Haha, I am pretty sure I explained myself differently above. It wasn't that "my" theories were being challenged.
If anyone around here is saying "my training theories," than they are retarded. Nobody this day in age has their "own" training theories. Everything under the sun has been tried in years past. So don't take me wrong that I am offended b/c how I train is not carried over to the beliefs of the members here. That could not be further from the truth.
It is very simple, protein synthesis supercompensation occurs every 36-48 hours. For the non-anabolic using lifter, what is more important than protein synthesis, I ask you?
Hint: Nothing
Therefore, for the non-anabolic using lifter, training parameters should be set up to accommodate and capture the PS supercompensation period.
That is all. I am not spouting off about some fancy program, at all. I don't really believe in "a program." However, you damn well better believe that I am going to base my philosophies on sound scientific evidence of how our bodies work and respond to high intensity bouts of resistance training.
The bottom line is, you can make gains doing anything, as long as you are eating enough. But just making gains is not what I am interested in. I like to do things optimally.
I mean, do you guys read the books. I am not talking about the bogus info people put out as their "new and exciting" programs that are all rehashed nonsense from the past put into new ways of saying things.
I mean people like Siff, Zatsiorsky, and the like?
I mean look at one of the most utilized, fundamentally sound, successful protocols out there: The basic 5x5 routine.
You are doing Squats 3 times per week here and bench and rows 2 times per week.
For every guy I see following a bodypart split routine where they crank out one, maybe two bodyparts per day and not hit those same bodyparts again for a week, I see 99 guys following something like a TBW 3x per week or an upper/lowers 4 day split making good progress.... again, all assuming their nutrition is sound.
Unless you are supplying your body with a reason to grow between huge bouts of rest (5+ days between training a muscle group), what would make you believe that all that detraining is beneficial if hypertrophy is the primary goal?
Cosgrove said this:
You didn't even turn your computer on using only one muscle so why in God's name are you trying to develop a body using some sort of body part split?
Split routines arrived on the scene shortly after Dianabol was popular. Do you see the connection?
The ONLY way I could see a bodypart split being useful/optimal is if you are really monitoring volume enough in so that you could train each bodypart twice per week. That is it, barring, again, the "naturalness" of the lifter.
I mean, lifting is a stress, right? Just like sickness or anything else that degrades the body.
Post-workout recovery occurs like a wave. There's an immediate decrease in the state, then an increase back to the original state, then a subsequent "supercompensation" where the body actually overcompensates for the stress. In this case, the desired outcome is more contractile proteins in the muscle.
The once-a-week routines are based on the idea that this occurs as a unit. Ie, everything follows that wave.
Unfortunately, everything out there research-wise, and anecdotally, suggests that this isnt' the case. Stress and recovery wrt strength training is a multifactorial process. You have neurological elements (both central and peripheral), glycogen replenishment, protein synthesis, physical damage to the muscle/inflammation, and so on. All of these recover on different time scales.
Protein synthesis (what you're really seeking to maximize) peaks and returns to baseline within 36-72 (based on empirical evidence, I would be more inclined to say 36-48) hours after exercise. If you're only training a muscle once every 7 days, that means that protein synthesis is actually detraining for 4-5 days out of every week.
The once-a-week routines try to make up for this with a higher volume/intensity of work...but even so, PS always returns to baseline within 3 days. What you're recovering from is a combination of neurological and mechanical damage to the system....which doesn't contribute a whole lot to hypertrophy (the mechanical damage can, but even that's gone within 4-5 days; the neurological overload is what can take 7+ days to recover from).
With that in mind, the ideal split would train the muscles based on that idea....to keep PS elevated, you'd need to train each part every 2-3 days. That's where the full-body stuff comes in. If you want to exploit the mechanical damage, you can extend that a little, say every 5th day. But I wouldn't go any longer than that, barring recovery/unloading weeks.
If you have a good reason as to why training a "bodypart" once per week is IDEAL, I would love to hear it. Maybe people around here have found something that the elite in the industry have missed to date. However, I highly doubt it.
