LeanGains
- Thread starter HST_Rihad
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HST_Rihad
Active Member
The similarity to the effects of caloric restriction (CR).
then again there seems to be more to fasting than just calorie restriction...but since most studies so far have been conducted on animals and not humans, nobody really knows; most knowledge out there comes from mice and monkey studies and still has to be proven or disregarded for human subjects..for now it seems to be a question of belief and since I have never liked breakfast, it's an easy thing for me to do.
??
That says nothing authoritative (or at all?) about being able to gain muscle whilst losing fat simultaneously. The body doesn't do both except for periods of heightened hormone levels, the principles and mechanisms are widely understood, not sure how this is something you aren't able to accept.
I see more evidence of fasting benefiting longevity rather than calorie restriction. Martin elaborates on this somewhere on his site, about how fasting causing your body to use up it's stored pool of amino acids, etc etc etc.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
Of course not, but it supports in some way what Martin claims
The first three most certainly differ in the way nutritional planning & partitioning is done, details will be revealed in the book if it's ever released. As Martin calls himself a perfectionist, someone probably has to tell him it's ready
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HST_Rihad
Active Member
What do you people think of RPT (Reverse Pyramid Training) that Martin employs in his training? You do your max-effort low-rep set (think 5RM), then drop load by 10%, rest 2-3 minutes and try to do same reps+1. Frankly I don't like the idea of dropping working load, it may be good for strength development, but all muscle cares about is load+enough volume. So in my HST training I always do same load at lower reps (except higher rep metabolic sets).
so we're on the same page there
I have done that until recently and quite liked it to be honest. You should not do RPT for all your lifts, though, as Martin says himself, because it can be hard on you central nervous system. (especially if you don't follow his advice and treat the second and third set like the first :/) I usually did 5 reps, after that 6 or 7 and then another 8-10 depending on what I was doing. Sometimes I would add a "minicycle" of 3s first, then 5s, then 6/7.
I had done a couple of HST cycles before I switched to RPT and I liked the change of pace. Now I'm doing Wendler's 5/3/1 and so far like it. I'm sure I'll do HST again in the future and will probably revisit RPT, too; so if you're like me and you like a change of pace now and then, try it
HST_Rihad
Active Member
I would still call it HST as 1st set still follows same principles, I just wonder if lower loads from 2nd set on are as effective for mass gains. It looks like a compromise between high load+low volume and a bit lower load+higher volume, RPT gives us high load+a bit lower load+higher volume. Is it worth trying? Instinctively I had always wanted to do that, but HST wants us to simply do 1 set when it's max-effort.
I would argue that it is...at least it worked for me, but then again I'm nowhere near the weights some others here are. But as Brad Pilon put it in his reddit AMA: "[A]s long as the efforts there and you're not just wasting time in the gym, results will come."
HST_Rihad
Active Member
I think most of us use HST because the explanation of it makes sense. I wonder how RPT's success can be fit into that explanation. I'd wager it works despite dropping load, not because of it. Taking Martin's deadlift as an example: would 600 x 3 (max effort), 540x4 (total 7 reps) have indeed put on him more muscle in the same period of time than 600x3 + 600x2 (5 total reps)? After all, if he thinks 540x4 is so useful why not just skip 600x3 altogether?
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You would have to ask him that yourself, I guess.
Maybe it's because you can focus on the first set and take the other(s) as a bonus to add some volume/feel the pump/do whatever it is any specific rep range will give you. Near the end I used to work with weights in the first set that, hands down, I would not have been able to lift for another clean 5 (or 3) reps (read: I was working with my PR weights 3 times a week over an extended period of time) while I could still do 6 (or 4) with less weight. You have to keep in mind that Martin is trying to set up a routine for maintaining/gaining? strength while on a calorie deficit, which seems to work best when you lift very heavy without burning out. If you focus almost all your effort in the first set you can go pretty heavy but still recover for the next session. Following that logic you wouldn't be able to maintain or increase your strength if you were to skip the 600x3 and work with sub-max weight instead.
Not saying he is 100% right with this but it does make sense.
Because absolute stimulus and total TUT are required. Load first, volume second. Which is what Martin is doing there.
There is also the glaring difference in recovery from 600x3 to 600x5 rep count. Try to spend some time lifting at maximum rep-range loads at the end of your next cycle and you'll have an appreciation for it.
He still needs 600x3 to provide the load stimulus. TUT (volume) is also important, albeit in a secondary capacity, and 540x4 accomplishes that without impeding recovery or literally over-stressing the CNS.
Sci
Well-Known Member
Good answer, this is how I would explain it also.
Of course not, but it supports in some way what Martin claims
The first three most certainly differ in the way nutritional planning & partitioning is done, details will be revealed in the book if it's ever released. As Martin calls himself a perfectionist, someone probably has to tell him it's ready
Sighz ....
