Anoop and company,

As you know we bbers tend to be 10 yrs behind the research, however over the last year I stumbled across this concept and have been trying to apply it to my bbing training. At this point though most of the programs out there are for strength and endurance sports, yet we know that bbing is unique in many regards and I was wondering your thoughts on principles one might use for designing advanced hypertrophy programs.

Up to this point I have experienced a slow progression towards overreaching in 5-6 wks, but it may be mental fatigue since I need a break after that many sessions so I scale back to three workouts that week when I feel exhausted.

Thanks

Hi Jim,

Whatever advanced techniques you use, if you strength isn’t climbing, it’s not working. Bodybuilders get caught up too much in pump, burn, feel and forget about progressive overloading. Most people think strength is only important or you should only worry about strength if you are a powerlifter. My articles about Hypertrophy & Load is all about strength being the best indicator of muscle growth.

I will write more when I get back from work.

Hi Jim,

The dual factor hypertrophy programs is based on the fitness-fatigue model. That is, every workout tends to increase both fitness & fatigue. So you go all out for 1-3 weeks and then take a whole week off. So basically trying to accumulate all the fitness in 2-3 weeks and the using the deloading week to dissipate all the fatigue. Basically, a short term overreaching. Since fitness effects stays longer and fatigue dissipates faster, you still maintain and carry over the strength (fitness effects) gained to your next cycle.

It goes back to what I wrote about peripheral fatigue and systemic fatigue. So they might be doing a full body routine 3 times/week and go all out for 2-3 weeks. When the systemic fatigue hits the peak, that is in 2-3 weeks, they take a week off.

And all these are just theories. Nothing really proven.

http://sprenten.com/library/fitness-fatigue.pdf
http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow1/Dual_Factor_Hypertrophy_Training.doc

Two helpful links to understand the model.
Enjoy.

Anatoly - 26 March 2009 07:43 AM

http://sprenten.com/library/fitness-fatigue.pdf
http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow1/Dual_Factor_Hypertrophy_Training.doc

Two helpful links to understand the model.
Enjoy.

Thanks

Thanks for the links Anatoly.