I need help (regarding my gym routine)

[marc237]

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

Well, he's saying anything more than two sets are excessive for the purposes of hypertrophy only, which may very well be true. I normally don't do more than two sets for bulking, although I've added a third set during my cutting routines.

Yes. The notion of high volume is counter-productive and often means that one is not lifting heavy on the sets. For example, on chest, it is common to see guys, on their chest day, doing 3-5 sets of bench, 3-5 sets of incline, 3-5 sets of decline or dips, and 3-5 sets of flies. Thus, the chest is hit with 12-20 sets. I am suggesting the chest will grow fine with as few as 3-6 sets per major body part. There is empirical evidence that one warm-up set and one work set will deliver more than 90% of the growth stimulus if they are done correctly. A second set will pick up the bulk of the remaining less than 10%. Whether it is worth chasing the remaining share of that 10% with additional sets is up to you, but the time is better spent on rest, recovery, smaller muscles (neck, forearm, etc.) or most other activities.

Of course, this all goes out the window with steroids.

 

[ken]

Originally Posted by drizzt3117

Well, he's saying anything more than two sets are excessive for the purposes of hypertrophy only, which may very well be true. I normally don't do more than two sets for bulking, although I've added a third set during my cutting routines.

Well, then, you should add a couple more sets. You'll probably see results you've never seen before.

The "one effective set" theories are pretty ancient. I don't know of any non-genetic-freaks who it works for.

 

[ken]

Originally Posted by marc237

I am suggesting the chest will grow fine with as few as 3-6 sets per major body part. There is empirical evidence that one warm-up set and one work set will deliver more than 90% of the growth stimulus if they are done correctly. A second set will pick up the bulk of the remaining less than 10%.

So I'm supposed to do between 3-6 sets, but there's no point in doing more than two work sets? Huh?

There's also empirical evidence that German Volume Training works. There's empirical evidence that a lot of things work. And, you know, a lot of things do work, just not all the time.

 

[marc237]

Originally Posted by ken

So I'm supposed to do between 3-6 sets, but there's no point in doing more than two work sets? Huh?

There's also empirical evidence that German Volume Training works. There's empirical evidence that a lot of things work. And, you know, a lot of things do work, just not all the time.

I may not have been clear, we are talking the difference between sets per body part and sets per exercise. For example, for the chest, you could do three exercises of two sets each and have done 6 sets total for the chest.

As to the empirical evidence question, your rebuttal, no offense intended, is meaningless. There is no common consensus on what "works" means in our discussion. The question is whether there are sufficient gains from extra sets per exercise and extra exercises per body part to warrant the expenditure of extra effort. If you can point me to empirical evidence showing appreciable gains for the extra sets - - great, I will reconsider. However, in the absence of that evidence, the extra sets fail a time-benefit analysis unless one just enjoys the act of pushing weight.

 

[beasty]

Originally Posted by marc237

Wow. You are throwing away a lot of sets. The incremental gains after the 2nd set are virtually immeasurable if you are not a pro or juicing or both (see pro). If the first set is properly done to exhaustion, you ought not have enough left in the tank to do an additional four productive sets.

Not really. I do 3 to 4 warm up sets and working sets maybe 4 to 5 to 6 depending on energy level. If levels are low, 3 will do. All sets are either drop sets, pre-exhaust or compound. Rest interval is about 3 min between sets.

I dont do that many exercises after that. No energy left.
So that will be my main flat chest workout. I will do one simple set of incline bench and maybe some flyes superset with chest dips and thats it for chest day.

As for exhaustion, I push till I cannot push no more and use half sets. Sometimes, I stop and use rest pause or drop sets so I dont think its failure to exhaust.

 

[beasty]

Originally Posted by ken

Well, then, you should add a couple more sets. You'll probably see results you've never seen before.

The "one effective set" theories are pretty ancient. I don't know of any non-genetic-freaks who it works for.

Thats Mentzer's theory. At his prime, I think its really one set and that will do for weeks. He uses it on his personal fitness clients.

 

[drizzt3117]

I currently have way more than enough volume, probably too much so. I've gotten better results after cutting back a bit on volume. As far as hypertrophy goes, I think the two set HST works very well because while you're only doing two sets per exercise, you're hitting each body part three times per week. I can add muscle very quickly, and it's not unusual to add 15 lb (with a lot of it being muscle) in a 6-8 week HST cycle with just creatine/whey as main supplements.

 

[seamless74]

yup creatine its a legal steroid... almost anyway that stuff is amazing.. but i have a hard time believing theres no negative health effects.. anything that works that good has to have something wrong with it..

 

[drizzt3117]

Originally Posted by seamless74

yup creatine its a legal steroid... almost anyway that stuff is amazing.. but i have a hard time believing theres no negative health effects.. anything that works that good has to have something wrong with it..

Creatine isn't a steroid at all, but an energy source. It's also nowhere near as effective as prohormones or oral steroids.

 

[Eason]

Originally Posted by seamless74

yup creatine its a legal steroid... almost anyway that stuff is amazing.. but i have a hard time believing theres no negative health effects.. anything that works that good has to have something wrong with it..

Um... no, it is not a hormone. it's an energy source that your body uses for anabolic exercises like drizzt says. Though, yeah there is probably some negative health effects. Anything that you put into your system which is already there in smaller quantities that creates a certain response will generally ellicit the negative response after cessation or adaptation, hence why people cycle on creatine and NOXplode. Just to be on the safe side, I'll stick with high protein diets, which we already know is unhealthy but only for people with kidney damage.

 

[beasty]

Originally Posted by seamless74

yup creatine its a legal steroid... almost anyway that stuff is amazing.. but i have a hard time believing theres no negative health effects.. anything that works that good has to have something wrong with it..

Nah it does not work for all people. Even for me, sometimes the placebo effect comes in and its hard to have empirical evidence that it does improves performance compared to when I do not take it.

 

[beasty]

Originally Posted by Eason

Um... no, it is not a hormone. it's an energy source that your body uses for anabolic exercises like drizzt says. Though, yeah there is probably some negative health effects. Anything that you put into your system which is already there in smaller quantities that creates a certain response will generally ellicit the negative response after cessation or adaptation, hence why people cycle on creatine and NOXplode. Just to be on the safe side, I'll stick with high protein diets, which we already know is unhealthy but only for people with kidney damage.

You can have the same effects of creatine if you eat like 5 kg of steak everyday so I do not know what negative effects arises from it.

 

[drizzt3117]

Cycling is only really necessary with CMH... most esterized creatines don't require periodization as I understand. I've switched to the Gaspari combination of CMH/CG and am pretty happy with the results. When I switch to a two month bulking cycle around January I think I might just go with creatine and protein alone again. While I have no problems with prohormones or other substances I feel they're more hassle than they're worth due to all of the other required supplements to avoid negative effects.

 

[Eason]

Originally Posted by beasty

You can have the same effects of creatine if you eat like 5 kg of steak everyday so I do not know what negative effects arises from it.
You don't think there would be any negative side effects from eating 5 kg of steak every day? I can't think of any meet that would be healthy in such excess.

 

[mizanation]

Originally Posted by beasty

You can have the same effects of creatine if you eat like 5 kg of steak everyday so I do not know what negative effects arises from it.

try 5kg of RAW steak.

back before the days of GNC, some boxers would chew on chunks of raw beef. sugar ray robinson would put a raw steak through a juice press and drink the blood. warriors in the masai tribe drink cattle blood to give them strength.