Unconventional Training Methods

[pinfante]

What some of the most unconventional training methods you have seen actually produce results. There is a guy that goes to my gym that does 1-2 sets of EVERY muscle group per day. It clearly works for him and he says hes trained like that for years. Technically, if it goes stimulus to fatigue to recovery and your fatigue is minimum i guess you could recover with in 24 hours. I just dont see how you can cause much stimulus with 1 or 2 hard sets a day. Outside of a deload I never do less than 3 sets and usually at least 5 for a body part in one session. What do you think of this method and whats some of the unconventional training routines you have seen that work for people?

[coachcalande]

What some of the most unconventional training methods you have seen actually produce results. There is a guy that goes to my gym that does 1-2 sets of EVERY muscle group per day. It clearly works for him and he says hes trained like that for years. Technically, if it goes stimulus to fatigue to recovery and your fatigue is minimum i guess you could recover with in 24 hours. I just done see how you can cause much stimulus with 1 or 2 hard sets a day. Outside of a deload I never do less than 3 sets and usually at least 5 for a body part in one session. What do you think of this method and whats some of the unconventional training routines you have seen that work for people?

Had seen a young man that seemed like his body craved muscle. He ran around the gym doing all kinds of exercises, no particular order, a mix of hard heavy sets and light easy sets, sometimes many light sets of cable crossovers for instance- whole body however little leg work (mainly trap bar dead’s)- He wasn’t Hercules but he appeared to be making gains. He complained about shoulder pain and back pain but there he was again the next day…

[TAWS6]

I’ve seen people get results doing some really dumb **** in the gym. At the end of the day as long as you’re eating in a surplus and getting stronger in a moderate rep range you’ll probably build some muscle. Just not at the fastest rate.


Oh and of course if you’re not natural the training is secondary.

[Tommy W.]

Arms every day. When I was at my peak at around 30.

[MyEgoProblem]

Well thought out full body every day can work for sure..

Many will straight up call bs through sheer ignorance or tell you from personal experience that it didn't work for them (n=1)or just not know HOW to do it properly.

Eric helms comes to mind first atm when thinking of people who use this style atm you might know of..

Is it better than the 'standard' 2x week recommendation?
That's going to be too individual for anyone here to say. But it could be amazing for you, or you could be one of the people whose experience says its not for you.

Look into dual factor recovery/the fitness:fatigue model...

[Tommy W.]

Well thought out full body every day can work for sure..

Many will straight up call bs through sheer ignorance or tell you from personal experience that it didn't work for them (n=1)or just not know HOW to do it properly.

Eric helms comes to mind first atm when thinking of people who use this style atm you might know of..

Is it better than the 'standard' 2x week recommendation?
That's going to be too individual for anyone here to say. But it could be amazing for you, or you could be one of the people whose experience says its not for you.

Look into dual factor recovery/the fitness:fatigue model...

It can work well. It comes down to less daily volume than a 3x full body program so that weekly volume is fairly equal

[Kewbrah]

Different people respond to different things.

The idea of a one size fits all way to build muscle can be a safe, conservative starting point. But it's not actually true and is mostly for the benefit of people who like telling other people what to do .

[pinfante]

Well thought out full body every day can work for sure..

Many will straight up call bs through sheer ignorance or tell you from personal experience that it didn't work for them (n=1)or just not know HOW to do it properly.

Eric helms comes to mind first atm when thinking of people who use this style atm you might know of..

Is it better than the 'standard' 2x week recommendation?
That's going to be too individual for anyone here to say. But it could be amazing for you, or you could be one of the people whose experience says its not for you.

Look into dual factor recovery/the fitness:fatigue model...

Certainly works for this dude i saw... he is only doing 1-2 sets per body part...

[Tommy W.]

Certainly works for this dude i saw... he is only doing 1-2 sets per body part...

yes that’s how it’s done. Could probably do a few more to bring it up to around 16 total per week. In reality more than 2 sets per exercise is diminishing returns as long as the intensity is there.

