Bodybuilding Forums

triple wrote:I guess that's the biggest problem I have with Mark's diet and 3.0: there's a lot of loose variables floating around, and there's a lot of assumptions being made that these will be consistent every day.

For example, two chicken drumsticks could easily vary from each other by 100 calories or so depending on how they were cooked, how large they are, etc; and with Mark's recommendation to eat 100-200 more calories a day for growth and no more (based on a formula that will vary quite a bit from person to person and may not be accurate for many people), it's hard to figure out what to take with a grain of salt and what to be precise about.

I guess it's all about taking the recommendations of the program, and carefully tracking and experimenting to yourself to see how your body responds and how you should adjust it.

This is something I've been pondering lately as well. I'm beginning to believe the calorie requirements do not need to be so specific to gain muscle. Years ago, I believed muscle was built by pumping iron. I paid no attention to my diet, and needless to say, I didn't grow. Then of course we learn muscles are built in the kitchen. So you pay far too much attention to your protein, calorie servings, etc, and the actual lifting regime takes a back seat. But now I'm thinking the nutritional side of muscle building is being overblown.

A pound of muscle is 600 calories right? So say you build 1lb of muscle in a month. That's 20 extra cals per day, over a very rough maintenance calorie calculation, that you need to build. It just can't be that specific. That just isn't possible to measure with the errors involved in calorie counting and maintenance calorie calcs.

My view now is that as long as you ensure you're getting your protein requirements in every meal, and having regular meals, and that the calories are somewhere around maintenance, you have what is necessary to build muscle. Once you gain that extra 1lb of muscle, apparently it takes an extra 50 calories per day to maintain that muscle, so you'd up your calorie requirements steadily as the time passes. This can all probably be dictated simply by your hunger levels. Feel hungry before your next meal? Up your calories by 50 cals per meal. You might get a little fatter, but then your body uses the excess calories in your body fat to build muscle, you get leaner, you get hungry between meals again, so up your calories again. And on and on. I don't know if that's hogwash, and in practice its probably quite different, but its the approach I'm leaning towards now, especially as we know we shouldn't get excessively fat on the GLAD diet. Just don't go hungry and you'll build is my view.

What is probably more important is your frequency of training and recovery, which is now where I'm focusing my attention. I had no knowledge of POP, PCP, etc, before Mark's articles.

My 2 cents for what its worth.

You won't know if you're fully rested, but if you're getting stronger each time it doesn't really matter. I mean honestly, would you rather go lift every 3 days or every 5 days? And even if you're not fully rested, it's still fine because you still stimulate growth more often.

triple wrote:

paulcorfield wrote:Don't just focus on strength, do the bodypart measurements too. Most of my 25 years training has been geared towards gymnastics and strength training where the goal was to only gain strength and not muscle. I know from past experience that I am stronger on a workout pretty much day to day. I think (for me anyway), for a bodybuilding routine the bodypart measurement is a better guide for when to train again. For POP you find the sweet spot when you are strongest and biggest with biggest being the key factor if size gains are the desired effect.

How do you do your bodypart measurements? I've tried, but there's so many variables - hydration, that pump that sticks with a muscle for a day or two after a good workout, creatine and glutamine amounts, and just faulty measuring (did I have the tape this tight yesterday?) that I haven't had much success in micro-measuring (more often than say, two months).

Zero wrote:You come back whenever you're stronger. Not when you feel over 200% rested. You said 3 days, go to the gym every 3 days then.

So how do you know if you're at POP, or just more rested/more glycogen/more hydrated whatever during a workout, and not just heading back to the gym while only 70% to POP there? It wouldn't make a big difference in each workout, but could add up significantly over a few months, especially if overtraining happens.

I guess that's the biggest problem I have with Mark's diet and 3.0: there's a lot of loose variables floating around, and there's a lot of assumptions being made that these will be consistent every day.

