[Classical Liberal]

(Original post by alex_tait)
It doesn't have to be one or the other. In the deadlift there are quite a few people who have deadlifted very heavy weights without being fat.

I agree, but the article is suggesting precisely that sentiment of the trade off between fat and muscle. To get really strong you also need to get fat. That is the crux of it. I agree that if all you care about is strength, then sure get fat whilst you get strong. However if like most people you want to have good cardio fitness, have plenty of energy, be strong and look good, then this whole eat 4,000 calories/day and drink loads of milk is just plain stupid.

[Old School]

It's incredible how so many of you have completely missed the point of the article.

Ripptoe is not saying eat loads of Food, get 'fat' and stay 'fat'. He is advocating considerable weight gain over a short period of time to facilitate considerable strength gains. He says several times that you can lose the blubber you put on quite quickly.

Fat is easy to get rid of, muscle is not easy to gain.

Also, conditioning, flexibility and general fitness only fall by the wayside when running a strength program if you let them.

[Arturo Bandini]

(Original post by Old School)
It's incredible how so many of you have completely missed the point of the article.

Ripptoe is not saying eat loads of Food, get 'fat' and stay 'fat'. He is advocating considerable weight gain over a short period of time to facilitate considerable strength gains. He says several times that you can lose the blubber you put on quite quickly.

Fat is easy to get rid of, muscle is not easy to gain.

Also, conditioning, flexibility and general fitness only fall by the wayside when running a strength program if you let them.

Yeah but he's going overboard, as he always does.

5-6000 cals a day? That's far too much for most people

[Illidan_Stormrage]

You can gain a very large amount of strength quickly without making yourself look like a whale. You may not be able to maintain the strength gains for as long but you won't have to spend 2 months getting the fat off afterwards. If you have a stupidly high surplus which he is recommending then you are going to get very very fat regardless of whether or not you do conditioning.

[Old School]

(Original post by Arturo Bandini)
Yeah but he's going overboard, as he always does.

5-6000 cals a day? That's far too much for most people

Have you ever tried it?

[Ocassus]

(Original post by Old School)
Have you ever tried it?

Yes, and I agree, its not as difficult as people say it is.

The problem I have with that article is that it seems to entirely hinge around the point of 'get bigger' which is not what most athletes want to accomplish.

[Old School]

(Original post by Ocassus)
Yes, and I agree, its not as difficult as people say it is.

The problem I have with that article is that it seems to entirely hinge around the point of 'get bigger' which is not what most athletes want to accomplish.

Then you're misreading it. It's about getting stronger. In order to get stronger quickly you need to gain weight.

Anyone who has half a brain can cut the fat that they put on and get back down to a more reasonable size for their sport. This is not something that you would do year in year out- it's a one time thing.

The strength and power gains that you get from doing something like SS properly (ridiculous diet included) for 12 weeks or so are obscene. The reason so many people see mediocre results is because they simply don't eat enough.

[Illidan_Stormrage]

I have milked 3x5 and got 170kg squat 3x5, 100kg bench press 3x5 and 71kg ohp 3x5. I would've gone even further if I had gotten into tracking macros. Either way I had decent success with the program and I never even got close to eating 5000 calories a day. To eat that amount of calories when you are starting out and lifting weights that aren't even that challenging is just stupid. A 500 calorie surplus will enable you to take advantage of your noob gains very well.

[EonBlueApocalypse]

2-3 shot glasses of olive oil and day= around 1000 healthy calories. GOMAD is a stupid. Clean bulks can be just as calorific as dirty ones.

inb4oliveoilbadforyou

[Ocassus]

(Original post by Old School)
Then you're misreading it. It's about getting stronger. In order to get stronger quickly you need to gain weight.

