[quote]myself1992 wrote:
Most pros train once a week high volume, some don’t. Point is it doesn’t really matter how you train as long as you’re stimulating the muscle it’ll grow, how fast depends on nutrition and other factors. Of course you should be pushing yourself no matter what you’re doing[/quote]
Interesting though as the protein synthesis findings suggest this might be suboptimal yet look at them
Unless they trained higher frequency to get to pro level
[quote]gswork wrote:
[quote]myself1992 wrote:
Most pros train once a week high volume, some don’t. Point is it doesn’t really matter how you train as long as you’re stimulating the muscle it’ll grow, how fast depends on nutrition and other factors. Of course you should be pushing yourself no matter what you’re doing[/quote]
Interesting though as the protein synthesis findings suggest this might be suboptimal yet look at them
Unless they trained higher frequency to get to pro level[/quote]
Just because you can stimulate protein syntheis again doesn’t make it optimal IMO. W/e the body hasn’t recovered and repaired fully? What if by cutting volume to do more frequency each time you stimulate protein syntheiss but full growth isn’t triggered. Protein syntheis is a small part of muscle growth
This pathway of muscle growth
Enjoy your sub-optimal gains and misunderstanding of science, Ryan.
[quote]DAVE101 wrote:
Enjoy your sub-optimal gains and misunderstanding of science, Ryan.[/quote]
Hahaha
Translation: I have no counter argument so I’m going to try and end the conversation before I make myself look even more stupid.
I understand science just fine thanks. It seems to be you who has difficulty accepting that science does not have all the answers.
[quote]ryan.b_96 wrote:
[quote]DAVE101 wrote:
Enjoy your sub-optimal gains and misunderstanding of science, Ryan.[/quote]
Hahaha
Translation: I have no counter argument so I’m going to try and end the conversation before I make myself look even more stupid.
I understand science just fine thanks. It seems to be you who has difficulty accepting that science does not have all the answers. [/quote]
That could of been to me as well.
And then I have to laugh. I will take my sub optimal progress any time. I’m very happy with what I have achieved so far.
As far an not understanding science also makes me laugh
[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
[quote]gswork wrote:
[quote]myself1992 wrote:
Most pros train once a week high volume, some don’t. Point is it doesn’t really matter how you train as long as you’re stimulating the muscle it’ll grow, how fast depends on nutrition and other factors. Of course you should be pushing yourself no matter what you’re doing[/quote]
Interesting though as the protein synthesis findings suggest this might be suboptimal yet look at them
Unless they trained higher frequency to get to pro level[/quote]
Just because you can stimulate protein syntheis again doesn’t make it optimal IMO. W/e the body hasn’t recovered and repaired fully? What if by cutting volume to do more frequency each time you stimulate protein syntheiss but full growth isn’t triggered. Protein syntheis is a small part of muscle growth
This pathway of muscle growth[/quote]
Just for clarity if muscle is protein (carbs water varying) then what’s left to be done once PS is over
What surprised me on reading up on this was that adaptation was so quick, I suppose it makes sense not to keep adapting if not needed and also that repeat stress is needed to encourage the next PS phase
Still not overly sure but interesting anyway
[quote]ryan.b_96 wrote:
[quote]DAVE101 wrote:
Enjoy your sub-optimal gains and misunderstanding of science, Ryan.[/quote]
Hahaha
Translation: I have no counter argument so I’m going to try and end the conversation before I make myself look even more stupid.
I understand science just fine thanks. It seems to be you who has difficulty accepting that science does not have all the answers. [/quote]
Pretty much. I’ve already said everything that would be needed to assure an intellectual individual, and I see no point in “arguing” with someone that can’t even properly structure their sentences. Science does not have all the answers, but it is the best shot. To say there is no such thing as a best method is to say science does not exist. That is what science is. How have we come so far in our understanding of engineering, biology, or medicine? Yes nothing works 100% of the time, but there will always be something that is most optimal for most situations. That’s how we build bridges and cure disease.
That’s the interesting thing, gswork. One study demonstrated on a CNS fatigued individual (who could not voluntarily lift the same weight as before), could still move the same weight when his muscles were electrically induced. So even while getting weaker, protein synthesis can continue to occur.
