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Haha I haven't seen much of Rich for a long time to be honest...

I definitely agree with the higher reps philosophy. Been doing a lot of 20/15/12/10 lately and enjoying it, slowly gaining size without any of the niggling injuries I was getting doing heavier work
 
[MENTION=2727]Fadi[/MENTION]; are you familiar with the likes of Brooks Kubik? Peary Rader? John Grimek? Doug Hepburn?

All guys who were jacked. All guys did abbreviated style training. (As opposed to lots and lots of reps).

A little off topic, and perhaps we need an old school strength building thread? But just wanted to mention it in contrast to the gruelling experiment im very interested in seeing you complete.

Tim.
 
@Fadi; are you familiar with the likes of Brooks Kubik? Peary Rader? John Grimek? Doug Hepburn?

All guys who were jacked. All guys did abbreviated style training. (As opposed to lots and lots of reps).

A little off topic, and perhaps we need an old school strength building thread? But just wanted to mention it in contrast to the gruelling experiment im very interested in seeing you complete.

Tim.

I'm familiar (only with the name and not with their training methodology) of John Grimek and Peary Rader. I haven't heard of the other two gentlemen.

You see Tim, as I've said many times on Ausbb, we have two sports that on the surface look identical, but from a physiological point of view, are like chalk and cheese. I'm referring to bodybuilding "aided", and bodybuilding natural. The two can not be compared, and I truly believe that most of the confusion that is prevalent in this sport is due to mixing these two different sports together. Even an Olympic weightlifter who is jacked can not have his training be compared with one who is natural. The Bulgarians trained up to 18 times per week if not more, and we're not talking high reps either. We are our nervous system before we are our musculature system. And once PED enter the playing field, the whole ball game literally changes from the inside out, literally from the inside (at the cellular level) out.

Getting back to the "abbreviated style training", I'm in full support of such a protocol, and to favour something else would be intellectually illogical, and physiologically a waste of precious time. Why do I say that? Because of two factors I can think of off the top of my head now, and these two factors are your CNS, and your MPS (muscle protein synthesis) signaling or stimulation of.

To create a receptive environment for muscle growth/protein synthesis, one has to actually stimulate the muscle fibers, i.e. work out. And as I've mentioned very recently on the forum, that once you work out, you immediately stimulate the protein synthesis, telling the muscle hey, the opportunity for growth/improvement is here now. Here's the question, the ultimate question if you like. How long (in time frame) is this opportunity? Check this out, and please tell me if you now believe (like I do), that we have two distinctive sports, yet they're both using the same name to be referred to by..., bodybuilding!
The natural bodybuilder's protein synthesis post workout last between 24-48 hours; that's two days. The user on the other hand has between one to two weeks of glorious opportunity where protein synthesis remains stimulated by the workout. Man, you can't even begin to make a comparison between these two bodybuilders!


As far as this is concerned
and perhaps we need an old school strength building thread?
I've already started a thread here: Golden era bodybuildging thread, welcome!
 
[MENTION=2727]Fadi[/MENTION] you mention above the use of PED's when talking about types of training and natural vs enhanced. Are you saying that higher reps are the way to go for a natural bodybuilder and why do you believe this ?
 
@Fadi; are you familiar with the likes of Brooks Kubik? Peary Rader? John Grimek? Doug Hepburn?

All guys who were jacked. All guys did abbreviated style training. (As opposed to lots and lots of reps).

A little off topic, and perhaps we need an old school strength building thread? But just wanted to mention it in contrast to the gruelling experiment im very interested in seeing you complete.

Tim.

What does "jacked" mean?

if it means chemically enhanced these dudes where not.

Grimek was one of the strongest men in his time, from speaking to the old crew was unbelievably muscular when standing next to him.
 
What does "jacked" mean?

if it means chemically enhanced these dudes where not.

Grimek was one of the strongest men in his time, from speaking to the old crew was unbelievably muscular when standing next to him.
Lol. Jacked as in well built my friend. And yes, natural athletes. I tend to look at these guys mostly rather than modern huge ****s for the reason of knowing that they were natural, rather than having to believe it.

Tim.
 
Lol. Jacked as in well built my friend. And yes, natural athletes. I tend to look at these guys mostly rather than modern huge ****s for the reason of knowing that they were natural, rather than having to believe it.

Tim.

