All I ever needed to know
[quote]NotaQuitta wrote:
Btw, I agree with many of the points here.
Its true that you should always look to switch up your diet before you switch up your training - many people assume that if they need to eat 3000 cals to grow at 160lbs they can continue eating those 3000 cals at 180 or 190lbs and still continue the growth. Which is wrong.
However, assuming diet is in check switching up the training (as per science’s great post) can also stimulate growth particularly if you have reached a plateau in a certain exercise…[/quote]
Thank you.
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
[quote]EF5127 wrote:
@ its_just_me interesting stuff. I’m liking what you have to say and am finding myself considering a lot of good points that I never really thought of. This is a good conversation, lets keep it going. Tomorrow’s the weekend, so I’ll have time to sift through it. In the mean time if you have any other posts going talk about this one and try and get some more people to jump in. I talked about it in my log “Chemo, Radiation and a Stem Cell Transplant” and want a couple more views and opinions to stir things up. Post back tmr, cheers![/quote]
Your dedication despite setbacks is very inspiring. I can’t imagine trying to push myself after what you’ve been through, well done.
Obviously, in your circumstance I’d say build up the intensity very slowly (but only when diet is solid). High intensity training (e.g. pushing weights to near failure with your 80-85% 1RM load) is tough on the healthiest individuals, let alone someone who’s body’s bouncing back to “normality”.
To re-iterate what I said earlier, I do think that low intensity training works to some degree, just not the best of styles to be on long term.
PS - I like to discuss these things, sorry for taking over this whole thread (I’m sure I tend to bore people to death with my walls of text and kill threads lol)[/quote]
Thanks man, appreciate it. Now I’ve read through your posts and like what I’m seeing. If you hi-jack a thread with a wealth of good contributions and insights than be all means do so. I’m just glad to see you’ve been holding it down we’ll I’ve been busy during the week. I was just wondering about your progressive overload methods and how long you keep them going for. For example I like to set periodization up so that I have the opportunity to make progressive overload over a fairly reasonable amount of time so that adaptation can take place, but sometimes I’ll find myself at the end of progression on something and have nowhere to go with it. At this point I’ll switch it up and start something new, follow that until I can no longer make progress on that and then re-start again. I’m a big fan of high frequency because of my situation and the style of training I’m doing. I can only handle very minimal work at high frequency’s and find that I’ll sometimes reach the end of progression on something rather quick, ex 2 weeks. Sometimes it works out a lot better and I’ll be able to suck 4 weeks or so of progression out of it, but when you’re repeating workouts and movements so frequently progression takes off in a hurry and then you’re done with it fairly quick. I could taper back on the rate of progression, but feel it would just be pointless. Regardless of what you’re doing if you imply some form of progressive overload you’re going to progress, but obviously there’s better or optimal ways to do so. Any suggestions?
[quote]EF5127 wrote:
Thanks man, appreciate it. Now I’ve read through your posts and like what I’m seeing. If you hi-jack a thread with a wealth of good contributions and insights than be all means do so. I’m just glad to see you’ve been holding it down we’ll I’ve been busy during the week. I was just wondering about your progressive overload methods and how long you keep them going for. For example I like to set periodization up so that I have the opportunity to make progressive overload over a fairly reasonable amount of time so that adaptation can take place, but sometimes I’ll find myself at the end of progression on something and have nowhere to go with it. At this point I’ll switch it up and start something new, follow that until I can no longer make progress on that and then re-start again. I’m a big fan of high frequency because of my situation and the style of training I’m doing. I can only handle very minimal work at high frequency’s and find that I’ll sometimes reach the end of progression on something rather quick, ex 2 weeks. Sometimes it works out a lot better and I’ll be able to suck 4 weeks or so of progression out of it, but when you’re repeating workouts and movements so frequently progression takes off in a hurry and then you’re done with it fairly quick. I could taper back on the rate of progression, but feel it would just be pointless. Regardless of what you’re doing if you imply some form of progressive overload you’re going to progress, but obviously there’s better or optimal ways to do so. Any suggestions?[/quote]
Glad you appreciate my babble 
When trying to maximise gains on a half decent routine, so long as fuel and rest is in order, the next main thing is managing fatigue. Call it periodization, switching it up, deloading or whatever…what you are doing is managing fatigue in some way (nervous system fatigue).
