Training
Q: How often do I need to change my training sessions?
A: This is a good, but somewhat complex question. Changing your workouts can mean different things for different people. Are we talking about completely new exercises and methods or are we talking about simply changing a few elements like the number of reps per set or the tempo used?
I plan small changes on a weekly basis. My clients rarely repeat the same week of training. We add or remove sets, we change the repetition schemes or change the tempo a little. But within a training phase this happens without changing the exercises or the training zone.
For example, we can change the set/repetition scheme in the following way:
- Week 1: 8/6/4/8/6/4
- Week 2: 7/5/3/7/5/3
- Week 3: 6/4/2/6/4/2
- Week 4: 5/3/1/5/3/1
Or we can change how the repetitions are performed:
- Week 1: 3 sets of 6 repetitions with 5 seconds hold in the position with the most tension
- Week 2: 3 sets of 6 repetitions with a 6-second eccentric/negative phase
- Week 3: 3 sets of 6 repetitions with a 3-second hold in the position of greatest tension
- Week 4: 3 sets of 6 normal repetitions
Or we can add intensification methods:
- Week 1: 3 sets of 8-10 repetitions, until 1-2 repetitions before reaching muscle failure
- Week 2: 3 sets of 8-10 repetitions until muscle failure
- Week 3: 3 sets of 8-10 repetitions until muscle failure, 15 seconds rest, then as many extra repetitions as possible (rest/pause)
- Week 4: 2 sets of 8-10 repetitions to muscle failure, 15 seconds rest, then as many extra repetitions as possible (rest/pause), then hold in the position with the strongest tension for as long as possible
On the other hand, if we are talking about changing the entire training program, every 3 to 4 weeks works best for most people. However, that doesn't mean you have to change everything.
For example, let's say you use a 5/3/1 plan. Each training phase lasts 4 weeks (5-3-1-unload)
After the unload, you start a new phase with the big basic exercises, but with adapted weights. And you continue with this until death do us part.
Personally, I would plan changes in the supporting exercises for each new phase. In other words, you keep the four basic exercises of the 5/3/1 plan, but change the supporting exercises every 4 weeks.
I believe that the longer you use a particular workout, the less effective it becomes. For this reason, I plan a few elements of change each week. However, changing exercises too often can also limit your gains because you never become efficient at one exercise. To keep it simple, you can change some of your exercises every 3 to 4 weeks and the way you perform your sets and reps from week to week.
Muscle growth during a keto diet
Q: I've been on a keto diet for 8 weeks and have lost fat. But now I would like to build muscle. Can I do this while on a keto diet?
A: It depends on how much time you have. If you eat enough protein and maintain a calorie surplus, then you can build some muscle while on a keto diet.
However, several things make a keto diet inefficient for maximum muscle gain. First, let's look at the positives of a keto diet when it comes to building muscle.
The benefits of a keto diet
Adequate protein intake
Many would say that a true keto diet is not high in protein. A lot of people are on a very low-carb diet but not really in a state of ketosis because they are consuming too much protein, which is converted to glucose.
But a keto diet usually provides sufficient amounts of protein to support muscle growth and help stimulate protein synthesis. This is especially true if you are in a calorie surplus.
It is possible to consume enough calories
Even if you don't need to be in a calorie surplus to build muscle, it makes the process easier and faster. And it is quite possible to maintain a calorie surplus while following a keto diet. Ultimately, it has a high energy density (it provides a lot of calories per gram).
Good hormonal support
Diets that are low in fat usually lead to lower testosterone (and estrogen) levels. This obviously won't be a problem on a keto diet, as it provides more than enough fat for sex hormone production. However, if your body already has enough fatty acids to support hormone production, then eating more fat will not lead to an equivalent increase in testosterone levels.
Increased dopamine and adrenaline levels
A keto diet tends to result in higher dopamine and adrenaline levels than a diet that provides more carbohydrates. This is partly due to the higher protein intake necessary to produce both of these neurotransmitters, but also due to the higher cortisol levels associated with a keto diet.
Cortisol increases the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline. The more cortisol you have, the higher your adrenaline levels will be. A keto diet leads to higher cortisol levels (all else being equal) because one of the main functions of cortisol is to mobilize stored glycogen and break down muscles into amino acids (to be able to make glucose from them) when blood sugar levels are low.
Since blood sugar levels will be lower during a keto diet, cortisol levels will be higher. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why a lot of people (initially) have more energy on a keto diet: more adrenaline. This adrenaline can help you train harder, which helps stimulate more muscle growth. But, as we'll see in a moment, this comes at a price.
The disadvantages of keto
Here's what makes a keto diet suboptimal for building muscle:
Lower IGF-1 levels
Insulin promotes the production of IGF-1 via the liver (for optimal IGF-1 production you need growth hormone and insulin). IGF-1 is the most anabolic hormone in the body. When you follow a keto diet, insulin secretion is so low that this automatically leads to lower IGF-1 levels, reducing the stimulation of protein synthesis.
Less mTOR activation
mTOR is an enzyme involved in cellular growth, including muscle growth. The more it is activated, the higher the rate of protein synthesis can be and the more growth you can stimulate. mTOR is activated by mechanical factors (stretching a muscle fibre while it produces a lot of tension), but nutrition also has an influence.
In particular, insulin and certain amino acids such as leucine and glycine can increase mTOR activation. Even if you can consume these amino acids on a keto diet, you won't really get much insulin, so your mTOR activation won't be as strong as it could be.
However, lower IGF-1 and mTOR levels are also a positive aspect of this diet when it comes to potentially slowing down aging and even slowing down the growth of cancer cells. They're just not optimal for muscle growth.
Less insulin
Insulin is often seen as the bad guy when it comes to body composition, but that's not the truth. If you want to maximize your muscle growth, insulin can be a reliable ally as it increases nutrient uptake (including protein) by the muscles, increases the rate of protein synthesis and reduces protein breakdown. On a keto diet, however, your insulin secretion is lower due to the low carbohydrate intake.
More cortisol
All else being equal, you will have a higher cortisol release on a keto diet than on a higher carbohydrate diet. The reason for this? One of the main functions of cortisol is to help the body raise blood sugar levels when they are too low.
Keto advocates like to talk about glucagon as the hormone that brings your blood sugar levels up when they're too low, because glucagon doesn't have the bad reputation of cortisol. In reality, however, the two work together. Cortisol is the primary "breakdown" hormone because it breaks down stored energy when it's needed.
You may need mobilized energy either because you are in a calorie deficit or because your blood sugar levels are low (this can be the case even if you are in a calorie surplus - especially on a low-carb diet).
