This list digest contains the following message subjects:
Okay, a few comments this time around.
First, as was graciously pointed out to me in an e-mail note from a subscriber, it would be more "user friendly" if people included the topic they are posting about in their subject header.
We had many "Re: HIT Digest XX" last time around, so please take a moment before you submit your post to check the subject header. And if you have changed the topic, please reflect that as well.
Thank-you.
Next, unfortunately I had to reject a couple of posts. The first was kind of a "rant" about certain people on the newsgroup misc.fitness.weights. I'm sorry, that's not appropriate on this digest. Don't bring those threads over here. I personally think m.f.w. is a farce, and has little to no value. My advice would be to avoid reading it at all, and you'll avoid the aggravation.
That's just my personal opinion.
The other post was a meant as a joke, but it insulted a particular training protocol. That's also not acceptable. Yes, I am an "HITer", and I may agree with your sentiment, but as I have said before - this digest will remain unbiased and a *constructive* forum. It is obvious that not everyone who is a subscriber is an "HITer". And that's okay, because ALL points of view are welcome here.
When I read a post I have to ask myself if this is something that will be of value to the readers. Please ask yourselves the same question before posting. We have to be fair to everyone and their respective views, or this digest will fail.
If you want to "rant" about something, please e-mail your rant to the webmaster at the Cyberpump! site, as there is a section for that.
Finally, I've been told some people are receiving the same digest TWICE. I have no idea why that is. However, there is an updated version of the digest software that we will be putting in soon. I'm told it will behave better and also has some nice new features.
Oh yeah, and the Dow was flat. But Canadian stock markets had a big rally, so I went ahead and splurged on a side order of fries with my meal.
-- Rob
While we're on the subject of cardio (digest 26 - article 6), I'll submit my simple question.
I am looking to add some cardio routines to my weight program. While I'm not trying to become a hulk, I'd like to continue to realize some level of HIT results that I've seen in the past (10 lbs in 3 months!). How much cardio is safe to add, without slowing down the HIT progress to 0? I understand this varies somewhat from person to person, program to program, but I'm looking for some feedback based on your collective experiences. If it helps, my current program is split into three days as follows:
Day 1: Back (5 sets), Shoulders (5 sets), Bis (4 sets) Day 2: Legs (10 sets), Abs (6 sets) Day 3: Chest (7 sets), Tris (4 sets), Forearms (5 sets)
o No individual exercise accounts for more than 2 sets o Sets within a muscle group are often done in superset fashion o It generally takes 7-9 days to complete the three days (more often a work limitation)
Thanks in advance.....
-David
My responses:
This message, and my replies, may follow a theme. Today's digest was a gold mine.
***
> > [examples, with references, snipped]
I kept this in, for it is important.
***
> > Anyhow, I'm currently a client of the one the Hardgainer authors and one of the things he had me do was to stop going to complete concentric muscle failure, but rather to stop one rep short or when my target reps are made, because taking every set to failure can be so hard on the CNS. Since doing this I'm still working very hard and am wiped out from the workouts, but I don't have that 'totally f*&#ing exhausted can barely function' feeling the next day or two.
Excellent. This too is important.
***
> > The degree to which an organism is stimulated to respond to any particular stress is proportional to the intensity of the stress, thus the necessity to train as intensely as possible (i.e. to momentary muscular failure) for optimal growth stimulation.
However, as J. Krieger has shown us, volume is also an important factor. As it does not therefore necessarily follow, 'the necessity to train with as much volume as possible for optimal growth stimulation;' so too it does not necessarily follow that maximal intensity is optimal.
The next section is quite obviously *heavily* edited by me, and may be somewhat incomprehensible as I attempt to assert continuity:
> [...] [T]here does exist tremendous variation between individuals in regards to > tolerance to intense physical stress (the volume they can tolerate [...]
...or, as we have seen from sms64@ultranet.com {forgive me for snipping your proper name}, the amount of stress the nervous system can tolerate) [...]
> and ability to recover from and adapt to physical stress (optimal training frequency), [and] the relationship between training intensity [...]
...[and] volume [...]
> and growth stimulation is constant. The harder you train, [...]
...(which, I am of course trying to imply, may be a combination of intensity and volume)...
> the greater the degree to which your body is stimulated to adapt.
<few!>
> If a person is not making satisfactory progress on a HIT program, they either > need to decrease the frequency, or volume of their workouts.
