Un-Conventional Hypertrophy?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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[quote]jc2000 wrote:
Regarding complexes i’m pretty sure that all olympic weight lifters use complexes, i’ve trained with a few and they all did some complex work somewhere in their training, kinda makes sense really as their actual competitive sport is a complex!!

Actually both bike (sprinters) and speed skaters both have huge quads from their relative sprinting.

I would argure that the amount of weight training completed by most bike riders would be next to nothing. Speed skaters on the other hand probably do some weight training (Poliquin has written about this) as it’s more sports specific to their sport, and so their leg size would be due to a combination of both skating and weight training.
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this really will be my last post in this thread lol, but i cant let this slide. people here are making such ridiculously ignorant statements it is fucking unreal.

-do olympic weight lifters use complexes TO GAIN SIZE??? cos thats what this thread is specifically about.

-so now riding a bike and skating is the same as RUNNING sprints is it???

-however, the main reason i decided to respond to this post is this: “I would argue that the amount of weight training completed by most [sprint] bike riders would be next to nothing” OH WOULD YOU NOW???

do you happen to know that sir chris hoy arguably the greatest sprint cyclist in the world who won 15 out of 15 races and 3 gold medals in the beijing olympics REGULARLY SQUATS OVER 600 POUNDS AND DEADLIFTS OVER 660 POUNDS??? i also train in the same gym as a former masters world cycling sprint champion. he is involved in the national youth development program and let me tell you weight training is very high on the fucking agenda. as far as i recall they are not dragging sleds around the fucking velodrome to build their legs. they build their legs by lifting weights.

why do you make such sweeping statements? you are utterly ignorant about how sprint cyclists train. and how is weight training more “sport specific” to speed skaters than cyclists? please enlighten me. do you think using “sport specific” or referencing charles poliquin adds your statements credibility? because if you do im afraid your astonishingly arrogant and ignorant assumptions let you down just a little bit.

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[quote]Bloobird wrote:
jc2000, both of those events are quad-dominant, sprints are not.[/quote]

The starting portion of a print ('till the sprinter is not “upright”) is more quad dominant…

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Thanks for all the responses guys. And stringer, you clearly didn’t read any of my responses, and I seem to know more than you so thanks for leaving the thread. I never meant for this thread to turn into a discussion about sprints. But I think most of us agree sprints can build a decent amount of mass in your legs if you are eating enough.

SLED PULLING and complexes were what I was aiming at here. So if sprints can build size, then sled pulls DEFINATELY will build size. Its basically sprints with added load. This increases the forces, and the metabolic demands. In addition to this, you can pull a sled both forward and backward to target both quads and hams/glutes.

Anyone who argues this fact is clearly an idiot. Sure Ronnie coleman at his level probably wouldn’t want to rely much on sled pulling for size, but they would certainly have benefit to him. I guess the only arguement against sled pulling could be that there is not an eccentric movement, but I think most of us will also agree that an eccentric movement isn’t required for growth. One last great thing about sled pulling that I tried yesterday. Sled chest presses are brutal.

As for complexes and mass, that is a bit of a trickier subject. I think part of the problem, is that most of the readers on this site have only heard of complexes for fat loss, due numerous author’s articles. But if you do research into Javorek’s stuff, he intended them for hypertrophy as well. Ive seen both Dan John AND CT claim that complexes are good for hypertrophy, and not having tried them yet, i’ll just have to take their word at the moment. But I think I know enough about physiology to make some assumptions.

CT claims that complexes are good for increasing ALL OVER MUSCLE. I think what he means by this, is that you aren’t going to do complexes and get a huge increase in one area. But, lets say a certain area is lagging. Maybe your shoulders are under-developed, while your lats are "over-developed. Doing complexes will increase your lats a little maybe, depending on how developed they are, and will defiinately help bring up your shoulders. So basically they will build up your whole body, with greater increases in areas that have more potential. Done alone this should be good for mass, but i’ll be pairing it with accessory lifts, and targeting a few muscles that aren’t getting enough stimulus, so it should be great. Im most interested in what exercises people would use here, and what rep schemes.

I think the ladder method mentioned will allow me to use the greatest loads.

