Got a hang over thought I saw beginner when I glanced at the topic.
Switching from once a week to twice a week is not going to add a noticable shock value. Unless your doing some outright crazy routine on that second day.
[quote]Ramo wrote:
The forest gets thicker the deeper you get into a training career. At first, there aren’t too many trees, so you can run in a pretty straight line. You bump into a tree once in awhile, but it’s no big deal and you keep going.
After you’ve been running for awhile, you get deep into the forest, and you encounter more trees…so many that you keep slamming into them and can’t run in a straight line anymore. This doesn’t happen for many years.
At this point, you have to zigzag…it’s faster than running in a straight line because you avoid the trees. Obviously, it isn’t as fast as running in a straight line w/ no trees, but now you have no choice.
What’s the point? If you haven’t encountered a lot of trees yet, run in a straight line.[/quote]
just dont’ callme grasshopper
well on the second day for the 2x a week muscle I might do 1x100 or sumthin like that
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Hmmm…and what might that be Scott? 
[/quote]
Haha I know what you THINK I’m talking about Sentoguy and really it’s not all that different. I would love for someone to take a look at Yate’s early training. EOD, two way split, lowish volume with sporadic beyond failure techniques. He was onto something there yeah?
I actually did type up a real long response on how I would set up the training but like I said it got deleted. But basically what I was getting at was finding the personal threshold of training often enough balanced with training intense enough. You got some guys here training 10+ times a week but we can’t really say their growth stimulus is that great each time.
Some guys go bonkers and train Mentzer style once every 10 days with extreme sets done to absolute failure, but their frequency isn’t that often. There is a sweet spot in between there somewhere that people should look and tweak for over time, but Yate’s early training is where I’d start and decrease/tweak from there.
sorry sentoguy I completely missed you post I apologize.
so to answer your question I feel hitting a muscle every 3-4 days is taking on muscles and cns for that matter so the reason Im doing this “stagger” “speciaized” (or w/e) 5 day routine is because I can still successfully hit every muscle every 5-6 days which IMO is perfect amount of time for me to recover assuming my volume is on point.
when I say shock muscles I mean the first 3 weeks (lets go with legs) it is only worked once, but on its specialized week Ill hit it twice, which means squatting twice a week, and I might even throw in a set of 100 reps or 10x10 to REALLY shock the muscle into growth. same for the rest of the muscle groups.
now how do muscles grow? they grow because of the negative effect lfting has on them. Its a defense mechanism for the muscles to grow. for instance, by doing reps of 1-3 like power lifters you wont get much bigger but your muscles will get stronger. Its a defense mechanism like if a boulder dropped on you and your trying to get it off by lifting that boulder a few times it will get used lifting it and get stronger.
very similar to gaining size. when your lifting in the hypertrophy zone (8-12 reps blah blah balh) your muscles get stimulated to grow like a defense mechanism. they grow because they are too small to be able to take that kind of load. Its like a “shock” too the muscles which is what I mean by and what Im trying to do with my routine.
thanks for the awesome questions your really makin me think Id love to hear your response.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
Is there now a specific “regular bulk” routine?
[/quote]
One of these days I’m going to make a thread about my hatred for the words bulk and cut in bodybuilding, I just don’t have it in me tonight.
If you are really serious about this, the first specialization you should do is for legs and back. They are the biggest muscles in your body and take a lot of time, energy and chewing power to get them to a respectable size.
The showy muscles come along for the ride and you can do other types of workouts either during the summer months or when you get to break the bench 300, squat 400 and deadlift 500.
As for workouts it will depend on your time and sleeping patterns.
[quote]bmar22 wrote:
sorry sentoguy I completely missed you post I apologize.
so to answer your question I feel hitting a muscle every 3-4 days is taking on muscles and cns for that matter so the reason Im doing this “stagger” “speciaized” (or w/e) 5 day routine is because I can still successfully hit every muscle every 5-6 days which IMO is perfect amount of time for me to recover assuming my volume is on point.
