You Are NOT Overtraining

Bigger Stronger Leaner
81

Training high frequency can work well in my experience. I think aragorn has posted some really important points about how to do this right though.

I also think its just me is right that training intense and allowing long recovery between bodyparts is good too.

I like to alternate 6-12weeks of each method.

But you can get the balance wrong and do too much with either method. If you’re reading T-Nation you’re probably not the type to take it easy on yourself in the gym.

Some of these posts are referring to average gym goers. But this thread is in the bodybuilding section of a hardcore bodybuilding site.

82

NOt all memebers that frequent this area would be deemed hardcore or completely commited i think that has been shown multiple times.

83

[i]"The time between your workouts – which includes both recovery and supercompensation processes – will vary anywhere from a day to as many as 6 or 7 days, depending upon 1) individual recuperative ability, 2) efficient use of supplements, diet, rest and other restorative techniques, 3) size and type of muscle, 4) severity of the overload (especially the severity of the eccentric phase of muscle contraction, and 5) gender and age.

If you train again before recovery is complete you will overtrain (microtrauma of each workout accumulates and causes a reduction in the action potential of the muscle cells). If you train again after supercompensation is at maximum, you?ll make gains, but nowhere nearly as efficiently. That is because, by that time, atrophy has begun. That is why workouts with MINIMAL eccentric stress are required during recovery period"[/i]

You can have high frequency and still “recover”.

I want to add that Beginner to Elite Level requires an appropriate training protocol or system. Individual differences.

84

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
NOt all memebers that frequent this area would be deemed hardcore or completely commited i think that has been shown multiple times.[/quote]

Fair point. But if their not committed I doubt they’ll stick around long enough to bother with anyway.

85

[quote]Think tank fish wrote:

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
NOt all memebers that frequent this area would be deemed hardcore or completely commited i think that has been shown multiple times.[/quote]

Fair point. But if their not committed I doubt they’ll stick around long enough to bother with anyway.
[/quote]

x2

The one’s who should benefit from the discussions the most are those who stick around, those in the intermediate stages and desperately wanting results (i.e. most of us regular posters). That’s the ones I think about when I read/post anything.

Time wasters and non serious ones (i.e. the ones who’s latest passing interest is ‘bodybuilding’) come and go all the time whether it’s burnout, boredom or lack of willpower, so no need to waste threads on them.

That’s not to be pretentious/wannabe hardcore; it’s just the way things are (bodybuilding is not for everyone). Beginners learn by themselves usually, and they soon separate/distinguish themselves and show their true colours (wanting to learn and progress, or just get fed up and quit).

86

Did not read whole thread, but something I’ve noticed in myself is that the more advanced I’ve gotten, as long as proper nutrition and supplemention (and rest) is in place, I’ve been able to consistently train with much higher volume than I did in the past (say, when I was gaining my initial base of strength).

Additionally, given that an omnipresent goal of mine is to stay looking good year round (within a range of bodyfat fluctuations that I deem acceptable), doing the extra work is not only enjoyable, but I feel keeps me leaner.

I still treat the bigger lifts for each muscle group with a fairly straight forward ramping approach usually, but with isolation work and the like, I believe that if you want to do more, and you are energized to do it, and you WANT to, do 1-2 extra exercises, f it! Of course, some days you don’t feel as good, you’re stressed, running on low sleep… those are the days to do your 2-3 exercises, get in and get out.

ok, rant over.

87

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Terrax wrote:
How would one go about attempting to greatly increase their work capacity? I’ve read some westside articles where some of the benchers train the bench like 4 times a week, with back work like every workout.

The guy on this thread accomplished similar and it really worked for him (sorry I don’t remember your username right now), and Thibaudeau’s recent stuff is really high volume.

Obviously at high volume you dont really train to failure (from what I’ve seen), but how would you ideally build up to this kind of conditioning level? Its probably not smart to just throw in another bench session mid week… or is that how you do it and just gauge from there?[/quote]

Sorry, for typos, on my phone. What ryan said above is true–you work into the extra volume by doing low intensity NON-Failure work, stopping when speed or form breaks down rather than when you can’t lift the weight. In the simplest form, this is doing eccentric-less work like sled dragging/pulling/pressing or prowler work, adding in 2-3 sessions a week and giving youraelf a month to get used to it.

THE WEIGHTS WILL GO DOWN, ALONG WITH YOUR ENERGY AND STRENGTH LEVELS for 2-4 weeks while your body adjust to the extra strain. IF you are eating and sleeping enough, your body will adapt and work capacity will go up. As your work capacity and recovery abilities increase, you can add more sled sessions, or increase the intensity of the extra sessions (for example going from sled/prowler to “regular” gym isolation work, then from that to compound lifts) add a small amount of extra “normal” gym work. But each time you add small amounts and give 4 weeks to get your body used to it.

