Will someone please tell me what “HD” means?
Heavy duty
I assumed that but wanted to make sure.
Thanks.
Mike Mentzer’s
HEAVY DUTY
Intensity for Density
Training to failure works, you just can’t do it all year round lol, simple as that. That doesn’t mean you should never train to failure. Imo Jones was spot on when he said that to be effective training should be hard brief and infrequent and i’ve experienced that myself, it’s really easy to overtrain, but most think it’s not because there are guys who can train all day long and still get great results. And that’s the problem: genetics. In the end your results are determined by genetics no matter the method. You can still train hard brief and infrequent and get poor results, but sorting to other methods it’s not gonna give you those results, it may even give you no results at all instead.
Almost everything works especially as a beginner (and especially if young with no prior athletic experience - that was me at 18 when I started 32 years ago). But at this point, I would not recommend anyone to even bother with failure because it’s not needed. A lot of things are not needed, so why do them? If someone puts their own training into a corner doing only one set a muscle every 7-10 days, then I would say training to failure is more plausible, but why create such a scenario that is only going to give subpar results? Training to failure only slows recovery and stresses the CNS. Lesser intensity with more volume will work better.
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Agree.
There was always (and still is) this mystical idea that going to failure stimulates growth more than a few subfailure sets. And that it’s more efficient since you only have to do one set so your workouts are faster and more stimulating. But…
- Most studies show that one good hard set still stimulates as much as one set all the way to failure. We’ve seen actual measurements of post workout protein synthesis after various set/rep schemes so that leaves no doubt about this. Plus they are even seeing how ‘tension-time’ works by keeping Titin open in the sarcomere as a signal for hypertrophy.
- Three sets for sure stimulates more than one set to failure
- The math on efficiency is wrong in practice. One killer set to failure almost puts a person on the floor for a while after, so you end up resting a lot longer between exercises. I can do a workout with 3 sets of an exercise, non failure in the same time period that one set to failure requires since I’m not almost dead after each set.
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@Tim_Patterson so I finished the vdiet went from 220 to 205 cut it a few days short because of holiday plans. Overall very satisfied with that and will probly implement shorter two week versions periodically. Im taking surge and have started 5/3/2 bbb beefcake from wendler. I’ll be doing that at least 6 weeks.
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This right here.
Great progress on the V-Diet.
Jim’s a great guy, and his 5/3/1 series is super popular. Have you done any of the 5/3/1 programs in the past?
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Yea I have some experience with it. Originally learned about 5/3/1 from the site and endorsements by @T3hPwnisher and @boilerman. Ran about 6 months worth of programs from his “forever” book. I’ve wanted to do this bbb beefcake program and tried in the past but got an injury before I finished so here’s another crack at it.
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Guessing Leo was probably natty, so his “supremely juiced” had little to do with periodization or whatever other claims he came up with. Costa had three strokes and a heart attack…not sure if I’d be following his claims regarding strength and health.
I don’t think periodization led to those strokes and his heart attack dude… I was just stating that I’ve been successfully using the methods he spoke of.
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Never said periodization did, dude. I pointed out Costa’s possibly being natty as have others. He also advocated Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale’s high fat (saturated fat) diet. (Reference: Serious Growth III - Big Beyond Belief.) The combo combined with his genetics no doubt lead to the strokes/heart. And his pic in the ebook (pg 8) certainly was not that of a natural or a health advocate.
And any claims by Leo that this or that routine resulted in certain results was most likely BS – most can get “big” when juicing on just about any workout. eg DoggCrapp got huge on a quasi HIT program similar to a Mentzer Routine.
Success = winning Mr. Olympia? Strongman competition?
His health problems and any potential steroid use don’t really play into my point. I’m just saying I believe his point about periodization was spot on. I’ve gotten great results from HIT, Doggcrapp, and higher volume training like some of the 5/3/1 variations and Deep Water. I get my best results from cycling periods of high intensity and lower volume and periods of lower intensity and higher volume. This also is how Jim Wendler structures “Leaders and Anchors” form of periodization.
What comes with aging… Strength and muscle mass gain at a considerably slower rate, and recuperation takes longer.
As we hit our senior years, I believe that increasing strength is more essential than increasing muscular bulk. Muscle mass is vital, but not as crucial as strength. learn more about it on seniorfitness.net
Furthermore, reductions in nervous system performance are part of the sarcopenia and dynapenia mechanisms.
The central and/or peripheral nervous systems begin to have difficulty firing the fastest twitch fibers with the greatest threshold. When not in use, such motor units decompose or are recycled (reenervated) as slower twitch fibers. So, perhaps exercising in methods that test the nervous system the most is better for delaying that process?
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hi,what neurotype / from Christian Thibaudeau / will suit and benefit from Surge Challenge ?
thank you
All of them.
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one size fits all 
like that