The thing is that most haven’t yet. I vividly remember when I made a trip to PA to go to a Westside seminar put on by Jim Wendler and he stated his dislike for over -thinking things. He said something to the effect of "I am just tired of thinking.
Sometimes I just want to down Met-Rxs all day and finish off my day with a value meal because I just don’t want to calculate my diet. And with training, those who over-analyze just wind up sitting on a couch meditating".
I agree with him.
[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
The thing is that most haven’t yet. I vividly remember when I made a trip to PA to go to a Westside seminar put on by Jim Wendler and he stated his dislike for over -thinking things. He said something to the effect of "I am just tired of thinking.
Sometimes I just want to down Met-Rxs all day and finish off my day with a value meal because I just don’t want to calculate my diet. And with training, those who over-analyze just wind up sitting on a couch meditating".
I agree with him. [/quote]
A little off topic… I think we should make a “Wendler Jokes” thread in GAL.
/hijack
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Every set I do contributes to growth.[/quote]
It may be that your meaning is, not every set causes growth but even not causing growth, it contributes to something else that causes growth.
For example, a set might not cause growth but enables a later one that does. E.g., if I did not do my extremely light squat warmups, then with cold knees I would injure them and not get any growth due to being unable to do any serious sets for a while after the resulting injury.
But let’s look at the possible meaning a person might have of, Every set I do causes growth.
If so, how much growth minimum? Let’s say the body is so exceedingly precise in its operation that growth of 1/100th of one percent is possible.
Say one does 100 sets per week total.
That would be 1% growth per week, or after 10 years of such training, growth to 176 times bigger.
I guess not!
Maybe each set stimulates growth of 1/1000th of one percent.
Then 100 sets per week over 10 years will result in being 68% bigger. Most who were already experienced, serious lifters 10 years ago are not 68% higher in LBM after another 10 years.
So even the proposition that each set stimulates growth of a mere 1/1000th of one percent doesn’t hold up.
Conclusion, most sets don’t themselves cause growth.
I only use the term “work set” for the sets that cause overload (as in more weight or more reps with the same weight than my body has ever experienced before). Therefore, I only count the final top PR set as a “work set”.
If I’m ramping up to 405 for 6-10, then even though doing the set of 350 for 6-10 isn’t easy, and absolutely does help me to lift the 405, that weight still is less than what my body is capable of lifting. Therefore, in and of itself it does not stimulate growth.
Maybe a better term would be “overload sets”, instead of “work sets”.
Either way I really don’t think it matters all that much what you want to call your sets, as long as what you are doing is working for you.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Every set I do contributes to growth.
It may be that your meaning is, not every set causes growth but even not causing growth, it contributes to something else that causes growth.
For example, a set might not cause growth but enables a later one that does. E.g., if I did not do my extremely light squat warmups, then with cold knees I would injure them and not get any growth due to being unable to do any serious sets for a while after the resulting injury.
But let’s look at the possible meaning a person might have of, Every set I do causes growth.
If so, how much growth minimum? Let’s say the body is so exceedingly precise in its operation that growth of 1/100th of one percent is possible.
Say one does 100 sets per week total.
That would be 1% growth per week, or after 10 years of such training, growth to 176 times bigger.
I guess not!
Maybe each set stimulates growth of 1/1000th of one percent.
Then 100 sets per week over 10 years will result in being 68% bigger. Most who were already experienced, serious lifters 10 years ago are not 68% higher in LBM after another 10 years.
So even the proposition that each set stimulates growth of a mere 1/1000th of one percent doesn’t hold up.
Conclusion, most sets don’t themselves cause growth.
[/quote]
I’m sorry, but this is the most concentrated bullshit I’ve seen in a while. My ENTIRE WORKOUT CONTRIBUTES TO GROWTH. Anyone trying to nitpick which specific set is the one true set that somehow leads to growth as if everything else doesn’t has lost his way.
It doesn’t matter if the last set somehow contributes 85% of the workout towards growth or 75.8% because it wouldn’t have that potential without EVERYTHING ELSE.
This level of hyper-analysis is why there are so few people with arms over 18" yet millions of little dudes all claiming to have it all figured out.
agreed, x
I only keep track of my last set because I generally use the same weights from workout to workout on th earlier sets. The last set is the one that I use to measure my strength gains.
[quote]Stronghold wrote:
I only keep track of my last set because I generally use the same weights from workout to workout on th earlier sets. The last set is the one that I use to measure my strength gains.[/quote]
Me as well. I also don’t change around the order of exercises much because doing a certain exercise first as opposed to 2nd or 3rd would change the weight used.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Every set I do contributes to growth.
