Is this supposed to happen? No pain the next day.

[Nin-Tu]

I've been working out for a long while now, and it's gotten to the point now where it's really hard to hurt the next day. If I were to do what I do now back when I first started, I would not be able to move the next day. I've always associated that burning the next day with the body building muscle, but since I don't get it now I'm wondering if I'm building muscle as well.

What I do now is train real hard for a little while, then rest before that burning sensation hits. Then I'll work someother muscle group real hard and rest before that burning hits. Then I'll go back to the first muscle group and repeat between the muscle groups (For instance chest and abs) I don't use very heavy weights (75lbs bench, and holding 10lbs when doing crunches or torso exercises), but I do them slowly and with good form. I usually do this intervalish training for an hour or two. I've heard that doing low weights slowly and with good form builds "good muscle" instead of just "showing off" muscle.

I learned recently that my protein intake was much lower than it should have been which is probably why it's really slow for me to get muscle (I am getting noticable muscle gains but just slowly). So, to add on to my current workout system, I will be upping my protein intake as well as adding creatine (ethyl ester vareity) for the first time.

I have not been really paying attention to my calories since I was kind of skinny to start with (super fast metabolism), but I've filled out a lot just by eating a lot (not fat). Even though I've been eating a lot of calories, I still have low body fat... I will be paying attention to my calorie intake with the addition of the extra protein and creatine.

Any tips or suggestions mucho appreciated.
BTW, I'm about 6ft and about 170lbs

I've yet to try and figure out my daily calories or anything else like that but I plan on doing that very soon.

[Rahf]

I've been working out for a long while now, and it's gotten to the point now where it's really hard to hurt the next day. If I were to do what I do now back when I first started, I would not be able to move the next day. I've always associated that burning the next day with the body building muscle, but since I don't get it now I'm wondering if I'm building muscle as well.

What I do now is train real hard for a little while, then rest before that burning sensation hits. Then I'll work someother muscle group real hard and rest before that burning hits. Then I'll go back to the first muscle group and repeat between the muscle groups (For instance chest and abs) I don't use very heavy weights (75lbs bench, and holding 10lbs when doing crunches or torso exercises), but I do them slowly and with good form. I usually do this intervalish training for an hour or two. I've heard that doing low weights slowly and with good form builds "good muscle" instead of just "showing off" muscle.

I learned recently that my protein intake was much lower than it should have been which is probably why it's really slow for me to get muscle (I am getting noticable muscle gains but just slowly). So, to add on to my current workout system, I will be upping my protein intake as well as adding creatine (ethyl ester vareity) for the first time.

I have not been really paying attention to my calories since I was kind of skinny to start with (super fast metabolism), but I've filled out a lot just by eating a lot (not fat). Even though I've been eating a lot of calories, I still have low body fat... I will be paying attention to my calorie intake with the addition of the extra protein and creatine.

Any tips or suggestions mucho appreciated.
BTW, I'm about 6ft and about 170lbs

I've yet to try and figure out my daily calories or anything else like that but I plan on doing that very soon.

Ok let's see here..

1. You should rather up the fats in your diet if you want to gain weight since fat is packed with energy. You say yourself that you have a 'super fast metabolism' which in this case would benefit from you eating more fats.

2. For crying out loud lift more weight! 170lbs and punching 75lbs in bench? How many reps do you do?

3. Try shocking the muscles in your next few sessions. Loading up on weight and doing fewer reps. This is almost guaranteed to give DOMS if that is what you're striving for :tongue:

4. Throw out the garbage idea of "good muscle" vs "show-off muscle". Instead , provide the reason you are lifting weights in the first place.

You need to start challenging yourself in the weight lifting area. Unless you are solely lifting for endurance there is no need to be there for 2 consecutive hours. The others are probably going to give you pointers as well but this gives you something to think about.

[Nin-Tu]

1. I agree, I've recently added some more mono and poly fats in my diet.

2. I do a LOT of reps. Enough so that that 75 lbs feels more like 195lbs. (Which happens to be my max atm)

3. DOMS? I'll google it in a little bit. I'll go ahead and try that tonight (the lifting a lot of weight instead of lots of reps).

4. I got the idea of "good muscle" from the belief that you have a lot more density to your muscle tissue if you do more reps instead of lots of weight. I'm lifting weights to get more explosive power for my tricks =)

As for lifting more weight, I'll go ahead and switch over to that for a while. Any suggested weights? 195lbs is my max, and I heard you're supposed to increase the weight with each rep.....

Maybe 100, 130, 170, 195?