Well I have two things to say to that. Muscle expansion via Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy is faster and more prevalent than Myofibrill growth. When you gain weight fast, a high percentage of that 'weight' is non-contracting sarcoplasm in the muscle. This is great for bodybuilders and such, terrible for powerlifters and athletes. Its inefficient to chuck weight on as fast as possible if efficient strength is your desire. (This is coming from an ecto athlete who did the GOMAD for 3 weeks).
Secondly, the reason I read Rips article like that is because his fixation is primarily on the work carried out in the gym. You don't need to do the GOMAD or eat stupid amounts to gain strength, you just need to have enough.

Anyone who has half a brain can cut the fat that they put on and get back down to a more reasonable size for their sport. This is not something that you would do year in year out- it's a one time thing.

Except that for many sports it requires that you physically stop or slow down your training as an athlete to supplement that strength training. Bad idea.

I just bulked and cut, it was fine.

The strength and power gains that you get from doing something like SS properly (ridiculous diet included) for 12 weeks or so are obscene. The reason so many people see mediocre results is because they simply don't eat enough.

They are obscene but inefficient. Myofibrill>Sarcoplasmic.

[jam277]

Well I 'lean bulk' for speed, stamina and strength, i.e. the all rounder effect although I'm purely straight up bulking atm for other purposes. I've improved overall, my stamina has gone up, I feel much faster than I used to be, I've gone from barely lifting 14 in military press to lifting 22s in 2 months and I can actually finally do tricep dips with ease.

I used to do 40 mile cycle rides every week so my legs were never a problem and all I have to do is go on my exercise bike and I can cut some body fat.

Also, the point of this is basically saying, don't go to the gym for lean bulking. It's such a novice idea, I realised that, you're not lifting bigger weights or getting any stronger doing that, just lift loads when you go to the gym for bulking and don't focus too much on running if you have to do a run to improve your VO2 max but you're gonna lose muscle the more you run right after a weights session which renders you spending 90 mins doing bicep curls and tricep dips useless.

[Arturo Bandini]

(Original post by Old School)
Have you ever tried it?

No. I've gained weight and strength quickly on considerably less so why would I?

[Aeschylus]

(Original post by Ocassus)
Yes, and I agree, its not as difficult as people say it is.

The problem I have with that article is that it seems to entirely hinge around the point of 'get bigger' which is not what most athletes want to accomplish.

Exactly. Ocassus and I both come from swimming background. I found that when I ate generaly 500-1000 calories a day more than normal and trained in the gym, not only did my strength go up, but so did my weight without any substantial fat gain. I don't see the need to eat like a pig, especially if you're new to exercise, at that will set bad habits in motion.

Also what's all this about 'looking big in a shirt'. If you train properly (i.e shoulders back legs etc) without getting fat it is pretty obvious someone is an athlete and trains with weights and even more so without a shirt. I don't see the need to drink a gallon of milk a day just so strangers can tell me I've bulked up in a t shirt but I'm to embarrassed to take it off.

But I guess we have different goals.

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by EonBlueApocalypse)
2-3 shot glasses of olive oil and day= around 1000 healthy calories. GOMAD is a stupid. Clean bulks can be just as calorific as dirty ones.

inb4oliveoilbadforyou

1000 calories, 0 grams of protein. Why doesn't everyone do this?

[EonBlueApocalypse]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
1000 calories, 0 grams of protein. Why doesn't everyone do this?

Protein isn't the be all, end all of a mass building diet. It's helpful when like me your diet is already high in protein and sufficient carbohydrates but you need those extra calories. Plus you underrating the value of the amount of healthy fats it contains.

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by Ocassus)
Well I have two things to say to that. Muscle expansion via Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy is faster and more prevalent than Myofibrill growth. When you gain weight fast, a high percentage of that 'weight' is non-contracting sarcoplasm in the muscle. This is great for bodybuilders and such, terrible for powerlifters and athletes. Its inefficient to chuck weight on as fast as possible if efficient strength is your desire. (This is coming from an ecto athlete who did the GOMAD for 3 weeks).
Secondly, the reason I read Rips article like that is because his fixation is primarily on the work carried out in the gym. You don't need to do the GOMAD or eat stupid amounts to gain strength, you just need to have enough.