It may be that your meaning is, not every set causes growth but even not causing growth, it contributes to something else that causes growth.
For example, a set might not cause growth but enables a later one that does. E.g., if I did not do my extremely light squat warmups, then with cold knees I would injure them and not get any growth due to being unable to do any serious sets for a while after the resulting injury.
But let’s look at the possible meaning a person might have of, Every set I do causes growth.
If so, how much growth minimum? Let’s say the body is so exceedingly precise in its operation that growth of 1/100th of one percent is possible.
Say one does 100 sets per week total.
That would be 1% growth per week, or after 10 years of such training, growth to 176 times bigger.
I guess not!
Maybe each set stimulates growth of 1/1000th of one percent.
Then 100 sets per week over 10 years will result in being 68% bigger. Most who were already experienced, serious lifters 10 years ago are not 68% higher in LBM after another 10 years.
So even the proposition that each set stimulates growth of a mere 1/1000th of one percent doesn’t hold up.
Conclusion, most sets don’t themselves cause growth.
I’m sorry, but this is the most concentrated bullshit I’ve seen in a while. My ENTIRE WORKOUT CONTRIBUTES TO GROWTH. Anyone trying to nitpick which specific set is the one true set that somehow leads to growth as if everything else doesn’t has lost his way.
It doesn’t matter if the last set somehow contributes 85% of the workout towards growth or 75.8% because it wouldn’t have that potential without EVERYTHING ELSE.
This level of hyper-analysis is why there are so few people with arms over 18" yet millions of little dudes all claiming to have it all figured out.[/quote]
“Concentrated bullshit,” eh?
What amount (or percentage, if you like) growth would you say each of your entire workouts achieves? Since you are recognizing, though not in any pleasant way, my point that it would be incorrect to say that the well-below-maximal effort sets do.
??
I like Bill Roberts’ points. Very intelligent. Most workouts don’t cause much growth themselves and actually, Bill was agreeing with Professor X, if I read correctly. We are all in agreement that you need a well designed WORKOUT and that sub maximal sets make maximal sets possible and therefore, make progress possible.
Prof,
I don’t think Bill was on the other side of the fence. He too, was trying to say that people should just do the damn workout and not worry which set works the most magic. Am I right, Bill?
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
“Concentrated bullshit,” eh?[/quote]
I call it like I see it.
It doesn’t matter to me in any way whatsoever what “percentage” of growth is contributed by only one workout. This is a fucking lifestyle, not a math problem. This is biology. It changes and adapts making specific calculations useless two minutes after they’ve been written.
If you want to know what ALL of my workouts have created, that would be about 120+lbs of body weight since I started and a strength level that matches it.
I can’t do that last all out set of 450lbs if I hadn’t done those previous sets leading up to it. When you are training, especially when using weights that are truly heavy, you are not just training muscle tissue. You are training connective tissue and even your own cognitive ability.
That makes worrying about which one contributes the most to growth a complete waste of time. They all work together, not in little pieces.
You’re not providing the slightest SUBSTANTIVE disagreement with a single actual point I’ve made. You’re just expressing hostility or some other problem.
I didn’t ask how much you’ve gained since starting training and that is trying to change the subject. We all know about excellent gains when far from potential, as a person always is when starting lifting. No surprise there. We aren’t talking about beginners for whom every workout indeed can produce growth.
(At least I am not, maybe you want to.)
From the point you think it fair to say you had had many years already as a physically mature individual who had gotten his training figured out and been doing it seriously and well for a number of years – say perhaps you had reached that 10 years ago? – what are the gains in the last 10 years?
Perhaps you can figure from that the likelihood that net growth actually occurred with each workout, and if it did, just how small it must be.
For example, Lee Haney in his Mr Olympia years reports gaining an average of 3 lb muscle per year during that time frame. Which in fact, without a major change in drug program as sometimes occurs, is a respectable and ordinary gain for a truly advanced lifter over extended time.
7 years is 364 weeks. Let’s say 4 workouts per week, so perhaps over 1400 workouts.
Do we really believe that each workout added 3/1400th (which is less than two-thousandths) of one pound of muscle?
Or does Haney’s example demonstrate that not all workouts in fact cause growth at that time – many gave no net gain, some did not even catch up with recent catabolism, and some but much less than most gave gains much better than 2/1000ths of a pound – and having an understanding of this rather than getting hostile could conceivably help people?
