Discussion of training protocols, articles, websites, books, and related bodybuilding items

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ddouble,

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R.I.F. (Reading IS Fundamental)...



"There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:
(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;
(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame;
(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble."
-Sun Tzu

Some good web resources

ExRx.Net

Lots of info on fitness & related topics. Good reference resource.

Mind & Muscle Forum and Online Magazine

Cutting edge info in the world of training, nutrition, and ergogenic aids (cognitive, fat loss, muscle building, endurance, anabolics). The language is not always layman-friendly, but the info is worth the work. Style is aggressive & sometimes off-putting, but again very useful info here.

Training protocols I have used

Over the coming days & weeks, I will share my experiences with the many training protocols I have used. I'll start with the following list:

HIT (High Intensity Training)
Body for Life
Big Beyond Belief
HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training)
SuperSlow

HIT

A training protocol from devised by Arthur Jones, creator of the original Nautilus exercise equipment and subsesquently the MedX line of rehabilitative machines. Jones viewed the body as a mechanical system and advocated performing just enough work to achieve hypertrophy (muscle building). Jones advocated full body workouts, composed of 1 sets per bodypart. "One set?" you may ask yourself. Yes, to elicit the desired effect, Arthur typically used one set to eccentric failure (Concentric, or positive failure, is the inability to lift the weight for additional repetitions. Eccentric, or negative, failure is the inability to lower the weight for additional reps.). People are stronger in the eccentric portion of a repetition, so Jones believed achieving positive failure, then being assisted with negatives (completing the lowering portion of a rep) was the best way to produce muscular hypertrophy. This type of training puts tremendous strain on the central nervous system (CNS), so an HIT workout might occur once every 6-10 days.

More Info: Google Nautilus Bulletins

Personally, this protocol worked more for strength than muscle size for me. The upside is that a proper HIT workout is done in 30-45 minutes. Cons are the heavy fatigue that results from the protocol. I would use this technique sparingly.

Big Beyond Belief
Leo Costa & Russ Horne
(Edit: Book can be purchased here OTS Direct It's cheaper at Amazon.com though.)

Based on Bulgarian protocols, BBB is based on the overreaching principle. Consider the following as ranges in the realm of muscle building:

Sub-Optimal

Optimal

Acute Overtraining

Chronic Overtraining

The first, third & four ranges will result in no muscle gain and possibly muscle loss. How do you stay in the optimal range? Horne & Costa believe in ramping up the volume (number of sets), decreasing rest intervals, and periodizing the workout in one week cycles. Over the course of three weeks, the workload goes from 3 sets per bodypart to 5 sets. Rest breaks decrease from 120 seconds to 90 seconds. Every week has Endurance (13-15 reps), Hypertrophy (10-12 reps), and Power (8-10 reps) training days. Typically, the body is split into upper and lower body workouts, with one exercise per bodypart.

After three weeks under this protocol, Horne & Costa hypothesized that a trainee would move from sub optimal to optimal to acute overtraining. The program then reduces volume, number of reps, and increases rest intervals for three weeks. This is designed to keep the trainee in the optimal muscle building zone. At the end of six weeks, you repeat the protocol. The program has options for four times a week, six times a week, and twelve times a week (2 workouts a day, six days a week).

The authors also believed that compound (exercises that focus on multiple muscle groups) free weight movements, dips and chins are that best exercises to use.

Personally, this was the second best system I ever used. Over the course of two cycles (12 weeks), I put about 15 pounds, 10-12 of which were muscle. Horne & Costa put out another book called Titan Training. I have not used this protocol.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ddouble,

------------------------------
R.I.F. (Reading IS Fundamental)...



"There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:
(1) Recklessness, which leads to destruction;
(2) cowardice, which leads to capture;
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame;
(5) over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble."
-Sun Tzu

HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training)


HST website

These are the principles HST is founded on:

1) Mechanical Load
Mechanical Load is necessary to induce muscle hypertrophy. This mechanism involves but isn't limited to, MAPk/ERK, satellite cells, growth factors, calcium, and number of other fairly understood factors. It is incorrect to say "we don't know how muscle grows in response to training". The whole point of the HST book is not to discuss HST, but to present the body of research explaining how hypertrophy occurs. Then HST becomes a relatively obvious conclusion if your goal is hypertrophy.
2) Acute vs. Chronic Stimuli
In order for the loading to result in significant hypertrophy, the stimulus must be applied with sufficient frequency to create a new "environment", as opposed to seemingly random and acute assaults on the mechanical integrity of the tissue. The downside of taking a week of rest every time you load a muscle is that many of the acute responses to training like increased protein synthesis, prostaglandins, IGF-1 levels, and mRNA levels all return to normal in about 36 hours. So, you spend 2 days growing and half a week in a semi-anticatabolic state returning to normal (some people call this recovery), when research shows us that recovery can take place unabated even if a the muscle is loaded again in 48 hours. So true anabolism from loading only lasts 2 days at best once the load is removed. The rest of the time you are simply balancing nitrogen retention without adding to it.