Thanks for the tips btw.

[Rahf]

1. I agree, I've recently added some more mono and poly fats in my diet.

2. I do a LOT of reps. Enough so that that 75 lbs feels more like 195lbs. (Which happens to be my max atm)

3. DOMS? I'll google it in a little bit. I'll go ahead and try that tonight (the lifting a lot of weight instead of lots of reps).

4. I got the idea of "good muscle" from the belief that you have a lot more density to your muscle tissue if you do more reps instead of lots of weight. I'm lifting weights to get more explosive power for my tricks =)

As for lifting more weight, I'll go ahead and switch over to that for a while. Any suggested weights? 195lbs is my max, and I heard you're supposed to increase the weight with each rep.....

Maybe 100, 130, 170, 195?

Thanks for the tips btw.

Basically I'd say this is one for Chicanerous since he is the one with the most theoretical knowledge (assumed, since he's the only one who posts sensibly enough.)

Remember that if you want explosive power you don't want to do an insane amount of reps since it won't really help you. Chicanerous made a workout program designed to help tricksters so I reckon you could give that a check and maybe try it out for awhile.

DOMS is an anagram for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. You know when you wake up and you feel so stiff and sore you can hardly move those bodyparts? That's DOMS.

That "good muscle" thing is something I reckon you can throw in the dumpster. Muscle density or not your purpose is to train for tricking and more muscle = more strength = more power to utilize

Remember to trick more than you lift since you won't build any ability with lifting, it will boost your tricking though.

Good luck and keep us updated on your status!

[Fanya]

My max bench is right around 210 at the moment and if I were to try using 75lbs I would need probably 50-100 reps to even start feeling anything.... what the hell man!??!?! If your max is really 195 you should be able to do 3x8 with 135 no problem.

Also, fuck all your preconceived notions about "show off muscle" and that crap. Lift for power, which means low reps, high weight, lots of rest. Get that weight up quick! You don't want to encourage slowtwitch fibers :ogre:

Rahf: The word you're looking for is acronym, not anagram... DOG > GOD would be an anagram (mixing up the letters of one word to make another)

[chicanerous]

That "good muscle" thing is something I reckon you can throw in the dumpster. Muscle density or not your purpose is to train for tricking and more muscle = more strength = more power to utilize
The good vs. bad muscle thing is probably a really dumbed down myofibrillar vs. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy distinction.

[Psychostick]

I used to have a really good picture that explained that, I can't find it anymore though :bad:

[Rahf]

My max bench is right around 210 at the moment and if I were to try using 75lbs I would need probably 50-100 reps to even start feeling anything.... what the hell man!??!?! If your max is really 195 you should be able to do 3x8 with 135 no problem.

Also, fuck all your preconceived notions about "show off muscle" and that crap. Lift for power, which means low reps, high weight, lots of rest. Get that weight up quick! You don't want to encourage slowtwitch fibers :ogre:

Rahf: The word you're looking for is acronym, not anagram... DOG > GOD would be an anagram (mixing up the letters of one word to make another)

Haha I messed up completely. I really should have known that one since the word is pronounced the same in my native language.

Cheers bud!

The good vs. bad muscle thing is probably a really dumbed down myofibrillar vs. sarcoplasmic hypertrophy distinction.

Care to un-dumb it for him?

[chicanerous]

I used to have a really good picture that explained that, I can't find it anymore though :bad:

It probably looked like:

1. [...]
2. [ . o . ]
3. [ ooo ]

One represents an untrained muscle with an indeterminate number of muscle fibers. Two represents a trained muscle that has undergone sacroplasmic hypertrophy. The noncontractile portion of the muscle has primarily increased, which has created a larger muscle that is not significantly stronger than the original. Three represents a muscle that has undergone myofibrillar hypertrophy. The contractile portion of the muscle, the muscle fibers themselves, have been strengthened, resulting in a significant increase in strength but only a modest gain in mass. This is the type of hypertrophy that is most useful to an athlete or tricker.

[Rahf]

It probably looked like:

[...] vs. [ ... ] vs. [ ooo ]

where the first one represents an untrained muscle with an indeterminate number of muscle fibers. The second represents a trained muscle that has undergone sarcroplasmic hypertrophy -- the volume of the muscle has increased without a change in the contractile capability of the fibers. The third represents myofibrillar hypertropy -- the muscle fibers themselves have gotten bigger and stronger.

I'll ask the question before he does. Does sarcoplasmic hypertrophy happen due to a certain way of training?

And what promotes myofibrillar hypertrophy? Sounds like normal weightlifting would do it just from the little I can read in your post.

