Cyclical Load??

[quadancer]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">but i'm having trouble understanding why HST doesn't push RMs DURING the cycle, i mean u could say that because you're training frequently, but seriously you don't have to go to TOTAL failure in order to increase weight and thus this should be fine to do (?), ie train as frequently as 3 times per week and push your RM???</div>
There is a thread in here called linear progression I think, that I'd posted a couple years back. I've done a lot of HST, stalled on it, done linear HST, hitting maxes here and there every week. I grew on it. But as Tot said, you'll burn sooner, and underlying all the methodology of the different routines is fatigue. I don't mean lactic acid buildup or day's end tiring out, but internal exhaustion that leads to overreaching and then overtraining.
With linear progression, I felt that fatigue building in just two cycles. I've always been a proponent of saying that nothing works forever. You have to change things up here and there, but, deferring to Tot again, in the grand view; not switching exersizes every two weeks or such. It took 7 HST cycles for my gains to slow, you see?

 

[colby2152]

I'm on my 12th HST cycle, and I still respond well for any type of bulking. The recent cuts of the year will induce more growth in future HST cycles. Nevertheless, I have always tweaked and changed up each HST routine. I am now at the point where I have introduced strength training into my program.

Listen to your body.

 

[_Simon_]

guys, you are legends

fanTASTIC responses, they've really helped me put things into perspective ay, okay so now i'm thinking of something (big surprise lol):::

A SCENARIO!!!

:
if OVERALL progression is the important thing, take two people, actually two CLONES who are EXACTLY the same and have the SAME hypertrophy rates and SAME strength gains and SAME genetic potential and so on.

both train in a routine in EXACTLY the same way for a certain amount of time, progressing at the same rate, yet one is eating maintenance calories, and the other is eating above maintenance ALWAYS, so the first one gains alot of muscle weight and the second one isn't gaining anything except the strength (although i KNOW that strength is a function of both neurological factors AND muscle CSA, let's keep going with this )

so okay, after some time the 1st guy is bigger now, the 2nd guy the same size. The 1st guy continued growing as he has increased his strength alot, the 2nd guy increased his strength to the EXACT same level. now, what if at this point, the 2nd guy eats above maintenance whilst BOTH people train at a sort of maintenance strength level??

the question i have is, WOULD the 2nd guy reach the SAME level of muscle mass as person no.1 in awhile (doesn't matter how long, if they are just going to maintain the strength they've gained) due to the anabolic effects this higher increased-strength load would have??

if OVERALL progression was the important thing, surely the anabolic effect of this load they are both at would allow them to reach the SAME level of muscularity?

IS IT a matter of eating AS you progress to gain that muscularity? or OVERALL progression (ie where you END UP after awhile) (and would you grow to that level you should be at if you DID eat during the training time?)

this is sort of a question to figure out whether it actually IS overall progression that's important here, or RIGHT NOW progression (if u get what i mean haha).

p.s. also the fact that i've been gaining strength but i'm pretty sure i haven't been eating enough to gain, so i wanna know if all this strength gaining was for NOTHING (ie i wanna know if i'll grow to that level that my strength has gotten to IF i start eating enough and still increasing loads/hovering around these new loads/PRs)

p.p.s i'm TERRIBLY sorry about my long posts lol, i can't seem to keep em short and sweet lol

 

[dkm1987]

<div>
(_Simon_ @ Oct. 15 2007,23:09)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">1. here's the question i really desperately (haha) need answered right: What is the aim for muscle growth, staying ahead of RBE (like HST does cycle to cycle), or increasing your adaption threshold? well, i KNOW that you have to get stronger over time, but in what WAY? cyclical or linear, or does it not matter? :S surely i thought it would be the MOST important part

2. and Dan, i thought that RBE prevents further growth? resistance to damage and resistance to growth, doesn't resistance to damage lead to resistance of growth?</div>
1. The main aspect of growth is chronic overload, this means that over time you must subject the muscle tissue to higher and higher workloads. In a practical sense you must increase the absolute load the muscle is experiencing.

