[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Ahaha, nominal prospect and dankid in the same thread.
The end is upon us 
[/quote]
Itâs the funniest shit ever. lol
Look at this now, Dankid is saying both that he is stronger than 90% of the population (not true at all, I had all his lifts beat withing 6 months of training and Iâm nothing special), and that PX isnât able to follow scientific text. (A ludicrous statement, as anyone with half a brain can see if they read some of his older posts)
[quote]Professor X wrote:
List of people who newbs should avoid for advice on ANYTHING if their goal is more progress than those featured in a SlimFast commercial:
Nominal Prospect - Nazi, personal trainer, dweeb
Gregus
Dankid
âŚanyone have any others?
thorax wrote:
dankid wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:[/quote]
LoL! thatâs fuckin nice! Iâm posting just to be here:)
Back from 10 days vacation and nice to see treats such as these are around. Another classic to join the I donât want to bench 400 lbs thread.
On a side note thereâs a handful of guys at my gym who can bench 405 and over for reps. Theyâre all huge. Thatâs also one of my reasons for wanting to bench over 400 lbs.
[quote]thorax wrote:
âŚanyone have any others?
Prof. X?
Nah, just joking.[/quote]
I was about to say the same thingâŚand Iâm not joking.
Prof X : Internet Badass with a permanent chip on his shoulder, hates people with slim, athletic builds, famous for berating younger members for not eating enough. Revels in his online fanclub and never directly responds to the few veteran posters who choose not to be part of it, such as myself.
If you want to listen to what big and muscular people have to say, why not go to a forum where NPC and IFBB competitors post regularly? There are plenty of them out there - some even answer email queries. This guy is just a pretender, heâs here to maintain his status, not to engage in any real discussion, unlike me.
[quote]dankid wrote:
Well in general, its probably best to accept the definition that the norm uses. And this would be Strength= the ability to overcome a force (Sure you could go into relative, absolute, isometric, concentric, eccentric) but simply, HOW MUCH YOU LIFT = strength. That definition might not be good enough for a biomechanist or neurologist, but for EVERYONE ELSE it is just fine. And using this definition, any increases in load lifted are increases in strength. [/quote]
But if you do that, then âstrengthâ becomes an umbrella term for a host of different qualities, such as momentum and leverage, and you thus lose the ability to differentiate between those qualities.
Plenty of people, most of whom are over 18% BF, would be perfectly happy to accept such a definition of strength. But Iâm not one of them.
[quote]dankid wrote:
I see where you are going with this though and how it could be a debatable topic, but follow me here. You could use the following to argue your point:
A lifter benches a max of 250 with a close grip (10" wide) That person then widens their grip and throws up 300. Did they instantly get stronger, or was it a change in technique?
Well I agree with you here. This isnât an increase in strength. BUT, what it is, is a completely different lift. Comparing a bench press to a close grip bench press might be more like comparing a bench press to a squat. All the join angles change, and everything is different.[/quote]
I would broadly define the above situation as, âIncreased performance resulting from technique modification.â Naturally, it can be broken down much further than that.
However, you are entirely correct that a WG and CG bench press are fundamentally not the same lift. If you take this point to its logical conclusion, youâll find that any single lift performed by an individual must differ from every other lift he has or will perform, due to numerous factors which arenât readily observable but play a significant role (in theory, at least) in determining his performance.
Even more importantly, no two individuals are capable of performing the âsameâ lift, due to the fact that no two individuals are built the same way, and consequently, the forces of physics act differently upon each individual on any given occasion. âStrengthâ, therefore, becomes impossible to measure, and that leads you directly to my premise that ânobody knows what the hell strength isâ.
[quote]dankid wrote:
And another argument you might have would look like this:
A beginner lifter comes into that gym and maxes his bench at 135lbs. He benches with is feet up on the bench, and elbows flared.
Then Dave Tate comes in and coaches him on his technique, gets his feet pushing into the ground, elbows tucked, etc⌠And he benches 180. Is this an increase in strength?
Again iâd say no. He changed the lift again and this is where the increases came from. The lifter was doing everything wrong before and wasnât really doing a bench press.[/quote]
Iâd agree with you. It is not an increase in strength. It is a modification of technique.
[quote]dankid wrote:
And a third scenario might look like this:
A lifter goes into the gym and benches with 200 with good form.
He then TRAINS for 4 weeks, STRENGTHENING his triceps, and shoulders, and then does another max (with similar technique) and benches 220. This guy experienced a 10% increase in strength.[/quote]
Well, he certainly experienced a 10% increase in performance. Going by the conventional definition of strength, your statement would be accurate, but you know how I feel about that.
[quote]dankid wrote:
In competition all that matters is how much weight you can lift; and that is strength. Regardless of form or technique changes.
But for most people and during training, strength is being able to lift more weight with similar technique. (Because if a lifte only knows their CGBP is 200, and then after 4 weeks of training throws up 210 on a wider grip bench, He/she doesnât know if their training was effective at increasing strength)
So that is how I would defined strength, and I think many would agree.[/quote]
Weâre merely disagreeing over terms, not concepts. Terms are cheap. The important thing is to know exactly what you are referring to when you use a term. You obviously grasp my limited definition of strength, and I understand your broader definition and its general applicability to many situations.
