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All the bodybuilder types and fitness gurus I knew growing up said the same thing: If you want to build muscle size and mass, you have to work to muscle failure.
CST principles seem to defy this idea. What is the low down on building mass when it comes to failure vs. non-failure?
Any takers?
Dave in Austin
The value of training to failure really depends on your goals, as with everything else.
Bodybuilders basically want anatomical or visible muscle mass, and one of the fastest ways to achieve this is by volumising the sarcoplasmic reticulum, which is a bag of calcium ion solution that both surrounds and penetrates muscle.
Working to failure exhausts this supply, which causes the body to increase the size of this structure, which in turn is responsible for a large part of the mass gain from bodybuilding methodology. Of course, working to failure is also a primitive way of maximising time under tension, which does result in increased contractile tissue gain. I have no idea as to which is responsible for what fraction of total visible muscle mass, but suffice it to say that water-filled jelly makes up a large part of bodybuilding muscle.
Training to failure, however, fatigues the nervous system and can over time compromise the maximal contractile force capable of being generated by the muscles. Also, training through failure or too near to it can reinforce bad technique as technique will naturally degrade with neural (and overall) fatigue. Functional strength protocols depend first on maximising the recruitment of motor units through neural drive (neural strength) and then increase physiological muscle size (the cross-sectional area of contractile tissue alone) through time under tension.
From the above, whether or not to train to failure really depends on what kind of muscle mass you're building. If you're hell-bent on anatomical or 'show' muscle, then you need to train like a bodybuilder and go to failure at least some of the time. On the other hand, if you're out for strictly 'go' muscle, then you need to adjust your methods accordingly.
Austin Dave: thanks for a great question...
James:
thanks for a great answer....!
Dean
James. Thanks for the awesome and comprehensive reply.
Taking the role of Devil's advocate for a moment, here's a follow up question for you (or anyone else who'd like to comment). In CST circles, I notice there is a disparaging tone toward "show muscle" as opposed to the more revered, "go muscle." So, here is my question:
If bodybuilders and their gym-haunting ilk only have "show muscle," flashy but weak bags of pumped up blood and water, then how is it that they keep throwing those 600 lb bars up over and over again?? I mean, those big-ass bars aren't throwing themselves up in the air rep after rep, are they? These guys do have legitimate strength, do they not? So, with that fact in mind, what is the definition of "show muscle?"
Dave in Austin
Actually there is no such thing as "show" or "go" muscle. Muscle is muscle plain and simple. If a person can bench 600lbs tell me that is not functional muscle. If that same person can lift a car up to help someone tell me that is not functional.
The fitness industry is riddled with terms like that to sway people to adopt a certain training regimen.
The main difference is how you choose to train and what your goals are. A bodybuilder or powerlifter does not need a whole lot of joint motion nor do they need flexibility so they do not train for that. Now you can ask is that bad? It depends on your goals and not everybody has the same goals.
A big part is your nervous system and how it can adapt to whatever training you do and how it can develop through different training. The more it is needed the more our body functions as a complete unit.
An example would be my work with partial movements. I maxed out every machine and all free weights in the gym within 4 months. I was at 1,295lbs for a partial squat and that was not to hard. I was at the max 195lbs for a one arm fly on the machine. Sure was impressive. BUT my joints suffered and my range of motion went down hill. It ultimately lead to a very tense body that later was injured. I chose to make changes to would help me live my life and not be dictated buy my training. That is why I am here. To help reverse what my training has done and the changes it has done to me.
Getting back to your question muscle hypertrophy is how your muscle grows but there are also different types. But then again there is such a thing a neurological efficiency. That is not building muscle but muscle adaptation. All in all to have efficient muscles you must train a certain way and there are many paths toward that goal.
Perhaps the language of my post was a little extreme. I'm not saying bodybuilders aren't strong - just that a good chunk of their visible mass isn't contractile tissue at all. To get as big as some of these guys, you definitely have to lift some tonnage.
That said, at the same bodymass, a bodybuilder, all other things being equal (and minus confounding factors such as crosstraining), will always be weaker (in terms of maximal muscular force generation) than a strength athlete, ie. olympic lifter, powerlifter, strongman.
The mass that determines strength is not visible or anatomical mass - which is made up of a lot more than just contractile tissue - but physiological mass, which is what you can only see under a microscope and is indicated by the total cross-sectional area of all the contractile units in the muscle. That's what I mean by the difference between 'show' and 'go' muscle. Neural coordination to perform sophisticated movements is a whole different kettle of fish, which tends to be killed off by isolation exercises. Again, different topic for a different thread.
Back to 'show' versus 'go'. Sure, there's contractile tissue in the former, but it's not the only thing, and a lot of routines used to build the former don't emphasise purely contractile tissue growth. Nothing wrong with it if that's what you're out to do. Some studies have shown that the ability to actually multiply muscle fibres (hyperplasia) may be limited to a relatively small, gifted fraction of the human race, which means that our ability to grow strictly contractile tissue may be quite limited, since most of us can only increase the size of our existing muscle fibres (hypertrophy). If you have, or want to have big, visible muscles, there will always be some element of 'show'. But if you're hell-bent on strength and strength only, there are two things you need to work on - your neural drive and your physiological cross-sectional area, both of which are dependant on your ability to consistently produce near-maximal efforts and which are consequently compromised by fatigue-state training.
My two cents.
Thanks for your insights James,
My overarching goal, and the reason I bring this up, is to use CST and fitness training to help humanity in the best way I can think of, by fulfilling my lifelong dream of becoming a Calvin Klein underwear model.
Doesn't make you a bad personOriginally Posted by dharmadave
The rest of us, of course, reserve the right to make you the butt of obligatory gay jokes
(This coming from a guy who is the world's biggest fan of this fella.)
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