Cyclical Load??

[keenef4]

Sorry for my English since Im not very sure if the title makes any sense at all

What I mean is that I have noticed (maybe everyone has known this long ago

) that in HST and many other programes, we start out at light weights and progress it up to the end of the cycle and then deload (or SD in HST). Next is again adding weights gradually from light to heavy over time. Sure this is progressive but also cyclical ( but starting out at a little bit heavier weight in the next cycle than the last) is it not?

Can I just progress the load only? Like just adding weight to the bar over time (very slowly) as my strength improves. And when my strength gain is no longer ahead of the RBE then I will just use the next RM to again be ahead of RBE. i.e. I start out at 10RM and add weight overtime till RBE catches up. Then, I will move on to 8RM. And i think that is not going to be a short time (maybe 1-2 years) since I am a newbie.

Moreover, if im not mistaken then deload or SD is just for cns refresh and joints recovery due to heavy weights of the low RMs. so, with JUST progressive load and im not using heavy weights, I dont have to deload whose purpose is not for hypertrophy but recovery!

Probably, the way HST and other porgrames set out like that (cyclical and progressive load) because it is necessary but i just cannot see it.

Please shed some lights to the home of this caveman! Any type is appreciated

 

[xahrx]

yes, you can just progressively load the bar. Whether or not it would be optimal is another matter, but plenty of people have made gains just by increasing the weight over time as they are able to.

 

[Martin Levac]

1. Strength is neuromuscular in nature. Muscle size + central nervous system capacity.

2. When lifting a weight, strength immediately decreases proportionately with the weight. The heavier it is, the lower the strength drops.

3. When lifting a weight, the CNS is fatigued proportionately with the weight. The heavier it is, the greater the fatigue, the longer we must recover from it.

4. If we only lift as heavy as we can, eventually we reach a point where the weight is so heavy and we get so fatigued that we need so much time to recover. If we want to keep increasing the weight, we must reduce the frequency. Otherwise, we can't lift the weight. And if we can't lift the weight, we can't increase it. So we reduce the frequency and that becomes our solution for further weight increase. Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.

5. When that happens, growth stops. But strength may continue to increase. But since growth has stopped, eventually we reach a point where no more weight can be added to the bar on the next workout. RBE continues to add up.

6. When that happens, we get to a point where we can only lift the same weight for many many workouts in a row. We reach a plateau in size and strength. We can't increase in size, we can't increase in strength. So we continue to lift the same weight. So RBE continues to add up. We can't get out of this circle unless we understand how muscle grows.

7. In comes HST.

So to answer your question, yes you can "progress as you can" for a long time but eventually you won't progress anymore. How long before that happens? I don't know.

 

[quadancer]

I think from your translation that you're looking for a system without SD. The problem with low weights is low gains. Another method that stretches out the cycle is planned overtraining, but this isn't really for noobs. You are making the fastest gains of your life as a newcomer in the first year, and then gains slow thereafter. Planned overtraining or actually, overreaching, hits the heavies and then backs up for another run at it. Here's a link:
http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/PlannedOvertraining.html

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Martin Levac @ Sep. 29 2007,20:54)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.</div>
And yet research shows atrophy not being particularly significant in trained athletes until you get into the month+ range without training, and many months to add up to an appreciable loss of lean mass. This would be made even more unlikely given a large caloric intake, which seems a reasonable assumption for most (non-dieting) bodybuilders.

A different way of putting this is that the most infrequent body part splits I've seen (excluding super extreme Heavy Duty/HIT examples) is probably once every ~10 days, with once a week being far more common. Nobody is losing lean mass training a muscle once a week, particularly with the spillover effect from other exercises, and even more particularly given the above observation of diet.

Imho, your train of logic breaks at the above, and the conclusions drawn (i.e. thrice-weekly HST) are suspect as a result.

 

[Martin Levac]

<div>
(mikeynov @ Sep. 29 2007,22:44)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(Martin Levac @ Sep. 29 2007,20:54)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.</div>
And yet research shows atrophy not being particularly significant in trained athletes until you get into the month+ range without training, and many months to add up to an appreciable loss of lean mass. This would be made even more unlikely given a large caloric intake, which seems a reasonable assumption for most (non-dieting) bodybuilders.

