John Meadows changing exercises vs. keeping the same exercises through a block/prgram

[MarcE17]

For me this approach was actually a lifesaver. I used to get bored pretty fast and end up randomly swapping or dropping exercises anyway, so my “program adherence” was basically chaos with extra steps. With planned rotation I stay more focused on actually feeling the muscle work, and every change kind of resets my attention instead of me mentally checking out halfway through a movement.

 

[snuklov]

I have noticed one benefit from switching exercises regularly - it helps me to keep approaching training with a focus on stimulating the muscle, vs trying to get stronger in a movement, which has often led to ego lifting for me after a while.

But if you have the discipline not to let yourself do that, that's a moot point.

How do differentiate between getting stronger vs. stimulating the muscle? I often hear of the need to stimulate the muscle but no one really explains the actual action of how to. The only think I recall is that old Kai Greene vid on YouTube where he takes someone through bicep curls and does them really slowly and squeezes at the peak contraction...people commented on how little weight he used.

 

[qbkilla]

How do differentiate between getting stronger vs. stimulating the muscle? I often hear of the need to stimulate the muscle but no one really explains the actual action of how to. The only think I recall is that old Kai Greene vid on YouTube where he takes someone through bicep curls and does them really slowly and squeezes at the peak contraction...people commented on how little weight he used.

I'd say strength is more neural adaptation and doesn't require sets that are...as they say now days.."close to" failure. I'll just say failure.

While hypertrophy you need to take the sets to failure essentially per the effective reps model...to generate enough mechanical tension to stimulate actual hypertrophy.

A good look at this would be dc training where you hit 3 failure points in a rest pause set. The goal to stimulate hypertrophy.

Then you have something like 531, where you are practicing the movement at lower intensity to build strength. I believe wendler than has you follow up the big 4 wirh accessory movements designed to build muscle (to failure) so you are getting both strength and hypertrophy.

 

[alfresco]

Yes. I always liked training 4 days a week, felt best with 3 rest days and going pretty nuts on the 4 training days.

That only work best for me when I was minimally enhanced. Otherwise, I needed a day rest. When on 600 mg test, which was my highest, upper body, lower body, rest, repeat, took the weekend off seem to produce the best results. Can’t tolerate that dosage now although low compared to most people I was afraid to go any higher plus I got as big and as strong as I wanted to be.

 

[hawkmoon]

I agree, but I often question the degree to which this is really true for someone with decades of lifting experience. If you've accumulated a lot of skill at getting muscle to fire in a basic "type" of movement pattern, how much does it really matter when you swap from one to another?

Example - You get really good at firing your lat in a one-arm machine row. You want to swap to a different one-arm machine row, for whatever reason...or a cable row, etc. Are the first few sessions on that "new" variation meaningfully less stimulative, in terms of hypertrophy?

I don't know for sure. It's almost a moot point for me, anyway, since I'm such a creature of habit that I'm going to repeat sessions week to week whether I think it's "optimal" or not. But I like to think that if I have to swap because my usual piece is taken, out of order, not available out of town, whatever - I'm still getting like 90+% of the stimulus I usually get.

We need to separate atrophy from neurological detraining.
I am not suggesting that muscle tissue wastes away after a few weeks of avoiding an exercise. However, the data on neuromuscular physiology shows that motor pattern efficiency decays rapidly when a specific movement is removed from your rotation.

For a serious BBer with decades of experience, this decay is the exact reason they experience a rapid, linear ramp-up in load and repetitions upon reintroducing an old exercise.
That rapid trajectory is the central nervous system rapidly restoring prior neural coordination, not the immediate synthesis of new skeletal muscle tissue.

The movement swap itself does not generate novel hypertrophy. What it can do is provide a psychological benefit, reinvigorating focus, effort, and adherence through novelty. It can itself be fun, and adherance is crucial as we all know.
That is a real, measurable mental benefit, but it shouldn't be misattributed to a physiological necessity for growth.

My position comes down to a strict filter of optimization. I will always side with the strategy that yields the highest return on investment for physical effort. I'm always focused on ROI.
This is the exact same reason I favor high-intensity, lower-volume training: extracting the highest-yielding productive reps early in the bout and leaving. It maximizes efficiency.
While many dislike this approach and or just don't enjoy it, it is likely the most time and energy efficient method. I fully acknowledge that's not what everyone is after.

 

[snuklov]

With this in mind, would I then be correct in thinking DC training (being somewhat high intensity low volume) coudl be modified to suit a cutting phase? Specifically, it would provide enough stimulus to retain muscle mass.

 

[snuklov]

We need to separate atrophy from neurological detraining.
I am not suggesting that muscle tissue wastes away after a few weeks of avoiding an exercise. However, the data on neuromuscular physiology shows that motor pattern efficiency decays rapidly when a specific movement is removed from your rotation.

For a serious BBer with decades of experience, this decay is the exact reason they experience a rapid, linear ramp-up in load and repetitions upon reintroducing an old exercise.
That rapid trajectory is the central nervous system rapidly restoring prior neural coordination, not the immediate synthesis of new skeletal muscle tissue.

The movement swap itself does not generate novel hypertrophy. What it can do is provide a psychological benefit, reinvigorating focus, effort, and adherence through novelty. It can itself be fun, and adherance is crucial as we all know.
That is a real, measurable mental benefit, but it shouldn't be misattributed to a physiological necessity for growth.

