Time under tension - how important?

[HST_Rihad]

Why would you lose connective tissue (tendons) and ligaments but not fiber tissue?

1.: eating enough protein(70-120g)+carbs(50-150), 2.: working out.

You didn't lose bicep strength because your neuromuscular connection is far more efficient now than it was 8 months ago.

Also, all related info is per Lyle. I'm too lazy to cite it now but it's somewhere on bodyrecomposition.com.
Shortly: if you manage to maintain strength, you most likely haven't lost essential LBM (contractile elements).

Your muscles are capable of far more strength than you realise.

Not really. CNS strength gains work up to a point, after which strength gains are mostly a function of increased muscle CSA.

But it's still a loss, and no gains were made.

Simply size at all costs isn't what I'm after. It's the looks. I can easily overeat and the inessential LBM (water+glycogen+connective tissue+minerals) would slowly pile back up, it's the reverse process of slowly losing those guys while on a deficit. Think about it.

 

[gbglifter]

"Losing fat and gaining muscle" is the el Dorado of working out. Once I made that mental adjustment I've been able to make better gains than I ever have. Cutting sucks and bulking kind of does too but it offers results. Maybe there are people out there who can do both at the same time but it wasn't me and when I stopped acting like it was me, I saw results.

Exactlt my thinking nowadays and Im bigger and stronger than ever.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Nothing wrong with that, just be careful with what kind of growth it is you're seeing...

 

[gbglifter]

Well its not all fat, thats for sure. Ive gained 19kg this bulk. If 25% of that is muscle Ill be happy. Ill be ca 10% bf at 85kg/190lb, once I cut down.

 

[HST_Rihad]

There must be a better way than walking rather fat 10 months in every 12. How about 3 days bulk to refill storage (fat, muscle sarco), 1 day fast to burn the fat away? The anabolic drive would make sure to hold on to the earned muscle. Then extra fat would not be visible.

 

[gbglifter]

Im not "rather fat" 10 months per year. Ive only just started feeling "rather fat" and it will continue another month or so. Then Ill cut. It shouldnt take long to remove the first "excess" bits. Its only about 25% of the time that I may consider myself rather fat. However, Im only at about 16/17% BF so Im still leaner than most people.

Im actually not bothered at all about the extra fat. I know I can lose it easily.

 

[adpowah]

There must be a better way than walking rather fat 10 months in every 12. How about 3 days bulk to refill storage (fat, muscle sarco), 1 day fast to burn the fat away? The anabolic drive would make sure to hold on to the earned muscle. Then extra fat would not be visible.

I am just speaking from my limited personal experience but the two caloric states feel quite different. The differences seem both mental and physical, so I am guessing there are small but noticeable hormonal shifts. I am not sure how healthy it would be alternating too often. I usually try to target 1-2lbs a week either gaining or losing and I try to only move 10-15lbs in either direction at a time, otherwise I lose motivation. When the gain/lose start slowing down I prep to start over by doing a 1-2 week caloric normalization between the bulking or cutting (HST eBook). For me I end up spending my time about 50% bulking, 20% normalizing (gaining motivation to be serious about my diet...) and about 30% cutting (or realistically trying to cut and not cheat (damn you beer)). Is it working? Well i am getting close to finishing my second cycle and I am about 8lbs heavier and I am leaner than when I started. So for me, these are far superior results to "eating clean and training mean".

 

[AderynGlas]

Im actually not bothered at all about the extra fat. I know I can lose it easily.

There's definitely something great about being able to drop fat/weight quickly, it's like a massive psychological boost when you're bulking and gaining weight. I'm the heaviest (77kgs) and largest in size (stomach, chest and arms) I have ever been but I can still fit into a 32" waist and knowing I can drop the excess quickly means I don't even have e slightest gripe about the extra fat I'm carrying at the moment.

 

[Gregor]

OK, nutrition is definitely a very important aspect in growing muscles. Without sufficient calories and protein it's not going to work. Hitting the exact amount of surplus calories required for muscle growth without gaining fat is possible but very, very difficult. Mostly, only people who can devote a lot of time to sustaining a perfect diet will manage to do this - in my opinion.

Anyway, I was asked for references on the role of time under tension (TUT) in hypertrophy because I remembered reading about it. I realized that most of this is not based on research but on the opinion of some strength coaches.
For example, Dorian Kent wrote: "Let's look at Time Under Tension, or T-U-T . Time under tension is a way to regulate the amount of time placed on the muscle for maximum growth and damage to it. There has been some debates as to the best time. [...] There is a magical number to use for all this. If your goal is to be bigger then the number should be at least 40 seconds for the entire set (that means the least amount of time for it, you could use a maximum of up to 70 seconds for this also)."
Someone else quotes Charles Poliquin with this: "Typically, and depending largely on your muscle fiber ratio (some people have more fast-twitch fibers than slow or vice versa), your time under tension should be anywhere from 30 seconds to about 70. Any more or any less is counterproductive over the long run. (Determining your exact muscle fiber make-up is probably a little more complicated than we want to get into here in this article)."

