HELLO?! your on STEROIDS REMEMBER?

[OMEGA]

lately ( the past 5 years) there seems to be a minimalist approach to training

frequency, sets and reps

where 1 body part is hit each week
and with very few "working sets"

now I can see why this would be fine if your just maintaining or keeping things going

but even for a natural body one can get away with training each group 2 times a week with proper diet and traning

now many of you are "ON"

so

why are you not traing each group 2 times a week?

why are you not hitting the muscle at every concievable angle?

why are you not doing cardio?

your recovery ability should be in the stratosphere.......


do you wanna be like this:

http://www.schwarzenegger.it/gallery/musclegallery.html

or like this:

http://www.metalcorefanzine.com/chris_nasser.jpg


seriously....

 

[BIC]

im gonna bump this.......I dont know the science behind it but i too have always herd only one body part per wk.,,,,,i too wonder could a person hit a muscle twice a wk and still grow as good or better than one muscle per wk????

this could be a good thred lets get it going...

BIC

 

[HardHat87]

Sure I would love to train a bodypart twice a week, but I have a job

 

[azul]

im gonna bump this.......I dont know the science behind it but i too have always herd only one body part per wk.,,,,,i too wonder could a person hit a muscle twice a wk and still grow as good or better than one muscle per wk????

this could be a good thred lets get it going...

BIC

As long as you give the body somewhere between 24-72 hours to recover, you should be fine. Different body parts require different lengths of time to recover. Your upper legs and upper back might require as much as 72 hours, whereas your biceps are probably ready to be trained again in as little as 24 hours. It also depends on how hard you hit each muscle of course.

 

[Saint V]

when I'm on, I hit each bodypart 2 times per week....but its been awhile since I was on.

 

[Tux]

Bro not everyone can do it that way. Believe me I train hard, but I try to train smart too. I do a good 16-20 sets for most bodyparts, upwards of 25 sets for back and legs. You try doing that more than once a week and see if you don't overtrain, even on a gram of test. I do my cardio too, but not much when bulking or i'll never gain weight. If my muscles get sore, they tend to stay sore a good 4-5 days, and i'm not working them while they're still sore. Even on heavy gear, my recovery just isn't that good I guess. I make good gains, and it works for me. I agree though, if you CAN train 2x a week per bodypart and recover, then why not?

 

[PolfaJelfa]

Because...1 a week is more then enough for muscle to grow... anything more then 1x week is detrimental to my body. And most others too. If you are training properly. Your bodyparts that you train will be sore for a good 2-4days after training them even when on a potent cycle. So i reverse the question on you bro. Why are you not training hard enough as where your able to train the same body part 2x a week?

 

[ass_face]

I use the old Bulgarian training system and hit each muscle 3 times a week... albeit very low sets per session... (a total of 15 to 12 a week per muscle). I hate the once a week approach. I love working back, legs and chest and to have to wait a whole week to hit these musces sucks donkey dick.... and it never allows me to grow.

 

[swordfish151]

Could lead to overtraining...most while bulking dont want to do cardio for lack of gaining wieght...and like most have said ....it could be a time issue...

 

[smaretick]

I use the old Bulgarian training system and hit each muscle 3 times a week... albeit very low sets per session... (a total of 15 to 12 a week per muscle). I hate the once a week approach. I love working back, legs and chest and to have to wait a whole week to hit these musces sucks donkey dick.... and it never allows me to grow.

I too like the 3 times a week method...but I think everyone's different & you have to figure out what works best for you, and do it.

 

[satchboogie]

i totally agree bro...

that once a week per muscle philosophy is crap and totally worthless..
seriously i dont know where/how it came about!

 

[FatherMike]

I think 2 times per week is great. But I guess it is different for everybody.

 

[mrplunkey]

I can tell you why... I overtrained on my last cycle thinking "screw it, I'm on... I need to go balls out". Here's what happens:

1) You swell... you accumulate fluid in your tissues faster than your body can eliminate them. Your hands catch the drainage from your arms/elbows, and it looks like you have a catcher's mitt in each hand.

2) Connective tissue starts to go... You begin getting tendonitis in your knees, forearms and elbows badly

3) Your ability to concentrate and focus begins to fade. You start forgetting things.

4) And to cap it off... you become so sore and uncomfortable that it starts eating into your sleep. Those luxurious 8 hour nights become fits and starts with 30-45 minutes of sleep at a time.

I learned my lesson I'm going to hit it hard, but when I see the fluid coming, I'm avoiding that area for a bit.

 

[c17]

Bro not everyone can do it that way. Believe me I train hard, but I try to train smart too. I do a good 16-20 sets for most bodyparts, upwards of 25 sets for back and legs. You try doing that more than once a week and see if you don't overtrain, even on a gram of test. I do my cardio too, but not much when bulking or i'll never gain weight. If my muscles get sore, they tend to stay sore a good 4-5 days, and i'm not working them while they're still sore. Even on heavy gear, my recovery just isn't that good I guess. I make good gains, and it works for me. I agree though, if you CAN train 2x a week per bodypart and recover, then why not?

honestly i dont think you could of said it better! i do about that many sets also. and if you are sore for 4-5 days you just rest for 3 and hit it hard again. but like my arms their sore for a day or two, so ill train them twice a week.

 

[PolfaJelfa]

To each his own .....guy's i couldnt agree more with you. I used to train legs for a few years with MINIMAL RESULTS. Nice strenght but no size at all....i had a budy of mine push me real hard ( he is my mentor Shrededmass something is his handle here) long story short i gave up on the 10-20 set aproach for legs. Now i train quads and hams seperately doing NO MORE THAN 8 sets per Quads and Hams. Legs are growing very nicely. I do have to tell you guys that the 6-8 sets i do i literaly cry on them.

 

[Goldprospector]

I think it is just like every other subject dealing with AAS and training. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, and they react differently to certain stimuli. For example, I train everything but my legs twice per week. It does not matter on the sets and rep amount nor the weight, my upper body recovers twice as fast as my legs. I work Back and bi's on Mon and Thurs then Chest and Tri's on Tues and Fri. Legs on Saturday...then I feel like a cripple until the following Thursday. It does not matter whether I am "ON" or not...my legs will not recover in less than 5 days!

 

[falcyou]

not sure how many guys here are married.....
or have jobs....

fuck, i would love to spend 40 hours a week at the gym and cardio at a boxing club. problem is i'd lose my job....which pays for the juice. then i'd lose my wife.....who so generously lets me take all that extra test out on her each night.

although you do make me think....
maybe start doing lunch breaks at gym, then a 2nd gym session after work.
hmmmm.....

 

[Dieselgoku23]

well if your sore dont work out period!!!. I personally like the once a week aproach and I grow just fine!, being doing it for years, I work out and stay sore for couple to even 3 days and I wont even bother working out the same muscle group each week. I mean if lets say you work out your chest twice a week you also use your shoulders while doing chest and you work out your shoulders in the same week that means your working out your shoulders 3 times a week pretty much overtraining. Just my .02 cents

 

[OMEGA]

i totally agree bro...

that once a week per muscle philosophy is crap and totally worthless..
seriously i dont know where/how it came about!

magazines

 

[maldorf]

To each his own .....guy's i couldnt agree more with you. I used to train legs for a few years with MINIMAL RESULTS. Nice strenght but no size at all....i had a budy of mine push me real hard ( he is my mentor Shrededmass something is his handle here) long story short i gave up on the 10-20 set aproach for legs. Now i train quads and hams seperately doing NO MORE THAN 8 sets per Quads and Hams. Legs are growing very nicely. I do have to tell you guys that the 6-8 sets i do i literaly cry on them.

