Thib's Q&A

Training
4921

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
ncruse wrote:

Would the addition of some whole grains, potatoes, and wild rice be enough or do I need to add breads as well? I still want to lose this last bit of fat around my waist, but I also want to take care of my body.

Breads are not and never will be a necessary food to eat in any diet regardless of what the lobby-driven RDA recommendation tells you.

ncruse wrote:
I workout first thing in the morning without eating, is this holding me back?

Yes it is VERY dumb… steep in dumbbness. This will elevate cortisol way too much and create a catabolic situation which will increase the risk of muscle loss and make fat loss harder both directly and indirectly.

You should at least get in something like 25g of protein (even a powder is fine) with some BCAAs.

ncruse wrote:
Also, I was taking Surge Workout Fuel until I started my low carb system. My concern were the sugars in Surge. Are these sugars bad first thing in the morning?

Sugars are always bad except peri-workout. And frankly, there is only 20g of carbs in Workout Fuel, and these will be burned during your workout. Heck, Bartl and Gus Pacho from the Physic Clinic used Workout fuel and lost a ton of fat.

ncruse wrote:
And finally, I am lost on what supplements I should be taking for muscle growth. I have been researching Metabolic Drive, Grow!, Creatine and BCAA, do I need all 4 of these?

If you are trying to lose fat and are on a severe diet, forget about gaining a lot of muscle. All you can hope for in this situation is a small amount of growth, but maintenance is what happens in most cases.

Still, Metabolic Drive (low carbs), creatine and BCAAs are all good additions since they will help you preserve your muscle and even gain some.[/quote]

CT

Once again thank you for your TIME and GENEROSITY!!!

NC

4922

Thanks Coach, I’ll just stick to low-volume heavy lifting for these few weeks then. Or should I not lift at all?

And if you don’t mind yet another question, for carbs should I just stick to low GI fruits and legumes?

4923

[quote]McNulty wrote:
Thanks Coach, I’ll just stick to low-volume heavy lifting for these few weeks then. Or should I not lift at all?

And if you don’t mind yet another question, for carbs should I just stick to low GI fruits and legumes?[/quote]

Oh no, you gotta lift. In fact the emphasis should be on lifting. Building muscle is the best way to repair your damage.

4924

Mr. Thibaudeau, in your past article Stimulate More Muscle Growth, you use the reference of Mitchell et al 1980 in regards to sustaining muscle tension to produce muscle hypoxia w/o external occlusion. Could you please provide the full reference?

Any other references that relate to muscle tension producing muscle hypoxia without external occlusion would be appreciated.

Overfiftylifter-have greatly enjoyed your articles.

4925

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Oh no, you gotta lift. In fact the emphasis should be on lifting. Building muscle is the best way to repair your damage.[/quote]

Oh good, good. Can I lift heavy more than before to make up for the lack of ESW and LIW? Say, four or five days a week?

4926

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

The 100 reps set is just to increase blood flow. It should be very light.

From the sound of it, the superhero program is really not for you. First of all your current level of general muscular development (from your pic) seems to be way too insignificant to use a specialization program. That is what the superhero program is: a spec program… a program where you focus on certain bodyparts while the others are only trained for maintenance.

Read my article ‘‘the specialization bible’’ to learn the principles behind spec training.

If I were you I’d simply select a good overall program to build a decent foundation of muscle first.[/quote]

thanks coach advice appreciated, going to read the article now.

what kind of program do you suggest? the pics and stats in my tpage are old i can’t update them for some reason, i went from 130lbs with 11%bf to 160lbs with the same bf in 8 months doing full body workouts. i can’t do a body part split i always end up overtrained. any advice? thanks again once more.

4927

[quote]McNulty wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Oh no, you gotta lift. In fact the emphasis should be on lifting. Building muscle is the best way to repair your damage.

Oh good, good. Can I lift heavy more than before to make up for the lack of ESW and LIW? Say, four or five days a week?[/quote]

Yes, but don’t approach it with the idea of ‘‘replacing ESW’’, but rather in increasing muscular work to gain more muscle to help solve your problem.

4928

[quote]Overfiftylifter wrote:
Mr. Thibaudeau, in your past article Stimulate More Muscle Growth, you use the reference of Mitchell et al 1980 in regards to sustaining muscle tension to produce muscle hypoxia w/o external occlusion. Could you please provide the full reference?

Any other references that relate to muscle tension producing muscle hypoxia without external occlusion would be appreciated.

Overfiftylifter-have greatly enjoyed your articles.[/quote]

While I enjoy helping others by answering their questions, and will spend many many hours doing so. I’m not a personal assistant. Using tools like Google scholar and Pubmed you can find the references you need.

Mitchell JH, Payne FC, Saltin B, Schibye B (1980) The role of muscle mass in the cardiovascular response to static contractions. J Physiol 309: 45-54

Took me about 87 seconds using Google scholar to find it.

4929

[quote]dyskee wrote:
i can’t do a body part split i always end up overtrained. any advice? thanks again once more.[/quote]

Then why ask about doing the Superhero program???

4930

Thank you for your response. Seems like your testosterone levels are elevated this morning.

I have enjoyed your writings and it appears you have good knowledge.

May I suggest, if you write articles that have information based on published papers, that you reference them in a professional manner with numbers and end of article full references. Using just a name with a number can bring up hundreds of possible references.

Overfiftylifter

4931

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
dyskee wrote:
i can’t do a body part split i always end up overtrained. any advice? thanks again once more.