However, thanks to J. Krieger, we see that volume too is an important factor. One cannot, in light of this, come to the above conclusion (that reduction of volume is the 'key') - otherwise, as Krieger mentioned, the optimal training regime would be something along the lines of:
Lunges, 1 set of 1RM
Dumbell bench, 1 set of 1RM
Chins, 1 set of 1RM
Such a program represents maximal intensity, with minimal volume, but I daresay will not allow one to achieve maximal gains in additional size or strength.
And what about our friend (again, please forgive me) sms64@ultranet.com [whose condition, I will make the bold proposition, may be similar many trainees whose diet and hormonal profiles are otherwise adequate], for whom it is clear the musculature recovers more rapidly than does the nervous system? Certainly maximal intensity and minimal volume is the last thing which should be perscribed.
Decreasing frequency of workouts may indeed have allowed the nervous system to adequately recover, but during this time the musculature could have recovered from more stimulation. This of course would have led to greater gains, and the above response shows that such was the case.
Does it then follow from the evidence that the optimal manner in which to train is maximal intensity and minimal volume, or is it indeed the proper balance of both volume and intensity, kept within the function of recovery ability?
***
[implying, as we see below, stretching]
Not necessarily. In fact, I have often been sore (sorry about the poor grammar) from *just* doing stretching, in my Martial-Art 'heyday'. Warming-up is more an injury-reducing precaution, AFAIK.
> I can't recommend 'Stretching' enough. Before you start your workout, try stretching every muscle you are about to train. Stretch and flex your muscles between sets as hard as your can and make sure you do a good deal of stretching and flexing at the end.
I believe, although I cannot provide acceptible references, that static stretching has been shown to *reduce* strength in the stretched muscles (at least immediately). Personal experience has shown this to be somewhat accurate, and may be why some recommend statically-stretching the hip flexors before abdominal work, and the toes (yes) before calf work.
Learn more about PNF stretching, which I believe is a most effective method, in the stretching FAQ, at the following URL:
http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/papers/rma/stretching_toc.html
***
> First off Alex, lets talk about your weight training. H.I.T. belives that volume is an inefficient way to train. Efficient trainings means doing the least amount of exercise to stimulate strength increase.
As I have mentioned in MFW (which, one may be interested to know, has been far less personally offensive than talk.religion.buddhism),
[Gee, that says alot --Rob]
I believe the best training method is one which, within the bounds of practicality, will result in the fastest and greatest increases in muscular size and strength.
> [Before I forget, just FYI, I will be updating the HIT FAQ over the next few months...whenever I get time -- Rob]
Excellent. This has long been a complaint for many people.
[It has??? I'm sorry, but I've never had any complaints before. Please be more specific -- Rob]
> Secondly, your calories are way to low. You need to increase calories in order to increase your weight (muscle mass). A quick way to do this is to multiply your height by 14 or 16 depending on how active you are; the more active the higher the multiplyer. Don't get too hung up on protien intake > vs. fat intake vs. carb intake. Just eat a balanced diet and your body >will take care of itself.
I whole-heartedly recommend reading Lyle's posts on nutrition and weight gain.
-- "Assuredly all men are vain in whom there is no knowledge of God..." -St Augustine
Adam Fahy: afahy@oitunix.oit.umass.edu http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~afahy/
Hi, fellow HITers,
Now in thinking about compound exercises especially wrt free weights, will all body parts recover by the next training session? For example a bench press will fatigue the triceps and shoulders in advance of the chest and therefore require less frequency of training. You can always pre exhaust the chest but it's often difficult to have access to both equipment at the same time and other measurement problems . The weak link has now merely been transferred and the triceps won't receive adequate stimulation without an isolation exercise being performed. Now if you were to train using isolation exercises with very intense training methods you could determine how each muscle group responds to the stimulus. This may result in the chest being trained on a different frequency to the shoulders. Now many might say that it is more efficient or economical to train using a compound exercise but will it prove to be more effective? What advantages do compound exercises have over many individual isolation exercises remembering that the isolations can be performed on separate days? Do I need to know of some factors that I haven't taken into account. Am I going a little overboard in being precise? Am I going crazy, only my shrink knows that answer. <grin>
thanx Teri
> From: DrewBaye@aol.com
> > The degree to which an organism is stimulated to respond to any particular stress is proportional to the intensity of the stress, thus the necessity to train as intensely as possible (i.e. to momentary muscular failure) for optimal growth stimulation.
