Training for 'Supercompensation'?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

The whole idea of “supercompensation” (as put on a recent article here) has always interested me. A couple of questions for anyone who might hold ideas or answers. What I’m talking about is, days of maintenance/sub maintenance eating leading to a period where your body soaks up the nutrients you give it at a maximal level and/or a period of intentional overtraining followed by time off where your body has time to rebuild at a faster rate than at other times, I guess maybe due to a shock effect of training volume and intensity.

What I want to know is can you advocate a regular approach to this “supercompensation”? For example structuring a week of overtraining on the 3rd week of every month in preparation for the final being an off week? Or in the same vein a week of very strict carb/fat depletion solely and strategically to prime your body for the food you’ll consume in the next?

Also I know that various cycling techniques or periodization bears relevance to these queries, but I’m talking about taking it to somewhat extremes.
Like I said any info/ideas/opinions…

2

I’m sure it could work, but that would be a bitch to do for the rest of your life. I’d only do it before a vacation or maybe a gathering like a party or wedding just to make sure the nutrients I digest will go mostly to the right places. However, I think that if you don’t eat shit all the time, you wouldn’t even really have to do that.

You also have to look at, what do the people with the most impressive physiques do? Or more importantly, what did they do to get there? I’m sure they didn’t do that.

Leave the “supercompensating” for when you go on vacation or get sick. Whenever you take a day off, you’re “supersompensating”

If thats an approach you want go ahead. But I sure don’t.

Enjoy life. You’re in this for the long haul, so thats the way you should think.

3

I think this is just an attempt to make things too complicated.

4

This sort of thing isn’t quantifiable.

Just train hard and listen to your body, when it tells you it can take more, give it more, when it tells you to back off, then back off (obviously don’t be a pussy though).

In my experience the people interested in this sort of thing are relatively lazy and looking for a way to make hard work easy, thinking they can focus their energy long enough to work out “really hard” for a couple weeks, and then grow a whole lot while taking it easy for a week after that… unfortunately the body doesn’t work that way.

5

Dan Duchanes body opus goes into that…

I did a 2.5 hr full body depletion workout… You don’t go to failure and I’d do a circuit, with a 10 sec rest in between sets… So for ex. pullups, squats, bench, culrs, tricep, abs, forearms, rest 5 min. repeat a few time then go to a different circuit, hams, rows, etc . Your training to deplete your muscles of glycogen only so keep it 2 or 3 reps to muscle failure…

6

I’ll be sure to check out his work.
For the record i’m a great believer in listening to your body, there’s no better way of identifying over/undertraining. But still I’m convinced this type of protocol has it’s place, perhaps at the final week of a given program as the results start to taper off just to grind yourself into the ground before an off week/new program.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I think this is just an attempt to make things too complicated.[/quote]

Would you say that about the studies that lead to a greater understanding of something such as post workout nutrition? Is knowing the right ammount/type of protein and carbs to digest at the right time a complication or a progression?

7

[quote]Joel. wrote:
I’ll be sure to check out his work.
For the record i’m a great believer in listening to your body, there’s no better way of identifying over/undertraining. But still I’m convinced this type of protocol has it’s place, perhaps at the final week of a given program as the results start to taper off just to grind yourself into the ground before an off week/new program.

DoubleDuce wrote:
I think this is just an attempt to make things too complicated.

Would you say that about the studies that lead to a greater understanding of something such as post workout nutrition? Is knowing the right ammount/type of protein and carbs to digest at the right time a complication or a progression?
[/quote]

First of all, that’s a straw man argument.

SEcond of all, you are misunderstanding the fine line between progression and complication. It is a fine line, that many dance with yet many simply lack the intelligence or experience to tread that line correctly. Too many people would lack the know how to do a legitimate “supercompensation” period without injuring themselves, or simply doing too much too fast and never hit that compensation part, just the running into the ground part.

8

Actually a straw man argument is one where I present a different idea to take focus away from the original argument. It’s more of an analogy: the T-Nation community like the “details” regarding post-workout nutrition (is the example I used) therefore why, given the option, would they be closed minded regarding this topic and not appreciate or consider the possible benefits in fear of complicating things?

This isn’t something I’ve tried and promote, I was just interested to hear what your thoughts were, and if your thoughts equate to: “it’s too complicated” i’m unimpressed.

9

This is a fair statement and probably a very true one. In your opinion what kind of measures would you say someone could take to give themselves a good chance of making a success out of this?

