Chest 2x a week to improve upper chest?

[phil216]

If the body part is not responding it may be an indication that you are already training it with too much volume and or frequency so throing more volume at it will most likely not help. You may actually want to lower your current volume and allow for more rocover time but increasing the amount of days off between workouts.

[ktw]

Which is exactly why I reccomended splitting the chest routine up so frequency is higher and volume is the same.

[phil216]

The higher frequency will cut into recovery time and will negatively impact results. If you do not allow for recovery there is no way that any growth will take place as you must first recover from the workout and then grow.

[ktw]

It depends how many working sets you do and how often and what rep range you're training in. If you're going for maximum strength in the 1 to 3 rm area, you could train chest 2 to 6 times a week because limit strength training doesn't cause much cross sectional damage, it mainly stresses the CNS. This is why you train lower volume at once with this method, like 1 exercise per workout, like I was trying to say. If someone is training for functional or structural hypertrophy in the 6 to 8 or 8 to 12 rep range, the max they want to train a week would be 2 times due to the heavy amount of cross sectional damage. The only disadvantage to this is that training in this range doesn't involve much cns adaptation or motor unit recruitment so you periodize both. For really good results it would be smart to alternate accumulation and intensification phases using structural hypertrophy and limit strength/functional hypertrophy. This would help the body learn to fire more motor units during a movement, build strength, add myogenic tone and cause serious cross sectional muscle hypertrophy. So yes it is possible to train more frequently without overtraining, you just have to know how many sets to use and in what range

[phil216]

I guess you could train as often as you would like but that does not mean you will see results. The simple matter of the fact is that in order to stimulate growth you must train at a very high intensity, and if you are training that hard your training must be brief and infrequent so that you do not over train. In addition it is not possible to train very hard for a very long period of time, case in point look at a sprinter and a distance runner.

[ktw]

Ya, that is why you alternate intensification and accumulation ala Poliquin or Thibadeau. Not see results? Are you kidding? For training limit strength, the more often the better, why do you think o lifters lift twice daily sometimes. But you can't do 50000 sets, you have to drop total sets. When training for all out limit strength during an intensification phase, you could theoretically do this for 3 to 4 weeks depending on intensity and frequency. I would like to know how doing heavy triples, doubles and singles would not be intense? With limit strength training, the CNS is taking the bulk of the work, not the actual fibers themselves, therefore fiber breakdown is lower than normal. You can doubt me all you want, but if you read text by O lifting coaches, Poliquin and Thibadeau, you will find the same answer. When training for limit strength, frequency is important, but volume must be lowered accordingly per session. It would be smartest to do an intensification phase to develop a greater cns capacity and increase limit strength, then follow it with a less frequent but more intense accumulation phase which targets training in a higher rep range with the goal of breaking down tissue. A lot of people fail to do this and spend all their time doing high volume sarcoplasmic work, which is less than ideal. Doing so leaves you with less fiber density, myogenic muscle tone, strength, and CNS efficiency. It is also possible to do splits that train both simultaneously or by alternating week or by using the pendulum method. Overall, it is important to stimulate all the rep ranges to get the advantages of the different training intensities and levels. You are wrong by saying intense strength training should be infrequent. I'm sorry buddy, but if what you were saying was true, o lifters would train once or twice a week, which is the furthest thing from the truth, and they are probably the most efficient strength wise of all lifters. To stimulate the maximum amount of growth, train in all ranges using intensification and accumulation phases. I can provide you links to articles on the topic if you want, but HIT is pure bull**** and an illogical way to train for maximum strength. You can train just as intense using the methods I described and avoiding failure to aide in recovery and become more neurally efficient in the process, which will transfer over to all types of lifting. I really would like you to disprove the information I have just divulged or give it a try and you will realize this high intensity training in non functional range garbage is incredibly inefficient and draws out a simple process and yields less results. It is misinformation like this that people read and then become scared of training properly in the right rep ranges to actually see maximum benefits.

[exnihilo]

There are some studies with guidelines on hypertrophy-research.com for training based on large volumes of data, and they seem to point to training each bodypart twice per week, 4 sets per workout with ~85% of your 1rm, going near failure and resting about 3 minutes between sets as the optimal protocol. That is pretty close to what I do, so I can say it does indeed work well

[ktw]

Yup, not surprised there, but semi suprised on why only twice a week. This type of training will increase fiber density and function, rather than increasing sarcoplasm and producing non functional muscle.

[phil216]

Training as often as you are reccomeding here does not allow enough time for recovery let alone growth unless a person is a genetic freak, on a ton of stuff or both. You must realize that all you do in the gym is stimulate the body's growth mechanism and once you have done that with intense exercise you need to get the hell out, recover and then grow. You must realize that mucle growth is mearly a defensive respone to a stress(weight lifting) much the same way a suntan is in response to exposure to the sun. training to often will result in overtraining much like over exposure to the sun will result in damage to the skin (a burn or worse). I use that example because they are both adaptive responses.

