I don't split, I just do upper body 3 days a week. Your body only needs 48 hours to rest. So, I'll spend 90 minutes-2 hours a day when I go in. I'll do legs about an hour maybe once a week. In my opinion, having all of the muscle groups sore 3 times a week is much more effective than having all of them sore once a week.
What size weights are you using.
- Thread starter Wesky
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let me ask you: do you get results from working out 1hour&30 minutes-2hours three times a week??? and your body needs at least 48 hours to heal.
Proteinboy said:
Because you'll get better results by working the same movement pattern 2-3 times per week, rather than once. Look at it this way...
You only need 48-72 hours for recovery (provided you're not working to failure all the time), but you're waiting 168 hours. By that time, you've started to lose some of your gains.
Multiple exercises for the same body-part is not needed at all if you're stressing the muscle enough on just one. I'll get one of the experts I know to comment on this for you.
Proteinboy Wrote:
and
Proteinboy, read this article, it may change your mind on your routines. It did mine. -
and
Proteinboy, read this article, it may change your mind on your routines. It did mine. -
Cynic said:
how do you start losing gains after 168 hours??? your body really tries to get rid of muscle that fast?...
if you dont work until failure, how do your muscles develope the micro tears they need in order to grow? If i do 3 full bodies a week; i wont have enough recovery time and i wont be able to increase weights every time i go in; nor will i be able to get in a variety of exercises to work the entire body in under 1 hour. if i dont increase the weight every time in; how will i get stronger? my muscles wont grow if i lift the same weight....
im pretty confused
Hi PB...I'm a friend of Cynic's from another board, so if I may:Proteinboy said:im pretty confused
Yes...your body responds to stress, in the form of weight and volumes, where weight is arguably the most important factor. If your body does not receive the stimulus for growth (stress), you will lose the adaptations that are made to that stress. Realize that every workout that you perform contributes to your positive adaptations just a small amount (some protein synthesis, ligand-gated channel increase at the neuromuscular junction, increased mitochondria synthesis, etc): all very small things. It is energetically favorable (the body is always conservative and would rather reduce muscle if it's not needed rather than maintain it for no reason) to atrophy muscle than to keep it "lying around."Proteinboy said:
Therefore, when looking at the important factors in exercise programming, after the weight itself, you then look at the frequency, then volume, then exercise selection.
The "microtears" (which isn't really what's happening, as most people believe that it is: you aren't really "tearing" a muscle: you are causing damage at the cellular level to the sarcomeres, which are the smallest units of contraction in the muscle-basically the machinery that causes muscle force...it's not an actual "tear"). Damage can occur from anything that requires forceful contraction of the muscle, assuming that there is sufficient loading (the weight), and for an advanced lifter, sufficient volume. The part that you need to understand is that volume does not and should not be viewed from the standpoint of a single workout: it should be looked at through the entire week or even month (called the microcycle and mesocycle, respectively).
Look at this model for example: Let's say that you are doing a standard "bodybuilder" split, where you perform 4 leg exercises (which, I noticed that nobody seems to be doing: you NEED to squat and deadlift) and then wait an entire week before doing them again. Now, let's say that I am doing a full body workout 3x per week, with 1 leg exercise each time. At the end of the week, you will have performed 4 exercises to my 3, which is very similar; however, by waiting an entire week, you have lost adaptations where I have not. Further, in a full year (we'll take that as 50 weeks for simplicity), you have worked out 50 times to my 150! Who do you think will have seen better gains in that time?
You are looking at recovery and growth through the failings of what is known as the "Supercompensation Theory" (or single factor theory), which looks at each workout and the recovery cycle individually. It looks at the fact that certain fuels (glycogen and protein, basically) are spent during a workout, so the body will not be prepared to perform optimally if full recovery isn't achieved after every workout. The problem is, this is a very simplistic way to look at recovery cycles. The "Dual Factor Theory" is more complex, and looks at the training effect through periods of fitness and fatigue, which shows us that increasing strength and muscle size happens along a continuum of stressors and adaptations over time. You can take a look here for a nice article that talks about that, because I'd be here forever trying to explain it myself:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/kelly16.htm
Variety can be achieved in a number of ways, one of them being exercise selection. But there are many other more important factors than that. Powerlifters are literally the strongest people in sport (you could argue professional Strongman competitors, but most of them employ PL techniques in their training, too), and they are focused around THREE lifts. Obviously, their strengthand size come from somewhere other than exercise variety.