Well, i’ll be starting this all in a week. I plan on using it throughout the summer and re-evaluating my progress every six weeks. Ideally i’ll be a bit leaner and with more muscle going into fall and winter. At which time i’ll probably switch to WS4SB or something similar and continue to shoot for 215lbs. thx all

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[quote]stringer wrote:
jc2000 wrote:
Regarding complexes i’m pretty sure that all olympic weight lifters use complexes, i’ve trained with a few and they all did some complex work somewhere in their training, kinda makes sense really as their actual competitive sport is a complex!!

Actually both bike (sprinters) and speed skaters both have huge quads from their relative sprinting.

I would argure that the amount of weight training completed by most bike riders would be next to nothing. Speed skaters on the other hand probably do some weight training (Poliquin has written about this) as it’s more sports specific to their sport, and so their leg size would be due to a combination of both skating and weight training.

this really will be my last post in this thread lol, but i cant let this slide. people here are making such ridiculously ignorant statements it is fucking unreal.

-do olympic weight lifters use complexes TO GAIN SIZE??? cos thats what this thread is specifically about.

-so now riding a bike and skating is the same as RUNNING sprints is it???

-however, the main reason i decided to respond to this post is this: “I would argue that the amount of weight training completed by most [sprint] bike riders would be next to nothing” OH WOULD YOU NOW???

do you happen to know that sir chris hoy arguably the greatest sprint cyclist in the world who won 15 out of 15 races and 3 gold medals in the beijing olympics REGULARLY SQUATS OVER 600 POUNDS AND DEADLIFTS OVER 660 POUNDS??? i also train in the same gym as a former masters world cycling sprint champion. he is involved in the national youth development program and let me tell you weight training is very high on the fucking agenda. as far as i recall they are not dragging sleds around the fucking velodrome to build their legs. they build their legs by lifting weights.

why do you make such sweeping statements? you are utterly ignorant about how sprint cyclists train. and how is weight training more “sport specific” to speed skaters than cyclists? please enlighten me. do you think using “sport specific” or referencing charles poliquin adds your statements credibility? because if you do im afraid your astonishingly arrogant and ignorant assumptions let you down just a little bit.
[/quote]

F!@# me… seriously?? you’re the one throwing around sweeping statment like NO ONE… & EVER… i’m sorry i got invovled in this at all

you must know exactly how every single athlete on this planet trains/ has trained for the last 3000 years. I mean those early olypmians must of been weight training all the thousands of years ago… there’s no way they could have developed their size and strength from maybe plowing fields or military training or any other activities outside of a gym, it’s just not possible.

in reply to your points above:

  • I know a few oly lifters, and while they lift to primarily get stronger as you correctly note, most do however gain (at least some) size along with there stregth, so while they may not intend to gain size they do anyway as a side effect of their training. I believe SOME gymnists have similar trouble with their training and have to nearly starve themselves to not gain weight… sorry to go off topic yet again, note i did use the word “some” this time.

  • Talk about sweeping statment… I never said that they were the same, i was just referencing some other sports that use acceraltion & speed of movement as an idicator of performance, and how these sports (in themselves regardless of weight training, which is now a part of nearly every professional sport anyway) may have contribute to at least some of their muscle size, i could have referneced rowers and their back development, but chose to stay in the area of the leg developement.

  • I will conceed that i do not know how all cyclists train, apologies for the generlisation, i do know quite a few cyclist who never lift weights and have good leg developement though… maybe it’s just genetics or drugs or maybe both…

Also the Poliquin reference was to an old article published here, and while i stated that some (i’ll try not to group them all together) skaters have well developed legs i was also stating that they did substanial weight training as well. If you have the time to do a search it talks about how the leg press is actaully more sport specif to speed skating then squats and how it is a better option for skaters.

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I’d say that Sisyhus would be an example of how sleg work could be used for size, granted he is mythical…

OP, i have actually gained some shoulder size with complexes, it could be just genetic, i was doing them more for a metabolic response, rather then for size in the end, but my shoudlers & traps did respond quite well to them, size wise anyway.

