workout frequency when cycling??

[Madcow2]

just a notion on how ass backwards, and in some cases totally non-existant, most people's concepts of training are).

For the most part as we've discussed is reflects the info that is available on the news stand. They don't even have any idea stuff like this or any type of planning or programming exists - and the whole world uses it for their athletes and lifters. Eventually it's going to have to change. They can't keep people in the dark that long. I mean, there is a fucking method beyond going in the gym, blasting a bodypart, and praying (or just upping the dosage until something starts working). Understanding variables, how to manipulate them for progression, how progression is best achieved at various levels of experience - hell that progression is even necessary (most people don't even understand that, it's as if the muscle they carry has nothing to do with the loads they are subjecting themselves to in the gym and that training should revolve around more load for adaptation).

Even for those on an AAS cycle. Understanding the parameters will help them put more muscle on (holding dosage constant) and maintain their muscle coming off. Long before PCT became the norm, there was one constant. The guys who trained around big lifts and knew to cut volume and frequency in assistance work while maintaining core lifts at relatively high intensity (%1RM) under tolerable post cycle workloads are the ones who kept their muscle (or most of it) with ease even without PCT while the guys in commercial gyms were on a viscious cycle of gaining and then dropping a significant portion of muscle with no idea how or why, waiting and praying for it to stop. Yet you don't hear crap about that on any AAS board and it would really help out.

BTW Practical Programming is supposed to be out by the end of the month. At $15 for 200 pages I'm really hoping this is the book that presents this stuff clearly and ties a lot of the more advanced theory in for people. All under a good multiyear plan to use for an example, taking someone from total novice to a fairly advanced lifter. I have high hopes that the presentation of quality info and a workable example/roadmap to learn by might actually move things along. Lots of people are excited.

 

[phx]

wow.
i guess my fundamental understanding of training and the various other factors involved in getting bigger was way off.

 

[BiggT]

A book like ''Practical Programming'' would help a lot of people out. I hope it gets the press and circulation necessary. If as many people bought that as did Arnold's Encyclopedia, there will be a whole lot less undermuscled and frustrated trainees in gyms.

 

[The Shadow]

Let me ask this then:

All of the folks here answer:

How many times a week do YOU hit each bodypart(in general of course) - I seriously doubt its 3 direct session a week.

 

[Madcow2]

Let me ask this then:

All of the folks here answer:

How many times a week do YOU hit each bodypart(in general of course) - I seriously doubt its 3 direct session a week.

It can be anything. Frequency can be all over the map. It's really better to think about total workload goal and how to get it in. It's less about a stimulus and then wait for the response but more about how to most efficiently apply the stimulus to get from point A to point B in the most expeditious manner. It's probably better to take more frequent small steps than it is to try to make a big jump.

Sort of like getting accustomed to higher volume on a stereo using the nob, yes you can turn it up to current threshhold and then turn it off, then try again, or you can increase is steadily backing off a tad as needed and just moving it higher and higher systematically where the highest volumes might take very minute adjustments and require a long time to get to that next increment (let's not consider going deaf).

Plenty of off-season squatting programs based on 3-4 sessions per week - probably all the best ones. Just from being on this site, it's pretty obvious that anyone can tolerate 3 squat sessions a week as long as you bring the volume/intensity in line with the lifter it can even go as low as 1 light set if you want but you can still get your 3 sessions. Westside takes a different angle but that's probably not the norm strength wise. Lots of higher volume bench and pull specialty programs.

For strength or expertise, IMO, you really want to do the movement a lot. That's how you get good at things and they become 2nd nature and automatic. And even if the goal is pure hypertrophy, that enhanced neural skill is going to potentiate the progressive loading that is so important to that goal (just like newbie gains which is the same thing). This is also why you don't see complete weeks off in advanced training unless they are planned. Every bodybuilder on the net seems to talk about these random weeks off and if you've developed skill in a lift, this is just not a good kneejerk reaction to fatigue. Lower the volume, raise the intensity - whatever but don't stop doing the lifts or you give back a portion of your work (and sometimes it's quite significant).

A good example is in OL which around the world probably has the most astute planning (and you aren't left with PL style equipped squats, and max pulls or deadlifts which are different beasts and can be unweildly). It's nothing to see 12 sessions a week all with some kind of snatch or clean pull varriant. All or most sessions will contain some form of squatting even if it's just recovery from the full lifts.

This was WFW's program to prep their lifters for Nationals last year. It's their Deloading period so volume was lower although frequency was still high.