My position comes down to a strict filter of optimization. I will always side with the strategy that yields the highest return on investment for physical effort. I'm always focused on ROI.
This is the exact same reason I favor high-intensity, lower-volume training: extracting the highest-yielding productive reps early in the bout and leaving. It maximizes efficiency.
While many dislike this approach and or just don't enjoy it, it is likely the most time and energy efficient method. I fully acknowledge that's not what everyone is after.

With this in mind, would I then be correct in thinking DC training (being somewhat high intensity low volume) coudl be modified to suit a cutting phase? Specifically, it would provide enough stimulus to retain muscle mass.

 

[AllOkJumpmaster]

With this in mind, would I then be correct in thinking DC training (being somewhat high intensity low volume) coudl be modified to suit a cutting phase? Specifically, it would provide enough stimulus to retain muscle mass.

DC would be perfectly fine for a cut. The typical approach, at least as calories get lower, is to reduce volume, but keep intensity high (intensity being % of 1rm in this context). Volumes typically titrate down as ability to recover in a deficit starts to become hindered, especially as cardio goes up, and food goes down. That said, the only issue that might possibly become an issue, and I am sure I will be told I am wrong or corrected on, is that some report DC can be hard on joints, and typically when we are in a deeper deficit and fatigued state, the propensity for injury goes up, and ability to heal goes down, so you may potentially face some joint issues. However, with proper joint supplementation I think you can get out in front of that, and mitigate anything serious if that is an issue you have dealt with.

 

[hawkmoon]

With this in mind, would I then be correct in thinking DC training (being somewhat high intensity low volume) coudl be modified to suit a cutting phase? Specifically, it would provide enough stimulus to retain muscle mass.

I don't change it in prep other than to back off on the RP portion towards the end as injury risk rises.

 

[hawkmoon]

DC would be perfectly fine for a cut. The typical approach, at least as calories get lower, is to reduce volume, but keep intensity high (intensity being % of 1rm in this context). Volumes typically titrate down as ability to recover in a deficit starts to become hindered, especially as cardio goes up, and food goes down. That said, the only issue that might possibly become an issue, and I am sure I will be told I am wrong or corrected on, is that some report DC can be hard on joints, and typically when we are in a deeper deficit and fatigued state, the propensity for injury goes up, and ability to heal goes down, so you may potentially face some joint issues. However, with proper joint supplementation I think you can get out in front of that, and mitigate anything serious if that is an issue you have dealt with.

Joint and connective tissue risk can be effectively mitigated by keeping reps higher pre-RP, e.g. fail at 10 and not 6.

It should go without saying - though it's lost somehow - that if one is training to failure properly, focused on that working muscle and not breaking form just to move heavy weight risk will be quite low.

 

[snuklov]

DC would be perfectly fine for a cut. The typical approach, at least as calories get lower, is to reduce volume, but keep intensity high (intensity being % of 1rm in this context). Volumes typically titrate down as ability to recover in a deficit starts to become hindered, especially as cardio goes up, and food goes down. That said, the only issue that might possibly become an issue, and I am sure I will be told I am wrong or corrected on, is that some report DC can be hard on joints, and typically when we are in a deeper deficit and fatigued state, the propensity for injury goes up, and ability to heal goes down, so you may potentially face some joint issues. However, with proper joint supplementation I think you can get out in front of that, and mitigate anything serious if that is an issue you have dealt with.

Joint supplementation? Like fish oil etc?

 

[snuklov]

Joint and connective tissue risk can be effectively mitigated by keeping reps higher pre-RP, e.g. fail at 10 and not 6.

It should go without saying - though it's lost somehow - that if one is training to failure properly, focused on that working muscle and not breaking form just to move heavy weight risk will be quite low.

Alrighty , im 99% sold, just need to suss me out the actual plan to follow. I watched Lyle McDonald's vid on RFL and using DC training and he looked to retain most of his lean mass.

 

[alfresco]

We need to separate atrophy from neurological detraining.
I am not suggesting that muscle tissue wastes away after a few weeks of avoiding an exercise. However, the data on neuromuscular physiology shows that motor pattern efficiency decays rapidly when a specific movement is removed from your rotation.

For a serious BBer with decades of experience, this decay is the exact reason they experience a rapid, linear ramp-up in load and repetitions upon reintroducing an old exercise.
That rapid trajectory is the central nervous system rapidly restoring prior neural coordination, not the immediate synthesis of new skeletal muscle tissue.

The movement swap itself does not generate novel hypertrophy. What it can do is provide a psychological benefit, reinvigorating focus, effort, and adherence through novelty. It can itself be fun, and adherance is crucial as we all know.
That is a real, measurable mental benefit, but it shouldn't be misattributed to a physiological necessity for growth.

My position comes down to a strict filter of optimization. I will always side with the strategy that yields the highest return on investment for physical effort. I'm always focused on ROI.
This is the exact same reason I favor high-intensity, lower-volume training: extracting the highest-yielding productive reps early in the bout and leaving. It maximizes efficiency.
While many dislike this approach and or just don't enjoy it, it is likely the most time and energy efficient method. I fully acknowledge that's not what everyone is after.

Price is only a factor in the absence of value.

 

[massephase]

How do differentiate between getting stronger vs. stimulating the muscle? I often hear of the need to stimulate the muscle but no one really explains the actual action of how to. The only think I recall is that old Kai Greene vid on YouTube where he takes someone through bicep curls and does them really slowly and squeezes at the peak contraction...people commented on how little weight he used.

Stimulating the muscle to me means going close to failure while keeping the tension on the target muscle and producing the most force I can in the concentric.

So it has nothing to do squeezing or slowing things down. You only slow things down to keep the tension where you want it or to make the exercise safer.