I see some flaws in your assertion that training to muscular failure is necessary for optimal growth stimulation. First of all, your are making the assumption that fatigue is the main mechanism behind muscle hypertrophy. If it was, then simply picking any light weight and training to muscular failure should elicit muscle hypertrophy. Therefore, it shouldn't matter whether it is a 10 RM weight or a 100 RM weight. Yet, we all know that this is not the case.
Also, concentric actions create greater fatigue than eccentric actions, yet it is eccentric actions that produce greater muscle hypertrophy (1). If fatigue was the main stimulus behind muscle hypertrophy, than concentric actions should be as good or superior to eccentric actions in stimulating muscle hypertrophy, but this doesn't appear to be the case.
Olympic lifters do not train to failure and achieve substantial increases in muscle size and strength. If training to failure was as necessary as you claim, then these athletes shouldn't be achieving what they achieve.
Reaching concentric muscular failure means that the muscle can no longer produce enough force to overcome the weight. It does not mean that any type of adaptation has been stimulated. Also, concentric muscular failure may have been reached for a variety of reasons. It may be due to depletion of phosphocreatine stores (which is the case with high-intensity weights) or due to lactate accumulation (which is the case with lighter weights). The physiologic adaptations in the body that occur will be different for these different situations.
> frequency), the relationship between training intensity and growth stimulation is constant. The harder you train, the greater the degree to which your body is stimulated to adapt.
You are making a vague generalization here that it is simply effort that is the mechanism behind muscle hypertrophy. Again, if this was true, then it shouldn't matter what weights I use as long as I train to muscular failure. Actually, it shouldn't matter what type of exercise I do, as long as it is difficult. Any type of "intense" exercise should elicit substantial muscle hypertrophy as long as it is "hard". But this is simply not true.
> > If a person is not making satisfactory progress on a HIT program, they either need to decrease the frequency, or volume of their workouts.
This is assuming that progress has stalled due to overtraining. However, overtraining is not always the cause of stalled progress. Many factors may be involved in stalled progress. Sometimes an increase in training volume may be necessary, not a decrease. Sometimes a modification in exercise selection or the entire training protocol may be necessary.
1. Hortobagyi, T., J. Barrier, D. Beard, J. Braspennincx, P. Koens, P. Devita, L. Dempsey, and J. Lambert. Greater initial adaptations to submaximal muscle lengthening than maximal shortening. J. Appl. Physiol. 81(4):1677-1682. 1996.
> From: DrewBaye@aol.com
> > A proper HIT program is capable of producing a level of cardiovascular improvements in a matter of weeks that woud be impossible to equal with any number of years of aerobics.
Do you have data to support this assertion? While strength training can have cardiovascular benefits, these benefits are different from endurance training (1).
> provide in the form of an article on Cyberpump. Also, there is info on this at http://www.superslow.com/why_not_aerobics_faq.html
I read this article, and to sum it up, it basically makes the claim that endurance training doesn't result in much adaptation, and that the main reason for such training is to improve skill and economy. Endurance training results in more than this. Endurance training can improve an athlete's aerobic power by 5-30% (1). It can also result in increased respiratory capacity, lower blood lactate at a given exercise intensity, increased mitochondrial and capillary densities, improved enzyme activity, increased maximal cardiac output, a decreased RHR, and an improved oxygen cost of the given activity (1).
The article insinuates that there is little necessity to endurance training (other than for skill development) and strength training should be the main training method for all athletes. While it is true that strength training can enhance the performance of an endurance athlete, there is no data out there to indicate that endurance training has little benefit to the endurance athlete other than for skill development. Actually, the data out there indicates the opposite. This article's assertion goes against the principle of exercise specificity, which indicates that to become good at a particular skill, then you need to emphasize that skill. If you want to become a great endurance athlete, than your main focus should be endurance training, since endurance training will result in optimal endurance adaptations.
1. Baechle, T.R., ed. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 1994.
> > >Hi guys,
> >Thanks to those that replied to my last question. In reference to the responses that I received I now know some of the reasons why eccentric exercise is so effective. I've heard that Arthur Jones had success with eccentric training, I think with a Mr Tom Laputka. Now if this type of exercise was too intense for most trainees who utilised it on a regular basis on a fixed training timetable, can it >now be resurrected with those who vary their recovery wrt intensity?
