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- Oct 10, 2007
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we have a few people on here, and by few im thinking of 2, who have seemed to overcome training frequency, weight progression, and recovery. from what i gather its a matter of finding the right combination of set and rep ranges so that you trigger a growth response from the muscle but dont go into a high volume area that would require more recovery time and thus decrease the frequency at which that muscle can be trained. the following is strictly my opinion i may be way off base but id like to hear everyone's thoughts on this.
lets start with higher rep ranges, 15-20 reps. if your training for a fight or a specific sport where muscular endurance is of greater value these higher ranges would be extremely beneficial. noone would argue that a guy benching 300 for 20 was weak. but how does this effect muscle tissue? well primarly its going to work slow twitch muscles which arent the ones that get freaky big. funny thing is i think theyre might be an exception to this when it comes to legs. think about the function of your legs. they carry around a couple of hundred pounds all day long. the amount of power they produce in a day cumulatively is about enough for you to squat an elephant. and thats on arm and shoulder day....lol.....so if legs are designed to be the body's long distance work horse doesnt it make sence to take that natural function and kick it into overdrive. look at dc training with the 20 rep widow makers when you squat. forst you pound the legs with heavy weight then you use that higher range to really finish them off.
other than legs this high range has its place but probably not to build alot of mass.
now lets look at lower rep ranges 1-10 reps. what generally happens is, and this is just my observation, most guys stay in the 6-9 range for work sets. Why? what happens there that doesnt happen at 1-3 or 10-15? My guess is its in that range that enough weight is used repetitiously to trigger a growth response. think about it if you do 1-3 reps with heavy weight is it a far stretch of the imagination to think the body has other ways to compensate with this type of trauma other then to build new tissue? maybe recruit more fibers into this movement before the need for new tissue is realized? or maybe a hormonal response like adreneline? but if your in that happy middle rep range it seems logical that the amount of stress on the body is enough to create a need for more tissue.
but when do you stop? when did you do enough damage to get what your looking for out of a workout without putting your body in a position where you did so much its going to take a week for your muscles to recover, as well as your central nervous system?
well i think there are alot of variables here. diet is a huge one. if you dont have the required materials available to repair this should delay recovery. another one would be total work output. in that rep range did you go to positive failure where you could not complete another rep at that same weight in that given set as well as repeat that exact set after a short rest? lets look at DC's rest pause set. Dante i hope im not misquoting here but its one set with 3 failure points. the way i see it you can look at it as 3 sets done in rapid succection. but the second set you cant repeat the work done in the first one. i.e. you get 4 reps instead of the 7 you got before you failed the first time. so what part of this set does the most important work get done? lets look at straight sets as well. if you take a set to failure and rest for an arbitrary period of time you should not be able to repeat the first set. why? what happens to the CNS, muscle tissue, chemical fuel used that does not allow for this? those are qquestions id like answeres to. but as for the which part is most important i believe its the first one. the first part of a rest pause or the first straight set. i would think thats where the most shock to the body is caused.
im running on to long with this but here are my questions. how do we decide how much is enough? when is the line crossed into being counterproductive? if you didnt have the knowledge already laid out by guys like Phil and Dante how would you go about developing the best program from scratch? id just like some insight as to what others think and definately a lesson from guys like Phil, DAD, Big A and Dante if they would be so kind as to correct any mistakes in my thinking.
lets start with higher rep ranges, 15-20 reps. if your training for a fight or a specific sport where muscular endurance is of greater value these higher ranges would be extremely beneficial. noone would argue that a guy benching 300 for 20 was weak. but how does this effect muscle tissue? well primarly its going to work slow twitch muscles which arent the ones that get freaky big. funny thing is i think theyre might be an exception to this when it comes to legs. think about the function of your legs. they carry around a couple of hundred pounds all day long. the amount of power they produce in a day cumulatively is about enough for you to squat an elephant. and thats on arm and shoulder day....lol.....so if legs are designed to be the body's long distance work horse doesnt it make sence to take that natural function and kick it into overdrive. look at dc training with the 20 rep widow makers when you squat. forst you pound the legs with heavy weight then you use that higher range to really finish them off.
other than legs this high range has its place but probably not to build alot of mass.
now lets look at lower rep ranges 1-10 reps. what generally happens is, and this is just my observation, most guys stay in the 6-9 range for work sets. Why? what happens there that doesnt happen at 1-3 or 10-15? My guess is its in that range that enough weight is used repetitiously to trigger a growth response. think about it if you do 1-3 reps with heavy weight is it a far stretch of the imagination to think the body has other ways to compensate with this type of trauma other then to build new tissue? maybe recruit more fibers into this movement before the need for new tissue is realized? or maybe a hormonal response like adreneline? but if your in that happy middle rep range it seems logical that the amount of stress on the body is enough to create a need for more tissue.
but when do you stop? when did you do enough damage to get what your looking for out of a workout without putting your body in a position where you did so much its going to take a week for your muscles to recover, as well as your central nervous system?
well i think there are alot of variables here. diet is a huge one. if you dont have the required materials available to repair this should delay recovery. another one would be total work output. in that rep range did you go to positive failure where you could not complete another rep at that same weight in that given set as well as repeat that exact set after a short rest? lets look at DC's rest pause set. Dante i hope im not misquoting here but its one set with 3 failure points. the way i see it you can look at it as 3 sets done in rapid succection. but the second set you cant repeat the work done in the first one. i.e. you get 4 reps instead of the 7 you got before you failed the first time. so what part of this set does the most important work get done? lets look at straight sets as well. if you take a set to failure and rest for an arbitrary period of time you should not be able to repeat the first set. why? what happens to the CNS, muscle tissue, chemical fuel used that does not allow for this? those are qquestions id like answeres to. but as for the which part is most important i believe its the first one. the first part of a rest pause or the first straight set. i would think thats where the most shock to the body is caused.
im running on to long with this but here are my questions. how do we decide how much is enough? when is the line crossed into being counterproductive? if you didnt have the knowledge already laid out by guys like Phil and Dante how would you go about developing the best program from scratch? id just like some insight as to what others think and definately a lesson from guys like Phil, DAD, Big A and Dante if they would be so kind as to correct any mistakes in my thinking.
