I agree with your facts but let me explain my logic. Slow twitch fibers are the smaller motor units and also used for endurance. If u start with a weight u can rep 22 times, your body will only need to activate the smaller motor units to do the job. On the next sets you will start activating the larger motor units( fast twitch ) because the smaller motor units become fatiged and are no longer able to provide enough force. By the time u reach your last sets you will be activating primarilly fast twitch muscles.
I know, and that's what I said. The problem here is that you'll be using a very light weight, and you're not going to have much intensity left by this point. Put another way, I might be so trashed that all I can lift is a pencil, and I'll be digging deep to lift that pencil but when it comes right down to it, no matter how hard it feels, I'm not going to generate much microtrauma lifting that pencil, am I?
U could call it pre-exhaustion, but u can achieve similar results working in the opposite direction that i mentioned eairlier, which wouldn't bare that label.
How would going from very-high-rep to very-low-rep with the same weight give results that are similar to starting heavy and going lighter?
Starting heavy with lower-rep work, you're starting out anaerobic and rested before blasting the working muscles with lactate. Starting light with high-rep work, you're burning through glycogen and generating a ton of lactate - and then hoping to rely on muscles and nerves that are flooded with lactate while trying to coax a few fast-twitch fibres to fire.
I can see that there may well be a reason to do this, but I can't see how the results would be in any way similar.
As an aside, I do agree with using higher rep ranges for predominately fast-twitch muscles like quads, for the reasons noted above, namely motor unit recruitment by size, but I'd hate to see her doing high-rep deadlifts, for instance. This type of training pretty much dictates that machines are used, and this makes me a smidge nervous - but I'm still reading.
This second method would provide a better training respose for the fast twitch muscles for the same reason you mentioned, starting with heavy low repetion sets following lighter higher rep sets. Thats why a suggested alternating the two workouts periodically.
Why alternate between a method that doesn't work very well, and a method that does? I'm sure I'm still missing something.
As far as caloric deficit/surplus goes, she would need a descent amount of stored leg muscle glycogen to maximize the duration and contraction force her leg muscles can do.
This could still happen in a deficit, if she's eating a high-carb diet. Not the route I'd like to take, it would be miserable as hell, but many do this, and it surely does work, just like a lot of things work. But it's a moot point, this is clearly for a little bulk.
I'm worried about the alpha-2s though, which are thick as thieves in a bottom-heavy gal's thighs and which are upregulated with insulin. Lower carbs may be a safer alternative for a woman with leg fat, even on a bulk. Higher carbs - and the insulin it promotes - is likely to store too much fat on a woman's legs, particularly with high-volume work like this, as her body responds by storing fuel close to the muscles using it.
But there may be ways around this - carb cycling for instance. I'll drop this consideration for now and continue discussion of the training
This will alow for more microtrauma and therefore more muscle development. When u spoke of ur CNS respose u were refering to muscle inhibtion, the mechanism that prevent injury by inhibiting the full activation of the muscles. I disagree that training to failure increases inhabition. Because your muscles continue to get stronger,
They do for a while, yes. This training effect is dramatically reduced in females relative to males, and particularly in one who is already quite well-conditioned. Put this another way - I've been training my ass off for the last ten years. My heaviest squat is now 205 for a triple. Barring gear-use, I am NOT likely to get my squat up much higher than this, no matter how hard I try.
inhibition levels remain the same. Instead of responding by increasing inhibition, your body adds more uninhibited muscle to handle the load without injury instead of increasing muscle inhibition.
See above. A woman doesn't add much muscle, even over a long period of time. I've gained MAYBE 15 lbs of muscle in 10 years of really slogging it out, and that's the result of heavy training, deliberately bulking, careful cutting, and apparently good genes for muscle growth. The gains on a woman do NOT happen fast, especially once we're well-trained. From everything I've read in the last ten years, it would seem failure training is not a modality I would recommend to a friend for more than occasional interest.
I'm sure I need to do more reading though. Got anything to back up your assertion that muscle gains will outpace CNS inhibition? I'll admit, I should read more and I'd love a few good links on this topic.
When i refered to yates i was addressing my training method, not hers.
Sure, but you said Yates attributed this training method to his amazing success as a bodybuilder. Gear improves CNS function as well as recovery and reglycogenation. Very different playing field.
I'll await your next replies. Interesting discussion.