It’s a shame if it bothers you if any “math” is employed to illustrate a point, but sometimes actually looking at something, rather than touting one’s own arm size as proof, requires the analysis you object so much to.
[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
I like Bill Roberts’ points. Very intelligent. Most workouts don’t cause much growth themselves and actually, Bill was agreeing with Professor X, if I read correctly. We are all in agreement that you need a well designed WORKOUT and that sub maximal sets make maximal sets possible and therefore, make progress possible.
Prof,
I don’t think Bill was on the other side of the fence. He too, was trying to say that people should just do the damn workout and not worry which set works the most magic. Am I right, Bill? [/quote]
Yes, you are, in all points.
To hopefully get back on track on what to take out of those points:
That isn’t to say it can’t be desirable to have quite a number of “fair chances” at stimulating growth, but rather it’s a fallacy to go to the extreme and insist that every set must be planned to have such a chance. There’s no chance anyway that every set of every workout will. (In reference to advanced lifters.)
It’s also not the case that every workout causes net growth. So it’s a fallacy to plan on that as well. The purpose of a workout is not necessarily to achieve net growth in that workout (hopefully recent catabolism will be essentially reversed though) but rather to be part of an overall long term process that CAN rightly be predicted to cause growth, albeit slowly in advanced lifters.
It is fair and productive to decide just what it is that a given set in a workout plan is intended to accomplish. If it it’s not truly challenging to the muscles, and if (if) it is not needed for warmup or not as much was needed, and if (if) it does not contribute to actually greater performance in later sets rather than lesser from drained energy, then it ought to be rethunk as to whether it belongs in there or is a waste of time or even counterproductive due to wasting time and energy that could be put to better use.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
You’re not providing the slightest SUBSTANTIVE disagreement with a single actual point I’ve made. You’re just expressing hostility or some other problem.[/quote]
My disagreement is with the entire analogy. No one should be trying to calculate one sets growth potential because there are too many factors involved and the entire workout is what contributes to growth.
[quote]
I didn’t ask how much you’ve gained since starting training and that is trying to change the subject. We all know about excellent gains when far from potential, as a person always is when starting lifting. No surprise there. We aren’t talking about beginners for whom every workout indeed can produce growth.
(At least I am not, maybe you want to.)
From the point you think it fair to say you had had many years already as a physically mature individual who had gotten his training figured out and been doing it seriously and well for a number of years – say perhaps you had reached that 10 years ago? – what are the gains in the last 10 years?
Perhaps you can figure from that the likelihood that net growth actually occurred with each workout, and if it did, just how small it must be.
For example, Lee Haney in his Mr Olympia years reports gaining an average of 3 lb muscle per year during that time frame. Which in fact, without a major change in drug program as sometimes occurs, is a respectable and ordinary gain for a truly advanced lifter over extended time.[/quote]
Why do you keep even using math in your examples? That is what I am responding to. Lee Haney was the best in the world at the time. For him to be gaining ANYTHING at that stage isn’t a “[quote]respectable and ordinary gain [/quote]”, it is so rare that it makes it EXTRAordinary…which brings us to the point that we do seem to agree on, you can not look at a “year” for a bodybuilder and try to calculate growth the way you are trying to do so here. The stage of training of the individual, the genetic base, the overall daily stress and varying food intake make this IMPOSSIBLE. These are called “variables” and they are why biologists wouldn’t attempt a specific calculation like this to begin with.
What bothers me is that some seem to be missing that specific calculations hold little power here at all.
No disagreement here other than the way he delivered it. People who try hard to break this down into a math problem will no doubt fail at this. You can’t ignore drive and determination. You also can’t calculate it.
hmmm…biology is not linear…like math, it’s measure is in leaps and bounds…as if it’s possible to plot something that happens in leaps and bounds as if it’s a linear equation on a graph with a set slope and all. sorry if this isn’t even the point being discussed anymore, but i’m really not sure as to what bill roberts is REALLY trying to say. Sure he’s talking a lot, but i don’t know if he’s really saying anything.
Now, I personally despise over-analyzing bodybuilding… But to humor you guys, IMO, don’t look at the whole as “1 set causes x percent (or whatever) of growth”.
Rather look at it like this:
If you CGP 300 pounds for 10, and the next time you manage 305 for 9-10, then the musculature that takes the brunt of the stress on this exercise will likely grow.
Now, if you did 310 for 9-10 instead, you’ll grow more than if you did 305 for 9-10.
If in one year you manage to increase your lifts by a large margin (in the hypertrophy rep-ranges), then you’ll grow a lot more than if the opposite were the case (i.e. low poundage/rep increases).
