Looking for general info/comments on the question implied in the title.
I’ve searched “BBM” + “back to back” / “48 hours” / “how long between workouts”; and similar.
I found a thread discussing the advantages and disadvantages of squatting/benching/whatever on consecutive days.
What I gathered was that the SRA cycle shouldn’t be viewed as a period beginning at the end of a workout and continuing for 48 (or some other magical number) hours, and as getting disrupted by stress (“stress” not including any other objective stress than a deliberate exercising of the muscle groups in question); but as a constant, life-long process. And that regarding today’s and tomorrow’s squat sessions as separate is arbitrary, because one’s body was always in a process of SRA – today’s squatting wasn’t the only stress that the “legs” incurred this week, and thus they were already recovering and adapting before the squat session. So, we can “break down” the “legs” by squatting today; they will recover and adapt (as they were earlier today already); and then we can break them down some more tomorrow; and they will recover and adapt some more – more than they would were we not to do it tomorrow as well.
I understand this (presuming the Member’s comment was accurate). But I wonder if there is any recommendation as to how long to wait before doing the same exercise/muscles again? And if so, why? I’m sure there are plenty of variables to consider, but is there any reason at all for the conventional wisdom? Is it just a matter of fatigue and reduced work capacity as a consequence that would possibly make training the same body parts on consecutive days hard and or unproductive, or is there any truth at all to the notion that the recovery resources required outweigh the actual recovery resources available, which makes the trainee weaker/lose lean body mass, over time?
A question, or series of, that I think goes together with the above: I’ve tried to understand your position on the role of intensity for strength gains. There are two broad categories that determine force production ability – neurological stuff, and physiological stuff. To get better at 1RM, one must practice 1RM. But for physical changes in muscle architecture, is intensity or is it not a factor at all? Austin mentioned a study in which grip strength (no major “neurological”/skill component involved) didn’t improve more with high loads than with low loads. And I believe that Jordan said that these physiological changes occur equally within a vast range of intensities. So, is volume the only thing that causes architectural changes, then? Of course, it seems like some minimum level of intensity is required in order to go to or near to failure, as ‘1-2 reps from failure’ would be hard to gauge if one were doing ~250 reps per set, but aside from such practical reasons?..
There’s no general rule for when to train similar muscle groups or movements after they’ve already been trained, particularly with respect to strength training. A lot of how that shakes out is going to depend on the program and thus, the individual’s needs, preferences, etc.
From a hypertrophy standpoint, it is thought that the reduction in muscle glycogen from training may still be present if the same muscle group(s) is/are trained again in short succession, but this has not really been demonstrated in the literature either.
There are a lot of other questions here we’ve addressed in podcasts and articles on programming, so I’m not sure we need to make this a super long response.
In general, intensity determines the type(s) of adaptation(s) that you’re getting, whereas volume determines the amount.
In short, the “48 hour recovery” idea is completely made up.
Ok. IF this is true, would it then mean that one simply wouldn’t be able to lift as hard the following day, and thus not get an optimal workout… or would it mean that the tissues involved would be “broken down” more than the available resources (muscle glycogen) would permit to recover from, i.e. possible loss of muscle?
I listened to the podcast in which You said this. But I’m a bit confused, because it was the one in which You said (paraphrasing) that “The same architectural changes happen within a wide range of intensities”; and in which Austin said that in training grip strength (low skill movement – the ‘neurological’ aspect is negligible), low intensity/load isometric squeeze produced the same changes in physiology as high intensity/load isometric squeeze. I’m asking because I’ve failed to see how these go together.
So the way I understand it at the moment is that “In general, intensity determines the type(s) of adaptation(s) that you’re getting…”, refers to the type ofneurologic adaptations. That it is they, their type, which is determined by intensity, while the physiologic adaptations don’t care about intensity (as long as it’s ~ +60% or whatever). And since most trainees want to get better at some dynamic movement requiring skill, like a 1RM squat, they should do those, as it will yield them the type of neurologic adaptation that is appropriate for that task… but they’ll get the same hypertrophic response from that as from lower loads, provided that the volume stays the same.
Not really loss of muscle, but perhaps less growth - though this has not been demonstrated for muscle gain or strength.
We said some of the architectural changes occur within a wide range of intensities. Some are intensity specific. Others have a range of intensities, but not all possible intensities.
Oh, sorry. I thought the idea was that intensity’s role in determining type of adaptation pretty much only referred to neurologic adaptations. I think I kind of took hypertrophy to be the only “architectural adaptation” in existence, while regarding all other adaptations as neurologic.