EXACTLY!!

Training each bodypart once per week works for me great. After hitting a bodypart at max intensity it is sore for days on end. Yeah, each bodypart recovers at a different rate but if you plan how you sequence your workouts you wont need to train even arms more than once per week. If you train chest and then do tris 3 days later your tris are getting two days per week really. Must not forget how muslces assist in different movements. Train back and then do bis a couple of days later and your bis get 2x per week etc etc. I do no more than 9 sets for my quads and they hurt for 5 or 6 days, and so I barely recover to where I can train the following week. I have trained legs hard enough this way that they were still sore a week later on leg day- oops overtrained. There have been weeks where I can do no more than 5 sets of heavy squats and I am done with quads, and I am still sore for 6 days.

 

[Neo22]

i totally agree bro...

that once a week per muscle philosophy is crap and totally worthless..
seriously i dont know where/how it came about!

What is your split?

 

[Madcow2]

First of all - soreness has no correlation to the effectiveness of a workout. It is generally a product of low frequency and high volume training. Being sore is neither good nor bad - although it can impede another workout which is generally bad. Phenomenal gains have been made on programs where athletes almost never get sore. This is accepted as fact by every researcher and strength coach in the world - DOMS has no correlation to either a good or bad workout.

As for recovery - do you really think muscles recover in a few days? Maybe a week right? Nope, look up complete tissue remodelming, it can take well over a month from a single bout of weight training if I remember correctly but regardless it is far longer than any split in use. Bottom line you are almost always training in some type of recovery deficit.

Where did the 1x per week come from? It came about because BBers started talking about overtraining back in the late 1980's (at the time just previous to this the common workout in the muscle mags was 3 on 1 off and I remember a fair amount of AM/PM days too). A few guys began to notice that if they took time off they came back stronger. They then thought that this was because their workouts weren't optimally spaced and timed. This is the essense of single factor theory or Supercompensation where you go in the gym and work ultra hard pushing your muscles to the point of full exertion (welcome to the training to failure school). Then you retreat quietly and heal up slightly stronger. Just after you've gotten your growth response but before you begin to detrain and lose it you hit that muscle again and do the same thing. The idea is that you can link up a series of these and grow in a linear pattern.

Pretty fucking cool eh? Too bad it's wrong. First, there's no scientific backing. Arthur Jones is partially responsible for this shit and he's long since recanted his short, intense, and infrequent methodology a la Mentzer's Heavy Duty. I will say that this program does work for beginners but for an experienced lifter it is drastically suboptimal. Oh yeah - if you take a shitty stimulus and magnify the response with enough drugs you can still make progress but for a given individual a supperior stimulus would allow for more gains at an individual's given dosage or equal gains for that person at a lower dosage level.

So where does that leave us? Well luckily people figured this stuff out a couple decades ago. There's a fatigue factor that gets built into this stuff and managing this fatique is important (both CNS and at the muscular level). You see, you can make gains and train without being fully recovered, it's actually better (think back to the people taking some time off and noticing they came back stronger - we'll revisit this in a moment). Rather than thinking about a single workout as a stimulus, consider a block of training - let's say 2-4 weeks. The fatigue is actually a recovery deficit that accrues during stimulative training. Unfortunately, a deficit means that it can't continue forever because you are running your body into the ground - but wait! This is actually fortunate.

You see, the idea that an experienced lifter can go into the gym and train once and then have his body respond with increased musculature on a consistent basis is rediculous. The body is first and foremost a survival machine. Muscle is calorically expensive and it's the last thing the body wants to add (people who had this genetic makeup died in famines very quickly and aren't around to reproduce). So a single session for an experienced lifter won't convince the body to pack on more muscle, and definitely not a short and infrequent stimulus because the body isn't convinced there is need. Bring in the fatigue accrual - in a training block of coninuously increasing fatigue the body gets a different message. The message is that there is a frequent, sustained, and increasing need for adaptation and that the body is falling behind and will soon break down under the strain. This is the stimulus we are looking for.

So now you train hard for 4 weeks and build up this deficit where you are right on the verge of overtraining (this point is called overreaching and the 4 weeks are called loading). The body knows it's screwed. What do you do? Pull the rug out and allow it to recover (deload). Generally you slash volume and frequency for a period to allow the body to recover and add some muscle in adaptation to the training stress. After a period of deloading you come back and load again - bigger and stronger (wait - remember about the BBers who took some time off and came back stronger - amazing fit is it not?).

This whole idea is called dual factor theory. Now most BBers haven't heard of it and couldn't explain it. It's largely greek to most of the people reading this. I mean, there are guys on here that know just about everything about drugs and diet but this is brand new to them. Well, it isn't brand new. It's not even remotely new or a little bit obscure. This is how 99.9% of the world's elite athletes are trained. We are talking near universal acceptance by every researcher and strength coach in the US, China, Europe, the Eastern Block, the former Soviet nations - everywhere. It's absolutely and totally prolific. On top of that there is a massive mound of scientific evidence to support it.

So how do you incorporate something like this? Logical question because in all my time at EF <I was here for a while as Madcow1 in 2000-2002ish too> I see people posting their programs and splits but there are critical factors missing. I can take the best split and exercise selection and bust my ass in the gym yet the stimulus is subpar because I'm not providing for loading/deloading. Generally this is handled by managing volume. A high volume period and then a low volume period.

There is a good program here that breaks many of the common rules in this thread (number of sets, frequency of training, all kinds of stuff). It has you squat 3x per week in addition to DLing once, rowing and benching twice. That won't work you say no one can squat 3x per week. Well it's actually not a problem and people have been running this program for 30 years and making huge gains. Several board members here are running it now or have just finished with big steroid like results but they were natural lifters (off the top of my head one is up 17lbs in week 7, another 16lbs in week 6, one younger guy was up 12 in week 6-7 but got that damn flu and has been out of commission). I didn't make this program so I can't take credit but it was orignally designed by Bill Starr, one of the greatest strength coaches ever, and later adapted by a Johnsmith182 from Meso who is actually one of the US' finest strength coaches - incidentally this job entails adding LBM to athletes in time constrained environments and this program is as good as any designed at doing it and far far better than just about anything most guys are using around here to add muscle. It's also avoided like the plague by weightclass constrained athletes who are near the top of their class as it simply causes too much weight gain and the diet restriction to prevent it is very severe. I ended up running it a few years ago and had to slash my calories twice in order to keep my gains down to the 8-10lbs range over 8 weeks (and I was not stuffing myself before). The cream of the program is that it is fantastic at adding LBM to an athlete but is also a very simple and easy to understand implementation of dual factor theory.