Measuring protein synthesis tells us nothing about any actual or potential adaptation to the workout. Hypertrophy (excluding the pump effect of glycogen/water, sarcoplasmic growth, whatever)often occurs sporadically and unpredictably (and during sleep; nor sure to what extent). Protein synthesis post-workout is firstly a process of recovery to replace proteins burned during the workout, and I doubt how much it is indicative of muscle growth stimulation. Since post-workout protein synthesis is always significantly elevated, like clockwork, you would expect all gym goers to be growing like weeds. Of course only the minority are ever routinely successful in obtaining consistent muscle growth.
There you go. Just to consider post-workout protein synthesis violates the principle of progressive overload. Consistent muscle growth is performance-dependent. It depends on (cyclical or workout to workout) complete recovery of the CNS, PNS, myofibrils and connective tissue.
Measuring protein synthesis tells us nothing about any actual or potential adaptation to the workout. Hypertrophy (not the pump effect of glycogen/water, sarcoplasmic growth, whatever) often occurs sporadically and unpredictably (and during sleep; not sure to what extent). Protein synthesis post-workout is firstly a process of recovery to replace proteins burned during the workout, and I doubt how much it is indicative of muscle growth stimulation. Since post-workout protein synthesis is always significantly elevated, like clockwork, you would expect all gym goers to be growing like weeds. Of course only the minority are ever routinely successful in obtaining consistent muscle growth.
[quote] DAVE101 wrote:
That’s the interesting thing, gswork. One study demonstrated on a CNS fatigued individual (who could not voluntarily lift the same weight as before), could still move the same weight when his muscles were electrically induced. So even while getting weaker, protein synthesis can continue to occur. [/quote]
There you go. To just consider protein synthesis violates the principle of progressive overload. Building muscle consistently is performance-dependent. It depends on routinely (whether cyclical or workout to workout) allowing for complete recovery of the CNS, PNS, myofibrils and connective tissue.
That’s why olympic lifters who squat everyday have small and weak legs…
Or why gymnasts who do tons of pull-up and dip variations every day have small and weak lats, biceps and triceps…
Oh wait… they don’t!
I always had my best gains when training a muscle or movement pattern frequentely. For example when I went to Biotest’s HQ a few months back my best snatch-grip high pull (pulling the bar explosively above nipple line) was 125kg (275lbs)… and it had been at that level for a fairly long time.
In 3 weeks in Colorado I got it up to 180kg (396lbs) that’s explosively pulling a barbell above the nipple line… how? By doing high pull variations every single day! In fact all I did for exercises during those 3 weeks were explosive pull variations and bench press variations. During that time my bench also went from 380 to 425, but I only trained it 3 times a week, versus 5-6 for the high pull.
During that time my bodyweight went from 217 up to a high of 231 (it wasn’t all muscle, at 231 I didn’t feel too well, in a week I dropped some water and went down to 225)
Is that a program I would recommend? No, it was done for a specific purpose (shooting an impressive high pull video). But it does illustrate that you can train, grow and get stronger without having for the end of the protein synthesis increase.
Furthermore other studies have found that training a muscle before the enhance protein synthesis was over did not negatively alter the protein synthesis and even increased it.
[quote]DAVE101 wrote:
If science indicates one way as the best to train, how does that mean it won’t provide the best gains? If it doesn’t, than it wouldn’t point to it in the first place.
[/quote]
Maybe you just worded this poorly, but do you honestly believe there could be a ONE BEST WAY to train? Shit, go look at Jamie Lewis’ blog posts where he outlines different routines used by the top lifters of each the squat, deadlift, and bench press. Most of them are all pretty freaking different.
[quote]
However, we should always take results from research with a grain of salt and always be a little skeptical. This is how we’re able to refine what we know.[/quote]
You start by supporting science and then say we should take research results with a grain of salt? What exactly are you supporting?
[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
Train and eat for your goals and train and eat the way you enjoy. This endeavor should enhance your life [/quote]
This.
Yes there will be guidelines, rules that are less breakable, and rules that are more breakable, but if a person truly likes to lift they should be able to make something flexible enough that they still look forward to hitting the gym and can make good progress.
