Training for Mass

[Visaria]

So I went through my next ultra-high-intense workout session yesterday. After the 4th set, I had to stop because I thought I was going to puke. This time he had me start off with legs and then move to the upper body. I did a leg curl set, a leg press set, and a calf set. No rest between sets. At this point I'm breathing deep and uncontrollably like I just sprinted to failure. Once I did a set on the pullover machine for the back, the room started spinning. I had to lay face down on the floor breathing into a paper bag. It still blows me away to think that only 4 sets could do that. This HIT shit is no joke.

Ellington said I felt like that because I was literally high on oxygen.. meaning that my body wasn't used to that level of oxygen intake due to the crazy rapid breathing. It's the fact that there's no rest between sets that's killing me. I have no problem pushing myself to the max, but with no rest at all, once my heart rate and breathing get elevated due to something like set to negative failure on the leg press, I feel like I can never catch my breath after that. It's probably just something that takes getting used to.

What's actually happened is that you are in a state of hypoxia and also your brain has been flooded by ammonia byproducts from basically going well beyond failure. One report says the amount exceeds that of patients who have liver failure.

You can do this a few times....but the longer term damage...well, what do u think???

 

[Visaria]

My soreness level is absolutely off the charts.

This is not actually a good state to be in. There's no correlation between muscle soreness and muscle growth (although it FEELS like there should be!)

 

[Visaria]

That said, it just seems to me that lifting weight while in such a dramatically fatigued state is a recipe for a disaster.

Your handle is so apt!!!

 

[Baron]

Two questions.

First, in your first workout with Darden, you were starting and finishing each set with a 30-second negative, whereas in this most recent workout, you started and finished sets with 20-second holds at the bottom. Is this something you will be alternating from workout to workout, along with other techniques that you will be picking up in future sessions?

Second, did Darden explain why you had to move from one exercise to another without any rest in between? I know it builds cardio fitness, but what does it do for your muscles as you immediately move to another muscle group? Wouldn't the weak link perhaps become that much more aerobic than anaerobic at the point of failure as the routine progresses from beginning to end?

1. The 30-second negative and the 20-second hold are just two of five HIT techniques. Each week he is showing me a new one until I learn all five. After that, the workouts from that point forward will be a combination of the various techniques.

2. It's not just about muscle development. It's about overall fitness as well. So yeah, the weak link for me at this point is aerobic. Going from one exercise to another with little rest places demands on your system that you're just not ready for, but over time the body will adapt to the oxygen demands that are placed upon it, and you'll eventually become a fitter individual overall.

 

[franT]

It's not just about muscle development. It's about overall fitness as well.

Girls like strong men. Personally big muscled men turn me off. Here's my daddy lifting the world with one arm. I liked him a lot.

 

[Frederick Foresight]

1. The 30-second negative and the 20-second hold are just two of five HIT techniques. Each week he is showing me a new one until I learn all five. After that, the workouts from that point forward will be a combination of the various techniques.

2. It's not just about muscle development. It's about overall fitness as well. So yeah, the weak link for me at this point is aerobic. Going from one exercise to another with little rest places demands on your system that you're just not ready for, but over time the body will adapt to the oxygen demands that are placed upon it, and you'll eventually become a fitter individual overall.

Thanks for the reply. I hope you share some info on the other HIT techniques, although I must admit I'm not enamored of the first two. Although I like to milk as much as I can out of a set, I don't think I want the entire cow to be milked right out of its own udder.

I do have another question that I raised in an earlier post but to which you have not yet responded. Darden mentioned in a 2010 post on his web site's forum that he applied once-a-week training with most of his trainees. When asked further, he clarified on page 2 of the thread that he trained most beginners and most women more than once a week.

http://www.drdarden.com/readTopic.do?id=558360

This once-a-week regimen was a departure from what he said earlier in a 2008 interview, wherein he advised that he believed the results for the vast majority of the once-a-week training crowd could be improved with the addition of one not-to-failure (NTF) session each week.

http://baye.com/interview-with-ellington-darden-phd/

I understand that people change their minds as their experience evolves since I am no stranger to making all manner of adjustments from time to time. But I'd be curious to know what prompted him to make the changes that he did. He went from 3x/week in the early days to 2x/week, to suggesting once a week to failure plus a NTF workout in 2008, to only once a week in 2010, and now he's back to having people work out twice a week. It's the U-turn that I'm particularly curious about.

If you haven't discussed it with him yet, might it be something you will bring up with him in the future? And, if so, would you share with us what you find out?

 

[speedo]

Girls like strong men. Personally big muscled men turn me off. Here's my daddy lifting the world with one arm. I liked him a lot.

View attachment 174308

Great picture Fran, is that you watching?

 

[Baron]

I understand that people change their minds as their experience evolves since I am no stranger to making all manner of adjustments from time to time. But I'd be curious to know what prompted him to make the changes that he did. He went from 3x/week in the early days to 2x/week, to suggesting once a week to failure plus a NTF workout in 2008, to only once a week in 2010, and now he's back to having people work out twice a week.

It's too simplistic to apply a one-size-fits-all strategy. Not all trainees are the same so the protocol varies from person to person, depending on factors like their age, pain tolerance and lifting experience. Some people, despite being pushed by a coach, simply give up earlier in a set than others. They are not used to making failure inroads that deep, so they bail out when they think the pain is too much. I tend to do the opposite, which I why I ended up face down on the floor breathing out of a paper bag. Some people have injuries they have to work around, so that's another issue that may affect the frequency of the workouts. And some people have financial constraints that prevent them from being able to pay for two sessions per week.

I don't even see how it could be possible that a person could tolerate three of these newest workouts per week unless they were on some sort of drug regimen that increased their ability to recover.

 

[Frederick Foresight]

It's too simplistic to apply a one-size-fits-all strategy.

I understand that, and agree. But on the matter of changes in his frequency protocol to which I referred, he was speaking in general, aggregate terms and so I was referring more to his changing benchmark over time.

I understand his move from a recommended 3x/week frequency in the 1980s to 2x/week several years later, to one failure workout plus a not-to-failure workout each week, and then finally to once a week, again on average for a trained person. But after that obvious trend of reducing frequency, I'm a bit confused by his having you, clearly neither a beginner nor an intermediate lifter, doing his routine twice a week and this with medieval-style intensity enhancers. Perhaps the reason for his return to higher frequency is explained by a fewer number of exercises per session? In the 2010 forum, he referred to a routine comprising 8-9 exercises. I would imagine that someone who goes fully all out, as you do, would require both a lower volume and frequency of exercise, all else being equal and especially when compared to beginners. However, recall that he wrote in the 2010 thread in his forum that the people he had doing more than one workout per week at that time were limited to beginners and women. THAT is why I got curious when you mentioned he had you doing 2x/week.

 

[eurusdzn]

What's actually happened is that you are in a state of hypoxia and also your brain has been flooded by ammonia byproducts from basically going well beyond failure. One report says the amount exceeds that of patients who have liver failure.

You can do this a few times....but the longer term damage...well, what do u think???

I was wondering what creatinine kinase(Ck) levels would be post this type of workout.
Google "Rhambdomyolsis". Some extreme athletes require hospitalization after a single event.
Severe muscle damage spikes toxic CK to be flushed by the kidneys. Greater than usual thirst following extreme events is a sign kidneys working to flush the poison. Drink as much as you can but watch the electrolytes. Should not bring on this condition too often. Some people though are pre disposed to high CK levels . Something to be aware of.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1082282/d...a-deadly-condition-linked-to-over-exercising/