ryan sponseller :: training

Interested in using the "most advanced and most effective training methods ever" to fuel your growth in the gym? Its not exactly over the head stone lifting, but the concepts and approach will be surprisingly close. Over the past 6 weeks I've been following the training program from Christian Thibaudeau on T-Muscle.com called a Radical Strategy for Radical Hypertrophy. You can find the details of the program here, but the main concepts are based on keeping reps ranges low and performing explosive, focused lifts.

I've been training along with a group of friends and have seen strength improvements in everyone. Here are my specific lifts and what I would normally lift as my heaviest sets for the past couple of years:

Deadlift 1 x 405 (225)
Barbell Rows 3 x 225 (155)
Barbell Curls 3 x 100 (65)
Bench Press 1 x 235 (180)
Incline Press 2 x 185 (155)
Squat 2 x 295 (225)
Push Press 2 x 185 (135)

I haven't lifted this heavy since high school on most lifts, even surpassing my personal bests on bench press and push press. In reviewing our progress, we'll be continuing to focus on completing multiple working sets at our perfect weights, and try to avoid maxing out or not performing enough work at the higher weights.

The next 2-3 months should be very interesting to see if I can push through this personal plateau. If I see anywhere near the improvements seen in the past 6 weeks, I'll be a true believer in the strength and progressive overload techniques provided by the Radical Strategy for Radical Hypertrophy.

Randy Couture and Mark Coleman will prove that hard work through training can still propel two fighters in their mid-forties to the main event of the UFC's biggest event of 2010.

Forrest Griffin's recent victory over Tito Ortiz in UFC 106 was decided in a third-round domination attributed to Griffin's cardio advantage over Ortiz. As part of the MMA 101 series from BSN, Forrest describes his approach towards endurance training and how it fits into his overall training approach.

Opposed to static stretching to prepare for the meat of any strength and conditioning workout, Ohio State strength and conditioning coach Eric Lichter leads the team through a dynamic warm-up. Many studies have proven that a dynamic warm-up is superior in injury prevention and performance enhancement. Static stretching has even been proven to be detrimental to an athlete before exercise. Even if it's for a pick-up football game, make sure you start slow and get your blood flowing before going full-speed in any activity you partake in.

Does the number of repetitions performed for an exercise affect your muscular development? This question recently came up while talking with friends from different training backgrounds and approaches to the weight room. We each have perceptions on training approaches from bodybuilders, endurance athletes, and weightlifters, and know athletes who display these results. We argued the best way to increase muscle mass and if hypertrophy applied to strength and endurance training. To get to the bottom of these questions, I decided to do some research on muscular hypertrophy and find the best approach to building larger muscles.

Medical dictionaries define hypertrophy as "excessive development of an organ or part; specifically an increase in bulk (as by thickening of muscle fibers) without multiplication of parts." Wikipedia defines muscle hypertrophy as "the increase of the size of muscle cells". Simply put, we are talking about muscle building.

The science of muscle building can be broken down to "two different types of muscular hypertrophy: sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar (muscles also increase in size due to a small amount of hyperplasia but this contribution is minimal). During sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the volume of sarcoplasmic fluid in the muscle cell increases with no accompanying increase in muscular strength. During myofibrillar hypertrophy, the myofibrils, being the actin and myosin contractile proteins, increase in number and add to muscular strength as well as a small increase in the size of the muscle. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is characteristic of the muscles of bodybuilders while myofibrillar hypertrophy is characteristic of weightlifters. (Wikipedia)"

Both sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar hypertrophy will increase muscle size, but there is greater potential for muscle building with sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. This would explain why bodybuilders generally have greater muscular development when compared to weightlifters (usually complicated by steroid use).

Strength training typically produces a combination of the two different types of hypertrophy: contraction against 80 to 90% of the one repetition maximum for repetitions (reps) causes myofibrillated hypertrophy to dominate (as in powerlifters, olympic lifters and strength athletes), while several repetitions (generally 12 or more) against a sub-maximal load facilitates mainly sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (professional bodybuilders and endurance athletes). (Wikipedia)

When considering when to stop performing repetitions, you need to consider the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Consider doing a set of 100 curls. If a weight is chosen that will require a heart rate of 80-90% of one's maximum heart rate, they will be performing an anaerobic exercise. If the weight chosen produces a lower heart rate; the aerobic, fat-burning, or lower zones will be utilized. Lower intensity, longer duration aerobic exercise generally does not result in very effective tissue hypertrophy, instead endurance athletes enhance storage of fats and carbohydrates within the muscles.[1]

Rep range is only one component in one's quest for larger muscles. Muscle hypertrophy is affected by nutrition and testosterone (both natural and unnatural). Steroid usage has a major impact on muscle building, which can make the visual comparisons between bodybuilders and weightlifters a bit skewed. Progressive overload is also an important component to have consistent muscle gains, which is characterized by increasing the weight, repetitions, and sets to create a positive impact on growth.

A well-balanced training program that incorporates low-repetition and high-repetition exercises will create the greatest amount of hypertrophy (sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar). A rep range between 8-12 repetitions will utilize the most effective type of hypertrophy (sarcoplasmic), but needs to be at a weight heavy enough to be classified as an anaerobic actviity. Hypertrophy will be impacted by nutrition and testosterone, and the principle of progressive overload must be followed in order to observe consistent gains.

1: van Loon LJ, Goodpaster BH (2006). "Increased intramuscular lipid storage in the insulin-resistant and endurance-trained state". Pflugers Arch. 451 (5): 606–16.