I wrote about this elsewhere in a discussion on high frequency squatting for PL, but there are 2 primary mistakes people make when trying to train more frequently

  1. they jump into it all at once instead of building up gradually–adding 5 extra full workouts instead of 2-3 sled sessions. This is built up over time, not immediately. They feel like shit, and conclude it doesnt work–wrong, they just did it wrong.

  2. they push the intensity too high and/or go to failure. frequency and failure are diametrically opposed–if you have high frequwncy you can’t even approach failure on a regular basis…if you have low frequency (think 1 body part workout a week, or HIT), you can destroy it with failure, drop sets, forced reps etc. in high frequency squatting you a) are always explosive, which lessens CNS load and b) never fail. you never grind a rep out, and you NEVER miss a rep. If the bar slows, you stop. Too many people get fixated on the weight on the bar–it’s not about the weight! It’s about a) speed and explosiveness and b) total weekly tonnage, as ryan pointed out. Over all workload, not any one woekout.

Think of it sort of as EDT style training, only spread through a whole week instead of one workout. This is a very general and simple way to approach it, but reliable. There are other ways but they’re mostly something that takes to long to thumb-type on my damn mobile…and in any case are best left to either an experienced coachto oversee or a very advanced trainee who can listen to his body well.[/quote]

This sounds really similar to have the norwegian powerlifting elite go about their training. ( extremely high weekly volum, relatively low weights( roughly 70% of 1rm on average), low reps( 5-1 ) and no training even close to failure + some isolation stuff for weakpoints ).

As far as I know they do okay in ipf internationaly for being from a country with such a small population, so it most be something to this “train as much as possible aslong as you can recover” philosopy. Atleast in the case for norwegian powerlifters.

Okay I am gonna stop this norse pl commersial.

88

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Training to failure or close is one of the best ways of increases the recovery need, and is why those in pursuit of maximal strength regulate it…but, I hate to say this, aren’t we talking about bodybuilding here (i.e. maximal muscular ‘damage’ which requires extreme intensity/effort and longer recovery between hitting bodyparts?)

Since when did training (aka ‘hammering’) bodyparts every 5-8 days become old or ineffective? lol

Feel free to correct me if I’m off or something…[/quote]

You’re off. But it isn’t because people didn’t become big by doing the bodypart once a week thing. And it isn’t because the people who respond to high frequency training have freak genetics…some do to be sure, but honestly recovery is a trained adaptation just like everything else. Genetics regulates and limits it, but to a far lesser degree than most like to believe. You can train yourself to recover better. You can train yourself to handle higher volumes. If you couldn’t then the bricklayers and railroad workers of old would be 100% genetic freak. Or the cirque de soleil actors. And professional cyclists, who do NOT do a whole lot of BB style leg training. They still sport quads that are ridiculously well developed overall.

Your mistake is in thinking that of “intensity” in such a 1 dimensional way. Intensity can mean mean many things, from a gut-busting drop set beyond failure to a maximal squat/clean and jerk/snatch. Intensity can also refer to VO2 max percentage, workload density (rest periods), frequency, etc.

Hammering a bodypart once a week isn’t ineffective. The question becomes, is there a better way to do it?

let me ask you a question: what do you do when you have a weak bodypart visually that you want to bring up? You train it more often, and you train it with higher volume. Almost everybody does this—from the idiot teenager who wants a big bench so they bench 3x a week to the powerlifter that has weak hamstrings so they train them 4x a week to the BBer who has weak lats or shoulders so they train them 2x a week.

Nobody EVER specializes in a bodypart by doing LESS overall work. Arnold, with his calves, didn’t just do calves on leg day. He added them in between sets of damn near everything. Active rest, so to speak. Others do the same regardless of whether the goal is strength or size–the goal dictates the loading parameters and exercise selection to some degree but not the principle of doing MORE work MORE often. It’s a fundamental principle: the more workload you can recover from, the better your results.

The keyword is “recover”. And recovery ability can be trained to a high degree. I’ll give you a real-life example: a 49 year old doctor I train benched 250 at a bodyweight of 148 (very short guy) inside 2 months of working with me. Previous to this his best bench was 185, and in training up to this max, we did not use a regular training load greater than 205 (for partial board presses). We did, however, increase his total weekly volume of pressing, and we benched 2-3 times a week.

This same doctor has had noticeable visual changes in his back thickness and traps from doing a very frequent volume of back work–3x a week. Keep in mind he is 49 years old and with low T. Volume and frequency for weak groups, whether size or strength is the goal.

So back to “intensity”: a person who moves 40,000 lbs a week for a bodypart will be operating at a higher “intensity” than a person doing 20,000 lbs a week from a certain perspective. A person recovering adequately from 40,000 lbs a week will have a higher growth stimulus than the person recovering from 20,000 lbs a week.

