“In The Zone”
I’ve been heavily re-evaluating a lot of my past training and looking at what has really been the most effective. When I think on what I would typically say "worked" I have to look closer at what that actually meant. As strength improves, size will as well. Though now as I find myself not much larger than I was eight months ago, but moving more weight, I have to ask myself where the size is? Many of my programs were great for getting my strength up, but not hypertrophy. Why is that? All of my recent routines have been a bit less structured and moving toward listening to my body more. I read an article just now that describes this as "auto-regulation". I’m always impressed how T-Nation seems to come up with the articles I need at all the right moments. This one is no exception. It illustrates why I’m such a fan of Christian as a trainer. The last couple lines in the article drive home the point better than I could ever hope to. Give this a read for some fuel for thought.
September 21, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Interesting line of thinking that is certainly worthy of pondering. I find it sadly true a lot coaches and trainers out there don’t do the workouts they prescribe. I like the idea of "ramping up the nervous system" in particular to get in the zone and see what is "there" during a workout - and punching it if there is an additional level of amperage available, but leaving the maximums and minimums during a training session to be set by a "self awareness gage" that may or may not be calibrated correctly could cause one to inadvertently unplug an otherwise functioning work ethic in the gym or be at the beck and call of one’s adrenal glands. There are some fine lines to be drawn there. It takes a lot of time to provoke the human body to add muscle. I’ve read recently [CSCS course] it can take two years for the human body to get to the point of creating a sustained hormonal level that allows for additional muscle mass. That was reality that not only surprised me, but provoked me to commit to something a bit more long term in the quest for mass [I guess I have been steeped in a bit more "articles" written by those hawking supplements than I thought!]. It takes some consistency over a very long haul and you have displayed the capacity to get there Adam. I would not get frustrated over the last 8 months. That is a relatively small blip of time. You may very well be on the cusp of adding more mass and not know it yet. If there is concern about over training haunting you, address it, but most importantly be patient and continue to be consistent.