Nutrition is already factored in… It’s impossible to up your strength in the hypertrophy zone by any significant degree without also eating enough.
So the whole “this set contributes that much for growth”-discussion doesn’t make much sense imo… If you did more then last time, you’ll grow. If you didn’t, well, guess what.
In regards to gaining only 3 lbs of muscle a year as an advanced guy…
This is either due to:
A) Doing a lot of shows (dieting down often), which interrupts your bulking phase. When in contest-prep, your body will not perform the same as when you’re on a bulking diet.
Yates injured himself because he did not pay attention to this.
If you train with maximum intensity while your body is on an inadequate diet, you will either end up injured, or actually overtrain and lose motivation/intensity.
B) The individual was purposefully trying to maintain his weight, as opposed to gaining or dieting down.
C) Bloody pathetic, time for some changes in diet and possibly also in the training regimen used. The individual most likely didn’t perform much better on his lifts, so he will simply not grow.
D) Genetic limit (which was most certainly not the case with haney…). Haven’t really seen that one happen yet.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
“Concentrated bullshit,” eh?
I call it like I see it.
What percentage growth would you say each of your entire workouts achieves, then? Since you are recognizing, though not in any pleasant way, my point that it would be incorrect to say that the well-below-maximal effort sets do.
??
It doesn’t matter to me in any way whatsoever what “percentage” of growth is contributed by only one workout. This is a fucking lifestyle, not a math problem. This is biology. It changes and adapts making specific calculations useless two minutes after they’ve been written.
If you want to know what ALL of my workouts have created, that would be about 120+lbs of body weight since I started and a strength level that matches it.
I can’t do that last all out set of 450lbs if I hadn’t done those previous sets leading up to it. When you are training, especially when using weights that are truly heavy, you are not just training muscle tissue. You are training connective tissue and even your own cognitive ability.
That makes worrying about which one contributes the most to growth a complete waste of time. They all work together, not in little pieces.[/quote]
Could you give me an example of what your pyramiding looks like? Maybe an example from your log book or something?
It seems like some guys, they will do so many sets before their final lift and do so many reps on these sets that these actually become “working sets”.
So if you did 135x12, 225x10, 315x8, 400x8 these sets are just there to prepare you to the final lift and aren’t “working sets” but if you did 135x24, 225x18, 315x15, 350x12, 390x8 these later sets are doing a lot more than warming you up – it’s hurting your final weight – but you also get more total volume. So I am curious, what does yours look like?
In my mind, a “warmup” set prepares you for the final set(s), a working set will actually weaken you enough to reduce the amount of weight you can do on your final set(s).
IW,
I will state mine. I totally agree with you on what you just stated - the issue of overworking yourself during warmups or what are supposed to be warmups. But apparently, you didn’t read my previous posts. I warm up for the first compound exercise of a workout like this:
Bar or 25# dumbbells for 10 to 20 slow reps, usually at the range where most tension on the muscle is (ie: bottom portion of a dumbbell bench press). This is simply getting blood to a muscle and gradually stretching it with weight .
30% of limit weight x 12
50% x 10
70% x 8
90% x 6
Limit sets: 2 x limit weight for 6 to 8 reps
So for dumbbell bench press with 120s, it will look like this:
25s or 30s x 10 - 20
35s x 12
60s x 10
85s x 8
105s x 6
Work sets: 2 x 120s x 6 - 8
Hammer Strength incline press with 230 after looks like this:
180 x 6
2 work sets x 230# x 6 - 8 reps
See, there are no worthless warmups that hamper my main sets.
Every successive exercise gets ONE warmup at 80 to 90% of the limit weight. Some later exercises may get NO warmups and I will jump right into my limit sets (ie: last exercise of the last muscle trained within a workout).
THIS is what distinguished Dorian from other pros as well. He did ramp up on the earlier exercises within a workout. But he did not ramp up for every exercise he did, something other pros do, particularly Ronnie.
Other pros, like the swaggering and goofy Paul Dillet, Flex Wheeler, and Craig Titus had no rhyme or reason to their workouts - later in their career after becoming a pro - at least from what I saw in videos years ago (I don’t watch many videos anymore; they are extremely dull and boring aside for a few of them).
I remember a video of Nasser years ago and he also was training quite leisurely.
Dorian was the most cerebral and meticulous bodybuilder ever, probably. He did not fuck around with endless warmup sets, tracked all his workouts and meals, and set out to break records at nearly all workouts. That is quite different from what I see amongst most bodybuilders.