A different way of putting this is that the most infrequent body part splits I've seen (excluding super extreme Heavy Duty/HIT examples) is probably once every ~10 days, with once a week being far more common. Nobody is losing lean mass training a muscle once a week, particularly with the spillover effect from other exercises, and even more particularly given the above observation of diet.

Imho, your train of logic breaks at the above, and the conclusions drawn (i.e. thrice-weekly HST) are suspect as a result.</div>
Indeed. Care to propose an alternative?

-edit-
No, actually forget about it. My logic stands firm. You wrote &quot;nobody is losing lean mass&quot;. Either this means you imply everybody gains lean mass or nobody is making any progress either way. I can't reconcile that everybody is gaining lean mass in that scenario so it must be that nobody is making any progress either way in which case it validates my logic. Does the research show why nobody is making any progress either way in that scenario?
-edit-

-edit bis-
It just occurred to me that we are already discussing this subject in the submax weights thread. Many arguments there are relevant here.
-edit bis-

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Martin Levac @ Sep. 30 2007,00:16)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(mikeynov @ Sep. 29 2007,22:44)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(Martin Levac @ Sep. 29 2007,20:54)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.</div>
And yet research shows atrophy not being particularly significant in trained athletes until you get into the month+ range without training, and many months to add up to an appreciable loss of lean mass. This would be made even more unlikely given a large caloric intake, which seems a reasonable assumption for most (non-dieting) bodybuilders.

A different way of putting this is that the most infrequent body part splits I've seen (excluding super extreme Heavy Duty/HIT examples) is probably once every ~10 days, with once a week being far more common. Nobody is losing lean mass training a muscle once a week, particularly with the spillover effect from other exercises, and even more particularly given the above observation of diet.

Imho, your train of logic breaks at the above, and the conclusions drawn (i.e. thrice-weekly HST) are suspect as a result.</div>
Indeed. Care to propose an alternative?

-edit-
No, actually forget about it. My logic stands firm. You wrote &quot;nobody is losing lean mass&quot;. Either this means you imply everybody gains lean mass or nobody is making any progress either way. I can't reconcile that everybody is gaining lean mass in that scenario so it must be that nobody is making any progress either way in which case it validates my logic. Does the research show why nobody is making any progress either way in that scenario?
-edit-

-edit bis-
It just occurred to me that we are already discussing this subject in the submax weights thread. Many arguments there are relevant here.
-edit bis-</div>

Let me restate this...

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.</div>

Do you have any evidence for any of this? And by evidence, I mean could you appeal to any research substantiating the time scale(s) for the processed involved above and how this might relate to, say, a typical training split?

If not, my counter-suggestion is that it is unrealistic that people training a muscle group, say, ~once weekly are going to experience any real atrophy of the muscle they are training between sessions given the conditions I mentioned (spillover, caloric intake), and that this opinion is coming directly from research on how long it takes for trained athletes to experience significant muscle loss after detraining.

Also...

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Either this means you imply everybody gains lean mass or nobody is making any progress either way.</div>

How the heck are you getting this out of what I wrote? Even if taken literally (and all I meant to imply is that the scenario you were describing was implausible and does not track with research on muscle loss), the statement that &quot;nobody is losing mass&quot; in the context I described would imply two possibilities:

* No net gain or loss in lean muscle
* A gain in lean muscle

I think you understood exactly what I meant, though, so I'm not sure why you're trying to have a wank on syntax.

