Masher59
MuscleChemistry Registered Member
– Hello Mr Henselmans and welcome on OST blog, the first Italian blog on Old School Training! We love multifrequency in buffer and not single workout per body part with failure rep. What do you thing about it?
High frequency training is highly underrated in bodybuilding circles I believe. There is ample research that the traditional ‘bro split’ of hitting each body part only once a week and then completely annihilating it is not a great way to add muscle beyond the novice level. The research on the benefits of higher frequency training goes all the way back to the year 2000, but the bodybuilding community is always slow to catch up on the science.
– Here in the Italian Old School Training community, we believe that beginners should limit themselves to basic, compound exercises (multi-joint exercises) such as squat, bench press, deadlift, etc., rather than using isolation exercises (single joint movements) such as lateral raises, front raises, flies, or leg extensions. After the trainee has developed a solid foundation and has reached the intermediate or advanced stage, he can include some single-joint exercises Do you agree with that approach?In most of my programs beginners will indeed focus on the big compound lifts. However, I think there is no reason to actively avoid isolation work. Certain body parts, like the calves, are difficult to train optimally if you don’t include isolation work. The body always recruits multiple muscle groups during any exercise anyway, so it is arbitrary to call certain exercises ‘isolation’ and others ‘compound’.
– I noticed that in the past you’ve expressed in a critical way on the alleged need to rely on the big three for bodybuilding (http://www.simplyshredded.com/7-principles-of-exercise-selection.html). Although the common sense we tend to believe that the big three are not only fundamental in powerlifting, but also in bodybuilding, you had the courage to challenge this idea. As logic would seem to agree with your position (improve performance in three specific exercises or maximize hypertrophy are different goals), how would you rate the overall big three for purposes strictly hypertrophic?The squat is king. It’s a great exercise for the quads, glutes and lower back. Practically every client I have that can squat, is squatting.The bench press can also be a great exercise for the pecs, but you have to use the right form. If you get shoulder issues and you have to use a very narrow grip, the bench press loses its effectiveness to build the pecs. Similarly, if you’re a powerlifter and you use a huge arch and a very wide grip, the loss of range of motion will be counterproductive from a bodybuilding point of view. So the bench press is a great exercise, but it’s not magical. Research also supports this, as one study found that weighted push-ups were just as effective as the bench press.The conventional deadlift is something I’m not a fan of. The range of motion is arbitrarily determined by the radius of your weight plates instead of your body’s structure (anthropometry). You also completely lack an eccentric muscle contraction, which is very important for muscle growth based on a lot of research. For these reasons, I generally prefer the Romanian deadlift to build the posterior chain. Here’s an example of me doing Romanian deadlifts for high reps.
– Failure or buffer, which method is best?Training to failure has its benefits, but it comes with the costs of high neuromuscular fatigue and high metabolic stress. So it has high recovery demands and limits how much volume you can perform in a training session. As such, it has to be used strategically.
– A few months ago we witnessed a dispute between you and Lyle McDonald on the issue of the ketogenic diet for muscle growth. It questioned the fact that this type of system would allow muscle growth, since the study of Rauch et al (2015http://www.jissn.com/content/11/S1/P40) (The one that has best documented results on bodybuilders compared to a normal diet) has not passed peer review and remains controversial. McDonald had clearly rejected the validity of the study as it had allowed gains of trained lifters similar to those that would be obtained under steroids, but I think you were quite open about the anabolic capacity of the ketogenic diet. What is your actual position?The effectiveness of the ketogenic diet depends on 3 factors.
We know that there haven’t been published research on high-calorie ketogenic diet, above all on athletes- Your carb tolerance. Some people do better on low carb diets than others. Body fat percentage plays a big role here, but it’s only part of the story. Certain hormonal conditions, like polycystic ovary syndrome, also strongly affect carb tolerance.
- What type of training you’re doing. If you do high intensity interval training (HIIT), for example, you probably shouldn’t be on a ketogenic diet, since this will impair anaerobic performance.
- Your personal reaction to ketosis. Some people have more mental energy in ketosis, others feel horrible. There is great interindividual variability here.
There is actually. There are several studies now with more on the way.
– Another question that remains on the ketogenic diet is the main difference between the standard ketogenic diet, and so-called cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD), the popular regimes that have been treated in the past mainly by authors like Duchaine (Bodyopus), DiPasquale (Anabolic Diet) and the same McDonald. In simple words, they are ketogenic diets that provide a strong charge of carbohydrates to 24-48 hours a week, especially proposals for athletes of anaerobic activities. Would you consider that a CKD on athletes may lead to different or better gains than a standard ketogenic diet?Cyclical ketogenic dieting offers the worst of both worlds. A new study that’s currently being pushed shows exactly this. You’re basically constantly in keto-adaptation, so you never reap the full benefits of becoming fat adapted. At the same time, your carbohydrate intake is too low to sustain your performance without these adaptations. So this is one of those ideas that looked like a nice ‘hack’ on paper, but if you’ve actually tried keto dieting or done the research, you quickly find out it’s terrible. This is one of the few diet types I would say has almost no upsides.
– We noticed that you often expressed critically on sugars, especially in this interesting article on the site of Bret Contreras (http://bretcontreras.com/sugar-the-sweet-truth/). What do you think of the use of sucrose as a supplement during the workout? There are several studies that seem to document, at least for endurance athletes, a potential ergogenic higher than an isocaloric amount of glucose alone (and perhaps polymers). If used with common sense, do you think the sucrose (or fructose) can be used as a true supplement unexpected?I don’t see any reason why you’d want to consume sugar of any kind as a strength trainee, since the amount of glycogen depletion that takes place during a strength training session is nowhere near that of endurance training. Plus, unless you’re training twice a day with an extremely high training volume, whole foods would do the job just as well while providing more nutrients and satiety. Practically the only people that still promote sugar supplements are in the supplement industry. I’ve debunked the use of sugar as a bodybuilding supplement thoroughly in this article.
– We noticed that you’re among the various authors, along with people like McDonald and Aragon, who had the courage to admit that the utility for which the BCAA are promoted in bodybuilding has never been demonstrated in research peer review, and for this we have to give you the merit because it seems that the majority opinion is worth more than scientific evidence. But do you think there is a rational use of BCAA in bodybuilding in some specific context?BCAAs can be used to alter neurotransmitter balances in the brain. In certain people under certain conditions, this can be used as a nootropic (mental energy aid). From a bodybuilding point of view though, a sufficient protein intake makes BCAAs completely redundant. I’ve referenced this in detail in my Facebook post series on BCAAs.Scivation, a notorious supplement company, actually tried to save the reputation of BCAAs (they sell them), but that didn’t turn out very well.