You can decide which definition to use at your own convenience. However, if youâre going to be engaging another person in debate on such matters, itâs imperative that both of you use the same definition if any meaningful conclusions are to be drawn from the discussion.
So, why is it that the crowd doesnât support you? I could ask them but Iâd rather ask you, since they donât support me, either.
People who claim that Iâm misleading beginners and donât know what Iâm talking about neglect to address the fact that nearly all of my âcontroversialâ claims have, at one time or other, been espoused by well known and respected authorities, a fact which Iâve readily demonstrated in the past and shall now do again.
Mike Boyle:
âWe need to produce a resistance that will cause fatigue to occur at the 30 second point or later to induce hypertrophy. If weight training had to be done with a free weight to produce hypertrophy then lat pulldowns would be a better exercise than chinups for upper back development. Thousands of bodybuilding articles tell us the opposite but, the resistance in a chin-up is âonlyâ bodyweight. If we donât want hypertrophy than donât do light weights and more reps. I think the common prescription for female trainees ( light weights, lots of reps) leans more towards a bodybuilding, mass producing prescription than away from it. If I wanted less hypertrophy, I would stay in the 5-6 rep range with higher loads and generate less time under tension. I would also do less sets. The result, less time under tension, less volume and less hypertrophy. The fact is, training is about time under tension and the point of fatigue. I can produce hypertrophy with weights or without.â
====
John Berardi:
âTraining with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big.â
====
Scott Abel: "What seemed at the time to be a curse actually led me to an insight: strength is only mildly related to hypertrophy and muscular development. The ability to build strength has a lot to do with tendon length and thickness â?? genetic traits that a person can do little about. Once I let go of the idea that âgetting strongerâ was synonymous with âgetting bigger,â my physique took off, and I achieved a successful career as a bodybuilder and bodybuilding coach.
Thereâs no equation that says increased load equals increased muscle development. Focusing too much on it results in diminished returns, limiting your ability to enhance your physique. Thatâs why any good bodybuilder whoâs been at it more than eight or nine years lifts less weight than he used to, not more. "
====
Erick Minor:
"Erick Minor: When I competed in bodybuilding, it was common knowledge that you had to get a pump if you wanted growth. But in the past 10 years, functional-training zealots have all but crushed that notion.
So whatâs the truth? If the goal is bigger muscles, is it important to get a pump in the ones youâre training?
Empirically speaking, Iâd say yes. The muscles that pump up tend to grow faster than the muscles that donât. Muscles that pump easily are usually the dominant muscles within a specific movement pattern, and are better developed than the muscles that donât pump.
To illustrate what I mean, letâs look at an example from outside the bodybuilding world. Iâm sure youâve seen the unbelievable glute and hamstring development on world-class sprinters. When they train with sprints of 150 meters or more, they experience something they call ââbutt lockââ â?? the sensation of extreme congestion in the upper hamstrings and glutes.
Athletes that experience intense butt lock typically have the best-developed muscles in those areas.
So, from my perspective, thereâs a definite correlation. You can argue whether the muscle pump is a side effect or a prerequisite for growth, but either way it seems to be necessary.
The lesson: If you want to make a muscle bigger, you have to develop the ability to create congestion in that muscle."
====
Ellington Darden:
"The pump doesnât get much respect these days. Smart guys refer to it as âaccumulating byproducts of fatigue.â The bodybuilders from the 1950s and '60s didnât describe it that way, but it was their best and most reliable way to induce small but measurable gains in their arm muscles.
To get that pump, itâs important to mix and match exercises, never allowing your biceps and triceps to get used to a routine. But itâs even more important to extend your normal sets until your muscles feel as if theyâre on fire. If it doesnât hurt, you arenât doing it right."
====
Christian Thib:
If youâre ever in doubt, just remember this: The more fibers you recruit and exhaust, the more growth you get.
====
Bricknyce, T-Nation:
"There are many examples of pros who train lighter than years or even decades ago.
An example of such a person would be Dorian Yates. From his entry to mid-career, he mostly performed low to medium reps (5 to 8).
At his peak and late career, he performed higher reps, 8 to 15, depending on the muscle trained. He also incorporated a slower tempo and more use of machines later in his career. In his younger days, he would really heave the weight much more violently; he once wrote that he used to perform leg extensions with such force that the machine would move. Obviously higher reps and a stricter lifting style didnât harm his career; he improved year after year until his biceps injury.
Gary Strydom, Marc Dugdale, and Clay Hyght are also other examples of men that have written on this phenomenon as well.
Onto the realization that one is not built for elite strength. Lonnie Lowery and Mike Boyle have mentioned this sort of thing in their writing several times.
If memory serves me correctly, Mike Boyle said he gave up powerlifting when he reached a 500 pound squat and deadlift; his body wouldnât allow him to lift bigger poundages without injuries, pains, and strains. I experienced the same after experiencing the same numbers coupled with a 350 bench press. Even certain heavy lifts destroy my body; I stay the hell away from heavy (<8 reps) deadlift variations (especially snatch-grip) and good-mornings. And I donât perform below four reps in any exercise.
There are men out there who can take physical abuse - backbreaking poundages, ultra-high volume, and highly stressful exercises - without harm; I know Iâm not one of them.