Here’s the key: 1) certain kinds of “intensity” (meaning: drop sets/forced reps vs. escalating density vs. whatever) are harder or easier on the CNS and recovery abilities than others. The muscles themselves recover very rapidly, the nervous system much less so. Both can be trained to recover better as well. and 2) the more opportunities you have that you can shovel nutrients into a muscle group the better it will recover over time.

89

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Training to failure or close is one of the best ways of increases the recovery need, and is why those in pursuit of maximal strength regulate it…but, I hate to say this, aren’t we talking about bodybuilding here (i.e. maximal muscular ‘damage’ which requires extreme intensity/effort and longer recovery between hitting bodyparts?)

Since when did training (aka ‘hammering’) bodyparts every 5-8 days become old or ineffective? lol

Feel free to correct me if I’m off or something…[/quote]

You’re off. But it isn’t because people didn’t become big by doing the bodypart once a week thing. And it isn’t because the people who respond to high frequency training have freak genetics…some do to be sure, but honestly recovery is a trained adaptation just like everything else. Genetics regulates and limits it, but to a far lesser degree than most like to believe. You can train yourself to recover better. You can train yourself to handle higher volumes. If you couldn’t then the bricklayers and railroad workers of old would be 100% genetic freak. Or the cirque de soleil actors. And professional cyclists, who do NOT do a whole lot of BB style leg training. They still sport quads that are ridiculously well developed overall.

Your mistake is in thinking that of “intensity” in such a 1 dimensional way. Intensity can mean mean many things, from a gut-busting drop set beyond failure to a maximal squat/clean and jerk/snatch. Intensity can also refer to VO2 max percentage, workload density (rest periods), frequency, etc.

Hammering a bodypart once a week isn’t ineffective. The question becomes, is there a better way to do it?

let me ask you a question: what do you do when you have a weak bodypart visually that you want to bring up? You train it more often, and you train it with higher volume. Almost everybody does this—from the idiot teenager who wants a big bench so they bench 3x a week to the powerlifter that has weak hamstrings so they train them 4x a week to the BBer who has weak lats or shoulders so they train them 2x a week.

Nobody EVER specializes in a bodypart by doing LESS overall work. Arnold, with his calves, didn’t just do calves on leg day. He added them in between sets of damn near everything. Active rest, so to speak. Others do the same regardless of whether the goal is strength or size–the goal dictates the loading parameters and exercise selection to some degree but not the principle of doing MORE work MORE often. It’s a fundamental principle: the more workload you can recover from, the better your results.

The keyword is “recover”. And recovery ability can be trained to a high degree. I’ll give you a real-life example: a 49 year old doctor I train benched 250 at a bodyweight of 148 (very short guy) inside 2 months of working with me. Previous to this his best bench was 185, and in training up to this max, we did not use a regular training load greater than 205 (for partial board presses). We did, however, increase his total weekly volume of pressing, and we benched 2-3 times a week.

This same doctor has had noticeable visual changes in his back thickness and traps from doing a very frequent volume of back work–3x a week. Keep in mind he is 49 years old and with low T. Volume and frequency for weak groups, whether size or strength is the goal.

So back to “intensity”: a person who moves 40,000 lbs a week for a bodypart will be operating at a higher “intensity” than a person doing 20,000 lbs a week from a certain perspective. A person recovering adequately from 40,000 lbs a week will have a higher growth stimulus than the person recovering from 20,000 lbs a week.

Here’s the key: 1) certain kinds of “intensity” (meaning: drop sets/forced reps vs. escalating density vs. whatever) are harder or easier on the CNS and recovery abilities than others. The muscles themselves recover very rapidly, the nervous system much less so. Both can be trained to recover better as well. and 2) the more opportunities you have that you can shovel nutrients into a muscle group the better it will recover over time.
[/quote]

What a great post. Very well written and thought out. Agree with all points

90

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Training to failure or close is one of the best ways of increases the recovery need, and is why those in pursuit of maximal strength regulate it…but, I hate to say this, aren’t we talking about bodybuilding here (i.e. maximal muscular ‘damage’ which requires extreme intensity/effort and longer recovery between hitting bodyparts?)

Since when did training (aka ‘hammering’) bodyparts every 5-8 days become old or ineffective? lol

Feel free to correct me if I’m off or something…[/quote]

You’re off. But it isn’t because people didn’t become big by doing the bodypart once a week thing. And it isn’t because the people who respond to high frequency training have freak genetics…some do to be sure, but honestly recovery is a trained adaptation just like everything else. Genetics regulates and limits it, but to a far lesser degree than most like to believe. You can train yourself to recover better. You can train yourself to handle higher volumes. If you couldn’t then the bricklayers and railroad workers of old would be 100% genetic freak. Or the cirque de soleil actors. And professional cyclists, who do NOT do a whole lot of BB style leg training. They still sport quads that are ridiculously well developed overall.

