THE best hypertrophy model ive EVER used! (AND Overtraining..fact or myth?)

The ever-controversial topic of “OVERTRAINING” Many of you have noticed my videos and posts as of late about training the same bodypart 2 and sometimes even 3 times a day.

I get so many people voicing their opinions about that I MUST be overtraining, or asking me “how is that not overtraining?” First off, It is necessary that you understand the logic of the 2 a day workouts for the same bodypart.

We all know , that after 40-50minutes in the gym, the hormonal environment in our bodies goes from one conducive of creating growth, to one more likely to breakdown muscle, or even worse, causing excessive inflammation and injury.

For anyone looking to build any amount of muscle, this is something we absolutely want to avoid. Now, for clarification sake, 40-50 minutes refers to time TRAINING in the gym. From the minute your first working set begins! Not the time you spend walking in, changing, chatting before you start. For serious trainers, I highly recommend you pick up a stop watch. MAX 60mins from the minute you start lifting. Ideally 40-45mins. Putting a cap on your time in the gym will also force you to stay focused. Once that buzzer sounds you LEAVE. No matter how much you have left, you put the weights down and leave. I implement this when starting my prep. Forces me to keep laser-like focus. I even often have to dump training partners because too many people want to chat. I HATE it when my hour is up and I still have more to do, or feel like I could’ve done more. So once I implement this 60minute cut-off, no chatting allowed. For me, most workouts (around 80%) are hypertrophy based when Im training for a contest. That means NO MORE than 60 seconds rest (usually 40 seconds) between sets. This is optimal for hypertrophy. You can get quite a bit done in 40-60minutes when you really focus and knock out the chatting and meandering around the gym.

Now, as a pro bodybuilder, elite athlete, or anyone whose nutrition and recovery is adequate, training the same bodypart twice in one day has many benefits. It allows you to train two different modalities or functions concurrently and not exceed the recommended 40minute workout time.

To allow you to understand this a bit more clearly, I am going to give you an example of one of my morning workouts. The morning workout is designed to recruit the greatest number of fast-twitch type 11a muscle fibres as possible. This is done with heavy weights 80-90% of max, and explosive (fast) concentric lifting.

Speed or explosive style training has been proven to recruit the greatest percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres. These fibres also happen to have the greatest potential for growth. However, the catch with training for power/speed is that the rest periods between sets must be anywhere from 2-4mins for optimal strength gains. The reason for this longer rest period is that this type of training is primarily training the nervous system (sometimes referred to as CNS training). The nervous system takes substantially longer to recover between sets(2-4minutes) than the muscular system does(about 60 seconds). If youre only able to do one set every 4minutes, you may only be able to get in 10-12 sets in a workout. This is sufficient for a strength adaptation and strength/speed gains, but unfortunately may not be enough to build muscle.

CNS training also plays the role of “firing up” the nervous system to allow for a greater percentage of muscles to be recruited in subsequent hours proceeding CNS training.

This is the point where most of you should be saying “Aha!!” Starting to make a little more sense now?

After CNS training, studies suggest that a decline in strength may last around 2hrs before the nervous system starts to recover. It has been shown that an INCREASE in power will start to show around the 4-6hr point, post CNS training. So, after typically around 4-5hrs (hopefully 2 meals and a nap in that time), I am back in the gym in an attempt to really capitalize on this increase in CNS firing.

A good way to simplify the two workouts a day for the same body part is:

AM: 80-90% of your 1RM, longer rest periods. Explosive reps. NOTE: this workout IS NOT aimed at muscular failure. Its primary goal is speed, explosiveness, and strength development. As well as CNS recruitment. Once the rep speed start to slow down, you stop the set. NO forced reps here.

PM(4-5hrs later): 40-60% of your 1RM hypertrophy based workout with MAX 60seconds rest between sets(usually 40seconds). (This would be the IDEAL time to implement your MI40 workouts!) Supersets, NOS sets, Giant sets etc..

The goal here is to exhaust the muscle and fatigue as many muscle fibres as you can. This is a good time to incorporate more single joint isolation exercises as well. (flyes, machines, cables etc).

Strength is not a concern, as you have already trained the fast twitch fibres and trained for strength.

The second workout of the day is going to now force the nervous system to recruit many more dormant muscle fibres. Most of which you may otherwise not be recruiting during typical workouts.Think of workout one as a massive pre-exhaust/fire up/warm up.

 

Now to the question at hand. Is this NOT OVERTRAINING?

Overtraining is a state that exists systemically throughout your ENTIRE body. NOT within ONE muscle.

Overtraining is a chronic condition that effects your CNS, endrocrine and muscular systems. As long as youre giving your body adequate rest and time to recover after these types of workouts, overtraining isn’t even a thought.

You should NOT be attempting these workouts every day for a long period of time. This is when overtraining would set in.

Too many people use “overtraining” as an excuse for not training hard. If you want your body to change and respond, you must subject it to more stimulus. Simple math. There are many ways of doing this, this is just one variation that I found to work well for me. NO, I do not do it every day. I do it when I feel like my body is able to handle it. Yes there has been times when I did this training for 4 days straight and felt like I had been hit my a bus, but then after 3 days off, I had mad e visible improvements. Nutrition, rest, hydration, supplementation are all factors. I can think of 25 different proven hypertrophy models that work equally as well, over the short term. Many of which would make most people squeal “overtraining”…. Because THEY’RE HARD!

Guess what? “Nothing in life worth having ever came without hard work.”

Go after what you want with a vengeance.

Leave the excuses in your purse.

BPak  😎

 

Learn about the mechanisms of muscle growth and dispel the myths with Muscle Expert Ben Pakulski and fitness expert Brad Schoenfeld HERE

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