Thread: Hypothetically.......

If you're only training at a low intensity, it'd be similar to having daily sports practices. You'll grow stronger and fitter, but much slowly.

Originally Posted by Spud

If you're only training at a low intensity, it'd be similar to having daily sports practices. You'll grow stronger and fitter, but much slowly.

As for effects if you were cutting, if you decreased the rest time...say 30 seconds between sets, would this mean that your metabolism would stay pretty much raised all week?
Can't imagine it would do much good as far as building muscle as there would be no where near enough rest time.

Originally Posted by goob

You were to train 5-6 days a week, doing full body @ 50 - 70 % of full effort, never going for failure.

What would be the effects of this?
e.g - if cutting
- if bulking
- cataboilcally (if thats a word)
- on fat loss

**I'm intrigued, I train 3-4 full body, but wondered what would happen**



Train crosshairs this direction...fire at will.......

Unless you really know what your doing (including your goals), there are an infinite number of ways for this to turn out bad.

The biggest hurdle is recovery time. If your going balls-to-the-wall for 5 or 6 days a week, you won't have enough time for the muscles to recover. Moving beyond this, you're also dealing with a lack of systemic recovery time. This, of course, is midigated by your genetics.

The short verison: you'll hit an overtrained state in no time.

Your better off trying to increase density if you want to up the intensity.

Right now I'm doing 4 days a week, 2 workouts a day, for 1.5 hours per workout. I'm training with low reps (4-6)

As for how it affects the various items you listed, those also depend as much on your diet as it does on your workout.

Originally Posted by DOMS

Unless you really know what your doing (including your goals), there are an infinite number of ways for this to turn out bad.

The biggest hurdle is recovery time. If your going balls-to-the-wall for 5 or 6 days a week, you won't have enough time for the muscles to recover. Moving beyond this, you're also dealing with a lack of systemic recovery time. This, of course, is midigated by your genetics.

The short verison: you'll hit an overtrained state in no time.

Your better off trying to increase density if you want to up the intensity.

Right now I'm doing 4 days a week, 2 workouts a day, for 1.5 hours per workout. I'm training with low reps (4-6)

As for how it affects the various items you listed, those also depend as much on your diet as it does on your workout.

Wow, I have to say (if your not being sarcastic - and it doesen't sound like u are) thats pretty hardcore. You must be eating like a horse to be able to sustain that. You'll have to keep us posted on how that goes, do you have a journal on the go for this?

Admittedly, in terms of recovery I generally am blessed and can hammer myself into the ground and still go again. I guess being able to do 7 days hard snowboarding from time to time and keep going harder day after day conditioned me in a way.

Good luck with the routine man.

Originally Posted by DOMS

Unless you really know what your doing (including your goals), there are an infinite number of ways for this to turn out bad.

The biggest hurdle is recovery time. If your going balls-to-the-wall for 5 or 6 days a week, you won't have enough time for the muscles to recover. Moving beyond this, you're also dealing with a lack of systemic recovery time. This, of course, is midigated by your genetics.

The short verison: you'll hit an overtrained state in no time.

Your better off trying to increase density if you want to up the intensity.

Right now I'm doing 4 days a week, 2 workouts a day, for 1.5 hours per workout. I'm training with low reps (4-6)

As for how it affects the various items you listed, those also depend as much on your diet as it does on your workout.

Aern't you overtraining? 1.5 hour per workout twice a day, for 4 days a week. = [ 3hx4=12hrs ] of lifting weights/per week. If someone lifting 45mins x 6days a week, it would equal a total of .75hrx6= 4.5 hrs/per week, less than half of what your doing.

Also you would also have to factor in lifestyle. How active is he in general. Does he work 50hrs a week or zero hrs a week. Does he sleep and rest well, or he suffers from a severe case of insomnia.

Originally Posted by goob

Wow, I have to say (if your not being sarcastic - and it doesen't sound like u are) thats pretty hardcore. You must be eating like a horse to be able to sustain that. You'll have to keep us posted on how that goes, do you have a journal on the go for this?

Admittedly, in terms of recovery I generally am blessed and can hammer myself into the ground and still go again. I guess being able to do 7 days hard snowboarding from time to time and keep going harder day after day conditioned me in a way.

Good luck with the routine man.

No, I wasn't being sarcastic. Trust me, when I am, you'll be able to tell.

I'm the same, my body can take a unbelievable amount of punishment. I've just started (this very day) my new routine. Up until now I've been doing about two 1 hour works for four days.

I eat about 3200 kcals a day. This seems to be my sweet spot for gaining muscle and not fat. I eat 5 times a day. Actually, I tend to munch on vegetables between meals. Stuff like carrots, cucumber, spinach (raw and dry), etc. God, I don't even remember what "hungry" feels like anymore.

