Concurrent Strength Training & Running 2015: Eight-Week Workout Cycle II

Shit I went over my handlebars and ate some dirt this morning. Really jacked up my right shoulder. Hopefully its an easy strain, the post injury depression is settling in. Although I am trying to stay positive. This is a bad time to happen from all aspects.

You know whats funny with alcohol and weight, the more beer i cut the more difficult it is for me to lose weight. Even though beer is calories it seems to have appetite suppression properties if i only drink one or two.

Spot dieting is kind of a silly thing. I think whats difficult for people to understand is we all hold weight and fat a little differently. I have the love handle curse and usually once they start going away the amount of calorie restriction needed is significant enough to affect the cardio work. And my overall mood.

Well crap looks like easy cardios all I have for a bit so forget the haters. We'll see if it makes me fat. Your shoulders are one of those areas you take for granted in how much they affect movement. I feel like I am dead in the water for lifting for a coupke of weeks.
Shit, that sucks. Hopefully you'll find in a day or two that it's not as serious as it feels right now.

Yah, I think you're right about one or two drinks being something of an appetite suppressant.

Spot dieting shows you how little most people know about basic anatomy and physiology, despite the bombardment with fitness articles and blogs. I try to get the point across by asking where do women put the baby . . . same place as the fat goes . . . why? Because that's a convenient spot for excess baggage, much more convenient than, say, on your back or lower leg.

I think the 'cardio makes you fat' study proves conclusively that a study can prove just about anything if you're stupid enough to totally screw up the methodology.

One interesting thing, and you may not be in the mood for discussing st for a while as you deal with the post-injury depression (I know how that goes), but I've been looking into it a bit more, and really a lot of studies do support volume-based training. Others, on the other hand, show that you need intensities over 90%1RM for certain kind of strength stimuli. If you rule out the extremes, the only conclusion it seems to me is the common solution of some kind of periodization. The only question is about timing and ratios. I like the weekly cycle, so I think I'm pretty much set, but the reason I've been looking into things again is because I'm wondering if I should add even more volume. On Wednesday, it felt good to be done with the three eight-rep sets of squats, but then I kind of thought afterwards, hmnn, maybe one set more would be even better?

Izzy at Powerlifting to Win recommends against adding too much volume too soon, but I just don't follow his logic that well. He says that if you add volume more gradually, you will amplify the training effect of intensity more often, taking you further in the longrun. Similarly, Nuckols likes some kind of step rthythm where you build up volume, then decrease it and let supercompensation take you to higher intensities, then slowly add in more volume again, ultimately going beyond the past mark of volume at each step as intensity or maxes increase.

But supercompensation seems like it's only important for setting PRs or tapering for a meet or a race. If you want long-term strength gains, I can't see why you wouldn't just always want to be increasing intensity or maxes with whatever volume you can (1) fit into your workout schedule and (2) recover from in time for your next workout. Those seem like the only two limiting factors to me. I mean, if you got an hour, three times a week, wouldn't it make sense to fill that hour with as much volume as possible, as long you can recover in 48-72 hours and have enough time and energy for a good bout of intensity at some point in the plan? Seems to me that if Tuchscherer's formulation that intensity produces the training effect, but volume determines its amplitude is true, then you'd want to optimize both, so max the volume as much as possible, and also max intensity.

With this in mind, I'm thinking of adding sets to Monday and Wednesday's workouts, and doing some form of 1/2/3 descending reps for all four of the main lifts each Friday, instead of only one lift per week. It may be necessary to drop five pounds on my 1RMs in order to tolerate the extra volume at first, which would be about 20-25% more than I'm doing now, but if it takes me further, or speeds up the rate of improvement, it's worth it, right? Sort of a one-step-back-two-steps-forward approach. Any thoughts?
 
Shit, that sucks. Hopefully you'll find in a day or two that it's not as serious as it feels right now.

Yah, I think you're right about one or two drinks being something of an appetite suppressant.

Spot dieting shows you how little most people know about basic anatomy and physiology, despite the bombardment with fitness articles and blogs. I try to get the point across by asking where do women put the baby . . . same place as the fat goes . . . why? Because that's a convenient spot for excess baggage, much more convenient than, say, on your back or lower leg.

I think the 'cardio makes you fat' study proves conclusively that a study can prove just about anything if you're stupid enough to totally screw up the methodology.

One interesting thing, and you may not be in the mood for discussing st for a while as you deal with the post-injury depression (I know how that goes), but I've been looking into it a bit more, and really a lot of studies do support volume-based training. Others, on the other hand, show that you need intensities over 90%1RM for certain kind of strength stimuli. If you rule out the extremes, the only conclusion it seems to me is the common solution of some kind of periodization. The only question is about timing and ratios. I like the weekly cycle, so I think I'm pretty much set, but the reason I've been looking into things again is because I'm wondering if I should add even more volume. On Wednesday, it felt good to be done with the three eight-rep sets of squats, but then I kind of thought afterwards, hmnn, maybe one set more would be even better?

Izzy at Powerlifting to Win recommends against adding too much volume too soon, but I just don't follow his logic that well. He says that if you add volume more gradually, you will amplify the training effect of intensity more often, taking you further in the longrun. Similarly, Nuckols likes some kind of step rthythm where you build up volume, then decrease it and let supercompensation take you to higher intensities, then slowly add in more volume again, ultimately going beyond the past mark of volume at each step as intensity or maxes increase.