10

[quote]Joel. wrote:
fine line between progression and complication. It is a fine line, that many dance with yet many simply lack the intelligence or experience to tread that line correctly. Too many people would lack the know how to do a legitimate “supercompensation” period without injuring themselves, or simply doing too much too fast and never hit that compensation part, just the running into the ground part.

This is a fair statement and probably a very true one. In your opinion what kind of measures would you say someone could take to give themselves a good chance of making a success out of this?[/quote]

Sift through information, be a skeptic. When reading information don’t just take it at face value, verify it, fact check, ask why it couldn’t be true. Put everything into perspective, follow what the people who are in the trenches do, not articles. Articles are valuable sources of information, but they have to be short, sweet and catch the readers attention.

Authors will dumb down things, or only show certain sides to prove a point, they don’t have the time to explain everything so, for example, an author will just say “squats are bad” instead of explaining “well they’re not really bad, it’s relative etc, etc…” they just don’t have the time for that.

Above all, listen to the those who walk the walk, and get some time under your belt. You need to get under the bar yourself. There’s so much you learn from just doing, so much that you can never learn from reading an article.

You have to do it yourself. I’ve gained so much more practical, and actually applicable, knowledge about training, from training. Those in-the-gym revelations…it’s like reaching enlightenment, or nirvana. This is starting to get off track but it’s because i can’t accurately articulate how important it is to learn from experience.

I guess this could be best summed up with the Nike logo, “Just do it.” Just do work, get in the gym, bust ass and you learn as you go.

11

the OTS Big Beyond Belief program pretty much is a super compensation program…

12

[quote]MAF14 wrote:
the OTS Big Beyond Belief program pretty much is a super compensation program…[/quote]

Am I missing something or are people just using this word incorrectly? ANY PROGRAM IS A SUPERCOMPENSATION PROGRAM if gaining muscle and getting stronger is the goal. Supercompensation just means that your body benefits and gains from the work being done. If you aren’t growing, then no “supercompensation” is occurring.

13

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Am I missing something or are people just using this word incorrectly? ANY PROGRAM IS A SUPERCOMPENSATION PROGRAM if gaining muscle and getting stronger is the goal. Supercompensation just means that your body benefits and gains from the work being done. If you aren’t growing, then no “supercompensation” is occurring.[/quote]

This post literally did make me laugh out loud. All training should incur supercompensation, unless you are doing something very wrong. The idea is simple: train, eat + rest = grow. Supercompensation is just a theory to explain adaptation.

I think the stuff these guys are talking about is muscle glycogen supercompensation as a result of depleting workouts and overfeeding etc.

14

[quote]Professor X wrote:
MAF14 wrote:
the OTS Big Beyond Belief program pretty much is a super compensation program…

Am I missing something or are people just using this word incorrectly? ANY PROGRAM IS A SUPERCOMPENSATION PROGRAM if gaining muscle and getting stronger is the goal. Supercompensation just means that your body benefits and gains from the work being done. If you aren’t growing, then no “supercompensation” is occurring.[/quote]

Good point… After all, if the body were just “compensating” after a session, you’d always stay at the same level.

Ok, the end. Next topic.

15

[quote]Professor X wrote:
MAF14 wrote:
the OTS Big Beyond Belief program pretty much is a super compensation program…

Am I missing something or are people just using this word incorrectly? ANY PROGRAM IS A SUPERCOMPENSATION PROGRAM if gaining muscle and getting stronger is the goal. Supercompensation just means that your body benefits and gains from the work being done. If you aren’t growing, then no “supercompensation” is occurring.[/quote]

true… i never really thought of it that way

16

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17

theres some confusion on the term “supercompensation”.

people have already pointed this out, but maybe it could be clearer?

after you stress your system, you damage your muscles, which move through a few phases as a result… first lowered performance (cos you broke them a bit), then the muscle repairs back to the original capacity, then the repairs “supercompensate” making the muscle slightly stronger/faster than before. this supercompensation only lasts for a specific window of time however, and if you train again in that period then you can get stronger again and so on. (in small steps, which is why it takes such a lot of work to get anywhere training)

…if you dont stress the muscle again within that window, then the supercompensation drops off to the original capacity. (after a week its generally long gone, though we all vary of course) as far as i’m aware, thats the main relevance of the term. it really only applies to a given single stress of the system at a time, and its why we need rest between exercise to develop, take rest days, etc.

i dont know if that can be applied in a weeks timeframe, however… that kind of thing is more like an unloading week in a periodization, which essentially is there to drop the stress on the system over a number of sessions in order to try to minimise the risk of over-reaching or overtraining. (basically allowing time to catch up if you havent given it enough rest and have been training before its properly recovered from previous sessions, which can basically work you into the ground in small steps instead of make you stronger in small steps)

i hope that makes sense and is even helpful? i wouldnt try what youre thinking of, myself… when you get down to it, the body only really works one way, recognises stress and needs time to adapt to it each time. there arent many shortcuts unfortunately.