====
IamMarqaos, T-Nation:
"There are many ways to improve performance without improving dramatically on the load:
Training with heavy weights is a systemic experience and will often cause growth in other places then the muscle targeted.
Personally, I am like MiketheBear and gained inches on my legs just pushing my squat well over 500lbs. However, when injury stalled my strength training, I resorted to this kind of training and made similar gains in size BUT with better separation and detail showing.
There are several guys I trained with who simply could not, for whatever reason, push the load up consistently. If you fall into that catagory you might want to check this out a bit more.
But the author IS claiming that you can get big legs with this program.
I can attest that this style of training can get your legs big.
I prefer to hoist heavy weights when training but have to admit, I do not really look like a bodybuilder, I look more like a big athlete.
====
Heartandsoul317, T-Nation:
I am a person who has the problem of continually getting stronger, but not really looking like it! I have to gain a lot of strength to add a little muscle size. This article came at the right time for me b/c I just started doing higher reps. for lower body instead of trying to get stronger and stronger. It seems to be working.
====
Dave Tate:
Letâs say a bodybuilderâs program says three sets of eight. He reaches eight and it feels good, so he racks it. What the fuck? Heâs there to break the muscle down. Did he have two more in him? Then he should do them, no matter what the âprogramâ says. Iâm not saying you need to train to failure all the time, but you left two reps on the table when the goal is to break the muscle down. In my mind, you just wasted a set.
====
T-Nation: What about the âpumpâ and hypertrophy? Is the pump necessary?
Dave Tate: Iâm part of the old school on this. I think if youâre trying to build hypertrophy, you still at some point need to pump the shit out of the body. You need to get the fluid and blood in there.
Contrary to what a lot of people think, thatâs still what everybody fucking does. If youâre a competitive bodybuilder or are training for mass, thatâs how you finish your session.
Thatâs where I like the idea of some of the different machines â?? because they donât place a huge demand on the body. You can get on a chest press machine, a pec deck, a cable crossover, whatever the hell you want to use, and you can completely gorge that muscle. But because you did those movements, itâs not going to place a huge demand on your recovery. "
====
Dave Tate:
For powerlifting, a lot of isolation work â?? concentration curls and shit like that â?? isnât going to do a whole lot. For someone trying to build hypertrophy though, whose main function isnât going to be strength, I think movements like that are extremely important.
====
Mike Boyle:
Can a muscle tell the difference between a weight, a band or a spring? I donâ??t believe so. One of my favorite lines of bull is the old â?? this exercise or training method will give you long, lean muscles like a dancerâ??. This is akin to telling people you can turn an apple into an orange right before their eyes. You can no more make a short stocky female client have long lean muscles like a dancer than you make someone taller. Exercise will remove subcutaneous bodyfat and reduce intramuscular fat stores but, changing the source of resistance in a resistance-based exercise will not produce a muscle that appears different. Muscles canâ??t tell the difference between resistance generated by a piece of iron or by a piece of rubber. We need to produce a resistance that will cause fatigue to occur at the 30 second point or later to induce hypertrophy. If weight training had to be done with a free weight to produce hypertrophy then lat pulldowns would be a better exercise than chinups for upper back development. Thousands of bodybuilding articles tell us the opposite but, the resistance in a chin-up is â??onlyâ?? bodyweight. If we donâ??t want hypertrophy than donâ??t do light weights and more reps. I think the common prescription for female trainees ( light weights, lots of reps) leans more towards a bodybuilding, mass producing prescription than away from it. If I wanted less hypertrophy, I would stay in the 5-6 rep range with higher loads and generate less time under tension. I would also do less sets. The result, less time under tension, less volume and less hypertrophy. The fact is, training is about time under tension and the point of fatigue. I can produce hypertrophy with weights or without.
====
Myth: If youâre not adding reps or weight to the bar, youâre not progressing.
Mythbuster: Scott Abel
If you were learning to play a musical instrument, nobody would simply hand you a guitar or flute and expect you to be able to play a song. First youâd have to learn the mechanics of playing â?? how to hold the instrument, how to create notes. Then youâd learn how to create specific notes by playing scales. Then youâd probably learn something about rhythm and tempo. And then youâd be ready to learn to play a song.
But when it comes to strength training, you skip most of that, and go straight from learning the mechanics â?? how to hold a barbell or dumbbells; how to complete a repetition â?? to playing songs. You learn about sets and reps, and how to add weight to the bar, without learning to create specific effects from those sets and reps, or to understand what feedback you should expect from your muscles, and what it means.
Itâs like trying to make music before you know how to make notes. You canât play a song until you can play the scales.
To me, the ââscalesââ of strength training are lactic-acid buildup, oxygen debt, fatigue, and performance. If you donât know how to induce and interpret these types of feedback, it doesnât matter how many reps you did, or how much weight you used. Youâre just lifting iron, and your muscles and mind arenât connected at all.
Once you learn those basics, youâre still a long way from building your body, just as an aspiring violinist who can play scales is a long way from being able to produce beautiful music. But at least you know how and why your body reacts to different stimuli. From there, you can develop a comprehensive program that meets your needs and helps you reach your goals.
In other words, thereâs a lot more to training than counting reps and throwing iron on the bar. Once you start experiencing your workouts, instead of simply doing them, youâll progress exponentially, rather than incrementally."
