Training Before Muscle Recovery?

i read this in the article “30 Mass Plan”

"Without getting too far off track, I’ll say that if your goal is hypertrophy, then you should train a muscle group before it’s recovered, thus thumbing your nose at the following dogmatic definition of recovery: “A muscle is recovered once soreness subsides and performance is enhanced.”

so does that mean training the same muscles 2 days in a row would be optimal? say you do chest and tri’s on monday, according to this “training before your muscle is recovered” concept would it be a good idea to train the chest and tris again on tuesday?

According to that theory, yes.

Now whether that theory is correct or not is another question.

This is on which is based the Dual Factor Theory. By this method, you are accumulating fatigue progressively throughout 3-4 weeks, so on every workout you are more fatiged than the previous,

this is the reason why at the final of the 3-4 weeks you reach overtraining (or almost) ant, at this time, you slow the volume, intensity, frequency, or a mixture of the three, allowing you body to supercompensation (getting stronger/bigger).

so this method of training wouldnt be something you do for prolonged periods of times then? if you can only train that way for 3-4 weeks how long should you go cycling off that style? something like 3weeks double training, 1 week 1day on/off training, 3weeks double, etc etc?

[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
so this method of training wouldnt be something you do for prolonged periods of times then? if you can only train that way for 3-4 weeks how long should you go cycling off that style? something like 3weeks double training, 1 week 1day on/off training, 3weeks double, etc etc?[/quote]

And therein lies one of the biggest problems I see these days concerning training; over complication. Seriously, when did one need to be a quantum physicist to be able to build some muscle?

Live,

You quoted CW’s “30 Day Mass Plan” article, yet the above question seems to suggest that you didn’t read the entire article. The answer to that question is in the article itself.

Don’t make the mistake that it seems like a lot of people around here are making lately, “paralysis by analysis”. Building muscle isn’t as complicated as it is often made out to be.

Here, I’m going to give you a simple formula for building muscle. You can plug this formula into any program that you want (full body, splits, low frequency, high frequency, low intensity, high intensity, etc…). And, if any program is lacking in the following equation it will produce suboptimal results (at best).

Building muscle = Progressive overload + Caloric Surplus + Adequate Rest and Recovery

Progressive overload means lifting more weight or the same weight for more reps each and every time you hit the gym (for the same exercise). If you’re not beating your last performance, then your body doesn’t have any reason to supercompensate (build muscle). I don’t care how much you confuse the muscle, or how many different rep ranges you use, or whatever.

Caloric surplus means that if you’re not eating enough to allow for mass gains, no program in the world is going to be some sort of magic bullet that will get you to your goals. Diet is especially key for “naturally” ectomorphic individuals. In other words, if you’ve “always been lean, but small” then you’d better believe that the primary problem is most likely your diet, not your training.

Adequate rest and recovery should be pretty self explanatory, but I’ll touch on them briefly anyhow. Now, this is one area where you see a lot of conflicting ideas. Some people (like CW) suggest that one not allow for complete recovery and try to build up cumulative fatigue. Then once an adequate amount of cumulative fatigue has been accumulated, one should rest completely and allow for complete recovery (which hopefully will lead to a supercompensation effect).

Other people will suggest that you shouldn’t train the same muscle again until complete recovery and supercompensation have occurred. The definition of recovery that CW suggested you “thumb your now at” is the same one supported by this group.

The thing is, there have been many more people through out history that have followed the second approach and achieved noteworthy physiques than there have been who followed the “planned overtraining” approach that CW supports. Does that mean that one is necessarily better than the other? No. It just means that one is more time tested and proven.

In the end which ever you choose just make sure that you apply the formula that I stated above. This may however cause you to realize that one approach is better than the other FOR YOU. I capitalized that for a reason. Bodybuilding/building muscle is an individual activity, and due to this different people will respond differently to the same program. Finding out what you respond best to can be a bit of a challenge, but it’s also necessary.

Hope this helps.

Good training,

Sentoguy

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
so this method of training wouldnt be something you do for prolonged periods of times then? if you can only train that way for 3-4 weeks how long should you go cycling off that style? something like 3weeks double training, 1 week 1day on/off training, 3weeks double, etc etc?

And therein lies one of the biggest problems I see these days concerning training; over complication. Seriously, when did one need to be a quantum physicist to be able to build some muscle?

Live,

You quoted CW’s “30 Day Mass Plan” article, yet the above question seems to suggest that you didn’t read the entire article. The answer to that question is in the article itself.

Don’t make the mistake that it seems like a lot of people around here are making lately, “paralysis by analysis”. Building muscle isn’t as complicated as it is often made out to be.

Here, I’m going to give you a simple formula for building muscle. You can plug this formula into any program that you want (full body, splits, low frequency, high frequency, low intensity, high intensity, etc…). And, if any program is lacking in the following equation it will produce suboptimal results (at best).