One publication I found about TUT was this one: "Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men"

One problem is that the study includes failure, something that is supposed to be avoided most of the time when training according to HST principles.

Then, I found a few webpages on which this article is discussed:
"Cutting Edge New Study About “Time Under Tension” During Resistance Exercise. (A Stealth Technique for Hypertrophy & Strength)"
"The Science behind Time under Tension and Muscle Failure for Muscular Hypertrophy"
"Tempo and hypertrophy"

What is your opinion? Let's say you do a set with the same weight and the same number of reps for a total duration of 30 sec versus 60 sec, would the slower set be really much more effective for hypertrophy? I intentionally say "much more effective" because I am not willing to spend double the amount of time for a difference in hypertrophy of maybe 10 to 20%. I don't have that much spare time, therefore the training time to hypertrophy payoff ratio is important to me.

 

[Jester]

There must be a better way than walking rather fat 10 months in every 12. How about 3 days bulk to refill storage (fat, muscle sarco), 1 day fast to burn the fat away? The anabolic drive would make sure to hold on to the earned muscle. Then extra fat would not be visible.

And in fantasy land this would be great. But your hormones don't move so acutely. And neither do the satelite cell processes.

 

[Bulldog]

And in fantasy land this would be great. But your hormones don't move so acutely. And neither do the satelite cell processes.

True that.

 

[HST_Rihad]

And in fantasy land this would be great. But your hormones don't move so acutely. And neither do the satelite cell processes.

If you do a simple 24 fast now and then (or simply eat half as much during those days), your body *will* increase the use of fatty acids, not only stored glucose, for all its processes. Muscle growth will resume upon going back to eating food normally. Looking good doesn't have to be complicated.

 

[Jester]

If you do a simple 24 fast now and then (or simply eat half as much during those days), your body *will* increase the use of fatty acids, not only stored glucose, for all its processes. Muscle growth will resume upon going back to eating food normally. Looking good doesn't have to be complicated.

Your statement doesn't have much to do with hormones and muscle growth.


And yes, fat stores are used in the absence of available glucose ... ? We're talking muscle growth, not fat loss. Anyone can lose fat and retain the vast majority of their LBM. Caloric deficit, protein intake, proper resistance training.

Building muscle under optimal conditions is vastly different to losing fat under optimal conditions.

Back to steroids hormones: the impact of the genomic effects are slow; we're talking days. This isn't Wedge Antilles on his 2nd Death Star run, you don't want to be exiting caloric surplus just as you've facilitated what you need intracellularly (stimulus caused by weight training).

I get that you're terrified of being fat (again?), but your bulking program (and by bulking, I mean muscle gain - not bulking as in turning into a blob,) is pretty far from optimal, maybe even far from effective. But then again, your goal is focused around your abs being visible, and for most on this site the goal is hypertrophy and worrying about the abs later.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Y
And yes, fat stores are used in the absence of available glucose ... ? We're talking muscle growth, not fat loss. Anyone can lose fat and retain the vast majority of their LBM. Caloric deficit, protein intake, proper resistance training.

But then again, your goal is focused around your abs being visible, and for most on this site the goal is hypertrophy and worrying about the abs later.

You see, this is exactly the point. Bulking/cutting cycles don't necessarily *have* to be several months long each. Can't we do that small bites at a time? 3 day bulk, 1 day cut while retaining mass? Or is it too "simplistic" to be effective at all?!

I'm not a lawyer, but hopefully a computer nerd, so the best analogy I can think of is a CPU executing 2 simultaneously running short programs. Do we execute the first program fully until it's over, then the second, or does the CPU execute them both 1 instruction at a time, bringing an illusion of multitasking and running simultaneously?

Back to steroids hormones: the impact of the genomic effects are slow; we're talking days. This isn't Wedge Antilles on his 2nd Death Star run, you don't want to be exiting caloric surplus just as you've facilitated what you need intracellularly (stimulus caused by weight training).

Whatever suits your bill. How about 6 days sensible surplus, 1 day cut?

I get that you're terrified of being fat (again?), but your bulking program (and by bulking, I mean muscle gain - not bulking as in turning into a blob,) is pretty far from optimal, maybe even far from effective.

No, god forbid I'm still kind of cutting, will resume aggressively after Friday's last w/o & deload, because I don't want to risk f*cking up rack pull progression with way too few carbs. Regarding bulking: I will simply start eating a bit more and give myself a couple of weeks to stabilize, then depending on results add more or continue with roughly that amount, etc.

 

[Jester]

I'm not a lawyer, but hopefully a computer nerd, so the best analogy I can think of is a CPU executing 2 simultaneously running short programs. Do we execute the first program fully until it's over, then the second, or does the CPU execute them both 1 instruction at a time, bringing an illusion of multitasking and running simultaneously?

