Question about programming

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,

I have just watched your podcast on programming and I got a question. So you are saying that traning creates a stimulus and that trainees get resistant to that effect over time and that you should increase the stimulus via training instead of taking a day off for example. What about that japanese study that showed that two groups acutally gained the same strength and size, and one group took 2 weeks off from training?
So wouldnt taking time off training would make the individual actually more sensitive to training because they arent used to it?

Greg Nuckols wrote an article about that. Quote:

The response you get from training is not just a direct result of the training stress. It’s an interaction between the training stress and how responsive you are to that stress. Overload is necessary because that responsiveness decreases over time. To continue making progress, strategies to increase responsiveness should be considered just as strongly as strategies to increase the training stress. Time away from training is one way to accomplish that (and probably the most robust way), but other things you should already be doing play a role as well – sleeping more, managing other stressors outside the gym, and including some variety in your training.

So Iam confused.

2

Idioteque,

I’m not sure what study you’re talking about, but it’s perfectly reasonable for a non-specific strength test (isometric dynamometer) and a process that takes substantial time to change meaningfully (hypertrophy) to be similar if the only difference is taking 2 weeks off out of a 12 week program, for example.

As far as the programming question, yes, people will become less responsive to a given training input over time, which is why it needs to be progressively overloaded in some way. Alternatively, changing training stimulus substantially may resensitize the individual to a previous training stress. We talk about this in that programming podcast series as well. We wouldn’t recommend taking time completely off training, however.

-Jordan

3

I’ve noticed that your templates are changing exercise variations monthly. Is the purpose for this to resensitize yourself to the the previous training stress?