Obviously, in order to progress, you need to push hard and overload the muscles in some way, but after a while, depending on how intensive (or frequent/high volume) it is, your recovery ability starts to “lag behind” and recovery slows. In other words, you could say that built up fatigue over-rides recovery (the stimulation becomes in excess of the growth/adaptation). This is when the body starts to put the “breaks on”.
In bodybuilding, as long as there is forward movement (more reps/more weight/higher density etc), you will get bigger muscles if diet and recovery is adequate. But you still may have to manage fatigue in some way (something that needn’t be as complicated as many gurus would have you think…in fact, some have the gift of doing this instinctively without being that concious of it!).
One of the most obvious ways of managing fatigue is rest and less work! Crazy but true lol. So if you were having a stressful week and your drive/focus is low, you may decide to only train 2-3x that week (so long as you’ve earned it, like weeks of good gains). Or you may decide that you will not aim for a PR on a lift, but instead focus on quality of the reps. Or you may decide that you’ll just stick to a few movements that day (instead of 4-6). Or drop volume in some other way (e.g. less reps with the same load as before, or less sets)
If you find fatigue building up too quickly and progress halting, I’d strongly look at your diet (enough calories and protein?) and sleep (a decent 7.5+ hours/night?). Next thing would be routine (is it stupidly unconventional? Really high volume/frequency?).
The main point is milking things dry, and only then changing it. Don’t look for the next cool thing if you haven’t given something a chance. Don’t look for the “clever things” if you aren’t even putting on any weight (e.g. 2-4lbs a month). Don’t “fix” what’s already working (or something that simply needs tweaked).
Personally, I tend to stick to a simple but effective rep range rather than doing extremes every workout. The range depends on the bodypart (more than just varying it for the sake of it/or “active rest”). I wouldn’t say, “right, today’s the 4-6 rep day, and tomorrow’s the 10-15 rep day”. Apart from rep range depending much on the exercise you’re doing, pressing movements usually like lower reps (e.g. 5-8 reps, which I follow up with a higher rep set to finish with), legs and many back movements usually like higher reps (e.g. 12-15 reps especially to finish/start with).
Progression is “double progression method”; aim to get another rep or two and hit the top rep range, once reached, increase load by 2% or whatever and start over at the lower end of the rep range. Depending on feel, I may just try to improve the quality or get another rep before increasing load.
After about 5-6 weeks of being “on a roll”, things start to get stale for me, this is where I alter the intensity (a form of periodization/managing nervous system fatigue). It often means lowering load, like by 15% (same rep scheme) but doing another 1-2 sets/exercise. I never go to failure or near during the first week…and from there on afterwards I build the intensity back up again while dropping volume (for me it’s usually 1-2 sets/exercise) and ride it out until the cycle peaks again…rinse and repeat.
If exercises stall, and just don’t want to “play”, switch them out (e.g. after a few months). You can always return to them again some day.
For yourself, with having to watch the intensity, you really have to play with frequency/volume to “compensate”. Once you’ve settled on a good amount of stimulus (balance of volume/intensity that allows longer term gains) you just need to figure out your own body’s rhythm “peaking cycle” pattern so that you know when to “pull back”. It could be 4 weeks, it may be 12…it depends on your genetics/routine/diet/rest.
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
[quote]EF5127 wrote:
Thanks man, appreciate it. Now I’ve read through your posts and like what I’m seeing. If you hi-jack a thread with a wealth of good contributions and insights than be all means do so. I’m just glad to see you’ve been holding it down we’ll I’ve been busy during the week. I was just wondering about your progressive overload methods and how long you keep them going for. For example I like to set periodization up so that I have the opportunity to make progressive overload over a fairly reasonable amount of time so that adaptation can take place, but sometimes I’ll find myself at the end of progression on something and have nowhere to go with it. At this point I’ll switch it up and start something new, follow that until I can no longer make progress on that and then re-start again. I’m a big fan of high frequency because of my situation and the style of training I’m doing. I can only handle very minimal work at high frequency’s and find that I’ll sometimes reach the end of progression on something rather quick, ex 2 weeks. Sometimes it works out a lot better and I’ll be able to suck 4 weeks or so of progression out of it, but when you’re repeating workouts and movements so frequently progression takes off in a hurry and then you’re done with it fairly quick. I could taper back on the rate of progression, but feel it would just be pointless. Regardless of what you’re doing if you imply some form of progressive overload you’re going to progress, but obviously there’s better or optimal ways to do so. Any suggestions?[/quote]
Glad you appreciate my babble
When trying to maximise gains on a half decent routine, so long as fuel and rest is in order, the next main thing is managing fatigue. Call it periodization, switching it up, deloading or whatever…what you are doing is managing fatigue in some way (nervous system fatigue).
