Train your body to be more "efficient?"

[Lifterforlife]

Ok, don't see a forum devoted directly to training protocol, so figured the bodybuilding forum was a good place to post this.

I would like to ask opinions, thoughts, etc. on a protocol I believe in, there is no right and wrong here, one of my half wit theories. Never have seen any studies or papers done on this subject, so it is all my own theory.

I am of the mind that you can actually train your body to be a more efficient "healer". In other words, recouperate faster. within limits of course.

Now, what good would this be? Obviously, if you heal quicker, you can train a muscle more often, thus more gains.

Now, bear with me here.....If you always rest say 7 days between bodyparts, what reason would your body have to recouperate faster? In other words, if you do not give your body a REASON to adapt quicker, why should it? Building muscle is probably the last thing your body wants to do anyway. Muscle is a load on the body to be maintained. You have to force your body to grow muscle just as you have to force it to use fat at some point in your fat loss scheme.

Research shows that for instance runners(endurance trainees) take a minimum of 3 days per week for adaptations by the body to occur. (I know, we are not endurance trainees). But, I am wondering if the principle will not relate to us also, the more often you can do something, the better you can become at it? (again within reason).

I mean, think about it, folks who have excelled at almost anything, they do it day in, day out almost, tired, wore out, any reason. Even folks who do very labor intense jobs, like an iron worker, some do it day in and day out. At first, they are dead tired every day, but soon adapt or they wouldn't be able to make a living. Some of these guys get pretty dam big too by the way.

Research again show protein synthesis is elevated for 24-30 hrs., then returns to baseline. What then? Are we just maintaining muscle stores after say 3 days, so maintaining for 4 days, instead of being able to hit them again sooner. Now, I would advocate some rest time every couple months or so, a week to "detrain" so to speak. Then hit it again.

In a study anywhere similar to what I am proposing, found on HST, performed at the University of Alabama, two groups of subjects performed the same periodized resistance training routine either once per week or three times per week. The results showed that muscle mass increases were greater in the three workout per week group, compared to the one workout per week group. In addition, the strength increases in this group were on average 40% greater! So what does this mean to you? It means the fear of overtraining, which sometimes verges on paranoia, may be preventing you from getting the most gains you can in the gym.

So, can you condition your body to become more "efficient" at healing itself? I say, yes you can.

Opinions, thoughts, comments. NO right or wrong here.

 

[nikkita]

I think that the main poin would be on HOW to become "more efficient" for muscle recovery. Getting the body to adapt to new stress and recover efficiently at the same time, for most it is like the missing link that can make you achieve greater goals.

I've heard also about active recovery, which can aid at preventing overtraining. Not sure how it works though.

It would be interesting to have recovery methods that have aid people in training.

 

[velvett]

Being that your body is a machine - I'm going to have to agree - you have to know how your machine works and failure is its best advice.

 

[view]

^up for more discussion.

 

[Lifterforlife]

I think that the main poin would be on HOW to become "more efficient" for muscle recovery. Getting the body to adapt to new stress and recover efficiently at the same time, for most it is like the missing link that can make you achieve greater goals.

Excellent pickup, and just my point on the matter. I know when I first started lifting, I did maybe a 100lb. bench press. I was sore, difficult time recovering. Now I can do 300, and feel next to nothing.

I have to say, I have been at this game for most of the last 30 yrs. Again, back before we had the internet and all this "science" telling us how long to rest, we have to have a shake in 12.8 minutes or all our gains would be null and void, etc., we worked out like madmen. I had the classic pirates dream, a sunken chest. I worked my chest up to 3 days per week! Did not know it was "bad" for me. Guess what I get a round of nice applause for now when I compete....you guessed it, my chest. Now don't get me wrong, I am not advocating all out 3 a week workouts.

If I would have had the "science" we now have, I would have read that you couldn't do it more than once every 7 days or something, and conciously followed that advice. I truly believe I "taught" my body it had to recover faster. I believe this is done in many sports, and done all the time.

I've heard also about active recovery, which can aid at preventing overtraining. Not sure how it works though.

Active recovery is something I use constantly, and is a solid recovery method.

It would be interesting to have recovery methods that have aid people in training.

I firmly believe if you allow your body to adjust to a certain timeframe, it most certainly will. I would venture to guess that the reason most don't recover so quickly is most do more than is needed. You can only "damage" a muscle so much, that is if it takes 3 sets to cause microtears in the muscle, will doing more make more and thus be better, or infilict more damage? No, and most folks do this. At asome point, you take all the stress off the muscle and begin taxing the nervous system instead, and this is what folks cannot recover from so quickly.

 

[lacoste]

I certainly think that you are on to something. I remember at basic training, the first few weeks never feeling so sore. But eventually by the end i could do PT ALL DAY LONG..I mean you still feel it while you are actually doing the push ups or what have you but the next day you can wake up and jump out of bed. Your body adapts to the intense physical training. To this day i attribute the hundreds of pushups that we did, day in and day out, to devloping the base of my chest. Now weight training is obvioulsy different, but by training more frequently you are forcing your body to adapt and as a result grow more muscle, because your body will feel that it now needs that much more muscle.

 

[vin01]

I can vouch for the HST 3x a week for much better gains. It worked amazingly for me. Once my body adapted to working each BP 3x/week, the size and strength increased after each workout.

Although I have yet to try any kind of active recovery, I am very interested in it.

Lacoste- I def see how you say push ups built the base of your chest. It did the same thing for me!

 

[javaguru]

A lot of the science has to be taken with a grain of salt because most studies use untrained people or casual college weightlifters. I train six times per week as opposed to the four times I used too. I've found much better gains in size and strength from training each muscle group 2x a week; It's also easier to stay lean. It's also been shown that well trained people can engage in a much higher training volume than those who have less training "time."

 

[Lifterforlife]

A lot of the science has to be taken with a grain of salt because most studies use untrained people or casual college weightlifters. I train six times per week as opposed to the four times I used too. I've found much better gains in size and strength from training each muscle group 2x a week; It's also easier to stay lean. It's also been shown that well trained people can engage in a much higher training volume than those who have less training "time."

The coolest thing about the study I posted in my original post was that it was done on well trained individuals. This as you mention is a bit rare in studies.

 

[fortunatesun]

I wonder what the study would show if conducted over a long period of time.
Changing the routine of the 3x a week group could have easily boosted their results in the short run. I remember when I switched to a Westside protocol after following a more traditional approach. Everything popped like crazy for 7-8 weeks - as if I were a beginning bodybuilder experiencing that first-time growth spurt.
When I see this question I would also approach it from the opposite angle-how you train. Are you changing things up every 2-3 weeks to allow your body to recuperate? Or are you hammering away at it using a set in stone training routine. I think one will always affect the other.