The problem with the analogy is that there's the underlying assumption that the programs can be run simultaneously and don't impede one another; which isn't the case here. One process wants a metric $hit tonne of cals, the other wants to shed cals.


Re: 6-on, 1-off - that would be better than 3/1 and is certainly worth experimenting with. 6-2 might be viable. I imagine there's certainly a micro-cycle for eating that's viable, not optimal for size gains, but viable, however 3/1 is definitely too short a time period for the gaining portion. 7/1, 7/2 etc. There's no logical reason it would suit the confines of a week (arbitrary invention of the mind, not body), necessarily.

 

[HST_Rihad]

I beg to disagree. Anabolic & catabolic processes (muscle growth & fat loss) *do* run seemingly simultaneously, one of them during the fed state, the other during the fasted state, or, for most folks, during day & night. All we're doing is extending the effects of the night phase a bit once in a while by skipping the first meal or two.

 

[Totentanz]

You really need to get over using other objects as analogies for humans. I mean hell, even rat studies don't represent humans that well and rats have a lot more in common with humans than do computers or cars towing something.

I wouldn't try bulking and cutting in the same week. The hormonal changes between each mode take longer than a day to go into effect. Sure, some are pretty quick but not all. You would be better off buking for two-three weeks, taking a week at maintenance, cutting for two-three weeks, another week at maintenance and run that in cycles so that you can keep your bodyfat percentage the same while increasing muscle.

For what it is worth, I know I can't be the only one who has managed to bulk up without losing all definition in my body and still "looking good." "Looking good" is subjective anyway, what exactly do you mean by that? I've never bulked to the point where anyone I know would think I look fat in clothes. I always look like I am in good shape, but when I am at the end of a bulk and take my shirt off, sure, you can see that only the top row of abs are visible and my stomach protrudes over my belt a little. This is why most people bulk in the cold months when you aren't going to be going around shirtless that often anyway.

 

[Jester]

I should have added in a qualifier; 'significantly', 'substantially', 'effectively' - pick whichever you prefer. Both sets of processes are always running simultaneously of course (homeostasis, or yr 8 high school biology), it's the magnitude that varies.

I don't know why you think your body is fasting at night ... ? You're digesting during that period. Early morning/v.late night is when you're fasting. Eating your last meal at five and making it low on fat will assist in creating a longer fasting window, but you're still digesting long into the night if your last meal has meat and is consumed at 7pm.

Breaking down meat (both the protein and the fats, compounded by the construction of meat as a substance) actually takes the body quite some time. It's awesome. 500g serving of mince keeps me satiated for a v.long time so I don't feel compelled to snack throughout the evening.

 

[HST_Rihad]

Totentanz, IIRC you once wrote in your training log thread that because of not having the time to eat enough & at the right time to grow you were having trouble keeping your BW up. One last silly analogy, if I may We're like baloons with a leak, through which they lose their air at a pretty much constant rate. We can always pump some air back into it (eat food), to inflate it. How stuffed you are depends on the amount of food intake being greater than or equal to the calories lost. This is why it's definitely not a problem to allow some of the fat to go away now and then.

AlexAustralia, normally food is being digested for several hours, depending on its size and complexity. We surely spend most of the night with low insulin & high blood fatty acids concentration, because slow digesting food doesn't require much insulin to be released at any given time, impeding the burning of fat.

 

[dax07]

Just jumping in here for a second.. According to Martin Berkhan (creator of leangains.com) it is definitely possible to bulk and cut at the same time (recomp).
+20% TDEE on lifting days, -20% TDEE on rest days. Your macros have to be in check (you can find the protocol for leangains easily) the fasting window needs to be consistent. Martin claims to be all natural, and from looking at his before pic he definitely doesn't have better than average genetics. He used to be decently fat, and now is always like 7% bf or less and pretty damn big too. It is kinda foolish to totally discredit the idea of bulking and cutting at the same time. Do you really understand human physiology that well that we can roll out the possibility of it working? I believe much of the research Martin has done has helped many and I believe his advice and his leangains protocol when either bulking, cutting or recomping is sound.
I always use leangains now. (mainly the slow bulk) and I always use HST. My results are amazing, I am 21 years old, stronger than the juice heads in my gym (on a lb for lb basis) 8% bodyfat at the moment and my weight was up to 200lbs at 5'10" before I lowered my caloric intake and lost a decent amount of water and glycogen weight.
Martin always calls for a negative energy balance on non lifting days, even when following his bulking protocol it is set at a -10% TDEE on a rest day and +40% TDEE on lifting days. He has many clients that have had great success, and myself and my best friend have had nothing but great results. Leangains for how to eat and HST for how to train. Perfect harmony for optimal gains / body composition in my opinion. Just because a few people discourage this approach doesn't mean it is invalid. But, I do believe that one should focus more on either cutting or bulking because recomping is more for when you are looking for very slow gains in muscle and very slow losses with fat. But I will never do a traditional bulking or cutting plan after experiencing leangains.