Building muscle = Progressive overload + Caloric Surplus + Adequate Rest and Recovery

Progressive overload means lifting more weight or the same weight for more reps each and every time you hit the gym (for the same exercise). If you’re not beating your last performance, then your body doesn’t have any reason to supercompensate (build muscle). I don’t care how much you confuse the muscle, or how many different rep ranges you use, or whatever.

Caloric surplus means that if you’re not eating enough to allow for mass gains, no program in the world is going to be some sort of magic bullet that will get you to your goals. Diet is especially key for “naturally” ectomorphic individuals. In other words, if you’ve “always been lean, but small” then you’d better believe that the primary problem is most likely your diet, not your training.

Adequate rest and recovery should be pretty self explanatory, but I’ll touch on them briefly anyhow. Now, this is one area where you see a lot of conflicting ideas. Some people (like CW) suggest that one not allow for complete recovery and try to build up cumulative fatigue. Then once an adequate amount of cumulative fatigue has been accumulated, one should rest completely and allow for complete recovery (which hopefully will lead to a supercompensation effect).

Other people will suggest that you shouldn’t train the same muscle again until complete recovery and supercompensation have occurred. The definition of recovery that CW suggested you “thumb your now at” is the same one supported by this group.

The thing is, there have been many more people through out history that have followed the second approach and achieved noteworthy physiques than there have been who followed the “planned overtraining” approach that CW supports. Does that mean that one is necessarily better than the other? No. It just means that one is more time tested and proven.

In the end which ever you choose just make sure that you apply the formula that I stated above. This may however cause you to realize that one approach is better than the other FOR YOU. I capitalized that for a reason. Bodybuilding/building muscle is an individual activity, and due to this different people will respond differently to the same program. Finding out what you respond best to can be a bit of a challenge, but it’s also necessary.

Hope this helps.

Good training,

Sentoguy[/quote]

The Dual Factor Theory has been proven by strenght athletes, olimpics, powerlifters, etc. and it has shown that it works. The problem is that by many years bodybuilders has been the only sportsmen that didn’t plan his training.

This doesn’t mean that de One Factor Theory (accumulate fatige in one workout, then supercompensate, then accumulate, supercompensate…) doesn’t work, only that the Dual Factor could be better.

In addition, with the higher frequency of Dual Factor it’s easiest to gain strenght, making easiest to follow the principle of overload that you shown above.

What looks good on paper doesn’t always pan out in the gym. Spanish Barbell you seem like a smart person from the posts of yours I’ve read however if 10,000 bodybuilders before have shown that one factor training can turn you into a tank and I can’t name one that does dual factor, then I’m sticking with ol’ tried and true till someone shows me what I’m missing. I like my training simple and something I can believe in, not that I need an engineering and a biochemistry degree to understand.

well it seems good in theory so might aswell give it a try.

[quote]scottiscool wrote:
What looks good on paper doesn’t always pan out in the gym. Spanish Barbell you seem like a smart person from the posts of yours I’ve read however if 10,000 bodybuilders before have shown that one factor training can turn you into a tank and I can’t name one that does dual factor, then I’m sticking with ol’ tried and true till someone shows me what I’m missing. I like my training simple and something I can believe in, not that I need an engineering and a biochemistry degree to understand.[/quote]

Good post Scott.

Spanish,

You might be right that dual factor theory works great for athletes like powerlifters, olympic lifters, etc… But then their primary goal isn’t muscle mass (although their training does build some).

The problem is that in the quote Live posted it says “if your primary goal is hypertrophy…” That’s what myself and Scott are arguing against. If your primary goal were performance then ok, maybe I’d buy it. But for hypertrophy, sorry but like Scott says above, there are literally tens of thousands of people who have built impressive physiques using one factor theory.

I’ve never heard of any bodybuilder who has used dual factor theory to build their physique. And what’s also interesting is that seemingly, neither has CW, since he never posts any pictures of bodybuilders and says “this is so and so, they’ve used my methods and look how hyooge they got” or even mentions any in his text.

The closest thing I’ve ever seen was him mentioning that Arnold used high frequency training to bring up his lagging calves and his left bicep. Now, whether or not this is true, who knows. CW seems like a smart guy so it would make sense that he would have done his research before writing something like that.

But, the thing is Arnold didn’t build his biceps using a super high frequency approach. And had that super high frequency approach really worked as well as CW claims, then don’t you think that Arnold would have applied it to all his body parts and would have adapted his training from there on out to incorporate it? Yet, he didn’t. Why?

Once again, am I arguing that dual factor theory doesn’t work? No. But am I suggesting that it’s probably not the best approach if hypertrophy is the primary goal? Yes. And there is a tonne of anecdotal evidence to support that argument.

