18
There was a 2010 study that touched on this a bit, and suggests there's more going on than muscle memory.
Effects of previous strength training can be long-lived, even after
prolonged subsequent inactivity, and retraining is facilitated by a
previous training episode. Traditionally, such "muscle memory" has
been attributed to neural factors in the ...
13
But I heard people saying that you don't even have to work out to get
the muscles if you're on roids. Is there any truth in that?
Steroids don't change the basic paradigm of muscle training. Juicing yourself to increase your hormones (effectively) will allow you to carry more muscle than your body would allow otherwise. You will recover faster as well, ...
12
I cannot provide a link to an official analysis of the training/instruction program of an elite military facility. What I can do is tell you of my own personal experience with it.
You mentioned the lack of regeneration and rest, and you are absolutely right. The idea behind the selection process is to completely maim you psychologically and put you to the ...
12
There's no easy answer. It depends on a few variables:
The stress you've exposed your muscles to.
How close you are to your genetic potential.
How good your recovery is.
You (probably, based on your fitness as explained) could do 20 pushups a day, every day, and have no problems. However if you tried to push your 1RM (single maximum effort) bench press, ...
10
Forward head posture (called gravity induced kyphosis) is pretty common nowadays. The first thing you should do is begin stretching your neck with an exercise called neck retraction:
You'll be amazed at how great this exercise feels. If you've been stuck in forward head posture for a long time, you'll feel as though your entire upper spine is waking up.
...
8
There have been documented tests that show steroid use without weight training will still increase your muscle mass just as someone who workouts and doesn't use steroids. However, if you're thinking you can get huge and jacked by just taking steroids alone you're sadly mistaken.
The P values shown are for the comparison between the change indicated
and ...
7
The soreness that you experience is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS).
What causes it?
When you exercise, the muscles get damaged. That damage is a signal for the muscle to grow and get stronger. That signal stimulates inflammation. Any inflammatory process produces local pain.
Why is it delayed?
It takes a day or two for the training-induced ...
6
Performing compound exercise movements have been shown to trigger the pituitary gland to release Human Growth Hormone. HGH does not discriminate against the muscle cells it targets. In a paper titled Growth Hormone and the Heart, it was shown that
GH exerts direct effects on myocardial growth and function. Evidence
from laboratory models shows that ...
5
Muscle soreness is not an indicator of overtraining. Go ahead and work out.
5
No, protein supplements are made of whey protein, which is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It's not a synthetic product of any kind.
I haven't tried the Gold brand in particular, but I can see that it's being sold by some of the most reputable sites (including here in Norway), so I see no reason doubt its quality.
Your father ...
5
This honestly just sounds like a case of DOMS. What is that? “Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness”, it’s a side effect training muscles more than normal. DOMS is a sign that your muscles are breaking down, and if you provide your body with sufficient protein, then they will rebuild themselves to be stronger and bigger. DOMS is not necessary for muscle growth, but ...
4
You have made solid progress. Congratulations, keep up the hard work.
If I were you I'd switch to a program that adds weight weekly or monthly, such as Rippetoe & Kilgore's Texas Method from Practical Programming, or 5/3/1, or another similar program. That will keep you adding strength for quite a while longer.
I'd consider switching up exercises, to ...
4
I don't have a link because the study was about 25 years ago but Harvard Med did a test study on three groups for 4 months:
A. Steroids + 4 days working out per week (same regimen)
B. Steroids + No workout
C. Placebo + 4 days working out per week (same regimen)
After:
A. 6% gain in muscle mass
B. 4% gain in muscle mass
C. 2% gain in muscle mass
I am ...
4
Coming up with a single function for muscle tissue repair with respect to time is literally impossible. Each individual is far too different for any one function to represent us all. It's the whole "one size does NOT fit all" problem that holds for pretty much any physiological issue.
That said, there is a study that suggests that ingesting protein just ...
4
For the sake of vocabulary, I think you're talking about "training recovery". There is short term recovery, like the time you need between sets, but you mentioned supercompensation so you're talking about something more like:
I just did a bunch of compound barbell lifts, how long until my body
will be stronger because of the exercise?
You can get some ...
4
Check out these resources for more specifics about the supplements:
Glutamine -- not shown to increase muscle mass, but shown to lower inflammation (i.e. recovery). Timing doesn't matter. No more than 5g any time of day.
