Deceptive Hypertrophy - JP Fitness Forums

MPaquin · 03-04-2008, 07:47 PM

I started Hypertrophy I last night. I followed all the rules, lifted as much as I possibly could and was legitimately exhausted at the end of the workout. But it didn't feel right. It was weird not working my legs at all. I got supicious. My arms didn't hurt, they were just tired. I thought I was supposed to be shredding my muscles to make them grow, right?

24 hours later the pain hit.

Nice.

ps. I was shocked by how much I could close grip bench press (135 for the last set) at the end of the workout, without having benched anything in months. Those T pushups in Fat Loss II must have done the trick.

ToniL · 03-04-2008, 09:11 PM

and just wait until Hypertrophy II! I love these programs. Just when you get the exercises down and they get 'easy' you get to move onto another program! Hypertrophy II does even less on the legs which kinda blows me away but I figure he'll have some torture for them in Strength!

Good work!

Toni

feralBoy · 03-04-2008, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MPaquin

ps. I was shocked by how much I could close grip bench press (135 for the last set) at the end of the workout, without having benched anything in months. Those T pushups in Fat Loss II must have done the trick.

I'm really starting to love those T pushups. I always did them in the warmup without weight, but in FL-II I added weight, and I just think they are the cat's pajamas. I mean, I hate them, but I love them.

tcoy777 · 03-05-2008, 10:19 AM

Don't worry the B workout in Hyp I will get your legs. You will curse many times on the 3x15 day doing BSS.

PowerManDL · 03-05-2008, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MPaquin

I thought I was supposed to be shredding my muscles to make them grow, right?

A lot of people feel this way, due to what I term "soundbyte science". There is some element of "damage" done to the fibers during a training session, but the body tends to adapt to it fairly quickly.

Stimulus for hypertrophy actually goes a bit beyond the "simple" mechanical damage, and soreness has just about nothing to do with the stress actually placed on the muscle. Certainly nothing to do with whether or not the muscle is going to grow.

People get way too hung up on "feeling like they worked out" and a feeling of fatigue and soreness that really is tangential to the real hypertrophy response.

Lou Schuler · 03-06-2008, 08:13 AM

Quote:

People get way too hung up on "feeling like they worked out" and a feeling of fatigue and soreness that really is tangential to the real hypertrophy response.

Adding on to what Matt said: I wonder how many people prevent hypertrophy by overvaluing the pump during a workout and the feeling of soreness afterwards.

If you've been training a while (a year or two, say), and you aren't regularly incorporating loads greater than 80 percent of your 1RM, you probably aren't getting stronger, which means you probably aren't getting bigger.

PowerManDL · 03-06-2008, 10:35 AM

For sure, Lou. There's been some interesting stuff coming out of Japan with their KAATSU blood-occlusion research wrt hypertrophy, and some things along those lines showing a positive effect from combining high and low intensity work in a single session.

If anything this only supports the notion of making sure to use a variety of rep ranges, training methods, and muscle actions as assistance work....but it doesn't remove the fact that moderate-to-heavy loads remain the fundamental stimulus for growth.

Training to exhaustion and to achieve soreness, well, that's doing tissue damage for sure, but not the kind that's stimulating muscle fibers to remodel. The two can correlate positively in some instances, but they're not the same thing.

Lou Schuler · 03-06-2008, 11:30 AM

Quote:

The two can correlate positively in some instances, but they're not the same thing.

That's a great point. Just because your muscles grew like crazy during your first six months of training doesn't mean the fact you pumped them up and made them sore was the key to that muscle growth.

Chances are you also got quite a bit stronger, made better use of your anabolic hormones, and ate better food (not to mention more of it).

maxattack · 03-07-2008, 02:26 PM

so if you follow the sets and reps of a program and train with intensity(giving your all), and then do some extra work on those same muscles at the end of your workout to exhaust them and yourself....it may be counterproductive?

PowerManDL · 03-07-2008, 02:43 PM

Not at all. In fact there's work done suggesting the opposite might be the case. Then again, there's other people that feel it may not be the best of ideas; for example, Poliquin has suggested no more than a 10% variation in loading in any given workout.

Of course, this would be contingent on other factors; in a full body session with only limited exercises, this would be a good choice. If things are split up, variation of training targets (varied rep ranges etc) would be a better idea.

We know you need to mix and match rep ranges over *some* time period. Research into daily undulating models would tend to support separating them; then again, Rhea's research showed that undulating on a weekly basis actually proved superior to on a daily basis. Training oriented to the same goal (ie, hypertrophy) is fine to mix concurrently, which would suggest that any type of sufficiently heavy overloading exercise could be combined in the same session or same week, as long as the average loading was varied; and while anecdote isn't evidence, plenty of guys have gotten bigger by mixing rep ranges/intensity zones.

Which will add up to a greater effect over time, it's hard to say.

My guess? As long as you're actively preventing stagnation by adaptation, keeping up with the tension-time requirements for overload, and allowing proper work:rest ratio over whatever time frame, you're doing fine.

And of course: eat.

george910 · 03-20-2008, 11:13 PM

What is the best way to find your 1RM, for any lift? Just add weight till failure? How often do you test yourself? How do you not get hurt?

George

PowerManDL · 03-21-2008, 06:39 AM

I don't test 1RMs for anything that isn't a barbell lift, usually.

For smaller exercises and things that just won't do well with heavy/technical loads, it'd be easier to assign values as an RM load, by testing how many reps you can get.

gibson57guy · 03-21-2008, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by george910

What is the best way to find your 1RM, for any lift? Just add weight till failure? How often do you test yourself? How do you not get hurt?

George

You can use online calculators to get close, without actually doing them.. This is the first site that came up when I googled. I'm sure there are many others...

Bodybuilding.com - What Is Your One Rep Max?