Strength and BP splits, ? For Rip

[Reform]

For Rip:

1) My understanding of intermediate programming, from your book Practical Programming, is that a trainee must organize multiple workouts within a week to disrupt homeostasis and spur progress. The Texas Method example uses Volume, Active Recovery, and Intensity days to achieve this end. This makes sense, and I enjoyed great progress on the TM, but my question is: What then of people gaining strength on Body Part Splits?

Inherently, they are (or should be) on the intermediate or higher level in their training stages, yet they are able to gain strength with only a 1x per week frequency. What enables them to do this? Or, does the supercompensation and hypertrophy they develop enable the gains? Would the strength gains necessarily be slower?

Thanks alot!

[Mark Rippetoe]

Novices can gain strength on bodypart splits, just like they can gain strength on an actual full-body strength training protocol. The actual question should be: why would a person who is sufficiently unadapted that they are capable of making linear progress like a novice want to use a programming model that limits their ability to make rapid progress? And the answer to that question is that they wouldn't if they understood that bodypart splits waste training time for novices. If you can squat 3 x week, you can make faster progress than on a split that only has your squat 2 x week. And bodypart thinking is not performance thinking, so I may be a little rusty on it.

Rip

[Reform]

I think maybe I wasn't clear on the original post.

From conversations with advocates of Body Part splits, they will tell you that a novice should not be on one. They will tell you BP splits should be reserved for "more advanced" trainees. The point of confusion for me is this:

From a programming perspective, I can't figure out an advanced lifter could gain strength on a BP split, since its frequency is dropped to 1x per week. Is there a more complex programming element involved here?

[Kyle]

I think maybe I wasn't clear on the original post.

From conversations with advocates of Body Part splits, they will tell you that a novice should not be on one. They will tell you BP splits should be reserved for "more advanced" trainees. The point of confusion for me is this:

From a programming perspective, I can't figure out an advanced lifter could gain strength on a BP split, since its frequency is dropped to 1x per week. Is there a more complex programming element involved here?

I'm not Ripp, but I'll give this a shot for him.

You should define 'advanced lifter'.

There is need for specialization in intermediate-advanced type training. From a bodybuilding stand-point, that is where a body part split might come into play. However a trainee does not have to limit their training to strictly body part splits, a typeical full body or upper/lower training approach would be suitable aswell. Those that advocate a body part split for a more trained bodybuilder are probably still training at a frequency of 2x's per week, per muscle.

Kyle

[britlifter]

Its my understanding that an advanced BBer may only train each bodypart 1x per week becus he can generate alot of intensity & is using heavier weights with a better mind to muscle connection and therfore is able to damage his muscle more & may need to give himself more time to recover?

[Kyle]

Its my understanding that an advanced BBer may only train each bodypart 1x per week becus he can generate alot of intensity & is using heavier weights with a better mind to muscle connection and therfore is able to damage his muscle more & may need to give himself more time to recover?

Rip covers some of this in his book Practical Programming.

However to sum it up pretty much the more advanced a trainee is the more time they need between training sessions is due to the high rates of neural and physiological stress from the training sessions. Closer programming and organziation is needed to take place during this period if the trainee or athlete wants to increase in performance.

Kyle

[britlifter]

Rip covers some of this in his book Practical Programming.

However to sum it up pretty much the more advanced a trainee is the more time they need between training sessions is due to the high rates of neural and physiological stress from the training sessions. Closer programming and organziation is needed to take place during this period if the trainee or athlete wants to increase in performance.

Kyle

Thx for the reply kyle, to follow up, when you say

""the more advanced a trainee is the more time they need between training sessions""

Do you mean advanced lifters need more time between workouts in general, or more time between training the same bodypart? Thx!

[britlifter]

With training splits in mind etc I wondered if I may get you thoughts Mark or Kyle?

I know we can train a muscle 1x per week & give it all its work sets in 1 session eg "chest day" or "back day", or we can spread the work sets out as in an upper/lower or a 3 day total body routine..etc

But routine set up aside, what do you view as high, moderate & low set volume for a bodypart per week?

I dont mean sets per a particular exercise, or total sets performed in a workout but I mean total work sets for a particular bodypart including all exercises for that muscle per week eg:

4 sets bench press
4 sets chest dips
4 sets incline flyes

= a total of 12 total work sets for chest.

Here are my thoughts. The sets Iv suggested are direct work sets per bodypart, per week, depending on goal and other variables.

Strength, 2-6 sets. Strength/Hypertrpohy, 3-9 sets. Hypertrophy, 6-16 sets.

I would be real curious what you Mark or Kyle think on the above?
Thx!

[Kyle]

With training splits in mind etc I wondered if I may get you thoughts Mark or Kyle?

I know we can train a muscle 1x per week & give it all its work sets in 1 session eg "chest day" or "back day", or we can spread the work sets out as in an upper/lower or a 3 day total body routine..etc

But routine set up aside, what do you view as high, moderate & low set volume for a bodypart per week?

I dont mean sets per a particular exercise, or total sets performed in a workout but I mean total work sets for a particular bodypart including all exercises for that muscle per week eg:

4 sets bench press
4 sets chest dips
4 sets incline flyes

= a total of 12 total work sets for chest.

Here are my thoughts. The sets Iv suggested are direct work sets per bodypart, per week, depending on goal and other variables.

Strength, 2-6 sets. Strength/Hypertrpohy, 3-9 sets. Hypertrophy, 6-16 sets.

I would be real curious what you Mark or Kyle think on the above?
Thx!

Its to hard to determine the number of sets, when you do not know the number of reps applied. Reps are far more important than sets.

Kyle

[britlifter]

Thx Kyle, am I correct in my thinking that the heavier the weight or the closer to our 1RM for strength that in general the a lower volume of set/reps be used eg 5x5, 3x5, 3x3 etc. And that when training lighter around 70% 1RM for example typical bodybuilding hypertrophy training or RE work then set/rep volume would be higher eg 3x12, 4x8-10 etc?

Is this a decent basic understanding? Thx!

[PMDL]

Thx Kyle, am I correct in my thinking that the heavier the weight or the closer to our 1RM for strength that in general the a lower volume of set/reps be used eg 5x5, 3x5, 3x3 etc. And that when training lighter around 70% 1RM for example typical bodybuilding hypertrophy training or RE work then set/rep volume would be higher eg 3x12, 4x8-10 etc?

Is this a decent basic understanding? Thx!

You're about right, more or less. The higher the intensity, the less you'll be able to do in terms of both sets and reps.

What you can handle for 5 sets of 5 will likely be lower in intensity than your true, all-out 5RM, as an example.

RE work for hypertrophy can fall anywhere between 4-12 reps generally speaking, although IME doing multiple sets of more than about 8-10 reps is pretty limited in utility as a main growth stimulus.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Sorry to be less than helpful here, but I don't train bodybuilders, I don't think in terms of muscle groups and body parts, I don't think in terms of simply "sets per bodypart", and I don't actually understand what you're asking me. I deal with performance and strength, seldom merely hypertrophy except as a side-effect.

Rip

[britlifter]

You're about right, more or less. The higher the intensity, the less you'll be able to do in terms of both sets and reps.

What you can handle for 5 sets of 5 will likely be lower in intensity than your true, all-out 5RM, as an example.

RE work for hypertrophy can fall anywhere between 4-12 reps generally speaking, although IME doing multiple sets of more than about 8-10 reps is pretty limited in utility as a main growth stimulus.

Thx PMDL for ur input ;) and I agree about the 8-10 on RE work I like 8 reps per set