When I say intensity, I mean %1RM. I tried to be clear but I think this is where we went wrong. Failure or preceived effort or intensiveness or whatever else isn't something I consider as a variable, only incidental if it occurs. Failure is just muscular fatigue increasing to the level where the weight on the bar is greater than point in time 1RM (ussually concentric). A rep is still a rep at the muscular level, no magic, but obviously the impact on the nervous system is greater so there is extra fatigue accrual with equivalent workload. (if anyone is interested there was a very comprehensive discussion on another board that basically includes just about every relevant piece of research out there covering everything down to specific fiber threshhold recruitment - yeah there is the troll Wayne involved but NWlifter and Defiant1 really put down some good stuff looking at this:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=907133).
The Shadow said:
10 SETS OF 3 PROVIDES SUB MAXIMAL WORK.....UNDER THE TUT RULE - IT "SHOULD" HIT STRENGTH MORE THAN HYPERTROPHY - AND TYPICALLY THAT IS TRUE - DE ARE USUALLY USED TO FOCUS ON ACCELERATION WHICH DIRECTLY AFFECTS STRENGTH.
Rep per rep at equivalent speed, 3x10 and 10x3 should have the same TUT but vary in workload component. Time density will be different so there will likely be some metabolic differences but the intensity (%1RM) and therefore workload over the exercise will be higher with 10x3 although it will not be traditional strength training simply because the % is still farther down the scale.
Although DE translates into improved strength performance, it's using weight training to train a specific facet of strength. You could do it at 20% too which is what some studies recommend and that sucks balls in both traditional hypertrophy and strength although increasing the ability may segway into more strength performance which is the aim of DE work. The only thing that really separates strength and hypertrophy work is the amount of mechanical work. On a single rep basis the heaviest weight has the most potential for myofibrillar hypertrophy. The only thing that holds back a single 1RM from being the ideal hypertrophy stimulation (and it is on a single rep basis) is that you can't do enough work or total reps with it because it's too heavy.
The Shadow said:
I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN BY SLOW ENOUGH REPS.....
Just taking a set of 8 reps and going slow enough with it to make it to make it last 1 minute or whatever or fill whatever TUT requirement you want. Ultra-slow reps, let's say 10 up/10 down to be extreme, if TUT was really causality, it would work. But it's not, intensity (%1RM) goes low to allow all that extra time and workload is in the shitter from low volume and low intensity (%1RM).
I'm not saying TUT is all bad, but people look at it in isolation and in isolation it's a bad bad model. It breaks dependably. The time component you refer to is density. You don't need TUT, you already have it with density factored into workload or any time unit (i.e. weekly workload or tonnage). The only thing the standard variables (intensity, volume, frequency, density) really lack are something to normalize intensity (%1RM) since equal workloads are not equal if one is done with 50% weights and the other is done with 90% weights. I haven't seen anything address this issue (maybe an intensity based weighting scheme would work to normalize) but typically people just apply cutoffs so nothing below 70% or whatever is even included in the calc. Then again since BBers tend to have more variety, workload loses relevance as it's not transferable even between the squat and legpress (I'm guessing something could be figured out there to and added as a coefficient).
The Shadow said:
THE POINT I MAKE WITH TUT IS THAT USING A REP TEMPO OF 2-0-4 OR 6 SECONDS PER REP IS WHAT MOST EXPERTS RECOMMEND IN TERMS OF A 1:2 RATIO FOR CONCENTRIC VS ECCENTRIC REPS, COMPLETELY FITS THE REP RANGES WHICH HAVE ALWAYS BEEN USED FOR STRENGTH(4-6) AND SIZE (8-12)
Totally agree, but TUT functions off a "normal range" assumption. That's why using it in isolation like FAR TOO MANY do results in garbage. I don't so much complain about TUT if used intelligently, I just don't see many doing it and more making it into the "be all end all" even though when used that way its robustness sucks compared to workload. It's a bad single variable model and since there's a more robust replacement...Now taking everything into account in an intelligent manner, even then you wind up with various measures of density since that's the time variable right there.
