How OFTEN do you SWITCH EXERCISES?

[Girlwonder]

ok now i'm a little confused....

 

[Nelson Montana]

Sorry Girlwonder. We seem to have gone off on a tangent.

You're 19?

 

[Debaser]

Wow what a great way to skirt the issue.

I agree though Nelson. Let's pay more attention to the hardgainers, and less attention to the tall, lanky, <6" wrist scoliosis easy-gaining elite.

 

[casualbb]

IMHO the only way to train for the average man is very strickly and well warned up to avoid injury, infrequently, low volume, and with a decent amount of intensity on the big basic exercises especially the squat and deadlifts.

The average man needs to train for STRENGTH and size will come along

Well, myself and basically everybody else doing HST has proved false those statements. I train quite frequently and with relatively low intensity and am making amazing gains. I train for size and size is exactly what I get. It so happens that I've gained a ton of strength as a byproduct, but stuff like training to failure and tiny progressive weight increases are all methods of increasing NEURAL STRENGTH.

I propose that I can get stronger doing what I'm doing than training purely for strength. How, you ask? Say I want a year to become as strong as possible. I will train using HST for 9 months to build as much muscle as humanly possible during that time. Then I'll switch over to a strength routine to teach my CNS how to make the best use of that new muscle.

You guys need to acknowledge and learn about the differences and interactions between the nervous and muscular systems.
Strength routines will cause growth only to the extent that they allow progressive loading of the muscles.

-casualbb

 

[mt]

OK, let me see if I have this straight: Stiff leg dead lifts are really a butt exercise.

 

[collegiateLifter]

stuff like training to failure and tiny progressive weight increases are all methods of increasing NEURAL STRENGTH.

Not sure how you figure that. Power lifters who (are stronger than bbers due to better neural strenght) rarely if ever train to failure, ed coan doesn't, WSB guys don't on purpose.

Additionally, in The Science and Pracitice of Strength Training, you'll find the repitition and submaximal method, both are very similar, both are tools primarily for increasing muscle mass, and the only difference between the two is that with the repetition method, you go to failure (and thus fatiguing maximal muscle fibers-- this was the theory on why to go to failure).

 

[casualbb]

and thus fatiguing maximal muscle fibers-- this was the theory on why to go to failure

Unfortunately that's wrong in more than one sense. When you perform a lift with 85%+ of your 1RM, you recruit all fibers. Doesn't have to be to failure.

Also growth depends only in a minor sense on fatigue. It's actually dependent on the actual tension experienced by the muscle cells.

The basics:

1) The nervous system, not the muscles, fatigue. Recovery: 0-10 days depending on how extreme the failure. Mentzer confused this with muscle growth and recovery.

2) The muscles themselves experience tiny rips, dependent on how conditioned they were to the load. They immediately begin repairing. "Recovery:" 2 days maximum.

Growth under strength training systems:
Training to failure "trains" the nervous system in a sense to become better at recruiting muscle fibers. As this happens, you find you can lift more weight. That added weight causes some microdamage to the muscles, causing growth. Eventually the nervous system response has maxed out and you simply can't add weight to the bar. At this point you plateau. Now if you for some reason happened to take some time off (say, 1-2 weeks), the process would start over in a sense and you would experience more growth.

One minor problem: you find because you're training to failure all the time that it takes awhile to be able to return to the same muscle groups. You thus grow much more infrequently, shortcutting some potential gains before the nervous system has completely adapted.

Now if it's muscle growth and not nervous system coordination you're after, should you train according to 1) or 2)?

-casualbb

 

[collegiateLifter]

again, you should read Science and Practice. it lists the rep ranges 5-6RM and 10-12RM for the repitition and submaximal methods (keep in mind that while there are obviously many ways to skin a cat, this is the soviet methodology). >85% 1RM is not likely to fall in this cateogory, or may only with 5 reps. The statement in the book is that failure FATIGUES maximal muscle fibers. The book explicitly states its theory that recruiting muscle fibers does nothing toward growing them, you must exhaust them. Your statement:

"Also growth depends only in a minor sense on fatigue. It's actually dependent on the actual tension experienced by the muscle cells."

is absurd. You try to 'correct' what i present from Science and Pracitice, by telling me what 'really' happens.The fact is people at this point only hypothesize what causes hypertrophy. The exact mechanisms are not yet known-- read Supertraining, it rehashes this a lot in the beggining.

 

[casualbb]

The following things are incorrect:

The statement in the book is that failure FATIGUES maximal muscle fibers.

you must exhaust them

And yes, I AM correcting your soviet textbooks. Look at the title: The Science and Practie of STRENGTH training. These guys may be really good at that, but from what you've said it's apparent they don't know much about hypertrophy.

But that's fine; I'll tell you instead.

When you actively contract against a load (preferably in an eccentric way), damage is caused to the muscle cell membrane. This causes the release of IGF-1, mRNA, and some other stuff. These all act together to produce proteins and increase the contractile elements of the protein. At the same time, satellite cells proliferate, differentiate, and fuse with a damaged muscle fiber, increasing the number of myonuclei for growth and repair. The number of myonuclei directly determines the capacity of a muscle cell to manufacture proteins, including androgen receptors.

All of that has very little to do with training to failure. Let me quote Bryan Haycock on training to failure:

Some improvements in muscle cell function do occur even if the number of myonuclei remains the same. These won't lead to significant hypertrophy though. These improvements in muscle cell functional capacity involve ERK1/2. This is the pathway activated most when you get an intense burn and/or train to failure.

So hypertrophy occurs when you lift a load that's new to you (in the sense that you haven't lifted it for at least a few days). Not when you train to failure.

-casualbb

 

[edgecrusher]

So hypertrophy occurs when you lift a load that's new to you (in the sense that you haven't lifted it for at least a few days). Not when you train to failure.

-casualbb [/B][/QUOTE]

So basically, you feel you must keep confusing the body if you wish it to hypertrophy?