I think I might start a journal.

Originally Posted by viet_jon

Aern't you overtraining? 1.5 hour per workout twice a day, for 4 days a week. = [ 3hx4=12hrs ] of lifting weights/per week. If someone lifting 45mins x 6days a week, it would equal a total of .75hrx6= 4.5 hrs/per week, less than half of what your doing.

Also you would also have to factor in lifestyle. How active is he in general. Does he work 50hrs a week or zero hrs a week. Does he sleep and rest well, or he suffers from a severe case of insomnia.

I'm constantly on the look for signs of over-training. Especially since I've upped my workout times. My activity level outside of my workouts is practically nill. I'm a computer consultant. For someone else, it may be over training. Then again, my workout could be some else's warm up.


As for goob, ask him.

As stated, this was hypothetical, but I am interested in pushing boundaries a bit.

Sleep usually about 6-8 hours a night, unless on evil shifts, which pop up ocassionally once every few weeks, and then, i'll be lucky to get 3 hours.
Otherwise, my job in general, is stress free, save for about 2 hours a day, and the rest i'm pretty damn inactive, even at work. (Unless its boarding season) Average about 30 - 40 a week always variable.
So I reckon, with a damn good bit of research, and decent recovery powers that I have, I might up the stakes a bit more if I have the time.
Any thoughts on the biological side of this, as DOMS said, systemic stress, CNS problems and catabolicness (?)

read this....it is an article by Pavel that was published in an old Milo Strength trainign journal. It will help answer your question.

Interesting read P-Funk. Taking some of this into account you could in theory, train for 5-6 days a week, going heavy and farirly intensly, as long as failure was never reached, and the signs of overtraining were very closely monitored.
Question is, would this facilitate as good gains as cutting back training days and resting, as it seems to go against conventional thinking. And this sort of routine, if eating at maintanence, would cause gains to stop and muscle/ fat loss?

I think Pavel recommends 80% intensity?? Can't remeber..

Anyway...

Goob,

what you have to look at is that you can train like that for a series of weaks. This helps to build both fitness and fatigue. After each workout you gain both. The problem is that the fatigue will mask the fitness gains and after a few weeks you will start to over-reach (the begning of overtraining)...this is a good thing! From there, if you cut back and train only something like once every 2 days, the fatigue would then disipate (the fitness levels last 2x's longer then the fatigue) and the new level of fitness would manifest itself. This is referend to as a period of intensification.

It is all in the set up.

Pavel did indeed say 80% intensity in the article.
I think I am going to create a 5 day routine, using some of those principles, and follow your advise, when i start to feel the overeach- cut back. If using these principles and going for 80% intensity, it should become apparent when i feel the overreach- Even with my pretty darn good recovery powers.
Thanks man.

5-6 days a week doing full body = overtraining

goob....

try and do it for three weeks. in week 4 back off and then week 5 begin your intensity week.

Build the volume over 3 weeks though...don't go all out right from the start or you will crash and burn.

A sign of over-reaching would be a reduction in performance. Typically you never want to train to greater then a 10% reduction in performance or you are really fucking yourself up. I usually just go for about 3 weeks until I feel beat up and then drop back.

Check out my journal. I am doing pretty much a 4 day a week total body workout (mon, tues, thur, fri).

Thanks for the advise P-Funk. Had a quick squint at your journal, and will have a more detailed look tomorrow, to get some ideas for a good routine from it.
3 x 5 days
1 x 2-3 days
will try this for a month or so to see how it goes.

He said 60-80% is good enough. That's one reason I like to throw chinups in my circuit programs. I don't goto failure, but I do a lot of chinups throughout the week, and my chinups have gone through the roof.

Originally Posted by goob

Thanks for the advise P-Funk. Had a quick squint at your journal, and will have a more detailed look tomorrow, to get some ideas for a good routine from it.
3 x 5 days
1 x 2-3 days
will try this for a month or so to see how it goes.

what is 3x5 days? 1x2 days? What do you mean by that?

2-3 sets per exercise, 70-75% intensity. Supersetted. Oscillate between upper and lower body. No longer than 45 min. No rest time in between sets. You go from one exercise to the next, keep breathing nice and deep. By the end, you're sweating and have your heart rate up, just like cardio, except it ain't cardio. Includes shit filler exercises, warm up cool down stretching, blah blah blah.

No excess cardio, other than moderate walks, 20-30 min, once or twice a day, for glucose tolerance control, breathing, and cortisol reduction. Gots to keep to a rigid sleep schedule, no cutting corners on sleep or eating.

Daily workouts 5 days a week "full body". Secret is NOT to hit the same body part frequenty in big compounds movements..there are ways to get them every other day.