No, caloric restriction and//or fasting benefits re: immune system health and potential longevity increases have zero relationship to simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss.
And no, you can't simultaneously gain muscle and lose fat. Why? Thermodynamics. You can't cheat the universe. With your natural hormone levels, your body wants to put on fat when you eat in surplus. Just as it isn't thrilled about excess muscle. It's thermodynamically expensive, and a very poor source of energy.
You can redress the thermodynamics barrier by taking hormones that direct your body to grow, but merely changing the timing of your eating will not build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Hormones instruct your body to specifically burn the fat to provide the excess energy needed to grow muscle, bone, connective tissue etc (obviously fat is not a major constituent component of those tissues). But without the proper hormone increase, your body will reluctantly build muscle and reluctantly burn fat. Why? It's preparing for starvation. The 'normal' state that humanity existed in for tens of thousands of years before we found fire, the wheel, grain farming and effective weaponry.
Please stop trying to find a magic bullet besides chemical assistance. What you're looking for already exists; it comes in vials, tabs and patches. There isn't a magical state of the body that will let you gain whilst cutting fat.
Lyle McDonald has written extensively aboutthe why and the how if you're interested in learning about it. Martin isn't capable of circumventing the body itself. Neither is Blade, or Bryan, or anyone else.
What matters is calories. You must be in surplus to gain muscle. You must be in deficit to have a net fat loss. There's a lot you can do to change the here-and-there. Chew less, you'll absorb less of what you eat. Eat a crap load of fibre, you'll 'pass' out more calories. Drink a lot of cold water, you'll be effectively 'burning' calories because your body will involuntarily heat the water up and then burn energy to restore it's temperature.
Timing is useful in determining where a % of your macros go though; protein for muscle, carbs and fat for energy storage, hormones, cell repair and all that. And I'm not saying that you can't improve your partitioning. I know you can; I've done it, still do it (carbs after exercise etc).
But you can't "lean bulk" or bulk in deficit. Fat gain minimisation is the best you can do.
HST_Rihad
Active Member
Yes, I've read about it from like day one or something. But don't you think the idea of a morning fast is to use up those fatty acids for energy while being unable to find anything else? I've read somewhere that body is more prone to use fatty acids during morning hours, apparently this concerns adipose tissue, and not fats taken in.AlexAustralia said:
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HST_Rihad
Active Member
This is a good explanation, but HST tells us that TUT at a given load is important, not at a much decreased load from the past. I just wonder how valuable second set at -10% is. 4 reps in DL can't be counted as higher rep set to count for metabolic optimization. Then what the hell is it? 540x4 wouldn't be as valuable if done on 1st set, then how doing it on 2nd set after true working load 600x3 suddenly makes it viable? I'd be glad to do that if I had a scientific rundown on hand.
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Have you read that from someone who doesn't support the notion of magical recomposition?
I'm sure the body does use fatty acids when it doesn't have available carbohydrate stores (it also uses muscle tissue as a source of energy, though to a far lesser degree).
And what do you think happens when you eat food? Your body puts it back into its fatty acid storage cells.
You can't fast away your stores for half a day, and then expect it to build muscle when you're eating, and then fast again etc.When you are in a net surplus, your body will store the food as fats and build muscle (if given the proper stimulus obviously). Why? It expects to starve in the future. When you are in a net deficit, your body will not build muscle. It's an inefficient energy source; takes too much other energy to build, provides not enough when it's used as a source.
Again; you can store minimal fat as you build maximum muscle. But you can't burn the efficient energy source to build the inefficient muscle. You have to be in surplus to do that.
When someone looks awesome after IF, it's because they were in deficit. And they have an awesome way to maximise muscle whilst cutting (burn the fat). They then minimise fat gain as they build muscle. Maybe that fat gain is one tenth of the muscle (by mass) - for example.
But when you burn fatty acids during a fast, if you're in net surplus, your body will replace them afterwards.
Your opinion that 540x4 wouldn't be valuable as first set seems quite misplaced to me? Why not ... ?
I imagine the reason to do it second is to mediate the effect it might have on actually accomplishing that 600x3. These are deadlifts remember, not pathetic bicep curls.
It's highly possible that 540 x4 is not the ideal set to cover TUT needs. Maybe it's 560, maybe 570, maybe 520. It obviously isn't for metabolic optimisation and partitioning.
You are also making the mistake of assuming everything you have read about HST is perfect information,
. Idolatry isn't of use here. Something is working for Martin here, and TUT is certainly one of them. Could he optimise muscle gains without compromising CNS using 600 (or closer to it) for all reps ... ? Maybe, maybe he's tried it and didn't like the burn out//something else didn't work.
But dismissing the concept of TUT and work done simply because it doesn't mesh with a stringent//inflexible belief in 'HST' would be a mistake.