Recovery a principle of HST

[Peak_Power]

You know all this talk of recovery and SD got me thinking...

Recovery should be a principle of HST!

It should really be added in with mechanical load, frequency, progressive load, SD etc. and you know I think the reason why Bryan didn't add it in, unless he has a more specific reason, is that its so bleeding obvious that he never thought to put it in.

I always thought the same thing about the "mechanical load" principle, which in layman's terms translates into "you have to lift weights", which just made me go "duh", but the reason why Bryan put it in is to illustrate WHY AND HOW lifting weights produces hypertrophy, namely by the strain produced by mechanic load, which sparks growth hormones and satellite cells and all that stuff.

Now one thing that's really griped me on this board is using the term "SD" in place of "recovery". SD is about deconditioning the muscle so its sensitive to strain, its separate to recovering so that continuing to lift doesn't injury you or burn you out.

Now we SD, and we also recover during that time too, but we also need the principle of recovery explicitly stated to counter-act the principle of frequency. Remember the purpose of frequency: to create an environment of anabolism, and maximise the amount of time we spend with protein synthesis heightened. The recovery I'm talking about, the "duh factor" recovery, is the fact that we only work about 2-3 times a week, instead of 4, 5, 6, times per week or even 100 times per day!

We need to take a break and leave rest time between workouts for the sake of recovery, eat well to aid that recovery (as well as growth), and sleep well too. Its like, duh, we already knew that, its so obvious did you even need to mention it? Well yes, I did, because every so often someone will post "if protein synthesis only lasts 36 hours, why not work out every 36 hours", or "if frequency is important, why not work out 6 days a week". Anyone who's done heavy full body programs 3x per week for more than 8 weeks knows that it burns you out, fatigue is cumulative, and you need both the rests between workouts, and the major rest of a week or more every 8-10 weeks or so, if you're a natty lifter. So it really isn't recommended, healthy or possible to workout the way we do (with sufficient load and volume to stimulate meaningful hypertrophy) more than every 48 hours, and not really more than about 10-12 weeks at the most, without getting burnt out.

So I'm putting it out there, I think Recovery should be added as a principle of HST. I'd love to hear Bryan's response too, either agreeing with me, or his reasons why he doesn't.

The way I see it, there are 3 stages of recovery:

The rest between sets, from 5secs (maxstim) to a few minutes rest
The rest between workouts, between 48-72 hours rest
The rest between "cycles", between 1-2 weeks rest, with any more being more about deconditioning, rather than recovery

One thing I noticed about maxstim is it really makes use of this principle, resting between every rep, and by only recommending 2 workouts per week, and people have reported great results from maxstim. Ie. the HST program pushes load and frequency, the maxstim program pushes load and recovery, both are effective, because both follow the principles. Well that's the way I see it.

The more I think about it the more it seems so obvious how important it is for effective lifting and growth. The hidden principle, recovery!

I’d love to hear from Bryan and Dan Moore on this one.

 

[Martin Levac]

I agree although for a different reason. What I read about anaerobic work is that it requires and first uses glycogen but can and will use other forms of fuel if there's no glycogen to use. Such as the muscle itself. And from the same read, I found that glycogen takes about 2 days to replenish.

The conclusion is easy enough to come to. Work out as frequently as possible without burning up all the fuel we work out with, both during a single workout and during subsequent workouts. Otherwise, we use muscles as fuel.

 

[Fausto]

The duh factor indeed, Peak.

I am guilty as hell of contravening at least the rest part day by day, which you seem to not have included (the daily 8 hour mandatory rest), which is a further duh thing.

What I tried to do to contravene this was to do the 2 p/week thing and you know what, it worked but not a great deal.

This is so important because it is when the HGH and IGF go to WORK, during sleep hours.

Otherwise I completely agree with you, it is almost anoying to read from a newbie trying to get info on how to "beat" this hypertrophy factors to "death" as if they were talking about a performance vehicle.

The biological machine is so much more than that!

GREAT POST MATE!

 

[dkm1987]

Need,

Although I understand what you are saying there is a difference between the two, SD and recovery.

Granted, yes you will recover (depending on what was lost) while SD'ing but the mechanisms and reasonings for the two are not synonomous.

SDs importance is not in recovering from the stress of working out it is a means to resensitise the tissue to loading.

When you look at recovery first you have to identify what is recovering. Each usable substrate has a recovery period but in general terms these are recovered quite quickly. The CNS actually recovers quite quickly as well, contrary to common opinion, when dealing with high frequency fatigue (what we are speaking about in terms of lifting heavy stuff). Hormones return to basal levels quickly as well. Yes there is an overtraining affect but this is very dependant on the variables themselves e.g. frequency, load, volume and such.

For example and this also addresses something Martin brought up.

Glycogen, glycogen actually recovers to near basal levels within 6-12 hours and is generally fully recovered within 24 hours, so an obvious difference than 9-14
days.

Hormones, many hormones recover to basal levels within an hour or so post workout. Yes, there are chronic deficits during chronic lifting but within the first day or two of not lifting these hormones are back to pre-training levels, again a far cry from 9-14 days.

Damage, now here is something that takes some time. There are several ideas about how long this takes to recover, actually repair. So suffice it to say it could be from 5 days to 90 days.

Torque loss, again it varies, could be 5 days, could be 20.

So as you can see when speaking of recovery you first must actually identify what you are speaking of and second the time frames vary tremendously.

Moving on let's look at SD.

We all know that as we lift more and more we become resistant to the stress and strain, IE we adapt. It is this adaptation that SD is used for. Even this adapation has varying time frames because there are varying mechanisms involved. There are molecular signalling mechanisms which do show a resistance over time, impacting genetic responses. There are also physical adaptation also, IE RBE, the repeat bout effect.

So when looking at principles, yes recovery is an aspect of overall function but in a general sense it's not related to what Bryan has spellled out for the resensitising of muscle tissue (specifically) to load and hence hypertrophy.

 

[Peak_Power]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So when looking at principles, yes recovery is an aspect of overall function but in a general sense it's not related to what Bryan has spellled out for the resensitising of muscle tissue (specifically) to load and hence hypertrophy. </div>

Its almost like you're saying its a practical element, rather than a philosophical one, but I think I see what you're getting at, in that it isn't directly related to the actual process of mechanical strain and the body's sensitivity to it, which is what Bryan is talking about.

I still think its a principle essential to hypertrophy though, and one that needs to be talked about more. Lets face it, all the factors that cause hypertrophy go to sh*t if you don't rest and recovery intelligently.

Fausto, sleep, of course, see that's what I'm talking about, its so obvious it gets overlooked. Moshe Feldenkrais calls it the &quot;elusive obvious&quot;, I like my &quot;bro-logic&quot; version, the &quot;duh-factor&quot;. Heheh