check this link out/question, it kicks ass

[redrock22]

ok guys, check this link out:

http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/exercise1.htm

there are literally hundreds of excercises per body part to choose from, its its kinda overwhelming. i mean depending on how u position your hands, to what excercises you do, all can determine how exactly a muscle is developed and to what degree. i have a few general questions relating to lifting weights in general, i have been lifting for nearly 7 years, so i am by no means a newbie, yet i still find myself overwhelmed at times with all this. so i want your guys opinions on a few things:

1. how often should we change up excercises so our routine doesnt become old, and we can continue "shocking the body"?
2. how many sets per bodypart are we supposed to train per week, ideally? i mean there is middle back, upper back, lower back, outer lats, etc.....how many sets per muscle, per week?

i guess thats it for now, i cant think of anything else

[ebon00]

Originally posted by redrock22
1. how often should we change up excercises so our routine doesnt become old, and we can continue "shocking the body"?

Depends. Some studies have shown that your muscular system adapts to choice of exercise last so you might be better off changing sets/reps and exercise order before starting to change exercises. There's really no simple, clear-cut answer to that kind of question. It will depend on the movement and your training goals. For instance, I think that the late Dan Duchaine had a valid point when he talked about trying to circumvent neurological adaptations for the greatest possible muscle growth (hypertrophy).

Think about it like this. Any time you do a movement you get better at doing that movement (your body adapts and figures out how to do it more effectively) so that you stimulate fewer muscle fibers in time. That's when a conventional weight program increases the weight to get to the next level and start the adaptations 'fresh' so to speak. Problem is, adding weight only works moderately well (how many people here have consistently added weight to their exercises over a long period of time?) and there's a point of diminishing returns.

So, what's the solution to this? Dan thought that you should vary your exercises all the time and never do more than one set for each exercise in any given workout. After a fairly thorough warmup you'd go into worksets and do your target number of sets but using different exercises for each sets. So instead of doing 3 sets of 3 exercises you'd do 1 set of 9 exercises and preferably change some of those the next time you come back to the gym to work again. He called it the "Buff wimp" routine as you don't get much stronger on this routine but (logically) you stimulate the greatest amount of muscle fibers at each workout since there's little neurological adaptation (the body doesn't have time really).

Originally posted by redrock22
2. how many sets per bodypart are we supposed to train per week, ideally? i mean there is middle back, upper back, lower back, outer lats, etc.....how many sets per muscle, per week?

Once again, it depends. Generally, more sets for the larger muscle groups. If you do the same number of sets for quads as you do for biceps that's no good. As with your previous question this also depends on training goals. If you want to become a proficient Olympic weight lifter you need to practice the Olympic lifts and their variants a number of times per week (some Olympic lifters do squatting movements up to 9 times a week) to improve technique. There are some general guidelines that have been around a while based on the relative size of certain bodyparts but that's about it (biceps work should be 2/3 of triceps work for instance) but it's trial an error.

[Jaster]

That site is cool

[goloid]

yea--very cool