====
âEverybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but donât nobody want to lift moderate weight for high reps.â - Diamond Delts, a muscular black man and mod on BB.com Forums
====
Tim Henriques, NPTI Director:
I do believe that when training for size you should feel the muscle working, that is one measure of intramuscular tension which is the easiest and simplest way to estimate how many motor units are working. In some circles it is referred to as the mind-muscle connection and a lot of bodybuilders swear by it. I believe it is one of the biggest differences when training for size vs strength.
====
Tim Henriques, NPTI Director:
"Neuromuscular coordination doesnât matter much for bodybuilding. You donât need to worry about skill transfer. Instead, you want to make sure that a specific muscle, or muscle group, is doing the work.
That doesnât mean youâll rely solely on isolation exercises, but it does mean you should feel the muscle working during the set, and feel a difference within the muscle afterwards. You want to get a pump, to feel the burning sensation in the muscle (which we used to think was caused by lactic acid), and/or feel post-workout soreness a day or two later. Those are all signs of effective muscle isolation.
Conversely, when youâre training for strength, you donât want to feel the muscles working, or to establish a mind-muscle connection; you just want to do the movement.
====
wushy_1984, T-Nation:
"I totally agree on the buff Olympic lifters being the exception. Thereâs a guy in my gym who has competed internationally in Weightlifting and looks scrawny compared to rest of Powerlifters and bodybuilders in the gym.
There is no real reason for someone really good at weightlifting to have loads of muscle, especially bodybuilder type muscle on the pecs and arms. The guys are all legs really.
====
Berserkergang, T-Nation:
I wasted too many years back squatting. I got almost zero quad development from it.
====
DjFuzzy, a newbie who listened to the âlift heavy shit to get bigâ dogma on
BB.com:
Since the beginning of October, I have been going to the gym every day for at least 1.5 hours. I do alternate muscle groups throughout the week, and change up exercises frequently to keep my body guessing. I eat right and donât use tobacco or any crap like that. My problem is, I am getting considerably stronger, but not much larger.
My chest for instance, you guys are gonna laugh, but when I first started my workouts in October, I was maxing my bench at 155lbs. I was 6â even and weighed 170lbs. Tonight, and you will probably laugh again, I maxed again at 225lbs, I am still 6â and weigh 173lbs. I know I gained 3 pounds since October, but I was hoping to be at least 180 something by now. I have tried to just lift heavy as many reps as possible, but I stopped because my shoulders started to feel like crap.
====
Contract Killer, 6â5 250 lb. man, BB.com Forums:
Ignore the critics, cables and machines build huge arms.
====
Chris Shugart:
Sorry performance coaches, but curling works, at least as far as bodybuilding is concerned. So do leg presses and several machine exercises. I get tired of hearing performance coaches bash training techniques and exercises that have built thousands of great physiques over the years. These exercises may not be âfunctionalâ or carry over to sports, but they build muscle, and thatâs good enough for the aesthetic bodybuilder.
====
Dorian Yates:
â??Then, squatting on a Smith machine, I could position my body so it was much more isolated on the quads, less glutes and lower back involvement, didnât have to worry about the balance aspect. Actually my legs improved a lot when I was doing Smith squats, hack squats, leg presses â?? I could isolate the thighs a lot more. So actually I used the Smith machine quite a bit for squatting.â??
====
John Berardi:
Training with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big.
====
DiamondDelts BB.com Mod:
Exactly. But the young kids typically are going by heavier weights = huge muscles bullshit they get from others at school. Once a kid starts to put on some decent weight and attains a decent mind muscle connection is all about refining and using the weight properly. Not just piling more of it on.
====
Will Harris, IFBB Pro Bodybuilder:
âThis AINâT ninth grade and no one gives a SHIT how much you benchâ -
Wlhcrow, T-Nation:
âI trained with exclusively low reps for several months and increased strength without increasing sizeâfor the past 2-3 months I have been using 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps followed by 2 sets of 8-10 reps, but only on the major compound lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, chins, etc)
Strength is still increasing (though slower) and size is starting to creep back up with higher calories (higher calories on low rep only lifting added more bf than muscle)â
====
Arthur Jones, bodybuilding pioneer and inventor of Nautilus :
âExplosive training is simply criminal. Itâs stupid as hell.â
====
Scott Abel:
A young lad recently wrote to me that he couldnât do a single chin-up. When I asked why he wanted a program to make him better at chins, he said that he wanted to build his back. I told him that in his case, his back development did not depend on his ability to do chins. My advice was to stop wasting valuable gym time in a futile attempt to master a single movement, and move on to a more appropriate and viable program.
====
Nominal Prospect:
1-10 Reps = Strength gains through increased motor efficiency (i.e. lifting technique), minimal amount of size gains from to contractile hypertrophy
10+ Reps = Size gains through fluid hypertrophy
There you go. You want something to argue with, now youâve got it.
So, are we going to listen to Nominal Prospect or we going to wallow in ignorance?
Training for the pump, and taking all work sets to failure, are the two best things you can do for hypertrophy gains.
Surprise! Flex Magazine had it right back in 1993. I know this isnât what some fatboys want to hear, but Iâm here to tell you the truth, not to tickle your balls.