Because you're not eating as many carbohydrates on a keto diet, your body has to rely on stored glycogen or amino acids to regulate your blood sugar levels. This will lead to higher cortisol levels. And obviously, it's not great for muscle growth if your body has to break down muscle tissue into its amino acids to maintain stable blood sugar levels.
Peripheral insulin resistance
This is something I've noticed in bodybuilders. When they spend a lot of time preparing for their competition on a low carbohydrate diet, the pre-competition carbohydrate replenishment (to fill up the muscles with more glycogen to make them appear bigger) just hasn't worked.
It seems like the muscles stay flat and these bodybuilders just bulk up. Through an investigation into this phenomenon, I have found that a low-carb diet or a keto diet leads to peripheral insulin resistance to protect the body from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar levels).
If you don't eat a lot of carbohydrates, your blood sugar levels will tend to be low. If blood sugar levels are too low, this is dangerous. One adaptation to a very low carbohydrate intake is to make the muscles resistant to insulin. This means that the muscles stop responding to insulin.
When your body releases insulin during a keto diet (even if you eat protein, your body responds by releasing insulin), the glucose in your blood will tend to stay there instead of being transported to the muscles, reducing the risk of hypoglycemia. This peripheral insulin resistance makes it hard to benefit from a carbohydrate load and will also make it harder to get amino acids into the muscles, making muscle growth difficult.
Poorer training performance
A pure strength training session (low reps, long rests between sets) won't be as affected by a keto diet - at least not on the energy front. But there may be a loss of strength due to reduced passive stability.
Heavy training does not rely on glucose for energy. It primarily uses phosphagens. As we've already seen, a keto diet tends to be high in creatine due to mostly high meat consumption.
However, traditional hypertrophy training (higher reps, longer time under tension, shorter rest intervals, more volume) will definitely work better if the body can use glucose for energy.
Yes, ketones can also work, but they are less efficient than glucose for this type of training. If your workout involves more volume and longer sets (anything from 20 to 120 seconds per set or more), then a keto diet will affect your performance). Note: Your exercise performance may initially increase due to higher adrenaline levels. This may compensate to some extent for the less efficient energy supply. But this will not last long, as you will soon see.
Stronger training burnout
I've already explained how a keto diet leads to higher adrenaline levels. This can be cool at first as it gives you the illusion of more energy, drive and motivation. However, it comes with a risk: downregulation of beta-adrenergic receptors.
If adrenaline levels are elevated too much or for too long, beta-adrenergic receptors can quickly become desensitized, making you less responsive and less responsive to adrenaline. And if you reach a point where the downregulation is too pronounced, you will begin to suffer from the following:
- A decrease in muscle strength and speed
- Poorer muscle tone
- A decrease in coordination
- A decrease in endurance due to a weaker contraction force potential of the heart
- A decrease in motivation, drive and energy
- A decrease in mental sharpness
This is what I call exercise burnout and with a keto diet the risk of this occurring is greater due to the higher adrenaline and cortisol release.
In addition, it becomes harder to "calm down" or shut down the brain after a training session if you follow a keto diet. This is because carbohydrates are very effective at lowering adrenaline and cortisol levels by increasing blood sugar levels. Post-workout carbohydrates can help you lower post-workout cortisol and adrenaline levels. However, you obviously won't achieve this on a keto diet.
Less passive stability
Normally, the tissue around a joint generates pressure on the joint and this pressure helps to stabilize the joint. Muscle volumization is one of the main elements of passive stabilization. When you fill up your muscles as much as possible with water and/or carbohydrates, they expand and put more pressure on the neighboring joints.
Glycogen and water are the two main elements involved in muscle volumization. However, both will decrease during a keto diet. In general, a keto diet can lead to loss of strength, which is especially true for pushing exercises that involve the shoulder joint. As the shoulder joint is the most unstable joint in the body, it has the greatest risk of performance loss due to less stability.
Can you prevent this from happening? Sure you can. If you do a lot of exercises to increase the active stability of your shoulders and if you consume large amounts of electrolytes to prevent water loss. Also, consuming creatine will help as it can volumize the muscle cells.
So you can build muscle on a keto diet, but it's not ideal. I would at least consume some carbs around training to achieve more IGF-1 and greater mTOR activation (and lower cortisol levels).
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-62
By Christian Thibaudeau
Training with bands only?
Q: What do you think about resistance bands as a sole tool? I see more and more of this equipment being marketed as better than weights. Is there any truth to that?
Resistance bands certainly work. And in certain cases, I prefer them to free weights or machines. But in general, exercises with free weights and machines are still the gold standard for resistance training.
Let's look at some of the benefits of resistance bands first.
Benefits of resistance bands
- Bands are portable. Whenever I travel for seminars, I take resistance bands with me. If I don't have access to a gym, I can still get a pump.
- Bands are versatile and versatile. You can do many exercises with them. (These first two benefits have little - or nothing - to do with the effectiveness of resistance bands, but they are benefits nonetheless).
- Because of the strength curve (low resistance at the beginning, maximum resistance at the end), bands seem to provide a better mind-muscle connection and maximum contraction than free weights. This is not true for all exercises, but for a lot - such as side and front raises, curls and tricep presses.
- Bands don't cause as much muscle damage as free weights and most machines. This is because the resistance decreases when the muscle is stretched. And when the muscle is at its most stretched (when you have the highest potential for muscle damage), there is essentially no resistance. No muscle damage means you can recover faster after this type of training, which allows you to train at a higher frequency.
- The psychological stress is much lower. Stretching a resistance band is far less intimidating than putting a heavy bar on your back (at least for beginners).
- Bands can cause more muscle activation. This goes hand in hand with point 3. One study found that resistance training with a band resulted in higher muscle activity than a similar exercise performed on a machine (1). Why? The constantly varying load during the repetition.
- The load on the joints seems to be lower than with free weights or machines. As you can see, bands can certainly work. However, there are also some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of bands
- Progression is difficult to quantify. With free weights or machines, you can add any amount of resistance you want and you know exactly how much you've added. This makes progression easier. To increase resistance with bands, you can either add more bands or use a stronger band. Both options represent a large increase in load and this means that the new resistance may represent too much of an increase in load, which in turn may mean that the resistance is too great and the previous one too light. You can also stretch the band further by attaching it further away from you. However, this makes it very difficult to quantify how much resistance you are adding.
- If you're a serious exerciser, bands can be less motivating. "I went from 120 to 140 kilos on bench press!" versus "I went from red to blue band on curls!" It just doesn't have the same ring to it. You shouldn't underestimate the importance of motivation when it comes to how effective a program is. For most of us who love the iron, getting stronger and seeing more weight on the bar is one of the main motivations.
- There is a lot less muscle damage. I have also listed this as an advantage because it allows you to train more often. The downside, however, is that it can also make the exercise a little less effective as muscle damage is also a stimulus for muscle growth.
