skyler2 said:
* just got back from one - wedding/honeymoon - 2 weeks - no exercise except swimming and some hiking and ate whatever i wanted
too much cardio?
how much do you recommend?? i do strength train 3x/week for 45 minutes at a time, consistently increasing so i go to fatigue (full body workout)
what is hypocaloric diet?? agian, i took time off about 2 weeks ago for 1 1/2 weeks...
THANK YOU.
dont go to faliure (fatigue) you will burn out your cns (central nervouse system) stop one short of faliure.
ie pick a weight you can do 10 reps with do 9 then stop
here is some info from the HST site on faliure.
HST's method of using submaximal weights at the beginning of the cycle is based on the fact that the effectiveness of a given load to stimulate growth is dependant on the condition of the tissue at the time the load is applied. This is a very important concept for natural lifters. It is also based on the need to maintain the health (injury free) of the tissues.
You can't really apply the external load based simply on the capacity to do so, and expect to the muscle to respond the way you want it to (growth). Too much weight too soon, even though you can lift it, will not always result in an optimal hypertrophic response. Not only that, but the greater the load, the greater the response to build resistance to it, and/or get injured.
Why not just do as many reps as possible (A.K.A. train at “100% intensity”, or “train to failure”) for every increment/workout instead of changing it only every 2 weeks? Because when using sufficient frequency to stimulate rapid hypertrophy, you tend to get CNS burn out. Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to train at “100% intensity” to grow quickly. This is a very unpopular statement to experienced lifters who have prided themselves on torturous workouts. They take pride in their toughness and in their willingness to self inflict nauseating exhaustion workout after workout. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS. As long as it is not taught as the correct way to train for “growth”.
HST incorporates ever increasing loads in order to stay ahead of the adaptive curve. This curve is set by the tissues level of conditioning at the time the load is applied. This is as much an art as a science. Because we can't do a biopsy of the muscles every time we train, we have to guess how much, how hard, and how often, based on the available research an the "feeling" of the tissue at the time. Why use submax weights? Because using max weights eventually stops working, and simply increases the risk of injury.
Why not just do as many reps as possible (A.K.A. train at “100% intensity”, or “train to failure”) for every increment/workout instead of changing it only every 2 weeks? Because when using sufficient frequency to stimulate rapid hypertrophy, you tend to get CNS burn out. Fortunately, it isn’t necessary to train at “100% intensity” to grow quickly. This is a very unpopular statement to experienced lifters who have prided themselves on torturous workouts. They take pride in their toughness and in their willingness to self inflict nauseating exhaustion workout after workout. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS. As long as it is not taught as the correct way to train for “growth”.
So why not train one maximal day only, then utilize "complete rest" thus preserving adaptive energies?
There is no need to preserve "adaptive energies". This is a false notion. These adaptive energies are, in reality, the ability of the CNS to recover voluntary strength. Early "thinkers" noticed the effect of stress on health and compared that to the effects of heavy resistance exercise on strength and came to the conclusion that there was some pool of "adaptive energies" that was limited. Use it all up and you can't recover. What they had not realized was that there are fundamental differences between mechanical loading and Selye's stress model. This caused them to confuse the limitations of the CNS with the resilience of muscle tissue.
Muscle tissue, as indicated earlier, has been shown to recover amidst continued loading. Take for example "synergistic ablation" studies. In these studies the gastrocnemius of an animal is cut so that the standing load is placed almost entirely on the soleus. In these studies the animal’s soleus is subject to a dramatic increase in load during every waking hour. There is no "rest between sets or workouts" or any kind of sets or workouts for that matter. There is no time off to allow "adaptive energies" to do their magic. Nevertheless, the soleus will double in size and weight within days. The muscle literally grows and adapts to the new "environment" while being continually loaded. Now I'm not suggesting that people have this done to get their stubborn calves to grow, but it does illustrate an important point. Which is - the muscle can adapt while it is being loaded, or trained. The tissue does not necessarily need time off. The central nervous system, on the other hand, does need time off. The amount of time off it needs depends on how much "fatigue" was induced.
Please try to avoid "forced reps". During the concentric phase push on the weight but make sure it goes up "quickly". If you are doing an exercise that requires a partner, and he can no longer lift the weight up quickly, you're done.
Fatigue actually "decreases" the damage caused by eccentric reps. The fibers have to be actively contracting while lengthening in order to cause the "right" kind of microtrauma.
Further discussion on fatigue and its relation to a proper hypertrophic stimulus
The 1st set, as with the 2nd set, merely places a given amount of strain on the tissue. As long as you are supporting the weight, the stimulus is present.
You may have heard some discussion about fatiguing fibers becoming disassociated from the rest of the contracting fibers, and thus avoiding the strain. This is true in one sense, and false in another. As a fiber fatigues, it is true that it will stop contracting. When enough fibers fatigue, the tissue as a whole will no longer be able to move against the resistance and you have reached what we call “momentary muscle failure”. Some studies done using eccentric exercise have demonstrated that high resistance eccentric reps produce more microtrauma when done by a fresh muscle, when compared to eccentric reps done after pre-fatiguing the muscle. This would not be wholly unexpected given the above explanation about fatiguing fibers.
However, there is another issue involved that must be taken into account. No fiber is completely isolated from the rest of the tissue, even when it becomes fatigued. So even when one fiber becomes fatigued (sarcomeres by sarcomeres) that fiber will still experience passive stretch by virtue of being attached to adjacent and in-series fibers. So even if a fiber fatigues right away, if the set continues, that fiber will be stretched and strained with the rest of the tissue, the only difference being that the forces will be shifted from the contractile elements of the fiber to the outer structural elements of the fiber. As we know, both passive and active strain/stretch produce hypertrophy.
In short, fatigue is not a critical factor, although it obviously holds importance given the nature of “lifting” weights.
I think where more confusion comes in, is when people begin talking about "intensity". Intensity is generally associated with effort; the greater the effort required, the greater the intensity. This naturally leads to the idea that the last few reps, which require the most effort, are the most effective. If we are strength training, this is often true. However, when training for muscle growth, the fatigue generated by training to failure and beyond (e.g. forced reps) quickly interferes with our ability to train with sufficient frequency.
god luck
