Repping out on final workout of each 2 week block

[Old and Grey]

Several years ago, Poliquin came up with an arm specialization one-day program that he claimed would add 1/2" to 1" to anyone's arms in one day. It involved 2 sets for bis and two sets for tris done superset style every 30 minutes for 8 hours (16 workouts and 64 sets). All I got out of it was a pair of sore arms but zero growth.

However, as I have mentioned in the past, late summer I did a 6 week lat specialization program whereby I did 6 sets of neutral grip chins spaced two hours apart every day. I started at 6 sets of 15 reps and decreased one rep by adding weight each day until I was down to 6 sets of my 5 RM and then continued with 6 sets of 5 increasingly difficult negatives each day. The first week was in excess of 500 reps and the last week was "down" to 210 weekly reps. The results were fantastic. However, I was working close to my RM every day so I was always creating a sufficient load to activate muscle trauma, albeit very inefficiently in the beginning days, except metabolically speaking. 4 weeks would have probably been better since I came down with bronchitis after 6 weeks and it may have been somewhat attributable to neural fatigue. Who knows but it was my first such infection in 8 years.

What Rihad questioned of one set of one rep every ten minutes for 16 hours using your 10 RM may not induce any muscle trauma until the last part of the day, if then, so I would not think it would be very efficient. Decreasing the rest time would obviously help but would still be very inefficient even at 5 minute rest periods. If you do not reach activation with every "set", you are just expending calories and not building muscle. As Alex mentioned, there must be some accumulation point whereby reps start to cause activation but I have no idea where that might be and it still results in a lot of wasted time until you can reach such point, if it exists at the load you are using. I think the load would have to be increased to your 3 RM or lower to get activation with every set but that is purely a guess. Myo reps and Max Stim solve that problem by manipulating the rest time and amount of weight to maximize activation reps and minimize wasted reps and fatigue. The metabolic problem remains with MS (at least as it was originally written) but is easily solved with the myo scheme by using an undulating rep scheme that changes every workout. Perhaps a combination of the two schemes is the best way to go? However, I still prefer the efficiency of the myo scheme. I am a bit of a miser with my time.

 

[HST_Rihad]

6 sets of my 5 RM and then continued with 6 sets of 5 increasingly difficult negatives each day. The first week was in excess of 500 reps and the last week was "down" to 210 weekly reps. The results were fantastic.

Getting in some more volume with 5RM and heavier is great, but this is slightly different from what I want to try. I'd like to increase the baseline level of mass.

Here's a quote from HST FAQ:

Muscle tissue, as indicated earlier, has been shown to recover amidst continued loading. Take
for example "synergistic ablation" studies. In these studies the gastrocnemius of an animal is
cut so that the standing load is placed almost entirely on the soleus. In these studies the
animal’s soleus is subject to a dramatic increase in load during every waking hour. There is no
"rest between sets or workouts" or any kind of sets or workouts for that matter. There is no time
off to allow "adaptive energies" to do their magic. Nevertheless, the soleus will double in size
and weight within days. The muscle literally grows and adapts to the new "environment" while
being continually loaded. Now I'm not suggesting that people have this done to get their
stubborn calves to grow, but it does illustrate an important point. Which is - the muscle can
adapt while it is being loaded, or trained. The tissue does not necessarily need time off. The
central nervous system, on the other hand, does need time off. The amount of time off it needs
depends on how much "fatigue" was induced.

Let's forget that the study was done on rodents for a second. See that loads don't have to be 5RM or anything like that. This is what I want to experiment with: I want to create a new "environment" for my pecs, tris & deltoids by doing a pushup or two every 5-10 minutes, so they adapt to it by becoming bigger (compared to doing 0 pushups on days that I take a rest anyway).

Another option would be to wear some sort of a heavy outfit (50 lb or more) at all times during waking hours, but that's more for the legs.

 

[Old and Grey]

Rihad, there was a study done a few years ago with birds where a relatively light weight was attached to their wings 24/7. The result was substantial wing muscle growth.

Boxers train with weighted gloves to accomplish the same thing. Runners strap on weights. Etc.

Without suggesting that you are a bird or a rodent, I would say give it a try. Let me suggest just one thing, however, and that is that you concentrate on a very slow eccentric portion of the pushup to help open growth pathways and cut down on inefficiency.

One thing that confuses me though is what the devil you mean by the "baseline level of mass?"

 

[HST_Rihad]

Not intending to turn this thread into another log of mine (please let me know if you'd like me to move over there), but I just finished doing pushup singles with my feet put onto a bed every 5 minutes for the past 14 hours. That's around 170 reps total. 3 second controlled descent & explosive pushup. It was fun getting up half way through eating dinner for the sake of a timely pushup... Don't know yet if today's experiment will give me any soreness tomorrow or if it might ruin tomorrow's bench presses in any other way (like being totally exhausted because of the total volume). If all goes well, coming Thursday I'll be trying controlled doubles every 6 minutes for 14 hours (280 total reps), followed by "quadruples" every 10 minutes for 14 hours on some other day (336 total reps). Both way below "fatiguing" point.

Next morning update: considerable DOMS are almost entirely in the abs area, mostly middle & lower section. Virtually zero soreness in the targeted pecs/tris/deltoids.

 

[Old and Grey]

Next morning update: considerable DOMS are almost entirely in the abs area, mostly middle & lower section. Virtually zero soreness in the targeted pecs/tris/deltoids.