If you're interested, you can look at an article that I wrote for Men's Fitness Magazine that's in the current issue (August): it explains many of the variables that you can use to achieve different results, and has a full-body workout written at the end as an example program. You may find it informative.
There was a lot of information in that post, so I hope that it cleared up some misconceptions for you...
Good luck!
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...holy crap...ya it is a lot of info. i have to give you the benefit of the doubt kuz u sound like a frign scientist to me. i just want to know if i wil get results if i do HIT 3 times a week working upper body on monday, lower body on thursday and abs on saturday IF i can consistantly lift more weight every week.
HIT is generally suited for beginners, in the fact that anything done will be an increase of stress over what was done before. For anyone else, HIT has been shown repeatedly in the literature (i.e. scientific studies) that it produces poorer results than do workouts with greater frequency.Proteinboy said:
Everything will work for a short time, at least: the question becomes could you have done something else in the same time to get better results?
PB, I think that you're starting to see that working out and designing a program is far more complicated than just lifting a weight a couple of times and going home: People earn their doctoral degrees (including me!) in this stuff! I think that you would really benefit from taking a look at a pre-made routine written by an expert, rather than trying to do it all yourself. You will be safer, get a lot stronger, and see MUCH better results that way. Like I mentioned, you can look at my article, or you can choose from literally hundreds on the internet...take a look here for TONS of information, articles, and workout programs (such as HGM) that should help you on your way:
bipennate said:
first off; im really gratefull for all the stuff you'r helping me with. usually guys just slam me and tell me i dont know wut im doing
. i have one question: in the workout routine link you gave me, is the workout structured to produce results by muscle building LAWS or is it just something like "it should work"???
thanks a lot
wow i just read part one of that link and im already starting to change my mind about HIT. bipennate, do you agree with the workout routine of 5 times a week doing 2 exercises with 5 sets each exersice with 5 reps each set???Is Joel Marion a trustable person to take advice from?
is Sean Nalewanyj?
is Sean Nalewanyj?
im also kind of confused about which workout program you were trying to get for me... if i may ask, could you please just post one here so i can see it plz???
i am also getting confused again b/c in the link you gave me, i found a place where it says that low rep intensit training is NOT overly straining to the CNS but when i went to another link inside the link you gave me, they are saying that it IS! i just dont know which way to go now...
i am also getting confused again b/c in the link you gave me, i found a place where it says that low rep intensit training is NOT overly straining to the CNS but when i went to another link inside the link you gave me, they are saying that it IS! i just dont know which way to go now...
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thats a good idea. right now im on my second week of HIT and i think i see some results: i am getting stronger. i want to follow up on this but when people are telling me that it will only waste my time; i dont know what to do.
Toly said:
that really encourages me, man
. thanks for the support; i will look for an alternate routine if i stop seeing results from this : )My pleasure, PB...we all start somewhere! It's all about asking questions, listening to the answers, and deciding for yourself the worth of those responses.Proteinboy said:first off; im really gratefull for all the stuff you'r helping me with. usually guys just slam me and tell me i dont know wut im doing
I'm not quite sure that I understand what you mean...the workout in that article is written by a professional, based on science AND observation...so if that's what you mean, then yes: it's based on (scientific) theory (there are no "laws" in physiology, specifically) that will work for the advanced trainee. I don't believe, however, that you need a routine of that level just yet...
Again, I'm not sure what you're asking: if you are asking whether i think the "classic" Bill Starr 5x5 routine is effective, then yes it is. Joel Marion can be trusted, although personally I don't always agree with his methods, which is fine: that's what this industry is about-different methods by different professionals. I've never heard of Sean Naleanyj...I did a quick Google search, and if this is who you're referencing, then he doesn't know what he's talking about.
I would probably stay away from anyone[/I that writes for the "teenage" section.
Remember, just because a guy looks like he's big and strong doesn't mean that he actually has a clue about what he's talking about
I'm not sure what you're talking about: post the links to the articles, please.