Unless the way they like to lift is trips to the water fountain and textin’ their bro while 'mirin their guns.
Sutebun, your question is a little vague. For a particular circumstance, yes, there has to be one way to train that will yield better results than anything else. Clearly that can’t be applied universally; a baseball pitcher is not going to train the same as a rower or a figure athlete. If you change the goal, diet, age, stress level, fiber type distribution, heck even limb length, then it is no longer the same circumstance. To get more within the context of your question, I meant people with similar goals should train more similarly. If the goal is hypertrophy, than it really narrows down the optimal training regimens. Would you agree?
From another point of view, imagine we ran an experiment where we test each program with subjects n=â??. Clearly, one routine is going to be the winner. So wouldn’t that be the best way to train, or at the least, the best starting point? How about the biological perspective? Humans are 99.9% genetically similar, so why shouldn’t 99.9% of our TRAINING be the same (if we have the same goal, diet, stress, etc). The fact that we lift heavy weights for moderate reps a couple times a week already makes our training 95% similar.
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
You start by supporting science and then say we should take research results with a grain of salt? What exactly are you supporting?
[/quote]
Yes. Science over anecdotal evidence. Skepticism over blind obedience.
I can see why you’re asking, but these are not two of the same. Science is a method of obtaining knowledge. Research results can sometimes be flawed. A single study on a small group tells us nothing. Repeated double-blind studies on very large random samples will tell us a lot more.
[quote]DAVE101 wrote:
From another point of view, imagine we ran an experiment where we test each program with subjects n=â??. Clearly, one routine is going to be the winner. So wouldn’t that be the best way to train, or at the least, the best starting point? How about the biological perspective? Humans are 99.9% genetically similar, so why shouldn’t 99.9% of our TRAINING be the same (if we have the same goal, diet, stress, etc). The fact that we lift heavy weights for moderate reps a couple times a week already makes our training 95% similar.
In regards to the findings of any scientific study that use statistical methods to analyze data and come to a conclusion the results will never be clear in terms of application to individuals NOT included in the study.
When researchers undertake statistical analysis to come to a conclusion these results are presented a range of probabilities (p values, confidence interals, etc) …now here is the important bit…for the STUDY POPULATION
Now the study population is generally described by summary statistics of their demographics, mean age, weight, etc. So if you have a protein synthesis study group of 8 individuals with 4 females, 4 males the average number of testicles and ovaries should be 1 each, therefore we can say the results and conclusion are statistically significant for a POPULATION which has 1 ovary and 1 testicle on average.
Lets take it further, what if in our hypothetical study we found that in the four men protein synthesis finished on average at 24 hours and in the four women the average was 72 hours and the average for all eight subjects was 48 hours, should all men still train every 48 hours because that is the result presented in the study? Male and Female subgroups are very broad divisions but this logic applied the an infinite number of our variables which we may or may not measure. From your post your counter argument to this might be humans are 99.9% genetically similar?
The statement that humans are 99.9% genetically similar does not concur with the variability seen in physiological function. Lets use the original topic of this thread as an example. Maybe someone from protein synthesis research world can provide a better idea of the natural variation in protein synthesis is however after doing an online search for protein synthesis 48 hours as suggested by gsworks original post i think the article the poster is referring to is by Phillips et al (1997), In this paper the between subject variability appears to around 10-15% (% coefficient of variation) for there surrogate urinary measures for protein metabolism (creatine, urea, etc). To me this is a large amount of variability and must be considered when extrapolating the results of a study to a broader population, in short you can’t ignore variability just because you got a significant p value.
To me I think the key to understanding this whole debate is having a grasp of internal and external validity of a study, it is these characteristics that really determine how broadly the results of a study can be applied. This is particularly important as natural variation between individuals makes it hard to extrapolate study findings across the entire general population even if they have the same goal, ie hypertrophy, strength, etc
[quote]Dave wrote:
How about the biological perspective? Humans are 99.9% genetically similar, so why shouldn’t 99.9% of our TRAINING be the same (if we have the same goal, diet, stress, etc). The fact that we lift heavy weights for moderate reps a couple times a week already makes our training 95% similar.[/quote]
THe DNA stuff is bullshit. Shall we try to use a training methodology 95% similar to chimpanzees?