How is this accomplished? Either
1. Add load when you hit some arbitrary number of reps (eg. conventional progression)

2. Add load periodically no matter if you have hit an arbitrary number of reps. (eg Linear Progression)

In either case, yes at some point, if you use the same weight over and over again, your growth will stall. This is because the muscle tissue adapts and see's this weight as the same old, same old and therefore has no reason to adapt further.

No one knows when this takes place, days, weeks, months? No one knows because it is very individualistic and depends on many factors.

For example, take a carpenter. When he first started in this trade swinging the hammer all day was at first very strenuous but as he continued he adapted to swinging this load all day. THis adaptation took place in several areas.

1. Muscle growth
2. Metabolic efficiency
3. Neural coordination
4. Fiber architecture

At this point his muscles controlling the swing motion no longer grew and won't unless he begins to use a heavier hammer. This then becomes a new stimulus and hence adaptation begins again. This can go on endlessly until he reaches the maximum hammer size that is available or until the hammer is just so heavy that he can no longer swing it all day and perform his job. If he changes how often he swings the hammer vs. how heavy the hammer is then he changes the mode of adaptation, leans more towards metabolic efficiency than growth.

Growing muscle is no different, we load, we adapt, we increase the load to compensate for the adaptations occuring. At some point we reach our maximum strength output and increasing the load is no longer possible.

2. See my earlier post

 

[Totentanz]

<div>
(_Simon_ @ Oct. 17 2007,10:02)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">so okay, after some time the 1st guy is bigger now, the 2nd guy the same size. The 1st guy continued growing as he has increased his strength alot, the 2nd guy increased his strength to the EXACT same level.</div>
Irrelevant scenario. The 2nd guy will never be as strong as the 1st, given those conditions. You could cite genetic outliers who would gain a lot of strength on maintenance calories, but as you said, these guys are clones. Given the same genetics, person 1 will have gained _significantly_ more strength than person 2, due to overeating.

So... there is no point in wanking through the rest of the scenario because it will never occur in the real world. Ever.


Now obviously, since they have the same genes, they should have the same maximum potential, so if person 2 began eating more eventually and person 1 went to maintenance, they would eventually catch up, but not if they work at 'maintenance strength level' since as I pointed out up above, person 1 will be significantly stronger. Also, as we all know, a specific load does not illicit growth after some unknown period of time.

 

[RUSS]

As Totz said the bigger eater will be stronger , realizing this fact is usually what separates the smaller from the bigger guys over time. The only way your scenario could work as presented is if the one guy was lifting high volume and the other was doing more power lifting type w/o's - even then one would most likly have higher limit (low rep) strength and the other better conditioning and perhaps (just perhaps) higher 10-12 rep numbers , but even this is reaching a bit...

IMHO of course.

 

[quadancer]

Colby: <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">The recent cuts of the year will induce more growth in future HST cycles. </div>
Care to explain that?

Simon's &quot;question&quot; lost me until I saw Tot's definition&gt; glad you guys have a clearer head than I.
Now Dan said, <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">&quot;At some point we reach our maximum strength output and increasing the load is no longer possible.&quot;</div>
I'm at my weakest from the 2 month layoff, so I'm just thinking: why shoot ahead towards my former strength if I can get the same results progressing easily and slowly? Would that not leave me more headroom for continuing successful cycles of HST? (Not to mention a whole lot easier)

 

[TunnelRat]

<div>
(quadancer @ Oct. 17 2007,18:37)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I'm at my weakest from the 2 month layoff, so I'm just thinking: why shoot ahead towards my former strength if I can get the same results progressing easily and slowly? Would that not leave me more headroom for continuing successful cycles of HST? (Not to mention a whole lot easier)

</div>
Hmmmm, sounds like the whole point of SD...

 

[quadancer]

Well, it was suggested in my thread that I'd be back up in no time. I like strength but don't want to stall out again either - I'm always surging to the max as soon as possible instead of being satisfied with moderate gains. Still, 7 cycles was a good run.

