High-Frequency Training For Stubborn Muscles PDF Print E-mail
Written by Carlon M. Colker, MD, FACN
Friday, 21 August 2009
A trap we so often fall into is to train weak body parts more frequently in the hopes that “more is better.” The fact is that it’s a trap that does nothing but eventually shrink muscle, increase local inflammation and raise the likelihood of injuring the area. As an example, a typical scenario would be a 25-year-old bodybuilder who has weak triceps. Instead of sticking with the 10-set intense weekly workouts he started off doing, eventually he figures that 12 sets would be better. Twelve leads to 15 and eventually he’s doing 20 sets. So right there, he’s already overtrained. After awhile, as he no longer feels any soreness in his muscles no matter how many sets he’s doing, he increases the frequency of workouts to the point that he’s hitting his triceps twice each week for 15-20 sets each session. Eventually, he develops elbow pain and tendinitis. Meanwhile, his triceps still look like ****.
His elbow pain and tendinitis is a typical result of excessive inflammation. The same holds true in every joint. Back, hips, shoulders, knees and ankles are all susceptible to high-volume inflammation from repetitive resistive work. Remember that high-volume resistance training is not like a long jog. You must keep in mind that the goal is maximum pump. That means high circulation, heat and lactic acid production in the area. The area should be pumped and then allowed to clear via circulation. If instead you keep going back to the proverbial well, lactic acid remains in the area for too long a period. Lactic acid then slows healing and potentiates the inflammatory state. So while a little abbreviated muscle fatigue as a result of a fleeting pump is good for muscle growth, a constant and excessive battering of movement to try to further break down muscle in an area that already has been pumped to capacity is a formula for disaster.
This guy with his cruddy triceps and elbow pain is a classic example of how to do it the wrong way. Need another example? If you’re dumb enough, you are welcome to try doing 300 reps of squats three times a week for a few months and see if you don’t develop debilitating joint pain! So where exactly did he go wrong? How could he have gone after more muscle growth while not falling into the trap I describe? The answer is easy to understand, but extremely difficult to apply. That’s because the compunction to do more as opposed to less is almost irresistible. But the idea of higher frequency workouts was in fact the right idea_t7a3373.jpg. The mistake he made was that in turn, he should have dialed down the total number of sets he was doing. So if he was maxed out in terms of sets with his original number of 10 sets, he should have actually dialed that number down to about 8 sets when he introduced the other training session that same week.
Since women have a much more difficult time than men when building extreme muscle, this is perhaps the best place to look for a descriptive example of how well this principle works in proper action. The first example that comes to my mind is pro fitness competitor sensation and 2008 Fitness International Champion Kim Scheideler. Though one of the best of all time, Kim is hardly ever the biggest girl on the stage. She doesn’t put on a ton of muscle easily with her body type. Early on in her career, her shoulders were almost a weakness for her, visually. They were a little bony and flat from the sides. But at the 2008 Arnold Sports Festival, she showed obvious massive deltoid improvement that even drew attention from the crowd at the week-ending seminar. Kim showed full, rounded, symmetric deltoids, with perfect proportion and clearly visible rock-hard striations. This was a dramatic departure from past appearances and a major improvement. The “how-to” story is that Kim simply and correctly utilized the concept of proper high-frequency training. While she hit her shoulders with training twice each week, neither session was a full-blown routine. She had the discipline to keep the total number of sets in check and not go overboard.
Again, it takes a tremendous degree of self-control to resist the temptation to do a full-blast routine. People like Kim (and myself) and almost every other committed musclehead out there simply love to train. It’s not our fault. We’re just wired that way. It’s to the point that it’s almost sacrilege to even suggest that we do a little less. But the good news is that it only hurts to get started. After that, you get used to it, because the next session comes up on you pretty quick, so you learn to enjoy the little bit of rest interval prior to the next session.
Keep in mind that I said nothing about dialing down intensity. In fact, your intensity should be very, very high. This is especially true because the routine for that body part will be so much more abbreviated. If intensity is too low, you will turn a muscle-stimulating routine into, at best, maintenance.
Looking back and drawing from my personal experience, I recall stumbling on the benefits of high-frequency training quite serendipitously. As a young teenage bodybuilder back in the ‘80s, I had always wanted a big set of lats. I recall cutting out pictures of Franco Columbu’s lat spread and putting them up on my wall for inspiration, next to my poster of Farrah Fawcett. He had crazy-looking lats that started from his waist and blew out from his sides like a pair of bat wings. I wanted to be wide, wide, wide. So I trained back with a ferocity unmatched by others in the gym. It was my main focus for months. Chins, pulldowns, seated rows, heavy dumbbell rows, T-bars and more; I did it all in my quest for width. I averaged 20-25 sets per workout. Though my back improved after several months, I just wasn’t getting the results I thought I would.
Then I met Dave “Onions” Goodman. Onions was a serious rock-climber who had the freaky ability, and even freakier desire, to eat a whole onion like an apple. Gregg Valentino gave him his appropriate nickname. At any rate, for a guy who wasn’t even a bodybuilder, his lats were absolutely insane and the envy of every guy in the gym. Yet, in support of his sport, all he did to train his back was wide-grip chins. Having grown tired of my tedious routine and despondent over my poor return on investment in over-the-top back training, I gave it up and just hung with Dave. I figured it didn’t matter, because my lats weren’t growing much anyway. Add to that, girls loved Dave and would always hang around him, so it was an added incentive to stick with him for his workouts. All we would do were chins. Mostly wide-grip and some with a moderate grip, but after getting strong enough, I started hanging weight off my belt for added resistance. Usually we would get in about 8 to 10 sets. Along with a set or two of dumbbell pullovers to finish, this was all we would do for back. We did this on average twice every week to 10 days. I loved it because it was such a departure from my previous efforts on back, plus I just loved hanging with Onions!
Then, after a few months, I got a big surprise— big lats. I’m not kidding, either. It was literally a shock when they arrived. I mean it was like just one day and pow! They were there. Guys at the gym commented first. Even my mother noticed! I was so excited that I had to repeatedly stare at them in these mirrors I had rigged up in my basement so I could see my lats. It was the fastest I ever remember a muscle responding. I felt like one of those chicks after getting a boob job and the wraps finally come off. The difference here was that my lats didn’t come courtesy of any plastic surgeon. In sharp contrast, they were the result of me having inadvertently applied an advanced training technique.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of this experience was the fact that prior to my training with Onions, I had worked so hard, to no avail. It wasn’t until I backed off the number of sets and increased the frequency of training that I saw results. So make time to take stock of your routine with special attention to the body parts that are not responding as well as you think they could. Look at the frequency of training and the total number of sets. It might be that high-frequency training is just what the doctor orders.
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