Good training,

Sentoguy

[quote]Spanish Barbell wrote:

In addition, with the higher frequency of Dual Factor it’s easiest to gain strenght, making easiest to follow the principle of overload that you shown above.

[/quote]

One more thing. I wanted to address the above statement.

So, are you suggesting that if you train the same muscle group day in and day out (before the muscle has recovered) that this will make it easier to gain strength? Seriously? That has certainly not been my experience.

In fact that statement is actually in contradiction to the quoted statement; "thus thumbing your nose at the following dogmatic definition of recovery: “A muscle is recovered once soreness subsides and performance is enhanced.”

If you train a muscle before soreness subsides and performance is enhanced, then how on earth are you going to improve your performance from workout to workout?

Now, once you stop training and allow supercompensation to occur are you going to see some performance gains? Yes. But are they going to be better than the performance gains obtained by using one factor theory? Possibly, but even if they are, probably not much better. And you’ll also have to deal with possible connective tissue problems, depression, lowered testosterone levels, basically all of the fun side effects of over training. :wink:

And even then, are you going to gain more muscle from the dual factor theory? Once again, possibly, but to date no one has used this type of training to build a really impressive physique (world class), so it’s also not exactly blasphemy to argue that you won’t.

Good training,

Sentoguy

Then again, there’s the fact that most bodybuilders aren’t exactly Mensa material. If everybody since the beginning of history has used the old style, then that’s what they’ll use, especially since it’s so well-supported.

We can draw no conclusions about dual factor training from the simple fact that single factor training works well. It obviously works for small muscle groups or individual body parts. There’s the example of Arnold’s calves, then the fact that lots of mechanics have large forearms, speed skaters have huge quads, Olympic lifters have big traps, etc. I remeber Dave Tate (I think) saying that if a lifter’s hamstrings were weak, they may hit them up to 7-9 times per week to bring them up.

see thats the thing, theres no one out there that any of us know of who’ve had success with this style but then again how many people do you know of that have even tried it? you cant dismiss the validity of a theory because no one has had success with it if no one has ever tried it in the first place and a lot of people obviously arent willing to take that risk and try it out and just assume their training method is superior because thats “just how everyone trains”. granted theres valid arguments to both support and negate the claims made but what there isnt is cold hard evidence to either support or disprove the theory.

That’s true, and if you want to spend some time testing it out that’s your choice of course. If it works them please come back here and tell us and I will be more than happy for you, if it doesn’t then you’ve wasted time that you won’t ever get back.

Give it a try and if you would please keep a detailed account of how it goes, weights, body composition if you’ve got the ability etc. And update us when you’ve time to make significant change ok?

[quote]scottiscool wrote:
That’s true, and if you want to spend some time testing it out that’s your choice of course. If it works them please come back here and tell us and I will be more than happy for you, if it doesn’t then you’ve wasted time that you won’t ever get back.

Give it a try and if you would please keep a detailed account of how it goes, weights, body composition if you’ve got the ability etc. And update us when you’ve time to make significant change ok?[/quote]

Right.

Personally I have nothing against dual factor theory, and don’t have any stock in one factor theory either. It’s just that one factor theory has actual flesh and blood examples of it’s effectiveness, while dual factor theory only has words and intellectual theories to support it’s effectiveness.

If someone who builds their body with dual factor theory comes along and shows up all of the one factor guys, which causes a bunch more to try it, who also produce greater results, then heck I won’t be too proud to utilize it either. Honestly I could care less the name of what works, or where it came from, or who invented it, etc… All that I care about is that it works.

To date one factor theory has been proven to work, so that’s honestly what I’m sticking with and what I am going to recommend to others who ask advice about building muscle.

Now as far as no one using dual factor theory, then either statements like “The Dual Factor Theory has been proven by strength athletes, olimpics, powerlifters, etc. and it has shown that it works” are false, or there actually are people out there using it. Perhaps then the reason that bodybuilders haven’t switched is because none of the above mentioned groups of athletes have superior muscular development. Just a thought.

Good training,

Sentoguy

there was also a time when the concept of the world being flat worked also. thank god someone decided to sail a boat.

Sentoguy, that is a valid thesis on why people havent attempted this training, but then again the other side of that coin could be what so many people in this very thread are saying, which is basically “if it aint broke dont fix it”.

It’s not that it ain’t broke, it’s that it’s working full force like it’s brand new for people who implement it correctly.

[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
there was also a time when the concept of the world being flat worked also. thank god someone decided to sail a boat.

Sentoguy, that is a valid thesis on why people havent attempted this training, but then again the other side of that coin could be what so many people in this very thread are saying, which is basically “if it aint broke dont fix it”. [/quote]

Here’s the thing, personally I feel that all these “super high tech, super complex, super effective” training methods are for the most part just strength coaches trying to make a name for themselves and trying to stand out from the crowd. Also, the more big words you use and intellectually complicated the program, the more people you’ll be able to convince that your program must be superior (after all, you’re using those fancy words).

