I dont want to let this thread die. There are still too many stupid things to argue about.
Here’s my take on a few things. I now am thinking that its not about “things that matter” and “things that dont matter” but instead its about not looking at things under a microscope and instead LOOKING AT THE BIGGER PICTURE. There are A TON of variables that play a role in success and as long as they are all taken care of reasonably, results should be good. (Kinda a lousy statement but its true)
There are all of thes things that may or may not matter, for example, casein vs. whey. Someone might ask questions about which one to use or timing, but then you look at their diet and its complete crap and and like 1000calories less than they should be eating. FOR THIS PERSON it doesn’t matter and they need to look at the bigger picture.
I also think if you go about things in a REASONABLE MANNER your efforts will take you very far, and you probably wont ever need to worry about these “things that dont matter”.
For example, DIET: As long as you are not defficient any any nutrients, macronutrients or micronutrients, etc. the biggest, most important factor is going to be calorie intake. If you are trying to build muscle, and are taking in 300g of protein, but are still at a 500 calorie deficit you aren’t going to grow. I dont think any macro nutrient ratios; WITHIN REASON will produce noticeable differences. 40/30/30, 40/40/20 etc. as long as its within reason its probably not going to matter. So you can basically figure out how much you NEED of each macro, add a bit just to be safe, and then disperse the rest of your calories how you’d like. Now sure, you cant just throw in an extra 1000 calories of sugar and think its not going to have an effect. You have to be REASONABLE.
I think training is a bit more complex, but I agree with many of the points GG made in the first post. I dont think research can lead you to a lot of those conclusions as being CONCLUSIVE but nothing really crazy was suggested.
For training, I think looking at the bigger picture is also very important. Because one set to failure may be a safe bet, but if you are only training that muscle 2x per week, and doing few exercises and 5 reps, that one set may not be enough. (I think GG alluded to this).
So there are some generalities that you can use to figure out how you should go about your training.
- Recognize the relationships between volume, intensity, frequency.
And I’d even throw intensiveness and failure in there as well. They are all inversely related to eachother and its a pretty complex relationship.
- Autoregulation - I actually think this is pretty important, but hard to describe. Basically the way I see it is, whatever program you set up based on #1, doesn’t matter if you cant progress. By the processes of autoregulation, you figure out how to modify and adapt your training so that you can make progress and grow.
Ex: Say you are training 5x per week. Maybe some form of split, and are hitting each muslce 2-3x per week. And lets say you are doing quite a few exercises for each muscle group. If you were to do anything more than ONE set to failure, you’d likely not be able to progress. But on a very similar program, lets say you are only doing a few exercises for each muscle group, then this might necessitate more sets to failure in some way.
EX2: You are training with sets of 5. One set to failure may just not be enough volume for you to progress by the next workout. This would be especially true if you were more of a newb, as you wouldn’t be able to get much out of one set of five. But, maybe you are training many exercises, or training that same movement every other day. Then the one set might be warranted.
I think the one set to failure or “max” principle is pretty cool and might start trying it. I can see that if you are going to only do one set, that a bit higher reps makes sense (10-15) and maybe if you are going to do a few sets and only push the last one or two, then lower reps (5-10) makes sense.
One thing I might try, is after my “main” lift, rather than doing a few exercises and ramping to a max and performing working sets near that max, I might perform ONE set to failure for a few variations to work the different muscles invovled.
EX: Bench press (main lift)
DB shoulder press 1x10
Low incline press 1x10
decline 1x10
triceps 1x10
Just a thought.
So if everything is done WITHIN REASON, and you learn to autoregulate, you should progress fairly consistently and eventually reach the point where training is more complicated and WITHIN REASON isn’t enough.
****Now I know the mentality of a lot of newbs. And I MAY be considered one myself; at least by a lot of member here, and that mentality goes something like this. “Well if a higher level bodybuilder needs to focus on these things down to the smallest detail, then certainly it must have an effect.” The newbs will think that a “basic” program and diet is somehow shortchanging them, because if they focus on all the little things theyll get better results. And to an extent this is corret. BUT, the ‘BIGGER PICTURE’ approach where you keep things basic will pretty much get you 95% of the way there. All those little things CAN get you the other 5% but the 95% is much more important. AND, when a newb starts to focus on the little things, they ALWAYS tend to ignore the ‘big picture’ because they think the little things are more important.
Those are my views. They may be wrong, so lets hear some of those arguments.