Muscle hypertrophy during recovery only?

[ljimd]

I've heard many claims as to possible muscle gain per day/month/year et cetera. Some wildly optimistic, a few more, reasonable. Let me state early on, I have no idea how much or how fast, however, I have often thought about this:

Given heavy progressive resistance training and adequate nutrition, and we breakdown muscle tissue as we train, my question is - Do we build more muscle on recovery days than training days? and what would be the consequences of it?(IE diminishing returns)

I'd love to read any research/studies/opinions that might address this question (been looking). I've heard some reference to @15gr/day by some well respected guys out there, but never concerning recovery versus training days. I am well aware that gains are hardly ever as linear as we might hope, but still would like to hear some ideas/facts if you have some. Just occurred to me, that for as long as I've been training, I don't really know.

Not talking about fat gain - just muscle mass.

And yes, I know newb gains can cloud results.

[ironwill2008]

Good question.

IMO, muscle breakdown and recovery are both going on constantly at the same time. All of the body's processes work in a continuum; there isn't any easily definable period of either. It's just that during periods of 'rest' that more of the body's resources to rebuild damaged tissue can be brought to bear on that process rather than them being used to perform work. IOW, the body deals with whatever the biggest demand is at the time; that's what gets the attention.

[AAOBob]

As a biologist I look at this like any cellular response to stimulus.

Your body is lazy. It won't spend energy on muscles it doesn't need. Lifting doesn't make you stronger, it sets in motion the cellular paths that make you stronger. Once there is a need the body responds as now its "worth" the food energy to make those muscles. Its understandable that this would happen during "rest" as in not under heavy load.

Does it happen while you are working out? I'd guess probably, though "over working" would mean more energy is spent trying to repair damage and fuel cells than build muscle. There is only so much cellular energy to go around. I'd also guess that when you are new to lifting those "noob gains" are in part due to growth during both workout and recovery days. You are not so much pushing yourself to new limits as much as getting to where under normal evolutionary circumstances you should be. A noob will see growth with low energy low stress work outs, while an advanced lifter has to push themselves beyond the normal to "convince" the body it needs more metabolically expensive muscle.

As long as the stimulus remains you should theoretically build more on non lifting days than lifting days. From what I've read form the gurus and various papers, that stimulus lasts about 24 hours, hence the working out every other day, or split work outs.

This is of course only my speculation based on my knowledge of cell processes and physiology. I could be completely wrong on this.

[ljimd]

Good question.

IMO, muscle breakdown and recovery are both going on constantly at the same time. All of the body's processes work in a continuum; there isn't any easily definable period of either. It's just that during periods of 'rest' that more of the body's resources to rebuild damaged tissue can be brought to bear on that process rather than them being used to perform work. IOW, the body deals with whatever the biggest demand is at the time; that's what gets the attention.

Thanks for the response Bill. Guess I've kicking around the frequency/intensity/recovery thing here lately. Trying to find the right mix without dipping into the counter-productivity zone.

[ljimd]

As a biologist I look at this like any cellular response to stimulus.
As long as the stimulus remains you should theoretically build more on non lifting days than lifting days.

Thanks Bob, maybe my lack of knowledge about how the cell works is causing me to over think some things, but the frequency/intensity has to influence the cellular response in some regard, no?

[ironwill2008]

Guess I've kicking around the frequency/intensity/recovery thing here lately. Trying to find the right mix without dipping into the counter-productivity zone.

As I'm sure you already know, the correct prescription is going to be a little different for everyone. That means the only way to find it is to actively seek it.

The best way I know of is to track what you can actually quantify--your training numbers and your macro intake. Everything else comes down to subjectives, and that's where we can be led astray.

[AAOBob]

Thanks Bob, maybe my lack of knowledge about how the cell works is causing me to over think some things, but the frequency/intensity has to influence the cellular response in some regard, no?

As usual I think Iron will has wise words on this.

As I'm sure you already know, the correct prescription is going to be a little different for everyone. That means the only way to find it is to actively seek it.
.

