Multiple training sessions per day

Hanley

Lets get a proper thread up and running on this instead of de-railing the recovery one...

Boru, any chances of links?? I'm quite interested too.

I know Louie Simmons recommends "feeder" workouts where you do very high rep (in the 100 range) on single joint exercises to promote recovery and blood flow. The theory being they "feed" into the next workout and have you in an optimal state...

Here's a quote from Louie; "I work out 13 times a week, year-in and year-out. I do four normal, 60-minute workouts, and the rest is "specializing training" like erector work."

Bulgarian weightlifters were known to have up to 36 sessions a week. Often going 4-6 times per day, 4-6x per week.

So what are peoples thoughts on implementing a similar protocal...?

Boru.

Copied from original thread -

Beelzebub, I would commend you to read the entire of this site http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/compindex.htm - perhaps one of the greatest internet resources available. Here you will find dozens of time tested courses that recomend daily training.

In particular I would recoemend an in depth study of the works of A.P. Swoboba, Earle Liderman, Maxick, Eugene Sandow, and of course Charles Atlas, whose course on Dynamic Tension is still a huge seller today (charlesatlas.com).

All of these men advocated multiple daily training regiemes. Atlas for instance would recomened repeated sets of Atlas Pushups ect every day both mroning and night ofr one's whole life.

As would Paul Bragg who died in a windsuffering accident at the age of 97.:eek:

There is a huge tradition of daily mutliple training that has proven to be successful in achieveing specific results, from ancient martial arts and systems such as yoga, to Pilates and finally the modern day systems utilised by people from Kennedy to Atlas, to Steve Justa.

Furthermore, as I mentioned, many modern systems would recomend multiple sets per day. Perhaps the most well known is Pavel Tsatsouline who advocates a method called Greasing the Groove in his book the Naked Warrior - holding that strength is a skill and that repeated daily training, never to failure, keeps both the muscles and the nerves fresh and allows you to develop the neurological strength necessary to susbtancially increase your both stength and muscular endurance.

Of course there is also Jim Forystek and his Powerflex system..with a similar approach to Atlas, Liderman, et al.

And then there is my own system and studies of Isometrics - which you can find more info on on my website (links in the sig) - but I'll say no more on that - pm me if you like.

While I do not advocte this system of training for everyone it certainly has merits within it's stated goals and objectives. If you want to look like a bodybuilder train like one, if you want the functional ability of a gymnast train like one. Define a goal then use the system most suited for that goal.

For instance I currently only train in a specific form of strength training once very 24 days per body part and continue to make incredibile gains in terms of my stated goal of incresing strength within a specifc range of motion. (you can read my blog here - http://www.teamtestforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=866&start=120)

Yet I frequently recomend other systems of training inculding mutliple daily workouts, such as developed by Atlas etc. It very much depends on the individual and their goals.

I would personally have several problems with conventional weight lifting from a long term medical basis, and no longer recomend it to my clients (with one specfic exception), as oppossed to bodyweight based systems and isometrics whcih I feel are a healhtier and safer long term system of physical development.

If you have any specifc questions regarding these or any other system of training please feel free to pm me and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction.

t-ha

Just responding to some posts in the original thread with my own thoughts.

cowzerp wrote:

Boru you have not offended me-when i say resistance training that does not need 1 day recovery i stick by that, if the intensity is so low that you dont need recovery where does the improvement come from? atlas is a legend, but he knew how to train, his ways are long gone as science based training is with us now-i would be interested to hear from you what type of people need the type of training that needs no recovery-who will this benefit? genuine question? im meant to be on strike! but just thought i'd answer your query.

I don't know anyone who does (naturally) a traditional weightlifting session (i.e. high volume of work, lots of muscle microtrauma) everyday for extended periods, however there are other goals and methods when weight-training.

For example, if training for strength-endurance then recovery is more about getting rid of lactic acid byproducts, replenishing glycogen stores and removing free radicals than it is about muscle growth & recovery periods can therefore be quite short [1].

If training a movement (say the Snatch), then it makes sense to seek nervous system adaptations. In this case the movement should be done fresh (i.e. avoiding failure completely) to avoid changes in form brought on by fatigue. Also, nervous sytem adaptations happen best with increased training frequency, so it could be quite benficial to train the lift everyday (or even more frequently) with a low volume of work.