I use it for very short periods. It is like increasing my dose of intensity without ODing. :) For me, to train exclusively with negative-only training would cause my nervous system to burn out.
Brad
P.S. I really like this list and the way you guys put your foot down right from the beginning as far as tone for the list. Keep up the great work! Oh yeah, CYBERPUMP! RULES!
[Thanks. I'm sure Bill Piche will be happy upon reading that -- Rob]
[This post had many "=20" characters that I had to edit out. Please check your mail reader to make sure what you are sending out has NO formatting -- Rob]
Hi. Years ago, Vince Gironda had a good way of determining if an exercise was hitting its target area. He had a bunch of bodybuilder volunteers refrain from working a particular muscle for a few weeks, then do a bunch of hard sets of a specific exercise for that muscle. The next day, they reported where they felt sore. If, for instance, a given movement was supposed to hit the upper pecs but the volunteers were sore only in the delts, he suggested a different exercise for the target area. And the research went on. From this, he determined which particular exercises or variations of the usual ones would be the most effective. With this in mind, I know that many favor the chin-up for the back. I've noticed that I feel the effects in the lats from chins, but I feel the effects in the middle back from rows. Chins do not seem to hit my middle back, and rows don't seem to hit the outer back. Am I correct in this observation? And should I be doing both chins AND rows in a HIT workout? Or alternating them in workouts? Also, are dips with the elbows out to the sides sufficient for chest work, or should I add (or alternate workouts with) a bench press movement (barbell or dumbbell)? Any ideas? Thanks! Bill
I'm new to this list but have read a few digests and noticed a lot of helpful and knowledgeable folks here so I have a few questions. I'm pretty much of a novice to strength training so no flames please!
[You need not have ANY fear of that happening here -- Rob]
I started training with a superslow instructor a few months ago, but only once a week (for $$ reasons). Originally my plan was to practice twice on my own (since according to the book, beginners should start out 3x/week, right?). Well I found that to be impossible because I'd be completely wiped out for 4 days. So that left one practice session, which ended up being quite a bit less intense than with an instructor but still the best I could do alone, in a stop and go, trial and error way. The manual gives examples of free-weight equivalents but I'm not sure how to set things up to use safety equipment.
What about equipment? I've become so spoiled by the no-friction machines (retrofitted nautilus and medx) that the local Y equipment feels safe but just too frustrating for words. I don't feel safe using free weights with no spotter and only book knowledge.
Should I even bother to try? (practicing alone, I mean) Sometimes I'm too disoriented to even find the next machine without help, let alone exit safely and set up the next one, without stopping and losing the flow.
Eventually I will have to be on my own all the time (or at least most of the time, unless I get to the point where one workout every 2 weeks is enough).
What is the best way to transition into doing this?
It's too awkward to ask an instructor "Now teach me how to not need you anymore" but that is exactly where I need to do!
I'd better stop for now. Thanks in advance.
-Aline
The statement regarding the rate of muscle loss in adults beginning in the early 20's is based on what I have read of the work being done at Tuft's University regarding aging and sarcopenia as well as some of Dr. Darden's books.
As far as volume of training goes, it is a negative thing. It is a stress, and it uses a certain amount of energy and resources. The very reason the body is stimulated to respond to it results from this fact. If it were not negative, why would the body be stimulated to produce an adaptation to it?
The body has a limited reserve of resources for recovery and adaptation. The more that is used during the workout, the less the body is left with afterwards to recover and respond with. As Arthur has stated, "It is only rational to use as economically as possible that which exists in limited amount."
Andrew M. Baye
Hey fellow HITTERs,
Here's a question I've been worrying about.
I'm a beginning weightlifter, 36, 6'2, 230 lb, trying to get back into shape after several years of irregular exercise. I do one set of Nautilus exercises every MWF at lunchtime. (I don't have much time at lunch, so that settles the number of sets debate for me...) I try to make sure that I use perfect form on all reps, 2 sec up, pause 1 sec, 4 sec back down.
I try to have perfect form on each set, but sometimes half way through a set I'll start having trouble and I'll have to pause for a few seconds before I complete the set. Is this bad?
My training log shows I am still making forward progress.
--Fred