Your body’s ability to repair itself will largely depend on a number of things.
Muscle catabolism does not happen if there is a surplus of building materials available.. The 25 g protein absorbed per meal is a myth, a lot of it stays in the small intestine, I could find the research article if you’d like but if there’s one thing I’d want to be OCD it would just have to be making sure that every workout I have proof that what I’m doing is working.
The stronger and bigger you get, the longer you will need to take to recover from training sessions ALL THINGS EQUAL. You can not change the fundamental laws of physics and nature, some processes in the body take longer to adapt to.
I have asked the same question as you and thought on this subject for the later part of my twenties. There is only so much food we can shove into our bodies based on the individuals motivation and what’s reasonable for that person. I’m sure you’ve heard of “There’s no such thing as over-training, only under-eating and under-sleeping.” Well I used to think that, but when you start getting into heavier weights you have to factor in changes in bone density, ligaments, tendons, even changes in the heart.
New vasculature, increased blood volume, the nervous system creating more synaptic connections.. The harder you are able to tax your body the more damage you do to it, the longer and more demanding your recovery dictates on the system. Like the mother lifting the car over from her kid or what not. Or when you hear about some meth or crackhead having superhuman strength. I don’t believe there is a one size fits all.
The bigger the injury the longer the recovery. If you keep training and tearing something that is not fully built up, you never allow the “scar” tissue or new muscle to be built. You have to repair the tear first, then add on to it, and that was what I kept thinking about that made the most sense. It’s in a sense kind of a “waste” of food in that you never really did use it to build new muscle… just repair something again that you never let fully recovered.
To address this I have spent a good amount of time working on a solution and template in google sheets where I can assess things based on performance, comparing apples to apples.
I always have a workout where I perform more total work. Period. Volume must ALWAYS increase. But that’s not enough, every main exercise must be increasing in weight, or the average training max/training weight is constantly on the rise. I use a moving average of 4 workouts to tell where I really am, and typically when I am lifting a same exercise like bench press it’s once every 8 to 9 days.
Keep in mind that if you are training other parts of your body that’s going to increase the recovery time of other muscle groups.
The most successful training and the way I currently do now is very simple.
Having had my fair share of nagging minor aches and injuries I’ve come to this conclusion and am conservative on my numbers, especially when I came back from my broken leg. It helps when you have a path and a log and it makes sense to you. The numbers speak for themselves. The iron never lies to you. I never have a bad workout when I train this way. The ONE time I started to plateau or even feel run down, I pushed the workout a day back, and I smashed the previous days records.
It’s a take away from Minimalist Training, but it’s fantastic for people that don’t want to live in the gym, and it works, and personally I feel it is sustainable long term and that’s why I am so enthusiastic about it. I don’t have to watch something to get pumped up or get motivated. I know exactly what I am doing every time I go in and have an awesome workout because I’ml rested and stronger. I focus on a few things per muscle group, and I stick with them. I would rather be 10% under trained, uninjured, and rested than even just 1% over-trained.
Your protein intake is going to vary. You can build muscle on a high-fat keto diet, but it’s not optimal in my opinion if you lack the discipline to control your carbs. I’ve never seen a keto lifter dead-lifting 800 pounds or benching 500. I even considered veganism with that german strong man, but he is frankly just has too much fat on him for me to consider that an option. I personally would like to see either of those cases happen with a ripped and strong lifter, but I haven’t found one that wasn’t more than 190 pounds soaking wet at 5’11”.
A targeted Keto diet with fast carbs timed around your training sessions is good, but a Cyclical Keto diet with carb refeeds is the best for both musclular development and low bodyfat.. although it’s even harder to have the self-restraint for that. It would be like smoking a pack of cigarettes one day then going through withdrawals then doing it all over again. Manipulating your carbs however is hands down the most efficient way to get that look.
I’m all for slow and steady with training. I typically pyramid up on the competition lifts or whatever it is that’s the focus for me, that will normally be along the lines of 10 sets (including warm ups) but this varies from group to group.
Spreading your muscle groups out over a 8 to 12 day rotation has it’s advantages, but it’s not practical for competing year round unless you plan ahead for it. The anxiousness you are talking about I know what you mean. Having something to do everyday alleviates that, as does having a proven method. Hell you could even just lift once a month and go all out and you could make progress and not change anything else. Four days rest sounds perfect to me if you are going hard.
I’ve done the maxing out on squat everyday, and higher frequency lifts. It’s the same principal but my issue with that is the joint pain and micro-trauma that accumulates. The ebb and flow of the weights you will be able to handle goes up and down, but like I said before, so long as the total work being done is increasing over time, you know what you are doing works. It’s just such a damn time sink.
Fundamentally it’s no big deal to push things another day back if life isn’t presenting itself the best opportunity or you have something else that needs your attention and can’t make it to the gym that day. Took me a long time to finally accept that and it’s better in the long run than training your dick into the dirt.
Find whatever works for you that makes sense and is something you can stick with.
Yeah that guy was Dr. Manhattan in watchmen. Very cool!
Gratus84 4 years, 5 months ago.