So anyway - that's the jist on training. None of this is revolutionary. It is in fact very standard stuff. The single factor camp is nearly empty devoid of anyone except BBers and I can certainly respect an educated choice to disagree in the face of all this but the fact that almost no one understands or has heard of what is the basic and dominant theory of training around the world doesn't exactly give me confidence that this is the situation. In fact the situation is that BBing has fallen so far behind on training knowledge that something really needs to be done.

I really hope this helps someone - I have no idea how training became all voodoo and the general population separated so far away ( likely A.Jones and Nautilus, the near extincation of Olympic Lifting, Weider's rosy image of BBing, the heavy reliance on steroids to compensate, who knows).

My wife is about to kill me for being up late and my 15 month old is crying let me provide some links for those who are interested. For those that aren't and are totally happy with what they are doing - that's cool too and all that really matters. But, if you want to learn about how training is done around the world and how the best coaches bulk and strengthen their athletes and why it is very very different from what is commonly seen in the gyms - maybe even make some better gains than what you are used to, then maybe this is useful to you:

Dual Factor Theory:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497678&postcount=13

The Bill Starr 5x5 Program:
Full Thread: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=9
Explanation 1: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497628&postcount=10
Explanation 2: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497659&postcount=12

Recent Results:
Ceasar989 Post #185 on this page: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215&page=10&pp=20
Ghettostudmuffin:
Post #154 on this page:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215&page=8&pp=20
Post #166 on this page
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215&page=9&pp=20
I can't find Superrice's training journal but it's in the WL forum - he's the 17 year old that got the flu - kind of a shame.

 

[gabberbol]

So dual-factor is just a good idea all the time, when on and when off?

I'm planning on doing my first cycle end of June. I'd be paranoid that spending time 'deloading' whilst on would be wasting time spent on gear, but this doesnt make sense does it (?) because thats when I'd be experiencing the most muscle growth and the gear is as important during that period as anywhere else?

I guess you've just gotta be real disciplined, because in my imagination I can see a low volume period being hard to take when on.

 

[macrophage69alpha]

I think it is just like every other subject dealing with AAS and training. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT, and they react differently to certain stimuli.

excellent point.

as a note- with extremely heavy load work some individuals take 10-12 days between workouts to recover.

with lighter loads and more "pump" type training it is feasible for many, though not all to train as frequently as twice, even three times a week the same bodypart (with adequate rest, nutrition and AAS)

 

[DIVISION]

I don't care what works best for others, I have my own schedule and workout regardless.

The basis of my training is strength and control.......

I emphasize the negative portion of the movement as much as the positive.....so for me, the lactic acid buildup is alot greater than for someone doing the usual 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. For me the strengthening of the tendons, ligaments, connective tissue is as important if not more so than the muscles themselves. If you don't have strong connective tissue, you are only setting yourself up for failure. I put so much intensity in to my lifts and proper form that I can't do the volume work that most guys do in a week. I hit each muscle group once a week......abs 3 times per week, cardio 3 times per week.

Also, since I focus on strength, my lifts are all within 30%-40% of my max.....

I'll do a warmup set at 50% of max.....that doesn't count as a working set.

From there I jump up 30lbs at each interval until I hit max which is usually on my 4th set.

The point is to keep base strength, and move up from there in rapid increments, which translates directly in to functional strength.......moving people out of your way, lifting things off of you, lifting people off of you.....etc.

A bodybuilder may be able to equal my max lifts, but how many sets and how many reps did it take him to get there? Time spent, volume training spent.....






DIV

 

[satchboogie]

DIVISION..

you're posting like there's no tomorow and giving quite good advice.
but i'd really to like to see pics to see whose behind that keyboard.

post em up dog!

 

[DIVISION]

you're posting like there's no tomorow and giving quite good advice.
but i'd really to like to see pics to see whose behind that keyboard.

I'm considering it.....people have asked.




DIV

 

[satchboogie]

I'm considering it.....people have asked.




DIV

ill tell you some'n...

before you even considred coming on elite, we had a member who talked big game and thought he was a guru. he gave out advice to newbies and people believed and followed what he advised.

when asked to post his pics, he did so..
we were in shock to see an out of shape, skinny bro with no definition.

it killed his rep immediately.

now..

since you're not an ulter, genetic, or the other super crazy scientists who are qualified in the field (and neither am i) then your advice is purely by your day to day experiences with bodybuilding. in such case, you must post pics to back up what you preach.

 

[DIVISION]

ill tell you some'n...

before you even considred coming on elite, we had a member who talked big game and thought he was a guru. he gave out advice to newbies and people believed and followed what he advised.

when asked to post his pics, he did so..
we were in shock to see an out of shape, skinny bro with no definition.

it killed his rep immediately.

now..

since you're not an ulter, genetic, or the other super crazy scientists who are qualified in the field (and neither am i) then your advice is purely by your day to day experiences with bodybuilding. in such case, you must post pics to back up what you preach.

I must?

I must live and die.....that's about it.

Last time I gave out some pics, the female shared them with others when she promised she wouldn't......so I'm pretty much holding off on that shit.

I'm sure you undertand, and if you don't.......well, that your problem.





DIV

 

[satchboogie]

I must?

I must live and die.....that's about it.

Last time I gave out some pics, the female shared them with others when she promised she wouldn't......so I'm pretty much holding off on that shit.

I'm sure you undertand, and if you don't.......well, that your problem.





DIV

dont take this personally bro but i expected a reply along the same line.

you're basically preaching big talk posting like there's no tomorow.. over 10,000 posts in less than 6 months but cant back your shit up with pics.

i wont LMAO.. but your true colors are showing 'big' dude.. or are you??

no harm done.. lets resume.

 

[sparetire]

div, post up the pics nugga. You put something over your face like the satch man and who cares if someone spreads your pics...they can't jack off to you if you got a clown covering your face! Let's see what you got! I remember a jack off on here I got into it with who preached about bf and as soon as I challenged him to post pics, he quit replying...amazing at the bs that flies here..

 

[satchboogie]

Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Pale, tight, white women are the be-all & end-all of my sexual existence, truly...
Gender: M
Posts: 10,584
Karmic Power: 29
Karma Hits: 28757

 

[RADAR]

ooooo! Div is being called out.....even Dee can't save ya! lol!


RADAR

 

[wls8687]

sounds good..come on Div post some picture's now so we know whom were talking to..

 

[needsize]

some good posts on this thread, and a huge amount of bullshit as well. Anyone who says that a certain type of training will definitely work for everyone, has no idea what they are talking about(madcow, not directed at you as you know your stuff).

Some people cannot train each bodypart 2x weekly, and make any kind of gains. I happen to be one of them, in all the years I've spent in the gym(around 15), I've tried every approach to lifting that I could find. And training everything 2x weekly....all that did was lead to overtraining in a big way! I can specialize on certain parts, hitting them more than once a week to bring up weak areas, but sure as hell not everything.