Your mistake is in thinking that of “intensity” in such a 1 dimensional way. Intensity can mean mean many things, from a gut-busting drop set beyond failure to a maximal squat/clean and jerk/snatch. Intensity can also refer to VO2 max percentage, workload density (rest periods), frequency, etc.

Hammering a bodypart once a week isn’t ineffective. The question becomes, is there a better way to do it?

let me ask you a question: what do you do when you have a weak bodypart visually that you want to bring up? You train it more often, and you train it with higher volume. Almost everybody does this—from the idiot teenager who wants a big bench so they bench 3x a week to the powerlifter that has weak hamstrings so they train them 4x a week to the BBer who has weak lats or shoulders so they train them 2x a week.

Nobody EVER specializes in a bodypart by doing LESS overall work. Arnold, with his calves, didn’t just do calves on leg day. He added them in between sets of damn near everything. Active rest, so to speak. Others do the same regardless of whether the goal is strength or size–the goal dictates the loading parameters and exercise selection to some degree but not the principle of doing MORE work MORE often. It’s a fundamental principle: the more workload you can recover from, the better your results.

The keyword is “recover”. And recovery ability can be trained to a high degree. I’ll give you a real-life example: a 49 year old doctor I train benched 250 at a bodyweight of 148 (very short guy) inside 2 months of working with me. Previous to this his best bench was 185, and in training up to this max, we did not use a regular training load greater than 205 (for partial board presses). We did, however, increase his total weekly volume of pressing, and we benched 2-3 times a week.

This same doctor has had noticeable visual changes in his back thickness and traps from doing a very frequent volume of back work–3x a week. Keep in mind he is 49 years old and with low T. Volume and frequency for weak groups, whether size or strength is the goal.

So back to “intensity”: a person who moves 40,000 lbs a week for a bodypart will be operating at a higher “intensity” than a person doing 20,000 lbs a week from a certain perspective. A person recovering adequately from 40,000 lbs a week will have a higher growth stimulus than the person recovering from 20,000 lbs a week.

Here’s the key: 1) certain kinds of “intensity” (meaning: drop sets/forced reps vs. escalating density vs. whatever) are harder or easier on the CNS and recovery abilities than others. The muscles themselves recover very rapidly, the nervous system much less so. Both can be trained to recover better as well. and 2) the more opportunities you have that you can shovel nutrients into a muscle group the better it will recover over time.
[/quote]

Wow, thanks for that thorough answer! Brings a few questions to mind if you don’t mind answering?

How do you track progress and know when to push it and when to pull back? It’s hard to compare total tonnages when the intensity levels are different, is this not wrong? Anyone can lift light things all day long (won’t make them grow much), but give them something heavy and push them to the extreme…

Just playing devils advocate here again (and coming from a “HIT” point of view) - most bodybuilders tell you that for maximum growth you need to push it 100% (failure training). Mainstream belief is that you are not stimulating maximum growth if you don’t take a set all the way (reach near failure), in fact, some say that not pushing it 100% will hold back your gains and that the extra volume (aka total weekly work) does nothing for you but prolong recovery with no good return? In other words, most will say to lower the volume and focus on the set quality (make every set count).

BUT

The increasing work capacity belief tells you that you need to tame the intensity (go easier on the nervous system) in order to do more work. It used to be believed that more sets and non failure training = optimal strength gains but not optimal size?

Would really appreciate your feedback, thanks!

91

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Training to failure or close is one of the best ways of increases the recovery need, and is why those in pursuit of maximal strength regulate it…but, I hate to say this, aren’t we talking about bodybuilding here (i.e. maximal muscular ‘damage’ which requires extreme intensity/effort and longer recovery between hitting bodyparts?)

Since when did training (aka ‘hammering’) bodyparts every 5-8 days become old or ineffective? lol

Feel free to correct me if I’m off or something…[/quote]

You’re off. But it isn’t because people didn’t become big by doing the bodypart once a week thing. And it isn’t because the people who respond to high frequency training have freak genetics…some do to be sure, but honestly recovery is a trained adaptation just like everything else. Genetics regulates and limits it, but to a far lesser degree than most like to believe. You can train yourself to recover better. You can train yourself to handle higher volumes. If you couldn’t then the bricklayers and railroad workers of old would be 100% genetic freak. Or the cirque de soleil actors. And professional cyclists, who do NOT do a whole lot of BB style leg training. They still sport quads that are ridiculously well developed overall.

Your mistake is in thinking that of “intensity” in such a 1 dimensional way. Intensity can mean mean many things, from a gut-busting drop set beyond failure to a maximal squat/clean and jerk/snatch. Intensity can also refer to VO2 max percentage, workload density (rest periods), frequency, etc.