[Psychostick]

Myofibrillar hypertrophy is where the number of myofibrils increases causing the muscle to grow and gain much more strength.

Sarcoplasmic is where the majority of the growth is from an increase in the amount of sarcoplasm, which makes the muscle bigger but no stronger.

Edit: beat me to it haha, high weight low rep promotes myofibrillar well, sarcoplasmic from high rep endurance type rep ranges.

[Nin-Tu]

My max bench is right around 210 at the moment and if I were to try using 75lbs I would need probably 50-100 reps to even start feeling anything.... what the hell man!??!?! If your max is really 195 you should be able to do 3x8 with 135 no problem.

I go through 2 episodes of Scrubs wile just doing reps with a couple mins here and there to just rest. It's strange how easy it is to get used to watching TV upside down.

Thanks for all the info on this stuff though. I appreciate it.

EDIT: I'm trying to calculate my calories and such atm. Wewt wewt.

So far, it says I should get about
2350 calories per day.

[chicanerous]

I'll ask the question before he does. Does sarcoplasmic hypertrophy happen due to a certain way of training?

And what promotes myofibrillar hypertrophy? Sounds like normal weightlifting would do it just from the little I can read in your post.
Yeah. High force, high speed, and high load promotes optimal myofibrillar hypertrophy (developing the fast twitch fibers, even then type IIB is preferred to IIA, as opposed to slow twitch), whereas lower force, lower speed, lower load will promote a combination of the two.

[Nin-Tu]

http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles/archive/articles_muscle-equal.htm

So after going to a couple calculator sites and taking the average, i'm getting about

100 grams of protein per day
350 grams of carbohydrates (complex or simple though I dont know)
95 grams of fat

and 2350 calories per day

Found some info on the carbohydrates.
http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/nutritionbasics/a/nutrition_2.htm

[Rahf]

Yeah. High force, high speed, and high load promotes optimal myofibrillar hypertrophy (developing the fast twitch fibers, even then type IIB is preferred to IIA, as opposed to slow twitch), whereas lower force, lower speed, lower load will promote a combination of the two.

Would training to failure have any effect on the development or is it just theoretical at this time? I also get the feeling that high speed is pretty hard to achieve with high weight for some reason :shocked: more focus on force I reckon.

Sorry for snatching you thread abit Nin but I think this will be very useful to you as well.

[chicanerous]

Would training to failure have any effect on the development or is it just theoretical at this time? I also get the feeling that high speed is pretty hard to achieve with high weight for some reason :shocked: more focus on force I reckon.
Yeah. I'm not an expert, but here's what I think is correct:

Basically, any reasonably heavy set, say 80%+ of 1-RM, is going to cause a good deal of myofibrillar hypertrophy as long as you keep the rep cadence reasonably fast for that load. When the load lightens, you have to make up for it by increasing concentric acceleration. Basically, since F=M*A, as M decreases, A must increase in order to maintain F -- F being the major determinate for fast twitch myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy happens as F drops but the cumulative time under tension increases. However, if F drops too low (as in moderate intensity steady state cardio), this ceases as well.

Also, as F drops the focus switches from the fast twitch fibers to the slow twitch ones. So, any time the force is very low and the TUT is very long (I'm talking long, slow cardio here), you are going to get slow twitch hypertrophy (which is no where near as pronounced because it takes a tremendous change in training volume to induce it -- its effectively impossible to increase muscular size significantly this way).

When it comes to training to failure, it gets a bit weird. If you've ever compared, for example, hitting 80% of your 1-RM on bench press to failure vs. just the 45# bar to failure, you'll notice that, after a few minutes, with the former, you can lift again, but, with the latter, you'll be completely unable to lift other loads.

What that means, I couldn't tell you. Like I said, I'm not an expert.

[Rahf]

Yeah.

Basically, any reasonably heavy set, say 80%+ of 1-RM, is going to cause a good deal of myofibrillar hypertrophy as long as you keep the rep cadence reasonably fast for that load. When the load lightens, you have to make up for it by increasing concentric acceleration. Basically, since F=M*A, as M decreases, A must increase in order to maintain F with F being the major determinate for fast twitch myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy happens as F drops but the cumulative time under tension increases. However, if F drops too low (as in moderate intensity steady state cardio), this ceases as well.

Did you smack that out spontaneously from your head or did you open a book to get the specifics? Cheers for the info though. Adjusting my training abit now :wink:

[chicanerous]

Did you smack that out spontaneously from your head or did you open a book to get the specifics? Cheers for the info though. Adjusting my training abit now :wink:
My head. It's not exactly rocket science. :eh:

[chicanerous]

Basically in other words:

http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/6158/hypertrophyyn2.jpg

(Not to "scale.")