Obviously, in order to progress, you need to push hard and overload the muscles in some way, but after a while, depending on how intensive (or frequent/high volume) it is, your recovery ability starts to “lag behind” and recovery slows. In other words, you could say that built up fatigue over-rides recovery (the stimulation becomes in excess of the growth/adaptation). This is when the body starts to put the “breaks on”.
In bodybuilding, as long as there is forward movement (more reps/more weight/higher density etc), you will get bigger muscles if diet and recovery is adequate. But you still may have to manage fatigue in some way (something that needn’t be as complicated as many gurus would have you think…in fact, some have the gift of doing this instinctively without being that concious of it!).
One of the most obvious ways of managing fatigue is rest and less work! Crazy but true lol. So if you were having a stressful week and your drive/focus is low, you may decide to only train 2-3x that week (so long as you’ve earned it, like weeks of good gains). Or you may decide that you will not aim for a PR on a lift, but instead focus on quality of the reps. Or you may decide that you’ll just stick to a few movements that day (instead of 4-6). Or drop volume in some other way (e.g. less reps with the same load as before, or less sets)
If you find fatigue building up too quickly and progress halting, I’d strongly look at your diet (enough calories and protein?) and sleep (a decent 7.5+ hours/night?). Next thing would be routine (is it stupidly unconventional? Really high volume/frequency?).
The main point is milking things dry, and only then changing it. Don’t look for the next cool thing if you haven’t given something a chance. Don’t look for the “clever things” if you aren’t even putting on any weight (e.g. 2-4lbs a month). Don’t “fix” what’s already working (or something that simply needs tweaked).
Personally, I tend to stick to a simple but effective rep range rather than doing extremes every workout. The range depends on the bodypart (more than just varying it for the sake of it/or “active rest”). I wouldn’t say, “right, today’s the 4-6 rep day, and tomorrow’s the 10-15 rep day”. Apart from rep range depending much on the exercise you’re doing, pressing movements usually like lower reps (e.g. 5-8 reps, which I follow up with a higher rep set to finish with), legs and many back movements usually like higher reps (e.g. 12-15 reps especially to finish/start with).
Progression is “double progression method”; aim to get another rep or two and hit the top rep range, once reached, increase load by 2% or whatever and start over at the lower end of the rep range. Depending on feel, I may just try to improve the quality or get another rep before increasing load.
After about 5-6 weeks of being “on a roll”, things start to get stale for me, this is where I alter the intensity (a form of periodization/managing nervous system fatigue). It often means lowering load, like by 15% (same rep scheme) but doing another 1-2 sets/exercise. I never go to failure or near during the first week…and from there on afterwards I build the intensity back up again while dropping volume (for me it’s usually 1-2 sets/exercise) and ride it out until the cycle peaks again…rinse and repeat.
If exercises stall, and just don’t want to “play”, switch them out (e.g. after a few months). You can always return to them again some day.
For yourself, with having to watch the intensity, you really have to play with frequency/volume to “compensate”. Once you’ve settled on a good amount of stimulus (balance of volume/intensity that allows longer term gains) you just need to figure out your own body’s rhythm “peaking cycle” pattern so that you know when to “pull back”. It could be 4 weeks, it may be 12…it depends on your genetics/routine/diet/rest.[/quote]
Lol you’re posts are just blowing me away. I feel bad to keep dragging on, but it’s just too damn good. How did you learn so much and do you have any formal education? Not that I think you can base someone on that, just curious considering what you know. About smaller or “isolation” exercises I’m not a huge fan but have resorted to some do to my situation. I find even small increments may add up very fast on these exercises. For example adding 5 pounds to your squat and 5 pounds to lateral raises is a lot different. What’s your progression like on those? more so reps than weight/intensity? or perhaps more volume?
