There has been some great discussion about recovery time from resistance training. I was looking through Body By Science again last night and had few thoughts. In one section, Doug describes how some clients can take 3 months off and come back with no loss in strength (and may actually be stronger). This connects to a few things in my experience.
First, I posted a year ago on a study that showed the effects of resistance training can last up to year. In the study, a year after the cessation of high-intensity strength training subjects had strength that was still above baseline levels.
Second, I remember last year when I was doing deadlifts once a week for a while. I was making some progress each week, but nothing great. Then, when I took 2 or 3 weeks off from that exercise (but continued doing other lifts) and came back, my deadlift was noticeably stronger. I believe I went up 20 pounds that day and could have went up even more.
Third, in BBS a three-way split is described where the main exercises are done once every three weeks. There are a couple of testimonials that say this leads to no dropoff in strength, and may lead to better improvement.
I have in the past tried to extend recovery times out beyond a week with mixed results. Doug believes that part of the problem is metabolic conditioning. While strength can be preserved for weeks or months, metabolic conditioning starts to go after 5 to 10 days.
Therefore, a solution might be to extend the recovery between weight lifting sessions, but include some type of metabolic conditioning sessions once or twice a week. Somewhere on the web (I can't find where), Doug talks about doing strength training sessions as frequently as you get a haircut, and then doing metabolic conditioning in between.
More on this in the next post...
There has been some great discussion about recovery time from resistance training. I was looking through Body By Science again last night and had few thoughts. In one section, Doug describes how some clients can take 3 months off and come back with no loss in strength (and may actually be stronger). This connects to a few things in my experience.
First, I posted a year ago on a study that showed the effects of resistance training can last up to year. In the study, a year after the cessation of high-intensity strength training subjects had strength that was still above baseline levels.
Second, I remember last year when I was doing deadlifts once a week for a while. I was making some progress each week, but nothing great. Then, when I took 2 or 3 weeks off from that exercise (but continued doing other lifts) and came back, my deadlift was noticeably stronger. I believe I went up 20 pounds that day and could have went up even more.
Third, in BBS a three-way split is described where the main exercises are done once every three weeks. There are a couple of testimonials that say this leads to no dropoff in strength, and may lead to better improvement.
I have in the past tried to extend recovery times out beyond a week with mixed results. Doug believes that part of the problem is metabolic conditioning. While strength can be preserved for weeks or months, metabolic conditioning starts to go after 5 to 10 days.
Therefore, a solution might be to extend the recovery between weight lifting sessions, but include some type of metabolic conditioning sessions once or twice a week. Somewhere on the web (I can't find where), Doug talks about doing strength training sessions as frequently as you get a haircut, and then doing metabolic conditioning in between.
More on this in the next post...