Good philosophy I feel the same
 
I'm familiar (only with the name and not with their training methodology) of John Grimek and Peary Rader. I haven't heard of the other two gentlemen.
I would suggest you have a read of some of Brooks Kubik's work, I think you may find his concepts and reasoning for doing stuff interesting.

http://www.brookskubik.com/

I enjoyed reading his book 'Dinosaur Training' and I m not a big book reader.

PS good luck in your experiment, I will be following with interest.
 
I would suggest you have a read of some of Brooks Kubik's work, I think you may find his concepts and reasoning for doing stuff interesting.

http://www.brookskubik.com/

I enjoyed reading his book 'Dinosaur Training' and I m not a big book reader.

PS good luck in your experiment, I will be following with interest.
Yeah they are a good read. Ive always been in favour of the simplistic approachs to training

Tim.
 
@Fadi you mention above the use of PED's when talking about types of training and natural vs enhanced. Are you saying that higher reps are the way to go for a natural bodybuilder and why do you believe this ?
Yes higher reps are the way to go for a natural bodybuilder. I say this because as I've said before, we are as strong as our nervous system, beyond that of our musculature system. How can I say that? Based on my knowledge of the subject and my experience with both Olympic weightlifting and bodybuilding, I know for certain that our nervous system feeds our muscular system and not the other way around. That means my muscles are dependent and are responders to, instead of initiators or precipitators of a muscle contraction; and we all know that in a muscle contraction is where it all begins.

Getting back to being as strong as our nervous system allows us to be, we therefore must include the level of our ability to recover from a stressful situation, and in our case, that stressful event takes place in the iron dungeon. Now it has been established that low reps of 4 & 5 produce strength and power, and going below that and into the 1 and 2 reps, produce maximum neuromuscular efficiency (that's Olympic weightlifting territory). We're left with rep 3, and this seems to produce overall results within the three parameters of strength, power, and neuromuscular efficiency. There is no 100% absolutes here except in extreme cases of attempting a 1RM and beyond.

OK great, so the question remains, why higher reps for the natural bodybuilder? The main two reasons are (again), MPS/muscle protein synthesis, and CNS recovery. Low reps by their very nature, place a tremendous amount of stress on the lifter's CNS, hence all Olympic weightlifters world wide, take full advantage of spreading their high volume training through the application of high frequency training. PED allows for such style of training. Please note a very critical factor here and that is the application of both high volume and as well as high intensity training done within the same microcycle/week. That is near impossible without the aid of PEDs.

As I've said before, a natural bodybuilder who's aim is muscle building, would do well to train each muscle 3x/week. Why, I mean why not just once or twice per week? The reason behind this is MPS, and the time it remains stimulated post exercise in a natural bodybuilder vs one who is using PEDs. The pros can train a muscle once a week and make it grow both directly and indirectly, simply because of the high MPS PEDs allow for, a time that sits between one and two weeks, instead of one and two days for the natural bodybuilder. We've all seen it. You train your ass off all year to put on a kilo of muscle, then kid wonder wonders off the Streets and blows you away within a matter of 3 months! How can that be..., and to rub salt into the wounds, you hear that he's still going out Friday/Saturday nights partying until the early morning hours, drinking coke whilst you're downing your whey protein shale and egg yolks! Is that fair? I say yes it is actually, but only if your consider the distinction between your sport of bodybuilding and his sport of chemically enhanced bodybuilding, chalk and cheese really.

So in a nutshell, lower reps with heavier weights done once a week, can and are done by the PEDs bodybuilder, because he can. He can both recover from his workouts, and build muscle post workouts.

I'm going to stop writing because I feel like I'm all over the place. Not even sure if I've answered your question Simon, you tell me. Thanks mate.
 
I would suggest you have a read of some of Brooks Kubik's work, I think you may find his concepts and reasoning for doing stuff interesting.

http://www.brookskubik.com/

I enjoyed reading his book 'Dinosaur Training' and I m not a big book reader.

PS good luck in your experiment, I will be following with interest.
Thank you for the info and for your interest Big Man.
 
Lol. Jacked as in well built my friend. And yes, natural athletes. I tend to look at these guys mostly rather than modern huge ****s for the reason of knowing that they were natural, rather than having to believe it.

Tim.
I'm all for natural also Tim. Sorry I mistook your word "jacked" to mean enhanced..., my bad strong man.
 
