[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Hadow Khan wrote:
In a rippetoe scheme, its still only 3-4 exercises per workout.
Thats like 45-65 total reps per workout.
The bill-star scheme isnt much different.
believe it or not, rippetoe and bill-star is not the be all and end all to weight lifting.[/quote]
For most people on the site, it should be.
Compound lifts + Constantly increasing poundages = The fast track to yolked-city.
[quote]Der Candy wrote:
Yes but is such high volume really necessary? Generally the higher the volume the slower the rate of progress. If, instead of doing 22 sets, the OP cut it down to 8 sets, would that make a difference? Well if that lower volume allows him to push himself harder, add more weight to the bar/reps, then yes it is better.
Honestly I don’t think anyone needs to be doing 22 sets per bodypart. I don’t believe it takes anywhere near that amount of volume to stimulate a muscle to grow.
Say guy A does 5 sets for his chest. The other guy B does 20 sets. They are both equal in terms of genetics, amount of food consuming, etc etc for the purpose of this example. They both bench 225 for 8 reps. Now lets both let these guys train hard and lets get back to them in 2 years.
Guy A can progress faster because he has less total sets and exercises. He trains the muscle with extreme intensity that forces it to grow, and he doesn’t do any other sets that are going to cut into recovery. Guy B does 20 sets and because of the higher volume, progresses slower. Now if at the end of these 2 years Guy A is benching 350 for 8 reps, and Guy B can bench 295 for 8 reps, who is going to have the bigger chest? (providing all other factors remain constant?
I could be wrong, but from what I have heard, progression ultimately establishes the ‘best’ routine. If you progress best on lower volume, then do lower volume, and vice-versa.[/quote]
Correct.
Ovalpine,
Thanks for the compliment.
However, I do not see the point in trying to have ever increasing amounts of volume. I simply cannot see the reasoning behind this despite the fact that you put it quite articulately here. I really do not know what level of work capacity Skip La Cour and Dorian Yates had. Perhaps they were CAPABLE of performing more volume than they did throughout their careers. Despite this proposed ABILITY, they chose to use a lesser amount and became top bodybuilders. Both did 2 to 8 sets per bodypart. That is quite a low volume.
Some of Dorian’s entire workouts for two bodyparts consisted of 7 MAIN sets. He was not concerned at all with building work capacity. He was however, VERY concerned with increasing poundages with the same exercises for years. Nearly every time he got in the gym, he attempted to set records in every exercise he did. I cannot see how one can increase poundages constantly with a large volume, especially more experienced guys.
When I first started working out, I could do a two hour workout for my entire body and feel great afterwards and the day after. Now that I am much more muscular and stronger, I know I would pay a big penalty the day after doing such a workout. Even Jim Wendler, in an interview with Jason Ferrugia pointed out that most very strong
guys paid their “Arnold dues” (large volume) at the beginning of their lifting. They no longer do this. He also stated that one would think that steroids, particularly orals, would increase your work capacity. It turns out that this is not so. How are you going to increase volume when you are handling immense poundages?
I do think there has to be a minimum amount of volume to grow and I think it is very simplistic to just say “you don’t have to hit the muscle with different exercises for different angles.” I am in agreement with CT in stating that there is a need to hit a muscle with different exercise for full bodybuilding development. DC might state that its not necessary to hit a muscle from different angles but he sure is. Within a DC routine, if you hit your quads with 3 different exercises over three workouts, leg press, squat, hack squat, you ARE hitting the quads with different movement patterns, which is important for hypertrophy through anecdotal and even some scientific evidence (Dr. Jose Antonio).
[quote]Der Candy wrote:
Yes but is such high volume really necessary? Generally the higher the volume the slower the rate of progress. If, instead of doing 22 sets, the OP cut it down to 8 sets, would that make a difference? Well if that lower volume allows him to push himself harder, add more weight to the bar/reps, then yes it is better.
Honestly I don’t think anyone needs to be doing 22 sets per bodypart. I don’t believe it takes anywhere near that amount of volume to stimulate a muscle to grow.
Say guy A does 5 sets for his chest. The other guy B does 20 sets. They are both equal in terms of genetics, amount of food consuming, etc etc for the purpose of this example. They both bench 225 for 8 reps. Now lets both let these guys train hard and lets get back to them in 2 years.
Guy A can progress faster because he has less total sets and exercises. He trains the muscle with extreme intensity that forces it to grow, and he doesn’t do any other sets that are going to cut into recovery. Guy B does 20 sets and because of the higher volume, progresses slower. Now if at the end of these 2 years Guy A is benching 350 for 8 reps, and Guy B can bench 295 for 8 reps, who is going to have the bigger chest? (providing all other factors remain constant?
I could be wrong, but from what I have heard, progression ultimately establishes the ‘best’ routine. If you progress best on lower volume, then do lower volume, and vice-versa.[/quote]
You appear to be defining “progression” in terms of load only. Progress can be in many forms; increased reps per set, increased sets, rest reduction between sets, etc.
You mentioned guy A at 5 sets and Guy B at 22 sets, but in my mind they could / should both be the same guy. Start out with a weight you reach failure at 5 sets of 8 reps, then as you gain more work capacity you can do 6 sets, then 7 sets, etc. At some point you will max on energy and time, so lets say once you reach 12 sets (22 is crazy IMO) you start over. You then increase the weight and go back to 5 sets (or whatever your starting set / rep range was) and work back up.
This is the progression factor that everyone seems to forget. Volume, like load, is progressive and should not be static. In fact, you will reach a plateau much quicker if you don’t use both volume and load as a progressive factor.