- Some exercises are simply not well suited to bands. Doing squats with bands is impractical and uncomfortable. You would have to stretch the bands to the max to place them on your trapezius or you would have to place the bands on your trapezius while in the deepest position of the squat. Good luck getting into a biomechanically sound squat position afterwards! Effective lower body training with bands is extremely inefficient if you have a useful strength level. At best, it can be used for training with very high repetitions.
- It may well be that the strength gained is difficult to transfer to training with dumbbells. With bands, you have no resistance at the start of the exercise. With a barbell, you have to move the entire weight at the start of the exercise. Resistance bands are cool. I like to use them when I want to train a muscle group that is lagging behind in its development more often without impairing recovery too much.
I've found that bands work better than free weights for side raises, curls and tricep presses. I do most of my side raises with elastic bands and I get a better mind-muscle connection and a better pump. I also like to do frequent band pull-aparts and leg curls with bands.
However, I wouldn't make training with bands alone the cornerstone of a training program.
References:
- Rainoldi et al, Muscle fatigue induced by two different resistances: Elastic tubing versus weight machines Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 21 (2011) 954-959
Getting defined without losing muscle
Q: I am trying to get defined and struggling to achieve this without losing muscle. By tracking calories and macronutrients, I lose half a pound every week. My protein intake makes up 45% of my calorie intake.
However, I seem to be losing muscle and fat in equal measure. I have reduced my volume and work out 5 days a week. My workouts focus on basic heavy exercise with a few assistance exercises. I still maintain my maximum weights. What can I do to stop the muscle loss?
A: First, let's talk about the fear of losing muscle while dieting. This is a common phenomenon, but I seriously doubt that you are actually losing muscle for the following reasons:
- Your protein intake is more than adequate for your muscle mass.
- You are only losing a conservative amount of weight, which indicates that the calorie restriction is not excessive
- You seem to be able to maintain your strength.
As long as your body fat percentage is not below 10%, it is very unlikely that you will lose muscle if you continue to exercise and consume enough protein, which should be in the range of 2.2 to 2.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. (Yes, even in a calorie deficit).
You may feel like you are losing muscle. You may look leaner and flatter, but this is because you are storing less glycogen and water in your muscles. Glycogen is the storage form in which your body stores carbohydrates in your muscles. It is a combination of glucose (broken down carbohydrates) and water. If you reduce your calorie intake (and probably also your carbohydrate intake), you will store less glycogen.
Why? Because you won't have the extra energy to store as you use up all your energy.
If you store less glycogen and less water, your muscles will look flatter and smaller. A muscle with less glycogen and water is like a balloon with less air. This may confuse your mind, but it is not muscle loss.
To build or maintain muscle you need a growth stimulus, protein to repair it and energy to fuel the building process. If you continue to train hard and consume enough protein, you should at least maintain your muscle mass.
What about energy
If you're in a calorie deficit, won't you lack the energy to build muscle?
Not if your body fat percentage is above 8 to 9 percent. Above this body fat percentage, your body has sufficient amounts of energy to keep the process going without risking running out of fuel.
If you reach a low body fat percentage, you may not be able to provide the repair process with enough energy, as your body may want to reserve the little energy it has left in storage for simple things - like surviving. But until you're really lean, and unless you're eating an idiotically low amount of calories, you shouldn't be losing muscle.
Does a loss of strength indicate a loss of muscle?
Not necessarily. It's true that a lot of people lose some strength during their diet. But this rarely has anything to do with muscle loss. There are other reasons. The first thing you should notice is that strength loss primarily occurs with multi-joint exercises. Bench presses, barbell shoulder presses and squats are the most affected. This loss of strength does not occur with isolation exercises or machine exercises and often does not affect pulling exercises.
It is typical to maintain or even increase strength in tricep presses, butterflies and dumbbell side raises, while at the same time losing strength in bench presses, which involve the same muscles.
This certainly has nothing to do with muscle loss, as otherwise the strength in the isolation exercises would also decrease. In fact, strength will often decrease with free bench presses, whereas you can maintain or even increase your strength with bench presses on a machine.
The reason? A decrease in passive stability. This is when non-contractile elements stabilize a joint by increasing pressure. For example, when you "inflate" a muscle with stored water, glycogen and fat, that muscle "packs" the joint better. This generates pressure, which makes the joint more stable. Even body fat and water retention can contribute to passive stability.
Why is this important? When a joint is less stable, the body will protect itself by inhibiting force production (not allowing you to use all your strength potential to prevent injury). The more stable the body feels, the more strength it will allow you to use.
This is also the reason why powerlifters gain weight before a competition. They will eat a truckload of salt and carbohydrate-rich foods and drink tons of water to increase glycogen and water retention. This increases passive stability and allows them to move more weight.
Compression exercises are more affected by this because they are more dangerous to the shoulder joint, which is the most unstable joint in the body.
Another factor: beta-adrenergic desensitization
Another reason you may lose strength while dieting is beta-adrenergic desensitization.
The beta-adrenergic receptors are the receptors that interact with adrenaline. At the muscle level, beta-adrenergic receptors, when activated by adrenaline, increase muscle contraction speed and strength. At the brain and nervous system level, they will increase coordination, drive, willpower, self-confidence, etc.
In other words, this means that if your beta-adrenergic receptors respond well to adrenaline, your chances of optimal physical performance will be better. However, if they do not respond well to adrenaline (if they are desensitized or downregulated), then strength and speed will decrease. You will also be in a worse mental state.
Why is this relevant to dieting? You desensitize your beta-adrenergic receptors by overproducing adrenaline - either by intermittent excessive adrenaline release or by adrenaline levels that stay too high for too long. Adrenaline is largely increased by cortisol. Cortisol increases the conversion of noradrenaline into adrenaline.
One of the functions of cortisol is to mobilize stored energy. When you are dieting and need to mobilize more energy, your cortisol production increases and so do your adrenaline levels. This is also the reason why many people have trouble sleeping while dieting.
In this regard, dieting can lead to a reduction in physical and mental performance by making you less responsive to adrenaline. When this happens, your strength will decrease. However, it usually takes longer for this to happen than for strength loss due to reduced passive stability.
Another reason for a loss of strength is your mental stress. If you feel flat and narrow and don't sleep well, then you will find it much harder to push yourself up for heavy weights. It's like you're programming yourself to believe that you're losing muscle and getting weaker - it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And your strength isn't even diminishing! That's another clear sign that you're not losing muscle.
It may be that you had expectations of a certain weight when you reached the level of leanness you wanted to achieve. This is common. But when you were at that weight and still didn't look lean, you assumed that this must be related to losing muscle as well as fat.
The reality, however, is that you simply had more fat to lose than you thought and less muscle than you thought. It's not fun to hear, but it happens to a lot of people.
