Alex
Thanks for the in-depth response! I do, however, have to politely
disagree w/ you totally. In fact, Platz made this "discovery" in
1988 saying it had been 8 months since he last squatted and had yet
to lose any size or strength. The video I just posted occured on Dec
26, '08. I just attempted another w/out today and my PF & PI #'s
took a deep nosedive. < Because I have yet to recover from the 26
Dec. w/out. There's no gray area here. I'm gonna wait 6 more weeks
and I already know I will be totally recovered and my #'s will
dramatically increase. I once got myself in such an overtrained
condition I was forced totally quit lifting for 4.5 months (18+
weeks) before I could resume. I simply don't know if this "recovery"
is muscle tissue, connective tissue, or CNS or a combination of all
three. Just as Sisco repeatedly said nothing else matters except
your numbers if a change makes your #'s to go up then your on the
right track.


--- In Explosive_Fitness@yahoogroups.com, "Alex Pilosov" <alex@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I never quite understood the prolonged recovery times of 4 to 6
weeks
> so many HIT users are claiming or advocate.
> It makes perfect sense to me to wait longer than 1-2 days between
> training sessions as in classic training - but what doesn't make
sense
> for me is that the recovery period will be gradually increasing with
> increased level of strength and muscle mass from 4-7 days till 4 to
6
> weeks. That doesn't make any logical sense in my opinion and I will
> explain why in a minute. The reason we need the recovery is to have
> time for a) healing the damage from training and b) overcompensate
> with more strength and muscle to be able to withstand the same or
> higher level of stress. When we recover enough for both a) and b) to
> occur - we progressively grow muscle and strength which results in
> objectively higher levels of strength and/or muscle from 1 training
> session to another. If we recover enough only for a) to happen - we
> don't progress but hit the platoe. If we don't recover enough for
even
> a) to occur we overtrain.
> Now the whole point of objectively growing stronger and more
muscular
> is that your muscles/tendons/ligaments and bones are able to take
the
> much higher stress they've been progressively trained for with THE
> SAME or LOWER amount of tissue damage occurred.
> It means that when I was at my first workout with hypotetic 100
cells
> involved with the lift I damaged 10 of them which required 5 days
to
> heal and then another 2 days to overcompensate with new cell growth
so
> I had 20 new stronger cells for my next workout instead of old weak
10
> cells that got damaged and/or destroyed. Now, 2 years later
following
> this protocol I would end-up with hypothetic 2000 much stronger
cells
> involved with the lift of much higher weight but since the cells are
> much stronger now it doesn't mean that I had to damage significantly
> more cells to perform the lift - there will definitely more cells
that
> got involved in the lift (2000 vs 100) but not so many more cells
that
> got damaged and needed the recovery. So if with 2000 stronger cells
we
> have performed the much heavier lift we probably damaged 20-40 cells
> but definitely not 200. Then to recover (heal) those damaged cells
and
> overcompensate we might need more time but NOT 6 times longer (from
1
> week to 6 week). Just so to illustrate my point more - in 6 weeks
our
> body can perform a full (or almost complete) repair of a major bone
> break or muscle injury and it's comparatively as effective in that
> when we are many decades older (not that recovery ability doesn't
> decline with years BUT it doesn't decline that significantly
> especially if you maintain healthy lifestyle and take care of good
> overall blood circulation). So it doesn't make any sense that as we
> grow stronger we incur more damage to our STRONGER cells with
> progressively heavier load than what we do when we just start our
> training and lift much lighter weight with our much WEAKIER cells.
If
> that was making any sense there would be no point in ANY training
> besides fulfilling our personal ambition (getting stronger or more
> muscular) let alone that fulfillment of personal ambitions would
ever
> occur!
> The adaptive response of our body is to produce stronger cells when
> the tissue is damaged. That's the reason body creates much stronger
> bone bond in the place of bone break or a cut and the larger the
> initial injury the more scarring tissue is produced on the healing
> site ( as body's first concern is to get you up and running ASAP
> rather than take some additional time for a PERFECT recovery).
> So if you take all those facts in consideration there is NO WAY
> anybody needs 4 to 6 weeks for a recovery with overcompensation
from a
> training session no matter how intense it was (unless you produced a
> serious injury) - the whole reason you were able to produce a much
> more intense workout was in that your tissues were trained to
> withstand a much higher load and stress. Again the much higher load
> doesn't automatically translate into proportionally more cell
damaged
> - the cell damage will remain relatively the same.
>
> How do you measure your progress. If you notice that you can lift
> higher numbers when you recover for 6 weeks and make no progress on
> your next session if you train every 2 weeks try to see if you
> persevere through 3 workouts with no strength increase you might
reach
> some new heights on your third one.
>
> I was very suspicious with this topic of constant increase of number
> of recovery days if one doesn't see improvements in three exercises
or
> more on one training day but nobody defined any limit to that
> increase.
> Again for the reasons above I think that it doesn't make sense to go
> with 4-6 weeks of recovery between training sessions - I think that
no
> more 2 weeks should be more that enough for as long as we stay on
HIT
> training. And the strength increases can't be expected each and
every
> workout as you go to the maximum genetic potential you have - it
will
> stop at some point which doesn't mean that you have to start an
> indefinitely long recovery period once you reach your maximum peak
and
> will stay in top shape with no exercise for the rest of your mighty
> life.
>
> Unfortunately Shawn's MIT doesn't touch this subject.
>
> Regarding the MIT overall - I'm on it training on Mike's 1repgym
for a
> few months now and have noticed great results. There was a lot of
> INVALUABLE information in Pete's and Shawn's publications on SCT and
> MIT training for the ones who tried to look between the lines and it
> was of a GREAT help in my overall understanding of HIT training and
> why it has a potential to be the best strength training protocol in
a
> long-term.
>
> Best,
> Alex
>
> On 1/9/09, sct765 <sct765@...> wrote:
> > I never ceased to amazed (or constantly reminded) that a
comparitively
> > P-R-O-L-O-N-G-E-D recovery time is necessary when training w/ the
high
> > intensity level which is possible w/ PFT/SCT w/outs. It is SOOO
easy
> > to overtrain w/ Sisco's methods for me that my overzealousness to
get
> > larger/stronger seems to always end me up in an overtrained
condition
> > (such as today's w/out). I've reached a point in my training that
> > currently a PFT w/out requires 4-6 weeks before I can lift again
and
> > expect to progress. Does anyone else have this problem?
> >
> >
>