Hammering a bodypart once a week isn’t ineffective. The question becomes, is there a better way to do it?

let me ask you a question: what do you do when you have a weak bodypart visually that you want to bring up? You train it more often, and you train it with higher volume. Almost everybody does this—from the idiot teenager who wants a big bench so they bench 3x a week to the powerlifter that has weak hamstrings so they train them 4x a week to the BBer who has weak lats or shoulders so they train them 2x a week.

Nobody EVER specializes in a bodypart by doing LESS overall work. Arnold, with his calves, didn’t just do calves on leg day. He added them in between sets of damn near everything. Active rest, so to speak. Others do the same regardless of whether the goal is strength or size–the goal dictates the loading parameters and exercise selection to some degree but not the principle of doing MORE work MORE often. It’s a fundamental principle: the more workload you can recover from, the better your results.

The keyword is “recover”. And recovery ability can be trained to a high degree. I’ll give you a real-life example: a 49 year old doctor I train benched 250 at a bodyweight of 148 (very short guy) inside 2 months of working with me. Previous to this his best bench was 185, and in training up to this max, we did not use a regular training load greater than 205 (for partial board presses). We did, however, increase his total weekly volume of pressing, and we benched 2-3 times a week.

This same doctor has had noticeable visual changes in his back thickness and traps from doing a very frequent volume of back work–3x a week. Keep in mind he is 49 years old and with low T. Volume and frequency for weak groups, whether size or strength is the goal.

So back to “intensity”: a person who moves 40,000 lbs a week for a bodypart will be operating at a higher “intensity” than a person doing 20,000 lbs a week from a certain perspective. A person recovering adequately from 40,000 lbs a week will have a higher growth stimulus than the person recovering from 20,000 lbs a week.

Here’s the key: 1) certain kinds of “intensity” (meaning: drop sets/forced reps vs. escalating density vs. whatever) are harder or easier on the CNS and recovery abilities than others. The muscles themselves recover very rapidly, the nervous system much less so. Both can be trained to recover better as well. and 2) the more opportunities you have that you can shovel nutrients into a muscle group the better it will recover over time.
[/quote]

Wow, thanks for that thorough answer! Brings a few questions to mind if you don’t mind answering?

How do you track progress and know when to push it and when to pull back? It’s hard to compare total tonnages when the intensity levels are different, is this not wrong? Anyone can lift light things all day long (won’t make them grow much), but give them something heavy and push them to the extreme…

Just playing devils advocate here again (and coming from a “HIT” point of view) - most bodybuilders tell you that for maximum growth you need to push it 100% (failure training). Mainstream belief is that you are not stimulating maximum growth if you don’t take a set all the way (reach near failure), in fact, some say that not pushing it 100% will hold back your gains and that the extra volume (aka total weekly work) does nothing for you but prolong recovery with no good return? In other words, most will say to lower the volume and focus on the set quality (make every set count).

BUT

The increasing work capacity belief tells you that you need to tame the intensity (go easier on the nervous system) in order to do more work. It used to be believed that more sets and non failure training = optimal strength gains but not optimal size?

Would really appreciate your feedback, thanks![/quote]

I just want to add one thing to this discussion and then sit back and observe. Its not like you dont go all out on the sets. You still lift the weight as hard and as explosive or hold the contraction or what ever your tempo is for that exercise but you just dont go to failure. So your not just going through the motions with lighter weight. You put everythign into those sets.

And one way to progress is to have a better contraction of the muscle or explode the weight each rep better than last time.

Just my thoughts on those two points. Carry on

92

[quote]its_just_me wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Training to failure or close is one of the best ways of increases the recovery need, and is why those in pursuit of maximal strength regulate it…but, I hate to say this, aren’t we talking about bodybuilding here (i.e. maximal muscular ‘damage’ which requires extreme intensity/effort and longer recovery between hitting bodyparts?)

Since when did training (aka ‘hammering’) bodyparts every 5-8 days become old or ineffective? lol

Feel free to correct me if I’m off or something…[/quote]

You’re off. But it isn’t because people didn’t become big by doing the bodypart once a week thing. And it isn’t because the people who respond to high frequency training have freak genetics…some do to be sure, but honestly recovery is a trained adaptation just like everything else. Genetics regulates and limits it, but to a far lesser degree than most like to believe. You can train yourself to recover better. You can train yourself to handle higher volumes. If you couldn’t then the bricklayers and railroad workers of old would be 100% genetic freak. Or the cirque de soleil actors. And professional cyclists, who do NOT do a whole lot of BB style leg training. They still sport quads that are ridiculously well developed overall.

Your mistake is in thinking that of “intensity” in such a 1 dimensional way. Intensity can mean mean many things, from a gut-busting drop set beyond failure to a maximal squat/clean and jerk/snatch. Intensity can also refer to VO2 max percentage, workload density (rest periods), frequency, etc.

