through your main lifts. nSuns is very well put together and takes systemic and muscular fatigue into account. As long as you’re smart about your accessory work and eat/drink right you would be just fine all the way through chins.
I think I’m going to switch up to Jim’s Building the Monolith later this year, which structures volume a bit differently and has a bigger focus on rows, but the way I have tweaked nSuns is close to that. Here is my full week:
Monday
Bench Press (T2 day - volume/working between 67% and 87% of TM)
Sets: 6, 6, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8+
Incline Dumbbell Press
Sets: 6, 5, 3, 5, 7, 4, 6, 8
Bicep Curls: 4x8-10
Lateral Raises (dumbbell): 4x10-12
Triceps Extensions: 5x10
Chest Fly: 4x10-12
Bent Over Raise (dumbbell): 4x10
Chin Ups: 4 sets to failure
Tuesday
Squat (T1 day - strength/working between 77%-95% of TM)
Sets: 5, 3, 1+, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5
Sumo Deadlift (T2 day - volume/working between 50%-75% of TM)
Sets: 5, 5, 3, 5, 7, 4, 6, 8
Weighted Calf Raises: 4x20
Leg Curls: 4x8
Leg Extensions: 4x10
Leg Raises: four sets near failure on a power tower
30 min cardio
Wednesday - Off
Thursday
Bench Press (T1 day - strength/working between 75%-95% of TM)
Sets: 5, 3, 1,+, 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5+
Close-grip Bench Press (volume/working between 50%-70% of TM)
Sets: 6, 5, 3, 5, 7, 4, 6, 8
Lateral Raises (dumbbell): 4x10-12
Hammer Curls: 4x10
Wrist Curls: 4x20
Triceps Extensions: 4x10
Shrugs: 4x10
30 min cardio
Friday
Deadlift (T1 day - strength/working between 75%-95% of TM)
Sets: 5, 3, 1+, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3+
Squat (T2 day - volume/working between 50%-75% of TM)
Sets: 5, 5, 3, 5, 7, 4, 6, 8
Lat Pulldowns: 4x8-10
Rear Delt Rows: 4x15
Seated Rows: 4x8
Leg raises: four sets near failure
Face Pulls: 4x10
30 min cardio
If you’re interested in the nSuns 5/3/1 variant program I would recommend checking out the following website. There is program info along with links to Google Spreadsheets to mock up your own routine: nSuns 531 Program Guide: All You Need to Start (All Versions) - Lift Vault. You can go harder with a 5 or 6 day variant, too, with even more squat or deadlift volume. I would probably cut cardio way back if I was going to do one of those.
I hope this is useful. I’ve run this program ever since starting my own self-directed rehab about three years after after open-back lumbar spinal fusion surgery which I had done in 2015. When I started it I was literally more atrophied than a returning astronaut and walked with a cane, so the transformation has been pretty remarkable. I just wish I had found this forum and gotten on Test-C way earlier.
I’d love to see some before/afters, brother – your journey sounds unbelievable! It also seems you’ve gotten this training thing down to a science. Very impressive.
