You Must Read This, No Joke

**Seanner** · 05-09-2002, 02:35 PM

Okay this is most amazing. I was looking in the mirror today, and I usually never notice my forearms, but today I saw that my right forearm is freakishly large. I never noticed because I never flex my forearms, but the part of my forearm that bends the wrist inwards is huge on my right arm, it actually looks bad because now everyone'll think I just jerk off all day or something.

Anyway, nothing about my lifting routine is different than before (including jerking off...), but ever since the weather's been nice, maybe starting a month ago, I've been playing basketball nearly everyday. And VERY coincidentally, the action of shooting a basketball heavily involves the muscle that flexes the wrist inwards (though it looks opposite because your wrist is twisted out while shooting). Also I've gone bowling a few times in the past couple weeks using the heaviest ball they have because my thumb is too big for any of the lighter balls - same wrist action.

Anyone who advocates HST knows that hypertrophy is a result of the muscles doing work, regardless of whether or not you go to failure. This is why anyone who does manual labor is always pretty damn big and strong. Lots of tension on the muscles, but no overtraining because they pretty much never fail while working. The reason they don't get huge is simply because there's no progressive overload, so no further adaption takes place.

The point is, muscular tension causes muscular growth, and this has definitely been proven by many studies. I'll play basketball for about an hour a day, shooting every 5-10 seconds (most of my shots are NBA-3 range), equating to around 500 shots a day. A basketball isn't very heavy, but I'm doing 500 reps, and I'm doing this almost every day. But guess what? My wrist isn't the slightest bit overtrained or sore, because even though 500 reps is a lot every day, there is a 5 to 10 second break in between reps, and the ball is light as compared to the weights people use in the gym. So my neuromuscular systems and energy systems don't get overloaded - there's no overtraining. But 500 reps * 5-6 days a week * weight of ball = LOTS of work going to my wrist, but again because the ball is light and because of the delay between shots there is ZERO overtraining. Why isn't this an endurance exercise then? Because I'm taking long range shots, I have to shoot the ball with a great deal of speed - meaning fast-twitch muscle fibers in my forearms are what's being exercised 500 times a day.

So why does explosive training in the gym not work as well? People use too much weight and do too few reps, so there neuromuscular system fails before their muscles do. Again, it's not necessary for the muscles to fail, but what happens is because of the neuro-failure they can't lift for very much longer and so the muscles don't end up doing all that much work, in spite of the fact that it was very taxing on the body to supply so much energy and power in such a short time - this is what causes overtraining. IF MUSCLES HAVE UNLIMITED ENERGY SUPPLIES AND UNLIMITED ELECTRONIC STIMULATION, THEY WILL NEVER OVERTRAIN. Muscles don't get overtrained, they are just proteins. But they grow from work. This is why some people find volume training effective. More work = more stimulation = more growth. Some people like HIT because it cuts out overtraining but you're still lifting heavy enough so the muscles do a decent amount of work, especially in HIvT.

I'm saying the best way to grow then is to do exercises that don't put any taxation (without proper representation) on the bodies systems, but still effectively use fast-twitch muscle fibers. Unfortunately, this would mean hours of work in the gym each day, so compound movements are a must. I think a great way to grow would be to do quick deadlifts with very light weight, maybe like 80-100 pounds, very very explosively and take a quick break between reps, but do it for a very long time. I'm sure if this would work though because of the sheer number of muscles involved in the deadlift. This might tax your energy supplies even worse than normal training... But I'll think of something.

Edit: I know I posted something similar to this a while back except it had to do with static contraction training using a cheese grating machine. Well as it turns out the reason it was so effective is because grinding cheese is similar to shooting a basketball, long time under tension, fast-twitch muscle fibers, but with plenty of rest so there is no lactic acid build-up or failure or anything.

**Seanner** · 05-09-2002, 03:23 PM

B, U, M, P-O
B, U, M, P-O
B, U, M, P-O
And Bumpo was his name-o.

**Seanner** · 05-09-2002, 10:25 PM

Damn u people aren't you listening I'm saying THE BEST WAY TO TRAIN IS TO DO HIGH SPEED HIGH VOLUME REPS EVERY DAY BUT WITH VERY, VERY LIGHT WEIGHT AND DECENT REST SO AS TO NOT OVERLOAD YOUR NEURO-MUSCULAR AND ENERGY SYSTEMS.

**user87745477315471972481** · 05-09-2002, 10:32 PM

uhh hmmm.... well I dont know what to say...................

Well, one thing is for certain, ever since I've started doing jogging very often my legs(especailly calves) have become tighter/harder.... although this could be due to a lot of reasons, but maybe it's because I stimulated the slow-twitch fibers from the high reps of jogging, rathe then the usual 8-18 reps you would normally do in a leg set.

**canuck195** · 05-09-2002, 10:48 PM

I'm not sure why shooting a basketball would cause your already trained forearms to grow that much though (Your body isn't having any problems shooting the ball, so why would it want to "adapt" and grow bigger?)