And obviously our training is already similar since we are all lifting barbells and dumbells and/or putting stress on our bodies via machines. But that is a very shallow way to look at it, especially as enthusiasts who enjoy the activity. It’s akin to saying:
“the fact is that all English books span several pages in length and are filled with English words and punctation. That makes all books 50% similar.” What.The.Fuck.
Also my own opinion is that our training should be very individualized. We are NOT 99% the same. We have different leverages and body compositions. Even more important, we have different motor patterns and habits - perhaps some good, perhaps some bad- that we have spent years building. As you say, our goals may be the same, but the problems we have to solve are different.
I’ll concede that if we take two college football players who played sports teams all the way up to college and were very athletical, it’s likely that their training doesn’t have very different needs.
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
You start by supporting science and then say we should take research results with a grain of salt? What exactly are you supporting?
[/quote]
Yes. Science over anecdotal evidence. Skepticism over blind obedience.
[/quote]
I don’t think anyone is in support of blind obedience.
This is getting off track, so I’d like to respond to your original post:
And you spoke for yourself. The reason why we waste time talking about people who could only put in 75% is because they are out there. Hell, I have a friend who can’t really take interest in sports unless he can participate in a class or have other friends to do it with in a social setting (LOL, almost the antithesis of most lifting?)
No one is trying to say that we should do “crappy” training. No one is trying to say that results or progress don’t matter and that science should be ignored. On the contrary, I think the other guys are preaching to have a more open mind towards training and what is optimal, and that you have a shallow way of looking at this. As far as what’s optimal, there’s lots of things to consider:
Enjoyment isn’t just about how you feel during the workout (maybe that is what you are thinking?)
How we enjoy our training and what we need to satisfy our needs are different, but if someone isn’t enjoying their training then they’re less likely to see results.
[quote]jeberson wrote:
should all men still train every 48 hours because that is the result presented in the study? [/quote]
LOL I call that crappy application of poor research.
Otherwise, good points. You started off debating me, but we ended up having a lot of the same points. You absolutely must know when you can and can’t apply results from research. Hence, take with a grain of salt 
Sutebun, the book analogy doesn’t really work. A more fitting one would be "all Psychology textbooks are 95% similar. Think about it though, almost every bodybuilding routine calls for repeated bouts of putting muscles under tension for 20-60s with a load 60-90% of what we can handle. High volume and high frequency routines aren’t that different. At the end of the week, the total TUT will have been very similar. Barbells or Dumbbells?
Our muscles don’t know the difference (aside from the slight mechanical differences), all they know is tension and load. Sets and reps are a means to an end, as evidenced by all the weird schemes of partials, rest pause, etc. I know you’re being sarcastic with the Chimp analogy, but honest question: how would YOU have them train? Would you not start from a tried and trusted human routine and work from there? We’re talking about skeletal muscle here, their mTOR is the same as our mTOR.
I should probably end this rant, but I’ll end by saying there’s something that’s got to be “most optimal” for “most people,” and that should serve as a starting point on the continuum as we try to move closer and closer to what’s best for the individual.
[quote]jeberson wrote:
should all men still train every 48 hours because that is the result presented in the study? [/quote]
LOL I call that crappy application of poor research.
Otherwise, good points. You started off debating me, but we ended up having a lot of the same points. You absolutely must know when you can and can’t apply results from research. Hence, take with a grain of salt
[quote]
Not trying to debate rather putting my thoughts out and trying to see you point of view and yes we have a many similar thoughts. That said reading your post I felt some of it came across as we should just follow study result blindly however I can see from you latest post you realize how important appropriate application is. NB. The hypothetical study example to get readers of my post thinking about blinding quoting/following studies because they can google and get links to pubmed
[quote]
I should probably end this rant, but I’ll end by saying there’s something that’s got to be “most optimal” for “most people,” and that should serve as a starting point on the continuum as we try to move closer and closer to what’s best for the individual. [/quote]
[quote]
This really all depends on how broadly you define most optimal, most people and starting point for a particular goal. If each are defined very broadly we can probably get away with a broad definition of optimal training (eg for BB/hypterophy purposes) similar to what you said in your post about repeated bouts of time under tension.