Result: burn fat like a bitch, gains muscle, not fast but you get strong. Every fourth or fifth week is off, just HITT cardio 3x per week, walking is kept up the entire time for conditioning. Leans you out in sub Q, and if you use anti cortisol agents, takes the VAT off as well.

You can do this cycle of progressive (starts at 8 reps, upto 12-15 at the same mass, then jumps up on mass 10 lbs while dropping down in rep number) cycle, and it seems to keep a decent proprotion of type fibers in place, without excess catabolism. Energy is pretty high, sleep sound, recovery good for most clients.

Unorthodox? Yep. Works for everybody? Nope.

Originally Posted by P-funk

what is 3x5 days? 1x2 days? What do you mean by that?

As suggested by your good self...
3 weeks @ 5 days training
1 week @ 2 -3 days training

Originally Posted by Trouble

2-3 sets per exercise, 70-75% intensity. Supersetted. Oscillate between upper and lower body. No longer than 45 min. No rest time in between sets. You go from one exercise to the next, keep breathing nice and deep. By the end, you're sweating and have your heart rate up, just like cardio, except it ain't cardio. Includes shit filler exercises, warm up cool down stretching, blah blah blah.

No excess cardio, other than moderate walks, 20-30 min, once or twice a day, for glucose tolerance control, breathing, and cortisol reduction. Gots to keep to a rigid sleep schedule, no cutting corners on sleep or eating.

Daily workouts 5 days a week "full body". Secret is NOT to hit the same body part frequenty in big compounds movements..there are ways to get them every other day.

Result: burn fat like a bitch, gains muscle, not fast but you get strong. Every fourth or fifth week is off, just HITT cardio 3x per week, walking is kept up the entire time for conditioning. Leans you out in sub Q, and if you use anti cortisol agents, takes the VAT off as well.

You can do this cycle of progressive (starts at 8 reps, upto 12-15 at the same mass, then jumps up on mass 10 lbs while dropping down in rep number) cycle, and it seems to keep a decent proprotion of type fibers in place, without excess catabolism. Energy is pretty high, sleep sound, recovery good for most clients.

Unorthodox? Yep. Works for everybody? Nope.

Thanks for the info Trouble.

Couple of questions: (excuse my ignorance) what is sub Q and VAT?
Must say I like the sound of really giving myself a good going over in 45 mins.
I tend to keep rest between sets to 30 seconds as it is at the momment.
Going to have to do a fair bit of research into coming up with a routine that does'nt kill me.
Thanks guys, suggestions very welcome.


Are the 20-30 minute walks very essential?
Must say that if I do this properly, sleeping should'nt be too much of problem!

Originally Posted by goob

As suggested by your good self...
3 weeks @ 5 days training
1 week @ 2 -3 days training

3 weeks - 5 days training
1 week unload
3 weeks- 2-3 day a week training
1 week off

sub q = subqutaneus fat (spelling?)

Vat= visceral adipose tissue

Originally Posted by P-funk

3 weeks - 5 days training
1 week unload
3 weeks- 2-3 day a week training
1 week off

I take it in the unloading week, I would just cut all the factors down slightly - intensity, volume etc.. So in essense, a fairly easy week, with around 2-3days at the gym? Let my body get a bit of R&R.

Got a lot of thinking to do on the routine, was checking out your training program (link below), CP's build a routine sticky & your journal for ideas. Some good stuff in there, I'm working evil early shifts this week, so I guess I've got til Monday to create it. I'll kick off next week.

P-funk's training program

yea, that program would not be something good to do 4 days a week!

for your unload week......

lets say week#3 of your volume phase, you are squatting 300lbs for 8 reps. When you come to the unload week, drop to three days a week to trainng, take the same weight from week 3 (300lbs) and drop the reps down...so you would do 300 for some easy sets of 4-5 reps.

A unload week is where you reduce everything, yes. These are the parameters I use generally:

Lift 2 days during the week, but keep cardio and conditioning work the same or maybe reduce it by one day.

Lift using no more than 80% of your 1RM. I try to use one or two exercises as "strength-oriented," use my 8RM, and do 3 sets of 3 with them (Still easy, but keep some intensity in there; Kelley Bagget recommended this strategy and I really like it). Pick another couple of exercises and do 2 sets of 8 repetitions using about 2/3 of your 1RM, which is around your 15RM.

Cut out isolation stuff and stick purely to the basics. I do maybe 4-5 exercises in a workout.

Example:

Back Squats - 3x3 @ 80%
Chinups - 3x3 @ 80%
Unilateral Romanian DB Deadlifts - 2x8 @ 67%
Seated Overhead DB Press - 2x8 @ 67%
Bent Rows - 2x8 @ 67%

Done.