I guess it's all about taking the recommendations of the program, and carefully tracking and experimenting to yourself to see how your body responds and how you should adjust it.

agreed. i wanna make sure i've hit PEAK overcompensation and not 70%. there are a lot of guys in the hit (body by science guys as well as drew baye here in orlando) who workout once a week at most. not saying thats for most people, just something to try. and for me i strength is the best indicator only because im not that great at taking measurements. there's no way of knowing i'm holding the tape at exactly the same place each time. also i ran across this article where mark talks about the relationship of strength to size and strength as a good indicator of muscle gain. http://www.musclehack.com/how-to-know-i ... ng-muscle/

triple wrote:

paulcorfield wrote:
I guess it's all about taking the recommendations of the program, and carefully tracking and experimenting to yourself to see how your body responds and how you should adjust it.

You answered all your questions with your final point - the reason there are so many variables because as people we are so different and we all respond differently.

If you want my opinion on simplyfying everything ( I too got hung up on calories / protein etc ) if you are training with TA3.0 try training initially every 3 days (72 hour POP), if you are still groing stronger then try every other day (48 hour POP) and see if you are still gaining with reps and weight. The key is not to cheat on form in order to guage your gains from session to session - it has taken me some time to actually get uniformed on the form for every session. With respect to nutrition I follow the MANS diet and it is pretty much impossibe not to get the amount of protein I need to grow. I work on the 1.5g of protien per pound of lean mass, for me im about 76kg or 167.2 Lb's lean mass and I take in the region of 250grms of protein a day - if you are getting over that then so be it, it hasnt negatively affected me in any way. I also try to eat smaller portions but more often, say like 50grms of protein over 5 meals ? Or add additional protein shakes during the day to make it up obviously the other variable on the MANS diet is carbs which I keep ultra low unless i'm on my one day a week carb up.

...........and thats about as complex as I get.

Yes, it is indeed more difficult than it sounds. Not too difficult though.

I'm doing my second round of TA 3.0 and I've just come to the realization today that my POP may have increased. Previously I was resting 3 full days, but today I was in the gym and was stronger on only a few exercises and worse on some. it's something to be mindful of. The heavier your weights become, the more rest you might need.

Here's something to consider, although I admittedly skimmed the thread.

The guys that work out once a week (if that) may be doing something similar to Mark's THT Volume (TA 3.1) cycles. If you do TA 3.0, I'd be hard-pressed to see you do more than a 72-hour recovery unless you're massively out of shape.

I started at staggered intervals but when doing TA 3.0 I'm normally at a two-day POP. If you can progressively increase weight and/or reps each workout, you're on the "good" side towards POP at the very least. In fact, I'd wager if you were able to keep that pace over a few weeks or more, you've got yourself dialed in pretty good.

Another thing to remember is that you need to stay focused and POSITIVE. If you're defeatist or not totally committed, then it doesn't matter what you're doing - your results will not be as dramatic / effective as you're not putting as much into your efforts. Period.

Looking over my old THT logs, I was plateaud on a few exercises (the same as today's). Namely pec deck, wrists and squats. I guess it's more of a pride thing taking more time off to rest and recover. At the start of my first 3.0 routine I tried a 2 day wait, then changed to 3. After being marginally worse in some exercises today, I have to bite the bullet and concede that I'm not as fast a recoverer as I think. I'm gonna try 4 days. However, the comment about positivity is true. Just remember also that our muscles don't grow in the gym but rather outside of it.

if your strength peaks every 5 days that does not mean that you should lift every 5 days.That means you should hit the same bodypart every five days.

It depends on what you're doing, and I'll narrow my focus to TA 3.0 or 3.1. If it's TA 3.0, you're hitting all muscle groups in a single day, with a xxx day recovery before your next mass workout.

If it's TA 3.1 (Volume cycle), you're hitting one body part per day, one week between body parts. Shoulders Monday, Legs Tuesday, etc etc.

Success.

Due to a few business trips I ended up taking 7 whole days off between workouts. In today's workout I was stronger in almost every exercise. I've been having a bit of a plateau on pec deck but I managed to squeeze out half a rep more than last week at least.

So just to further advocate that taking a bit more rest time really does work.