Damn Nominal Prospect has ALOT of free time on his hands!
[quote]Matthaeus wrote:
Damn Nominal Prospect has ALOT of free time on his hands![/quote]
No, to the contrary, I have Microsoft Excel and the copy/paste function.
The quotes that I save are taken from articles that nearly everyone on this site has read (or so I would assume).
Iâm gonna take comfort in the fact that he took a lot more time writing that than I did reading it. Not sure whatâs with quoting himself at the end though.
[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Strength DEFINITELY correlates to size.
Theres about 10-12 18-20 year olds at my gym who train there frequently, there are all about the same size and their STRENGTH is pretty much equal.
The same with most ifbb proâs, youâll find they all roughly have the same strength levels.
To get big you MUST aim to get stronger.[/quote]
Not sure if this relates to what you are saying here but I have a friend that weighs about 15-20lbs more than me and he is a genetic freak and carries very, very low body fat and is much bigger and looks much bigger and stronger than me. But that is not the case, I am the same height at 190 he is 215. I am about 11% bf he is 6-7% and I am way stronger than him on most every lift that we do. His shoulders are much bigger than mine and I can shoulder press way more than him. Just thinking about it really pisses me off.
But at the same time, I was a certain size when I was benching 225 and now I bench 305. Yes my chest is much bigger now than it was then.
[quote]Vanre wrote:
Iâm gonna take comfort in the fact that he took a lot more time writing that than I did reading it. Not sure whatâs with quoting himself at the end though.[/quote]
You actually read it?
Which heinous crime did you commit, that made you put this penance upon yourself?
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Mike Boyle:
âWe need to produce a resistance that will cause fatigue to occur at the 30 second point or later to induce hypertrophy. If weight training had to be done with a free weight to produce hypertrophy then lat pulldowns would be a better exercise than chinups for upper back development. Thousands of bodybuilding articles tell us the opposite but, the resistance in a chin-up is âonlyâ bodyweight. If we donât want hypertrophy than donât do light weights and more reps. I think the common prescription for female trainees ( light weights, lots of reps) leans more towards a bodybuilding, mass producing prescription than away from it. If I wanted less hypertrophy, I would stay in the 5-6 rep range with higher loads and generate less time under tension. I would also do less sets. The result, less time under tension, less volume and less hypertrophy. The fact is, training is about time under tension and the point of fatigue. I can produce hypertrophy with weights or without.â
====
John Berardi:
âTraining with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big.â
====
Scott Abel: "What seemed at the time to be a curse actually led me to an insight: strength is only mildly related to hypertrophy and muscular development. The ability to build strength has a lot to do with tendon length and thickness Ă¢?? genetic traits that a person can do little about. Once I let go of the idea that âgetting strongerâ was synonymous with âgetting bigger,â my physique took off, and I achieved a successful career as a bodybuilder and bodybuilding coach.
Thereâs no equation that says increased load equals increased muscle development. Focusing too much on it results in diminished returns, limiting your ability to enhance your physique. Thatâs why any good bodybuilder whoâs been at it more than eight or nine years lifts less weight than he used to, not more. "
====
Erick Minor:
"Erick Minor: When I competed in bodybuilding, it was common knowledge that you had to get a pump if you wanted growth. But in the past 10 years, functional-training zealots have all but crushed that notion.
So whatâs the truth? If the goal is bigger muscles, is it important to get a pump in the ones youâre training?
Empirically speaking, Iâd say yes. The muscles that pump up tend to grow faster than the muscles that donât. Muscles that pump easily are usually the dominant muscles within a specific movement pattern, and are better developed than the muscles that donât pump.
To illustrate what I mean, letâs look at an example from outside the bodybuilding world. Iâm sure youâve seen the unbelievable glute and hamstring development on world-class sprinters. When they train with sprints of 150 meters or more, they experience something they call ââbutt lockââ Ă¢?? the sensation of extreme congestion in the upper hamstrings and glutes.
Athletes that experience intense butt lock typically have the best-developed muscles in those areas.
So, from my perspective, thereâs a definite correlation. You can argue whether the muscle pump is a side effect or a prerequisite for growth, but either way it seems to be necessary.
The lesson: If you want to make a muscle bigger, you have to develop the ability to create congestion in that muscle."
====
Ellington Darden:
"The pump doesnât get much respect these days. Smart guys refer to it as âaccumulating byproducts of fatigue.â The bodybuilders from the 1950s and '60s didnât describe it that way, but it was their best and most reliable way to induce small but measurable gains in their arm muscles.
To get that pump, itâs important to mix and match exercises, never allowing your biceps and triceps to get used to a routine. But itâs even more important to extend your normal sets until your muscles feel as if theyâre on fire. If it doesnât hurt, you arenât doing it right."
====
Christian Thib:
If youâre ever in doubt, just remember this: The more fibers you recruit and exhaust, the more growth you get.
====
Bricknyce, T-Nation:
"There are many examples of pros who train lighter than years or even decades ago.
An example of such a person would be Dorian Yates. From his entry to mid-career, he mostly performed low to medium reps (5 to 8).