 

[keenef4]

Thank you all for responding

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">yes, you can just progressively load the bar. Whether or not it would be optimal is another matter, but plenty of people have made gains just by increasing the weight over time as they are able to.</div>

so do you mean cyclical loading doesnt require strength increase to stay ahead of RBE? i think not because you do increase a few weights after each cycle of HST. am i confused?

and one more thing i dont understand is that let say my minimum effective load is 10RM, but i use 5RM to train. so RBE builds up to THIS 5RM as i train. but to reach there, it has to pass higher RMs first (8,6 etc.). so how is this superior than using the minimal effective load and just adding weights as RBE builds up? lots of rambles here sorry but this is really confusing

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">4. If we only lift as heavy as we can, eventually we reach a point where the weight is so heavy and we get so fatigued that we need so much time to recover. If we want to keep increasing the weight, we must reduce the frequency. Otherwise, we can't lift the weight. And if we can't lift the weight, we can't increase it. So we reduce the frequency and that becomes our solution for further weight increase. Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.
</div>

so cns fatigue accumulates which inhibits strength gain? so i just have to sd (only to refresh cns), can't i? and does this not mean that the deload part of the cyclical loading is for recovery?

and what do u mean by muscle gain stalls but strength increases?

i mean if strength increases then i can add weight so this weight should be ahead of RBE no?

mikeynov,
really appreciated for your discussion and i would love to hear your opinions on this

great discusions (or responds) pleassssssssse

 

[RUSS]

 

[Martin Levac]

<div>
(RUSS @ Sep. 30 2007,11:41)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">3. When lifting a weight, the CNS is fatigued proportionately with the weight. The heavier it is, the greater the fatigue, the longer we must recover from it.
</div>




Except that rep/set programming (as well as frequency) can be manipulated to make such a simplistic , absolute statement irrelevant . Max-stim comes to mind , my own &quot;real world&quot; experience with 10x3 has proven (to me) that although your statement AS WRITTEN is true - the fact that no one I'm aware of is choosing between a single @ 95+% , or a single @ 75% as the single lift that will comprise the totality of thier workout makes this questionable as to it's bearing on anything without set/rep/fatigue management techniques being addressed as well.



<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">4. If we only lift as heavy as we can, eventually we reach a point where the weight is so heavy and we get so fatigued that we need so much time to recover. If we want to keep increasing the weight, we must reduce the frequency. Otherwise, we can't lift the weight. And if we can't lift the weight, we can't increase it. So we reduce the frequency and that becomes our solution for further weight increase. Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.</div>



What? Mikey already addressed this and I agree with everything he said ,I would just add - it's easy for you to throw these &quot;pearls of wisdom&quot; out there but anyone with actual &quot;real world experience&quot; in different frequency programming can't help but associate these kinds of &quot;final words&quot; with naivete and a lack of experience in the very systems you catagorically deny being effective.



I predict that your rigid &quot;diefication&quot; of the FAQs will become an embarrassing phase for you as you advance in your lifting and (hopefully) realize that not only is there more than one way to skin a cat , but that also the optimal method of skinning in any given scenario has everything to do with the particulars of the cat itself.

</div>
I wrote an overlong post about how you made a personal attack on me. Then I realised that it would be best if I simply ignored that and addressed the subject instead. Then I read your post again and the way it's formulated, it's impossible to ignore the personal attacks on me since they are so well anchored in the overall text. Furthermore, there's very little in your post that speaks of the subject itself. All I can extract from your post that is not a personal attack is this:

&quot;Mikey already addressed this and I agree with everything he said,&quot;

If that's all you can say without making a personal attack on me, then say so and be done with it. The rest is not welcome.

 

[RUSS]

 

 

[_Simon_]

YES!!!!!! KEENEF4 U ARE ON MY PAGE BRUTHA!!! LET US EMBRACE!!!

THIS is what i was on about sortof (RBE and minimum threshold eg 5RM loads for HST) and was going to bring this up (cyclic eg HST vs. linear/undulating eg add weight when u can, when u can't anymore drop the reps continue to add weight).

SO!

and yeah Martin awesome post:
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">1. Strength is neuromuscular in nature. Muscle size + central nervous system capacity.

2. When lifting a weight, strength immediately decreases proportionately with the weight. The heavier it is, the lower the strength drops.

3. When lifting a weight, the CNS is fatigued proportionately with the weight. The heavier it is, the greater the fatigue, the longer we must recover from it.

