theoretical question

F

faz

Active Member
bored so i was thinking,we dont know exactly how long protein synthesis lasts,it could be as long as 48hrs and as short as 16hrs,some seem to think the more conditioned you are the less it lasts,maybe thats why newbies gain easily and more conditioned guys find it harder to make gains.

so lets say you knew how long it lasted for you"say 16hrs"so you do a fullbody workout 3x a wk m,w,f,

on monday you pre fuel then eat in surplus for the next 24hrs,you do the same on wednesday and friday,but on tu,th,sat,sun, you eat in a defecit,so for the 7 days you are in defecit exept for when protein synthesis is occuring,could you gain muscle while losing fat
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I'm experimenting with this myself. I try to eat a bit more on my workout days and a bit less on non-workout days (assuming that we have a 16-hour window). However, I doubt you can gain muscle while losing fat. Ok, you may take advantage of the post-workout increased protein synthesis rate, but the very next day you "coax" protein breakdown by not exercising AND eating lower than maintenance. So, it might well be one step forward and one step back.

But even if this works, I do not know if the net effect of such small increases could be measurable over a reasonable time span (dictated by how consistent you can be with caloric excess/deficit, sleep, fatigue management etc. before something disrupts your training/eating habits). Maybe the progress will be so slow that it isn't worth it. Other factors weigh in probably more than we would like (e.g. motivation).
 
I am also doing the same thing right now. Today is a bulking day. Really, I tripped upon this from my prior caloric cycling research and a glance into the HST FAQ's when I decided to return to HST basics.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">but the very next day you &quot;coax&quot; protein breakdown </div>yes but if your not training how can you cause protein breakdown.

also i agree the muscle gain weight loss would be small,but it would be gaining muscle without gaining fat.

also if it was possible to know how long protein synthesis lasted for each person,wouldnt that also make it easier to bulk,ie if it lasted 16hrs then you could train every day,if it was 48hrs then every other day etc.
 
I believe that protein breakdown is bound to occur at some point regardless of whether you are training or not, since you are eating below maintenance. The window we are looking at is very small, though, so I could be wrong.

Even if you are consistently training and eating above maintenance post-workout only, you will still gain fat if you are to gain some weight over the course of a week or a month. This is inevitable. The thing is that all we can achieve by training is a relatively small shift in the muscle/fat gaining ratio. We cannot gain weight without gaining fat and we cannot lose weight without losing some muscle (I'm not talking about body recomposition here, just focusing on small time periods like a week or a month).

And yes, if increased protein synthesis lasts for 16 hours only, it could be beneficial to workout every day or so. But you have to balance this with food intake, rest, fatigue management and individual psychological patterns leading to &quot;burnout&quot;, loss of motivation etc.

I think nobody would argue with the fact that you need to eat more on your workout days (a few hours pre-workout and mainly during your post-workout window) if you want to gain muscle. I am just wondering if you could be short-changing yourself on your gains by &quot;cutting&quot; on non-workout days (as opposed to eating at maintenance or possibly a bit more). Maybe it would be more beneficial to go with the traditional approach of slow bulk/slow cut cycles. Again I am not suggesting anything here, just wondering.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I think nobody would argue with the fact that you need to eat more on your workout days (a few hours pre-workout and mainly during your post-workout window) if you want to gain muscle. I am just wondering if you could be short-changing yourself on your gains by &quot;cutting&quot; on non-workout days (as opposed to eating at maintenance or possibly a bit more). Maybe it would be more beneficial to go with the traditional approach of slow bulk/slow cut cycles. Again I am not suggesting anything here, just wondering. </div>
i agree but just questioning if it would be possible.

if for instance on your 3 training days you ate 500cals above maintanance,but on the 4 none training days you ate 1000cals below that would give you a defecit of 2500 cals a wk,but you are getting enough to build muscle during the training days,but over a 7 day period it could theoreticaly be possible to lose fat
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Why not try going with eating 500 above maintenance after your workout and then 500 under on nonworkout days so that your weekly balance is maintenance? That would be a better test, I would think. See if your body composition changes over a period of a couple months perhaps.
 
I was thinking more along the lines of a slow bulk and not a cut. In fact, what you say is pretty close to what I'm doing at the moment. I am on a slow cut and I'm not really counting calories or anything, just trying to reserve most of my calories for workout days. Since I don't care to lose weight fast, I can afford to eat a bit more now and then which, as I said, normally happens on workout days.

If you succeed in maintaining a caloric deficit over the course of a week you will lose weight even if you eat a bit more than maintenance for a couple of days. It only makes sense that you should do that on your workout days. It looks like a good idea, at least on paper, provided of course that you do not wish to drop the fat really fast.

The problem is that this way you won't be able to achieve a major caloric deficit and so the cut will be REALLY slow. You could easily end up doing this for months before you reach your goals, which might be a deterrent for some if not most of the people. But if you wish to do it really slow, I suppose this is a viable option provided that you can stay focused for such lengthy periods.
 