At his peak and late career, he performed higher reps, 8 to 15, depending on the muscle trained. He also incorporated a slower tempo and more use of machines later in his career. In his younger days, he would really heave the weight much more violently; he once wrote that he used to perform leg extensions with such force that the machine would move. Obviously higher reps and a stricter lifting style didnât harm his career; he improved year after year until his biceps injury.
Gary Strydom, Marc Dugdale, and Clay Hyght are also other examples of men that have written on this phenomenon as well.
Onto the realization that one is not built for elite strength. Lonnie Lowery and Mike Boyle have mentioned this sort of thing in their writing several times.
If memory serves me correctly, Mike Boyle said he gave up powerlifting when he reached a 500 pound squat and deadlift; his body wouldnât allow him to lift bigger poundages without injuries, pains, and strains. I experienced the same after experiencing the same numbers coupled with a 350 bench press. Even certain heavy lifts destroy my body; I stay the hell away from heavy (<8 reps) deadlift variations (especially snatch-grip) and good-mornings. And I donât perform below four reps in any exercise.
There are men out there who can take physical abuse - backbreaking poundages, ultra-high volume, and highly stressful exercises - without harm; I know Iâm not one of them.
====
IamMarqaos, T-Nation:
"There are many ways to improve performance without improving dramatically on the load:
Training with heavy weights is a systemic experience and will often cause growth in other places then the muscle targeted.
Personally, I am like MiketheBear and gained inches on my legs just pushing my squat well over 500lbs. However, when injury stalled my strength training, I resorted to this kind of training and made similar gains in size BUT with better separation and detail showing.
There are several guys I trained with who simply could not, for whatever reason, push the load up consistently. If you fall into that catagory you might want to check this out a bit more.
But the author IS claiming that you can get big legs with this program.
I can attest that this style of training can get your legs big.
I prefer to hoist heavy weights when training but have to admit, I do not really look like a bodybuilder, I look more like a big athlete.
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Heartandsoul317, T-Nation:
I am a person who has the problem of continually getting stronger, but not really looking like it! I have to gain a lot of strength to add a little muscle size. This article came at the right time for me b/c I just started doing higher reps. for lower body instead of trying to get stronger and stronger. It seems to be working.
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Dave Tate:
Letâs say a bodybuilderâs program says three sets of eight. He reaches eight and it feels good, so he racks it. What the fuck? Heâs there to break the muscle down. Did he have two more in him? Then he should do them, no matter what the âprogramâ says. Iâm not saying you need to train to failure all the time, but you left two reps on the table when the goal is to break the muscle down. In my mind, you just wasted a set.
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T-Nation: What about the âpumpâ and hypertrophy? Is the pump necessary?
Dave Tate: Iâm part of the old school on this. I think if youâre trying to build hypertrophy, you still at some point need to pump the shit out of the body. You need to get the fluid and blood in there.
Contrary to what a lot of people think, thatâs still what everybody fucking does. If youâre a competitive bodybuilder or are training for mass, thatâs how you finish your session.
Thatâs where I like the idea of some of the different machines Ă¢?? because they donât place a huge demand on the body. You can get on a chest press machine, a pec deck, a cable crossover, whatever the hell you want to use, and you can completely gorge that muscle. But because you did those movements, itâs not going to place a huge demand on your recovery. "
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Dave Tate:
For powerlifting, a lot of isolation work Ă¢?? concentration curls and shit like that Ă¢?? isnât going to do a whole lot. For someone trying to build hypertrophy though, whose main function isnât going to be strength, I think movements like that are extremely important.
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Mike Boyle:
Can a muscle tell the difference between a weight, a band or a spring? I donĂ¢??t believe so. One of my favorite lines of bull is the old Ă¢?? this exercise or training method will give you long, lean muscles like a dancerĂ¢??. This is akin to telling people you can turn an apple into an orange right before their eyes. You can no more make a short stocky female client have long lean muscles like a dancer than you make someone taller. Exercise will remove subcutaneous bodyfat and reduce intramuscular fat stores but, changing the source of resistance in a resistance-based exercise will not produce a muscle that appears different. Muscles canĂ¢??t tell the difference between resistance generated by a piece of iron or by a piece of rubber. We need to produce a resistance that will cause fatigue to occur at the 30 second point or later to induce hypertrophy. If weight training had to be done with a free weight to produce hypertrophy then lat pulldowns would be a better exercise than chinups for upper back development. Thousands of bodybuilding articles tell us the opposite but, the resistance in a chin-up is Ă¢??onlyĂ¢?? bodyweight. If we donĂ¢??t want hypertrophy than donĂ¢??t do light weights and more reps. I think the common prescription for female trainees ( light weights, lots of reps) leans more towards a bodybuilding, mass producing prescription than away from it. If I wanted less hypertrophy, I would stay in the 5-6 rep range with higher loads and generate less time under tension. I would also do less sets. The result, less time under tension, less volume and less hypertrophy. The fact is, training is about time under tension and the point of fatigue. I can produce hypertrophy with weights or without.
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Myth: If youâre not adding reps or weight to the bar, youâre not progressing.
Mythbuster: Scott Abel
If you were learning to play a musical instrument, nobody would simply hand you a guitar or flute and expect you to be able to play a song. First youâd have to learn the mechanics of playing Ă¢?? how to hold the instrument, how to create notes. Then youâd learn how to create specific notes by playing scales. Then youâd probably learn something about rhythm and tempo. And then youâd be ready to learn to play a song.
