How long should you rest between upperbody workouts?

[LeonK]

How long should you rest between upperbody workouts? say i worked my shoulders,chest at a quick high intensity then wait 72hrs for muscles to recover then blast my back and arms at a quick high intensity then wait another 72hrs to recover then blast chest, shoulders again, using various techniques like supersets, rest pause, drop sets, partials, negatives etc to keep things fresh,on 1 of the rest days i could work on abs or sprints, light cardio, swimming. Is this ok? i am not lookin to "bulk up" i do not need to lose bodyfat just add slowly about a 14 pounds of muscle, i prefer the compact tight ripped look Like a sly stallone, brue Lee etc

 

[220]

If its not sore, work it out.

 

[eat big]

If its not sore, work it out.

I disagree. All are different, It takes me almost 5 days to completely recover. He's talking about high intesity too. The rate hes going at every 72 hrs doing an upperbody work is fine. Basically every 144 hrs hes doing Chest? That should be fine.

 

[6_pak]

Just b/c theres no soreness, doesnt mean you've fully recovered yet.

 

[220]

Just b/c theres no soreness, doesnt mean you've fully recovered yet.

Sure it does, flex that muscle, if it feels even a bit sore after you relax it, dont train it. THat's how I test em. Flex and relax. I've gotten this down with practice and can pretty much tell if it's fully recovered.

 

[Madcow2]

1) It takes a lot longer than a few days to recover from a bout of weight training. Complete tissue remodeling can take beyond a month from a single workout. The essensce of dual factor theory in that the accrued recovery deficit can be manipulated over periods in order to produce adaptation (basically the dominant theory of muscular growth world wide among strength coaches and researchers with tons of evidence to back it up). If you think about it, why would the body throw on a bunch of muscle (calorically expensive and drastically increases risk of death from famine) if it is very rarely needed. However, if the body preceives constant or even increasing need over a period of time - it views the matter differently. Create the need over a period (loading) and then give the body a chance to recover and adapt (deloading).

2) DOMS/soreness is more a product of a trainee not being adequately accustomed to a workout. Let me just throw in that someone on a balanced program will not be getting sore every workout and DOMS has no correlation whatsoever to a increases in strength or muscle - it's just the body saying ouch I'm not used to this. DOMS generally results from a BBer using basic single factor theory supercompensation and bombing the hell out of a muscle infrequently - you end up training to failure because the more you beat it in a given workout the greater the post workout response will be. Single factor theory assumes adaptation happens workout to workout and one must catch the adaptation at good timing after a single workout to make sure the gains don't disolve - this theory can work decently for a raw beginner but experienced lifters have a miserable time eeking out gains - curiously the BBing community and a few HIT coaches who need to be slapped with a plate are the only ones using this and given enough drugs (proxy for response) a crappy training program (stimulus) will still get some gains). To be honest the only reason this even works for beginners is that the frequency is enough that the body is preceving a need over a period and manages some recovery at the same time (like poorly optimized dual factor training).


A recent article covering exactly this: http://www.readthecore.com/200412/reynolds-dual-factor-training.htm

Here's a worthwhile read from one of the better strength coaches on the planet - source post (excellent stuff) is here:http://forum.mesomorphosis.com/showthread.php?t=12

TOPIC 4: DUAL FACTOR THEORY

Two Factor Theory hate to butt in here, but let me explain what i think are the important things about these theories... given the one factor theory, which looks at physical ability as, or course, one factor, you are left with the problem of timing workouts to correspond to the supercompensation wave... anything sooner or later will lead to a useless workout.

Given the two factor theory, which seperates physical fitness or prepardness and fatigue, you see that the timing of individual workouts it is unimportant to long term gains... in other words regardless of whether or not fatigue is or is not present, fitness can still be increased...

what is important to note is that there is almost universal agreement amoung scientists and athletes and coaches in all sports EXCEPT bodybuilding that the two factor theory is correct and the single factor theory is not correct and is in fact suitable only for beginners to follow when planning training.

it is also important to note that most athletes in most sports are experiencing some level of constant fatigue ALWAYS, except for maybe a couple of weekends a year, when they are peaking. training takes place daily against a backdrop of fatigue... animal, concerning the single and dual factor training theories you asked about earlier... i dont think the bodybuilding community has altogether ignored the latter... in fact i think that the HST that ******* has talked about seems to be taking advantage of this principle.

basically the most real-world and practical advice i can give you concerning the dual factor theory is this. instead of thinking of each workout as one seperate "fatigueing" session, followed by a seperate "recovery" session of a day or two of rest... begin thinking in terms of weeks. in other words, you have one, or two or even three weeks which are "fatigueing" in other words you think of this time period just the same way as some people think of one workout.

you accumulate fatigue the whole time, you never completely recover. then you have another time period of recovery. this is another one, two or three weeks in which you train with reduced frequency, volume, or intensity and allow recovery to take place.

personally i favor keeping intensity high, drastically lowering volume, and slightly lowering frequency.

in any event the overall training stress is lower. so you have say two 3 week periods which you approach like you would have approached two days, one a workout day and one a rest day.

now, of course in programming for elite athletes it gets much more complicated than thsi. you may also have a 6 month "overload" period, during which you have a series of 5 week periods each consisting of 3 weeks of hard work and 2 weeks of lower stress training. then you may have another 3 or 4 month period of "recovery" consisting of 1 week of "loading" or hard work, then 1 or 2 weeks of reduced training.