4. If we only lift as heavy as we can, eventually we reach a point where the weight is so heavy and we get so fatigued that we need so much time to recover. If we want to keep increasing the weight, we must reduce the frequency. Otherwise, we can't lift the weight. And if we can't lift the weight, we can't increase it. So we reduce the frequency and that becomes our solution for further weight increase. Eventually, we reach a point where it takes so long to recover that we also lose a bit of size each time we take a break. Eventually we reach a point where the size increase equals the size loss between workouts and the net result is no growth. Then we can only increase our strength.

5. When that happens, growth stops. But strength may continue to increase. But since growth has stopped, eventually we reach a point where no more weight can be added to the bar on the next workout. RBE continues to add up.

6. When that happens, we get to a point where we can only lift the same weight for many many workouts in a row. We reach a plateau in size and strength. We can't increase in size, we can't increase in strength. So we continue to lift the same weight. So RBE continues to add up. We can't get out of this circle unless we understand how muscle grows.

7. In comes HST.

So to answer your question, yes you can &quot;progress as you can&quot; for a long time but eventually you won't progress anymore. How long before that happens? I don't know. </div>

is that true that the heavier the weight the more time needed to recover? that sorta does make sense, is that CNS recovery u mean? i'm not clear on this... i didn't realise this happens... i know that the neuromuscular system works harder for heavier loads yeah...

but YES this thread deserves some attention in regards to optimality: Cyclic VS Linear! FIIIGHT!

but YES i do agree that (for the linear programs) u cannot add weight forever, so can someone tell me what they usually do in this case? for EXAMPLE is Dan's routine a linear program? it's say 3x10 add weight till u can't anymore, drop to 4x8 add weight, drop to 5x6 or so, etc. WHAT do these trainers do after they realise they can't keep adding weight???

because ok, when we CAN'T add weight, we drop the reps (to keep tension overload occurring). but eventually if we keep doin that we might be doin a 1M load, but THEN what do they do? according to HST, when we cannot increase the load anymore to keep gains coming, we decrease the muscles sensitivity to previous loads.

but also i wanna talk about cyclic INCREASES in load vs linear INCREASES. are both valid methods? well of course they are as many have had success with each. but yeah HST (cyclic program) uses weights that it is used to and only INCREASES them in the next cycle whereas linear ones just aim to keep increasing IN THAT cycle. the question is, why are CYCLIC increases better than LINEAR increases? IE why increase your RM in the NEXT cycle as opposed to keep increasing it now? (or is the point of that related to decreasing RBE and using lighter weights again to GAIN again???)

ah dude i'll think of more later but that's enough u probably are bored with my long posts haha

and boys, come oooon, let's settle, let's love each other, and discuss the topic like um weightlifters do

GRUUUUNT hehe

 

[Martin Levac]

Not only is more time required to recover from a heavier load but how do we figure out when we can increase the load? By going to failure each and every time. This is the common logic: We can lift a lighter load more often than a heavier load, thus when we can lift the same load more often, we've become stronger and can move on to a heavier load to lift it the same number of times. The only way to determine this is by doing reps to failure. And since we're working with a method where we're always lifting the load 10 times, we must always lift it to failure to figure out when we can increase the load.

Lifting to failure takes even more time to recover from.

It takes more time between sets and also more time between workouts. To test this, do 10 singles with a 10RM instead of doing one set of 10 reps. Lift weight, rack weight, repeat 10 times with a few seconds between each rep. Then, do the normal 10 reps with the 10RM load and see how long before you can recover to lift the weight again for as many times. With the singles method, you can lift the weight much more than 10 times because you rest between each rep. Not so for the normal method of doing continuous reps to failure.

Incidentally, doing singles is a way to manage fatigue which allows to lift either more weight or do more reps or train more frequently or all of the above. But we still need a way to determine when to increase the load for our 10RM for example. The only method to do this is to lift a weight until failure. And we're back to square one with fatigue and stuff.

So by progressing as we can all the time we must lift to failure all the time to figure out when to increase the load. Then there's the systemic stress to take care of with its higher level of cortisol which is sort of catabolic. Even if we deload for long periods, we go back to that same lift-to-failure/recover cycle and become continuously fatigued very quickly after that deload.

