Have they ever discussed a two day/week variation and if so, what’s preferable? I’ve seen two mentioned. One as a push/pull grouping chest/shoulders/calves/quads and biceps/lats/traps/hams; the other as simply doing the two way and dropping the third workout of the week.
Dante has most guys doing exactly what I do with the coaching group I work with on Facebook.
Chest, shoulder, triceps
Back, biceps
Legs
This also gave advanced guys more wiggle room for specialization. Where with the 2 way split it did not.
Also, Dante doesn’t do beginner and intermediate routines. Why would he? He works with very advanced level guys. Beginner and intermediate guys just need to do really basic shit.
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Who is this Barbalho character? I’m guessing he’s not affiliated with Israetel and Schoenfeld.
You were previously saying that 8-12 sets per week was more or less optimal for most people, would you change your stance based on this study or what are your thoughts?
The only remaining question, since there are plenty of claims that 2x/week per muscle group is better than 1x, is how that would actually work out with 5 sets per muscle group per exercise. In fact, they already have a 1x/week group so all they would need to do is run the same program twice a week with another group and compare results. Of course a PPL split 6 days a week isn’t practical for most people, but it would be interesting to see how it goes.
Since getting into this thread and starting a new training cycle I have slightly reduced the number of sets I do and increased effort per set, but now I’m thinking that maybe I should cut back a bit more. Mostly for upper body pressing stuff, since I don’t do a ton of upper back work and I already figured out that I make better gains on lower body stuff with lower volume. If you can literally make better progress with less work then why the hell would you do more?
I don’t remember ever seeing that discussion taking place. Two way could work as deadlifts are considered a back thickness exercise.
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I still think that 8-12 is going to be the right range. Less than 8 might be more optimal depending on level of experience and life stress for that person.
Barbhalo works with James Steele usually. I think you’d like their work. They make the subjects actually train hard and put together practical programs that could be used in the real world.
As far as the training a muscle 1x a week vs 2x a week, the results have been GROSSLY overstated. I mean grossly. The difference isn’t huge. And anecdotally there’s been far more muscle built on bro splits, working a muscle once a week, than working a muscle twice a week. So there’s that too.
Go ahead and cut back and see what happens. I’m in week 3 with my coaching group right now and they are all crushing PR’s as the fat is coming off. And they are using very low volume protocols. To the tune of around 4 sets a week per bodypart.
Guys just need to get their head around this whole volume and frequency thing.
I’m going to be running DC original with a calorie surplus for the next year in the hope to get big (bigger than I am now at least).
So in a year we shall see if this holds true.
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The problem is that there’s too much conflicting information, and the “evidence-based” guys are all singing the same song and have so many people on their side. Hopefully the word will get out about Barbalho’s work. Although I looked up a few of the evidence-based clowns on Facebook and nobody is mentioning this study at all, unlike how they all simultaneously promote each others studies when one is published. It looks like they want to ignore evidence (and this is about as solid as it gets) that contradicts their claims, which isn’t a surprise at all.
What evidence based guys?
Brad? Mike? Eric Helms? Nuckols?
Outside of Mike do any of those guys look jacked at all? Who have they actually produced with a training system? I mean with any significant amount of muscle that didn’t have any before?
I’ve got a long list of clients, including IFBB pros, that are bigger now than they were before they worked with me. Does Brad have a system that has produced a bunch of mass monsters? Eric? Nuckols?
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Yeah, those guys and Krieger.
None of the others even look like they lift. Nuckols used to be strong, but it looks like he quit lifting. Eric Helms is part of this 3dmj thing, they coach some natural bodybuilders, not sure who they deal with but on the PL side he coaches Bryce Lewis so maybe he has something going for him. I also heard him say on multiple occasions that as far as volume his recommendation is the minimal effective dose (unlike MRV Israetel) so maybe he’s not too far off target, but judging by who he associates with I would take his advice with a grain of salt.
Paul,
In your opinion, would you prefer doing push/pull/legs lifting 3 days a week or rolling it over and doing 4 days of lifting if gaining size was the goal?
