Is this guy "on juice"?

Renky said:
So what does Tommy Jeffers take for supplementation?
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A quote of one of Tommy's recent posts from 09-10-2012 (full post here)

Nutrition

I am basically just rotating a lot of the same food sources on a regular basis. Lots of chicken, turkey, extra lean ground beef, egg whites, whole wheat/whole grain pastas and tortillas, brown and white rice, oatmeal, sweet and white potatoes, almonds, natural peanut butter, and occasionally some low fat cheese. I venture off those sources about once a week (usually on Sundays) for some pizza for dinner since that is our designated one night off a week of cooking from scratch. I typically track macros for the first half of the day up to and through post workout, and the last two meals of the day I don't. If I needed to start tracking for the sake of progress, a certain look, etc. then I will, but for now there is really no need.

Supplementation

Very basic. I'm taking the following:

Solgar VM75 Multi-Vitamin
10,000 IU Vitamin D3
1g Vitamin C
6g Fish Oil (I'm also throwing in some left over Sesamin and CLA I have just sitting around to use them up)
Primaforce Elastimine and Cissus (joint care)
2-3g Creatine Monohydrate post workout (there is usually a few grams already in a preworkout)
Beta Alanine + Cirtulline Malate + BCAAs (during workout)
Whatever pre-workout drink I am trying out at the time. Currently I am trying out Mr Hyde for the time being based on a friend's recommendation.

Training

Now that I am training consistently, I have been doing a basic routine that rotates around the days I am able to go to the gym and the time frame I have. As of right now, it's now a set in stone routine - which to be honest - has been refreshing for a change. At this point, I am just making sure I am hitting all muscle groups in all rep ranges, I vary the intenisty techniques here and there between rest pause and heavy drop sets, and am hitting muscle groups about once every 5-6 days. It's worked well for getting me back to where I was before. Within a couple of weeks I will be transitioning back to one of my periodization plans as I have every intention of working my way back to the stage, possibly as soon as next summer/fall. For those that care, I've been able to work back up to these weights for these lifts:

Conventional Deadlifts: 585X2
Parallel Squats: 495X2
Barbell Bench Press: 345X4

Starting with tomorrow's workout, I will be laying things out with my plan and thoughts along the way, so feel free to join along with me in my journey back to the stage!

Sporto
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I am not sure how far away he is from being back on track but you'll notice from the few lifts that Tommy mentions here that he is a strong guy for a natty lifter. What we already know, and what we see from this, is that people who want to maximise their potential without drugs have to lift heavy a$$ weights. :)
 
Frequency, volume and load are inversely related. With standard HST the load and volume are on the low end, to keep frequency at the high end. At the competitive level, often the volume and loads used are extremely taxing, and frequency has to come down a bit to allow for recovery.
Plus, it's entirely plausible that a pro could grow just as well or better using higher frequency and limiting volume,etc.

Like Totentanz said, hypertrophy training 's a set of principles, not a routine.
 
HST_Rihad said:
Haha, a top-notch natural bodybuilder doing fine with a frequency so unusual for HST. Then what are WE doing? :)
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If you know the guy at all, you'd know that he is only training that way now. You know, after the car crash he was in. He used to train differently.
 
Wow, sorry to hear that. Hope he gets well soon.

Sci, that explanation makes sense. You just rest and don't grow past the 36-48 elevated protein synthesis time frame. What doesn't make sense is why training a MG 2 times a week isn't worse than 3/wk in terms of muscle CSA growth, since it's way past 48 hours. Apparently some of those numbers aren't right.
 
The problem with relying on those numbers is that it looks like in well trained individuals, the protein synthesis spike is shorter. So most of us are likely not even getting the 36 hours that the earlier studies show.
 
That's certainly a feasible explanation, although the research done by Wernbom et al. ("The Influence of Frequency, Intensity, Volume and Mode of Strength Training on Whole Muscle Cross-Sectional Area in Humans") involved previously untrained subjects, which only brings more confusion to the issue.
 
"Previously untrained subjects" studies are so annoying. They're good for identifying mechanisms, pretty piss poor for identifying practical application towards optimisation. It's like giving a 48hr fasted person a steak and then saying that steaks are ideal for causing an insulin response ... anything would do it. Just as any form of resistance training for untrained individuals will provoke significant tissue and whole body responses.
 
Yeah, exactly.

My point was that we cannot rely on the studies on previously untrained subjects as a hard and fast rule for protein synthesis time windows. Especially when more recent research seems to suggest that, while not only the training response is diminished in trained subjects (RBE) but so is the spike in protein synthesis.

So... if the window is smaller for us trained folks, that would seem that frequency is even more important. Of course people are still growing on hitting a muscle group twice a week, but do you think those people are only lifting twice a week? No. And do you think that if you divide the body up into two halves, that working one half somehow leaves the other half immune to any work? No. Even an upper/lower split will have some spillover, where you are hitting some upper muscles when you do your lower body work, depending on exercise selection. In general, most people who are only hitting muscle groups twice a week (ala DC, etc) are actually in the gym more than the typical HSTer who does three times a week. DC, since I used that example, typically calls for four days a week in most setups. Obviously it varies, but that gives you two extra days every two week block, and that is why they can get away with "reduced frequency" and still grow.
 