[Phoenix rising]

Training as often as you are reccomeding here does not allow enough time for recovery let alone growth unless a person is a genetic freak, on a ton of stuff or both. You must realize that all you do in the gym is stimulate the body's growth mechanism and once you have done that with intense exercise you need to get the hell out, recover and then grow. You must realize that mucle growth is mearly a defensive respone to a stress(weight lifting) much the same way a suntan is in response to exposure to the sun. training to often will result in overtraining much like over exposure to the sun will result in damage to the skin (a burn or worse). I use that example because they are both adaptive responses.

TOTALLY DISAGREE

[exnihilo]

Training as often as you are reccomeding here does not allow enough time for recovery let alone growth unless a person is a genetic freak, on a ton of stuff or both. You must realize that all you do in the gym is stimulate the body's growth mechanism and once you have done that with intense exercise you need to get the hell out, recover and then grow. You must realize that mucle growth is mearly a defensive respone to a stress(weight lifting) much the same way a suntan is in response to exposure to the sun. training to often will result in overtraining much like over exposure to the sun will result in damage to the skin (a burn or worse). I use that example because they are both adaptive responses.

Phil bro, put the mike mentzer HIT book down and take some time to do some research. It's a lot more complex than that.

[ktw]

Exactly what I was trying to explain to him Nihilo. Did you read anything I posted Phil? Have you ever read anything by real strength coaches that actually coach olympic caliber athletes? You do not need excessive amounts of recovery time while training limit strength as long as you are doing a low enough volume at one. I don't know what you think is low, but O lifters train usually twice a day and do probably 10 to 15 lifts total at a time, whether it be in the form of singles or whatever. They never hit failure, as that is useless for what they want. If you read anything about limit strength training you will realize that you can recover very fast if you do it in the right period (1 to 4 weeks for average lifters) multiple times a week, the volume per session just has to be correct. You do not just stimulate growth mechanism, whatever that even means. Different ranges have different goals in mind and train multiple characteristics of the body. Limit strength does not break down tissue to a great degree or cause swelling or an increase in capillary size and is relatively easy for the muscles to recover from. The CNS is a different story as limit strength training utilizes a lot of the CNS capability to fire all of the fast twitch high threshold fibers. You need to go read some articles by Poliquin or Thibadeau or maybe pick up Zatiorsky's book, which is considered one of the essential texts of strength training. If you want to keep reading some b/s a roid monkey with no degree is spewing at you, then go ahead. You would be more successful in your goals if you weren't reading anecdotal evidence from some dude in a bananna hammock that has no idea what really works in strength training. If you want to actually figure out what works, read texts and research by strength coaches, not barely literate bodybuilders who have no real idea what theyre doing

[phil216]

I ave actually been pretty succesful in reaching my goals in weight training and life. I have added roughly 110 pounds since I have started and have abs and decent separation, which is more then most can say and my strength is probably as good as most here INMHO. I have actually done a lot of reading on the subjetc of exercise and have tried many different types of training methods and thus far I have not found anything in the past 15 or so years that compares to HIT (at least for me). As for someone like Poliquin I must say that I lost a lot of respect for him about 6 or so years ago.

[phil216]

TOTALLY DISAGREE

Most people do.

[exnihilo]

I ave actually been pretty succesful in reaching my goals in weight training and life. I have added roughly 110 pounds since I have started and have abs and decent separation, which is more then most can say and my strength is probably as good as most here INMHO. I have actually done a lot of reading on the subjetc of exercise and have tried many different types of training methods and thus far I have not found anything in the past 15 or so years that compares to HIT (at least for me). As for someone like Poliquin I must say that I lost a lot of respect for him about 6 or so years ago.

Bro, what you do works for you. It does not work for most people. You are giving advice based on the anecdotal experience of one person: yourself. If 30 sets for each bodypart 6x a week works for me but not many other people and I come on the board telling everyone to do that because that's what I do, you would probably look at me and say "what an dumb *******". Truth is ultra low volume, low frequency training doesn't work for most people, and for you to come on here and act like it's the one true way to lift with nothing to back it up but your belief is just dumb.

Plus, it might help if you could justify your ultra low volume low frequency training style with some science.

Edit: look, I'm not trying to start an argument in this thread. I am happy that what you are doing works for you phil. I'm more interested in making sure the information spread around the boards is true than putting down someone else's training style. I don't really have a problem with HIT per se, so much as I have a problem with someone going around and advocating it as the one true style, then justifying that statement in a seemily logical but actually inaccurate way.

[ktw]

Ex pretty much summed up what I was going to say. The fact of the matter is, there is no science to back up HIT, despite how much you hate Poliquin, he actually has research to back up his methods. 110 lbs is impressive, but when using HIT I gained 5 total lbs. I was stuck at the same weight and strength for 2 months following the stuff in Mentzer's book. When I switched to a normal program I gained 45 more lbs, this is all since September. You're not the only one with a success story. The fact of the matter is that HIT is all anecdotal garbage backed up by no science, is not used by any performance athletes, powerlifters, anyone with impressive numbers at all.