Hey faz
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]if load + stretch is what builds muscle,would that mean that db flyes are better than db or bb benchpress
Well, most fly movements are actually only marginally more effective (or maybe not at all, even) than chest compound exercises like benchpresses of different kinds.
I guess you can try this right now: while you are in front of the computer, stretch out your arms the way you do in a fly movement (make sure nobody else is in the room, so they won't think you've gone crazy or something). Now, just moving your forearms (of course, bending your elbows, you've no other joint), position your hands so they look like you are holding a barbell... and you'll be surprised to see that the way the pecs were stretched were almost the same (since we only moved the forearms by bending the elbows). There's only a little bit of stretch difference, but there is a tremendous weight difference. Benchpressing 245 pounds, you still probably won't be able to hold more than 80-pound dumbbells at each hand (total of only 160). I'm yet to see anybody do 100-pound dumbbell flys, but have ssen numerous people benchpressing 200+. (Of course, this last bit of trivia is just my opinion; I'm not saying nobody out there who can bench 250 can also use 100-pound dumbbells each hand for db flys)
So you still need the compound movements. The best would be to do dips - stretch and maximum load applicable! If not, then do incline benchpress and flys. Nothing wrong with flys, they are great isolation and stretch for the chest if you complement them with other chest exercises, but as a stand alone, I personally wouldn't advise such a thing. Dips and flys, ok. Bench and flys, ok. But just flys? Most probably not ok.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]also i have read that small increments are not as good as large, because
the muscle doesnt notice the change from one workout to the next (put simply) but would it not be better to use small increments going from 15s to 5s without zigzaging..rather than using the same weight twice..which also the muscle will not notice..or is the reason you do the same weight twice because after the 2nd workout you have a big jump...and the muscle will respond to this...
Yes, generally, as the muscles get more and more conditioned and bigger and bigger, you need greater and greater increments. By the time you reach your 8+ HST cycle, you might have to increase the increments in order to continue growing. By that time, 5 or even 10-pound increases might not be enough, and you might have to use 10 or 15%.
As for using the weights twice, zigzagging, and using smaller increments to make the progression perfect without zigzagging... it generally takes 7-14 days for the muscle to completely adapt to a weight (meaning the weight load will pretty much be ineffective now). This is why we can extend the absolute 5 rep max for two weeks, so we can still squeeze out all the hypertrophy we can from that load until we are sure the adaptation has made that max load of ours useless. So zigzagging and repeating a weight is ok, unless it is so extreme that you use a weight you've used two weeks ago. That would hardly ever happen anyway, and what's more common in zigzagging would probably be using a weight you used two workouts ago, which is still ok (that's just 6 days or something), and load would still continue to be progressive anyway as the cycle continues. There are exceptions of course, like you are going to use a weight again that is 50 lbs lighter than the last you did - needless to say, that is probably no good unless 50 is really your standard increment althroughout the cycle for that exercise
As for smaller increments to make the progression perfect without any repetition... well, there have been studies about using micro-increments (0.5 lbs), and they concluded that it produced pretty much the same result as traditional increments. However, this was a strength-training research, and they did not measure (to my knowledge) hypertrohpy. I'm not sure if a similar study has already been conducted that measured hypertophy instead of just strength. Anyway, to answer your question, the general rule we can follow is that large increments will produce greater hypertrophy, while smaller increments will produce strength gains. This does not mean there will be totally zero hypertrophy in smaller increments. But since load (specifically progressive overloading) is our primary concern in hypertrophy, it is a safer bet to ride on overloading your muscles using bigger increments, even if it means having to repeat some weights during certain parts of the cycle.
Hope that helps
-JV