I initally started doing them heavier, but decided to go lighter to induce more of a metabolic effect after (reading some of Cosgroves work and) a few weeks when i started missing some reps on the later rounds with increased weight.

They are brutal however you go about them.

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Thanks for the response JC. I would suspect that if complexes done lighter for more of a metabolic response yielded noticeable gains, then likley complexes focusing on load would definately have similar if not better results.

I think one take home point of this thread is that there are a number of ways to reach a destination. For example, some guys can build a pretty impressive upper body with just pushups and pullups. Id suspect these are the guys that were heavier to begin with and have more of a tendency to put on weight than say an ecto. I mean if a 250lb overweight guy starts doing pushups and builds up to a workload of 100 total reps or more, thats a lot more stimulus for growth than a 140lb skinny dude doing the same number of reps.

One might argue that straight weightlifting is the most optimal method of overloading your muscles to increase mass, but that would be a very tricky and lengthy argument. There are an endless number of factors and tons of pro’s con’s benefits, and tradeoffs to the different methods. For example, a shorter individual may be very good add squatting and can move around a ton of weight with high volumes. Then take a 6’5" individual or a larger individual, and things may be different. Im not saying these are absolutes, and im not saying a taller person shouldn’t squat. Im just saying different methods may be more appealing in different situations.

Snatches are a great exercise to strengthen and add mass to your entire body, but if you are not an o-lifter your technique will be your limiting factor, not your muscular capabilities. So there would be much more reasonable methods.

I find it funny that people with very little knowledge of physiology will come on here and state things about training or nutrition as fact. Im mean sure, in general its as simple as squat, dealift, push, pull and lift heavy and eat a lot. But this isn’t the end all be all. Sets of 50+ reps on leg press do have their place, and so do complexes, sled pulls, sprints, ect… Ive said this before. Since everything works, and nothing works forever, its important to understand the variables and how they relate.

Your muscles dont mysteriously crave iron. They dont prevent growth from certain stimuli, while choosing to adapt to others. Force is force, and overload is overload. Sure sprinters benefit from weightlifting, but it as not as necessary as weights are to a PL’er.

So based on all of this reasoning. For an average joe, that is non-competative in any specific sport or event, the choice of stimulus really seems to come down to personaly preference and what you can achieve the safest and most systematically incremental increases from.

Thx again for the response, I enjoy the discussion.

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@ the OP yes to your answer.

Sleds can build alot of size/strength if the exercise is done as a pulling exercise not sprinting.
Sleds are great for recovery or for GPP if you need help with your volume on your workouts.

Alot of strongmen competitors use the sled and or farmer apparatus for hypertrophy, most people on this forum I think have never done extremely heavy sled pulls to be able to comment on their effectiveness. As a comparison go push your car for a hundred feet up a slight incline as fast as you can- let me know how that feels- then do it 2 more times.

Goto elitefts.com and look up sled work for their workouts or even better look up prowler.

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Hey everyone, I started the new plan this weekend. OMG it is brutal.

So todays workout was:

Bench press 3x5 (185lbs) ***Im suprisingly weak at BB bench compared to Db’s so im taking it easy on building up here.

COMPLEX (115lbs)

Clean
Push press
Front squat
Row
RDL

I laddered up, and failed on the 6th set. Then i laddered back down. So basically not including the set i failed on, I did 25 reps per movement.

My impressions thus far:

Its a different type of training. It definately wasn’t cardio, because the weight was kept relatively heavy(for me) and the rest breaks were long enough. The big difference though, is that it really brings out your weak points. For me, my forearms, shoulders, and upper back were struggling. This was expected though, as many sets were lasting anywhere from 20-40 seconds, and in my previous training, if I were to do a set of 5 on squat or push press, it usually lasted 15 seconds or less.

Im looking foreward to seeing how I adapt to this type of training, and if I can hopefully increase the load fairly rapidly so that it is more challenging for my entire body. (As expected, it was very easy for my lower body) but tommorow is sled day, so that is fine.

As for progression, when I get to where I can ladder up to 6 and back down, i’ll then increase the weight by 5% or 5lbs.

Thx again guys, will post up what happens after about 3-4 weeks.