In the end though, until like I said someone wins a Sandow who proclaims to have built his body using Dual Factor Theory, it’s all just mental masturbation IMO.

I say this because honestly, we’ve pretty much already figured out how to build muscle, they’ve pretty much known for quite some time now. But, if a strength coach just uses what is already known to work, then while he/she may be a successful strength coach, it might also mean that their name doesn’t get added to the bodybuilding history books for having “re-invented the wheel.” Are there people who do make improvements to the muscle building process? Yes. But they are few and far between. And, they really only have any credibility if they have concrete proof that their methods work.

Now honestly I do admire those strength coaches who are willing to go out on a limb and try new things. But, at the same time, until that coach actually has achieved some concrete results, I don’t feel that presenting their theories to the greater population really does anyone any good. There are just too many impressionable newbies who will read the material and, not knowing any better, believe the coach’s every word that this routine (program) will build muscle faster than anything else out there (while in actuality having no concrete proof that this is the case).

Good training,

Sentoguy

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
there was also a time when the concept of the world being flat worked also. thank god someone decided to sail a boat.

Sentoguy, that is a valid thesis on why people havent attempted this training, but then again the other side of that coin could be what so many people in this very thread are saying, which is basically “if it aint broke dont fix it”.

Here’s the thing, personally I feel that all these “super high tech, super complex, super effective” training methods are for the most part just strength coaches trying to make a name for themselves and trying to stand out from the crowd. Also, the more big words you use and intellectually complicated the program, the more people you’ll be able to convince that your program must be superior (after all, you’re using those fancy words).

In the end though, until like I said someone wins a Sandow who proclaims to have built his body using Dual Factor Theory, it’s all just mental masturbation IMO.

I say this because honestly, we’ve pretty much already figured out how to build muscle, they’ve pretty much known for quite some time now. But, if a strength coach just uses what is already known to work, then while he/she may be a successful strength coach, it might also mean that their name doesn’t get added to the bodybuilding history books for having “re-invented the wheel.” Are there people who do make improvements to the muscle building process? Yes. But they are few and far between. And, they really only have any credibility if they have concrete proof that their methods work.

Now honestly I do admire those strength coaches who are willing to go out on a limb and try new things. But, at the same time, until that coach actually has achieved some concrete results, I don’t feel that presenting their theories to the greater population really does anyone any good. There are just too many impressionable newbies who will read the material and, not knowing any better, believe the coach’s every word that this routine (program) will build muscle faster than anything else out there (while in actuality having no concrete proof that this is the case).

Good training,

Sentoguy[/quote]

I agree with what you are saying here, but I would add that Dual Factor Theory can be somewhat instinctive. After really pushing things for a while a lifter might take a back off week when he starts to feel too beat up.

[quote]kingdpt wrote:
I agree with what you are saying here, but I would add that Dual Factor Theory can be somewhat instinctive. After really pushing things for a while a lifter might take a back off week when he starts to feel too beat up.

[/quote]

Are you saying single factor would not be instinctive as well?

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
there was also a time when the concept of the world being flat worked also. thank god someone decided to sail a boat.

Sentoguy, that is a valid thesis on why people havent attempted this training, but then again the other side of that coin could be what so many people in this very thread are saying, which is basically “if it aint broke dont fix it”.

Here’s the thing, personally I feel that all these “super high tech, super complex, super effective” training methods are for the most part just strength coaches trying to make a name for themselves and trying to stand out from the crowd. Also, the more big words you use and intellectually complicated the program, the more people you’ll be able to convince that your program must be superior (after all, you’re using those fancy words).

In the end though, until like I said someone wins a Sandow who proclaims to have built his body using Dual Factor Theory, it’s all just mental masturbation IMO.

I say this because honestly, we’ve pretty much already figured out how to build muscle, they’ve pretty much known for quite some time now. But, if a strength coach just uses what is already known to work, then while he/she may be a successful strength coach, it might also mean that their name doesn’t get added to the bodybuilding history books for having “re-invented the wheel.” Are there people who do make improvements to the muscle building process? Yes. But they are few and far between. And, they really only have any credibility if they have concrete proof that their methods work.

Now honestly I do admire those strength coaches who are willing to go out on a limb and try new things. But, at the same time, until that coach actually has achieved some concrete results, I don’t feel that presenting their theories to the greater population really does anyone any good. There are just too many impressionable newbies who will read the material and, not knowing any better, believe the coach’s every word that this routine (program) will build muscle faster than anything else out there (while in actuality having no concrete proof that this is the case).

Good training,

Sentoguy[/quote]

I believe in keeping it simple also. Though, I enjoy postulating different methodologies.