[/quote]
Ok, so then here’s the question. If you believe that hitting every muscle every 5-6 days is the “perfect amount of time” for you to recover, then why up it to hitting a muscle very 3-4 days once every few weeks? You’re starting to dig deeper, but you still really haven’t hit the nail on the head yet. In other words, what is the reasoning for upping your frequency? (hint, it’s not really a difficult question, nor a complicated answer, it’s actually quite simple)
Ok, so by “shock” you mean increase the frequency of training and possibly use a different set/rep scheme. Alright then, so once again, if you feel that upping the frequency will lead to improved progress, then why not just up the frequency every week?
Scott hit on this in his last post. And it’s what I’m trying to get you to realize. You’re already doing well thinking about ways to improve your training. Now, once again try to get to the bottom of your thinking. What are the key factors about your new program that would make it more effective (in your opinion) than a traditional split where the muscles get hit once per week? Why do you feel that these key factors will lead to an improved rate of progress?
You’re on the right track, but you’re still trying to put things like rep ranges into a “box” if you will. Here I’ll give you another hint, what is required to be present in order for muscles to grow?
Now, if you answer that question, then you’ll realize that as long as those factors that are required are present, then the rest is just a matter of personal preference, goal specific, and in many cases un-necessary. From there, it’s possible to design an extremely efficient program that hits the “sweet spot” as Scott referred to it. In other words an optimal balance of frequency, intensity, and volume.
[quote]
thanks for the awesome questions your really makin me think Id love to hear your response.[/quote]
No problem. Honestly I don’t usually encourage newbe’s to get overly analytical about training (not saying that you’re a newbie, I don’t know whether you are or not) but it seemed to me that you were intuitively starting to try to get to the foundational elements of training, and that you were looking for a way to optimize your training program. Not easy things to do certainly. So, I figured I’d give you some questions to see if I could help you along the process.
Scott has also once again made some great comments and I think if you listen to him and think about what he’s saying while pondering my questions it might help you along.
[quote]Scott M wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
Hmmm…and what might that be Scott?
Haha I know what you THINK I’m talking about Sentoguy and really it’s not all that different. I would love for someone to take a look at Yate’s early training. EOD, two way split, lowish volume with sporadic beyond failure techniques. He was onto something there yeah?
I actually did type up a real long response on how I would set up the training but like I said it got deleted. But basically what I was getting at was finding the personal threshold of training often enough balanced with training intense enough. You got some guys here training 10+ times a week but we can’t really say their growth stimulus is that great each time.
Some guys go bonkers and train Mentzer style once every 10 days with extreme sets done to absolute failure, but their frequency isn’t that often. There is a sweet spot in between there somewhere that people should look and tweak for over time, but Yate’s early training is where I’d start and decrease/tweak from there. [/quote]
If you wouldn’t mind posting Yates early routine I’d really appreciate it.
It would really only be my take on it from the principles he’s talked about. Asking Dorian or researching maybe his books would yeild a far more accurate result. He started with a two way split every other day and as he advanced spread it out further to accomodate recovery. Anyone who’s seen his videos knows he worked fairly briefly to 1-2 all out sets on each exercise with possible forced reps, negatives(usually on machines)and drops. Several exercises for large bodyparts, few for smaller, you can formulate an idea of how this might look.
so what has to be present for muscle to grow is weights and food if you go down to the absolute basics. besieds that Im not really sure what ur talkin about. If Im wrong it would be helpful to just tell me lol because Im not following you anymore…
I think I know where Sento is going with this(he can correct me if I’m wrong) but this is how I’m reading it.
If you do 5 plates a side on a leg press for 12 reps the first time you do it your body is not used to that, must adapt and with proper fuel(food) will rebuild bigger and stronger. What is going to keep that forced adaptation going on? Changing exercises, sets reps, volume, beyond failure techniques? Maybe, but one far more simple and more infinite(for the most part) technique is possible?
