Principles of Training - Must READ/KNOW...

[musclesntx]

Mods: if you're going to sticky anything I've ever written, it should be this...

I posted this in my journal, but it was too important to leave it there. I wrote this up a few years ago, because I see people wasting time. Whatever your doing, you'd better be considering these.

Don't give me any credit for these principles, because these are basic laws that have been around forever. HOWEVER, this writing, with the exception of one excerpt, is my own.

There are no questioning these: these are the "7 Commandments", so to speak...

Enjoy!

The reason I am posting them is because the first thing people ask is usually "Will X work?" With X being a type of workout, the amount of time working out, etc.

If you want progress - these laws HAVE to be considered. This is why I hate for someone not to design their own program that is for their goals...

I usually mention a few of these when someone asks me if something will work. Here are the definitions:

- The Law of Individual Differences: We all have different abilities and weaknesses, and we all respond differently (to a degree) to any given system of training. These differences should be taken into consideration when designing your training program. In short - we are ALL different. What works OPTIMALLY for you probably will not work optimally for me...

- The Overcompensation Principle: Mother Nature overcompensates for training stress by giving you bigger and stronger muscles. How do you overcompensate? See next principle.

- The Overload Principle: To make Mother Nature overcompensate, you must stress your muscles beyond what they're already used to. One more rep, one more set, shorter rest periods, etc. Now, with that being said, you still have to remember to stay within the parameters of your goals. If you are training to get bigger, that doesn't mean to go in there and rest 5 seconds between sets - that would be more of an endurance style workout. Use common sense and don't take this out of context...

- The SAID Principle: The acronym for "Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands." If your training objectives include becoming more explosive, then you have to train explosively. If you desire greater limit strength (primarily from an increase in the cross section of myofibrils), you must use heavier weights than if you were training, for example, local muscular endurance (capillarization and mitochondrial adaptations). If your objectives include deriving cardiovascular benefits, then you must tax the heart muscle as well as the oxygen-using abilities of the working muscles. Yes, specifically training for one objective can detract from another objective, and this is why periodization is important.

- The Use/Disuse Principle: "Use it or lose it" means that your muscles hypertrophy with use and atrophy with disuse. This is common sense.

- The Specificity Principle: You'll get stronger at squats by doing squats as opposed to leg presses, and you'll get greater endurance for the marathon by running long distances than you will by (say) cycling long distances. YOU HAVE TO TRAIN TOWARD YOUR SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE, whether it is to grow, shrink, get faster, stronger, or whatever...

- The GAS Principle: The acronym for General Adaptation Syndrome, this law states that there must be a period of low intensity training or complete rest following periods of high intensity training. This is usually one of the more confusing, so I'm going to take Dr. Sal Arria and Fred Hatfield explain it better than I can:

"The GAS is comprised of three stages according to its originator, Dr. Hans Seyle: 1) the “alarm stage” caused by the application of intense training stress (the overload principle), 2) the “resistance stage,” when our muscles adapt in order to resist stressful weights more efficiently (The Overcompensation, SAID and Use/Disuse Principles), and 3) the “exhaustion stage” where, if we persist in applying stress we will exhaust our reserves and then be forced to stop training.

"In gym lingo, the GAS law states that there must be a period of low-intensity training or complete rest following periods of high-intensity training. The reason for this is that the stress you have applied is traumatic, forcing your “injured” muscles to heal and then adapt. The recovery and overcompensation time must be taken so that further stress does not continue the downward spiral caused by repetitive bouts of trauma.

"Confusion frequently arises in applying this principle. Some tissues and cellular components may have been stressed very little or not at all, and are therefore in need of little or no rest. In fact, if you do not work these tissues, owing to the “law of reversibility,” some atrophy will occur. For example, when heavy negative training is performed, much rest is needed because this form of training is highly traumatic to muscles. On the other hand, if the same exercise is performed with the same resistance and speed but the eccentric stress is removed, the rest period needed would be far less. The most frequent misuse of this principle is seen among those who insist on training each body part once weekly (for example) just because “it works.” This is generally not advised, as it is far too infrequent and too much rest. Inevitably, either precious time is wasted or detraining results in some systems’ tissues or cellular elements.

There are much more to these, but I cannot possibly go on enough about these. So, if you aren't incorporating these in your routine, YOU ARE WASTING PRECIOUS TIME...

[meera]

Bravo for this article. It really opened my eyes up to things I did not previously take into account. In fact, I have borrowed a snippet from it and used it as my signature. I hope this gets "Stickied".

[musclesntx]

Originally Posted by meera

Bravo for this article. It really opened my eyes up to things I did not previously take into account. In fact, I have borrowed a snippet from it and used it as my signature. I hope this gets "Stickied".

I'm glad you did that. Now change your sig to:
What works OPTIMALLY for you probably will not work optimally for me...

What I originally had sounded retarded. Sorry 'bout that.

[Vplayer]

Glad you brought this over from your late board. This is one of the very best things you have ever written in my opinion. Cant you bring more stuff over? Like the stuff on HIIT and all your nutrition articles. Those are priceless.

[rdcoy61]

Originally Posted by musclesntx

...The most frequent misuse of this principle is seen among those who insist on training each body part once weekly (for example) just because “it works.” This is generally not advised, as it is far too infrequent and too much rest. Inevitably, either precious time is wasted or detraining results in some systems’ tissues or cellular elements.

Let me attempt to bring this thread back to it's intended purpose. Regarding the above portion of your post (which was great info), for someone working a 3 day split:

Example:
Day 1 - Chest/Shoulders/Tris
Day 2 - OFF
Day 3 - Legs
Day 4 - OFF
Day 5 - Back/Bis
Day 6 - OFF
Day 7 - OFF

or working a 4 day split

Example:
Day 1 - Chest/Bis
Day 2 - OFF
Day 3 - Back
Day 4 - OFF
Day 5 - Shoulders/Tris
Day 6 - Legs
Day 7 - OFF

or whatever other split, how can they train each body part more than once weekly with off days, cardio days, etc? I can't really see how that would work on a four day split. On a 3 day you can start the cycle over again on Day 7, but that's still 6 days between your workouts.

I understand that this optimally might work for person A and not person B, but generally speaking, how can you prevent wasted time and detraining results?

[musclesntx]

No offense guys, but I'm trying to figure out how any of you took what I posted and turned it into a split question? haha I HATE SPLIT QUESTIONS BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD OR ANYTHING ELSE...

Why do people think that a split HAS to be over 7 days? Where is it written that you can ONLY work a bodypart ONCE a week? Wouldn't that have something to do with HOW hard you work said bodypart or the TYPE of trauma that bodypart experienced?

Could I PLEASE get a moderator to delete almost all of this until up to like after V's first response? lol

Guys, there are more ways to train and gain muscle other than 1-2 bodyparts a day a few days per week. Those types of workouts have their place for sure, especially when you're either starting out or polishing up a specific muscle group, or just looking for a change of pace. But in all honesty, when it comes down to gaining muscle, it's a pretty simplistic approach...

RD - I think you understand the principle of individual differences. What works great for person a might not work as well (or at all) for person b... But split has very little to do with overload, overcomp, and adaption. They can be tied in, but along with many more variables... If you're curious as to how you can gain size on something that isn't a traditional split, see my journal in the journal section.

The intent of this information was to pass on the information everyone should consider when developing a program to change their body. This information isn't even up for debate - it's simple evolution.

[Musicguy]

Housecleaning done... I'm going to sticky this article and lock the thread. Please create a new thread for questions or utilize the PM function. Thanks.