But when it comes to strength training, you skip most of that, and go straight from learning the mechanics Ă¢?? how to hold a barbell or dumbbells; how to complete a repetition Ă¢?? to playing songs. You learn about sets and reps, and how to add weight to the bar, without learning to create specific effects from those sets and reps, or to understand what feedback you should expect from your muscles, and what it means.
Itâs like trying to make music before you know how to make notes. You canât play a song until you can play the scales.
To me, the ââscalesââ of strength training are lactic-acid buildup, oxygen debt, fatigue, and performance. If you donât know how to induce and interpret these types of feedback, it doesnât matter how many reps you did, or how much weight you used. Youâre just lifting iron, and your muscles and mind arenât connected at all.
Once you learn those basics, youâre still a long way from building your body, just as an aspiring violinist who can play scales is a long way from being able to produce beautiful music. But at least you know how and why your body reacts to different stimuli. From there, you can develop a comprehensive program that meets your needs and helps you reach your goals.
In other words, thereâs a lot more to training than counting reps and throwing iron on the bar. Once you start experiencing your workouts, instead of simply doing them, youâll progress exponentially, rather than incrementally."
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âEverybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but donât nobody want to lift moderate weight for high reps.â - Diamond Delts, a muscular black man and mod on BB.com Forums
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Tim Henriques, NPTI Director:
I do believe that when training for size you should feel the muscle working, that is one measure of intramuscular tension which is the easiest and simplest way to estimate how many motor units are working. In some circles it is referred to as the mind-muscle connection and a lot of bodybuilders swear by it. I believe it is one of the biggest differences when training for size vs strength.
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Tim Henriques, NPTI Director:
"Neuromuscular coordination doesnât matter much for bodybuilding. You donât need to worry about skill transfer. Instead, you want to make sure that a specific muscle, or muscle group, is doing the work.
That doesnât mean youâll rely solely on isolation exercises, but it does mean you should feel the muscle working during the set, and feel a difference within the muscle afterwards. You want to get a pump, to feel the burning sensation in the muscle (which we used to think was caused by lactic acid), and/or feel post-workout soreness a day or two later. Those are all signs of effective muscle isolation.
Conversely, when youâre training for strength, you donât want to feel the muscles working, or to establish a mind-muscle connection; you just want to do the movement.
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wushy_1984, T-Nation:
"I totally agree on the buff Olympic lifters being the exception. Thereâs a guy in my gym who has competed internationally in Weightlifting and looks scrawny compared to rest of Powerlifters and bodybuilders in the gym.
There is no real reason for someone really good at weightlifting to have loads of muscle, especially bodybuilder type muscle on the pecs and arms. The guys are all legs really.
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Berserkergang, T-Nation:
I wasted too many years back squatting. I got almost zero quad development from it.
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DjFuzzy, a newbie who listened to the âlift heavy shit to get bigâ dogma on
BB.com:
Since the beginning of October, I have been going to the gym every day for at least 1.5 hours. I do alternate muscle groups throughout the week, and change up exercises frequently to keep my body guessing. I eat right and donât use tobacco or any crap like that. My problem is, I am getting considerably stronger, but not much larger.
My chest for instance, you guys are gonna laugh, but when I first started my workouts in October, I was maxing my bench at 155lbs. I was 6â even and weighed 170lbs. Tonight, and you will probably laugh again, I maxed again at 225lbs, I am still 6â and weigh 173lbs. I know I gained 3 pounds since October, but I was hoping to be at least 180 something by now. I have tried to just lift heavy as many reps as possible, but I stopped because my shoulders started to feel like crap.
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Contract Killer, 6â5 250 lb. man, BB.com Forums:
Ignore the critics, cables and machines build huge arms.
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Chris Shugart:
Sorry performance coaches, but curling works, at least as far as bodybuilding is concerned. So do leg presses and several machine exercises. I get tired of hearing performance coaches bash training techniques and exercises that have built thousands of great physiques over the years. These exercises may not be âfunctionalâ or carry over to sports, but they build muscle, and thatâs good enough for the aesthetic bodybuilder.
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Dorian Yates:
Ă¢??Then, squatting on a Smith machine, I could position my body so it was much more isolated on the quads, less glutes and lower back involvement, didnât have to worry about the balance aspect. Actually my legs improved a lot when I was doing Smith squats, hack squats, leg presses Ă¢?? I could isolate the thighs a lot more. So actually I used the Smith machine quite a bit for squatting.Ă¢??
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John Berardi:
Training with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big.
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DiamondDelts BB.com Mod:
Exactly. But the young kids typically are going by heavier weights = huge muscles bullshit they get from others at school. Once a kid starts to put on some decent weight and attains a decent mind muscle connection is all about refining and using the weight properly. Not just piling more of it on.