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(9to5lifter @ Jun. 27 2008,3:40)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I am on a slow cut and I'm not really counting calories or anything, just trying to reserve most of my calories for workout days. Since I don't care to lose weight fast, I can afford to eat a bit more now and then which, as I said, normally happens on workout days.</div>
&quot;Any discussion about optimal calorie intake is really a total waste of time - unless you are actually counting the calories! Unless you have done this in writing, and over a significant period of time (4-12 weeks), any discussion of this nature is purely academic. Don't kid yourself - get out your diary, buy a calorie/nutrient counter book and do yourself a favor; get to really know what you are doing - and more importantly - what the result of this specific combination is.&quot;

- Ian King, strength coach &amp; author of “Get Buffed”

Not that you aren't, or that you haven't, but keeping written records is a significant help for bulking or cutting successfully.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">&quot;Any discussion about optimal calorie intake is really a total waste of time - unless you are actually counting the calories! Unless you have done this in writing, and over a significant period of time (4-12 weeks), any discussion of this nature is purely academic. Don't kid yourself - get out your diary, buy a calorie/nutrient counter book and do yourself a favor; get to really know what you are doing - and more importantly - what the result of this specific combination is.&quot;</div>
That's why I'm not claiming that what I'm doing is optimal or that my results will have any credibility at all. As the title says, it's a theoretical question and my answers are theoretical as well.
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(Totentanz @ Jun. 27 2008,8:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Why not try going with eating 500 above maintenance after your workout and then 500 under on nonworkout days so that your weekly balance is maintenance?  That would be a better test, I would think.  See if your body composition changes over a period of a couple months perhaps.</div>
that would still give you a defecit of 500cals as the none training days is 4.
 
Only on one week. Every other week you'll be 500 over, so biweekly it will balance out to 0.

I think over the course of a month or two, it is possible you might change your body composition slightly doing this kind of thing. Maybe.
 
Adding to the discussion, if elevated protein synthesis last up to 24 hours and you workout every other day what would make more sense, to bulk on w/o days and cut on the non-w/o days or bulk on a workout day, eat maintenance on the non-workout day then cut in the next workout and eat maintenance in the non-workout following that and so on (i.e. alternate bulk/cut every other workout and do maintenance on non-workout days)?
 
ive done periods of a variation (IF) on what your proposing.

ive had very good results with re-comp following a M,W,F w/o sched (heavy) and IF eating. basically @ maint +5-700 on w/o days and and maint. -6-800 or so on off days and maint on sunday. varying amounts of cardio mixed in.

ive also tried IF style bulk which was successful in the sense that my p-ratio was improved somewhat (from poor to probably avg.) but certainly not to the level of results i got with re-comp. this seems to have a lot to do with the actual science of gaining and losing wgt/muscle (of which protein synth is a part). going to extra-ordinary measures to preserve muscle during recomp or cuts (while losing fat) can be very effective and yield great results for many ....as long as you know what your doing. gaining muscle while limiting fat gain seems much more genetically anchored (p-ratio again) and this is where the extra-ordinary efforts tend to yield improved results (over basic vanilla bulks) but many times not near the effective/dramatic results you can achieve losing the fat (with the super controlled diets). i did have to eat @maint on off days/weekends during my bulk in order to make the scale move (about 1lb every 2weeks)

now what part of my results was due to IF eating -vs- EOD surplus/deficit i couldnt say.

fwiw.....i did track my cals (and macros) as well as my w/os during all these times.
 
I asked Dan about this in the research section...

If muscle protein synthesis and gene transcription is shorter lived in trained individuals, and the 16 hour increase in MPS Bryan pointed out in one study is accurate, then it would make sense to train more frequently. I have been training 6days a week for a few months now, the same bodypart each day and have not had any soreness issues.

My question is, can we optimize this by training concentric-only style several days a week, and a combo eccentric-concentric (traditional style lifting) 1-2x a week. Since eccentrics are responsible for most muscle damage, and satellite cell donation, and they clearly produce hypertrophy when heavy, they are important. But they also take longer to recover from.

Dan has pointed out that some research shows equal hypertrophy with concentric only training vs. eccentric, when workload is equal. With less muscle damage to boot, and has demonstrated in the study about NO PAIN, NO GAIN (research section) muscle damage isn't necessary for hypertrophy.

What I started experimenting with is 5 days a week, explosive concentrics only with relatively heavy weight (for me), I can bang out a ton more reps only focusing on concentrics. I'm doing these max-stim style, but with little rest as it isn't needed.

Then I will perform 1 workout a week training like usual, fast concentric, slower eccentric with a heavy load, max-stim/cluster training hybrid.

I've found I can keep the weights the same with no joint problems if I avoid locking out each exercise.
 
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