To those preaching about their 2x weekly training, I would love to see some pics of your physique, as well as see your routine and what kind of weights you are moving.....when you are not all that advanced, you can get away with almost anything

 

[Tux]

True NS. The only time I made gains doing 2x a week was when I first started. Also I was plifting not bbing then. I had a heavy day and a light or speedwork day. Got some decent strength for my size then( raw bench 225 @ 118lbs), but sure as hell couldn't put on any weight. If I tried 2x a week on anything but calves/abs/forearms these days I'd be shot in a week or less. Like you, I can maybe train bi's or side delts 2x a week, prioritizing one smaller group, but everything 2x a week? Not even on a gram of test lol. Sometimes I do wish I could train everything more often simply b/c I love training, but to see gains, I have to hit it only 1x a week.

 

[mrplunkey]

Posting a pic is surprisingly easy. Get a camera or a camera phone, stand in front of your bathroom mirror. Then, position the camera so it's right over your face in the reflection. Then shoot! Done

That's what my pic in my gallery is!

Course... 6' 2.75" and 237 @ 11-12% isn't much to write home about yet! Wish I knew what I know now at 37 back when I was 25 though...

 

[ruggermu]

I'm gonna add a question to this, someone hit on cadio. I just finished first cycle madae good gain but raised body fat. When is best time for cardio. I'm college student so I have time, but I've heard cardio while I'm in the gym after I lift can be real bad for grow so I'm dodging cardio. When is good time???

 

[sweed]

good time... wake up and have a small protein shake then do some cardio- I liked either the threadmill ( 80-85% Max HR ) or Eliptical for about 30 minutes. when I started this i noticed a huge change in my physique.

Also Madcow- great post btw, i enjoyed it. going back to "gabberbol's" post he asked about the duel factor while ON.. I have a 12 week cycle coming up. Would weeks 1-4 be high volume, 5-8 be low volume, 9-12 high volume and then 13--- low volume? and so on?
I have only done 1 group per week, never been on but can't freakin wait

 

[Madcow2]

So dual-factor is just a good idea all the time, when on and when off?

I'm planning on doing my first cycle end of June. I'd be paranoid that spending time 'deloading' whilst on would be wasting time spent on gear, but this doesnt make sense does it (?) because thats when I'd be experiencing the most muscle growth and the gear is as important during that period as anywhere else?

I guess you've just gotta be real disciplined, because in my imagination I can see a low volume period being hard to take when on.

The stimulus to get the body to adapt is the same - steroids simply magnify the response to the stimulus by increasing your tolerances/ability to recover. So basically you can load with more total volume whether that's in the form of extra frequency, extra volume per workout, or extra intensity (% of 1RM is the definition of intensity - not emotional arrousal level which is actually a significant strain on the CNS but variable by lifter). Generally a block of training will ramp intensity upward so screwing with this knob isn't generally the best idea. Consistently training to failure is one of the better ways not to grow and stagnate, failure may occure but the goal is not failure, the goal is to provide a training stimulus over a block of time and that involves using these factors.

The main issue in applying steroids into the mix is that as you noticed your training cycle has different periods and now your body has a variable hormonal level as you introduce the drug regimine, maintain it, come off, and then recover your natural test. Ideally matching your training cycle with hormone level is the goal. If you are waiting for long-acting injectibles to build concentration you can't load as heavily as you will be able to in 2-3 weeks. You also don't want to deload straight into a zero test environment (let's say injects have cleared and you cut orals on the same day just before deload) because there's nothing there to support the recovery. In addition, when coming off cycle and running PCT you want to be in a low volume, moderate to low frequency, but high intensity environment which will allow you to retain your gains better.

Obviously this adds some complicaiton for a neophyte planning training cycles because now he's not just planning a cycle and applying a routine but he's trying to optimally program training to match the cycle - luckily most here don't have to worry about drug testt, clearance times, or peaking for a competition so that takes some pressure off.

Also there's simply no reason not to be able to train a bodypart more than once per week. Plenty of lifters out there squating 2-3x per week and pulling from the floor 4-5x per week in the Olympic Lifts with many lifts requiring recovery from the full squat position. It's all about total volume. If you can handle 9 sets of squats 1x per week at a given intensity and rep range then doing 3 sets on M/W/F is equivalent. It's a matter of keeping track of total volume being applied to the system. Working out 2x per week per body part doesn't mean you necessarily have to double your volume. Just spread out your current volume and possible add a modest increase if you feel that's appropriate. You are adjusting frequency first (this distribution of volume). This is important because there is a detraining effect that comes into play over longer periods and waiting a week to recovery brings you head to head with this factor. Far better to divide the volume by doubling the frequency and cut that time in half to mitigate the detraining - your results will be greatly enhanced as the typical 3 day split 1x per week bodypart workouts are at the core of a bad program right next to relying on single factor training principles and being decades behind the rest of the world.

 

[OpusCrosby]

lately ( the past 5 years) there seems to be a minimalist approach to training

frequency, sets and reps

where 1 body part is hit each week
and with very few "working sets"

now I can see why this would be fine if your just maintaining or keeping things going

but even for a natural body one can get away with training each group 2 times a week with proper diet and traning

now many of you are "ON"

so

why are you not traing each group 2 times a week?

why are you not hitting the muscle at every concievable angle?

why are you not doing cardio?

your recovery ability should be in the stratosphere.......


do you wanna be like this:

http://www.schwarzenegger.it/gallery/musclegallery.html

or like this:

http://www.metalcorefanzine.com/chris_nasser.jpg


seriously....

I don't know... As my self-portrait avatar clearly shows, 1 body part a week is obviously doing me just fine! Don't mean to brag.

 

[slat1]

Needsize is correct that each body is different.
I have twice in my life gone to one body part per week for a year. Both times I didn't gain one lb of muscle. I get a 7point bf% test done monthly to monitor my progress... as we all know the scale doesn't mean shit. It was a rough two years of no growth.
When I do everything twice not only to I get bigger but more ripped as well.
Interestingly, from what I have been told. Ronnie Coleman has been using the same exact split for over ten years! He has no offseason routine or precontest routine. Just does the same split.. twice a week for everything.
God and science are the only ones that know why each of us responds the way we do. Its our job to dial in our workouts to find what works and use it to our advantage!
Good luck to everyone!

 

[courtneybcca]

Oh wow Division actually shut the hell up for once..... Truly amazing... Come on bitch you talk a lot of smack lets see if you can back it up!!!

 

[satchboogie]

Oh wow Division actually shut the hell up for once..... Truly amazing... Come on bitch you talk a lot of smack lets see if you can back it up!!!

you gonna let a GIRL talk to you like that??
come on big guy.. show her some pics!!!

 

[satchboogie]

anyhow, this is my split:

DAY 1:
am workout: back
pm workout: triceps

DAY 2:
am workout: shoulders
pm workout: hammies, calves

DAY 3:
am workout: chest
pm workout: biceps

DAY 4:
am workout: quads, abs

ill take a day off somewhere in the middle.
theres no set plan for days off.. i really go with how my body feels that day.

 

[wls8687]

Oh wow Division actually shut the hell up for once..... Truly amazing... Come on bitch you talk a lot of smack lets see if you can back it up!!!

LOL ROFL LMAO... you made my day..

 

[slat1]

Oh wow Division actually shut the hell up for once..... Truly amazing... Come on bitch you talk a lot of smack lets see if you can back it up!!!

Ok.. seriously. I love when you talk like that!