Here are reasons why muscle loss can occur
Of course you can lose muscle while dieting:
- It can happen when your body fat percentage is below 9 to 10%, and even then it's not automatic - it's just more likely to happen.
- It can happen if you diet over a very long period of time.
- It can happen if the degree of calorie restriction is excessive. This is the case, for example, if you lose more than three pounds per week after the first week.
There are factors that can make it harder to build muscle or maintain existing muscle mass when you are in a calorie deficit. The primary ones are higher cholesterol levels and lower mTOR and IGF-1 levels.
The former (high cortisol levels) occurs when you reduce calories. That is simply a fact. But cortisol can also be released due to stress - exercise stress and general stress. A lot of people who lose muscle while dieting only do so because they're afraid of losing muscle.
Yes, if you are afraid of losing muscle, then you might lose muscle because of this. You may dramatically increase your training volume and push yourself to the limit in the gym in the hope of preventing muscle loss. When exercisers feel flatter and leaner because of their diet, they often do an insane volume of training just to achieve that pumped up feeling.
This excessive volume will lead to excessive cortisol production, which in turn can lead to muscle loss. In addition, this can lead to too much muscle damage from which your body cannot recover sufficiently. Your recovery and repair capacity will be much lower if you cause too much muscle damage in this state...and then you can lose valuable muscle mass.
My best advice for the definition phase
- Make sure you eat enough calories. Aim to lose about two pounds a week after the first week. (You will probably lose more in the first week). At least until you have reached a body fat percentage of around 10 to 11. From that point on, if you want to get even leaner, you should aim for about one pound of weight loss per week.
- Keep your protein intake high. Aim for just over 2 grams per kilogram of your starting weight. Don't reduce the amount as your body weight drops.
- Place carbohydrates around your training. This will help you reduce the cortisol response, keep carbohydrate stores full and improve your performance. I would also consume some sodium around training.
- Don't overdo it with volume. Volume will not be as helpful as intensity. Do fewer sets, but push them to your limits - or close to your limits.
- It's all about your attitude. You will feel flatter and smaller in your clothes. And for a good number of weeks, you may not look any better because you look smaller, but you're not yet lean enough to look defined. Mentally, this phase can be hard. You should be aware that you are not losing muscle and if you persevere, you will look better.
- Keep your sodium intake high. This will help you look fuller and get a pump.
How muscular are you now?
There is one thing I want to mention and this could influence your decision whether to continue or not. Depending on how lean you are right now, you may need to get a lot thinner to really get defined.
Let's say you've lost 10 pounds and still don't look anywhere near slim. Your first reaction might be to think that you're losing muscle instead of fat. However, it could be that you actually just need to lose more fat than you thought in order to achieve the level of definition you desire.
Here's a real-life example. When I was still working with bodybuilders, a guy asked me to train him. He wanted to take part in a competition. He was about 180 cm tall and weighed about 100 kilos. He told me that he could compete in the lower end of the heavyweight division or the upper end of the middleweight division - that is, in the 89 to 92 kilo range. I told him that he would weigh 80 kilos on the day of the competition.
He looked at me as if he'd seen a ghost. The guy wasn't fat - just an average body fat percentage. Muscular but not defined.
Fast forward to race day. He ended up at exactly 80 kilos. He won in his weight class and the competition across all classes.
The bottom line is that he had to lose 20 kilos to look as defined as he wanted, even though he initially thought he only needed to lose 10 kilos.
Based on the information available, you are doing everything right. You just had a wrong perception of how much muscle mass you have and how much fat you need to lose.
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-60,
https://www.t-nation.com/training/question-of-strength-61
By Christian Thibaudeau
Things that even veterans don't know (or have forgotten)
There are some hard and irrefutable rules about building muscle that everyone knows
- You must maintain a calorie surplus
- You must train hard
- You must recover from your workout.
But beyond these three simple rules, there are plenty of other lesser-known truths about building muscle. Here are six of them that you need to know to maximize your muscle growth.
1 - Stop looking for the perfect training split
One of the most frequently asked questions is: What is the best training split for building muscle? The answer? There is no such thing as the best training split.
Muscle growth depends on training frequency and volume. The more often you can train a muscle with a higher volume, the more growth you can theoretically achieve. So training a muscle group twice a week should result in more growth than training the same muscle group only once a week. And training it three times a week should induce more growth than training it twice a week, right? That may sound like a reasonable theory, but the same was true of communism and we all know how that turned out.
When looking at a specific training split, the frequency with which you train a muscle group depends on the volume you use, the weight you move, your training history, your sleep, your recovery and your diet. In other words, it's complicated.
Let's say your training split calls for you to train your legs on Monday and Thursday. That sounds good - until Thursday comes and your legs are still so exhausted from Monday's training session that you can barely get up from the toilet.
The ideal training split depends on how well you can recover from training and regenerate. The better you can recover, the more often you can train one muscle group per week. And the more often you can train a muscle group, the higher the weekly volume can be and the more muscle growth you can induce.
Recovery, in turn, depends on a number of factors. Calorie intake and the quality of food are important factors. The more energy you consume, the better your body can repair its tissue and control inflammation (up to a point, of course).
But calories are only one side of the regeneration equation. Sleep also plays a huge role in the recovery process. You can eat all you want, but if you don't get enough sleep, your body can't efficiently use those calories to aid recovery.
The bottom line? Choose a training split that you can stay consistent with and train hard. To be safe, take notes on the process and observe how you feel. As you learn what is best for your body, you will become better at optimizing your training split in the future.
2 - Get more sleep - Yes, really
When you train, muscles are broken down. They are rebuilt when you sleep. Sleep is the reset button for your body. When we sleep, our body increases the production of hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone.
Testosterone is obviously important for growth and repair, but it also helps you get lean. Growth hormones are also extremely important. They stimulate the release of IGF-1 or Insulin-like Growth Factor-1. IGF-1 stimulates systemic growth and has effects on every single cell in the body - including muscle cells.
Sleep also has a major effect on two other important hormones: insulin and cortisol. Insulin gets a lot of hate when it comes to fat storage, but it's actually a very anabolic hormone due to its nutrient-partitioning abilities. And nowhere does this play a more important role than around training.
The more sensitive you are to insulin, the more receptive your muscle cells will be to carbohydrate uptake. This means harder, more intense training sessions and better recovery, which in combination results in greater muscle growth. However, a lack of sleep will reduce your insulin sensitivity, resulting in a poorer response to carbohydrates, poorer training sessions and modest recovery. A lack of sleep also increases the production of cortisol (as a response to stress). Cortisol not only inhibits testosterone production, but also has a catabolic effect - it promotes the burning of muscle tissue.
