Are you still running Built for Battle?
Yes. (The explosiveness template, just with SGHPs rather than cleans.)
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I think the best results will come from a program that you are excited to run, and will stick with. This, of course, assumes it is a reasonably put together program (as 531 obviously is, and the vast majority on this site). I think that âmostâ people lack optimization in all aspects of their life (sleep, stress, nutrition) that worrying about âshould I be doing 2x6 to failure, or a drop set, or slow eccentricâ, etc⊠is not the limiting factor.
Well, I know of plenty of athletes that use this type of training, especially supersetted with bodyweight work. I have had great results with it, work hard in gym (the 50% of max is lower than I use, I use FSL, which gets up to 75% of my TM which is about 68% of my 1RM), see a huge increase in work capacity, and feel primed and ready to compete in sports. I have no interest in bodybuilding at all, so perhaps youâre right.
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That is more or less true. A program that is more effective will give better results than a less effective one that you equally believe in. The whole problem with BBB is that it just isnât an effective way of building muscle, and isnât conducive to getting stronger (burn yourself out with light weights and get a pump to increase your 1rm?). Most likely you would get better results with a AMRAP down set, while spending less time in the gym and accumulating less fatigue. The pump from the BBB sets will be more than the other option, but pump doesnât necessarily equal muscle fibre growth.
Like who?
Using 25% more of your training max will make a huge difference, no wonder itâs working for you. The whole issue is staying far from failure with extremely light weights. If you see Paulâs criticism of the high volume/several reps short of failure method, this is like 20x worse and there isnât a logical argument to refute that. Perhaps when Wendler came up with this, it wasnât as clear that this sort of training was not very effective and people appeared to gain size (sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which is NOT an increase in actual muscle fibre size, and is essentially just a pump) and people thought they were getting good results so they stuck with it. Nowadays we know better.
OK, thatâs something worthwhile for certain goals, but isnât equal to getting bigger or stronger so itâs not really relevant here.
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GuysâŠ
If youâre talking about hypertrophy then yes, 5 sets of 10 @ 50% is a waste of time. It will do absolutely nothing to grow anything, and Iâll tell Wendler that.
Help with your work capacity? Sure. Maybe good for some restorative purposes? Perhaps.
But 10 reps at 50% is warm up shit. Itâs not going to grow muscle unless you did like a zillion sets with it to the point that you finally hit failure or close to it and actually mechanically loaded the muscle.
5 sets of 10 @ 50% is literally training to get tired and the definition of junk volume.
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If you do, it would be really interesting knowing his response.
He doesnât care, most likely.
We must remember two things:
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BBB is usually used with higher percentages (65-75%).
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BBB is usually recommended for younger lifters (intermediates, if you want to use vague definitions). Itâs clear that they will benefit from added volume in many ways.
There are also variations with lighter weights (40-60% of TM), but I canât say much about them and have never used them. My experiences rely more on the side of heavy/hard volume. So in that sense Iâm with Paul/others. Light weights and easy sets train form/speed, but the muscle gains have been much better with heavier weights for hard sets.
Actually, this popped in to my mind while writing:
In these things in mind, the âtraditionalâ strength-volume training makes sense too, If youâre trying to gain muscle and strength simultaneously. There is a point of doing heavy 5x5-8 (or 4x6, or whatever). There may be only 1-2 âgrowthâ reps in every set, but that should be enough, right? All the other volume is for practice.
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2 sets 6 to functional failure
or/ and
1 set of 8/5/4 reps with minimal rest inbetween, like mechanical drop sets with 70-82.5% and a duration of 40-70 seconds,
seems to fit all that has been said about effective muscle building, or not?!
I donât know how T-nation runs from an editorial standpoint, but I remember there being some T-nation âroundtablesâ, for instance,
that I enjoyed. Iâm not sure what the topic should be, as there is a strength-skill aspect to BBB but maybe an article on training volume with regards to different goals would be interesting. In a way though, that has already been covered in the first article!
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That would be epic!
What would be gained by setting this up?
I thought the extra sets in BBC were heavier than 50%, and yes they were:
The 50 reps of whatever are programmed to match the weight for the first work set, so depending on which week in the 3-week cycle, either 65%, 70%, or 75% of your 3RM, and youâre allowed to break the 50 reps into 10x5 or 5x10 or whatever you need to finish them.
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I get to read something new
Kindle Unlimited is pretty cheap
First Iâd need to get a KindleâŠ
I highly recommend it for the regular reader. Saves money, time and space.
Well, I do have a library card⊠Not that Iâm great at using it though.
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Full disclosure: I also donât have kindle unlimited. Iâm far more of a rereader than a reader. I probably only manage 1 or 2 actually new books a month.
I assume it would be the same response he always gives when people ask what he thinks about Mr XYZâs comments on his programs: âI donât give a shit.â
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LOL, than even better would be to hear a debate.