18

[quote]Dave Rogerson wrote:
I think the stuff these guys are talking about is muscle glycogen supercompensation as a result of depleting workouts and overfeeding etc.
[/quote]

Going back to what X was saying though, shouldn’t any good program done intensely deplete your glycogen levels? Intense muscular work is mainly powered by glycogen and the Phosphagen system, so as long as you are working hard, then there should be glycogen getting used up.

Same is true of overfeeding. If you are trying to gain muscle/weight, then you need to be in a caloric surplus, which is just another term for overfeeding. So again, any intelligently designed bodybuilding routine/diet is already going to be doing a “supercompensation” routine.

19

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

[quote]Dave Rogerson wrote:
I think the stuff these guys are talking about is muscle glycogen supercompensation as a result of depleting workouts and overfeeding etc.
[/quote]

Going back to what X was saying though, shouldn’t any good program done intensely deplete your glycogen levels? Intense muscular work is mainly powered by glycogen and the Phosphagen system, so as long as you are working hard, then there should be glycogen getting used up.

Same is true of overfeeding. If you are trying to gain muscle/weight, then you need to be in a caloric surplus, which is just another term for overfeeding. So again, any intelligently designed bodybuilding routine/diet is already going to be doing a “supercompensation” routine.

[/quote]

This is unavoidably what happens when people who don’t understand the basics try to use concepts that REQUIRE full understanding of basic concepts before you build on it.

No one here should be in the dark that “supercompensation” simply means growth from the training stimulus. No one here should be under the impression that depleting glycogen now needs some completely different training strategy.

Yet, we still get newbies acting like the big guys in the gym are the dumb ones for not spouting off retarded comprehension disadvantaged quotes.

Therefore, everyone in this fucking forum should already be “training for supercompensation”.

So why did these guys think it needed special attention?

20

[quote]Joel. wrote:
The whole idea of “supercompensation” (as put on a recent article here) has always interested me. A couple of questions for anyone who might hold ideas or answers. What I’m talking about is, days of maintenance/sub maintenance eating leading to a period where your body soaks up the nutrients you give it at a maximal level and/or a period of intentional overtraining followed by time off where your body has time to rebuild at a faster rate than at other times, I guess maybe due to a shock effect of training volume and intensity.

What I want to know is can you advocate a regular approach to this “supercompensation”? For example structuring a week of overtraining on the 3rd week of every month in preparation for the final being an off week? Or in the same vein a week of very strict carb/fat depletion solely and strategically to prime your body for the food you’ll consume in the next?

Also I know that various cycling techniques or periodization bears relevance to these queries, but I’m talking about taking it to somewhat extremes.
Like I said any info/ideas/opinions…[/quote]

There’s two types of lifting. Instinctive and Program. I’ve seen program work the best on people, but I’m not talking about a generic program off the internet. I’m talking about a program from a quality trainer who is guiding you throughout your training.

The generic programs can work too but tends to work less then instinctive because the person using it doesn’t believe in it as much, doesn’t follow it, mixes it with a hundred other programs, or just chose the wrong program for their body from the beginning.

Programs exist that already address what you are talking about. I don’t know them off hand but I think most of T-nations main programs are based around nutritional supercompensation(think low carb all week, with a cheat day). “Intermittent fasting” program is also built around supercompensation. They are already to extremes(at least the intermittent fasting, and i think its more than just nutrition) so you trying to “take it to extreme” means you just don’t have faith in the program and will end up using an ad hoc version and declaring that the program sucked.

Most of Poloquins training programs are built around supercompensation, but he explicitely says during the whole cycle you need tons of food. So if you take Poloquins supercompensation and mix it with intermittent fasting your are screwing up both.

I’m not saying not to think on your own, but you should know what your talking about before saying
“Also I know that various cycling techniques or periodization bears relevance to these queries, but I’m talking about taking it to somewhat extremes.”
None of the above mentioned programs are too long. Follow a few of them next year, one at a time. By the end of the year you will be knowledgeable enough to apply them correctly, and train better more instinctively. Because a good bodybuilding trainer is going to cost you.