Most of you who have been reading what I write since 2009, know that I'm not the "my way or the highway" type of a person. I'm the first to admit that when it comes to building muscles, there is no be-all-end-all method of training. We're all different and unique for sure, but not that different as to warrant a program or a routine that is so drastically different from the rest of the bodybuilding population.

If you're finding it a bit strange that I'm in favour of higher repetition sets over lower repetitions with a heavier load, please don't be surprised. After all, if anyone should be biased towards heavier weights with lower reps on this forum, it should be me. However I know (at least for me), that when I decided to perform 25 and 50 rep sets, my muscles responded very well to the stimulus by growing fast. I was not a beginner (I'm referring to legs and squats here), with legs that squatted no less than 5x/week and indirectly squatted around 30x/week. So despite legs that have seen it all so to speak, it took a special rep range to really take my legs from your average 25 or so inches to 28" at a height of 5,3" (162.5cm).

What could have been at play here? I believe it was the changing of the whole foundation that did it. I went from a style of training that focused on CNS adaptation work, and into one that focused on metabolic work instead. It's metabolic work that makes muscle grow, not CNS adaptation work..., and most definitely not neuromuscular efficiency work.

So a Super High Reps Training set of 50 (say), would serve to decrease Myostatin production, whilst increasing GH and IGF-1. Basically, this SHRT would be a set on steroids, giving you the benefits of steroids, GH, insulin, and creatine all rolled up into the one super high rep set.

Oh but Fadi, you need to exhaust those white fast twitch fibers mate, they're your ticket to some serious growth remember? Yes I remember, but I'm also very much aware that there's more than one way to skin a cat and there are more roads than one that would lead you to China. So why not take the safest road there is, and reach the same destination!

You see, as I've said before on Ausbb, when it comes to the stimulation of the hard to stimulate fast twitch muscle fibers, one can bend the law of muscle growth. That is, instead of relying on a very heavy load, you rely on very high reps instead. And please be aware that maximum muscle fiber exhaustion is not the same as maximum muscle fiber activation. My whole 4 years of Olympic weightlifting was geared to make me a specialist in recruiting/activating the maximum amount of muscle in a blink of an eye..., that's how power works in the sport of OW. So to exhaust the fast twitch fiber and cause an adaptive response, we now rely on time-under-tension for that exhaustion, as this white fiber is TUT dependent, and not load dependent.
 
Thanks for taking the time the write a detailed response, it did make sense to me (maybe my brain is as much all over the place as yours !). Good luck again with your experiment this weekend, looking forward to hearing how it goes. Rob
 
Thanks for taking the time the write a detailed response, it did make sense to me (maybe my brain is as much all over the place as yours !). Good luck again with your experiment this weekend, looking forward to hearing how it goes. Rob
Thank you Rob. And sorry for calling you Simon...more than once I think. I wish you a top weekend Sir.
 
Thank you Rob. And sorry for calling you Simon...more than once I think. I wish you a top weekend Sir.

All good Fadi, I have been called much worse things but much more insincere people over the years. Have a good weekend yourself. :cool:
 
1st session.

09:15 to 09:21
EZ bar curls 25kg x37,20,15,15,13 = 100

09:22 t0 09:26
D/bell French curls 15kg x45,22,22,11 = 100

Rest intervals around the 45 seconds mark.

To put things in perspective regarding the load as far as muscle hypertrophy is concerned. 25kg x100 = 2500kg. That is equal volume with 50kg 5x10 = 2500kg.

French curls 15kg x100 = 1500kg. This is equivalent and/or comparable with a d/bell of 30kg 5x10 = 1500kg.

Running behind schedule this morning is not my only mishap, as I've also forgotten my bag at home with all the food in it! However I will be looked after by the nice people I look after where I work (yes I'm doing this whilst at work). Am I angry annoyed or upset? No, because this simply falls under the banner of perfect is the enemy of good. There's tomorrow Sunday, I'll make sure I'm more prepared then than I was today. It's all good.
 
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And so we begin!
Forgive me if this has been mentioned previously Fadi but how are you measuring your progress? Simply by the way you feel at the end of the weekend or the end of the week post recovery? Increase in measurements? Or something else?

I'm interested to see how you pull up tomorrow, one day of this much volume would be enough for most, let alone backing it up again for a second day
 
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