Sleep is the best stress management tool available to our bodies to combat increased sympathetic nervous system activity (which controls the body's fight or flight response).
The longer the sympathetic nervous system is (over)active (as opposed to a parasympathetic state, which is where you should be most of the time), the more cortisol it produces and the harder it will be to build muscle.
Make sleep a priority and you will notice significant improvements in your body composition.
3 - If you're not growing, you're not eating enough
Are you eating enough? If you're not gaining weight on the scale, then the answer is no. If you are building muscle, then your weight will go up on the scales. This is the case in almost all cases. And if it doesn't, then you're not eating enough - no matter what your nutrient tracker tells you. If you're working out hard in the gym and not seeing the gains you should be seeing, follow this:
- Multiply your body weight by 35, which is your daily calorie goal. Eat this amount of calories every day for two weeks.
- You should see an increase in your body weight of 0.5 to 1% per week. If this is not the case, then increase your calorie intake by 200 kcal per day and repeat the process.
- Stay consistent. The muscle building process takes time. Give yourself six months to achieve useful gains in muscle mass.
4 - Pay attention to your intra-workout nutrition
The goal of your intra-workout diet is to maximize your muscle protein synthesis through the supply of amino acids, while minimizing muscle breakdown by maximizing the release and use of insulin - the body's most anabolic hormone. This means that two different processes are taking place.
As far as amino acids are concerned, most exercisers focus on a supply of BCAAs during training. BCAAs consist of leucine, valine and isoleucine - three of the eight essential amino acids. Many people believe that BCAAs work by preventing muscle protein breakdown, which is primarily due to leucine, and scientific studies confirm this.
However, BCAAs only have a minor effect on muscle protein synthesis, which means that although they prevent muscle protein breakdown, they have no significant effect on muscle growth. This is because the body needs all the essential amino acids to build muscle.
BCAAs can actually increase muscle protein breakdown over time, as the body has to get the essential amino acids from somewhere (2). If no BCAAs are supplied, the body has to gain them by breaking down your beloved biceps or other places where it can get BCAAs.
On the other side of the intra-workout equation is the need to maximize the release of insulin during exercise. Insulin is responsible for delivering nutrients to our cells. During our workout, it is desirable that our muscles are supplied with as much energy(carbohydrates) as possible.
The best way to achieve this is to consume extremely fast-digesting carbohydrate sources such as cyclic dextrins. The dextrins pass through the stomach very quickly and also enter the bloodstream very quickly, which means that the muscle cells are quickly supplied with carbohydrates.
Since you don't want to take a break during training to eat an additional meal, the best way to supply essential amino acids and cyclic dextrins is to consume an intra-workout drink that has been specially developed for this purpose.
Start consuming this drink about 10 to 15 minutes before your workout to get the flow of nutrients flowing and drink the drink in portions throughout your training session.
5 - Spend more time training one of your limbs at a time
When it comes to building muscle mass and strength, exercises like deadlifts, bench presses, rowing and pull-ups come to mind. There's no denying that these bilateral exercises are great for building mass and strength.
However, if these are the only exercises you do, your progress and health will suffer in the long run. A better option? Strategically add more unilateral exercises that are performed with only one leg or arm. These exercises will bring out muscle imbalances, improve strength and enhance motor unit recruitment. Let's take a closer look.
Unilateral exercises reveal muscle imbalances and prevent injury
Over time, poor movement quality and muscular compensations can lead to stagnant progress and injury. If you only train one way or only use certain exercises, then your body will make natural adaptations to that way of training.
Varying your training by incorporating unilateral exercises can have many benefits. Exercises performed with only one arm or leg force you to recruit more core muscles to stabilize the spine and distribute the load in ways that are neglected with bilateral exercises.
Unilateral training can also help limit overuse injuries. That nagging elbow pain that keeps coming back or that sore right knee? Problems like these are often the result of compensatory movement patterns caused by bilateral exercises as the body tries to compensate for muscle or joint instabilities or weaknesses.
By training one side at a time, you build more strength and stability through the joints, which will lead to more strength and more muscle over time.
Unilateral training is also great for improving core stability. You will be able to transfer your strength more effectively in the gym or in sports that involve twisting movements.
A lot of your ability to produce force, generate tension and avoid injury comes from the strength and stability of your straight and oblique abdominal muscles and your back extensors. Since a unilateral workout involves unevenly distributed weights, your core muscles will be challenged to maintain a neutral spine position and proper posture.
Not only will this lead to a denser, stronger and harder core - but your ability to generate more tension through your abs will transfer to heavier bilateral exercises.
Improved recruitment of motor units
Strength is a skill that requires continuous improvement, so completely abandoning bilateral exercises in favor of unilateral exercises is not a good strategy for getting stronger at the big multi-joint exercises. However, scientific research has shown that unilateral training can increase the number of muscle fibers recruited (3).
The more muscle fibers you can recruit during an exercise, the better it is for increasing overall strength and muscle mass. Incorporating unilateral exercises into a balanced training program will recruit previously dormant muscle fibers for increased strength, speed and muscle development.
And by improving the recruitment of motor units, you will have a greater number of muscle fibers available for your heavy basic exercises.
6 - Machines work. Use them.
At some point, training with machines has started to attract a lot of hate, primarily related to the fact that machines eliminate the need for your stabilization. I understand this argument: if you develop a powerful machine without the ability to support the force, this can lead to problems.
However, if you are already focusing on basic exercises with free weights, then machines can change everything. Why? For the same reason that "functional" training fetishists loathe machines: they allow you to train a muscle hard without the need for stabilization. This allows you to put a muscle under much higher stress without acutely increasing the risk of injury.
In addition, training on machines allows you to isolate a muscle with constant tension over the entire range of motion. Machines do this by changing the direction in which gravity exerts force on a muscle.
Take side raises as an example. If you perform this exercise with two dumbbells, you will feel virtually no tension in your shoulder muscles at the start of the movement. The further you lift the dumbbells sideways, the greater the tension in your shoulder muscles.
However, if you perform side raises on the cable pulley or on a machine, you will notice that the degree of tension is much more constant over the entire range of motion. This is because the machine changes the degree to which gravity exerts an influence by changing the angle of the direction of pull, keeping the tension more constant throughout the range of motion.
The ability of machines to change tension and generate constant tension can also help activate more muscle fibers. And since tension is the most important factor in muscle growth, the more tension you can generate, the better.
Another disadvantage of barbells and dumbbells? You lose a lot of tension at the highest and lowest points of the movement, forcing your joints to take on more of the load. Machines, on the other hand, keep the tension constant, which keeps the tension on the muscle. This not only helps build more muscle, but also reduces the risk of injury.
None of these aspects make machines superior to barbells or dumbbells, but with proper planning, machines and free weights complement each other very well.