I know you say it’s minimal difference, but curious if you had a preference.
It’s a big thread so I’m not sure if you’ve seen it all, but he currently does PPL on a 4 day a week split (so one of them gets trained twice a week)
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Curious if the information on this thread is applicable to those whose main focus is on athletic performance and looking jacked is a secondary or tertiary priority. I have found that if I follow a Jim Wendler program or a Dan John program, which involve submaximal work and mixtures of barbell and bodyweight in a given routine, I feel ready to compete, sleep well, and feel great throughout the day. If I follow a program based on intensifiers like drop sets, mTorr reps, etc…, I start to feel my competitiveness and even interest in sports wane.
So, for those not looking for the BBer look, is there any benefit of training in ways laid out in this thread?
I think Wendler’s principals of setting rep PRs, starting with a low TM, and progressing slowly fit perfectly in line with what Paul has stated here. I have run something similar to Paul’s 8-12-8 system during bjj training as well as hockey season and found it did not interfere at all. I kept muscle l, continued to set rep PRs, and performed well in my sport.
All of those guys look better than 80 percent of my city’s population lol. I guess 'jacked" is subjective. I also thought that a person’s appearance is dictated by diet, just as much as training.
I don’t agree. Both methods obviously work and both coaches know what they’re doing, but with 531 you are doing lots of reps of 5 with sub- maximal weights, and supplementing it with assistance that is not pushed anywhere close to failure and is more about “getting in the reps”. I do well with this type of training, but my goals are not necessarily about getting as jacked as possible. If you consider the examples of workouts Paul has given in this thread, they look nothing like a 531 workout in setup or principles, but obviously work well for his goals and his clients.
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This reminded me of this article that Jim put
Out. It’s literally a combo of his training methods with high intensity implemented via rest pause.
I can’t rememeber if it was in his 5/3/1 for
Powerlifting or beyond 5/3/1 book but he had some FSL programs that went to failure on the drop set as well as the top set. Of course every set for every movement wasn’t said to go to failure but honestly I did that for a while due to time restrictions and got stronger and gained quite a bit of muscle in the process.
This is anecdotal of course and just my experience.
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Eric as part of 3DMJ hundreds if not thousands of natural pros. RPstrength coaching/physique templates based on Mikes/Jared training methods same thing. Evidence in their instagram.
No system is producing mass monsters unless the system includes drugs.
So, something I’m trying to wrap my head around, two things actually, somewhat tied.
First one, if I got it right - it’s been established that beginners and, say, early intermediates don’t really need intensification techniques.
Best approach is to simply push the working sets, pound after pound and rep after rep.
A beginner has no place doing dropsets, rest pause, forced reps and similar stuff because (A) their base is not yet solid enough to generate intenisty with such techniques and (B) they don’t need them anyway to make solid and steady progress.
Correct?
Second thing is - once intensification techniques are added, doesn’t the body adapt to those too? I’m thinking about something like DoggCrapp that has rest pause as a cornerstone, doing cycle after cycle focusing on rest pause shouldn’t produce adaptation to that kind of training, because diminishing returns etc?
Not that I’m anywhere close to train like that, but trying to figure out if people who follow HIT-style training always do the same technique(s) in blocks, if they rotate from block to block or whatelse
You rotate through different techniques as you advance. First, because the same shit is not only boring, but mentalky tough as you get strong. Rest pause is one of Paul’s cornerstones because it’s goal oriented. So you better be game to hit better numbers. This can beat you down, so you move to something else to change the stress both physiologically and mentally. I do anyway. Lastly, beginners can use intensification techniques, we just day no because frankly most people truly will not push hard. If you can’t push it to a 10, how do create the stimulus? Sets across. Now you have beginner and advanced programs to sell.
This is not true. And lots of the RP before and after are about diet.
Second, as already noted, DC has turned lots of natural guys into really big and jacked dudes.
Dante even made a joke about how as soon as a system starts producing a lot of muscle the twats of the internet lifting world start screaming how they are all on the sauce.
Except that I hit 250+ pounds totally natural doing DC. So there’s that.