The Question In-the-trenches experience often beats research to the punch. What training or nutrition theories do you have that haven’t been proven yet? Nick Tumminello – Strength Coach and Author I have two: 1. People who train two to three times per week don’t need to ever take a regularly scheduled “deload” or “rest week” every few months if they prefer not to. Even if they’re training hard they’re resting more than half of the week. Even if they’re doing less intense recreational activity on “off days” they’re still getting plenty of recovery time as it is. The only hindrance to their recovery would be poor nutrition or sleep habits. But taking a regularly scheduled deload or rest week is unlikely to change that. 2. Female figure competitors and male bodybuilders respond well to high-volume power-endurance complexes that are usually used to condition athletes to go the distance. You can’t spot reduce with exercise, but you can spot enhance. And every figure or fitness competitor I’ve trained has said the high-volume phase where we did leg complexes like these “brought out” their legs better than any other training protocol. For the male bodybuilding competitors, it’s was the high-volume upper-body complexes, mainly the push-up complexes like the one at the end of this article that they said brought out their chest and shoulders better than any training protocol. We know that high-volume training works for hypertrophy. However, these complexes are unique since they’re not only very high volume, they also involve explosive exercises like a plyo push-up or a squat jump. How high is the volume? Like 70-80 reps per set of a few different exercises done back-to-back for the same muscle group. But think about it: Explosive training using momentum is usually not what’s recommend for physique purposes because it doesn’t keep constant mechanical tension on the working muscles. Maybe it’s just the new challenge to the body, and the fact that they tend to perform the reps fast since the complexes use light loads that gives them a crazy pump. All I know is that these types of complexes were the most requested by both male and female competitors to use in the final 4-8 week training phase leading up to them getting on stage. – Nick Tumminello Chris Shugart – T Nation CCO Eat a little more on your off days… or just as much as you do on training days. “Eat for what you’re about to do,” the old nutrition adage goes. Here’s a related one: “Eat fewer carbs on your days off from the gym because you’re not spending as much energy and you don’t need that extra fuel for training.” Well, I suspect this isn’t true for hard-lifting athletes and bodybuilders. I began to suspect this by simply being what I call “body aware.” That just means being really tuned in to your body and the messages it’s sending you. The message my body sends me on my first off day after four straight days of training is, “Hey, you could really use a big-ass, carby bowl of oatmeal.” That goes against the rules we’ve always gone by… but does it really? Eat for what you’re about to do? Well, if you’re consistently training hard, then what you’re “about to do” on off days is recover and grow. And your body needs fuel for that. Yes, even carbs. So while it hasn’t been proven yet, I think the idea of eating less on off days will go the way of Swiss ball squats in the future. A couple of caveats: If you’re in a fat loss stage, then yeah, you’re going to be a little hungry. But don’t lower your calories even further on off days just because you’re not training. Don’t use this as an excuse to eat like a fat kid at grandma’s house. Eating more (or just as much) on off days doesn’t mean to bathe in soft serve ice cream. It just means to listen to your body and give it what it needs to recover. – Chris Shugart Christian Thibaudeau – Strength Coach and Performance Expert For intermediate and advanced lifters, changing the loading from set to set works better for getting stronger than doing all of your work sets with the same weight and reps. I’ll give you three examples: Waves A wave normally has three sets and most of the time you do two waves in a workout. The first wave is more conservative, around an 8/10 on the RPE scale (leaving 1-2 reps in the tank) and the second wave is all-out or close to it. Within a wave, the reps and load also change. From set to set the reps decrease and the load increases. For example: Wave 1 Work Set 1:3 reps at 200 pounds Work Set 2:2 reps at 210 pounds Work Set 3:1 rep at 220 pounds Wave 2 Work Set 4:3 reps at 210 pounds Work Set 5:2 reps at 220 pounds Work Set 6:1 rep at 230 pounds My three favorite wave loading schemes are 3/2/1 waves, 5/3/1 waves, and 6/4/2 waves. Low Rep Pyramid For strength, this is one of my favorites. It’s the cornerstone of my Built for Bad and Built for Battle programs. You perform 4-6 work sets. With each set you decrease the reps and increase the load. For example: Work Set 1:5
Origin: You Can’t Prove That!