[quote]eic wrote:
Pemdas wrote:
eic wrote:
Not sure that additional gains are going to come from CNS stimulation. It seems to me that CNS stimulation occurs first, with hypertrophy thereafter.
Take, for example, the raw beginner in an EFS system. He can probably use the same ME exercises for 3 weeks in a row before rotating and will see rapid gains in strength. That is because he has a relatively inefficient CNS. While his bench, dead, and squat will increase drastically and quickly, the same will probably not be true for his or her bodyweight (absent some repetition work).
After some time, the lifter’s CNS is becoming more and more efficient to the point that additional gains via CNS stimulation will be more or less nonexistent. This is your intermediate or advanced trainee. At that point, I think additional adaptation will have to result from hypertrophy via increased density of the fibers. It may not add up to much on the scale, perhaps a few pounds a year, but overtime the athlete will be strong and dense as hell. That is what you see with oly weightlifters and powerlifters (at lower weight classes).
My point is that a lifter who has gotten himself to 225 lbs. and 5% body fat may have already gotten well beyond the stage of CNS adaptation. If so, then additional gains will, unfortunately, require a little additional muscle. This is perhaps another reason why oly lifters are selective with the muscle groups they exercise. Not only does the bench press not enhance technique on the classic lifts, but they need those pounds their legs and posterior chain not their chests.
This is wrong. How is that so many powerlifter increase their total by 100s of lbs without moving up a weight class. Strength training is pretty much 100% CNS training. The fact that you get bigger is just a side affect.
The reason beginners can get away with 3-4 week with the same max effort movement is largely a matter of coordination and the fact that their CNS is so underdeveloped that they are not actually utilizing it enough to completely fatigue it. In other words, it take that long to for it adapt. More experienced lifter have learned to utilized their CNS to the point that it becomes fatigued after just one session. That doesn’t mean they have reached their peak. It just mean that they need more variation to continually stimulate it without burning out.
I’m not sure we’re saying different things. I didn’t say that CNS gains would stop, only that they slow down. Thereafter, a larger proportion of poundage increases (on the bar) is due to increases in contractile proteins in the lifter. And to be clear, we are not talking about tons of weight gain here. We are talking about very modest amounts.
For example, a beginner who increases his squat by 100 lbs. over X period is going to notice very little increased size as a result. An advanced lifter who increases his squat by 100 lbs. over X period will have relatively more size gains than the beginner. This is all I’m saying. I guess the take home point is that, for an advanced athlete, it is going to be very difficult to make significant gains in one’s lifting numbers without at least SOME bodyweight increases, however minor. [/quote]
Ok…I agree with this.
