Tears in the muscles?

[Arhat of Fury]

When working out.....

When you do lighter weight for more reps vs. heavier weight for less reps, whats the difference in how your muscle tears and how your muscle rebuilds itself?

I have an idea of what it does, but Im looking to hear from the guru's on this.

Thanks,

Arhat

[FooFighter]

I am no guru but you should read a basic exercise physiology text book which will explain the effects certain exercises to the body.
I am too lazy to explain anything now. Basically, all your answers will be based on the theory how the muscles contract and relax,
how it processes and recycles energy, and the relationship of CNS to the muscular system.

[Arhat of Fury]

well, thanks for trying.
Ironfist or fordperfect, are you out there?.

My guess on the situation is that no matter what kind fo weight or repping one does, the rip is the same it just may be smaller tears to the muscle if your going lighter and a tighter rebuild. Meaning that because your going lighter, you can use stricter form and tear the muscles all through the range of motion as opposed to going heavy and maybe getting a little sloppy and lazy with your set, not using the strict form and thus not tearing the muscle all the way through the movement.

Then again, i could be wrong

anyone care to share?

Foofighter-If your taking that approach- 90% of the questions asked on this board can be answered through reading literature, but thats why were here because its a forum and we share facts mixed with opinions and experience.:)

Thanks

[Toby]

No idea.

But my opinion is that it isn't so dependent on the weight you lift, but on whether you go to failure or not. I would assume that muscle tears are associated with the pain that you get 1-2 days after a workout. Pain that I associate with a hypertrophic workout. E.g. I would imagine I would be able to do say 100 reps with just the bar and cause no tearing at all. I would also be able to do my current workout of 2 sets of 5 reps with a heavy weight and cause no tearing. If I did a standard hypertrophic workout of medium-heavy weight 3-4 sets of 8-12 reps, then I'd expect tearing. Make sense?

Oh, BTW, why would you associate heavy weight with bad form? I usually maintain form up until the last day or two of my cycle. I.e. I'm only starting to get bad form if I'm close to my 3-4RM.

[Arhat of Fury]

I guess cause when i get to my last set(pyramid) which is the heaviest, my form starts to get a little sloppy and I will recruit other muscles rather than using strict form to move the weight. This happens only when I am going really heavy which I have stopped doing. I now use about 60-70% and do sets of 10 not to failure?

Just thinking about this the other night and thought I'd ask to see if there was a difference,

Thanks for the input.

[Toby]

Yeah, it depends on what sort of workout you're doing. I go heavy but low reps. I still manage to maintain form pretty much throughout a cycle, even with sets I go to failure on.

[FooFighter]

I hate answering this because it reminds me of school or working as a personal trainer. First muscles have fibers called myofibrils and within them contain myosin and actin. These two things are responsible for muscular contraction, eg. "Sliding Fliament Theory". There are four kinds of adaptations to strength training: 1. Hyperthrophy, 2. Anatominal adaptation, 3. Nervous system adaptation, and 4. Neuromuscular coordination adaptation. All kinds of adaptation can cause possible "tears of muscles" if placed under greater than normal stress but not all will lead to the same adaptation. To make your question clearer for me, please tell me what kind of adaptation are you seeking? You seem to to be using methodology or thinking within the hyperthropy paradigm.

You have pointed out one of the cons of HIT method. Believe or not, it much safer to light heavy load with few reps than reping alot with low to moderate loads. Your observation is keen when you noticed that with lower weights that you are able to control the weight and form under when you a muscular fatigued, then when using moderate loads. This is all relative and depends on what can of stress you have placed yourself under or how much anaerobic power you have developed or your level of experience.
The question does it matter if you use low or moderate weight in relation of tears muscles for muscle growth? No. Many past body builders have used low to moderate load (relatively speaking) to gain muscle mass. In gaining power or max strength, yes, it does matter and that is why many people are fans of PTP. If you train using the HIT method will be only be training for hyperthrophy adapations and Anatomical Adaptation and not so much nervous system adapation.

[EarthDragon]

Arhat of fury,
To answer your question, you are utilizing different muscle fibers. In our muscles we have 3 types of muscle tissue fibers they are called, white fast twitch, red fast twitch and red slow twitch. depending on what excersize you do, you invlove one of these different groups. for instance
white fast has fewer cappiliaries but are very strong
red slow on the other hand has lots of cappiliaries but are very weak.
So depending on what your goal is and how you wish to build your muscle is how you attack the fibers.
Its the same with anarobic and aerobic different methods for different results.
Tell me what you goals are and I will be glad to help and answer your questions

[Arhat of Fury]

Good Stuff Fellas,

Foo Fighter, that made perfect sense. To sum it up it sounds like heavy or light/moderate weight will bring you basically the smae anatomical results but will depend more on diet at that point. Heavy weight, does tear the muscles the same, but also loads the nervous system to promote more of a power lifter edge. While the lower weights will not load the nervous system but will have more effect on the muscles themselves.

Earthdragon- Right now I have been running about 10 miles a week, lifting 1-3 times per week, sleeping 10hrs/day and eating very low carbs and lots of meat, protein and taking in a decent amount of fate perserving. I eat about 2-3 pieces of bread per day and the rest is protein and fat. I have been kinda doing the southbeach diet but not to that extreme. I have been getting cut up and having some great results. I would like to stay muscular and toned at the same time, this way is easier for me to stay quik in my training. I have always gone back and forth with the heavy weights and liught weights. I have recently thought about doing the aerobic excercises with weights to see what it does?
Any comments are welcome