I think there is plenty of research out there to support the very global aspects of what training should look like (ie we need to provide stimulation to which muscle tissue can adapt, a positive energy balance optimizes hypertrophy, etc), where I think the research is lacking understanding co-variate relationships between the trainees and results, this is the important information in regards to moving on the continuum from a population starting to individualizing training.
Something I would challenge is that larger randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are what is needed to find what is the most optimal, better still most sufficient for a population. RCTs are great if you exactly match the population studied. However RCTs typically do a bad job of defining co-variate relationships as the large majority are designed to show superiority or non-inferiority of one treatment in respect to another, not what factors contribute to this. Additionally the larger a study gets the greater its ability (power) to detect smaller difference between two treatments increases, too large of a sample can lead to the study being overpowered → increasing the proverbial grain of salt that result should be taken with.
My rant over.
[quote]DAVE101 wrote:
If science indicates one way as the best to train, how does that mean it won’t provide the best gains? If it doesn’t, than it wouldn’t point to it in the first place.
[/quote]
Well, with all respect, I believe this sentiment comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works in the first place, which your very first sentence points towards.
Let me ask you a simple question: why, if your first sentence is true, did it take science nearly 40 YEARS to come to the conclusion that using steroids improved muscle and strength? Because that’s what happened. There were literally dozens and dozens of studies saying that administering steroids to athletes or bodybuilders didn’t “work”, or in other words science pointed towards the exact opposite of what we know reality to be. For decades.
You need to realize that a vast amount, I mean an absolutely mindboggling amount of “science”–peer reviewed, top level stuff–is just dead wrong. It gets revised later, rejected later, but the point is that not everything that science points to “in the moment” so to speak is a) extremely context sensitive and b) extremely prone to be wrong in some way, minor or even major. Hell there were people in the early 1900s still experimentally trying to verify the “ether”, which obviously didn’t exist. And they taught at universities.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with the rest of your post–especially regarding hill sprints (some people enjoy doing something they believe is “optimal” even if it sucks and some people enjoy doing something they find “fun”, but yeah). But this is what gets a lot of people into trouble when they start quoting studies. And it works both ways as well.
One of the reasons to take science articles with a grain of salt is because often times the researchers know absolute fuck-all about building an effective routine for the goals of the study (size/power/strength/whatever), and because the sample pools are not applicable to hard training individuals. It can also be that it is simply too hard to control a study/lack of funds to do what’s needed to properly control a complex study…so they end up grossly simplifying the original parameters.
You also need to keep in mind in reading this reply that I AM a fan of frequent training of a movement/muscle, much like CT who is one of my big influences. So I am not saying that a muscle 1x weekly routine is better than frequent training, if you were to do that it would be a straw man argument.
A lift performed relatively slowly that minimises momentum- where slowly includes the absolute maximum effort to move the bar quickly on the last possible rep- thus stressing the muscles heavily throughout full ROM, and maximally if the negative is emphasised or more heavily loaded, is going to place a greater local and systemic recovery demand (more microtrauma, more neural fatigue from activating more fibres) than a high-skill explosive lift that employs momentum and thus stresses heavily only those muscle fibres involved in the explosive phase/s of the lift.
Practising high-skill lifts such as the Olympic lifts every day- and eliminating the negative (dropping the weight instead) thus minimising microtrauma- while avoiding failure is quite opposite to doing heavy, more evenly paced lifts to failure that depend less on technique and more on brute force, requiring significantly more recovery time, especially in the case of working to negative failure thus causing the highest degrees of microtrauma, which may take one, two or even more weeks of rest for the pre-workout force capacity of the muscle to be recovered let alone improved upon.
To make the blanket statement that muscles are good to go again in 48 hours and that everyone should train high frequency is to ignore numerous local and systemic recovery factors- not to mention the differences in fibre types of muscles and of individuals’ general max strength-anaerobic endurance ratios, the faster-twitch muscles and max-strength advantaged individuals generally fatiguing more easily and requiring more recovery; and the differences in individuals’ general recovery ability, which tends to diminish as individuals learn the skill of training intensely and become strong enough to place greater demands on the body’s support systems and CNS.