Another effective training method to throw in your rotation: "just get that b*tch sore af"

[Brocksamson2.0]

Are you training to get sore?
Or training to get better?
They are not always synonymous

 

[qbkilla]

I've always split legs into two days - one is quads, one is glutes and hams with 3 sets of leg extensions at the end. Always hit both once a week. Unless you're a genetic freak I don't believe you can completely train every part of the leg in one day.

If you really want to grow your legs you need to hit them as hard as fucking possible. They're the biggest muscle on the body - they need a brutal beating to grow. When my legs were doing their most growing it was hard for me to walk to the locker room when I was done.

This is my plan, big legs is priority they deserve some love after years of me obsessing over delts

You have huge legs so your a good person to ask. Knowing I overcomplicate things I'm going to try and keep it simple. I'm giving them 2 days a week. Would you blast quads one day, hams the other? Or just hit quads/hams on both days?

 

[aHarness]

I don't chase soreness myself, as for me it means more unfamiliarity than progress. I get sore weeding a garden, but I don't get DOMS in my delts no matter what I do.
If I try a new movement or machine, I'll get sore. If I push to a third rest-pause set I'll get sore. I don't know if there is a correlation between soreness and growth to be found, but the muscle groups I have that do not get as ore tend to be the better ones.
My delts, chest, and back are rarely sore, but yet my better parts. My arms often get sore and still suck. When I was after big legs, they got sore on the second day, but quickly passed.

Great point. I’m never “chasing” doms, as if I wanted I could go run a marathon and I’d be sore as hell. It’s just a byproduct of the training.

 

[danieltx]

This is my plan, big legs is priority they deserve some love after years of me obsessing over delts

You have huge legs so your a good person to ask. Knowing I overcomplicate things I'm going to try and keep it simple. I'm giving them 2 days a week. Would you blast quads one day, hams the other? Or just hit quads/hams on both days?

You're already overcomplicating.

I told you I have one day for quads and one for glutes and hams. Both are hit once a week. Nobody is lying to you.

 

[danieltx]

This is my plan, big legs is priority they deserve some love after years of me obsessing over delts

You have huge legs so your a good person to ask. Knowing I overcomplicate things I'm going to try and keep it simple. I'm giving them 2 days a week. Would you blast quads one day, hams the other? Or just hit quads/hams on both days?

Also - you need to accept that you're never going to have great big legs / delts / anything and it's by your choice. You won't push drugs, you won't push food, and you're around 40 years old. Gains will be minimal if everything is perfect.

 

[hevi-head]

Also - you need to accept that you're never going to have great big legs / delts / anything and it's by your choice. You won't push drugs, you won't push food, and you're around 40 years old. Gains will be minimal if everything is perfect.

He’s been saying for awhile he didn’t care about size and was just focused on being as lean as possible so I’m not sure he even knows what he wants

 

[qbkilla]

I've always split legs into two days - one is quads, one is glutes and hams with 3 sets of leg extensions at the end. Always hit both once a week. Unless you're a genetic freak I don't believe you can completely train every part of the leg in one day.

If you really want to grow your legs you need to hit them as hard as fucking possible. They're the biggest muscle on the body - they need a brutal beating to grow. When my legs were doing their most growing it was hard for me to walk to the locker room when I was done.

Quality Post. Was thinking about this today. I have issues but I am self aware that I have OCD about training...not so much because I want to be "optimal" ...but because I want to be more efficient with my time and have a life besides work, gym, cardio, eat, bed, repeat. Also aware my priority of being lean keeps me small and I'm fine with that...am in a surplus now to get some leg size scale moving up.

Considering my OCD...I'm going to do as you do and split them...I've always done best with a bro split and just pick 1 part fuck it up. Tried ppl, ul, full body...hated them all...I'm just a bro split guy.

 

[bbxtreme]

Quality Post. Was thinking about this today. I have issues but I am self aware that I have OCD about training...not so much because I want to be "optimal" ...but because I want to be more efficient with my time and have a life besides work, gym, cardio, eat, bed, repeat. Also aware my priority of being lean keeps me small and I'm fine with that...am in a surplus now to get some leg size scale moving up.

Considering my OCD...I'm going to do as you do and split them...I've always done best with a bro split and just pick 1 part fuck it up. Tried ppl, ul, full body...hated them all...I'm just a bro split guy.

Hate to break it to you, but bodybuilding at a high level is a full time endeavor. You have to love the lifestyle.

