Thoughts on Volume, Frequency, Genetics

[T-Rage]

Another interesting thing regarding training frequency...

Let's look at calves and forearms. These muscles historically respond best to higher repetitions and more frequent training because these muscles are used so much (calves every time we take a step and forearms for just about every upper body movement). That being said which came first the chicken or the egg? What I mean by that is this...

Are the calves and forearms different than other body parts? Are they more dense and tuff becuase they will have to deal with alot of work or is it the fact that they deal with alot of work and therefore have no other choice but to get dense and tuff?

 

[Deak]

Frequency: I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say this is the most important variable in a training system. Why? Well, the timeframe for muscular growth is hard-wired into people. More intense workouts don't elongate the time necessary to repair the muscle. This is because, at the cellular level, the same thing occurs every time there's damage. mRNA is activated, IGF-1 spills out, etc, etc. This response lasts, at best, 48 hours.

If you don't buy that, PM me because the response is technical.

It makes sense, then, that in order to be in a continuous state of growth, one should work muscles about every 48 hours.

But if I am still very sore after the workout, should I still train that muscle group? Or you are saying to reduce the volume and intensity to train more often or what?

 

[sk*]

Paul de Mayo said that before he became an allround bodybuilder he was a real curl-jockey, just doing 20 somewhat sets barbell curls and skull crushers at home every night... his arms grew to 18.5 inches from this. That should tell you something about muscle recovery...

However the keypoint is that he only trained arms at that time, so that he did not have to recover from grueling squats and deadlifts. Obviously Paul de Mayo no longer trains arms every day , now that he has become an allround bodybuilder, but as a rule of thumb we could assume , train a muscle as often as your CNS recovery allows you...

In order to maximize trainingfrequancy we must improve CNS recovery, or at least not doing things that are counterproductive to CNS recovery (such as lack of sleep)

Many pros have two or even three workout sessions a day in order to maximize trainingfrequency of a certain muscle. This approach allows for relative short workouts, wich in turn does no tax the CNS as much as having a marathon workouts.

However, training 3 times a day, how do you make living without bending over for Joe Weider or doing gay tricks?

|Maybe working as a bouncer you could have the time and the money to workout like that...

The studies that were posted had the same problem, they only used one bodypart in the first and I forget the second one (yea I know already, lol).

Regarding the 2-3times working out thing, I actually do this. I like to keep my workouts under 30minutes and come to the gym twice. I use DC's training methods and after doing 2bodyparts in the morning i'll do 2more at night. I have a lot of free time on my hands, lol.

-sk

 

[BodyByFinaplix]

Wow, great thread! This is something I have put a great deal of thought into over the last few months, and I'm really not in the mood to type 10 pages here, but I would like to point out one thing. The ability to generate enough intensity to stimilate maximum growth on a lower number of sets is a high individual thing. It is in part genetic, but also seems to be linked to neuromusclular effiency. Personally, I've grown very very rapidly doing 1-3 sets for a bodypart during a given workout. Then again, I'm one of those guys who can totally exhaust a muscle in one set. I can take an extremely heavy weight, fail on my 6th or 7th rep, have help doing a couple forced reps, and if I have put everything into it, 3-5 minutes later I am still completely unable to do a single rep with the same weight. So even on my multiple set workouts, I'm rapidly losing reps and droping the weight so that I can do more than one set. That makes me an ideal canidate for one-set-per-bodypart workouts. I'm probably not gaining any additional growth from the extra sets due to greatly reduced intensity. However I've seen guys who can fail on their 8th rep, and taking 2 minutes between sets, they can still get 7 reps with the same weight on set 4 or 5. Usually they seem to be incapable of handling weights I would consider to be moderately heavy for someone of their size. Weither this is a result of low neuromuscular effciency, a high predominance of slow twitch fibers or a combination, these individuals clearly are in need of a higher training volume in order to heavily tax their muscles. While I certainly feel any increase in volume is going to increase recovery time, this type of trainee is not capable of generating a great deal of intensity during a couple of sets, so they are not taxing their recovery ability that heavily with each set, even though they train to failure. However, they would probably not grow without this volume. Though just like those of us on the other extremely, they will reach a point of diminished returns from each set once they do fatigue the muscles and intensity begins to drop. This obseravation has led me to believe that proper training volume is going to vary from person to person, but not because "everyone is different" but for specific reasons that, given time, we will hopefully uncover with scientific research. Ok, that is enough of my ranting for now...

 

[DrBones]

Very interesting post...
Probably the freshest material on here in a while
Good read..

 

[JollyRogers]

Rest when you need rest, eat when you want to eat, if your fresh hit the gym.

best advice right here

 

[SeymourCuts]

Even with 3 full sets per exercise, HST doesn't work for everyone though. Almost without fail, everytime someone comes out and says "this is THE way," some get great results off of it while some get shit. Some find they get the best results from taking a full week off between muscle groups while others do great on six-days-twice-a-day programs. I have found over time that 4-5 days rest of muscle groups is ideal for me. The only way to really understand your body is through trial and error of different styles of training over time keeping records.

 

[sk*]

Rest when you need rest, eat when you want to eat, if your fresh hit the gym.

best advice right here

Nah bro, that's an advice to plateau ... sadly. Maybe it works in your first year of training but if you want some serious size you need to eat when you aren't hungry and when you are hungry. You should also sleep at least 8 hours a day.

-sk

 

[casualbb]

Are the calves and forearms different than other body parts? Are they more dense and tuff becuase they will have to deal with alot of work or is it the fact that they deal with alot of work and therefore have no other choice but to get dense and tuff?

Calves and forearms are the same type of tissue. My guess would be as to why people consider them as different though... they're probably really heavy on the slow-twitch, just given the nature of what they do. That would make neural recovery very fast and growth very slow. Also, if they grew very readily, we would all have enormous calves just from daily activity, even to the point that it would F--- up walking. It's almost a protectionary mechanism that they don't grow well.

But if I am still very sore after the workout, should I still train that muscle group?

Soreness can be trained through with zero risk. In fact I think you'll find it'll go away pretty much immediately after doing a set.

Or you are saying to reduce the volume and intensity to train more often or what?

That's what I'd advise. I do think that's the fastest and easiest way to grow, based on my own personal experience and research.

-casual

 

[Debaser]

Re: Re: Thoughts on Volume, Frequency, Genetics

Even with 3 full sets per exercise, HST doesn't work for everyone though. Almost without fail, everytime someone comes out and says "this is THE way," some get great results off of it while some get shit. Some find they get the best results from taking a full week off between muscle groups while others do great on six-days-twice-a-day programs. I have found over time that 4-5 days rest of muscle groups is ideal for me. The only way to really understand your body is through trial and error of different styles of training over time keeping records.

You're just generalizing that HST doesn't work for everyone. Considering that it is scientifically based on how muscles actually respond to training and grow, it'll essentially work if you have muscles.