Old Forum Programming Combination? - Pavel?

[The Scientist]

Pavel (or others),

I have read in several of your books that you recommend that people training for both strength and size alternate between blocks of high volume work, and low volume strength training, as outlined in Easy Strength. I have recently started to take your advice and use some of those low volume programs, but, like Dan John, I hate medium and really crave the volume. Do you see any problem with doing upper body work for volume along side lower body Easy Strength-style training, and then switch to high volume lower body work and upper body Easy Strength programming? It seems like this will give me my volume fix while still providing the needed break from it. I think I am going to experiment with something like this once I can get a program worked out.

 

[ericreichelt81]

That's how I train to a degree, works great.

 

[Pavel]

Scientist, it is very fine, although you are likely to see less upper body hypertrophy.  when you work a muscle, it becomes permeable to anabolic hormones—and these hormones are stimulated by full body exercises.  Fewer upper body sets = fewer opportunities to open the cells to these hormones.

 

[jkvandal]

when you work a muscle, it becomes permeable to anabolic hormones—and these hormones are stimulated by full body exercises.  Fewer upper body sets = fewer opportunities to open the cells to these hormones.

These tidbits of knowledge are exactly why I read these parts...great stuff to augment the wealth of knowledge in all of the Strongfirst (and previous) material. 

These short "method behind the madness" explanations really drive home the big picture and emphasize how much thought actually went into these programs and why I'm extremely underqualified to make any modifications!

Thanks to Pavel and everyone at Strongfirst for visiting these forums and providing us with the knowledge!

 

[The Scientist]

Pavel,

Thank you for the advice. Just to clarify, though, which hormones are you referring to? Steroid hormones (testosterone) are lipid soluble and their membrane permeability cannot be altered within a cell. Peptide hormones (like GH) bund to surface receptors and never really move directly into a cell. Are you saying that heavy, full body lifts increase hormone sensitivity by increasing expression of receptors to anabolic hormones throughout all muscles in the body? If so, I am very curious to get a hold of these data. My research field is nutritional biochemistry, but I am always interested in finding data detailing specific endocrine responses to training. There doesn't seem to be much out there that is based on sound methodology.

 

[Pavel]

Scientist, a good question.

Prof. Selouyanov who made that statement in a number of his works referenced Panin (1983) who suggested that an increase in H+ concentration causes labilization of the membrane.  I could not locate Panin's original paper and Prof. Selouyanov does not specify which hormones he is referring to.