Article on changing reps for different goals

[IronFist]

Here.

What do you think?

Poliquin is awesome.

[Vash]

Here.

What do you think?

Poliquin is awesome.

I read Poliquin the same way the religions of the world read their holy texts.

Him and Charles Staley and John Davies.

The Holy Trinity of athleticism.

[IronFist]

Don't forget that Thibadeau guy and Pavel.

[AndrewS]

Two words:

Mel Siff.

Andrew

[IronFist]

Mel Siff r0x0rs.

Now if only amazon.com had a copy of Supertraining in English...

[Ho Chun]

I have never done any weight lifting, but I strongly believe in changing the reps and the workout. You can get almost any martial artist that has a big gut and he'll be able to crank out 100 crunches, but he still has the gut. I believe that the workout, the repetitions and the diet needs to be altered every 28 days.

Women's bodies are on a cycle. I think that a man's body should be too.

I hope this helps.
www.noweightsworkout.com

[IronFist]

You can get almost any martial artist that has a big gut and he'll be able to crank out 100 crunches, but he still has the gut.

He has a big gut cuz he doesn't have a good diet. It has nothing to do with how many crunches he does.

[Ho Chun]

He has a big gut cuz he doesn't have a good diet. It has nothing to do with how many crunches he does.

The diet part is very true, but your body will get used to things very quickly. That's why we have to keep changing the reps, and the way that we do the exercises
(in this senerio, crunches could be substituted for leg lifts).

As far as diets go, most people quit a diet because they're not getting the results that they received (their bodies got used to it).


I hope this helps.

[AndrewS]

IF,

you mean translated from the original technical, I presume?

I'm so jealous- my si-sok is the one who got me lifting, and turned me on to Mel Siff. He actually got to meet him at a teaching camp a few years ago (before Siff died).

One thing to add on there- exercise variation seems to be key to upper body development in women- they need more variety than men. Anecdotally, as soon as I got my fiance doing 2-3 exercises besides front presses and push presses, her shoulders have been growing like weeds.

Ho Chun,

grab a copy of Supertraining, and a copy of 'Science of Sports Training' by Tom Kurz. Whether or not you chose to lift, the science is just as valid, and you'll have some data to work with, instead of intuition and tradition (which have their role, granted).



Andrew

[IronFist]

The diet part is very true, but your body will get used to things very quickly. That's why we have to keep changing the reps, and the way that we do the exercises

A strong case could be made for never changing exercises, too. The whole "change it up when your body gets used to it" thing doesn't apply as often as people would like it to.

[Ho Chun]

The whole "change it up when your body gets used to it" thing doesn't apply as often as people would like it to.

Why?? You mean, when your body is "use" to an exercise, don't change it up?

[IronFist]

The more you do something, the more neuroligically efficient you become at doing it.

Here's part of the reason why people think changing it up is good:

Say you bench press and your gains stall at 150lbs. Then you're like "well, my body got used to it. I better change it up." So you go to dumbell press or something. You keep going and making gains (mostly neurological adaptation gains because it's a new movement for your body) until you get to 70lbs dumbells and you can't add any more weight (yes I know 70lb dumbells is less than benching 150, but the movement is harder. Bear with me). So then you're like "oh man, I better go on to something else," so you start doing a chest Hammer Strength machine until your gains stall at some weight. Then you're like "well, I better go back to benching again." When you get back to benching, you'll likely be at less than where you ended, and chances are when your gains stall it won't be much higher, if any, than where you were the first time.

It makes more sense to cycle the weights instead of the exercise. Say you're benching and you start at 120lbs and you stop making progress at 150. Instead of quitting bench press and going on to something else, drop the weights back down to like 125 or something and cycle them back up again. This time you'll probably end at 155 or 160lbs. Repeating that way will result in better long term bench gains. Plus, you always have something to judge your progress against -- where your last cycle ended. If you change exercises you won't have a direct indicator of progress until you get back to the same exercise.

All of the above is not true for newbies. Newbies make gains from anything. A noob could bench one day, DB press the next day, do pushups the next day, and then bench again the next day and have increased his max by 10lbs.

That's the reason powerlifters don't ever NOT bench, squat, or deadlift (for any substantial period of time).

[AndrewS]

IF writes:

That's the reason powerlifters don't ever NOT bench, squat, or deadlift (for any substantial period of time).

By the same token, conjugate periodization does focus on exercise rotation as well as cycling percentages and rep schemes.

IMO, the bottom line is that with hard work and intelligent program design you can make gains either being constant on the same big lifts (Bulgarian model, 3x3), or by rotating what you're doing.

Change for the sake of change won't get you far, change with an eye to bringing up exposed weak points is a different matter.

Andrew

[IronFist]

IF writes:



By the same token, conjugate periodization does focus on exercise rotation as well as cycling percentages and rep schemes.

IMO, the bottom line is that with hard work and intelligent program design you can make gains either being constant on the same big lifts (Bulgarian model, 3x3), or by rotating what you're doing.

Change for the sake of change won't get you far, change with an eye to bringing up exposed weak points is a different matter.

Andrew

I'll agree with that.

[SevenStar]

The diet part is very true, but your body will get used to things very quickly. That's why we have to keep changing the reps, and the way that we do the exercises
(in this senerio, crunches could be substituted for leg lifts).

As far as diets go, most people quit a diet because they're not getting the results that they received (their bodies got used to it).


I hope this helps.

crunches aren't big calorie burners. you can up that number to 500 a day if you want to, and he would have rock hard abs - but they'd be hidden by his gut. that really has nothing to do with changing his number of reps.

as far as your term diet, we're not referring to a fad diet, but a lifestyle change. you aren't going to lose the gut unless you burn more calories than you consume. But doing that doesn't have to involve cutting out all of the foods you enjoy.