I am going to start a little “experiment” with myself the next month or so, see what happens.
Right now i am doing an upper/lower split:
Mon and Thurs is lower body, Tues and Fri is upper.
-mostly compounds, with little things like maybe lateral raises, shrugs, calf raises, etc. thrown in at the end for a few sets on the appropriate days.
-training partner and i will also be starting sort of a GPP training session once each weekend. If the session falls on Saturday, it will be a lower body focussed GPP, if it falls on Sunday itll be an upper body focussed GPP- for obvious recovery reasons.
that being said…
i was thinking of throwing a pair of dumbells in my bedroom closet or whatever, and doing some extra work on small muscles each night before bed or whenever i have the time throughout the day. things like maybe bicep curls or lateral raises- maybe do 5 sets of 10 or 10 sets of 10 or something…not quite sure yet. thinking of doing this several times a week (5-6?)
What are your thoughts on this?
I am sure others have done something similar before (HFT- duh!), so I am also just curious- how long has it taken you to see results from this?
Results come after your first week’s big break.(yeah, very fast) Like if you do it mon-fri then next mon it should be visible after 2-day rest.
But don’t just blindly do some reps, you have to rep out and not try to get a ton of volume per session. Have at least 3 exercises for the same muscle group(Altern curl, hammer, str 1 arm curl, repeat) and do maybe 3 sets with the last being heaviest.
Obviously, although you rep out, going to failure will kill the whole thing and is not an option. Oh, and I heard getting something to eat helps, just a hunch.
[quote]Majin wrote:
Results come after your first week’s big break.(yeah, very fast) Like if you do it mon-fri then next mon it should be visible after 2-day rest.
But don’t just blindly do some reps, you have to rep out and not try to get a ton of volume per session. Have at least 3 exercises for the same muscle group(Altern curl, hammer, str 1 arm curl, repeat) and do maybe 3 sets with the last being heaviest.
Obviously, although you rep out, going to failure will kill the whole thing and is not an option. Oh, and I heard getting something to eat helps, just a hunch.[/quote]
have you actually done this? i am not sure what you mean by “repping out”…to me that means doing more reps, as in getting to a higher volume. but then you say not to try and get a ton of volume.
Some muscles like Calves and traps respond very well to higher frequencies. Some weeks I do calves 4 times and traps 3 times. Only problem is the weight needed for those 2 bodyparts can quickly overcome your CNS and recovery.
As far as dumbbells in your bedroom closet; I’m not so sure that’s the best method
For around a year i did high rep arm training 6 days a week. My arms were very small at the start and after a while got bigger and very defined. When i stopped they got even bigger. The biggest result was in strength going from 15kgs each arm to 55kgs for the same amount of reps.
Now i would sometimes do 1 set of curl and press above head, alternate arms for reps of over a thousand, never really going over 15kgs. Best training ever, maybe. When i stopped high rep, frequent training i could rep 30kgs each arm for 8, i progresively overloaded this upto 55kgs each arm for 5 reps. If thats not gains then i don’t know what is.
[quote]sapasion wrote:
As far as dumbbells in your bedroom closet; I’m not so sure that’s the best method[/quote]
What’s wrong with doing a few light sets everynow and then in between his actual traning days? Is it a matter of recovery, or is it a matter of it just being a waste of time?
[quote]dez6485 wrote:
have you actually done this? i am not sure what you mean by “repping out”…to me that means doing more reps, as in getting to a higher volume. but then you say not to try and get a ton of volume.[/quote]
I’ve done it for triceps and later on for rear delts. By repping out early I mean don’t drag it for a million sets. Instead do one or two with good form and lighter weight to ‘prepare’ and then have one all-out set, but without failure.
That one set is the gauge of progress. I find that when you do that whole 4x6 or 3x10 with the same weight thing you overtrain fast, especially if you take it anywhere near all-out effort. When you’re doing something every day the benefit isn’t as much from the volume(IMO) but from the fact that you’re stimulating the muscle group so many times over the week.
Besides, together with the warm-ups you get a pretty decent volume anyway. That’s been my experience. Sometimes my last set would be even 12 or 15 reps because you can’t just go heavy all week.
I made a lot of progress with forearms and grip strength, doing just one very high rep (25+) set of wrist curls (25 reps supinatred and 25 reps pronated) 4-6 days a week.
It only takes one set to produce a huge pump and with the high reps you can start with a very low weight and add a small increment almost every day for a long period of time, so you are constantly progessing, but keeping the volume very low.
I think the same would work for just about any isolation exercise, done in relatively high reps (15-30+?). You would make good progress for some period of time (2-8 weeks?) perhaps and then need to do something different…, as someone else suggested the biggest gains may come right after you stop doing the high volume stuff, so you could cycle it in 6-8 week cycles, 6 weeks on, 6 weeks off?
Some have claimed that you can add 1/2" or more to your arms in a week or 2 by doing a single set of a biceps and triceps exercise in relatively high rep ranges multiple times a day, so you basically keep the pump going almost constantly all day long. That might be something you could do for a short period (1-2 weeks?) every 3-6 months.