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Hey gang, just thought I would throw this out there. My degree is in Sports Medicine, and even though I am not currently practicing, I try to stay on top of trends in the various fields. I ran across an interesting book a while back and it talked about the importance of rest with weightlifting. How we are getting way too little rest.I decided to try it and I waited till now to talk about it because I wanted to test it out.
I stopped lifting entirely in April of 2006. I started up again after reading this book. I was inconsistent with my routine and ended up only doing chest most time. I lifted once a month for 4 months at a little park and rec facility. After joining a real gym with real equipment I decided to test my one rep maxes. My bench press was stronger than it had ever been...I set my own personal record!
Since then I have lifted just arms...for about a month and a half, only lifting every 2 weeks. My one rep max has gone up each workout and I just lifted the heaviest dumbbell I have ever lifted this evening! I am going to go back to total body workouts soon, I was just experimenting with this 2 week rest thing with one body part.
My rep scheme is 8x6x6 for one exercise (use your core exercise here BB curls, dips, bench, squat, deads) and then an secondary exercise for the same body part (DB curls,hammer curls, flyes, pressdowns etc) 8x6 only. Then no weights for 2 weeks and repeat.
Now this is also working for another guy I told, and he has been a consistent lifter for years
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I haven't measured growth yet, I need to do that soon. Anyway, I figured I would put it out to my dive buddies here and see what kind of results you get!
I will give this a try, how much of a weight improvement did you get in you isolation, I would assume that this would work doing different parts of the body during you two week rest from arms you could do core and legs.
This is really interesting, because for most of the past three years, my weight lifting routine has been hauling tanks to the dive shop a couple of times a week, and lifting my doubles into the car. I've been absolutely amazed at the increase in strength I've gotten just from doing that, and got motivated to start going to the gym and actually doing a lifting routine because I figured that working out more often would REALLY pay off, if I was getting so much benefit from just the little bit I was doing. Now you've given me an excuse to lay off the gym . . . Oh, dear
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This is really interesting, because for most of the past three years, my weight lifting routine has been hauling tanks to the dive shop a couple of times a week, and lifting my doubles into the car. I've been absolutely amazed at the increase in strength I've gotten just from doing that, and got motivated to start going to the gym and actually doing a lifting routine because I figured that working out more often would REALLY pay off, if I was getting so much benefit from just the little bit I was doing. Now you've given me an excuse to lay off the gym . . . Oh, dear
Your body adapts to increased demand on your muscles. As you were hauling those tanks you were placing the demand. The key here is your frequency...you may have done it a couple of times a week, but the load was not that heavy. Your body knew it needed to respond and you allowed enough time for it to happen.
It is cliche in the exercise industry to say "muscle builds when you are resting". In fact it is so cliche I used to roll my eyes when I would hear it! But it is true, and research has shown that the "normal" workout (3 exercises per body part 3-5 sets per exercise and 8-15 reps per set) takes your body about 4-5 weeks to recover from! I was giving myself one week at the most.
In fact as you progress, it seems that you may need to rest even longer. I guess if you plateau with 2 weeks resting, you may need to move to 3 since the demand is getting greater.
This is an interesting theory and I am going to try to locate the actual research instead of just the texts I am reading. When I do I will post up.
I will give this a try, how much of a weight improvement did you get in you isolation, I would assume that this would work doing different parts of the body during you two week rest from arms you could do core and legs.
I am not sure what you mean, so I will answer to what I think you are getting at.
If you mean isolation as just doing arms and chest and nothing else for the last 6 months, I saw an increase in bench from around 185 at the beginning, to 235. After about 3-4 months, lifting once per month. As for DB curls, I don't have an initial 1RM but yesterday I lifted 50lb DB with both arms for the first time ever. I have had shoulder and wrist injuries that had prevented me from working those two body parts in the past with any consistency, using the normal multiple exercise/set routine.
If you mean isolation as isolation exercises (hammer curls, flyes) Each workout I have added 10-20% to those weight I am using (and they are usually easy!)
As for the last part, it doesn't appear that there is any magic routine, as long as each body part gets enough time to recover. So you could throw in various other things.
I work out with weights 5 days a week right now. Each body part, core, legs, back, arms, chest /shoulders, then off two days and back at it the next week. After 5 months I am able to angle leg press 720 pounds. I started at 235 pounds on the leg press. I only heavy weight train every two weeks on a specific body section. The other week I will do lighter weight at more reps. I do believe you are on to something. I just can not stop working out for two weeks though while I let my muscle heal. I am afraid I will gain weight. So basically I think I am following the same routine since I working out my entire body, alternating heavy lifting and lighter lifting with more reps, and adding in cardio sculpting.
Interesting.... so let me get this straight, you are working out ONCE every 2 weeks? Just making sure, as it does sound pretty crazy, excuse my ignorance!
If that's the case, I wonder what a cardio regimen would do if one were to do cardio (in my case, cycling), 5x a week during the rest time. Cycling wouldn't stress the resting upper body muscles TOO much, so I'd think that they'd still get most of the resting benefit, and at the same time, blast some flab!
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