**Seanner** · 05-10-2002, 08:49 AM

Originally posted by canuck195
I'm not sure why shooting a basketball would cause your already trained forearms to grow that much though (Your body isn't having any problems shooting the ball, so why would it want to "adapt" and grow bigger?)

Because overload doesn't necessarily mean doing something until it's impossible to do anymore (i.e. failure). It means doing more than you did previously. Basically if you haven't done cardio in a while, a 3.5 mph walk on the treadmill for half an hour 3 times a week will significantly increase your cardiovascular systems output. And we all know this is NOT hard. But it's more than your body's done before, so it still changes. Anyone who trains using HST can back me up on this.

The fact is, ANY stimulus to the muscles causes the muscles to grow further. So before you say, well why don't I just curl 5 lbs for one rep every 5 days? I'll tell you that the growth you'll induce by doing that will not equal or exceed the amount of atrophy that will occur in the same amount of time.

Exercising is like eating - there is a certain maintenance level - do the exact right amount and your weight won't change. If you eat over maintenance, you gain weight. I don't know what the exact number is, but lets say it takes me 200 shots of a basketball a day to maintain wrist size, then 201 is overload, so is 500. The number of calories you eat over maintenance is how quickly you can gain weight. Of course there are limits to both.

And let me restate again why training this way will work. Shooting a ball requires enough wrist speed to use the same fast-twitch fibers as lifting a heavy weight. And since it's the stimulus that causes growth, if the total work done by each method (by the fast-twitch fibers) is the same, similar growth will occur. Since a ball is much lighter, it requires many more reps. But again, this does NOT make it an endurance exercise because you are using fast-twitch fibers because of the explosive movement.

So why not just use heavy weights if they can do the same thing to the muscles and it'll take less time? Because heavy lifting = more work done per second, meaning more energy required quickly and more CNS strain. This is why you cannot lift heavy on the same muscle every single day. We all know this. But if there's a way to do the same amount of MUSCULAR work WITHOUT putting demands on the CNS or energy supplies than you can do it as often as you like - muscular proteins don't "fail" ever. But they grow when stimulated.

That said, I'm still going to go to the gym and do my normal routine, since overloading the CNS and energy systems will cause increases in those as well, I wanna get in overall better shape. And lifting heavy makes you get stronger for those same reasons.

But I'm going to start doing things like very high speed pushups every so often, combined with high speed very light bent over rows, etc. And rest assured, I will be huge very soon.

For those of you who doubt me, think of cavemen yet again. It's very, very possible a lot of them had better genetics, but modern day humans shouldn't be this weak/small if we really had to survive in the wild. I think they got bigger because they had to work all day long, but it was very low intensity, so it wasn't overtraining. If you use your muscles they grow. Use them a lot, they grow more. Using them heavy will still cause growth, but leads to overtraining.

**Zombikiller** · 05-10-2002, 03:34 PM

low rep range ie:4-8,with 8 being failure.you have to lift a challenging weight,not sumthin u can lift a 20-30 times,unlike some who posted in this thread

**Seanner** · 05-10-2002, 05:06 PM

Dammit you guys... Listen, when you break your leg or something and can't use it, in like a month of inactivity it shrinks SEVERELY. This is true of people who don't lift also. So obviously merely standing and walking is sufficient to maintain leg strength. I don't see why extremely heavy weights causing you to fail in like 30 seconds will cause growth any more than using the same muscle much more throughout the day in a less intense manner.

Edit: I can't believe you guys aren't taking this seriously... In about 2 months I will post pics (I never did earlier that one time because my friend wouldn't let me use his webcam to post BB pics on the account of it was "homosexual" or something) of how excessively huge this will make me. YOU WILL ALL SEE!!!!!

**ex_banana-eater** · 05-10-2002, 05:12 PM

people have experimented with light weight and high repititions, to high weight with low repitions, and the BEST gains came from the latter.

(when i say light weight i mean close to a weight that you are talking about, and high weight i mean a weight that you can do for somewhere under 18 reps)

so naturally, when looking for the best gains, we stick to using heavier weights.

if it was true that you can get just as big without using heavy weights, then people who walk around would have huge legs. and people who shot basketballs would have gigantic bodybuilder arms

**RetiredMod** · 05-10-2002, 05:13 PM

I agree. When I worked construction three years ago my arms blew up and I wasn't working out back then. Basically there are infinite ways to grow. There is no one answer, hence why I find it amusing people asking for the perfect routine. Everyone is different.....everyone responds differently. Seems like you have found what you respond to Seanner.....stick with it. If you grow then it is working, if not switch it up, there are no universal rules of lifting really. Might makes right

EDIT: Some people respond better to higher reps.....I've watched them train. Like I said everyone is different.

**Seanner** · 05-10-2002, 05:22 PM

Thank you McBain, and ex-banana-eater, I didn't mean high rep low weight, I meant explosive very low weight with absurdly high weights... but either way, we'll see

Edit: "absurdly high weights" is supposed to be "absurdly high reps" of course

**RetiredMod** · 05-10-2002, 05:30 PM

I sometimes do really high reps for squats or hack squats, like around a hundred or so. Now that's ****ing pain. Usually it starts to hurt around 30, and ****ing kill around 50, getting past 100 is hellish

I recommend anyone give it a try, even if you don't grow well from high reps the discipline it takes to go through that much pain for literally minutes on end will be helpful if you apply that same discipline to your other lifts.