References
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2084401/
- https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0184-9
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262465384_Evaluation_of_bilat
Quelle: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/850476710865153718/
From Eric Bach
Impressive abs are not made in the kitchen. They are made to grow through deliberate, regular hypertrophy training. Here's how to achieve this.
Diet certainly plays a role when it comes to making your abs visible, but don't forget that abs are muscles too. If you want them to be strong and stand out, then you need to build them up. But when? At the beginning or at the end of your training session?
Train your abs first during your training session
Conventional wisdom says that you should train your abs last because they are stabilizers and we don't want our stabilizers to be tired during other exercises. There is some truth to this. But for many exercisers, it works better to train the abs first.
Training the abs first works especially well if you don't enjoy training abs but love training everything else. Why?
Because once you're done working out the good stuff and all you have left are your abs, you have nothing to look forward to. On top of that, you're tired from working out and may not have as much time left as you'd like. So what happens? You either go through your ab workout half-heartedly or you don't do it at all.
Start by training your abs first, when you're still fresh, so that you can work them hard and still have something to look forward to afterwards. Eventually, instead of not wanting to train your abs, you'll get to a point where you like training them. It's a bit like the kid who reluctantly eats his vegetables and then gets ice cream for dessert.
Will your performance on the heavy basic exercises suffer?
There is a good chance that your performance will not suffer at all. The abs recover super fast and the more trained they are, the faster they will recover. Even if you move on to leg training after your ab workout, you'll spend enough time warming up for squats that your abs won't feel fatigued. That being said, squats and deadlifts mainly work the back abs and not your six-pack muscles.
If you have a super heavy leg day scheduled, then you shouldn't train your abs on that day. But that's maybe once a week, so you should still be able to train your abs at a fairly high frequency two to four times a week. In addition to this, you will achieve better visible results this way - so it's a win-win situation.
Tip: Perform this exercise first on back day
Some of your abdominal muscles are functionally shortened. Doing this exercise first will prepare these muscles for a heavy workout
By Dr. John Rusin
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-this-exercise-first-on-back-day
Perform a stretch-based back exercise before doing heavy pulling exercises on your back day. This preparatory exercise will bring your body back to a normal posture by putting you in the opposite position of the posture you are likely to spend most of your day in.
By far the most effective back prep exercise is pulldowns with arms extended and variations thereof. This exercise involves isolating the latissimus dorsi. In most cases, this is functionally shortened. Performing an extension at the end in combination with a maximum concentric contraction works wonders here.
Pulldowns with stretched arms
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcVDItawocI)
Pulldowns with extended arms are based on internal tension. When you use a weight stack on the cable, it's less about the external load you put on the tissue and more about how you build and maintain tension through the full range of motion throughout the set.
As you'll see, this exercise will be sobering in terms of the weight used - so you should leave your ego in the checkroom and perform this exercise for the feel and the pump.
Tip: Cook 6 meals in 60 minutes
"I just don't have time to cook" basically means "I'm not managing my time properly." Follow this plan to keep your fridge well stocked
By Chris Colucci
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-cook-6-meals-in-60-minutes/
You can make a lot of meals for the week in an hour. Saying you don't have time to cook great, muscle-building food is like saying you don't have time to go to the gym. If you want to see results, you'll find a way to make it work.
Shopping list
- 12 eggs
- 6 chicken breasts and/or boneless chicken thighs
- 2 cups of rice
- 6 medium potatoes
- Oil/fat for cooking of your choice (butter, coconut oil, oil spray, or whatever) The "hardware"
- aluminum foil
- One large pot
- A smaller pot
- A frying pan
- A stove (always handy)
The plan
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Fill the smaller pot with the rice and 4 cups of water (or chicken stock) and fill the larger pot three-quarters full with water. Place both pots on the stove at maximum heat and bring to the boil.
- Cut each potato lengthwise and wrap each potato completely in a piece of aluminum foil. Place the potatoes in the oven as soon as it is hot.
- Preheat the pan with a little butter/oil/frying spray over a medium-high heat. Add 2 to 3 pieces of defrosted chicken to the pan as soon as it is hot. Fry them for 6 to 8 minutes depending on the thickness of the pieces (you will turn them later).
- Turn the heat down when the rice comes to the boil, stir it through and cover the pan with a lid. Add all the eggs to the large pot as soon as the water boils. Stir the rice again and cover the pot again with a lid.
- Turn the chicken when the 6 to 8 minutes are up and stir the rice again. Remove the eggs from the heat after they have cooked for 10 to 12 minutes.
- Check the rice, turn off the heat, stir it through and leave the pan covered. Rinse the eggs under cold water and then dry them. The eggs are ready. Take the chicken out of the pan a few minutes later.
- Add more butter/oil to the pan and fry the rest of the chicken for 6 to 8 minutes per side.
- Turn off the oven last and remove the potatoes from the oven after 45 minutes. Run a knife through the potatoes to check if they are done. The knife should meet with little resistance.
- The meat and side dishes are ready. You can go wild with the spices and marinade on the chicken before cooking or simply drown it in sauce after cooking - the choice is yours.
That's roughly an hour and you've cooked several protein and carbohydrate meals plus the hard-boiled eggs for snacks or a quick breakfast. As a bonus, rice and potatoes are two of the best carbohydrate sources to prepare ahead of time.
Vegetables in 2 minutes
Whether you've noticed the lack of vegetables or not says a lot about your attitude. Pick up a family pack of Kaiser veggies to have on hand in the freezer. This is a mix of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. For each meal, throw two handfuls of vegetables into a bowl and heat in the microwave for 2 minutes - and your vegetables are ready.
Tip: The 10-10-10 treadmill sprint program
Want to get in better shape? Then do a metabolic conditioning program with progressive overload. It's tough and will get tougher...but so will you.
By Adam Vogel
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-the-10-10-10-treadmill-sprint-workout/
Is it too hot outside to sprint? Or too cold? No worries. Just head to the gym. This training session is so intense that you won't have much time to worry about working out on a cardio machine.
What you need
Any treadmill that gives you at least a 10% incline.
The workout
- Start with your feet to the right and left of the running surface of the treadmill (and not on the belt itself). Set the machine to a 10% incline and a speed that is 2 to 4 km/h faster than your normal jogging speed. If you normally run at 9 km/h, you should start at 11 to 13 km/h. Allow the treadmill to reach the set incline and speed.
- Once the treadmill is running at full speed, jump on and sprint for 30 seconds. As soon as this is over, grab the handles on the right and left and jump back onto the side stands.
- Pause for 30 seconds and repeat this cycle for a total of 10 rounds.
- Try to increase the speed on each lap until you are able to complete 10 laps at 16 km/h (10 mph) on a 10% incline.