Hammering a bodypart once a week isn’t ineffective. The question becomes, is there a better way to do it?

let me ask you a question: what do you do when you have a weak bodypart visually that you want to bring up? You train it more often, and you train it with higher volume. Almost everybody does this—from the idiot teenager who wants a big bench so they bench 3x a week to the powerlifter that has weak hamstrings so they train them 4x a week to the BBer who has weak lats or shoulders so they train them 2x a week.

Nobody EVER specializes in a bodypart by doing LESS overall work. Arnold, with his calves, didn’t just do calves on leg day. He added them in between sets of damn near everything. Active rest, so to speak. Others do the same regardless of whether the goal is strength or size–the goal dictates the loading parameters and exercise selection to some degree but not the principle of doing MORE work MORE often. It’s a fundamental principle: the more workload you can recover from, the better your results.

The keyword is “recover”. And recovery ability can be trained to a high degree. I’ll give you a real-life example: a 49 year old doctor I train benched 250 at a bodyweight of 148 (very short guy) inside 2 months of working with me. Previous to this his best bench was 185, and in training up to this max, we did not use a regular training load greater than 205 (for partial board presses). We did, however, increase his total weekly volume of pressing, and we benched 2-3 times a week.

This same doctor has had noticeable visual changes in his back thickness and traps from doing a very frequent volume of back work–3x a week. Keep in mind he is 49 years old and with low T. Volume and frequency for weak groups, whether size or strength is the goal.

So back to “intensity”: a person who moves 40,000 lbs a week for a bodypart will be operating at a higher “intensity” than a person doing 20,000 lbs a week from a certain perspective. A person recovering adequately from 40,000 lbs a week will have a higher growth stimulus than the person recovering from 20,000 lbs a week.

Here’s the key: 1) certain kinds of “intensity” (meaning: drop sets/forced reps vs. escalating density vs. whatever) are harder or easier on the CNS and recovery abilities than others. The muscles themselves recover very rapidly, the nervous system much less so. Both can be trained to recover better as well. and 2) the more opportunities you have that you can shovel nutrients into a muscle group the better it will recover over time.
[/quote]

Wow, thanks for that thorough answer! Brings a few questions to mind if you don’t mind answering?

How do you track progress and know when to push it and when to pull back? It’s hard to compare total tonnages when the intensity levels are different, is this not wrong? Anyone can lift light things all day long (won’t make them grow much), but give them something heavy and push them to the extreme…

Just playing devils advocate here again (and coming from a “HIT” point of view) - most bodybuilders tell you that for maximum growth you need to push it 100% (failure training). Mainstream belief is that you are not stimulating maximum growth if you don’t take a set all the way (reach near failure), in fact, some say that not pushing it 100% will hold back your gains and that the extra volume (aka total weekly work) does nothing for you but prolong recovery with no good return? In other words, most will say to lower the volume and focus on the set quality (make every set count).

BUT

The increasing work capacity belief tells you that you need to tame the intensity (go easier on the nervous system) in order to do more work. It used to be believed that more sets and non failure training = optimal strength gains but not optimal size?

Would really appreciate your feedback, thanks![/quote]

Well I appreciate the forethought you’ve put into thinking about all these things. It shows a considerable attention to detail. I will try to respond as best I can although the subject is simply too broad to cover in a post. And, for that matter, considerably too complex–entire books are written about the subject.

I will apologize in advance if this is disjointed, I am in the middle of my day and going to try to rap off a response as I can. Also, I have a lot of thought invested in this subject so I mind get ahead of myself and/or mix up my terminology. Hopefully not, but you’ve been warned :).

First, knowing when to push and pull back happens with a) good record keeping of all variables and/or b) a very intimate “listening” ability to your body. It’s something that is developed over time, and cannot be learned any other way–although you can certainly get a good coach and watch how they do it and then take notes to accelerate your own abilities.

Secondly, that was more of a rough and ready illustration rather than a specifically accurate comparison :). However, briefly, no it is not completely wrong to compare total tonnage when intensities are somewhat different. There is a threshold, yes–the various Eastern Bloc countries would not count anything below 60-70% in their olympic lifting tonnage totals for the week/month/year. They would also group tonnages–70-80%, 80-90%, 90-95%, 95-max, and track the volume in each block.

Thirdly, any extra volume you introduce is–not always, but very often–introduced first as “low intensity” work, and then later increased in difficulty–take the sled pulling example: you start with 2-3 sled workouts in a week, say 4 sets of circuits. From there in subsequent weeks you can increase the number of circuits you run through, the distance you use for each circuit, or the weight on the sled. All of those increase the Intensity of the workout, but in different ways. From there you can a) add more sled workouts in your week b) keep adding circuits, distance, or weight to your current sled workouts c) SUBSTITUTE a gym workout in and take one of your sled workouts out.

Option C is probably the most increase in intensity because in a sled workout there is NO ECCENTRIC STRESS on the muscle, and in a gym workout there will be some sort of eccentric action that will tear muscle tissue.