[quote]EF5127 wrote:
Lol you’re posts are just blowing me away. I feel bad to keep dragging on, but it’s just too damn good. How did you learn so much and do you have any formal education? Not that I think you can base someone on that, just curious considering what you know. About smaller or “isolation” exercises I’m not a huge fan but have resorted to some do to my situation. I find even small increments may add up very fast on these exercises. For example adding 5 pounds to your squat and 5 pounds to lateral raises is a lot different. What’s your progression like on those? more so reps than weight/intensity? or perhaps more volume?
[/quote]
Thanks, I appreciate that.
You’ll learn more from someone who’s spent 15+ years under the bar, than you ever will from an article. Pick the right people to listen to (keeps you focussed/progressing) and learn from your own body…repeat year after year.
When I first started training I knew more about “training” than my body showed. I thought I was being intelligent, when ironically, following the big guys was the way to go (working on getting strong on my exercises, and increasing food intake). I’ve been “training” for 10 years now, but would only class the last 3-4 years as productive (ditched the science textbooks and just put my head down).
Perspective/context is everything. All the knowledge in the world won’t help you if you don’t put things into practice and learn to ditch what isn’t productive for you. If you read something and don’t see how it relates to your training, or feel like you need to completely turn your training upside-down (e.g. go from HIT to high volume training)…you really aren’t experienced enough to be reading what you’re reading and need to go back to the drawing board and learn to listen to your body. If it makes you more confused, stop reading and hit the “reset button”. Always keep the fundamentals at the forefront of your mind (consistency/progression/weight gain etc).
Good exercises to pick involve ones that you can progress on (the fundamentals). There’s nothing more complicated than that really. Isolation exercises won’t make you get THAT much stronger, but still contribute to your development (so long as they don’t comprise of most of your training). Compound = larger load increases, isolation = more the feel/pump in target muscle.
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
[quote]EF5127 wrote:
Lol you’re posts are just blowing me away. I feel bad to keep dragging on, but it’s just too damn good. How did you learn so much and do you have any formal education? Not that I think you can base someone on that, just curious considering what you know. About smaller or “isolation” exercises I’m not a huge fan but have resorted to some do to my situation. I find even small increments may add up very fast on these exercises. For example adding 5 pounds to your squat and 5 pounds to lateral raises is a lot different. What’s your progression like on those? more so reps than weight/intensity? or perhaps more volume?
[/quote]
Thanks, I appreciate that.
You’ll learn more from someone who’s spent 15+ years under the bar, than you ever will from an article. Pick the right people to listen to (keeps you focussed/progressing) and learn from your own body…repeat year after year.
When I first started training I knew more about “training” than my body showed. I thought I was being intelligent, when ironically, following the big guys was the way to go (working on getting strong on my exercises, and increasing food intake). I’ve been “training” for 10 years now, but would only class the last 3-4 years as productive (ditched the science textbooks and just put my head down).
Perspective/context is everything. All the knowledge in the world won’t help you if you don’t put things into practice and learn to ditch what isn’t productive for you. If you read something and don’t see how it relates to your training, or feel like you need to completely turn your training upside-down (e.g. go from HIT to high volume training)…you really aren’t experienced enough to be reading what you’re reading and need to go back to the drawing board and learn to listen to your body. If it makes you more confused, stop reading and hit the “reset button”. Always keep the fundamentals at the forefront of your mind (consistency/progression/weight gain etc).
Good exercises to pick involve ones that you can progress on (the fundamentals). There’s nothing more complicated than that really. Isolation exercises won’t make you get THAT much stronger, but still contribute to your development (so long as they don’t comprise of most of your training). Compound = larger load increases, isolation = more the feel/pump in target muscle.[/quote]
Wise man. I agree. I read mostly for fun and as a general interest. I do understand that I’m actually less than a beginner with my current health situation. That right there is the problem. I almost can’t relate to anything because training for me is a totally unique and individualistic type of situation. It’s an advantage/disadvantage, a double edge sword. It’s hard for me to do many movements, sets, reps etc, but at the same time I can totally take advantage of this weakness and lack of experience by getting the most out of the least. I need such little stimulus or work to get a good workout and yet still have it be fairly effective. It’s just tough to set it up. I appreciate your advice and you’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks again.