Reply With QuoteIs this a serious question? Do you understand the difference between a rank novice and an advanced lifter?
Member
Weight gain, Strength gain
Mark,
You've mentioned cutting back the calories while on the Texas method in your T-Nation article. Why? What's different about how the body reacts to excess calories when on a novice progression and an intermediate/advanced progression? The weights increase less often, but is that a direct result of not being able to build muscle quickly anymore?
It seems like people think that you should limit your weight gain on an intermediate progression to fall in line with the increases in strength you'll see out of it. Why isn't it possible that muscle gain could outpace the strength gains you are able to realise - so that if you were to stop eating in excess you'd still put on strength because you're just 'catching up' with the muscle gain?
TMPHBITEU
Is this a serious question? Do you understand the difference between a rank novice and an advanced lifter?
Member
Maybe, I'm a little confused,Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
I understand the differences between novices, intermediate and advanced lifters. The more advanced a lifter becomes the greater the stress needed to disrupt homoeostasis, and longer the time needed to recover and adapt.
As an example, a young male get himself on a novice linear progression. He does the program but eats at maintenance calories - he still makes progress but plateaus early.
He is now an intermediate lifter - he cannot recover and adapt from the stress of one session in time for another session 2 days later. But he has cut his progress short, since he could have become an intermediate lifter later than he did if he ate in a bigger surplus and therefore built more muscle during this time.
If he now moves onto intermediate programming, even though he is making progress at 1/3 the rate of a novice, does he not still have the ability to increase the muscle mass in his body as he could have done on the linear progression if he had eaten more?
Second, You have mentioned several times that any gain in body weight is represented by both increases in muscle and fat. So, if you're young and not overweight already, why not just sit on your ass and eat high quality foods that will likely skew the weight gain towards muscle? Then when you're ready get on the novice linear progression so that you make great progress before you stall because of the great amount of muscle you've built.
I know the situation above is ridiculous and no one would think of doing it but it's interesting to consider.
Lastly, I want to know where on Stress, Recovery, Adaptation eating more food to grow muscle mass is. Your body is making adaptation (in the growth of muscle tissues), you are recovering (eating), but where does the stress come from when you just eat and not train?
Silly question maybe, but that what's been on my mind.
TMPHBITEU
So if I understand this correctly, you know that the ability to increase strength over time approaches a limit asymptotically, but you don't understand why the ability to convert a caloric surplus into LBM also approaches a limit asymptotically? Is this correct?
Member
No, of course I understand that there are diminishing returns to gaining LBM. However, why do the phases have to be in line with the phases of programming; novice to intermediate progression is an immediate cutoff of about 1/3 the rate of progress - does this also mean that LBM increases also decrease to 1/3 the rate they were accumulating in the novice phase?
You mention going from 200 to 225 in a year on the Texas method, that's only an increase of 0.5lb/wk. I know it's only an example but why such a significant drop off from the recommended 5000/kcal daily for a novice?
If we're talking about diminishing returns wouldn't it be more sensible to gradually taper the calories through your training career - or simply just eat a lot and then worry about taking the fat off later since we can't estimate accurately where we are on the curve of LBM gain?
TMPHBITEU
What page in the book are you reading?
Member
No page in particular. What's wrong with what I've said?
TMPHBITEU
In this situation, he's not an intermediate lifter, since if he actually does the program -- which includes eating correctly -- he responds as a novice.
.Second, You have mentioned several times that any gain in body weight is represented by both increases in muscle and fat. So, if you're young and not overweight already, why not just sit on your ass and eat high quality foods that will likely skew the weight gain towards muscle? Then when you're ready get on the novice linear progression so that you make great progress before you stall because of the great amount of muscle you've built
Diet alone does not skew body recomposition in the direction of muscle mass.
Eating more food to grow more muscle mass in the absence of training is a really stupid mischaracterization of the situation.Lastly, I want to know where on Stress, Recovery, Adaptation eating more food to grow muscle mass is. Your body is making adaptation (in the growth of muscle tissues), you are recovering (eating), but where does the stress come from when you just eat and not train?
Member
Okay, so the phases of advancement include the diet part too. That makes sense.
I suppose the confusion was seeing lifters staying at the same weight who are still able to get stronger - and thus move to more complex training sooner than they would had they eaten correctly in earlier phases of their training.
What would you recommend to a person that is still a 'novice' on an intermediate program because he didn't eat right the first time round? Would there be a point in reverting to novice programming temporarily - or would the "overhead" of changing his programming cost him more time/effort if he's too deep into intermediate programming?
TMPHBITEU
This has been dealt with many times. The default program is always a linear progression.
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