The growth response is somewhat proportional to the stimulus. So is RBE. That's good to know because it allows us to determine how much RBE to expect with the load we lift. In the &quot;progress as you can&quot; method, we lift as heavy as we can all the time so we can expect RBE to catch up very quickly.

Combine all of the above to produce a genuine plateau at some point. How long? I don't know but I've read a bit about it and a lifter doing this method would get about one to two years of gains if he's a beginner.

 

[_Simon_]

AH very well put Martin!
but the methods that i'm talking about leave about one or two reps left in them, as in they don't go to failure but leave a few reps in them and judge by how they feel as to increasing weight, like i'm pretty sure Dan doesn't advocate going to failure yet his program is a linear one: 10 reps per set increase weight until u feel u can't anymore, then drop the reps and add weight and so on.

what would you say about this method? the differences between HST and something like Dan's is that weight increases in HST are done on a CYCLICAL basis which to me is strange as you're adding the weight in the next cycle so to speak (as in the 'gained strength' adding weight, which is ultimately what we all must keep doing in order for hypertrophy), and Dan's or another program like i THINK 5x5 is increasing RM IN that cycle. (but working UP to the RM, and then further increasing it).

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">With the singles method, you can lift the weight much more than 10 times because you rest between each rep. Not so for the normal method of doing continuous reps to failure.</div>

AH MAX-STIM! so is THAT the reason max-stim was created, to eliminate going to failure, yet still being able to increase the weight more and more without any RM business getting in the way.

SO Martin what's your opinion on this sort of program: HST style as in working up (incrementing) to an RM, hitting your RM, continue to attempt to INCREASE your RM via max-stim to reduce excessive fatigue from failure, then drop the reps and continue in this fashion? next cycle go back to lighter loads, not quite sure what you'd do in terms of your RM, cos i'm not sure that you'd get a clear idea what your new RM would be with Max-Stim in terms of designing your next cycle... (but this is sorta what i'm planning to do in my post-5s, maxstim my iso's and increase weight rapidly to HOPEFULLY get arm growth happenin

)

i might ask Dan actually what you do with Max-Stim in terms of deloading or EVENTUALLY going back to lighter loads which i'm not actually sure if it does that or not...

anyways good discussions definitely thanks! anyone else feel free to contribute!

 

[xahrx]

<div>
(keenef4 @ Sep. 30 2007,05:19)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">so do you mean cyclical loading doesnt require strength increase to stay ahead of RBE? i think not because you do increase a few weights after each cycle of HST. am i confused?  

</div>
Yes, you are confused. You asked if you can just progress load, but if you switch between rep ranges as you're suggesting you are going to cycle weight anyway, or likely so. Bottom line is many people in the past have lifted X pounds for Y reps until they got to Y+, then added weight to the bar and repeated. It works. It's likely not optimal, but it works. That would be a pure load progression. All the BS about this many reps and ridiculous schemes for manipulating weight and volume clouds the issue. Lift the damn bar. Lift an effective weight for a decent volume at a decent frequency with the right diet and you will gain muscle mass. It's not rocket science.

 

[_Simon_]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Lift the damn bar. Lift an effective weight for a decent volume at a decent frequency with the right diet and you will gain muscle mass. It's not rocket science.</div>

(okay, so what's the effective weight?)

LOL

i sort of agree yes it's not rocket science, but we're trying to discuss i guess RBE and its relation to further gains, at WHAT point/load would cause further growth if we are adapted to the heavy loads we've been using? it SEEMS all submax weights before this aren't doing too much IF RBE or the 'threshold' has been set for that 5RM. i think we need to discuss CYCLICAL progression vs LINEAR progression (well, it's something i really need to know anyways HAHA).

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">The growth response is somewhat proportional to the stimulus. So is RBE. That's good to know because it allows us to determine how much RBE to expect with the load we lift. In the &quot;progress as you can&quot; method, we lift as heavy as we can all the time so we can expect RBE to catch up very quickly.</div>

Martin, sorry what did you mean by this? does RBE accumulate very quickly once working at your RM (ie to failure)? is THAT why the 'progress as you can' method stales out so quickly? so in other words, training to failure TOO often causes RAPID connective/resistant tissue growth (ie RBE)???

i reeeeally need to read some studies/articles about this... lol cos i'll probably be asking so many questions or assuming the wrongs things.. lol

 

[Fausto]

Simon

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">AH MAX-STIM! so is THAT the reason max-stim was created, to eliminate going to failure, yet still being able to increase the weight more and more without any RM business getting in the way.</div>

Max-stim is about managing fatigue, the principles are as per HST, with exception of a deload instead of SD!