[quote]bmar22 wrote:
Here I’ll give you another hint, what is required to be present in order for muscles to grow?
so what has to be present for muscle to grow is weights and food if you go down to the absolute basics. besieds that Im not really sure what ur talkin about. If Im wrong it would be helpful to just tell me lol because Im not following you anymore…
[/quote]
Weights aren’t really even a necessity (though load is). The really bare bones elements that must be present are:
- sufficient nutrition
- sufficient overload
- sufficient volume/TUT (what that is will depend on the trainee’s level of development and willingness/ability to push their body, this is also closely related to fatigue)
- sufficient recovery afterwards to allow the body time to repair and super compensate
If those elements are present, then muscle growth will occur. Without those elements (or even one of them) muscle growth won’t occur (or at very best will occur at a sub optimal level).
Also, nothing else really needs to be present besides the above ingredients. In fact, if one goes beyond the essential components then basically you’re just expending un-needed energy and not necessarily going to get out of it what you put into it and at a certain point it actually becomes counterproductive.
There are also lots of ways to “overload” the muscles (volume, load, density, etc…). Some methods are IMO more optimal than others (at least have been for myself) and allow better efficiency. Also, maximizing efficiency allows one to increase frequency while not sacrificing results.
Or at least that’s the point of understanding that I’m currently at. Some might disagree, some might agree. Once again it really all comes down to the individual and their preferences.
So, what does this have to do with this thread/the original topic? Here is what you seem to have realized and what I’m trying to point out.
Maximizing frequency will help to maximize muscle growth. You seem to want to increase the frequency with which you hit the muscles. Why? Because you’ve seemed to have realized that more frequency equals more growth. Once again why is that? Because it theoretically means more growth stimulus/growth cycles. Of course there comes a point of diminishing returns where there is simply insufficient recovery between stimuli and growth no longer occurs at an optimal rate.
So, as Scott alluded to, there is an optimal frequency at which to train that will allow for maximal frequency of growth stimulus without recovery suffering. What that is will depend on factors such as volume, intensity, nutrition, individual recovery abilities, etc…
Hope this helps you out.
Scott, I found a little info on Yates’ early training, and yes it does look like it would be a great starting point for building mass.
If you’ve got the actual routine (I didn’t find the actual routine, just a brief description of the format from Yates) then I too would love to see it.
[quote]Ramo wrote:
The forest gets thicker the deeper you get into a training career. At first, there aren’t too many trees, so you can run in a pretty straight line. You bump into a tree once in awhile, but it’s no big deal and you keep going.
After you’ve been running for awhile, you get deep into the forest, and you encounter more trees…so many that you keep slamming into them and can’t run in a straight line anymore. This doesn’t happen for many years.
At this point, you have to zigzag…it’s faster than running in a straight line because you avoid the trees. Obviously, it isn’t as fast as running in a straight line w/ no trees, but now you have no choice.
What’s the point? If you haven’t encountered a lot of trees yet, run in a straight line.[/quote]
I’ve got a several total years of serious training under my belt and my line is still pretty straight
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Ramo wrote:
The forest gets thicker the deeper you get into a training career. At first, there aren’t too many trees, so you can run in a pretty straight line. You bump into a tree once in awhile, but it’s no big deal and you keep going.
After you’ve been running for awhile, you get deep into the forest, and you encounter more trees…so many that you keep slamming into them and can’t run in a straight line anymore. This doesn’t happen for many years.
At this point, you have to zigzag…it’s faster than running in a straight line because you avoid the trees. Obviously, it isn’t as fast as running in a straight line w/ no trees, but now you have no choice.
What’s the point? If you haven’t encountered a lot of trees yet, run in a straight line.
I’ve got a several total years of serious training under my belt and my line is still pretty straight[/quote]
Yeah, to be honest so is mine. Maybe some people would rather run through fields than forests and therefore don’t need to worry about zigzagging. 