Somewhere right in the middle there is the anaerobic threshold, if that puts things into perspective -- between low and moderate force weight-training but always before sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. The anaerobic threshold is the point where the aerobic system can no longer sustain activity and you see a relatively rapid continual decrease in performance as time wears on.

For power based athletics and tricking, you largely want to concentrate on the very end of the spectrum. High force. For bodybuilding, you would want to spend most of your time between the second and third block. Sustained moderate force.

Most bodyweight training falls near the beginning of the second block, largely before even sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, unless the lifter takes care to pick harder variations of the exercises they use (and, thereby, increase the force required relative to the maximal amount they can exert on an exercise).

:good:

[Akira28]

chicanerous your posts are always really informative, thanks.
If somebody missed it, I believe there is something explained about sacroplasmic hypertroph and myofibrillar hypertrophy in the Fitness Myths and Misconceptions! by compleks thread. That is a good read for learning.

For what I know DOMS is not a good a indicator of muscle growth at all. It is speculated to be related to the CNS "re-routing" itself for the new task.

Moreover "going fast" should be meaning going as fast as you can with the weight you are lifting, if you lift 90%1RM you cannot go as fast as when you lift 50%1RM.

Correct me if I'm wrong

[mr popular]

I personally find the whole "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy" thing hard to believe. But maybe you guys could help me out... have there been any studies on it occuring in humans, and not just rats?

Do people actually think bodybuilders are just swollen sacks of muscle fluid?

[Steve]

Of course they're not you idiot, because as they lift heavier weights their myofibrils increase in size also.

[mr popular]

Yes that seems to be why "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy" is actually completely full of shit.

It's as though some people truly believe that you could look like Ronnie Coleman while still using 20lb dumbbells...

[Ashtar]

It's not full of shit, just the idea that more reps is going to endlessly expand the sarcoplasm. In reality, there's probably a cap on how much blood is going to get pushed into there with a certain weight.

The fibrils get reinforced too, so they can exert more force.

I always thought the controversial one was the generation of new myofibrils or something like that. The weird thing is that Pavel's illustration of myofibrillar hypertrophy appears like that, and his illustration of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy looks a lot like myofibrilar hypertrophy. I can't believe he calls it useless either...

[mr popular]

The problem I have with all of this, is people read this crap and think they should be avoiding "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy"... as though if they don't they'll just be giant tubs of bloated fluid still curling 20lb dumbbells....

Why the hell would ANYONE want to stunt the development of the sarcoplasmic reticulum in relation to muscle fibers? They come as a package deal folks.

Most of the "proof" being touted about all this shit is based on one rat study, originally written in Russian, and a loosely translated theory about nutrient uptake.

To base an entire training philosophy around that is just RETARDED...

I hope you all understand that an ARTICLE is not a study, or a scientific journal. It is just some guy's opinion.

[Syn]

my opinion is the use PLASMAVOL BABY!!!

[anfeyd]

The problem I have with all of this, is people read this crap and think they should be avoiding "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy"... as though if they don't they'll just be giant tubs of bloated fluid still curling 20lb dumbbells....

Why the hell would ANYONE want to stunt the development of the sarcoplasmic reticulum in relation to muscle fibers? They come as a package deal folks.

Most of the "proof" being touted about all this shit is based on one rat study, originally written in Russian, and a loosely translated theory about nutrient uptake.

To base an entire training philosophy around that is just RETARDED...

I hope you all understand that an ARTICLE is not a study, or a scientific journal. It is just some guy's opinion.


Just like your post in an opinion.

[chicanerous]

I personally find the whole "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy" thing hard to believe. But maybe you guys could help me out... have there been any studies on it occuring in humans, and not just rats?

Do people actually think bodybuilders are just swollen sacks of muscle fluid?

That's exactly why I made this post like this:

It probably looked like:

1. [...]
2. [ . o . ]
3. [ ooo ]

One represents an untrained muscle with an indeterminate number of muscle fibers. Two represents a trained muscle that has undergone sacroplasmic hypertrophy. The noncontractile portion of the muscle has primarily increased, which has created a larger muscle that is not significantly stronger than the original. Three represents a muscle that has undergone myofibrillar hypertrophy. The contractile portion of the muscle, the muscle fibers themselves, have been strengthened, resulting in a significant increase in strength but only a modest gain in mass. This is the type of hypertrophy that is most useful to an athlete or tricker.

