PROD1GY

Hi
me and my friend just had an argument
he claims if you want to gain mass, you should train 2 muscles a day on a 3-4 day split, because you get more rest, and that test and gh are released from all the stress.
I said that can also increase Cortisol, considering he lifts for about 2 hours, and that should decrease test and stop anabolism.
I told him that training 1 muscle is better because you get to kill that muscle off. Training 2 muscles a day leaves the second muscle trained with less effort, because you already gave all your energy to the first muscle.

What do you think is the better way, and why?

PROD1GY

Comon i really gotta find out fast

Trick D

There are certain muscles that can be lifted by themselves in a day... such as back or chest, but to me it is better to be more efficient and hit 2 or so muscle groups per day. Rather it be back and biceps, legs and shoulders, etc.

And for working out for 2 hours? there is no reason that any workout should last more than an Hour and 30 minutes... I normally can do two good muscle groups in 45-55 minutes. No reason to spend 1 hour or more on one muscle group... and you are right. Cortisol does go up when lifting more than 1.5 hours.

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SoMdHunter

With the expection of arms (bi's/tri's and forearms), I generally lift only 1 major muscle group per night....is Legs, Back, Chest. This way I can concentrate on that specific muscle/routine. I completely exhaust it, go all the way to failure everytime, then rest it for 6 days before I hit it again.

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Vegetarian - ancient Indian term for bad hunter.

madcow2

I think you should worry a lot less about post workout hormonal balance and a lot more about getting your big lifts up (squat, dead, bench, row, overhead). There is a feedback loop that keeps everything in line and it takes a fair amount of work and then some real stupidity to ignore an obvious and long progression of warning signs to really screw yourself up and get into real overtraining and upset the balance (and this happens over time, not in 1 workout or 1 week). You should try to understand two factor theory and how fatigue accumulates and if workload is in excess of what you can recover from on a linear basis will eventually lead to overreaching (what most incorrectly refer to as overtraining) and for class A morons true overtraining.

In almost ever case it is not the muscle tissue that is the limiting factor in programing but the nervous system. This is what overtraining is all about, it is not about how often you hit your biceps or whether you train 2 muscles or 1 muscle a day. It's about workload over a period and tolerance. If you saw the frequency with which olympic lifters training and 'hit a muscle' you'd never believe it (and I'm even talking about fairly young kids what are all natural, frequency is not an isolated variable but factors in with volume and intensity/%1RM - and those are workload by the way).

This will give you the basics on dual factor theory (just ignore the sample programs at the end, it's the definitions and explanations that are important): http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/...rtraining.html
This is short and will show you how this is used in planning for elite strength and sport: http://forum.mesomorphosis.com/showp...48&postcount=3

powerman2000

Great post madcow!

I couldn't add anything more.

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