When they talk about "good genetics" for BBing that gets into variation we can't currently quantify. How YOU respond will be different than others. One thing I stress with my patients is that I could do the same treatment for the exact same condition to two different people and one will respond much faster than the other based solely on there genetics.

There are individuals they have tested for things like recovery that are outright superior than the average human. If you were one of those people, then every day work outs might be the best thing for you. I personally feel that if I did every day it would be too much for what I'm doing, but then again I've never tried to to see for sure.

[Bo_Flecks]

Guess I've kicking around the frequency/intensity/recovery thing here lately. Trying to find the right mix without dipping into the counter-productivity zone.

Recently I decided to experiment with changing the frequency of my training.

For the last three years, I have trained my muscle groups once every seven days on a four day split. Each muscle group was getting some secondary work prior to that seven day turn-around, but I am not sure how effective that ultimately is.

So I have changed over to a two day split using a 5 day turnaround schedule where each muscle group is worked every 5 days with 3 days of rest in between, rather than training the muscle group every 7 days with 5 days of rest in between.

Training each muscle group every five days seems to allow for plenty of recovery time and allows each muscle group to be trained seven to eight times every month as opposed to four. Over the course of a year, that could be significant.

[dunemonkey]

This is a very interesting discussion and kind of dovetails in with ID’s thread. I think many, many people in the general population (myself included) get this breakdown/rebuild/recovery/fuel equation wrong more than right (not really speaking of many here who probably have it nailed). Like Will says, nothing is a substitute for starting with reasonable suggestions of those who know and then experimenting with those variables over time (workload/volume – macro breakdowns – work/recovery schedules).

And it also makes sense as Bob said above that on the cellular level, your body will respond better or worse to different combinations of those variables depending on your development level.

It’s a subject that has been foremost in my mind lately. I’ve undertrained before and I’ve overtrained before. I am really trying to hone in on the idea of working my body hard enough to convince those lazy cells they need to grow (and/or maintain while losing weight), and then allow just the right amount of recovery to let them do that. I then want to hit them hard again exactly when they are ready, before as Bob says, they get lazy again and stop “thinking” they have to gain or maintain strength, but not before they are recovered.

As such, again, as Bob points out, your body only has so much recovery/work resources to go around so, yeah, while you are working out (or just working), your body will be too busy devoting some of those resources to get the work done to devote too much to recovery, but I’m sure whatever it can still muster goes on. It does seem that when it’s resting is when the lion’s share of recovery will happen simply because that’s when the resources will be able to be diverted from the tasks of exercise/work/etc. And it’s also going to be dependent on what fuel is available to split between the tasks of work, muscle cell repair, other cell repair, etc.

Interesting stuff to think about.

[dunemonkey]

As usual I think Iron will has wise words on this.



When they talk about "good genetics" for BBing that gets into variation we can't currently quantify. How YOU respond will be different than others. One thing I stress with my patients is that I could do the same treatment for the exact same condition to two different people and one will respond much faster than the other based solely on there genetics.

There are individuals they have tested for things like recovery that are outright superior than the average human. If you were one of those people, then every day work outs might be the best thing for you. I personally feel that if I did every day it would be too much for what I'm doing, but then again I've never tried to to see for sure.

Kind of reminds me of the famous ultra-marathoner guy who runs multiple marathons in a row and that sort of jazz. They did some tests on him and not surprisingly found that his recovery rates were off the charts. He was like Wolverine. HIS muscles did basically recover WHILE he was running the marathons. Just not fair.

[ironwill2008]

Each muscle group was getting some secondary work prior to that seven day turn-around, but I am not sure how effective that ultimately is.

And that secondary, indirect work is another of many factors that makes a difference, but is just too difficult to track down and quantify.

All work a muscle gets causes it to change in some way, even sets that are way below the standard, "70-85% RM" that's often touted as the 'best' range for hypertrophy. Everything contributes to the overall workload, and the overall workload is what causes gains.

It would be very convenient if all we had to look at was the last rep of the last set as being the 'trigger' that promotes mass/strength increase, but we know both from clinical study as well as from empirical evidence that that isn't the case at all.




I'm getting off on a tanget here; wasn't my intention........