Where does it say that the studies show 2 sets 3 times a week is best?

Last I read, the articles suggested and cited studies showing that one work set is as effective as multiple, not two sets.

To quote one of Bryan's main articles:

In a study performed at Montclair State University5 researchers investigated the effect of a single set vs. a multiple set routine on increasing upper body strength. They had the subjects perform either one set or three sets of bench press, incline dumbbell press and flat dumbbell flies using ten reps, three times per week for 12 weeks. This kind of study has been done before but this one is particularly valuable because it involved previously "trained" subjects. This is significant because untrained subjects will usually respond positively to virtually any training routine. Just because a training strategy works for beginners doesn't mean it will work for experienced lifters. These researchers found that doing a single set of each exercise was equally effective as doing three sets of the same movements in increasing the subjects one repetition maximum (1RM) on bench press. The take home message is that you needn't do more than a single work set to achieve the same relative gains of doing multiple sets. This makes incorporating a whole body workout into your schedule much more feasible.

5) Curto MA., Fisher MM. The effect of single vs. Multiple sets of resistance exercise on strength in trained males. Med. Sci. Sports Exrc. 31(5 Supp) pp.S114, 1999
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Totentanz said:
Where does it say that the studies show 2 sets 3 times a week is best?
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Not the studies per se, but the usual HST recommendation that more than 1-2 sets aren't necessary at 3 times a week.

Last I read, the articles suggested and cited studies showing that one work set is as effective as multiple, not two sets.

To quote one of Bryan's main articles:
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Hmm, okay, assuming strength gains meaning the same thing as muscle CSA gains.
 
Totentanz said:
They had the subjects perform either one set or three sets of bench press, incline dumbbell press and flat dumbbell flies using ten reps, three times per week for 12 weeks.
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Aren't those 3 exercises, so a total of 3 sets?

I found a contradicting research:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20300012
[h=1]Single vs. multiple sets of resistance exercise for muscle hypertrophy: a meta-analysis.[/h]Krieger JW.
[h=3]Source[/h]Journal of Pure Power, Colorado Springs, CO, USA. [email protected]

[h=3]Abstract[/h]Previous meta-analyses have compared the effects of single to multiple sets on strength, but analyses on muscle hypertrophy are lacking. The purpose of this study was to use multilevel meta-regression to compare the effects of single and multiple sets per exercise on muscle hypertrophy. The analysis comprised 55 effect sizes (ESs), nested within 19 treatment groups and 8 studies. Multiple sets were associated with a larger ES than a single set (difference = 0.10 +/- 0.04; confidence interval [CI]: 0.02, 0.19; p = 0.016). In a dose-response model, there was a trend for 2-3 sets per exercise to be associated with a greater ES than 1 set (difference = 0.09 +/- 0.05; CI: -0.02, 0.20; p = 0.09), and a trend for 4-6 sets per exercise to be associated with a greater ES than 1 set (difference = 0.20 +/- 0.11; CI: -0.04, 0.43; p = 0.096). Both of these trends were significant when considering permutation test p values (p < 0.01). There was no significant difference between 2-3 sets per exercise and 4-6 sets per exercise (difference = 0.10 +/- 0.10; CI: -0.09, 0.30; p = 0.29). There was a tendency for increasing ESs for an increasing number of sets (0.24 for 1 set, 0.34 for 2-3 sets, and 0.44 for 4-6 sets). Sensitivity analysis revealed no highly influential studies that affected the magnitude of the observed differences, but one study did slightly influence the level of significance and CI width. No evidence of publication bias was observed. In conclusion, multiple sets are associated with 40% greater hypertrophy-related ESs than 1 set, in both trained and untrained subjects.
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Although it doesn't take into account the increased frequency of HST.
 
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Totentanz said:
Meta-analysis studies are worth junk. They used studies that used untrained lifters for some of them, those don't apply to us. The one Bryan cited used previously trained lifters.
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But still, the one Bryan cited seemed to involve 3 similar exercises, unless all subjects were separated into different groups.

They had the subjects perform either one set or three sets of bench press, incline dumbbell press and flat dumbbell flies using ten reps, three times per week for 12 weeks.
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@HST_Rihad - I'm having trouble following your contention, it seems to be changing in response to Totentanz's comments. What precisely are you arguing/contending/attempting to prove?
 
It's just because someone on another board said that HST's idea to train a MG more often (3 times a week) with limited volume (1 set) was built around research involving untrained subjects and isn't as good for trained ones. Totentanz brought up a research proving them wrong, but it looked like it had 3 sets in 3 different exercises, not just 1. BTW that research is nowhere to be seen on the net, not even its abstract, although there are many works linking to it.
 
What about this guy's form? He is 23 y.o., lifting since 18, 179 cm. @80 kg (5'10" @176 lbs), strength: 185/128/203 kg (407/282/447 lbs).
He says he hasn't used drugs, although next year he's going to use them.

008ddc431b29.jpg
 
He looks natural, definitely upper limit of his genetic capacity in that case. The only question mark I have is his age but then with strong training and nutrition his physique is certainly possible for 23 (sports players, competitive gymnasts etc).

If anything, it's a shame he's going to use assistance because he has great proportions. Small joints, good V-shape etc.
 
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