LOL. Incline pushups are one the most compound exercises you can do. That is how I warm up before lifting, along with BW squats and neutral chins.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Yup, I learned that the hard way, O&G Just finished doing doubles every 6 minutes for 14 hours, 280 total reps, despite ab soreness still going on from Tuesday's pushups. If nothing else, this activity could let me lean out more easily. Assuming it takes 2kcals for each 2rep bout (walking, getting in position, doing actual pushups, and the post-exercise metabolic effects, if any), inducing an extra 280 kcals caloric deficit could be nice. Next time I'm gonna try doing quadruples every 10 minutes for 14 hours, for a total of 336 reps. Will hopefully reach one thousand some day. Preliminary notes: it isn't clear whether staying well short of fatiguing a muscle is efficient for its growth. On the one hand, quite unexpectedly for me, I'm definitely having considerable soreness in my lower & mid abs area from the last pushup day, which I most likely wouldn't have had had I only done a few singles spaced 5 minutes apart. So apparently it took more than that, up to 170 such singles, to cause measurable stress/DOMS. And apparently 5 minute long rest pause wasn't long enough to reset muscle durability back to normal.

 

[Old and Grey]

Here's a calorie chart for most activities:

http://fatburn.com/free_tool_activity_burn.asp

 

[HST_Rihad]

Thanks. According to them, for my weight of 147 lb, doing pushups for 1 minute would only burn 9 calories. Are cals & kcals synonyms here? If yes, then my predictions were somewhat on the right side (2 kcals for 2 reps, for a total of ~8 secs). We haven't even considered the "inclineness" of the pushup, which most likely makes my 147 lb to be at least 150 & 10 calorie/minute expenditure.

Update: amusingly, their "vigorous weight lifting" for a 150 lb person would only consume 7 cals per minute, less than doing pushups. What kind of weight lifting are they talking about? These findings undermine the trustworthiness of such calculations.

 

[adpowah]

I applaud the dedication of doing pushups every x minutes for the sake of science.

 

[Jester]

Thanks. According to them, for my weight of 147 lb, doing pushups for 1 minute would only burn 9 calories. Are cals & kcals synonyms here? If yes, then my predictions were somewhat on the right side (2 kcals for 2 reps, for a total of ~8 secs). We haven't even considered the "inclineness" of the pushup, which most likely makes my 147 lb to be at least 150 & 10 calorie/minute expenditure.

Update: amusingly, their "vigorous weight lifting" for a 150 lb person would only consume 7 cals per minute, less than doing pushups. What kind of weight lifting are they talking about? These findings undermine the trustworthiness of such calculations.

Remember that when you do a push up (incline, decline or regular), that you aren't moving 100% of your BW. It's not 100% until you're doing them hand-stand style.

 

[Old and Grey]

Update: amusingly, their "vigorous weight lifting" for a 150 lb person would only consume 7 cals per minute, less than doing pushups. What kind of weight lifting are they talking about? These findings undermine the trustworthiness of such calculations.

Sounds a bit fishy to me too.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Yup, I learned that the hard way, O&G Just finished doing doubles every 6 minutes for 14 hours, 280 total reps, despite ab soreness still going on from Tuesday's pushups. If nothing else, this activity could let me lean out more easily. Assuming it takes 2kcals for each 2rep bout (walking, getting in position, doing actual pushups, and the post-exercise metabolic effects, if any), inducing an extra 280 kcals caloric deficit could be nice. Next time I'm gonna try doing quadruples every 10 minutes for 14 hours, for a total of 336 reps. Will hopefully reach one thousand some day. Preliminary notes: it isn't clear whether staying well short of fatiguing a muscle is efficient for its growth. On the one hand, quite unexpectedly for me, I'm definitely having considerable soreness in my lower & mid abs area from the last pushup day, which I most likely wouldn't have had had I only done a few singles spaced 5 minutes apart. So apparently it took more than that, up to 170 such singles, to cause measurable stress/DOMS. And apparently 5 minute long rest pause wasn't long enough to reset muscle durability back to normal.

Morning update: added some more soreness to mid & low abs, which has been wearing off anyway. Some mild soreness in my delts. Most notable is the drop of bodyweight & waist size. weight 65.4kg -> 64.7kg (144.2lb -> 142.6lb), waist 79.5cm -> 78.7cm (31.3in -> 31.0in). Which I can't really attribute to the activity alone, because yesterday instead of eating 4 times (12pm, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm), I ate 3 (12pm, 4pm, 8pm) so you see a larger window between food intakes. I didn't really eat much less than I would normally eat on rest days, the last food was simply the combination of foods 3 & 4 previously (food 4 is 100gr of cottage cheese + 1 fruit). Today would be a good opportunity to do a carb load to refill my glycogen stores, it being a workout day.

I applaud the dedication of doing pushups every x minutes for the sake of science.

Thanks, next thing I'm gonna try will be 4 pushups done every 10 minutes for 14 hours, 336 total. Some time next week probably.

Remember that when you do a push up (incline, decline or regular), that you aren't moving 100% of your BW. It's not 100% until you're doing them hand-stand style.

Sure. They activity site O&G linked to asked for total BW, so I gave it to them. But those were presumably regular pushups, not incline ones, where my BW would most likely shift me to the heavier BW side.

Sounds a bit fishy to me too.

Most likely folks swinging around 5lb dumbbells constitutes a vigorous weight lifting session