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Will Harris, IFBB Pro Bodybuilder:
âThis AINâT ninth grade and no one gives a SHIT how much you benchâ -
Wlhcrow, T-Nation:
âI trained with exclusively low reps for several months and increased strength without increasing sizeâfor the past 2-3 months I have been using 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps followed by 2 sets of 8-10 reps, but only on the major compound lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, chins, etc)
Strength is still increasing (though slower) and size is starting to creep back up with higher calories (higher calories on low rep only lifting added more bf than muscle)â
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Arthur Jones, bodybuilding pioneer and inventor of Nautilus :
âExplosive training is simply criminal. Itâs stupid as hell.â
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Scott Abel:
A young lad recently wrote to me that he couldnât do a single chin-up. When I asked why he wanted a program to make him better at chins, he said that he wanted to build his back. I told him that in his case, his back development did not depend on his ability to do chins. My advice was to stop wasting valuable gym time in a futile attempt to master a single movement, and move on to a more appropriate and viable program.
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Nominal Prospect:
1-10 Reps = Strength gains through increased motor efficiency (i.e. lifting technique), minimal amount of size gains from to contractile hypertrophy
10+ Reps = Size gains through fluid hypertrophy
There you go. You want something to argue with, now youâve got it.
So, are we going to listen to Nominal Prospect or we going to wallow in ignorance?
Training for the pump, and taking all work sets to failure, are the two best things you can do for hypertrophy gains.
Surprise! Flex Magazine had it right back in 1993. I know this isnât what some fatboys want to hear, but Iâm here to tell you the truth, not to tickle your balls.[/quote]
Point proven. Point taken. Good job backing up what you claim NP.
I actually enjoyed reading NPâs quotes, so thanks.
Iâm curious what people like Berardi mean by âlow volumeâ though. In my experience, I saw the least muscle growth overall from doing extremely heavy weights at low reps (3-5 range). Iâve seen the best results from doing heavy weights at moderate reps (8-10 range). Once you get into the 10+ range, I think that is more of a cardio activity that recruits Type I fibers at the expense of Type II muscle growth.
[quote]BSC819 wrote:
Point proven. Point taken. Good job backing up what you claim NP.[/quote]
Groan.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I actually enjoyed reading NPâs quotes, so thanks.
Iâm curious what people like Berardi mean by âlow volumeâ though. In my experience, I saw the least muscle growth overall from doing extremely heavy weights at low reps (3-5 range). Iâve seen the best results from doing heavy weights at moderate reps (8-10 range). Once you get into the 10+ range, I think that is more of a cardio activity that recruits Type I fibers at the expense of Type II muscle growth.[/quote]
I keep asking you for specifics as far as your results yet you havenât gone into detail yet. Is there a reason for that? How much have you gained since you started? Why were you only lifting weights in the 3-5 rep range for all sets? Greater than 10 reps is cardio?
My first few years of working out included a variety of off the shelf programs (Ian King, Craig Ballantyne, Chad Waterbury, etc.). Some focused on heavy weight, low rep sets, others were in the 8-10 range, and a couple were in the higher rep range.
Iâve seen the most progress from pushing 8-10 rep sets to failure. I think you have to break the muscle down in order to build new muscle, and you arenât going to stress Type II muscles much by going with high reps and low weight.
[quote]forlife wrote:
My first few years of working out included a variety of off the shelf programs (Ian King, Craig Ballantyne, Chad Waterbury, etc.). Some focused on heavy weight, low rep sets, others were in the 8-10 range, and a couple were in the higher rep range.
Iâve seen the most progress from pushing 8-10 rep sets to failure. I think you have to break the muscle down in order to build new muscle, and you arenât going to stress Type II muscles much by going with high reps and low weight.[/quote]
Yes, I am aware your tap dancing skills are legendary when it comes to doing as such around a subject, however, more specifically I ask of your progress because if someone claimsâŚand I quote, â[quote]I saw the least muscle growth [/quote]â or â[quote]Iâve seen the best results from[/quote]â, then I personally would like to know exactly how much progress that was.
I mean, otherwise, any newb who has gained 5lbs can make claims about how great their progress was doing this and that.
Yes, fast twitch muscle fibers need heavier weight and lower repsâŚand yes, reps as low as THREE are generally held for powerlifting as it is not enough repetition to incorporate any more muscle fibers than the initial ones to fire during a set. This is info that you find in any 50 year old Weiderâs handbook so I am confused as to why someone at your stage would start lifting using ONLY 3-5 reps for each set no matter what trainer they have bought books from.
I provided detailed stats on my lifts one year ago vs. today, and showed significant growth (20-25%) across the board using sets in the 8-10 range. Iâm not going to address your personal comments further here or in other threads, but feel free to touch on any actual points being discussed.
Iâm glad you agree that Type 2 fibers grow more from heavier weight at lower reps. I made the point because some of the quotes provided by Nominal Prospect seemed to ignore it. Like I said, Iâm curious what Berardi actually meant by âlow and high volumeâ when he said:
[quote]Training with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work outputâŚ"
You made some very interesting points there Nominal Prospect. Good post.
So if you gain 15lbs while training in the 5 rep range, and it isnât all fat, then do you agree that it was contractile hypertrophy. In this case it doesnât seem so rare.
And changes in motor efficiency are neural changes in strength. (exs: changes in recruitment patters, synchronization, rate coding, and intermuscular coordination) Those are all neural in nature, thus neural strength gains are not rare.
I agree thouth that if you want to pack on a lot of muscle very quickly you should be aiming for a lot of fluid hypertrophy. I dont think sets to failure are a good idea, but multiple high rep sets to just short of failure combined with some serious carb loading and high calories.