Except that for many sports it requires that you physically stop or slow down your training as an athlete to supplement that strength training. Bad idea.

I just bulked and cut, it was fine.



They are obscene but inefficient. Myofibrill>Sarcoplasmic.

If sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is terrible, why does it happen in response to training stimulus?

What is the main determinant of whether your hypertrophy is sarcoplasmic or myofibrillar?

[Ocassus]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
If sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is terrible, why does it happen in response to training stimulus?

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy WILL happen regardless of what you do, but it will happen in varying degrees with Myofibrillar depending on how you train. Its only 'terrible' insofar as it causes a large amount of your 'size' to come as a direct result of the muscle filling with non-contracting fluid. This is good if you want to look big, not good if you want to maintain as close strength/weight ratio as possible.

What is the main determinant of whether your hypertrophy is sarcoplasmic or myofibrillar?

Training around the 8-12 rep range (Apart from for forearms and calfs which tend to require high rep ranges anyway) will focus on the slow tearing of muscle. You only need to look at someone like Kai Greene training to see that he maximises muscle flexion to tear as much as possible. Then when the fibres repair they are fatter and thicker all the way down, allowing the partially hollow space inside of them to fill with the fluid. That is Sarcoplasmic.

Training in the 1-6 rep range focuses on your CNS, ATP systems and Type IIx fibres. The lower the reps with more of the weight you go, the more explosive power you will require. When you perform pure strength sets, maximal rest is needed. The aim is not to tear fibres, but to improve the CNS and to force the body to stimulate raw growth of muscle fibre. That is Myofibrillar.

[The Troll Toll]

(Original post by Ocassus)
Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy WILL happen regardless of what you do, but it will happen in varying degrees with Myofibrillar depending on how you train. Its only 'terrible' insofar as it causes a large amount of your 'size' to come as a direct result of the muscle filling with non-contracting fluid. This is good if you want to look big, not good if you want to maintain as close strength/weight ratio as possible.

That doesn't answer my question. Why does this "fluid" accumulate? What is its function? Is it there just because evolution wanted to troll us or does it have a function? If it doesn't have a function, why does it grow as an adaption in response to training?

Training around the 8-12 rep range (Apart from for forearms and calfs which tend to require high rep ranges anyway) will focus on the slow tearing of muscle. You only need to look at someone like Kai Greene training to see that he maximises muscle flexion to tear as much as possible. Then when the fibres repair they are fatter and thicker all the way down, allowing the partially hollow space inside of them to fill with the fluid. That is Sarcoplasmic.

Training in the 1-6 rep range focuses on your CNS, ATP systems and Type IIx fibres. The lower the reps with more of the weight you go, the more explosive power you will require. When you perform pure strength sets, maximal rest is needed. The aim is not to tear fibres, but to improve the CNS and to force the body to stimulate raw growth of muscle fibre. That is Myofibrillar.

So you're saying doing what Rippetoe says will result in mostly myofibrillar hypertrophy and diet has nothing to do with it? That's what I thought.

[Old School]

(Original post by The Troll Toll)
That doesn't answer my question. Why does this "fluid" accumulate? What is its function? Is it there just because evolution wanted to troll us or does it have a function? If it doesn't have a function, why does it grow as an adaption in response to training?


So you're saying doing what Rippetoe says will result in mostly myofibrillar hypertrophy and diet has nothing to do with it? That's what I thought.

Sarcoplasm does have a function. It's essentially the cytoplasm of skeletal muscle cells and has a **** load of glycosomes (glucose granules, essentially) in it along with a load of myoglobin.

More glycosomes=more energy for sustained contraction

More myoglobin=more oxygen potential= more energy for sustained contraction.

More time under tension provides stimulus for an increase in sarcoplasm so the muscle can cope with that sort of stress better.

Obviously nature didn't intend for us to be doing 10 sets of 10 hence why sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is less 'functional' than myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Hope that was slightly clear than mud.

[The Troll Toll]

So what you're saying is there isn't such thing as un-functional muscle? Shocking.