Average Al,
I have noticed this and personally it is not an approach I like.
In a nutshell they are saying that “our carefully selected studies are valid, whereas the majority of them are not”
This may help them get a few extra clients, but loses them credibility in the wider world of exercise.
HIT works, so simply train clients, get them results and show off those results.
Only when asked , use the science (as in the physiological processes and their potential outcomes) .
But in the end it their businesses which stand to rise or fall , so that is their choice.
too_old ,
my problem is that there are lots of generalisation and nothing concrete.
I have seen so many people, including some really strong well built guys say that they did HIT and it did not work. But on the occasions I witnessed them training or spoke to them about their training it resembled nothing like the HIT I knew.
Another thing to consider is that Hepburn’s primary focus was on strength based maximum lifts where skill acquisition, repetition and predominantly very low reps would be requirements .
When you throw in these variables, alongside the lack of details, it really does not tell us a lot.
I’ve encountered some folks who swear that high protein intake helped their training, mainly with respect to improved recovery and less soreness in the days after a workout. They believe it lets them train harder. Placebo effect? Or maybe just one of those individual things.
I do think protein intake can be a problem if it gets too low. I’ve known old people with very picky appetites who seem happy to live on black coffee and saltines. My Grandmother’s sister was like that. She was pretty thin and frail toward the end of her life, and I think inadequate protein intake might have been a factor.
I am curious if changing up your routine regularly got you any more muscle? I do the same thing when I stagnate on a routine, but I think the benefit is mostly psychological. When you change exercises, you get to progress for awhile because the exercise is novel. But in the end, I don’t really end up any bigger or stronger. I think it just creates the illusion of progress. At least for me…
Al,
Firstly if we ignore the potential psychological of varying things, then i think that merely changing an exercise will only at best have a very short and very minor benefit.
But as one gets to an advanced stage, more often than not any weight increases on exercises rarely show up as muscular gains.
The approaches I like are to either keep a core of movements and keep slowly progressing, and change the rest of the movements regularly, or to keep most movements the same for a period, but change variables .
Mark,
I agree regarding the impact of exercise variation on muscle mass. And your approach seems sensible re: sticking with some core movements.
I’ll note that I’m 68, so the best I can hope for at this point is to minimize or slow down the inevitable effects of age on strength and muscle mass.
For me, using a greater variation in exercise selection does seem to pay benefits when it comes to injury avoidance and joint health.
Pre pandemic, I tended to focus a lot on big compound movements (squat, deadlift, chest press). Once I stopped going to the gym, I had to improvise. Switched from regular deadlifts to RDL’s with much higher volume and less weight; barbell squats were replaced by unilateral variations, like weighted step ups and rear foot elevated split squats. Then one day I realized that my chronic hip pain had largely gone away, and that persistant knot that I had in my low back for years was suddenly better.
I now suspect that sticking with a single movement pattern, and optimizing the heck out of your performance in that single movement maybe can set you up for chronic overuse injuries. Avoid those is a higher priority for me that chasing gains…
Al,
I’m glad to hear that you have had success in alleviating long term pain.
Have you noticed any change in your muscle mass ?
It does look like the direction to go is put far less emphasis on the classic exercises .
I’m really bad at trying to gauge what my exercise program is doing to muscle mass.
Strength in a particular movement is easier to track, but of course, there is a skill component and specificity component that comes into play. I’m sure I couldn’t squat or deadlift as much as I used to, because I haven’t trained those exercises for 6 months. But my joints feel better, as noted. And when I look in the mirror, or check how my clothes are fitting, sure doesn’t look like my muscles are wasting away. So I’m happy with where I’m at.
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Good Afternoon All,
For those of us who are in the “Maybe I should do this.” or “Maybe that.” category, would it be fair to say that TUT would be the driver of many schemes? Take 30-10-30 for example; let’s say it takes 75-80 seconds, as opposed to something like 5 sets of 5 effective reps, where each set takes 15 seconds. Are these equivalent? If so, why not alternate over a set time period?
I guess I should have said eating to much protein just doesn’t translate into more muscles. If you eat a decent meal like a steak or eggs or whatever that’s plenty. I see these guys saying they had 3 steaks and then a quart of protein mix etc, that’s nuts. Your body just pisses that out. A can of tuna at a meal is plenty. I used to drink gallons of supplements and steaks etc etc. I just got fatter and it might seem like I’ m getting bigger but it’s just an illusion. You’d convince yourself that with all that protein and working out you had to be bigger but was there actually more muscle? Probably not.