**Seanner** · 05-10-2002, 07:08 PM

What weight do you use - I'm curious because I don't wanna waste half my energy trying to find a decent amount. Actually I'm not sure if I could squat my bodyweight 100 times...

Edit: in fact I definitely couldn't because I pretty much use my bodyweight * 2 and get around 10 reps, so I'd probably have to use negative 120 pounds to get 100 reps.

**Thorazine** · 05-10-2002, 07:19 PM

I don't understand why the speed of the rep matters?

And your argument is flawed, there are way more variables then you're including.

What about TUT? Lactic acid buildup? Or how about recruitment of particular muscle fibers? You know that certain muscle fibers are used for endurance movements, and for strength movements. This sounds like an entirely endurance routine. Why would your body want to recruit other muscle fibers when it doesn't really need to?
Giving us EXAMPLES of what happens to you is not scientific evidence. Giving us examples, backed up by SOUND scientific evidence IS.

Don't confuse the two.

You're dipping your big toe into the idea of HST. Though you need to remember that muscles will only continue to grow and adapt when a new trauma is applied.

Thorazine

**SDAthlete** · 05-10-2002, 07:21 PM

interesting points seanner... BUT hows ure non-shooting arm's forearm doing? cause if ure shooting long range 3's, etc. obviously theyll be w/ the dominant one, so are ure forearms diff sizes now?? i have about the same thing goin with me... ive started shoot around a lot now since the weathers nice here in PA... about 250 shots a day

peace
shaun

**Seanner** · 05-10-2002, 08:13 PM

Originally posted by Thorazine
I don't understand why the speed of the rep matters?

And your argument is flawed, there are way more variables then you're including.

What about TUT? Lactic acid buildup? Or how about recruitment of particular muscle fibers? You know that certain muscle fibers are used for endurance movements, and for strength movements. This sounds like an entirely endurance routine. Why would your body want to recruit other muscle fibers when it doesn't really need to?
Giving us EXAMPLES of what happens to you is not scientific evidence. Giving us examples, backed up by SOUND scientific evidence IS.

Don't confuse the two.

You're dipping your big toe into the idea of HST. Though you need to remember that muscles will only continue to grow and adapt when a new trauma is applied.

Thorazine

I mentioned all of these - there is moderate TUT because even though they're quick reps, 500 reps is gonna multiply out to a decent TUT, lactic acid build-up is practically zero, that's the whole point of waiting a few seconds between reps - it hardly puts any strain on the body. And it's NOT an endurance exercise as I've stated because the speed of the rep DOES in fact matter - the quick explosive movement means you're using fast-twitch muscle fibers (Type IIa or whatever I forgot how they're labeled).

Again, to say why speed of rep matters, think of throwing a football as far as you can - obviously strength is important - I gurantee 9 times out of 10 a 88 pound person won't be able to throw it as far as a 200 pounder. Even though it is a light resistance, going for maximum speed will still use your "strength" muscles (i.e. fast twitch). So I'm saying if you do this many, many times a day with a little break between each throw, all the muscles involved in throwing a football will get significantly bigger. However, for a fairly strong person, I'd recommend using a slightly heavier ball to provide the necessary stimulation, and I wouldn't throw at absolute top speed as this will obviously cause shoulder problems. The key is explosiveness with light resistance over time.

It's not endurance because endurance would be like curling a basketball hundreds of times in a row. The point of that would be not to generate power but to see how long you can apply little amounts of force for. That's why speed makes the difference.

Come to think of it, this is very similar to what a lumberjack does when he chops trees down. They're pretty strong...

**BigJeff** · 05-10-2002, 08:21 PM

But would you rather look like a lumberjack or a bodybuilder?? Bottom line, you want to look like a bodybuilder then you have to eat, sleep, and train like a bodybuilder.

Nuff said.

**Seanner** · 05-10-2002, 08:31 PM

Originally posted by BigJeff
But would you rather look like a lumberjack or a bodybuilder?? Bottom line, you want to look like a bodybuilder then you have to eat, sleep, and train like a bodybuilder.

Nuff said.

I think you're missing the point - lumberjacks build muscles doing lumberjack type things. The same quality muscle that bodybuilders build, except they don't have a perfecty balanced physique. So you just need other exercises to add in to balance it.

**RetiredMod** · 05-10-2002, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by Seanner
What weight do you use - I'm curious because I don't wanna waste half my energy trying to find a decent amount.

For hack squat I use about 135 for around 100 reps. It depends on the person though. How much you max out at has almost nothing to do with a weight that you can do for 100 reps, as one is endurance and the other is not. For regular reps I would do around 250 or so for hack squat for like 10 reps or so. I'm sure some people could outdo me in how many reps they do for 10 but couldn't do 135 for 100 reps, and I'm sure there are people who can't do 250 10 times and can do 135 200 times. Well maybe not that extreme but you get the point.

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