Crunches

[Chong Warrior]

Yes I do.

Olympic lifters train the same movements every day sometimes two workouts a day. Full body routine three times per week was the norm back in the days of Reg Park (he of the 5x5 fame) before Weider principles and the like, it pre-dates split routines.

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html is a very popular type of training baesd on three full body workouts per week with varying rep ranges.

It's such a popular and succesful method of training I can't believe you posted that comment.

I'm doing the HST program myself at the moment and have had an online journal running for a good few weeks now as a lot of people were interested to see how I got on with it.

and there's the thing, that's on a popular weight training forum with a lot of people who know their stuff. Training a muscle group 3 times a week is pretty unusual, unless you're a goddam olympic lifter of course!!

The way it works as regards to volume of training isn't really any different from hitting a muscle once a week though, see here.... As you can see for example when training once a week the chest can be hit with 6-9 sets, when training 3 times a week the chest is still only hit with 6-9 sets. The volume stays the same but it takes quite a bit of exoerience to be able to hit a muscle hard enough with just one set in a workout.

Apart from that you are going on about very advanced training methods here... I'm thinking the HST is maybe a little too advanced for me and I've been into bodybuilding for over a decade. Does this guy sound like he's advanced enough for these kinds of training loads?? would you recommend he goes on a 5x5 routine 3 times a week?

With this in mind how is what I said nonesense? If you think a beginner should be hitting muscle groups more than twice a week with a good volume of work then I think you're wrong.

 

[Chong Warrior]

We've all been there mate. That fat around the stomach is always the last bit to go. Hit the treadmills and control that blood sugar level and it should fall off easy. If you're still having trouble consider carb cycling (www.c-k-d.com). It's not for everyone but it worked wonders for me.

This is were I'm struggling now. I'm as big as I want to get and now want to try and keep as much muscle as possible while dropping bf. Currently 6ft 215lb and I'd guess my bf is around 15%, maybe less.

I'm eating quite low carb (though nowhere near low enough to induce ketosis), high protein and I'm eating more fat (the good kind) than I've ever eaten in my life, I feel great. I'm considering dropping the carbs even more now, see if this kind of diet can work for me.

 

[GordyR]

This is were I'm struggling now. I'm as big as I want to get and now want to try and keep as much muscle as possible while dropping bf. Currently 6ft 215lb and I'd guess my bf is around 15%.

I'm eating quite low carb (though nowhere near low enough to induce ketosis), high protein and I'm eating more fat (the good kind) than I've ever eaten in my life, I feel great. I'm considering dropping the carbs even more now, see if this kind of diet can work for me.

Go for it... People that are insulin sensitive tend to do fantastically well on low carb diets. I like the CKD approach because it uses a refeeding strategy. Basically you 'carb-up' on certain days to replenish glycogen stores as well as keep that metabolism up and help prevent catabolism. In fact I would go so far as to say the carb-up days are one of the most important aspects of these diets, hence the term "carb cycling".

I'm a huge believer in a healthy balanced diet, we all know how important carbs are in a general diet but for a lot of us in order to get rid of that last little bit of fat covering our abs we have to take slightly more drastic measures. People that seem to put muscle on relatively easily also tend to be quite sensitive to insulin. Since it's the carbs that effect insulin levels, getting those spikes under control is extremely important when our goal is to lose that stubborn last bit of fat around the stomach.

 

[Goatboy]

Training a muscle group 3 times a week is pretty unusual,

Only because other methods took the limelight (thanks to magazines) 50 years ago it's how people trained, not at all unusual just less prolific nowadays. I have book of articles written in the 70's that recommends exactly that for all trainees.

The volume stays the same but it takes quite a bit of exoerience to be able to hit a muscle hard enough with just one set in a workout.

Depends what you define as 'hard enough' you don't train the muscle any harder you're just varying the frequency, once you get past the initial soreness of training the muscle again quickly it's fine in my experience. I'm not aware of anyone complaining that they weren't able to recover properly from training like that.

Does this guy sound like he's advanced enough for these kinds of training loads?? would you recommend he goes on a 5x5 routine 3 times a week?

If the form is down then why not, not necessarily 5x5 but there's nothing about higher frequency training that procludes beginners. However you skin your cat it's all still a case of getting the right volume, frequency and load that allows you to recover between workouts.

With this in mind how is what I said nonesense? If you think a beginner should be hitting muscle groups more than twice a week with a good volume of work then I think you're wrong.

Beginners have trained that way since training existed so feel free to think I'm wrong but there are plenty of people around who'd disagree with first hand experience. The way you made posted 'you shouldn't...' makes it sound like some sort of factual statement akin to 'you shouldn't play with fire' therefore that's how I interpreted it.