Is it possible to say how important the architectural adaptations, besides hypertrophy, are for 1RM squats for instance, as compared to the neurologic ones? Maybe I’m off, but what I’ve gotten is that when the skill (neurological) is equal, muscle size is overwhelmingly the most important factor for that kind of strength, which leads me to assume that the other architectural changes, that are intensity specific, like stiffness, aren’t very important… in short, muscle size + skill = strength (in the context of that skill).
You did explicitly say that wrt physical adaptations, the stiffness properties and enzymatic activity of the muscle, are influenced by intensity… I guess I wanted to confirm my view and hence heard what I wanted to hear.
Yes, a substantial portion of the strength increase has to do from structural changes- particularly costameres, sarcomerogenesis, etc.
I think that LBM can be used to predict strength performances in a population, but yea…changes in structure are very important too.
I think one thing that may help going forward is figuring out how the answer to a specific question may change what you’re doing. That would help clarify the context of the question and, perhaps, make it answerable.
I wonder if this is a recent realization for BBM. I tried to scour the # 22, 23, and 24 (24 in particular) podcasts for mentions of these intensity-dependent structural changes, but found nothing.
You replied to Austin in #24:
“Am I hearing you right? You say there are four things that can improve force production – 1 is genetics; 2 is anthropometry; 3 is hypertrophy; 4 is neuromuscular changes. And you’re suggesting that outside of the unknown epigenetic changes that we can make to the 1st thing, that muscle size and then neuromuscular improvements are the main ways by which we can improve force production. Period.”
Later You said:
“Point is that doing lower volume is worse for hypertrophy; 15 reps is worse than 25 reps, provided you can tolerate both. Just doing higher weight doesn’t make up for the lost volume. Sure, it might be better to develop the neuromuscular system, the neuromuscular adaptations to drive strength improvement, but from a hypertrophy standpoint, its not”
And lastly:
“Most of our training is probably in the 70-83% range, for volume. And, exposure to ultra high intensities for singles, and that’s, really, to maximize the improvement in the neurological sort of adaptation.”
So yeah, I just wonder if the importance for strength increase of the structural changes – that are not muscular hypertrophy – is a fact only recently adopted by BBM. I mean, aside from the first quote (“3 is hypertrophy; 4 is neuromuscular changes”), nothing in the podcast(s) seems to entirely deny the existence of intensity-dependent structural changes, but they’re not mentioned either. Just curious to learn if I’m crazy to have missed the importance of e.g. sarcomerogenesis for strength increase…
Not really- I just don’t think it’s particularly important to get our point across regarding programming selection. There are relatively wide ranges of intensity that can produce similar adaptations. Depending on the adaptation, the breadth of the intensity range may be wider or more narrow.
This is getting rather annoying, perhaps due to some pedantic issues or something else…
Generation of new and bigger costameres is hypertrophy.
Sacromereogenesis is more movement specific than intensity specific.
Structural changes and specific adaptations ARE intensity dependent. I said this specifically in the podcasts so… I’m not really sure what you’re saying or asking.
It sounds like you may not be understanding our podcasts or information, which may be our fault. If you can please ask a specific question, I’d be happy to answer. However, I think (mis)quoting us without context isn’t very helpful.
The way I had (incorrectly) understood structural changes was that they were categorically intensity-Independent, and I wanted to check if this was the case. That was the core of my question. I interpreted Episodes #22, 23, 24 as saying that they were, and I guess that due to confirmation bias I didn’t register you specifically saying in Training VLOG #31 that no, many of them are indeed intensity-Dependent.
What exactly does this mean? The way you used “categorically” doesn’t make sense here so, again I’m having issues understanding your question.
Different training intensity ranges drive different specific structural changes in the muscle and surrounding tissues. The breadth of these intensity ranges varies based on specific adaptation.
without exceptions or conditions; absolute; unqualified and unconditional:
I had no further questions. I was responding to You saying that my question had been unclear (which it had), by saying that my understanding of structural changes WAS that they are absolutely and without exceptions independent of the intensity in training, and that I wanted to check if this was the case, and I learned from You that it wasn’t.
Yes, I understand! Your previous reply made it abundantly clear.
It’s a strange observation, but I’ve often heard about it. Some say it takes 24 hours to recover muscle, some say it takes 48. Doesn’t that depend on the training you do? It’s always different.