Three times a week!?!

[Dan Moore]

Just how hard are you guys training if you are able to work each bodypart 3x per week. That volume just seems far too high to me and would ever allow for over compensation as you are training the muscle again before it has had a chance to recover let alone grow.

Well obviously you didn't read my earlier post.

1. Muscle does not overcompensate, nor does it need to recover to grow. What does need to recover is the metabolite balance, ion homeostasis, and central nervous system. Using tons of volume will naturally change all of these factors as will consistenly training to failure, this in itself kicks up some of the genetic translational events that actually prolong the time before protein synthesis starts after the workout and may even hamper hypertrophy over the long term.

2. Nobody said do 15 sets per muscle 3X week, that's nuts and there is no way a natural trainer could without having some serious issues with tendon health unless he using a load that is far too submax. 2 or 3 times per week whole body is more than enough.

Now I'm not here to argue about frequency, I just noticed my website being cited so I thought I'd take a peek. Everyone can train how they wish but I would almost be willing to bet anyone that if they took the volume they were using per bodypart and instead of doing it all at once did it over 3 workouts, in the same length of their training cycle they would grow more than previously. I say almost willing to bet because I am not there supervising their training so I have no way of really knowing what they are doing.

Sorry about the overcompensation remarks but this is one of my petpeaves, along with higher reps only increase sarcoplasmic growth, it amazes me that with todays scientific revealings that such myths still prevail, well maybe not myths just misunderstanding I guess.

Take Care

Dan

 

[kwyckemynd00]

Dan Moore[/URL]]Sorry about the overcompensation remarks but this is one of my petpeaves, along with higher reps only increase sarcoplasmic growth, it amazes me that with todays scientific revealings that such myths still prevail, well maybe not myths just misunderstanding I guess.

Well, I'd be interested to learn more about what you say really happens instead of supercompensation. And, I thought it was pretty well established that higher reps were predominantly sarcoplasmic growth?

I need some schoolin' Dan

 

[Dan Moore]

Well, I'd be interested to learn more about what you say really happens instead of supercompensation. And, I thought it was pretty well established that higher reps were predominantly sarcoplasmic growth?

I need some schoolin' Dan

For some this will be pretty boring and dry so if you are not into the science behind what is occurring during training you may wish to skip it.

Without going too indepth, PS (protein synthesis) is the predominant reaction that has to happen in order to grow.

Protein synthesis is accomplished by an interaction between the ribosome and amino-acid-bearing tRNAs selected and lined up according to the genetic instructions of the mRNA, in the course of which the amino acids are strung together to form a polypeptide.

Now you do not have to incur a debt (the whole basis of overcomensation) in order for this to happen. All you need is enough of a stimulus to get it going. In recent research looking at signaling events that increase translation within the cell it's been showed that too much work can actually lead to a diminished signal to the nucleus through competing actions.

As far as sarcoplasmic growth vs contractile you must look at a few things, which are explained more completely in my article that pertains to sarcoplasmic/myofibril growth and can be found in the articles section of my site entitled Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy and Rep Range but just a quick brief.

1. All fractions of proteins are impacted by training not just myofibril or just sarcoplasmic.

2. The rep range has more to do with which fibers experience the growth not the protein fraction itself.

3. The misconception arose from two observations, neither indicate that rep range dictates fractional protein synthesis. A. Contractile strength versus size among Bodybuilders vs. Weight Lifters/Power Lifters. B. The immediate size increase with high reps because of the pumped feeling.

For more on A. Read my newsletter release on the fantastic work of Professor Fry and his review. On my newsletter page.

For more on B. You would need to understand water shifting dynamics, ionic imbalance and how it inter-relates to osmolality, metabolite accumulation and clearance, and how exercise impacts all of these.

Dan

 

[UnicronSpawn]

I took a look at that "sarcoplasm vs myofibrillar hypertrophy and rep range" article yesterday, and thought it was a great read.
I also read some of the "basics" and "basics training" articles and thought they made alot of sense. I'll most likely try the "extended basics" style of training in the near future. The idea of splitting the body into 2 workouts and hitting them twice a week at just slightly sub-failure vibed well with the research presented, and I was intrigued by the concept that by training to failure and/or beyond, (and/or w/ too much volume) I may have actually been delaying the time it took for supercompensation to occur, wich would explain why the more intense and or high volume I trained, the less often I could hit each bodypart and still have even a remotely noticeable hypertrophic response.
More than anything it got me thinking about the different ways that people have trained with any degree of success, and coming to the hypothesis that a training style will work only if parameters are balanced accordingly. IE: Maximal or near maximal intensity incur's a high anabolic response, but also a catabolic response, and requires alot of time to recover from. The same with high volume, wich is why most people who use HIT or HVT need long gaps between training sessions to completely recover. In the case of HVT, the gaps are between direct hits of a bodypart as the parts are split up on different days to facilitate the use of high volume. In the case of HIT, the intensity is so high that not only does it neccesitate gaps between bodypart hits, but between weight training sessions in general since the body is often worked in one session in that style, and the nervous system recovery required is formidable. And high frequency programs neccesitate a lower level of volume and just enough intensity to facilitate the process of initiating RNA transcription, but not so much that supercompensation takes to long, or catabolsim is uneccesarily high.

All theese styles have been made to work when parameter adjustments are applied appropriately. It's when people try to combine high volume, high intensity and high frequency, when the parameters become unbalanced and only a genetic anomaly could benefit appreciably. The holy grail in training is finding the ideal paramater settings and idealy structured (and idealy timed) MODULATION'S of those parameters over time to procur the most efficient and ongoing muscle building results possible for each individual, and to incorporate it in to the individual's lifestyle.

 

[Dan Moore]

I took a look at that "sarcoplasm vs myofibrillar hypertrophy and rep range" article yesterday, and thought it was a great read.

I also read some of the "basics" and "basics training" articles and thought they made alot of sense.

Thank You twice.

 

[The Godfather]

Dan I posted the original link to your site in this thread because I think it is a great assembly of all the research so thanks for the great website.

 

[exnihilo]

That site is awesome Dan.

As for training frequency from my own experience... I currently train each bodypart 3x in 9 days. I have tried once weekly and 3x in 7 days as well. Once weekly was definately the worst of the bunch. 3x in 7 days was decent, you need to be militant about keeping your daily volume super low, I would go in and do like 4-5 warm up sets and 1 work set for a push exercise, then do the same thing for a pull exercise. On leg days I would do one exercise for legs then leave. My experience with it was fairly positive, I made good strength gains but it caused me some very minor chronic pain. One thing I've found is that you make much better strength gains if you either change the exercise every workout, or change the rep range (of the two, I found changing the exercise works better). Overall I benefit slightly more from 3x in 9 days in my opinion, I feel better most of the time and my strength gains have been on par or better than the gains I saw from 3x in 7 days.

I generally try to keep around 5 reps/set as I find this is the optimal range for increasing both strength and size simultaneously. I also find that if I repeat the same exercise within 7 days I don't see as much in the way of benefits, at least on the strength side, so I repeat exercises every 11 days.