HighIntensity.net View Mike Mentzer Bodybuilding Topic

Hi, can someone please give me some feedback. I have been training HD style for around 6 months solid with no high volume workouts in between. At present I am the strongest and most muscular that i′ve ever been. I have swapped around workouts, exersizes and different strategies, but they have all been within the HD principles (I think). I bought Bill Sahli′s 2 e-books recently and I also had a workout plan sent from him via email. Within the last month I have found myself becoming more and more lethargic in general and when it comes to training. I read somewhere that when you exersize regularly there is a chemical response in the body that keeps you wanting to train and in some cases gets you addictide. As I currently only train once per week, I don′t know if it′s the lack of training or working to failure that is causing this tiredness.
I read through a few topics over the weekend and was interested by one from jetro about rest pause training. I have called it extended rest pause as he advises to rest a lot longer than a normal rest pause set. I had my first session yesterday in which I did 8 reps of trap bar deadlifts with 140k and 8 reps of dips with 30k all having around 30 secs rest in between reps. I was able to perform all reps in perfect form at a slow pace and did not feel wasted after the session. Both sets were not finished to failure and I could have probably done another 4/5 reps for the deads and another 8 for the dips. Today I have no muscle aches and do not feel no where near as tired as normal. I know that it′s the last almost immpossible rep that is the most productive, but if it′s making me tired for days after I need to find an alternative.
If I was to continue training in this ex r/pause fashion and increased my deads from 140 to 200, my dips from 30 to 50, my squats from 120 to 200 and my chins 5 to 25 by the end of the year, surely this would show in muscle gains and not just strength.
I am so happy that I have reached the strength levels that I have through HD because a couple of years ago lifting 140k for one rep seemed immpossible, but I can′t handle the constant tiredness.
Cheers.

Hi there gav, yes, i had the exact same problem as you, tired all the time! and i am now doing rest-pause sets, in that when i do leg press or squats i rest in the locked out position, recover my breath and knock another one out! and the same with dips and pull downs. i find i can go to failure on upper body,that was not the problem, it was going to failure on lower body that buggerd me up! i do think there are a lot more people out there, than we no about that find failure training to much stress to there bodys! but wont say so, as afraid of being called a whimp! i had no problem in training to failure! but my body did! think i burnt my body out by the time i was 25 with volume training and every set to failure and beyond! Thats why i say to young guys, listen to your body!! as when i was young, i never did!! and i am paying for it now. body burnt out, and joints buggerd up, with to heavy weight!!

Hi Folks,

When Mike said overtraining was not just something sorta negative and that it takes sometimes weeks to recover, well it is the truth…. I have seen it in the gym and with my phone clients… although they don′t like to hear it and usually until we go through a thorough phone session their negative results so far can usually be linked to overtraining, not stimulus, meaning not resting long enough, not the intensity employed.

You have to check your logic here really… become emotionally un attached…because if you think clearly here… RIGHT NOW…you are the strongest and most muscular you have ever been. IF you continue to train within a specific spectrum of rest, and I find this very often…you are going to loose the battle. Your strength can increase some 300% while your recover ability may increase 50%… do the numbers and you will see the seesaw tilting to one side. The only way you can compensate is taking more rest time.

It takes time for the body to recover. I cant begin to tell you how important that is. If it doesn′t recover it cant go to the next step of laying down muscle. I have folks that train every 10-14 days and not until then… do they compensate let alone overcompensate for the exhaustive effects of the workout. It is genetics. There are those that can train every other day and recover… (however not forever either….) and those, and I have had clients like this… who have had to take a straight 6 months off before they began to train again because it took that long for them to fill the ditch… this is true guys!! High Intensity, Heavy Duty, R U Serious, you call it what you will. If you have a thorough understanding of the theory, there is no guessing.

This is the way to think through it…

OK, I (You) am training intensely, with an intense contraction to stimulate the growth, to turn on the growth mechanism.

I am training briefly, not using so much of my recover ability and leaving as much possible there … being cognizant not to dig too deep of a ditch… or are you…Question….Do I need to be more brief. Remember, training is always a negative.

If I am still tired after a week, or two or three, my body has not compensated for the exhaustive effects of the exercise, let alone compensated…. more rest is required.. Not everyone is using recovery enhancing drugs etc so it will take time, but the wait is well worth it….

Read about Lethargic….

Lethargy or Lethargic- deficient in alertness or activity; "bullfrogs became lethargic with the first cold nights" [ant: energetic] … is lack of energy… energy is something we are, everything is energy… when we expend it it must be replaced. The body recovers systemically and replaces energy as such.

Have you ever noticed how when you are sick sometimes or over tired, you don′t even feel like eating. Animals are the smartest… when they are sick, they waste no energy on eating, their body saves all its energy to fight off the STRESS, sickness is a stress…. See… it is all stress related… the body doesn′t know the difference…

So if your metabolism seems sluggish, you feel lethargic etc, chances are you have allowed yourself to move into a state of overtraining and continuing so just digs a deeper hole. A sluggish metabolism or lethargic is the first symptoms I use, along with a slowing of progress, as the beginning of the overtraining condition. If you are active and healthy and not overtrained, you should feel energetic. If done properly, you should never reach a condition of overtraining.

If we realize there is one valid theory of high intensity training, if we really understand anaerobic exercise, then the answer is not changing routines, not going to the volume approach, not dropping the intensity, the answer to the problem or question can be found in one of the two aspects of this training… that is in volume or frequency or both…. who says that you have to train every so many days? Who says that your workout has to be 1 -2 -3 or 5 sets. Who says that those abbreviated workouts have to be all large compound movements… Stick with the theory and you will find the answers to the question.

This really has nothing to do with being a wimp, but about being 100% when going to your next workout. I personally could not imagine at this moment, another Rest Pause Leg Workout, which is my next workout. I am scheduled to train again tomorrow and I got news, I will reassess where I am on next Monday, today is Tuesday, so since there were already about 8 days since my last workout, tomorrow will be 9 days, I will add 5 days till Monday and if I am 100%, I will be there, 14 days later… if not, no problem. I am after the result not the experience so the less I am in the gym, the better…. gives me more time to live, play and enjoy the result, a strong, muscular and energetic body…

Always use logic in working out these similar problems and you will find the answers precisely.

Best regards to all on this great discussion..

Bill Sahli
http://www.ruserious.info

Thank you Bill. That was incredibly well put. You always get me rethinking my routine and were I′m headed with it.
Kevin F.

Thanks for your input there bill!