THIS is why Louie Simmons, CT, and others add in sled workouts as the first form of GPP for PL or BBers. After your body acclimates to it, you can increase to another gym session.

It’s not so much that you tame the intensity of your current sessions, although some can/might be adviseable to take place when adding extra sessions in for work capacity (like sled work, prowler, etc). The work capacity view tells us that any ADDED work on top of the current workload needs to be low intensity at first in order to get our system acclimated to the new workload, then gradually worked up in intensity.

There are a variety of ways to do this: the simplest way to do it in the gym is to add a set to each of your exercises at a low weight: for example, 5x5 at 400 lb, 1x5 at 275. the next week add another down set, the next after that increase the weight on your down set, the next week add another working set at 400. etc. Wk 1 is low intensity, wk2/3 are increasing volume and intensity, wk 4 is adding another full intensity set.

Or you can do this in sled work, or bodyweight work, or whatever. The Soviets with their olympic lifters would typically add additional volume each cycle in the lower brackets first (70-80%), acclimate, then transfer part of that total tonnage to the high intensity (80-90%+) brackets

Two problems with this view: 1) in the extreme Mentzer HIT version, he completely and totally disregards the idea that you can TRAIN yourself to handle more high intensity work over time. He treats recovery as a zero sum game where you are forever locked into a certain recovery ability and you can never recover faster than that. This is demonstrably and patently false.

  1. The mainstream belief that the “total weekly tonnage” does nothing for you but hold back recovery is also patently and demonstrably false. What do many BBers do when dieting down? They add circuit training or complex training to their routine on top of normal gym days. This represents a) mostly non-failure and b) lighter work and c) an increase in BOTH frequency and volume. What is the good return? Fast fat loss. Certainly in a cut your nutrition is at a loss because you are not trying to build muscle. However, what happens when you go off your cut and drop the circuits and go back to lifting only the big stuff? You feel like superman because your work capacity is far higher than it was before as a result of this circuit/complex training and you can PUSH HARDER ON BIGGER WEIGHTS. You’re less out of breath, you’re stronger, you’re ready to go sooner, you don’t get as sore, and you can move bigger weights. That sounds like a total WIN to me.

Second illustration: Let’s say it takes your legs 5 days to recover to train them again because they’re so damn sore you can’t move. Lets say you add a LIGHT sled workout the day after your leg day, without changing your leg day volume, and that after 3 weeks your recovery time has decreased to 3 days and you’re not nearly as sore. That means you can do another leg day each week (preferably with different exercises of course), which means you can get more “high intensity” work in each week, which means you can grow more.

YOU USE LIGHT WORKOUTS TO HELP RECOVERY. They “feed” your main workouts by pumping lots of nutrients and blood into the muscle to help them heal, and also by forcing your body to recognize the need to use those muscles again extremely soon–thereby increasing your work capacity and endurance.

TWO REQUIREMENTS: 1) You have to use nutrients to get them into the muscles during feeder workouts, this means protein and some carbs. Not as much as for a regular gym session because these feeder workouts are short, but you have to have some thing to “feed” your sore muscles with no? 2) You can’t jump in right away to high frequency work without a break in period of low intensity—this is what people misunderstand and leads them to the two patently false assumptions I mentioned above. This is also why many (not all) powerlifters look down on high frequency squatting…a) their work capacity sucks ass and b) they jump to heavy ass, gut busting weights too soon without a proper base of recovery ability. Thus they fail, feel like shit, and complain that it doesn’t work or that the lifters who can do it are genetic freaks or have better drugs than they have access too. That’s all bullshit. Sure if you are a genetic monster you can handle bigger jumps in intensity or volume without burning out, same as with drugs, but the same principle is completely valid for natty lifters and athletes. These guys just get too greedy too fast.

Hope that makes sense??

93

As an aside, try this: Take a muscle group that is sore for you, and do work on it during your rest periods for another workout. Example, if your biceps are sore, do some reeeaaally lightweight curls not to failure during your bench/tricep day. Do say 5 sets, non anywhere close to failure, just work some blood in. Do not use a slow tempo and especially not a slow negative for any of this type of work!! I’ll bet almost anything after 3 weeks of doing that your biceps get a lot less sore 2 days after your arm workout.

The only caveat with that ‘active rest’ thing is that the muscles you do as ‘rest’ can’t be used in your actual workout–for instance don’t do biceps between sets of back exercises, or shoulders or triceps between sets of benching since they support and help you bench. You also cannot get anywhere close to failure. On back day do 4-5 sets of 25 tricep pushdowns. At a weight you could do 35 or more at. The point is it’s easy. Your triceps will feel much less sore after 3 weeks of doing this.

SLED work on a separate day is better, but if you don’t have a sled, you can do something like the above. The point is, start slow and DON’T GET GREEDY.