You are looking at 3 heavy backsquat and 3 heavy frontsquat sessions a week, 6 heavy snatch and clean sessions, and then 3 moderate days in snatch and clean along with assistance. So that's 9 sessions all of which are pulling, 6 of which are squatting. And this is going on in what is probably one of the most crucial deloading periods of the year.

our lifters training for mens and womens nationals are doing their last month of training now, here is the program they are using, fairly typical for us before a meet.

monday, wed, fri in the mornings
heavy snatch
heavy clean and jerk
heavy back squat

monday, wed, friday in the evenings
heavy snatch
heavy clean and jerk
heavy front squat

tuesday, thursday, sat.

one workout, lighter weights, work on speed and technique on clean and jerk with 70-80% weights and any specific problems from day before, as well as some lighter remedial work like glute-ham or reverse hyper.

EDIT - since you wanted to know personal - I don't put much time or effort into training these days but in general I squat and pull every time I do any kind of lifting. So over the last few years, when I'm lifting it's 2-4x per week. If I'm not pulling or squatting, it's not lifting and I don't bother.

 

[Madcow2]

wow.
i guess my fundamental understanding of training and the various other factors involved in getting bigger was way off.

Lift big, eat big, get big. It's just a question of how to go about it in the most expeditious manner and at some point it gets a lot harder to lift bigger. What works best for a novice is completely ineffective for an advanced trainee. What works for an advanced trainee is either agonizingly slow progress or a surefire why to break a novice lifter. But in the end, it's as simple as lifting bigger, eating bigger and getting bigger. After that it's all aesthetics and diet for BF level.

 

[silver_shadow]

Even for those on an AAS cycle. Understanding the parameters will help them put more muscle on (holding dosage constant) and maintain their muscle coming off. Long before PCT became the norm, there was one constant. The guys who trained around big lifts and knew to cut volume and frequency in assistance work while maintaining core lifts at relatively high intensity (%1RM) under tolerable post cycle workloads are the ones who kept their muscle (or most of it) with ease even without PCT while the guys in commercial gyms were on a viscious cycle of gaining and then dropping a significant portion of muscle with no idea how or why, waiting and praying for it to stop. Yet you don't hear crap about that on any AAS board and it would really help out.

this is a really good point you bring up and one i'm actually hearing for the first time anywhere. it's something i've suspected to be the case for a pretty long time and something i've noticed to be beneficial personally. yet everywhere i look, guys are talking about diet (most notably the debate on whether to drop cals, increase cals or maintain at the level they were on cycle) but mostly talk about some miracle drugs to maintain size and strength.

 

[Madcow2]

this is a really good point you bring up and one i'm actually hearing for the first time anywhere. it's something i've suspected to be the case for a pretty long time and something i've noticed to be beneficial personally. yet everywhere i look, guys are talking about diet (most notably the debate on whether to drop cals, increase cals or maintain at the level they were on cycle) but mostly talk about some miracle drugs to maintain size and strength.

It's huge, just as you suspected. Tolerance is low afterward and the goal is to keep the big lifts up without crushing yourself. It's an efficiency proposition. So that generally means lower volume, maybe lower frequency, and relatively high intensity. Certainly less assistance work and major focus on the big lifts.

The problem is that most people don't understand how they got more muscle in the first place (other than doing some stuff), no less how to best alter what they do in the gym to preserve it. I also have never once seen it mentioned on any anabolic board or even any real general reference to alteration in training post-cycle (except generally lower than what someone can do while on). The fact that it's never even considered is a giant red flag.

 

[silver_shadow]

in fact i've seen recommendations to lower intensity! quite bizarre!

here's a thread where they seem to be overlooking this part of the equation as usual:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=516580

 

[Madcow2]

in fact i've seen recommendations to lower intensity! quite bizarre!

here's a thread where they seem to be overlooking this part of the equation as usual:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=516580

Well the issue there is "what do they mean by intensity" - typically it's training to failure and snarling like a wolverine. Psyching has a pronounced effect on the nervous system and even without lifting any weights at all can impact fatigue very significantly (think about increased levels of stress). I will say that this is well known and people specifically working up to a daily max in OL will specify lifting to an "unpsyched max". I've done my own tinkering and it blew me away how much of an impact it has on levels of fatigue over time.

Anyway, when I say raise intensity I'm talking just keeping a good amount of weight on the bar. Something like 3x3 in the periodized 5x5 program would work well but certainly other rep ranges could be used (I would not lower the weight much though - maintaining significant loads but cutting volume is the key)). Basically you are keeping tension on the muscles and neural training higher on the important lifts but allowing for lower levels of systemic fatigue and stress but cutting out the garbage and lowering volume (possibly frequency). In a sense, you are deloading but it may not be deloading because your normal levels of tolerance are lower - you are just matching the resouces available.

This is a good strategy along with gradually raising volume again say 4-5 weeks after everything has cleared and recovery rebounds some. To a degree it's common sense and an obvious strategy but if you don't understand training parameters or something like dual factor theory it's pretty hard to approach this intelligently and you wind up with just a general backoff. Invariably that's not going to be optimal, it's like throwing darts at a board with a blindfold on - which is usually what passes for training in most cases anyway.