all this may be superimposed upon 3 years of slightly harder overall work, in other words slightly higher volume overall... then 1 year of slightly lower volume.

this fits into the fact that the olympics are every 4 years and athletes want to hit their highest performance at the olympics. the greeks do 3 loading weeks followed by 1 unloading week (approx 12 workouts a week during loading, and 9 workouts a week during unloading, also all weights are lowered by about 10kilos during the unloading week)... these are "loading" months, then every 4th month is an "unloading" month consisting of only 1 loading week and 3 unloading weeks. close to a big competition like the olympics... they switch to alternating weeks, 1 loading week followed by 1 unloading week.

however, to actually program sets and reps... this is very individual. what is unloading to me may be highly stressfull to you. but this is how training is programmed for the majority of athlets in sports other than BB and powerlifting. fatigue is gradually accumulated and then gradually disipated... i would encourage you or anyone else to take a look at the HST training protocol... as it is the first BB specific program i have ever seen that seems to be set up on these principles. people doing it seem to be making gains, so i assume it is the correct volume for a majority of bbers... of course individual adjustment is usually required with programs like this.

personally... when adjusting volume for individuals i am lucky in that i can use testosterone/cortisol ratios from weekly blood draws and also glutamine/glutamate ratios to assist in determining the stress level of the training for an individual athlete. this allows me to be pretty precise in loading an athlete to his limit without crossing the line into real overtraining... then determining the correct volume of training for the unloading period so that recovry takes place without any detraining.

unfortunately i doubt any of you have the rescources to do this or the expertise to interpret the data correctly if you did have access to it. HOWEVER... i do have some "rule of thumb" guidlines... during loading, if you are capable of setting personal records... your not loading hard enough. on the other hand, if performance falls below 85% for more than one or two workouts in a row... then you need to lighten the load.

the length of the loading period is also individual. start with one week to 10 days... after youve gone through a couple of cycles experiment with 2 and 3 week loading periods. very few people can handle a 3 week loading period. i know i cant. howeer the bulgarians and greeks do, so i know some great athletes can do it, and maybe some of you can.

as far as unloading... you should be approaching peak performance after 7-10 days of unloading... you should have peak performance somewhere between 14 and 21 days of unloading.

you dont always want to allow peak performance. you may want to follow 2 or 3 consecutive loading cycles without every allowing complete recover during unloading, if you are really advanced... however i dont recomend this for beginners to this type of training... load then unload long enough to set new personal records... allow another week or two to get good and rested then load again.

hope this helps explain how this is used in the real world... sorry but its just impossible to get into sets and reps on a specific basis... but if you copied the 8 week squat program i posted several times a while back this is an example of this type of training, and its a proven and result producing program.

 

[Madcow2]

How long should you rest between upperbody workouts? say i worked my shoulders,chest at a quick high intensity then wait 72hrs for muscles to recover then blast my back and arms at a quick high intensity then wait another 72hrs to recover then blast chest, shoulders again, using various techniques like supersets, rest pause, drop sets, partials, negatives etc to keep things fresh,on 1 of the rest days i could work on abs or sprints, light cardio, swimming. Is this ok? i am not lookin to "bulk up" i do not need to lose bodyfat just add slowly about a 14 pounds of muscle, i prefer the compact tight ripped look Like a sly stallone, brue Lee etc

So the short answer is that there is no answer to timing your recovery. An experienced lifter needs to view loading and deloading on a mutliple week basis not workout to workout. No matter what though, you are either building muscle or not. The ripped look is just bodyfat levels and decent musculature - a function of diet and workout. So the best way is to build muscle as quickly as possible because the caloric requirement for the muscle tends to reduce the amount of calories going to fat given a constant and adequate intake. There is no toning or getting ripped in the weight room, you build or you don't and building is hard so be as efficient as possible and build as quickly as possible - when you get big enough for your goal. Go to maintenence. Lay out 14 lbs of steak on the table for perspective - it will take a bit of time and some dedication but is very attainable and can be had realtively quickly with a good program.

Get rid of the drop sets, super sets, and mixing stuff up. Pick some core good exercises and then get better at them over a period of time. I'm guessing you are a beginner?

Here are some good links to read: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4361413&postcount=4

For a beginner I'd basically concentrate on my squat, deadlift, bench, military, rows, and chins. Don't use any machines (I assume you are healthy and not in need of rehab).

Squat's should be full range - that means at least to parallel and preferably the entire range of your body. Parallel is top of thighs parallel to floor.

Deadlifts should be done from the floor for each rep. Let the bar deweight. No touch and go except on warmups.

Rows: read this thread: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366601

Arms: yeah everybody wants to do them - use BB curls and some kind of tricept extension - nothing else (they'll grow more as a function of the big exercises rather than direct work anyway).

If you don't know how to do the exercises, there are plenty of websites with pictures on the net and I believe some descriptions in the stickies here.

If you are a raw beginner you can use the basic 5x5 in the first topic of this post: http://forum.mesomorphosis.com/showthread.php?t=12 . Pyramid the weights each session. Don't worry about loading and deloading as much and skip squating on wednesday or keep it light and just do a few sets. You'll gain like a madman, get very accustomed to the lifts, and then you can worry about fancy nuances later.