Then why ask about doing the Superhero program???[/quote]

i sounded a little bit vauge when i said bodypart split i meant one day for chest , one day for back , one day for legs one day for shoulders , one day for bi’s , one day for tri’s etc the super hero program was 4 days a week with bigger bodyparts condensed together and allowed recovery.

4932

[quote]Yes, you are obsessing about a minute detail. The 3% difference is actually not a difference. The 10% is not a precise exact, set in stone number. 7-10% is fine. It’s just that 6% is not really applicable to most strength movements, although it is for speed work and this is where this figure comes from.
[/quote]

Thank you for the clarification. I guessed that the 6% drop-off number was applicable to power/speed work rather than limit strength, but just wanted a clarification to be sure.

4933

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Yes, you are obsessing about a minute detail. The 3% difference is actually not a difference. The 10% is not a precise exact, set in stone number. 7-10% is fine. It’s just that 6% is not really applicable to most strength movements, although it is for speed work and this is where this figure comes from.
[/quote]

Thanks for the clarification, coach.

I figured the difference between the numbers might have something to do with the difference between training for power and training for maximal strength.

I saw an application of this concept that I thought was interesting and wondered about your thoughts on the application.

The idea was that you find your training max for the day for that particular rep range you want to work with that particular day, without psyching yourself up or any other form of arousal. Then you lower the weight by the critical drop off amount and perform as many sets with the lower weight as you can until you can no longer do that.

So, let’s say I am working with the 3 rep range. I find my daily 3 RM for, say the squat. I find that I am able to work up to 300 lbs. for a set of 3. Then I lower the weight by 10% to 270 lbs. I keep doing sets of 3 reps for as many sets as it takes until I can no longer hit all 3 reps.

What do you think of this method? I think this is one of the method used by coach Jay Schroeder.

4934

[quote]Checkmate wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Yes, you are obsessing about a minute detail. The 3% difference is actually not a difference. The 10% is not a precise exact, set in stone number. 7-10% is fine. It’s just that 6% is not really applicable to most strength movements, although it is for speed work and this is where this figure comes from.

Thanks for the clarification, coach.

I figured the difference between the numbers might have something to do with the difference between training for power and training for maximal strength.

I saw an application of this concept that I thought was interesting and wondered about your thoughts on the application.

The idea was that you find your training max for the day for that particular rep range you want to work with that particular day, without psyching yourself up or any other form of arousal. Then you lower the weight by the critical drop off amount and perform as many sets with the lower weight as you can until you can no longer do that.

So, let’s say I am working with the 3 rep range. I find my daily 3 RM for, say the squat. I find that I am able to work up to 300 lbs. for a set of 3. Then I lower the weight by 10% to 270 lbs. I keep doing sets of 3 reps for as many sets as it takes until I can no longer hit all 3 reps.

What do you think of this method? I think this is one of the method used by coach Jay Schroeder.[/quote]

Actually that method was developped by Ivan Abdjiev, the coach of the Bulgarian Olympic lifting team. That’s pretty much how they train.

4935

[quote]dyskee wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
dyskee wrote:
i can’t do a body part split i always end up overtrained. any advice? thanks again once more.

Then why ask about doing the Superhero program???

i sounded a little bit vauge when i said bodypart split i meant one day for chest , one day for back , one day for legs one day for shoulders , one day for bi’s , one day for tri’s etc the super hero program was 4 days a week with bigger bodyparts condensed together and allowed recovery.[/quote]

This is pathetic. Quit wasting CT’s time!

4936

[quote]Overfiftylifter wrote:
Thank you for your response. Seems like your testosterone levels are elevated this morning.

I have enjoyed your writings and it appears you have good knowledge.

May I suggest, if you write articles that have information based on published papers, that you reference them in a professional manner with numbers and end of article full references. Using just a name with a number can bring up hundreds of possible references.

Overfiftylifter[/quote]

What is it with you people? Read what you just wrote?

He is providing the articles to you for free, answering your questions and then you call out his professionalism?
Does he need me to speak for him no.
This kind of shit pisses me off! What kind of society are we to be so demanding and idiotic at the same time!

His Test levels are high? Your freaking sense of gratefulness is pathetic! How about that?

4937

Thanks for all of the help, Coach!

4938

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Actually that method was developped by Ivan Abdjiev, the coach of the Bulgarian Olympic lifting team. That’s pretty much how they train.[/quote]

I didn’t think that Coach Schoeder came up with the idea (he was pretty open about saying he took a lot of his training ideas from the Eastern Bloc training methods), but I didn’t know who originated the idea. Thanks for letting me know who the originator was.

4939

Ah, I apologize but there’s one more thing I forgot to ask. During this break/reset, should I also try to keep the fats down or do I keep them and of course the protein at the same level and just add in the 150-200g of additional carbs?

4940

[quote]Checkmate wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Actually that method was developped by Ivan Abdjiev, the coach of the Bulgarian Olympic lifting team. That’s pretty much how they train.

I didn’t think that Coach Schoeder came up with the idea (he was pretty open about saying he took a lot of his training ideas from the Eastern Bloc training methods), but I didn’t know who originated the idea. Thanks for letting me know who the originator was.[/quote]

The bulgarian basically train this way:

Work up to their training max (which is normally around 90% of their contest max); the max amount of weight they can lift on that day without emotional exertion (psyching themselves up).

This is used to establish the training weight for the work sets, which is 5-15kg less than the daily max (depending on the phase). They then do sets of 2 reps with that training weight until form starts to degrade.