(Brown Rice) Protein -- protein is protein. There is minimal increased uptake during and post training. One book recommended 10-15g pre,...
4
What is referred to as a "muscle knot" is also known as a "trigger point" or "myofascial trigger point". They are medically controversial little things, because despite being talked about so much and all of the equipment and "specialists" (sorry, I'm definitely gonna have to leave that in quotes) out there that claim to be able to alleviate them, their exact ...
4
I would recommend doing something, to second Alex here, for active recovery.
I would avoid running and do some skip rope instead and after you properly warmed up, you can do your other exercise. The body is a unit and you will be using your hamstrings with the other exercises anyway indirectly.
You should be really sure that it is really soreness that you ...
4
While once considered essential in bodybuilding, the importance of nutrient timing has been severely downplayed in the last few years since plenty of studies fail to show significant results and the anabolic window of increased muscle protein synthesis is quite a lot longer than used to be thought. As in, it won't matter that much whether you take your ...
4
"rest 3-5 days between every used muscle group."
This is nonsense, to optimize hypertrophy, this review paper recommends a frequency of 2-3 sessions per muscle group a week for novice to moderately trained individuals.
I go REALLY hard -- no kidding. I can do over 50 sets in 30-45 minutes with little breaks at 50%.
50 sets works out at 10 ...
3
Although I cannot fully answer this question with specific scientific evidence, I can provide input that supports the assumptions of the original question. The original author assumes there is a scientific basis for the physical fitness programs used by the elite fighting units of the United States' military. At least one response called this assumption ...
3
Instead of considering what you are doing right you should be focusing on what the people you are describing are doing right.
Do these people actually exist?
If so, what are they doing?
It sounds like you've done what a lot of beginners do: Jump around with different things until you find something that makes you magically strong.
You should instead be ...
3
I can only give an answer based on my personal experience, so this is definitively a piece of biased, unproven, good old Bro'science.
Disclaimer: Of course its out of question that the supplement industry tries to sell their stuff, but I think most of it is just as the name suggests, a supplement, maybe improving your form by a few percent or being ...
3
brianmac.co.uk said that LIEBENSON, C (2006) Rehabilitation of the Spine: A Practitioner’s Manual says "if a lack of coordination is seen when walking backwards it indicates the gluteus maximus is weak."
The muscles that let me walk backwards without all kinds of twisting were the gluteus minimus (activated by the hip hitch) and the gluteus medius. Trouble ...
3
I do 5x5 and IF and have no problem with recovery.
If you are concerned with fatigue and CNS recovery than the answer really is it depends on how well your body recovers and how you feel. This will obviously be impacted by the type of workout you do also. So try it and see what happens. There is no right answer.
If you're feeling fine and you are just ...
3
While stretching does have some benefits, it does not appear to affect symmetry.
Abdominals tend to be a somewhat difficult muscle group to develop for most people. Part of the reason is that abs seem to be one of those muscle groups that tend to be more affected by nutrition and compensation. By compensation, I mean that we all have a dominant “side” of ...
3
At this level I would not be worrying about things like that. The science to support that kind of assertion is woolly at best. If you are new to training there are three things I would be focusing on:
Getting 3+ decent workouts per week. I assume your trainer has this covered.
Get your protein intake up - ideally take a fast-absorbing recovery protein drink ...
3
You are having DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). The only real way to mitigate it is to train more often.
Taking whey (and other protein supplements) is useful when you can't eat enough to have as much protein you want1, in regard to your goal. If your goal is to grow bigger or to have more strength, you should train more and think of a diet to try to ...
3
I've had this problem and overcame it to some extent. Here are some things that helped.
Post-workout stretching. I never stretched after lifting, but I found that it was helpful on leg days. At the end of leg day I spend about 5 minutes stretching out quads, hamstrings, calved, hip flexors, and just stretching into a deep squat for about 30 seconds. I think ...
3
There's a lot of science behind rest days but I'm going to give you an anecdotal answer.
I had personally been doing my own 5x5 and 5RM training split. Everyday was a new 5RM attempt and it was going really well. After about 10 weeks, the training days started to get really hard. Week 11 I failed my first time and week 12 I failed every day. During all 12 ...
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