As xahrx puts it, its not rocket science!

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">And when my strength gain is no longer ahead of the RBE then I will just use the next RM to again be ahead of RBE. i.e. I start out at 10RM and add weight overtime till RBE catches up. Then, I will move on to 8RM. And i think that is not going to be a short time (maybe 1-2 years) since I am a newbie.</div>

Firstly, you should move from 10 to 5 so as to have enough progression going otherwise, it is almost negligible 8 is too close to 10, the RM's too, so your amount of linearity is almost lost.

Secondly, if you are going to go on for two years straight you will definitelly reach a burning point and stop gaining! Unless of course you either deload or SD!

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Moreover, if im not mistaken then deload or SD is just for cns refresh and joints recovery due to heavy weights of the low RMs.</div>

Most coaches have recognized the need for inclusion of at least a deload period to avoid things from stalling out, and this spills over into other sports.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So, with JUST progressive load and im not using heavy weights, I dont have to deload whose purpose is not for hypertrophy but recovery! </div>

Progressive load will lead you into heavy weights, if you are doing it properly, if you don't reach the heavy weights stage, then you are wasting time IMO, as with some BB'ers that train for pump, those gains quickly vanish as this contitutes engorgement due to blood occlusion and not hypertrophy of the mucle cells.

Deloading or SDying is indeed used for recovery but it affects hypertrophy, as the muscle is allowed to decondition and thus it allows for fresh growth once the loads are again appllied. Think of it as a refresh button.

 

[keenef4]

great thanks for all the inputs again guys

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">for EXAMPLE is Dan's routine a linear program? it's say 3x10 add weight till u can't anymore, drop to 4x8 add weight, drop to 5x6 or so, etc.</div>

simon, is this a new program of Dan's or the modified maxstim? because if im not mistaken, maxstim is also another program of cyclical progression. you work up to a RM then move on to the next and work up to it again, the last RM is 4RM or so and then start over a new cycle at submax 10RM.

awsome simon, i think we are in the same stream of thoughts here. Based on experience (of others of cources

), RBE will catch up to 5RM not sooner than 15 to 20 years. otherwise, they will stop growing before that. I think that's why they have lower growth by then. their extremely heavy 5RMs dont stimulate much growth as newbies' (and my

10RMs do atm), is it right?

sorry guys, im not saying this is rocket science or anything and i know for sure that this is no thing new as I have already stated at the very beginning of the thread. I ask this because I dont understand the purpose of cyclical progression and why have many veterans here and on many other programmes changed from linear progression to cyclical progression? at the end, RBE still catchs us up this way or another. perhaps, cyclical progression somehow make this happen slower?

is my remble leading my way to be a bit huge guy or ... the opposite?

 

[RUSS]

<div>
(Martin Levac @ Sep. 30 2007,22:20)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Not only is more time required to recover from a heavier load but how do we figure out when we can increase the load? By going to failure each and every time. This is the common logic: We can lift a lighter load more often than a heavier load, thus when we can lift the same load more often, we've become stronger and can move on to a heavier load to lift it the same number of times. The only way to determine this is by doing reps to failure. And since we're working with a method where we're always lifting the load 10 times, we must always lift it to failure to figure out when we can increase the load.

Lifting to failure takes even more time to recover from.

It takes more time between sets and also more time between workouts. To test this, do 10 singles with a 10RM instead of doing one set of 10 reps. Lift weight, rack weight, repeat 10 times with a few seconds between each rep. Then, do the normal 10 reps with the 10RM load and see how long before you can recover to lift the weight again for as many times. With the singles method, you can lift the weight much more than 10 times because you rest between each rep. Not so for the normal method of doing continuous reps to failure.