 

[SilentStrength]

I think this is my first post on Elite but let me tell you, Ive been on several other boards both as SilentStrength and as "Jshrub". I totally agree with Satch and others here. Ive seen it happen before where people have great advice, or even horrible advice (but they post constantly) and its found that they are nothing more than bags of fat, bones and random information. Now im not saying this is necessarily the case with you but I dont see the harm in posting your pics. What could we possibly do with them that could embarass you unless their nudes Post them up, you dont have to be Ronnie Coleman, just show you practice what you preach.

 

[satchboogie]

I think this is my first post on Elite but let me tell you, Ive been on several other boards both as SilentStrength and as "Jshrub". I totally agree with Satch and others here. Ive seen it happen before where people have great advice, or even horrible advice (but they post constantly) and its found that they are nothing more than bags of fat, bones and random information. Now im not saying this is necessarily the case with you but I dont see the harm in posting your pics. What could we possibly do with them that could embarass you unless their nudes Post them up, you dont have to be Ronnie Coleman, just show you practice what you preach.

hey bro how ya been?
this bro is a long time vet and a solid bro!

 

[soflaguy]

Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Pale, tight, white women are the be-all & end-all of my sexual existence, truly...
Gender: M
Posts: 10,584
Karmic Power: 29
Karma Hits: 28757

Holy shit, 10,000+ posts in only 9 months! He truly must me an expert.

 

[Madcow2]

To an extent it's important to keep things in context. Is a person merely providing good information or are they pretentind to be some huge built guy. Good information is good regardless of the source. Take a look at golf, the big money winners have guru teaching pros that generally have very limited competitive success. The best coach is not necessarily the best athlete or even a reasonably good one, where he excels is in taking athletes and getting them to perform at their absolute best.

In BBing where there is no performance criteria drugs can compensate in a huge way simply because it's all hypertrophy based. A natural lifter can know 10x more than a guy running around on 3 grams yet to many people they would think the results speak for themselves yet they really don't. I'm a lot more impressed by the people who gain 10lbs off a modest dose of primo or another refined anabolic than I am with the kid that gets 25lbs from a gram of test a week and 150mg of anadrol daily. Shit, look at farmers and their cattle. I have yet to see them on any weight training program but between food and enough drugs they bulk up nicely. Drugs can simply compensate too much when it comes to hypertrophy.

Years ago, I worked right next to a guy who went on to earn his pro card 6 months later. The guy looked fabulous and admittedly had very good discipline with diet and kept himself in good condition. However, this guy knew shit about training. He was unfit to coach a high school team. He never squated, never pulled from the floor (the 2 most fundemental movements for adding mass to the frame), and hardly ever benched. His PT clients made zero progress where mine were doing great. He trained this one Dr. who had been training under him for years and knew a client of mine who had just started training 2-3 months ago and put on some solid muscle. The Dr. had always been bigger than my guy yet one night they were out and my trainee went to put on the Dr.'s jacket and it was too tight. The Dr. got so fed up he went out, got himself some juice and put on 20lbs using the same program and training methodology that had him stagnant before that. Now, most people would look at me at the time and look at this soon to be Pro BBer and think that guy knew it all. However, if you judged our PT client's progress it was night and day. If a knowledgable lifter watched each of us train for even 10 minutes, the truth would be self-evident to him.

What does all this mean - if a given person is providing information and the information is quality and helpful they may not be the biggest and most ripped guy around. Hell, I've had almost 2 years worth of injuries. I couldn't bench over 135 without searing pain for over 10 months. I'm 6'3" 250ish but I'm not in shape and my lifts are shit. I'm also at a point in my life where family and work are my priorities and I lift for personal enjoyment and enjoy seeing others succeed. The information I provide has little bearing on my current physical condition.

However, if a given person is just putting himself out there as a big muscular in shape guy - that's easily proven with pictures.

 

[Tux]

Good post madcow! I agree, good advice doesn't always come from the most obvious place. In general, yes, guys who know their shit will have bodies to back it up, but not always. Just b/c Div doesn't post his pics doesn't mean he doesn't have the knowledge. Now if he were bragging all the time about his size, his lifts, etc, or telling people to do things "his" way b/c it obviously worked, then I'd say post up or shut up. But as of yet, I haven't seen much in the way of boasting. Div does like to talk smack a lot, and he's controversial, but hasn't really given much "bad" advice that I've seen. No reason to crucify him yet

 

[Tweakle]

As I understood it roids enhance volume tollerence to a degree, but recovery ability is mostly genetically predetermined.

its moot tho, if your leg workout is extensions and hacks with light weights you can get away with it. If it's 600lb+ deads and squats then it's unlikely you'll be doing that twice a week and getting away with it. But who knows.

 

[SilentStrength]

hey bro how ya been?
this bro is a long time vet and a solid bro!

Whats up bro, been good. New job but loving it. Thanks for the respect, same goes for you.

 

[OMEGA]

anyhow, this is my split:

DAY 1:
am workout: back
pm workout: triceps

DAY 2:
am workout: shoulders
pm workout: hammies, calves

DAY 3:
am workout: chest
pm workout: biceps

DAY 4:
am workout: quads, abs

ill take a day off somewhere in the middle.
theres no set plan for days off.. i really go with how my body feels that day.

MY SPLIT

DAY 1

Chest, Triceps, Deltoids

DAY 2

AM run 30 minutes first thing in the morning

PM Back and Bis

DAY3

AM run 30 minutes first thing in the morning

PM Legs Calves Abs

DAY4

OFF be lazy, chicks beer,

 

[envies]

This is an awesome thread....I have been doing each bodypart once a week and not getting very good results. I was just thinking of switching to a different routine and came upon this thread, perfect timing. Thanks for the very informative posts madcow2.

 

[OMEGA]

MY SPLIT

DAY 1

Chest, Triceps, Deltoids

DAY 2

AM run 30 minutes first thing in the morning

PM Back and Bis

DAY3

AM run 30 minutes first thing in the morning

PM Legs Calves Abs

DAY4

OFF be lazy, chicks beer,

I should note this has evolved over time

I had a pec tear not long ago, then graduated once a week training

then graduated to the above split

now I have no choice but to so a split like the one above

do to an increase in my recuperation abilites

 

[maldorf]

True NS. The only time I made gains doing 2x a week was when I first started. Also I was plifting not bbing then. I had a heavy day and a light or speedwork day. Got some decent strength for my size then( raw bench 225 @ 118lbs), but sure as hell couldn't put on any weight. If I tried 2x a week on anything but calves/abs/forearms these days I'd be shot in a week or less. Like you, I can maybe train bi's or side delts 2x a week, prioritizing one smaller group, but everything 2x a week? Not even on a gram of test lol. Sometimes I do wish I could train everything more often simply b/c I love training, but to see gains, I have to hit it only 1x a week.

I have found the same thing to be true of me. When I first started I could get away with training bodyparts 2x per week because I wasnt able to throw around the kind of weight I do now, and so the intensity was not nearly as high. Intensity is directly proportional to the load you put on the muscle. Every set I do is to failure and somewhere between 3 and 12 reps, average around 7 or 8. Lifting like this has given me a 600 lb squat at bodyweight of 245, which isnt too bad. I do a powerlifting routine about 2x per year and it lasts 9 weeks, and starts out using 5 sets with all the same reps. I took it from Fred Hatfield, and it has helped put on some serious strength. Fred's workout has you doing the squat and bench 2x per week and the deadlift once. He says he took it from the russians back in the 80s.