The Shadow said:
YOU MIGHT DO MORE WORK IN THE SAME UNIT OF TIME - BUT IT DOESNT NECESSARILY TRANSLATE INTO INTENSITY
We are differing on definition of intensity - I use %1RM. That said more work over the same unit of time is harder. Just take your best 3x10 in the squat with 2 minute rests between sets and drop to 1 min rests. It's a lot harder and even measuring preceived effort - you'll hit gut busting failure long before you get it done.
The Shadow said:
ALSO AGREED THAT MUSCULAR FORCE CAN BE DEFINED AS WEIGHT TIMES ACCELERATION.
WORKLOAD CAN ALSO BE DEFINED AS WEIGHT LIFTED TIMES NUMBER OF REPS DIVIDED BY TIME.
SO - A SUBMAXIMAL SET OF 3 REPS OF 100 POUNDS IN THREE SECONDS YIELDS A WORKLOAD OF 100 POUNDS PER SECOND PER SET.
DOES THAT VIOLATE THE TUT RULE??
Just use density. People hold up TUT alone as causality, it's not and this is the only thing I was ranting about. Still, once you get out of the TUT world, density is right there for the time variable and you can manipulate it and measure it however you want. It's really useful. So is rep speed. I just don't like TUT put out there as this all encompassing variable, too many people use it that way and it's a horrendous model in isolation.
The Shadow said:
FORCE AND WORK CAN BE TWO DIFFERENT ITEMS.
WHAT IS MORE WORK??
A TRUE 1RM OF 300 POUNDS OR A SET OF 250 FOR 4-6 REPS TO FAILURE??
250 FOR 4-6 IS MORE WORK.
ISNT WORK DEFINED BY EFFORT SUSTAINED OVER TIME??
I was considering force on a per rep basis. The use of more force per rep (i.e. acceleration) will result in the ability to do more work over the same unit of time (faster reps). That's not to say the bar will be flying fast in all cases - a 1RM is maximum force with maximum acceleration just dog slow due to the weight/mass.
The Shadow said:
IMO WORKLOAD CAN ONLY BE DEFINED AS AMOUNT OF WORK DONE IN A GIVEN TIME FRAME.
Totally agree.
The Shadow said:
WORKLOAD CAN BE VERY VERY HIGH AND TO FAILURE - YOU CAN DO A LOT OF HIGH REP PUMPING TO FAILURE THAT MEETS BOTH THE INTENSITY AND THE VOLUME AS YOU DEFINE WORKLOAD - BUT IT DOESNT MEAN IT STIMULATES HYPERTROPHY.
Totally agree, my intensity was %1Rm so with enough volume or reps and a high enough weight (intensity) regardless of failure you can get hypertrophy. Failure has nothing to do with it although for some it is a mantra.
The Shadow said:
CAN YOU GAIN A LOT OF SIZE(HYPERTROPHY) BY DOING MULTIPLE SETS(VOLUME) OF 3 REPS TO FAILURE(INTENSITY)??
MOST LIKELY NOT.....AT LEAST NOT FOR ME.
Agree again - intensity = %1RM not failure.
The Shadow said:
IF THAT WERE TRUE I THINK THAT ELITE PLERS WOULD CONTINUE TO GET BIGGER AND BIGGER AND BIGGER THROUGH-OUT THEIR CAREERS AND BE FORCED INTO HIGHER WEIGHT CLASSES.
THEY DO GET STRONGER AND STRONGER THOUGH - ALL THINGS EQUAL.
Then again look at the weightclasses in PL compared to OL, boxing, MMA, wrestling or anything else. It's rediculous with tons more heavyweight classes. Now it is totally related to diet they allow themselves to get bigger as they want to chase absolute records (and not much need for agility or speed outside a basic core movement) and they accomodate the larger body types that are drawn to that type of lifting. But it's interesting... their weight classes are WAY at the extreme compared to any other weightclass driven sport even the closest parallel OL.