So I would not ever lock into only progressing in load or volume, they should be alternated to continue to progress over the long haul.
IMO, this is where Ian King and Cosgrove are missing the point. You cannot continue to progress if all you progress is the load. So the reason to do sets of the same load is to progress in volume and give your nervous system a break while you develop your muscular/endocrine system. Then later you come back to the high intensity low volume work and your nervous system is ready to rock and roll.
Arnold recommends 26+ sets…so what?
Do as much or as little as you want. As long as it’s working that’s all that matters.
[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
believe it or not, rippetoe and bill-star is not the be all and end all to weight lifting.[/quote]
This needs to be highlighted.
[quote]Hadow Khan wrote:
Goodfellow wrote:
Hadow Khan wrote:
In a rippetoe scheme, its still only 3-4 exercises per workout.
Thats like 45-65 total reps per workout.
The bill-star scheme isnt much different.
believe it or not, rippetoe and bill-star is not the be all and end all to weight lifting.
For most people on the site, it should be.
Compound lifts + Constantly increasing poundages = The fast track to yolked-city.
[/quote]
I used to think that was the ticket to getting fully jacked. The most yoked up men on this earth are competitive bodybuilders and ALL of them do isolation exercises. Getting jacked, and I do not mean putting on SOME muscle or looking like an athlete (whatever the hell this means these days), is not just a matter of big numbers on the big lifts in all situations. I am the most jacked I have ever been and made more progress in this past training year than any year before. I added in more isolation exercises to my program and experimented with pre exhaust for lagging bodyparts and it has worked out great! So, while my chest pressing exercises, pullups, rows, high stance leg presses have gone down in poundages, I am still progressing in the isolation exercises done beforehand and on the big exercises as well, albeit lesser poundages than before.
Rippetoe and Bill Starr have ZERO experience in bodybuilding. However, I made pretty good gains when I used Bill Starr’s program as a beginning trainee. I feel nearly all beginners, bodybuilders or otherwise should be on a TBT program stressing the compound exercises to “learn” how to use their muscles and become more neurally efficient, as CT has stated before. However, once they are more neurally efficient and have an initial base of muscle mass, then its time to move onto a program dedicated to getting fully yoked.
Most powerlifters, guys who have increasing poundages in the big lifts, could not compete in a bodybuilding contest without spending at least 6 to 12 months dedicated to bodybuilding training beforehand. Some have mixed the two, but they are a jack of both trades and never reached a high level in either sport. I still give my hats off to them because they are VERY gifted and are fully dedicated to their trades and are far better at them than I am. I am speaking of Andy Fiedler, Justin Harris, Johnnie Jackson, and Joe Ladnier. Glen Chabot, although he never competed in BB once dieted down and looked pretty damn good.
22 sets at 8-12 reps IMO is a medium volume workout 30-35 is high, 20-ish is med and 12-15 or so is low… That is how i work my sessons at least.
I am usually in the gym using a 30 set volume marker to work upto from 24-26 sets when on a new program.
Joe
[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
I feel nearly all beginners, bodybuilders or otherwise should be on a TBT program stressing the compound exercises to “learn” how to use their muscles and become more neurally efficient, as CT has stated before. However, once they are more neurally efficient and have an initial base of muscle mass, then its time to move onto a program dedicated to getting fully yoked.[/quote]
I think this is a very important idea, and the reason there is so much of the classic splits vs tbt debate.
[quote]Der Candy wrote:
Bricknyce wrote:
I feel nearly all beginners, bodybuilders or otherwise should be on a TBT program stressing the compound exercises to “learn” how to use their muscles and become more neurally efficient, as CT has stated before. However, once they are more neurally efficient and have an initial base of muscle mass, then its time to move onto a program dedicated to getting fully yoked.
I think this is a very important idea, and the reason there is so much of the classic splits vs tbt debate.
[/quote]
Please explain how using compound lifts (multiple muscle groups and unrelated motor units) will help the neural efficiency of single muscle groups?
The fact is that the specificity and neural enervation of a single muscle group is more acute during isolation work than compound lifts.
So while the coordination of muscle groups or synergy of muscle groups would be developed more fully with compound lifts, the ability to contract and control individual muscle groups is not enhanced by compound lifts.
So I would offer the opposite advice to beginners. I would advocate isolation exercises first. The reasons are:
All this should be done before compound lifts to ensure you are staring compound lifts with a good foundation.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
So I would offer the opposite advice to beginners. I would advocate isolation exercises first. The reasons are:
All this should be done before compound lifts to ensure you are staring compound lifts with a good foundation.
[/quote]
So THAT’s why the trainers in some of the gyms I have been to give their clients all-isolation routines.
[quote]Der Candy wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
So I would offer the opposite advice to beginners. I would advocate isolation exercises first. The reasons are:
All this should be done before compound lifts to ensure you are staring compound lifts with a good foundation.
So THAT’s why the trainers in some of the gyms I have been to give their clients all-isolation routines.[/quote]
Yes, I think it is a better place to start for newbie’s.
[quote]AccipiterQ wrote:
jehovasfitness wrote:
22 sets in one day?
man, I’d be wiped
I was trying to do 16 sets for Chest/Shoulders but realized I had to break it up, my strength was gone near the end
And see that’s what I’m finding. Plus after I get out of work I’m already a bit mentally tired. [/quote]
That means you are not able to benefit from such a high volume, this isnt rocket science.
I prefer 16-20sets on back/chest
Legs I’ll do 20-25 Heavy and high reps
Arms usually 12ish - I don’t have to do much to them
Shoulders 14 is usually about right.