 

[lefler]

day 1:
chest and tri
abs

day 2:
explosive exercises (for the legs...power cleans, hang cleans, squat jumps ect.
calf

day 3:
back and bi
abs

day 4:
shoulders and neck
calf

day 5:
legs
abs

day 6
rest

day 7:
start over

ive tried the 2x a week thing before but personally, i notice the best results this way. I guess I get the chest and tri in 2x a week and the following week I’ll get the explosive exercises in...... then back and bi ect. ect. i basiocly train on a 6 day week. it gives me the perfect amount of rest and i usually feel ready to give a 110%.

 

[Slyder190]

I've been mixing up styles a lot this time around with bulking. I will hitting each bodypart 2x a week, with a low volume, like 3-4 sets total per bodypart. I just finished a few weeks of lighter training to avoid over-kill. I only got 5-6 weeks left to bulk. I'll see how it goes. If I remember. I'll post up my results and whether or not i think it was a good idea, for me at least anyway. some guys do each body part 1x a week with mad volume. So of course if one were to train a bp 2x a week, then volume would have to be lowered.

 

[SilentStrength]

Yo lefler, you the lefler from meso... the name looks familar.................

 

[lefler]

Yo lefler, you the lefler from meso... the name looks familar.................

yes sir..... i always liked meso for the classifieds. i still stop by once in a while.

 

[freag33]

Madcow2, awesome posts. In just a few minutes, you have changed my way of thinking about training, and I'm going to re-plan my workouts in the coming months. I don't have access to a personal trainer (most just repeat the relatively baseless status quo anyways), and I find it a challenge to weed through the countless conflicting advice I read on sites like this.

If the concept you talk of works as well as it sounds, I hope that the community isn't so stuck in its ways that it can't adapt to new ideas - though as you say, they are not new ideas at all, but they sure are to the BB community judging from my 10 years in it.

 

[UA_Iron]

I straight up blast my shit and see good results - it ends up being the last couple sets though, and a lot of it is instinctive with a goal in mind.

 

[Mr_MAX]

good post

 

[OMEGA]

As I understood it roids enhance volume tollerence to a degree, but recovery ability is mostly genetically predetermined.

that why the 3 areas of recovery should be adressed and seperated


1) Connective tissue recovery ( usually taxed through very heavy lifting, takes longer to recover)

2) Muscle recovery ( the actual muscle cells that we all try to develop that recover actually very fast hence the bodybuilder "look" )

3) Central nervous system recovery ( the actual rest and recuperation of the CNS our muscle recruiting fire power for lifting, also recovers somewhat quickly)


4) not really in the top three but "joints" have to be watched in sensitive individuals, but if the top three are taken care of then this wont be a problem

 

[sparetire]

I've been working out body parts 2 times a week forever and now since I have been on aas, I've been only hitting it 1 time a week. I find personally, 2 times is much better. you gain the "internal" strength and not just the "outside" looking strength.

 

[Outtlaw]

To an extent it's important to keep things in context. Is a person merely providing good information or are they pretentind to be some huge built guy. Good information is good regardless of the source. Take a look at golf, the big money winners have guru teaching pros that generally have very limited competitive success. The best coach is not necessarily the best athlete or even a reasonably good one, where he excels is in taking athletes and getting them to perform at their absolute best.

In BBing where there is no performance criteria drugs can compensate in a huge way simply because it's all hypertrophy based. A natural lifter can know 10x more than a guy running around on 3 grams yet to many people they would think the results speak for themselves yet they really don't. I'm a lot more impressed by the people who gain 10lbs off a modest dose of primo or another refined anabolic than I am with the kid that gets 25lbs from a gram of test a week and 150mg of anadrol daily. Shit, look at farmers and their cattle. I have yet to see them on any weight training program but between food and enough drugs they bulk up nicely. Drugs can simply compensate too much when it comes to hypertrophy.

Years ago, I worked right next to a guy who went on to earn his pro card 6 months later. The guy looked fabulous and admittedly had very good discipline with diet and kept himself in good condition. However, this guy knew shit about training. He was unfit to coach a high school team. He never squated, never pulled from the floor (the 2 most fundemental movements for adding mass to the frame), and hardly ever benched. His PT clients made zero progress where mine were doing great. He trained this one Dr. who had been training under him for years and knew a client of mine who had just started training 2-3 months ago and put on some solid muscle. The Dr. had always been bigger than my guy yet one night they were out and my trainee went to put on the Dr.'s jacket and it was too tight. The Dr. got so fed up he went out, got himself some juice and put on 20lbs using the same program and training methodology that had him stagnant before that. Now, most people would look at me at the time and look at this soon to be Pro BBer and think that guy knew it all. However, if you judged our PT client's progress it was night and day. If a knowledgable lifter watched each of us train for even 10 minutes, the truth would be self-evident to him.

What does all this mean - if a given person is providing information and the information is quality and helpful they may not be the biggest and most ripped guy around. Hell, I've had almost 2 years worth of injuries. I couldn't bench over 135 without searing pain for over 10 months. I'm 6'3" 250ish but I'm not in shape and my lifts are shit. I'm also at a point in my life where family and work are my priorities and I lift for personal enjoyment and enjoy seeing others succeed. The information I provide has little bearing on my current physical condition.

However, if a given person is just putting himself out there as a big muscular in shape guy - that's easily proven with pictures.

Very well said. There are plenty of big guys out there that dont know shit other than what their trainer or guru tells them and couldnt help somebody out if they tried. Just because somebody's big, doesnt mean they automatically gain respect from me, and it certainly doesnt mean that I will take their advice with anything more than a grain of salt. There's a big guy in my gym that doesnt know how to train correctly, and as a result he doesnt grow. He's been the same size for the last 3yrs.

Look at what happened with bigdoggmikey just the other day. Bitch posted up a fake pic of a pro and everyone thought he was God. I didnt know he was a fake, but I read his post, and I was still waiting for him to back up his physique with some knowledgable advice when he got busted.

Some of the most important principles I learned about bodybuilding came from knowledgable people who worked in exercise, medical, and supplement feilds who were not bodybuilders. There are only a few people on this board who's advice I value. I dont even really post questions on here anymore because most people simply dont have the knowledge to answer them correctly.

 

[OMEGA]

you gain the "internal" strength and not just the "outside" looking strength.

yes

 

[UA_Iron]

Very well said. There are plenty of big guys out there that dont know shit other than what their trainer or guru tells them and couldnt help somebody out if they tried. Just because somebody's big, doesnt mean they automatically gain respect from me, and it certainly doesnt mean that I will take their advice with anything more than a grain of salt. There's a big guy in my gym that doesnt know how to train correctly, and as a result he doesnt grow. He's been the same size for the last 3yrs.

Look at what happened with bigdoggmikey just the other day. Bitch posted up a fake pic of a pro and everyone thought he was God. I didnt know he was a fake, but I read his post, and I was still waiting for him to back up his physique with some knowledgable advice when he got busted.