Remember to pause for 30 seconds after each 30 second sprint. An example of a progression workout could look like this:
|
Lap |
Speed |
Incline |
Sprint |
|
1 |
11 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
2 |
11.5 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
3 |
12 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
4 |
12.5 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
5 |
13 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
6 |
14 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
7 |
14.5 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
8 |
15 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
9 |
15.5 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
|
10 |
16 km/h |
10% |
30 sec. |
Then increase the speed by 0.3 km/h per lap for each training session, trying to reach full speed earlier in the laps.
The treadmill pressure challenge
A great variation of this challenge that uses the same intervals - 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off - is the 30-30-10 treadmill push challenge. In this variation, you push against the stationary belt when the treadmill is off instead of sprinting on the treadmill. Simply stand on the treadmill, place your hands on the front handles of the display and start pushing against the treadmill with your feet as fast as you can for 30 seconds. Pause for 30 seconds and repeat until you have completed 10 laps.
Tip: Avoid these vitamins before and after your workout
Certain vitamins may seem like a good idea to aid recovery, but in reality they could be doing more harm than good. Here's what you should avoid.
By Mike Roussell, PhD
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-avoid-these-vitamins-before-and-after-training/
When I first became interested in training with weights and bodybuilding, I read stories about bodybuilders and their pillboxes full of vitamins and supplements. Skip La Cour, for example, always had a box in the trunk of his car. When he left the gym, he would open his trunk and go through a post-workout ritual of swallowing various pills including vitamin E and vitamin C.
With a body like Skip's, I would have a hard time questioning his methods, but what if his post-workout vitamin E and C consumption was actually hindering potential results and reducing his insulin sensitivity?
The study
One of the benefits of exercise is that it increases insulin sensitivity. Basically, if your insulin sensitivity is good, nutrients are better used to build muscle and less likely to be stored as fat.
In one study, a group of exercise physiologists set out to investigate how vitamin C (1000mg) and vitamin E (400IU) supplementation affected the increase in insulin sensitivity after exercise. 40 young men trained 5 days per week (50 minute training sessions including cycling and circuit training) for four weeks. The addition of vitamin C and E supplementation completely eliminated the positive effects of training on insulin sensitivity in this group!
In further studies, it appears that the increase in reactive oxygen species - which is suppressed by vitamin C and E supplementation - is a necessary phenomenon for increasing insulin sensitivity. The argument for the temporary benefits of increasing reactive oxygen species is strengthened by the fact that long-term antioxidant supplementation has been shown to reduce insulin sensitivity.
Okay, so what now?
If you're looking for a potential edge, then you should avoid antioxidant supplements and antioxidant-rich foods around and immediately after exercise. This will allow for a natural increase in reactive oxygen species and an improvement in insulin sensitivity.
References:
Tip: The stairs to pain intervals
Steppers are not fun. Okay, in reality they're great for fat loss and conditioning. The workout is just hard. Here's a way to get results in 5 minutes.
By Andrew Heffernan
https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-stairway-to-pain-intervals/
5 minutes of intense fat burning
- 1Get on a stepper for this Tabata-style workout. At this point, we're talking about a device that resembles a mini escalator. Don't touch the slopes, grandpa. These are for intervals and emergencies only.
- Set the timer for 5 minutes and start with one minute at low intensity and then increase the speed to a level you can just manage for 20 seconds.
- After the 20 second sprint, grab the handles and get off the steps for a short 10 second break.
- Repeat these work-pause intervals for 6 to 8 cycles.
Make it harder: add a medicine ball
Grab a medicine ball and hold it while you complete your workout. Hold it the way you want to hold it: with two hands, with one hand, up or down. Between sets, you can step off the machine or stay on it while balancing the ball on the cup holder/indicator at the front of the machine.
This takes some practice, but it's doable and it forces you to do something repetitive that requires control and coordination while you're tired - an added bonus to the real world and your workout and a useful skill.
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-train-abs-first
By Tim Henriques
The key findings:
- Scientists wanted to see how performing more or fewer sets per training session affected strength, endurance and muscle growth.
- Broadly speaking, the more sets you do per session, the more strength, endurance and muscle you will build.
- If you want to maximize strength and muscle gains or break through a plateau, then you should do more sets, not less.
How many sets should you do to build muscle
On the one hand, minimalists say that you should do as few sets as possible to make progress.
Some even say that you should do one set per training session until muscle failure and that anything beyond that is overtraining. These people say that long-term progress is all about increasing the weight and not the volume (the number of sets).
"Train smarter, not harder," is their credo.
On the other hand, the maximalist camp says that you should do as many sets as you can do without hurting yourself.
"No pain, no gain" is their motto.
Who is right?
That's exactly what scientists from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil wanted to find out in a 2015 study (1).
Let's take a look at what they did.
The scientists had 48 men with no previous weight training experience follow a strength training program for 6 months.
- The men were divided into 4 groups:
- One group performed 1 set per exercise.
- One group performed 3 sets per exercise
- One group performed 5 sets per exercise
- One group performed only bodyweight exercises.
The reason scientists included the bodyweight-only exercises in the study was because they needed a control group to compare the other groups to. They found that the bodyweight-only group could serve as a good representation of what people can achieve with a moderate amount of resistance training.
Each group trained 3 days per week with at least 2 to 3 rest days between workouts. All groups performed the same exercises, training in the 8 to 12 repetition range and resting for 1.5 to 2 minutes between sets.
The only difference between the groups was how many sets per exercise were performed.
The strength training program included multi-joint exercises such as bench presses, shoulder presses and leg presses and some isolation exercises such as leg extensions, leg curls, bicep curls, crunches and tricep presses.
Each set was performed to muscle failure and the weight was increased for each exercise when the upper end of the repetition range was reached.
The scientists performed a series of tests to determine the progress of the exercisers. They measured:
- How much weight the exercisers could perform 5 repetitions with (to measure muscle strength
- How much weight the exercisers could perform 20 repetitions with (to measure muscle endurance)
- How high people could jump (to measure speed strength)
- How thick the exercisers' muscles were in different places (to measure muscle growth).
The team of scientists were extremely meticulous in how they took all the measurements and performed the measurements twice on each subject to ensure they got accurate results.
Unfortunately, the scientists did not control how much the subjects ate. Calorie and macronutrient intake can make a big difference in body composition.
What did the scientists find?
The group that performed 5 sets per exercise built more strength, endurance and muscle than the groups that performed 1 or 3 sets per exercise or only bodyweight exercises.
The main finding of the study was that the more sets the subjects performed, the better their results.
Let's look at the highlights before we go into detail:
- Subjects who performed 5 sets built more muscle than everyone else.
- Subjects who performed 5 sets built more strength than everyone else on almost every exercise.