3) Progressive Load
Over time, the tissue adapts and becomes resistant to the damaging effects of mechanical load. This adaptation (resistance to the stimulus) can happen in as little as 48 hours (Repeated Bout Effect or Rapid Training Effect). As this happens, hypertrophy will stop, though neural and metabolic adaptations can and may continue. As opposed to hypertrophy, the foundation for the development of strength is neuromuscular in nature. Increases in strength from resistance exercise have been attributed to several neural adaptations including altered recruitment patterns, rate coding, motor unit synchronization, reflex potentiation, prime mover antagonist activity, and prime mover agonist activity. So, aside from incremental changes in the number of contractile filaments (hypertrophy), voluntary force production (i.e. strength) is largely a matter of "activating" motor units.

4) Strategic Deconditioning
At this point, it is necessary to either increase the load (Progressive load), or decrease the degree of conditioning to the load (Strategic Deconditioning). The muscle is sensitive not only to the absolute load, but also to the change in load (up or down). Therefore, you can get a hypertrophic effect from increasing the load from a previous load, even if the absolute load is not maximum, assuming conditioning (resistance to exercise induced micro-damage) is not to extensive. There is a limit to the number of increments you can add to increase the load. You simply reach your maximum voluntary strength eventually. This is why Strategic Deconditioning is required for continued growth once growth has stopped (all things remaining equal).

Methodology (How to implement HST)


Utilizing lactic acid as a stimulus for tendon repair/health
Now HST incorporates a few other things such as higher reps (for lactic acid) to prepare the muscles and tendons for future heavy loads. This serves as "regular maintenance". Without it, you increase your risk of chronic injuries and pain. The metabolically-taxing reps enhance healing of strained tendons.
Compound Exercises
HST also suggests using compound exercises to maximize the effects of loading on as much muscle as possible per exercise.

Progressively Adjusting reps to accommodate Progressive Load
HST suggests that you use 2 week blocks for each rep range. Why? It has nothing to do with adaptation. It is simply a way to accommodate the ever increasing load. Of course, you could adjust your reps every week (e.g. 15,12,10,8,5,etc), but this is more complicated and people might not understand. Often times, in order to communicate an idea you must simplify things, even at the expense of perfection. If people can't understand it, they won't do it. What good would that do or anybody? Then, over time, people figure out for themselves the other possibilities that exist within the principles of hypertrophy.

Low volume per exercise (average volume per week)
HST suggests that you limit the number of sets per exercise per workout to 1 or 2. This is based on "some" evidence that sets beyond the first "effective" set do little more than burn calories. There is nothing wrong with burning calories, but when you get to be my age you just don't have the exercise tolerance that you once did. Using hormone replacement (HRT) therapy would of course, increase the number of sets you could do without undue stress.

Some may question the validity of HST not utilizing more than 1 or 2 sets per exercise. The number of sets is set low to accommodate the frequency necessary to create an effective and consistent environment to stimulate hypertrophy. Over the course of a week, the volume isn't that different from standard splits (e.g. chest should tri, back bi, legs).

This has been the best training protocol I have used - In fact, I'm beginning a new HST training cycle after abandoning the protocol for about two years.

DDouble,

I think I will give the HST a try.

I wasn't able to stick with the Body for Life due to issues with my job and other things messing up my schedule for training. I belive I did gain a little muscle mass but I also add fat which is what I didn't want.

At my age, I'm happy just to stay in good shape. But I know I will have to drop some of this weight and keep it off if I want to remain healthy and active in my old age.

D,

I'm not sure if I understand the routine. Would it look like this:

Week 1-2 Mon/Wed/Fri
Incline Bench 2 X15
Dips 1X 15

Week 3-4 Mon/Wed/Fri
Incline Bench 2 X10
Dips 1X 10

When does the weight increase?

NEVERMIND! I had missed a page

Ok. The question now is can this be done affectively with dumbbells? I wouldn't think so.

I try to workout at hom with my set which goes up to 52 pounds. Each time you work out with HST you increase the weight by 5-10 pounds. I would quickly run out of weight to increase.

The weight increases are in increments of 5-10%. This may end up being less than 5 lbs from workout to workout. Also, you can repeat a weight twice, so you can also reduce your weight increases by a half. I think the site still has a calculator to help you formulate a weight progression schedule.