But supercompensation seems like it's only important for setting PRs or tapering for a meet or a race. If you want long-term strength gains, I can't see why you wouldn't just always want to be increasing intensity or maxes with whatever volume you can (1) fit into your workout schedule and (2) recover from in time for your next workout. Those seem like the only two limiting factors to me. I mean, if you got an hour, three times a week, wouldn't it make sense to fill that hour with as much volume as possible, as long you can recover in 48-72 hours and have enough time and energy for a good bout of intensity at some point in the plan? Seems to me that if Tuchscherer's formulation that intensity produces the training effect, but volume determines its amplitude is true, then you'd want to optimize both, so max volume possible, and also max intensity.

With this in mind, I'm thinking of adding sets to Monday and Wednesday's workouts, and doing some form of 1/2/3 descending reps for all four of the main reps each Friday, instead of only one lift per week. It may be necessary to drop five pounds on my 1RMs in order to tolerate the extra volume at first, which would be about 20-25% more than I'm doing now, but if it takes me further, or speeds up the rate of improvement, it's worth it, right? Sort of a one-step-back-two-steps-forward approach. Any thoughts?

Nah don't sweat it, Iam mostly over the frustration. Or maybe I am now recognizing there is nothing else to do but move forward. I'm getting a little more range of motion but still cant go vertical. I am hopeful its just an AC sprain and not something more permanent.

Yeah I think we need to strip away the periodization concept since we arent really competing in anything we would build up for. That helps simplify it a little bit. I think we also should consider the source too when we are talking about the eastern protocols since they were developed on heavy drug users. Idon't think those kind of volumes always translate quite as well us. But then again we are not doing what they are doing either. The point being we are doing something completely different than them. SO yeah if you feel like it do it. Maybe the right answer would be if you feel like doing the extra sets do them but don't plan them. I think overall you will end up getting about the same amount of work in that the plan you have written out states. Some days will be a little in excess and then there are other days that family life or sickness will interupt and lower those volumes.
 
Nah don't sweat it, Iam mostly over the frustration. Or maybe I am now recognizing there is nothing else to do but move forward. I'm getting a little more range of motion but still cant go vertical. I am hopeful its just an AC sprain and not something more permanent.

Yeah I think we need to strip away the periodization concept since we arent really competing in anything we would build up for. That helps simplify it a little bit. I think we also should consider the source too when we are talking about the eastern protocols since they were developed on heavy drug users. Idon't think those kind of volumes always translate quite as well us. But then again we are not doing what they are doing either. The point being we are doing something completely different than them. SO yeah if you feel like it do it. Maybe the right answer would be if you feel like doing the extra sets do them but don't plan them. I think overall you will end up getting about the same amount of work in that the plan you have written out states. Some days will be a little in excess and then there are other days that family life or sickness will interupt and lower those volumes.
How is it feeling today? I like the way DNEChris and Dutchie decloaked immediately upon hearing the news. Kindly Klingons.

Yah, no intention of training like a professional athlete, or juicing. The volumes of the Bulgarians are extreme, but then again most American powerlifters have day jobs, right?

Anyway, I've just been feeling that the greater volumes I've been doing for the Squat and OHP have led to good results this cycle, but it could just be the greater consistently in my workouts. It's been a full cycle without any rehabbing so I should expect some improvements in rate of progress. Still, my sense is that somewhat greater volumes on Monday and Wednesday and a little more intensity on Friday could lead to even better results. If I can get a little bit better about pre-workout fueling, and a little more efficient during workouts, and take slightly shorter rest intervals, I should be able to fit in five or so extra sets in each hour-long workout. Plus, since both the Bench and Deadlift require multiple warm-up sets, it seems kind of a waste to just do two worksets. Basically I would just add a workset to each of the performance lifts and maybe one or two to the upper body pulls at the end. I'll chart it out and put it at the top of the next cycle's thread. If it turns out to be too much, I can always go back to what I've been doing, since I know that works quite well for me. I think the greater volume is also leading to a little hypertrophy, which isn't something I'm going to complain about.

Thanks for the article link. That was probably the clearest explanation I've seen yet. I read another couple on volume. http://www.jtstrong.com/articles/2014/08/08/understanding-volume/. I'll have to explore that site more. I just signed up for their email subscription. More stuff to obsess over during breaks . . .

In the article on volume, the author also advices against adding too much volume too soon. But since volume is defined as sets x reps x weight, I don't really see why I can't just keep the sets and reps constant and build up volume through weekly load increases. In other words, I don't really see the need to periodize beyond the microcycle of a week. I don't see how it would help to, say, do 10 weekly sets of squats up to a certain 1RM before transitioning to doing 15 sets per week. If doing 15 sets is more beneficial, why not get started right now? Even if it means decreasing loads in the short term. That's what I'm wondering about. In running terms, let's say I can run 15 miles a week at 9mm aerobic pace. But I know it would be optimal to run 30 miles a week. Well, wouldn't it be better to start running 30 miles a week right now, even if it meant slowing down the pace to 10mm? I would think I would get to 30 miles per week at 9mm pace faster using the second approach, assuming of course, that I didn't put myself at risk of injury with the sudden jump in weekly mileage.

The usual method is to decrease volume (sets & reps) while increasing intensity (1RM & derived percentages of 1RM), but it seems like decreasing intensity, or keeping it the same, while increasing volume could also work.