 

[_Simon_]

okay, my scenario was a hypothetical one, i wasn't trying to test whether this would 'happen' in the real world, it was a creative story for the purposes of figuring out the effect of a given load.

and also it was about seeing if there's a difference in terms of muscle mass between OVERALL (where you end up strength-wise) progression and RIGHT NOW progression (eating whilst increasing strength to reach a level of muscle mass).

okay i'll try and explain what i mean, HYPOTHETICALLY let's say that a person increases their strength to a certain level. if they maintain that strength, and then start eating (more that is

), WOULD they reach the SAME level of muscle mass than if they had been eating WHILST progressing to that level of strength? (ie WOULD their muscle mass increase to catch up to what it SHOULD be at?)

so forget which scenario would equal a stronger person, what i'm asking is would the effect of that increased load being maintained whilst also eating a shitload eventually cause the SAME hypertrophy (ie reach the SAME level of muscularity) as someone who ate as they progressed to that increased load?

the MAIN POINT of what i'm getting at is the effect of OVERALL progression (or starting to eat AT THAT maintained increased load) and the effect of RIGHT NOW progression to that same point (ie eating whilst progressing to that same increased load)

LOL i'm so sorry if this is lots of babbling, but i'd really be interested to find out!!! and thanks guys for your answers, and Totentanz so you're saying that the person who is maintaining that new strength whilst eating that he WOULD reach the same muscularity as someone who ate whilst they progressed to that load??

 

[_Simon_]

bump?

well, IIIII thought it was interesting question... LOL

 

[RUSS]

<div>
(_Simon_ @ Oct. 18 2007,09:29)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">okay, my scenario was a hypothetical one, i wasn't trying to test whether this would 'happen' in the real world, it was a creative story for the purposes of figuring out the effect of a given load.

and also it was about seeing if there's a difference in terms of muscle mass between OVERALL (where you end up strength-wise) progression and RIGHT NOW progression (eating whilst increasing strength to reach a level of muscle mass).

okay i'll try and explain what i mean, HYPOTHETICALLY let's say that a person increases their strength to a certain level. if they maintain that strength, and then start eating (more that is  

), WOULD they reach the SAME level of muscle mass than if they had been eating WHILST progressing to that level of strength? (ie WOULD their muscle mass increase to catch up to what it SHOULD be at?)

so forget which scenario would equal a stronger person, what i'm asking is would the effect of that increased load being maintained whilst also eating a shitload eventually cause the SAME hypertrophy (ie reach the SAME level of muscularity) as someone who ate as they progressed to that increased load?

the MAIN POINT of what i'm getting at is the effect of OVERALL progression (or starting to eat AT THAT maintained increased load) and the effect of RIGHT NOW progression to that same point (ie eating whilst progressing to that same increased load)

LOL i'm so sorry if this is lots of babbling, but i'd really be interested to find out!!! and thanks guys for your answers, and Totentanz so you're saying that the person who is maintaining that new strength whilst eating that he WOULD reach the same muscularity as someone who ate whilst they progressed to that load??

 

</div>
I'm not picking on you , but I read through this multiple times and I still am not sure exactly if I'm understanding it quite right. I think you're asking if one guy is 200# bodyweight and benches 200# , stays 200# but somehow ( I would assume through a more neural/CNS oriented program) brought his bench up to 300# , and another guy (also 200# in body weight and initial bench 1RM) brings his bench up to 300# while eating and growing himself up to , say 250# - THEN , guy #1 undertakes an intense &quot;shock and awe&quot; campaign on his refridgerator - will he quickly balloon up to 250# with the hypertrophy of guy #2?

The reason I'm having a hard time thinking of the answer is that as soon as guy #1 begins to eat right his lifts are going to go up too ...

 

[quadancer]

Yeah. Eat big/grow big.
No overnight programs actually work.
Your hypothetical question leaves out the effect of sleep. Your late bloomer will not have had the many nights of sleep WHEN THE MUSCLE GROWS as his comrade.