[TAWS6]

Well thought out full body every day can work for sure..

Many will straight up call bs through sheer ignorance or tell you from personal experience that it didn't work for them (n=1)or just not know HOW to do it properly.

Eric helms comes to mind first atm when thinking of people who use this style atm you might know of..

Is it better than the 'standard' 2x week recommendation?
That's going to be too individual for anyone here to say. But it could be amazing for you, or you could be one of the people whose experience says its not for you.

Look into dual factor recovery/the fitness:fatigue model...

Eric Helms, I think does full body ish... like an upper day with leg extensions at the end. I'm just wondering, who do you put on a 1.5 per week frequency or less? Older people? I haven't seen too many people go less than that anymore.

[EliKoehn]

Also, by "works for him" are you referring to merely his physique being impressive, or are you aware of progression that he's making on these exercises? Even a moderate amount of muscle can look great if you're lean enough, and that of course is more a matter of diet than a method of training.

[coachcalande]

You guys remember “cybergenics?”

One of my buddies trained with EVERY set done as strip sets (drop sets)…grueling

[CW47]

Yeah, a lot of things can work.

I recently had around a 6 month stretch where I worked up to a max or near max 5-6 days per week on a squat, bench, or deadlift variant - 1 exercise per day. I did virtually nothing else aside from that and saw very good results.

There's obviously a minimum work requirement to progress, and that requirement will be different for each person. As long as it's met consistently, progress is going to happen. Of course there's also a maximum requirement, but it's very rare for someone to exceed that. There is a lot of room for variability between those 2. Consistency is key.

[MyEgoProblem]

Eric Helms, I think does full body ish... like an upper day with leg extensions at the end. I'm just wondering, who do you put on a 1.5 per week frequency or less? Older people? I haven't seen too many people go less than that anymore.

Yup for sure.
Once people grasp that full body isn't all the same as starting strength lights come on
Fullbody ish is a nice way to put it.

Who do i have on less than 2x?
Usually only super casuals who want to get sore & sweaty, people new to "heavy" work, older people or big juice drinkers. Working in a super equipped commercial gym, we get a lot of all of them in 😂 i do try to get most to that 2x/72h rest breakpoint to tho

[weiss1967]

My methods are unconventional, and produced great results. It is a combination of high reps, supersets and higher frequency. For example, if I do shoulders, that would be a three-set front-middle-rear, 20/20/20 for a total of 60 reps in one superset. 300 reps for muscle group. Two muscle groups, easily over 500 reps in one training session.

For frequency, I had to adopt two sessions daily, 4-way split which gave me rest periods of 48 hours. Try it.

[pinfante]

My methods are unconventional, and produced great results. It is a combination of high reps, supersets and higher frequency. For example, if I do shoulders, that would be a three-set front-middle-rear, 20/20/20 for a total of 60 reps in one superset. 300 reps for muscle group. Two muscle groups, easily over 500 reps in one training session.

For frequency, I had to adopt two sessions daily, 4-way split which gave me rest periods of 48 hours. Try it.

What kind of weight are you using in relation to something you would do for sets of 10-12 in single sets....

[FurtadoZ9]

I started learning about programming when I was 16. I ran structured routines for a good 3 years or so.

Before getting into powerlifting, I spent a year of going 5-6x per week and maxing out nearly every session. I rotated exercises and body parts based on how I was feeling.

Nowhere near optimal of course, but I did make progress simply by managing the workload accordingly.

[weiss1967]

What kind of weight are you using in relation to something you would do for sets of 10-12 in single sets....

sorry, didn’t check this thread for a while. Weights should be considerable. When you try this unconventional routine first, there will be a lot of lactic burn, limiting what you can do. After first few workouts, boldly increase weight. You will be surprised how close this will be to your 10-12 rep weights. Its ok to go high, so that you fail at 18 reps or so, the main thing is that there will be no lactic burn anymore.