Incidentally, doing singles is a way to manage fatigue which allows to lift either more weight or do more reps or train more frequently or all of the above. But we still need a way to determine when to increase the load for our 10RM for example. The only method to do this is to lift a weight until failure. And we're back to square one with fatigue and stuff.

So by progressing as we can all the time we must lift to failure all the time to figure out when to increase the load. Then there's the systemic stress to take care of with its higher level of cortisol which is sort of catabolic. Even if we deload for long periods, we go back to that same lift-to-failure/recover cycle and become continuously fatigued very quickly after that deload.

The growth response is somewhat proportional to the stimulus. So is RBE. That's good to know because it allows us to determine how much RBE to expect with the load we lift. In the &quot;progress as you can&quot; method, we lift as heavy as we can all the time so we can expect RBE to catch up very quickly.

Combine all of the above to produce a genuine plateau at some point. How long? I don't know but I've read a bit about it and a lifter doing this method would get about one to two years of gains if he's a beginner.</div>
Again , What? It all SOUNDS good but ...
1)In no time at all most lifters are capable of judging wether they are a rep or two from momentary failure , so the premise that it must be reached to know when and how to advance the load just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. maybe a decade or two ago this woul have been true in more cases but today failure has been demonized to the point that anyone with an internet connection is aware of it and the &quot;leave a rep in the tank&quot; philosophy. To call this (failure training)  &quot;common logic&quot; , and the &quot;normal method&quot; just doesn't reflect todays average lifter.

2) <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">In the &quot;progress as you can&quot; method, we lift as heavy as we can all the time so we can expect RBE to catch up very quickly.</div> Aside from the fact that the rest of the lifting world is not just a bunch of tards lifting to failure as you portray , RBE actually takes LONGER to set in at higher loads .

3) RBE is given so much more credit then it deserves , does it exist? Yes . Is it just waiting to set in if you repeat a load 2 times or even 4? No , ESPECIALLY at higher %age loads.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Combine all of the above to produce a genuine plateau at some point. How long? I don't know but I've read a bit about it and a lifter doing this method would get about one to two years of gains if he's a beginner.</div>

               As would someone doing HST for instance , 1-2 years is about all you get no matter the system , then variables must be manipulated to counter slowing gains - ex. Bryan himself is doing a 6x/wk split - not the vanilla routine - more volume .

 

[Martin Levac]

<div>
(_Simon_ @ Oct. 01 2007,03:35)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Lift the damn bar. Lift an effective weight for a decent volume at a decent frequency with the right diet and you will gain muscle mass. It's not rocket science.</div>

(okay, so what's the effective weight?)

LOL

i sort of agree yes it's not rocket science, but we're trying to discuss i guess RBE and its relation to further gains, at WHAT point/load would cause further growth if we are adapted to the heavy loads we've been using? it SEEMS all submax weights before this aren't doing too much IF RBE or the 'threshold' has been set for that 5RM. i think we need to discuss CYCLICAL progression vs LINEAR progression (well, it's something i really need to know anyways HAHA).

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">The growth response is somewhat proportional to the stimulus. So is RBE. That's good to know because it allows us to determine how much RBE to expect with the load we lift. In the &quot;progress as you can&quot; method, we lift as heavy as we can all the time so we can expect RBE to catch up very quickly.</div>

Martin, sorry what did you mean by this? does RBE accumulate very quickly once working at your RM (ie to failure)? is THAT why the 'progress as you can' method stales out so quickly? so in other words, training to failure TOO often causes RAPID connective/resistant tissue growth (ie RBE)???

i reeeeally need to read some studies/articles about this... lol cos i'll probably be asking so many questions or assuming the wrongs things.. lol

</div>
It's not going to failure that accelerates RBE, it's lifting the same weight over a long period. Since RBE is somewhat proportional, lifting a heavier weight will induce a greater response. Even if it takes longer to set in, RBE will be greater when lifting the same heavy weight for 8 weeks than lifting progressively as in HST.

But hypertrophy will be just about the same in either case.

The goal of HST is to get the size without the RBE or to prevent RBE to continue to get the size.