Question to You Guys: What Do You THINK is the Main Driver for Muscle Growth?

@Paul_Carter, I have a nutritional question for you. I see people talk about increasing their calories the day after a tough workout as a way to combat DOMs. They’re already sore and think the boost in nutrition will help.

Is this effective? Is there anything (food or supplement) that will help with soreness once it’s set in?

I try not to inflict the type of soreness that makes it tough to sit on the toilet but it seems to happen to all of us occasionally - especially after a break from training.

I’m not Paul and I could be wrong, but that doesn’t sound right to me at all. Increasing calories on non-training days is a good way to get fat. Active recovery stuff like stretching, taking a walk, some light cardio, can help with DOMS.

Carbs around the workout (I don’t really know if there is a magical difference between pre/ intra/ post) does make a difference in soreness for me. Carbs pre or intra does make a difference in how I perform that day, so that’s where I err for bang for buck. Pre if later in the day; intra when I lift in the morning.

Nothing nutrition-wise matters for me the day after, but getting blood in the muscle does (like stationary bike).

Not that you were asking for my opinion, but I happened to be on and apparently I love to type on here instead of do my actual work.

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Honestly that’s really…dumb.

The inflammatory response has already happened. Some people do increase their protein intake on non training days because theoretically MPS is reaches a peak at about 24 hours post training. But I believe it’s most irrelevant if you’re getting in the 1 gram per pound ratio.

But as for your question, soreness is an inflammatory response to training so it’s immune system related. I do think that having carb so bring down cortisol can help SOME PEOPLE with reducing DOMS quite a bit if they are used in the peri and post workout window (perhaps even in the pre as well). But as far as the day after nutrition to bring down DOMS? That’s silly.

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That’s what I always thought, but I seem to see people regularly talk about having crippling DOMs and boosting food intake to help (or advising others to do it). It’s never made sense to me, but I thought I’d ask someone with more experience.

I’ve always thought nutrition around the workout and being smart enough to not overdo it were the keys to avoiding that type of soreness.

Paul, what do you think about this training approach from Ellington Darden or do you have some experience with it? Thanks

14lbs of muscle gained in 14 days! Only training 1 day per week!
I think it is a great program, just look at the progress photos for example of gains.
14lbs of muscle in your face can be had in just 2 weeks!
image

Sorry for the sarcastic comments, Paul you can bring your actual thoughts on this extension method if you feel the need, but I skimmed the article this morning and it was difficult since I kept rolling my eyes.

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A pound of muscle a day. And this guy’s a PhD?

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These are EXACTLY the type programs (outlandish claims disguised as blatant sales pitches) that can make things so difficult for beginners. Looking back at my 16 year old self with nobody to guide me, I would have been all over this. Go figure, that’s exactly the target age range Darden references in his article.

Thanks to this thread, I know the type of programs I will be putting my 3 sons on when they become old enough to start lifting.

Ok, not taking into account actual figures in the article( which I believe we all share the same opinion as hardly or impossibly achieveble) , just the effectiveness of this training strategy. At least for some limited time…

lol. The guy in the pic looks like a real gym bro/rat

Why does T nation allow this bullshit on here?

Come on man. That should be obvious. There were a couple of supplement references snuck in the article.

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There always is. But this article takes the piss tbh. Its very articles like this that fill gyms up with bros.

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From what I understand, and my own experience, if you haven’t trained in a while or are doing some new exercises you are likely to get much more sore after the first few workouts because it is basically a shock to your system and you get more inflammation and muscle damage. There is something called the Repeated Bout Effect (RBE), which has to do with the fact that each time you do the same exercise you take on less muscle damage (hence less soreness) than before. However, at some point you also get less of a training stimulus which is why changing exercises and rep ranges is useful to keep making progress.

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Oh, shut up. Both of you.

Time and time again, I’ve pointed out that about 15-20% of T Nation articles contain links… which means 80-85% contains none.

If you’re going to talk, talk facts. And the fact is, the very tired “supplement plug” cry is straight-up bullshit shared by people who literally do not know what they’re talking about.

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With that said, I’ll drop a reminder that this thread is not a catch-all Ask Paul Random Questions thread.

If anyone’s not interested in discussing the original topic, they can go. It’d suck to have to lock this legit thread for getting hijacked.

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Look. I don’t care about the supplements, I care about the quality of the articles and this article, is not quality. If I post something like that article on this forum, then I would be told to read the stickies and educate myself on training fundamentals. So why is this any different? Fair enough, its a slight thread hi jack, but this article was posted here, and I am pointing out that its an article that does not belong.

Surely Chris, you can understand that?

If this addressed to me, I apologize Chris.
This training method is low frequency, low volume, very high effort type, pretty much everything this topic is discussing, so I wanted to know Paul’s opinion. Once again, not taking into account figures mentioned in the article, just the relative effectivenes of training method.

That would be great but, I do not think that is the goal of the thread. I brought up a few things in my first post, one of which is that Mike I does not recommend you start with high volume in fact quite the opposite that you should start with the lowest volume and milk it for as long as possible and that those recommendations are for people looking to compete, and/or get as bid as possible.

The response was to ride his “disco stick”. Others have been accused of trolling without looking at the content of their posts i.e Stu. Is discussion is not wanted simply people to listen and take everything Paul States as fact.

Then you probably shouldn’t have led your other reply by agreeing with the other dude about the supplement references because it lumps you together.

And you’re mistaken there. Darden knows his shit and has been in the game longer than many members here, myself included, have been alive.

Thing is, he does things differently than a lot of use are “used to”. He’s a HIT trainer, having worked with Jones himself I believe, he generally advocates slower tempos as opposed to heavy load-focused lifting, I’ve seen him suggest high-carb/low-fat diets to get lean. His stuff goes against the grain, but it works.

Are the claims in the article wild? Yep. Do his clients in the article look like they got results? I think so if you see what they’re actually claiming. Publishing training programs is kinda crazy. You put out the info on its own and you’re hit with, “But does it really work? Is it just for geared lifters? Can natties do that too?” You put out the info with testimonials and you’re hit with, “Didn’t really happen. The numbers are wrong. Must’ve juiced. It’s just beginner gains.” Talk about no-win situation.

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