- Subjects who performed 3 sets built more muscle than people who performed only 1 set or bodyweight exercises.
- Subjects who performed 3 sets built more strength than people who performed only 1 set or bodyweight exercises
- Subjects who only performed bodyweight exercises actually lost strength on the bench press and leg press.
- All groups lost the same amount of fat (which makes sense - none of the subjects followed a structural diet)
- Each group built the same amount of speed strength (which also makes sense, as none of the groups trained specifically for this.
Now let's get into the details.
How your training volume per training session affects muscle growth
Technically, there was no statistical difference in muscle gains between the groups. However, there was a clear trend towards greater muscle gains in the groups that performed more sets.
The results were as follows:
- 5 sets: 7.3 pounds of muscle gain
- 3 sets: 6.5 pounds of muscle gain
- 1 set: 1 pound of muscle gain
- Bodyweight exercises: 6.4 pounds of muscle gains
The group that performed 5 sets also increased their biceps and triceps size more than any other group.
It's important to keep in mind that none of these groups built as much muscle as they could have. If you do everything right, muscle gains of 10 pounds within 6 months are realistic.
Nearly everyone (except the bodyweight exercise group) lost 10 pounds of body fat, which means the subjects were in a calorie deficit most of the time.
High-volume training requires more calories for recovery, which is why the group that performed 5 sets would have benefited the most from a diet that provided more calories.
How your training volume per training session affects strength gains
It's a common notion that to get strong, you just need to focus on increasing the weight on the bar and that as long as you only perform the bare minimum of sets - say 1, 2 or 3 per training session - and focus on progressive overload, you won't benefit from performing additional sets. The study shows otherwise.
When it comes to strength gains, the subjects who performed the most sets got the strongest on the most exercises.
The maximum weight for 5 repetitions changed as follows for the groups over the course of the study:
5 RM weight for bench press
- Bodyweight exercises only: -6%
- 1 set: +12%
- 3 sets: +17%
- 5 sets: +11%
5 RM weight for leg press
- Bodyweight exercises only: -2%
- 1 set: +16%
- 3 sets: +15%
- 5 sets: +18%
5 RM weight for shoulder press
- Bodyweight exercises only: +13%
- 1 set: +22%
- 3 sets: +24%
- 5 sets: +35%
5 RM weight for lat pulldown
- Bodyweight exercises only: +3%
- 1 set: +19%
- 3 sets: +12%
- 5 sets: +17%
Average change in 5 RM weight
- Bodyweight exercises only: +4%
- 1 set: +17%
- 3 sets: +17%
- 5 sets: +20%
As you can see, the differences are not very large, although one piece of background information is important here. Everyone in the 5-set group started significantly stronger than the subjects in the 1-set and 3-set groups, which means that these subjects were probably already closer to their genetic limit for strength gains.
Normally, the rate of strength gains slows down as you get stronger - and yet in this study, the strongest subjects still progressed faster as they performed more sets.
Of course, you still need to get stronger to become more muscular.
You can't just do more sets with lighter weights and expect to make greater progress. Performing more sets with a focus on consistently increasing your training weight will give you the best of both worlds.
How your training volume per training session affects your muscle endurance When it comes to how much weight people can perform 20 repetitions with, the group that performed 5 sets again performed the best.
In this case, the scientists only measured muscle endurance on the bench press and leg press (probably because performing 20 reps on all exercises would have been too exhausting).
The maximum weight for 20 repetitions changed as follows for the groups over the course of the study:
20 RM weight for bench press
- Bodyweight exercises only: +5%
- 1 set: +5%
- 3 sets: +17%
- 5 sets: +24%
20 RM weight for leg press
- Bodyweight exercises only: +5%
- 1 set: +12%
- 3 sets: +7%
- 5 sets: +36%
Average change in 20 RM weight
- Bodyweight exercises only: +5%
- 1 set: +9%
- 3 sets: +12%
- 5 sets: +30%
As can be seen, the group that performed 5 sets increased their muscle endurance by 18% more than the group that only performed 3 sets and the group that performed 3 sets achieved better results than the group that only performed one set.
The final analysis
In the final analysis, the 5-set group built more muscle, more endurance and more strength in almost every measurement than the 3-set group. There were a few measurements that were similar, but when looking at everything together, the group that performed 5 sets had the best results in all areas.
The conclusion of the scientists was that there was a "dose-dependent" relationship between the number of sets completed and the results.
In other words, the more sets the subjects performed, the more strength, muscle and endurance they built up.
What does this mean for you
The bottom line and what the scientists concluded is more or less what you would expect
The more sets you do, the better your gains will be. Does this mean that you should do 5 sets of every exercise at all times and under all circumstances?
Does this mean that more sets are always better than fewer sets?
Not necessarily. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. there is a point of diminishing returns when you perform more sets
Performing more sets usually results in greater gains, but the increase in muscle growth, strength and endurance is not proportional to the number of additional sets you perform.
This means that beyond a certain threshold, you will get diminishing returns for more and more effort.
If you have already achieved most of the natural strength and muscle gains that your genetic potential allows you and are chasing the last 5 or 10% of improvements, then you will need to substantially increase your training volume to achieve this goal. But if you've just started training or are trying to break through a plateau, then at a certain point the extra results probably won't be worth the extra effort.
In this case, you'll probably be better off focusing on intensity (weight) while doing sufficient volume (sets), which for most people is in the range of 9 to 12 heavy sets per week.
2. more sets can be counterproductive
Performing more and more sets beyond a certain point is not only less beneficial, but in some cases can even be devastating.
In a recent study by scientists at the University of Sydney, novice exercisers who used 5 sets in their multi-joint exercises built more strength and muscle than novice exercisers who used 10 sets.
The group that performed 10 sets also spent significantly more time in the gym.
These people were complete beginners and going straight into a program that included 10 sets for each exercise put them in a state of overtraining.
3. gradual increases in volume are better than sudden jumps
When you increase your volume, you should only do so to the extent necessary to continue making progress.
This is the real message of the study.
In general, it is clear that the more sets you perform, the greater strength and muscle gains you will make when several conditions are met:
- You can also increase the weight in your exercises over time.
- You can recover effectively from your training sessions.
- You increase your volume because you have reached a plateau and not because you want to see how much abuse your body can take.
You also don't need to do 5 sets of all your exercises to achieve benefits. What you can do instead is add 1 or 2 sets to the exercise where you have reached a plateau or where you want to increase the most.
The bottom line is that performing more sets up to a certain point is better for gains in strength, muscle and endurance and that your best strategy for long-term gains is to gradually increase your training volume over time.
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25546444
- https://legionathletics.com/eric-helms-interview-german-volume-training/
Source: https://legionathletics.com/how-many-sets-build-muscle/