Some of the most important principles I learned about bodybuilding came from knowledgable people who worked in exercise, medical, and supplement feilds who were not bodybuilders. There are only a few people on this board who's advice I value. I dont even really post questions on here anymore because most people simply dont have the knowledge to answer them correctly.

wait was that the dude that was inquiring about the heavy tren cycle??

 

[Outtlaw]

wait was that the dude that was inquiring about the heavy tren cycle??

He was the guy bragging about running 2grams of test.http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=370440

 

[OMEGA]

that why the 3 areas of recovery should be adressed and seperated


1) Connective tissue recovery ( usually taxed through very heavy lifting, takes longer to recover)

2) Muscle recovery ( the actual muscle cells that we all try to develop that recover actually very fast hence the bodybuilder "look" )

3) Central nervous system recovery ( the actual rest and recuperation of the CNS our muscle recruiting fire power for lifting, also recovers somewhat quickly)


4) not really in the top three but "joints" have to be watched in sensitive individuals, but if the top three are taken care of then this wont be a problem

OMEGA that was enlightening

 

[Tweakle]

Omega I agree there's multiple things to take into account when you're talking recovery.. hence my comment on heavy training vs lighter workouts. From personal experience I know I fall apart if I train 2 days in a row, no matter how I split things.. tendons go, joints ache and gains stall.

I prefer to maximise load at the expense of volume and frequency.. I simply dont have the recovery ability to rebound from constant heavy training to failure. My sometime training partners a regional level strongman contestant and he trains 2 x weekly for a couple of sets, and his 'bridges' involve more gear than most ppl here take in a cycle. And hes got very, very big on a few sets a week.. lol. It's all individual

 

[TheAssholeFomerlyKnownAsDBBT]

Because...1 a week is more then enough for muscle to grow... anything more then 1x week is detrimental to my body. And most others too. If you are training properly. Your bodyparts that you train will be sore for a good 2-4days after training them even when on a potent cycle. So i reverse the question on you bro. Why are you not training hard enough as where your able to train the same body part 2x a week?

This is true, training bodyparts twice a week are for maybe 5% of the genetic freaks that it works for. Everyone is gonna go all out after this thread and bust their ass for two-three weeks and end up loosing strength and size

 

[LoneTree]

Arnold's book 'The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding'.

Page 147:

'Different muscles recover from exercise at different rates. As I mentioned, biceps recover the fastest. The lower back muscles recover the slowest, taking about a hundred hours to completely recuperate from a heavy workout. However, in most cases, giving a body part 48 hours' rest is sufficient, which means skipping a day after training a muscle before training it again.'

 

[AMGETR]

Some of us have careers and can't live ina gym. So we are there 5-6 a week for 2 hrs at a time. That with proper big eating, and sleep, you will grow the same.

 

[TheAssholeFomerlyKnownAsDBBT]

Arnold's book 'The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding'.

Page 147:

'Different muscles recover from exercise at different rates. As I mentioned, biceps recover the fastest. The lower back muscles recover the slowest, taking about a hundred hours to completely recuperate from a heavy workout. However, in most cases, giving a body part 48 hours' rest is sufficient, which means skipping a day after training a muscle before training it again.'

Key phrase is "Arnolds Book" Not EVERYONE"S BOOK

 

[OMEGA]

Omega I agree there's multiple things to take into account when you're talking recovery.. hence my comment on heavy training vs lighter workouts. From personal experience I know I fall apart if I train 2 days in a row, no matter how I split things.. tendons go, joints ache and gains stall.

well I respect you opinion and experience

I know that when i trained less frequently I was MORE succeptible to injury then when I trained more often

go figure


with lifting less fequently I found that my muscle were more prone to injuries

when i lfited more fequently stength curves remained liner or rose with no injury

the only flaw of training more frquently is the potetial for inflamtion of your form sucks, and possible CNS being taxed

 

[OMEGA]

;;;

 

[bicepts101]

really good thread here

this all really comes down to "trial and error" here as basically everyone said. some people cant train too often some have to

me personally, my body get so used to a workout regimin so quickly im constantly looking into new things, which for a while was putting a halt on gains....im still learning and have a lot of learning to do

 

[HOG]

Tell you what - if a guy can't tell when he is overtraining somethings wrong. I am the kind of guy that completely fuckin destroys the muscle, I feel it and beat on it every time out. 2 hours average to get it done, 4 days (workouts) to cover the body. I don't do periods where I go to the gym and train a few sets per bodypart to failure... I just hammer the muscles, past failure (partner assists), drop sets, etc. and I am fucked up when I leave the gym most nights! I think if you abuse your muscles and train very intensely, it takes a good 4 days to 5 days before you can treat your muscles that way again... at least I've found that's my best schedule. Some people could recover quicker, younger I KNOW I recovered faster....

 

[Quadsweep]

lately ( the past 5 years) there seems to be a minimalist approach to training

frequency, sets and reps

where 1 body part is hit each week
and with very few "working sets"

now I can see why this would be fine if your just maintaining or keeping things going

but even for a natural body one can get away with training each group 2 times a week with proper diet and traning

now many of you are "ON"

so

why are you not traing each group 2 times a week?

why are you not hitting the muscle at every concievable angle?

why are you not doing cardio?

your recovery ability should be in the stratosphere.......


do you wanna be like this:

http://www.schwarzenegger.it/gallery/musclegallery.html

or like this:

http://www.metalcorefanzine.com/chris_nasser.jpg


seriously....

I train everything once a week and maybe 6 sets (working sets) for arms, 8 for chest, 10 for back and 12 for legs. I train hard as a mother fucker and to be honest I do not think my body can take this twice as much. I am going on 36 with 26 years of training...I am beat up. Not saying you are wrong just saying if you are a mad man low volume works.

Quad

Oh and I do no cardio...5.3% is low enough I think.

 

[maldorf]

I train everything once a week and maybe 6 sets (working sets) for arms, 8 for chest, 10 for back and 12 for legs. I train hard as a mother fucker and to be honest I do not think my body can take this twice as much. I am going on 36 with 26 years of training...I am beat up. Not saying you are wrong just saying if you are a mad man low volume works.

Quad

Oh and I do no cardio...5.3% is low enough I think.

That fits in with where I am. Ive been lifting for 20 years and am now able to generate enough intensity during my workout that it takes me a good 7 days to heal up. Now some muscles get worked out indirectly again if you split it up right, and thats enough to stimulate those muscles that recover faster. For example I train shoulders and tris together 3 days after I hit chest, and those muscles were worked pretty hard on chest day too.

 

[dsh89]

Well, it has been said enought that everyone's body responds differnetly, hell that is why there are so many differnet cycles and diets out there, but I know that for me when I am on, I do not get sore as much and my recovery is awesome, so I do increase the number of days that I train in order to maximize gains. But you gotta know what works for YOU. And if you are still sore by all means give it some rest. It is a fact that you do not grow with out sufficient rest.