 

[qbkilla]

find a middle ground - train a group every 4-5 days with an average volume and the intensity should always be as high as possible

fuck... just go and kill yourself at the gym regenerate and do it again, the best ones don't think too much and don't complicate things they just work damn hard and thinkers never get anywhere

That's actually a powerful quote...I wrote it on a sticky and put in my bathroom mirror..no joke. Sometimes a simple quote is more powerful than we think lol, thank you sir

 

[EricJ123]

This video fires me up and it has a lot of truth bombs.

 

[luki7788]

fuck - one of them has compulsive-obsessive disorder about over-analyzing training the other one asks about the amount of water in the cream of rice so that it doesn't permanently enlarge his waist lol.... what a fucking world lol people nowadays don't seem to have real problems - as the old man says saying:

"hard times create strong people - strong people create good times - good times create weak people"

here we have perfect examples of this

 

[SherlockFoam]

I don't chase soreness myself, as for me it means more unfamiliarity than progress. I get sore weeding a garden, but I don't get DOMS in my delts no matter what I do.
If I try a new movement or machine, I'll get sore. If I push to a third rest-pause set I'll get sore. I don't know if there is a correlation between soreness and growth to be found, but the muscle groups I have that do not get as ore tend to be the better ones.
My delts, chest, and back are rarely sore, but yet my better parts. My arms often get sore and still suck. When I was after big legs, they got sore on the second day, but quickly passed.

Came in to say exactly this. I’ve made a lot of progress in the last two years with pretty minimal DOM’s in hindsight lol. Only thing that I’ll get it bad is from switching exercises just like you said.

I think that if you know that you’re training to failure and giving it everything you got, there’s no reason to be worried about something like soreness, training frequency, split, etc. just don’t be a total knucklehead in these categories obviously.

Just like all things bodybuilding, usually simplicity is the answer. Too much nuance nowadays in my opinion.

 

[stackdizzy]

I like to train so that I am always sore. I think doing some cardio and getting blood pumping in the muscles is a great way to reduce soreness. I have known some guys that don't particularly train as much as I do as far as sets/reps/intensify but make great gains. They are masters of everything they put in their mouth though! Of course they are not power lifters. I've known some pretty big power lifters that have a great desirable physique but are not bodybuilders. I have never done power lifting of any sort so I only know what friends have told me about training. I specifically remember a buddy of mine telling me he is doing the top 1 inch of bench with 800 sum lbs just to get used to the weight. He held a world record for his weight/bench until Shawn Frankl came in at 198 and did a 2630lb total..

 

[Dens228]

fuck - one of them has compulsive-obsessive disorder about over-analyzing training the other one asks about the amount of water in the cream of rice so that it doesn't permanently enlarge his waist lol.... what a fucking world lol people nowadays don't seem to have real problems - as the old man says saying:

"hard times create strong people - strong people create good times - good times create weak people"

here we have perfect examples of this

It reminds me of prior posts asking about:
1. How do you compensate for the protein powder stock to the side of the shaker cup
2. How much more oil do you put in the syringe to compensate for the oil left in the needle

 

[Flex500]

This is super basic but I think a lot of us moved past it a long time ago and haven't thought much about DOMS and just tearing the muscle to bits so that it's sore af for days afterwards

But it's a good change up from other approaches to help stimulus

These are the threads I try not to post. I'm going to make a fairly provocative post...but most of this is pretty much settled science and I'll post some associated studies.


1. If you are an accustomed lifter, the repeated bout effect will protect your body from damage when training. This is important to keep us alive. Logically thinking if you went to the gym 5 days a week and caused muscle damage...you'd surely get rhabdo and likely be dead. The implication here is if you are going to the gym routinely and accustomed any hypertrophy you are getting is not from muscle damage, repair and regeneration. One single bout of a novel movement will activate the RBE effect for up to 24 weeks. IE...you are not protected from muscle damage https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24701128/

2. The myocytic androgen receptor controls the strength but not the mass of limb muscle. Meaning, getting a stronga does not get you a bigga, this is especially true once the RBE has kicked in. All adaptions for strength gain will be a chemical reaction at the androgen receptor.

