Training Book Recommendation

[majutsu]

I just wanted to recommend an interesting book to the training board. Serious Strength Training by Tudor Bompa. Yes, Bompa is the Olympic trainer of Romania, the same guy who trained 11 medalists in his career. This material is the same material as his old periodization books, and very close to the previous edition of this same book. So anyone familiar with all the eastern bloc theory will have seen this all somewhere. But the new second edition is updated with nice pictures of pros, EMG studies and same loading schedules in more detail than before. NOTE this book is the adaptation of eastern bloc periodization theory to BODYBUILDING. Get Bompa's other periodization book if you want powerlifting, or you will be disappointed. This is a modern bodybuilding periodization book. Also, I would strongly recommend running Bill Star's Dual Factor 5x5 at least twice before doing this book. If you've never done loading, unloading, etc before, you will be lost. Also, the schedules are quite advanced. I'm 210lb 5'9" 10%BF with bench 335, squat/dead 455 and the first day of the third step H routine smoked me. I thought I was going to die. I had to scale back the loading twice. This is not a beginner's book, and don't get too cocky (like I always do). Enjoy some new points of view and possibilities! And good luck with your workouts.

 

[Jim Ouini]

I've had this book for awhile. I like it, although there's some exercises I'm not too fond of like leg press and some iso machine exercises. But like you say it's for bodybuilding

I would strongly recommend running Bill Star's Dual Factor 5x5 at least twice before doing this book. If you've never done loading, unloading, etc before, you will be lost

I never thought of it as a DF book though, although to be honest I've never really read it in that context. I know he brings up supercompensation early on in the book, but doesn't really mention fitness-fatigue, IIRC.

Also, I brought it up in another thread about 'cutting'. I referrred to Bompa's recommendation for 30-40-50 rep sets using compound exercises (200 rep circuits)...any thoughts on this?

 

[majutsu]

Don't forget that the MD (muscular definition) phase is a few weeks, before contest prep. So he is assuming an extreme caloric deprivation and dehydration, possibly augmented by diurectics. Many people (self-included) cannot do any workout the last 3 weeks. Many bodybuilders simply flex and/or do very light movements. Doing 200 rep squats would certainly be ripping -- if you survive.

Also he assumes H (hypertrophy) phases and MxS (max strength) phases have already been in place through the year, so as to have something to whittle.

These are competing bodybuilders. I don't think an overweight beginner should look to 200 rep squats as a starting point for weight loss and general fitness.

 

[majutsu]

BTW Jim ouini, I think the most controversial assertion in the book would be the emphasis on rest intervals in hypertrophy training. How does everyone feel about this? HIT would definitely disagree. While the 60-85% load causing excellent hypertrophy is to some degree validated in the literature, what about rest intervals? He seems to believe that short rest intervals encourage hypertrophy adaptions more than fiber adaptations, that is, getting bigger rather than stronger.

How important does everyone think rest intervals are for encouraging hypertrophy? This seems controversial to me.

 

[Jim Ouini]

Don't forget that the MD (muscular definition) phase is a few weeks, before contest prep. So he is assuming an extreme caloric deprivation and dehydration, possibly augmented by diurectics. Many people (self-included) cannot do any workout the last 3 weeks. Many bodybuilders simply flex and/or do very light movements. Doing 200 rep squats would certainly be ripping -- if you survive.

Also he assumes H (hypertrophy) phases and MxS (max strength) phases have already been in place through the year, so as to have something to whittle.

These are competing bodybuilders. I don't think an overweight beginner should look to 200 rep squats as a starting point for weight loss and general fitness.

So it's a matter of just not being able to do anything more than low intensity/high rep workouts due to extreme caloric deficit. Ok that makes sense.

As far as rest intervals, my understanding is that for hypertrophy rest intervals should be short (~1 minute - that's short for me ). But I was thinking it was more due to energy source used in the 60-85% intensity range, not to directly cause the adaptation.

I'm not a scientist, obviously

 

[Madcow2]

BTW Jim ouini, I think the most controversial assertion in the book would be the emphasis on rest intervals in hypertrophy training. How does everyone feel about this? HIT would definitely disagree. While the 60-85% load causing excellent hypertrophy is to some degree validated in the literature, what about rest intervals? He seems to believe that short rest intervals encourage hypertrophy adaptions more than fiber adaptations, that is, getting bigger rather than stronger.

How important does everyone think rest intervals are for encouraging hypertrophy? This seems controversial to me.

One thing that I think plays into this is that sets and reps are artificial constructs to organize training without any real relevance to the body itself.

For an example, let's assume that 8-12 reps is the "best range" and we don't ever do more than 12 reps in a single workout. So 12 sets of singles spaced at 5 minutes appart is almost certainly to be fairly neural. What about 12 sets of singles spaced at 1 minute or even 10 seconds? It's almost like a sliding scale as the multiple sets of singles start to resemble more and more a single set of 12 reps. Even thinking about a set of squats, at the top there isn't much tension on the muscles at all relative to the motion at other leverages. Is this not a series of singles with very short rest intervals. You could also take many sets of 12 with 30 seconds and all of a sudden it looks a lot more like cardio and probably won't work so well.

Anyway, I think this is probably an issue that obscures a clean stimulus and response from being tested. The body doesn't know anything about organization of sets and reps. Also, you have heavier weight sets requiring some CNS reload in between kind of precludes short rest intervals. The other side of this would be the "cardio-esque" multiple sets of 12 example above where the intensity used (%1RM) is going to have to be very low out of necessity. Probably also the total workload is going to be a big factor that likely isn't controlled well in experiments just due to how it interplays in the factors.

So anyway, I think this is why there isn't much conclusivity and this is also why rest intervals might come into play and affect results. Obviously, I don't have any answers but that's my idea in a nutshell.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Over on the HST boards, the idea of breaking apart the "sets and reps' idea is called clustering. If you do one set of 10 reps, or two sets of 5 reps with the same load, the microtrauma caused to the muscle tissue is the same. This is the idea, anyway. It's the same idea as DC's Rest Pause. The body doesn't know the difference between the reps, only the stimulus it's exposed to. Load will be the ultimate indicator.

Of course, I believe problems occur when going to extremes. More research on this really should be done, but there are so many variables that it would be difficult to arrive at a solid conclusion.