I wouldn't think of it in terms of 'not needing recovery' but rather 'how much recovery'? If there was truly no recovery required then you could carry on doing the exercise indefinitely, whereas we are talking about taking a break for 23hours including a nights sleep. Anecdotally, I worked on the roads one summer & while I never got DOMS or anything, my forearms grew significantly from the work (and it was long hours and 6 day weeks so little enough rest for them). I had a similar experience with my legs when I trained squat partials daily to try and strengthen a weak part of my ROM - the daily volume was low but my quads blew up in size (alot of which I attribute to working a part of my ROM that was weak more so than high frequency training - but still, it shows that growth is possible even if recovery periods are short).

Chad Waterbury has written some articles on t-nation about high frequency training. Again he makes pretty much the same point, you don't have to get DOMS, a pump, or turn your muscles to jelly every time you work out to grow muscle. I do have my own issues with his stuff, but many people seem to have reported back with favourable results from it.

Personally, I'm currently training twice a day, six days a week, however since only 2 of those sessions are what you would seem to be considering as resistance training I doubt if it counts.

Beelzebub wrote:

This guy Pavel Tsatsouline has been discredited somewhat
Fraud Allegations - From Wikipedia.

"On February 2, 2007, former Dragon Door staff instructor, Steve Cotter, accused Pavel of fraudulently claiming to be a Master of Sports in kettlebell sport and plagiarizing many of his articles.[2] Pavel responded that although he was not awarded the Master of Sports degree, he had unofficially achieved the qualifying numbers. He also stated that he had always given due credit to original authors.[3] Cotter later apologized for the angry tone in which he made the accusations, although he stands by the accuracy of his statements."

That's interesting - though I'd be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater - regardless of where it originates from he's got alot of very good stuff.



[1]: J. W. Yates, J. T. Kearney, M. P. Noland, W. M. Felts, Recovery of dynamic muscular endurance, European Journal of Applied Physiology, Volume 56, Number 6, September 1987

BrianD3

I weight train 7 days a week. Small number of compound exercises per day, medium number of sets per exercise, High weight but low number of reps per set. Quite often go to failure but AFAIK there is a different mechanism involved in failing on the 2nd rep of a heavy double compared to doing a set of 10 to failure.

I have lots of energy and feel great most of the time. If I take a day off I feel more tired than if I had trained. 2 days off and I'll be more tired still, also grumpy and depressed.

Would train twice a day of I had the time, unfortunately something called "work" gets in the way

amazingemmet

There's a couple of ways to look at multiple daily sessions:

From the hormonal point of view that after about 45-60mins of resistance training cortisol levels are going up tests levels going down, so doing more then that in one hour would be a waste, but hormone levels will normalise in about 1-2 hours another workout would be beneificial form this point on, this idea has been taken on by higher level atheltes during off seasons.

From the nerve faciliation point of view that a repeated action not tasken to failure will make you better at one thing, ie pavels grease the groove.

slemons

Boru - can you explain your system? I cant see how training only once every 24 days can be of such a benefit. If i stop training for 24 days i lose about 10% strength.

Cns recovery / training can be extreme but the most i've heard of is 10 days and thats for elite level sprinters who would have a massively refined cns and be well able to tax it. Personally i think ive only ever actually taxed my cns a handful of times. Any other time is just been muscular fatigue.

In your journal you say you bench 350 lbs and leg press 1700lbs. How does this help you adapt/progress more than someone with similiar numbers? Im interested in this.

Do you compete in anything? A 350lbs raw bench is very good. You would surely win a lot of comps with that if you're in and around 80kg

Is your program suitable for athletes? Ive never really been a fan of isometrics myself and use them only sparingly as i can really see much carryover to the sports field. While im on that i dont really see the carryover of many weightroom exercises to the sports field apart from lunges, bulgarians and other exercises where you move about outside of the "can" if you know what i mean. but thats another issue?

Could you give a brief outline of your program? Is it similiar to Jay schroeder (prob not - he's all plyo's, but some holds too) or DB Hammer (he swears by iso holds)?

Boru.

Hi Selmons,

I don't discuss my training protocols on this forum. If you're curious head on over to Team Test, a complete log and explanation of my training method is there . Here's the link. - http://www.teamtestforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=866&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75

Starts about half way down the page with the post entitled Khan!

As regards competition I have zero intrest, my main focus is on training for my own personal development and martial art based goals. With that said the protocols I use have been utilised by many professional athletes and sports associations with great success.

As regards to Shroder or Hammer it is compeltely unlike there's. My system is derived from 5,000 + clincial studies carried out by Dr. A.E. Muelleur and Dr. Theodore Hettinger, combined with my own training expereicne and adaptations.

If you have any specific questions regarding my training protocols after you've read the logs, please feel free to pm me.