See that second example? You can't escape myofibrillar hypertrophy. If you train in "classic bodybuilding style," you still get myofibrillar hypertrophy, only the training effect isn't as great. The bonus though is that you also get sarcoplasmic hypertrophy at the same time.

It's almost impossible to induce sarcoplasmic hypertrophy without myofibrillar as well.

No one half-way educated would believe that bodybuilders are big sacks of fluid -- that's asinine. Just logic should tell you this. You can look at the maximal strength of bodybuilders who follow "classic methods" on average and see that it is consistently lower than that of powerlifters despite possessing much more muscularity. If there was only myofibrillar hypertrophy, this would be nearly impossible. The bodybuilders would have to have an impossibly inefficient nervous system.

The problem I have with all of this, is people read this crap and think they should be avoiding "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy"... as though if they don't they'll just be giant tubs of bloated fluid still curling 20lb dumbbells....

Why the hell would ANYONE want to stunt the development of the sarcoplasmic reticulum in relation to muscle fibers? They come as a package deal folks.
Most people haven't even heard of hypertrophy, let alone specific types of it.

Most of the "proof" being touted about all this shit is based on one rat study, originally written in Russian, and a loosely translated theory about nutrient uptake.

To base an entire training philosophy around that is just RETARDED...

I hope you all understand that an ARTICLE is not a study, or a scientific journal. It is just some guy's opinion.
I'm not up on the studies themselves, but you got giants like Siff, Fleck, Kramer, Zatsiorsky, Verkoshansky, etc. accepting these ideas. I think that counts for something.

Also, no one is basing an entire training philosophy around this idea -- that's idiotic. What they're doing is basing one around what works. When it comes to exercise, you do what actually works and then science eventually discovers why it works.

If you sit there and read scientific studies all day in order to formulate your training plan, you're not going to get anywhere. Half of what you've read will probably be refuted a few years down the line. The only thing that matters is results; science bolsters experience, but doesn't / can't replace it.

I always thought the controversial one was the generation of new myofibrils or something like that. The weird thing is that Pavel's illustration of myofibrillar hypertrophy appears like that, and his illustration of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy looks a lot like myofibrilar hypertrophy. I can't believe he calls it useless either...
The generation of completely new fibers (by splitting existing ones) is basically unaccepted pretty much everywhere. This is the case where there was just one study. In it, some researchers took some birds and attached an extreme amount of weight to their muscles to stretch them to an extreme length. Then they left the weights there for days and days and found limited evidence that they developed new fibers. That's basically all there is for that theory.

In regards to fast / slow twitch, the current understanding is that there are definitely not specific unique fibers. What's going on is that each fiber is made up of a number of myosin "pieces" that respond differently to different stresses. Some of these pieces act fast twitch, some act slow twitch, etc. Since they're just proteins, eventually they degrade and have to be replaced. When they're replaced, it seems that they're replaced with the myosin type that the body judges most suitable for the stresses the muscle has been recently subject to. So, this is how we currently think that the fibers "convert" from one type to another.

[mr popular]

chicanerous: I don't disagree with you...haha

I just think that the entire discussion is pointless, because there just isn't a shred of proof of this occuring in human beings.

And you could go on and on all day about the differences between a bodybuilder and a powerlifter... but it goes far beyond just nervous system efficiency.

[chicanerous]

chicanerous: I don't disagree with you...haha
:tongue:

The way you word a lot of your posts makes them seem so inflammatory that I cannot help but respond. :smile:

[mr popular]

What can I say, I must be an angry person..

I had to take anger management once as part of a probation contract, when I threatened to chew the clitoris off a girl and then pour molten radioactive fluids down her ear holes so that it melts her organs and spews out of every pour and every orifice in her body until she dies screaming into a puddle of her waste

I also had to do 40 hours of community service, ironically teaching a women's anti-rape seminar.

haha!

[Rahf]

What can I say, I must be an angry person..

I had to take anger management once as part of a probation contract, when I threatened to chew the clitoris off a girl and then pour molten radioactive fluids down her ear holes so that it melts her organs and spews out of every pour and every orifice in her body until she dies screaming into a puddle of her waste

I also had to do 40 hours of community service, ironically teaching a women's anti-rape seminar.

haha!

Hahaha I'm definitely going to say that to some future hate-object.

[mr popular]

Just don't say "No, I'm not joking. I'm serious." 3 times, or else apparently that constitutes a second degree felony of threat to murder or do bodily harm...

North Florida court systems have no sense of humor...............