Questions for Madcow on periodisation

[|D_J^B_J|]

1) On average, how long does it usually take for someone to no longer make gains on a single factor program? 2 years? 5 years?

2) [Pre-note: Madcow, I know you said you would never make another post relating to diet, but this question relates to diet AND training theory, so hopefully you will still answer.
Also, my question is hard to articulate, so hopefully you will understand what I am getting at]:



Eating more than you require will cause you to gain weight, be it fat (without an adequate training stimulus) or muscle (if your body responds to the training stimulus), right?

So, this means that if a person has been training on a single factor program for too long so that the stimulus is no longer adequate for gaining muscle and that person continues to eat more than they require, then they will gain fat and no muscle, despite the fact that they are still going to the gym and working as hard as they can, correct?

Now, if a person continues to eat more than they require during the loading stage AND the deload stage of a dual factor program, does this not mean that they will gain fat during the loading stage and only start to gain muscle during the deload stage? So basically according to this theory you should only eat at maintenance level during the loading stage and start eating more than you require during the deload stage?

Am I right or am I way off track?

 

[blut wump]

It'd be better if this were in the 5x5 thread so it'll get preserved with all the rest.

 

[Madcow2]

1) Depends on too many variables. Many people train for shit (too little frequency, crap exercise selection, too broad a number of exercises, poor volume management, training to failure all the time) so even after 5 years or more a proper and well designed single factor program might work wonders. Assuming someone is getting top notch programming and oversite from the beginning (I don't enough of these to make generalizations), Pendlay seems to indicate anywhere from 1-2 years before the generalized squatting program he and Ripptoe use needs to be augmented. The progression they use is outlined here and there is variation in the parameters along the way: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4658227&postcount=235

2) I see where you are going. The idea is correct but the implementation may be nearly impossible and there are other factors too. So in the single-factor/non-periodized scenario, if you are not longer subjecting yourself to stimulative training and gains have slowed, eating more than you require will result in a much higher fat/muscle ratio. Keep in mind a lot of the stuff you read on periodization is being done in athletics so there is a performance criteria that is paramount, not just some muscle. The reason why I say ratio is that as long as you are active chances are you aren't going to gain 100% fat. A lot of fat people who are inactive add muscle too, just not in a good ratio to their fat gains.

So moving to periodized, the loading phase tends to have more volume and be more stressful on the organism. This means higher caloric requirements simply due to activity and stress levels. Also, hypertrophy gains are not consistently predictable and linear over the short-term. Although the bulk of the gains for an experienced lifter may show up in the deloading phase - obviously you can't say 100% and plenty of people experience gains in the loading and the proportion is never constant. It's just a trend that for an experienced lifter, most times a good portion will show up after the initial phase.

Taking all that into consideration, I don't see how anyone can really take advantage of all of this. Even if I concede the best science and medical oversight in the world and an activity level that consists of nothing other than lifting and sleeping, the irregularity in the other factors is going to make for huge wrenches even under constant monitoring. Maybe they could net out a small fraction of a better fat/muscle ratio over time but I sincerely doubt people here could manage something like this properly and more likely by implementing this razor margin would compromise gains far more significantly than the previous example could optomize them (cost/benefit vs. risk is very very poor).

 

[|D_J^B_J|]

Great reply Madcow. Wouldn't have expected anything less.

Just one question: Focusing solely on hypertrophy gains and disregarding strength for the moment, what do you mean when you say "hypertrophy gains are not consistently predictable and linear over the short-term"?

Do you mean that the amount of muscle gained fluctuates week to week (or month to month) despite eating enough and being on the same training program? Or are you referring to the fact that amount of muscle gained gradually decreases from when one starts training to the time they are an experienced lifter (i.e. the law of diminishing returns)?

And my apologies for not placing this in the 5x5 thread, it may be better if one of the mods could move it there.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

I think madcow meant that you were looking at hypertrophy a bit too cut and dry. Though many are said to see their muscle gains in the intensity phase, it would not be wise to assume no size could be gained during the volume phase, since hypertrophy is not predictable.

I could argue against that last comment, but it really depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, recent science has allowed us to see what makes a muscle grow, so in a sense, growth is predictable. At the same time, people go through spurts where muscle is added rapidly, and it doesn't always seem to coincide with the principles of growth that I've seen outlined.

My guess is that those who experience spurts of growth weren't eating enough at some point, earned a good deal of strength, and when their eating gave them a caloric surplus once again, the gains in size 'rushed in' with those strength gains made.

I'm rambling. Don't mind me.

 

[blut wump]

The topic is rather inscrutible.

I guess it's not possible at any time to know just how much the body is prepared to consider surplus to allocate to a bit of recreational muscle or how much the body is going to determine that it'd better be building muscle fast to cope with the onslaught. All we can do is encourage the state we desire.