Did alternating routines actually result in more size and strength? Over the many years of training I rarely saw legitimate increases in size or strength . I might go up a rep or two each workout if I was lucky but things would change my workout schedule and then I’d come back and would be using the same weight I started with and when looking in the mirror I would feel I was getting bigger but as you say it could be the placebo effect. Did I really get bigger? Probably not. I probably just felt bigger. The only time in my life that I feel that I saw what I felt was an actual gain was when I decided to try doing 30-15-6 with a slight cheat. My arms went from a paultry 151/2 to 16 for about a month or so. We’re they really bigger or just more pumped? Who knows? I quit the routine because I didn’t feel it was safe.
Al-
One thing to note, studies about ‘volume’ usually speak of weekly volume per muscle.
If you notice many of Darden’s routines have more than one exercise that involve each muscle and all those are performed 2-3x a week. He also acknowledges total volume in specialization routines where a particular muscle might receive 3-4 direct sets 3x a week ‘for higher stimulation’. I take it that HIT isn’t saying ‘one set a muscle period’, it’s saying one really good set per exercises is ‘enough’ and more than one exercise might also be advised.
Regardless of ‘some’ of the newer research about high volume MANY current top researchers/trainers are not recommending high volume (James Fisher, Stu Phillips, Scott Stevenson, Paul Carter, Jeremy Leonneke, etc.).
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I have always preferred doing more than one exercise or set per muscle regardless if it’s best or not for muscle gains . I just love the feel I get from more sets or exercises. For instance lately I have been doing 3 sets of 30 second negative chins , then I do 2 sets of seated rows or I might start with 2 sets of pullovers and then a set or two of behind the necks with my behind the neck torso arm. One set to momentary muscular failure just leaves me feeling like I haven’t done enough no matter how hard I try on it. One set is great if I’m in a rush to do something else but it’s just not fulfilling.
entsminger,
could you elaborate on what you felt unsafe with a 30-15-6 protocol?
It wasn’t the 30-15-6 part , it was the cheating part that I didn’t like. I often cheat just a tad at the end of a set to get another rep but the cheating I was doing involved much heavier weights than I would normally use. I felt if I kept it up I might injure something. It was a workout promoted by Bioforce. Who cheated quite a bit. I have to say though that it did seem to work. I’ve noticed many top bodybuilders cheat quite a bit with their reps . I guess I’m more of a stickler for strict reps. I love the 30-15-6 reps though, after one of those sessions my arms were pumped to the max!
Scott
As for the strict reps, I was once in a barbarian type gym with these big guys throwing around huge poundages. One guy was using 40 or more pound dumbells for side laterals and swinging them to get them up. I stood near him with my 10 pound dumbells and slowly rose the weights up and down concentrating very hard on the feel. I remember one guy came up later and said I was sure using some baby weights but commented I had some serious delts there! That’s when I knew it wasn’t so much about the weight you used as how you used them.
Ok, once again I wrote this long post and all that posted was the first sentence! What the heck is wrong??
Here it is again if I can remember. I was in a hulk/barbarian type gym and these big guys were throwing huge poundages around . This one guy was doing side laterals ( swinging them up) with something like 50 pound dumbells. I stood near him and grabbed my little 10 pound dumbells and strictly did my set going slowly up and down concentrating very hard on feel all the way. Later this other guy came up and said I was sure using some baby weights but I sure had some serious delts there! That’s when I knew it wasn’t so much about how much weight I used but how I used it!
Scott
Nothing wrong with the post. When there’s a tab/indented space at the start of a paragraph, the forum formats it differently. That’s all…
It still appeared, it just looked messed up but the entire thing could be seen when scrolling. But I went in and edited the post to remove the indent, so the previous post could be seen. No problem.
I guess you didn’t read my reply the last time
Sorry but I didn’t see your first reply. I’m not sure which it is but I’ll try different things next time. I’ve never had this kind of trouble on a forum before .
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When/if you see it happen again next time just edit the post and remove the leading tab/spaces.
I do think you have to have some belief (or hope) in any kind of training you perform. Even if doing volume training to sub-failure, you still need decent enough effort/intensity, dedication, concentration, etc. with sufficient loads, tension, fatigue, etc. Half-assed approaches to working out (even if doing cardio) of any kind are never going to work optimally. The power of the mind is important…which we see even in placebo effects.
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