 

[Madcow2]

I train everything once a week and maybe 6 sets (working sets) for arms, 8 for chest, 10 for back and 12 for legs. I train hard as a mother fucker and to be honest I do not think my body can take this twice as much. I am going on 36 with 26 years of training...I am beat up. Not saying you are wrong just saying if you are a mad man low volume works.

Quad

Oh and I do no cardio...5.3% is low enough I think.

If you did implement higher frequency you wouldn't want to double your current workload each week - you are right in thinking it would bury you. Increased frequency alone has benefits and this is well documented as a significant detraining effect occurs separate from all other variables.

If you wanted to try something like this out and apply it, the best way is to distribute your volume over the new frequency without adding much if anything to it.

Example:

You do 5 sets of squats + 5 sets of legpress + some bullshit. These are usually done on a dedicated leg day (Thursday).

To implement increased frequency you move the squats and 1/2 the bullshit to Monday while leaving the legpress and the other 1/2 bullshit on Thursday. See how this works for a while.

What most people find is that they recover quite a bit better, reduce the detraining effect and actually end up being able to gradually handle additional volume over the same training period. All this equates to a better more efficiently supplied stimulus. The better the stimulus the better the response. This works like night and day for a natural lifter, drugs magnify the response to weight training so it gets obscured in an overwhelmingly positive anabolic environment because for lower level BBers from a training standpoint you can get away with murder if you take enough drugs. However for a drugged lifter looking to gain as much as possible from a given dosage or a lifter looking for equivalent gains from a lower given dosage this still becomes an important factor.

 

[romoranger]

hey madcow, i was wondering if you wouldn't mind outlining a sample routine for the dual factor style, i stil lfully do not understand it. i read up on it, kind of understand, but like physcially seeing what is going on helps me. is it comparable to HST?

 

[alanchiras]

I think for each individual person an expirment is in order. Isolate your body parts that you work out in a typical 7 day period and see what parts arent sore after a short while and could be worked twice a week. Now that i am seriously looking at changing my workout routine (one part per week) You might want to do something like legs once a week and around your squat days do two arm days in a week. For me, my Acilies(sp) heel on the natulis machine could take a twice a week schedual, and I soon maxed out the machine. Wish I could do that with the rest of my body parts! Thanks! Alan Chiras.

 

[Madcow2]

hey madcow, i was wondering if you wouldn't mind outlining a sample routine for the dual factor style, i stil lfully do not understand it. i read up on it, kind of understand, but like physcially seeing what is going on helps me. is it comparable to HST?

So there are a lot of versions but this is one that many BBers have gotten great results with. It's a dual factor version of the Bill Starr program from the 1970's which is still very much in use today by athletes at all levels. In the training forum we've had 2 naturals put on 21 and 18lbs respectively in 9 weeks (I think they both started somewhere between 200-210lbs) as well as a high school lifter (160ish I think) add 12lbs in 6 weeks and then get a horrendous case of the flu which wiped him out. This is off the top of my head, there are others using it now but not yet completed and a few who finished and loved it but didn't track their stats outside of strength increases which although impressive isn't what most BBers are interested in hearing about.

The example is here:
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215
Specifically the program is described in posts: 1, 10, 11, 12.

It's important that weight training stimulus be viewed as being applied over a training block rather than workout to workout. This is the essence of dual vs. single factor and this is really how the body works and adapts, it's just that a novice lifter or a druged lifter will respond so well to anything that the importance is obscured and single factor theory is fairly effective. In the initital volume phase you are training with a volume that cannot be maintained. This volume is scaled upward week to week until you hit the two record weeks. This should zap you. Take you right to the point of overreaching where you are teetering on overtraining (meaning that if you tweak this perfectly, your lifts will begin to deteriorate if you continue and overtraining will fully set in and this is detrimental). At that point a period of lower volume and frequency but higher intenisty is brought in. This allows you to continue to provide good stimulus but at a volume that allows your body to recover from the loading. Most of your gains will show up in this stage as the body recovers. In that link there are 2 versions where the 2nd phase (intensity/deloading) is 3x per week in one and 2x per week in another. If followed to the letter, the 3x per week is frequently too much for people, specifically those unused to this type of training. The goal in that period is to push the weight upward but allow for extra days of rest as needed or cut volume here and there - just keep the weight moving up. Most people used the 3x and followed it to the letter against my specific instructions - if you set your weights reasonably you will get away with this without eating into gains too much but every single one found themselves having to deload again after the end of the intensity phase before they could begin again.

Here is another example in a word doc format that might shed some light also. This one is a bit shorter and more concentrated.

http://jalaine.com/Documents/Dual_Factor_Hypertrophy_Training.doc

Now obviously this is an anabolic board so the question becomes how to use this on a cycle. The problem is that most BBers are not used to following an organized training plan over a period of months so when they start to map out runs of loading/deloading under dual factor theory this is already a stretch especially since they have no reference for how much loading and deloading is appropriate for them. Even if they had a natural range, drugs squeue the equation. Also note that handling more or less loading is not a matter of pride or a macho thing. It's simply the amount of stimulus that is optimal for you to get a response. At the world level you can have two equivalent weightlifters with the same totals and lifts but vastly different training tolerances - doesn't mean a thing besides what works for one or another (humans are all common enough to apply dual factor though so let's not stretch the argument back to "I'm so fucking unique that concentration curls and pec dec 1x per week are optimal".) Anyway, this is what I've written in the past to try to help people understand how you have to merge your cycling and training programs.

As far as dual factor programs and anabolics this really complicates things for most people. Most guys don't have any type of training plan mapped out so they just use drugs over a random # of weeks based on the drug and their own preference. Well, a dual factor program has loading and deloading. And when you come off drugs you need to make sure you aren't loading or deloading after a heavy period of loading. Makes it a lot more complicated for people that aren't used to this stuff. Post #94 on this page might shed some light - http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215&page=5&pp=20 as does post #153 on this page: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215&page=8&pp=20

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[Madcow2]

I think for each individual person an expirment is in order. Isolate your body parts that you work out in a typical 7 day period and see what parts arent sore after a short while and could be worked twice a week. Now that i am seriously looking at changing my workout routine (one part per week) You might want to do something like legs once a week and around your squat days do two arm days in a week. For me, my Acilies(sp) heel on the natulis machine could take a twice a week schedual, and I soon maxed out the machine. Wish I could do that with the rest of my body parts! Thanks! Alan Chiras.

Alan, it's definitely a good idea to try new things and see how they work. There is one problem with your theory though. Soreness, or DOMS, has absolutely no correlation to the effectiveness of a workout and you absolutely don't want to plan training around it. DOMS is most common in people who use low frequency and relatively high volume. Those accustomed to higher frequency programs (even those people who handle staggering amounts of volume under these) rarely get sore. I'm talking about guys squatting 3x per week and pulling from the floor 5 days a week mutliple sessions (frequently those pulls involve squatting cleans and snatches back up so figure those as full body too). The regulate their training, are never overtrained, load and deload appropriately, and rarely get sore unless they are coming back from a break in training.

So the best way to view DOMS is that, you may get sore, you may not. It's of zero consequence. If you are sore, train through it. If you are so sore that you might injure yourself lifting on it, you need to do some concentric only and light work to get some blood moving and help the muscles along before training again.