3. After only 6 weeks of training almost all growth/hypertrophy is from sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Fluid, essentially. They cycle of being a routine lifter, not getting sore, and getting bigger and full is just sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6550381/

3b. This is how generally how everyone is getting enormous (including me at one point). Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (and fat) has no MND size limit. Unfortunately, real and actual tissue growth does have an MND size limit. This is what most people refer to as "newbie gains ending" or their genetic limit. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25464670/

4. Eccentric focused training that is new or unaccustomed is a great way to cause muscle damage, repair and remodel, and actual tissue growth https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10356650/


What I'm getting at is you can get huge and not really build any muscle. It's why so many get huge in the offseason (even when fat gain is kept under control) and so many lose it when dieting. There is no limit (especially with drugs and proper diet manipulation) to the amount of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy you can gain and your body literally has protective mechanisms to keep you from muscle damage if you are a routine trainer.

You can likely get around the MND size limit, RBE, and the bodies other protective mechanisms...but it's extremely hard to find that path to continue to cause damage and then you must stay in a well fed state.

Driving strength via the androgen receptor and growth via sarcoplasmic isn't "evil". It's what bodybuilding and powerlifting are based on....but it's also not actual tissue growth.

And finally...I'll leave you with this. This is EASY to test. Stop training, stop all carbs, and stop all drugs. If your growth is driven by real damage and remodel of tissue/myofibrillar growth, as long as you are not bedridden, you really should not strength OR lose strength.



All of this post is to make the point that getting DOMS can and likely is a decent sign that damage has occurred and you may have an opportunity for an actual adaption in real growth.

 

[TheOtherOne55]

This is my plan, big legs is priority they deserve some love after years of me obsessing over delts

You have huge legs so your a good person to ask. Knowing I overcomplicate things I'm going to try and keep it simple. I'm giving them 2 days a week. Would you blast quads one day, hams the other? Or just hit quads/hams on both days?

Not to be rude, but im already 100% positive you arent going to grow your legs much.
You simply dont push food enough to make any gains whatsoever. Not enough drugs, not enough food = you just talking to yourself

I had this written up for another thread but it definitely applies to you - the average gym bro never makes any appreciable gains in muscle mass over their entire life. They simply dont eat enough, and dont eat enough for LONG ENOUGH, to actually gain real tissue and hold onto it. They are too concerned with "looking the part" and most in fact yo-yo between 10% then 13% then to 11% then to 15%. Never getting big enough OR lean enough to do anything.

 

[Fa Seeshus]

Workout some of the time with tons of volume and dropsets, etc. Workout other times with less volume, maybe grouped with other body parts. This allows super-compensation without the regression of going too low on frequency. Depending on your job, you may already end up training like this (working day workout vs day off workout).

We don't always have to think in absolutes.

 

[danieltx]

Workout some of the time with tons of volume and dropsets, etc. Workout other times with less volume, maybe grouped with other body parts. This allows super-compensation without the regression of going too low on frequency. Depending on your job, you may already end up training like this (working day workout vs day off workout).

We don't always have to think in absolutes.

I remember Justin Compton saying the best prep he eve had was when he listened to his body the most. If he go to the gym and felt like he could do 30 sets he did 30 sets; if he felt like he could only do 10 sets he only did 10 sets.

 

[tommyguns2]

Everyone is different, I suppose. I find that if I've allowed myself to get into a training rut, and then change things up, that first week on the new program I'll experience some soreness. A little bit of soreness is taken as a good sign, IMO, as I'm concluding that the muscle group is slightly confused, and getting stimulated in a slightly different way. More than that, and I'm thinking that I've injured myself and should be careful (important for us old farts).

For guys with fast metabolisms and only modest responders to AAS, I agree with all the posts above, you have to be hyper vigilant on the diet. Excess calories, and intelligent macro breakdown. The body can't grow without getting the proper fuel.

One other thing, for the guys that are really training intensively, I've experienced some benefit in taking a week off (maybe once a quarter or once every two quarters), and just doing cardio and some light full-body circuit work on the off week to give the CNS a respite. Upon returning to my tough training, I felt rested, recouped and mentally more ready to go. Maybe some people don't need this, but it's been helpful for me, and several others who had good results concurred.

 

[juggy38]

unless you have good leg genetics, one leg day a week is rarely gonna build huge legs.

I did much like @danieltx does. A quad focus and a hamstring focus. Most PL background guys would call it a squat day and deadlift day.

D1 3 quad movements, 2 hams.
D2 3 ham movements, 2 quads.

And the non dominant muscle..I choose relatively easier movements. Like d1 hamstrings I’m not picking deficit SLDL and weighted GHRs.