94

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
I’m seeing a ton of new posts about being Over Trained in the BB Forum, and around the site in general, lately. Guys… Its not happening.

How do I know?

  • Oly Lifters have 12-18 training sessions EVERY week, lifting with near maximal poundages frequently

  • People who play sports not only perform at a high level, but also train at a high level… Its basically their JOB to workout with intensity all week long.

  • Competitive body builders train their asses off 5 days a week, do 7-14 cardio sessions a week, and drop calories to BASEMENT levels in order to strip every last ounce of fat of their body. And how many of them do you hear talking about being over trained, even on competition week?

  • There are MANY jobs that require the use certain muscles more than once a week, and those guys don’t seem to be worried about over training.

  • Symptoms of over training include:

    Persistent muscle soreness
    Persistent fatigue
    Elevated resting heart rate
    Reduced heart rate variability
    Increased susceptibility to infections
    Increased incidence of injuries
    Irritability
    Depression
    Mental breakdown

Think a HUGE, sustained drop in performce (20-30%), AND feeling like you have Mono. When you start developing skin sores, a rapid heart rate at rest, and cant bench 135, NOW you can start crying over training. These are not symptoms that last for a day, or even a few days. These symptoms can persist for WEEKS, a month, or longer.

Overtraining is a SERIOUS problem, it does NOT occer with a 5 day body part split. It does NOT occur benching 185x3 twice a week. It does not occur with a back day AND a bicep day…

Guys, Seriously… Over training exists, but unless you are working out so much even the gym rats tell you that you have a problem, it probably doesnt pertain to you.

Lift some weights, eat some food, get some sleep.
[/quote]

U DONT KNOW ME HOMIE

95

I LOL sometimes at how complicated the vast majority of posters on the Bodybuilding section make things.

96

Aragorn -

Again, really interesting stuff!

I did look over the capacity ideas when CT first started talking about it, but only got patches of it, but your explanation definitely makes it easier to understand and covers issues I’ve had in the past (especially the part about getting “greedy” and pushing too hard too fast when adding work).

My training is very basic (upper/lower type training, sometimes do 3 way splits), so I think it’s easy to gradually integrate more work and track progress easily. Would you mind if I message later to go over some ideas/questions I had in mind?

97

I think most people agree that “over-training” is a typically due to issues with sleep/job+life stress/poor diet, but referencing guys who are not only in the top 1% genetically but also “enhanced” (oly lifters, pro athletes, bbers? really?) as useful examples is a bit of a stretch.

Instead, how about more lifters share their run-ins with perceived over-training or poor recovery and how they overcame those hurdles.

Personally, working 50 hours/week + grappling for ~ 4 hrs/week plus 4 weightlifting sessions/ week takes its toll both mentally and physically, and “EAT MOAR” isn’t always enough.

98

[quote]bugeishaAD wrote:

I still treat the bigger lifts for each muscle group with a fairly straight forward ramping approach usually, but with isolation work and the like, I believe that if you want to do more, and you are energized to do it, and you WANT to, do 1-2 extra exercises, f it! Of course, some days you don’t feel as good, you’re stressed, running on low sleep… those are the days to do your 2-3 exercises, get in and get out.

ok, rant over.[/quote]

I think this is really good advice. If you feel great do more, if you feel bad do less, listen to your body and youl be alright

99

[quote]chitown34 wrote:
I think most people agree that “over-training” is a typically due to issues with sleep/job+life stress/poor diet, but referencing guys who are not only in the top 1% genetically but also “enhanced” (oly lifters, pro athletes, bbers? really?) as useful examples is a bit of a stretch.

Instead, how about more lifters share their run-ins with perceived over-training or poor recovery and how they overcame those hurdles.

Personally, working 50 hours/week + grappling for ~ 4 hrs/week plus 4 weightlifting sessions/ week takes its toll both mentally and physically, and “EAT MOAR” isn’t always enough. [/quote]

Going along with the last paragraph, I aggree with this.

In an article a while ago an author said that you cannot force feed muscle growth. I personally think its the same with recovery as well, you can do your best, get enough nutrients, propper amount of macros etc but the level of affects it has vs the damage your body has been through from training, work, stress etc has a ceiling in terms of positive effects, if that makes sense.

100

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Aragorn -

Again, really interesting stuff!

I did look over the capacity ideas when CT first started talking about it, but only got patches of it, but your explanation definitely makes it easier to understand and covers issues I’ve had in the past (especially the part about getting “greedy” and pushing too hard too fast when adding work).

My training is very basic (upper/lower type training, sometimes do 3 way splits), so I think it’s easy to gradually integrate more work and track progress easily. Would you mind if I message later to go over some ideas/questions I had in mind?[/quote]

No, i wouldn’t mind at all. There’s a lot of discussion room in such a broad topic, be happy to help any way i can.