Un programa de entrenamiento ¿basado en la ciencia?

A science-based training program?

You always want the best training program, but which is better: gym science or laboratory science?

Have you ever thought about combining the best of each to develop a training program that works best for you during your season?

The English term “Bro Science,” or what is associated with gym science, can be defined as misguided concepts that conflict with scientific knowledge in both nutrition and training.

Some people who start training hard go to the gym determined to conquer the world, seeking to gain strength and/or muscle; however, in terms of exercise physiology, the vast majority of recreational athletes participate in what can be called a modified strength program.

Without guidance, many beginners do not follow the right program for gaining strength, nor do they follow the right program for gaining muscle.

But which program is best?

Well, there are many of them, with a strong foundation built on years and years of bodybuilding experience from many renowned athletes.

The simplest answer for a beginner or intermediate athlete would be to “combine all the methods or principles,” or to develop that traditional and innovative approach that is part of the science of exercise called periodization.

The central point is that when muscles are used, they adapt and change. The changes depend on the type of activity and the types of muscle fibers used, the load placed on the muscle, and the speed and duration of the contraction.

Muscle hypertrophy is an example of muscular adaptations and changes.

Muscle hypertrophy occurs primarily through chronic, high-intensity anaerobic resistance activity, to put it scientifically.

A well-designed training program causes neural adaptations, resulting in changes in muscular endurance and strength and, ultimately, muscle size, which also depends on peri-workout nutrition.

Training program: what's the first step?

Before you start or decide to go to the gym, we'd like you to better understand what all this is about—not hypertrophy, weight loss, or some other goal, but what to do before starting a training program.

In sports or when bodybuilding, periodization means that you'll go through different phases over the course of three months to a year (depending on your goals, competition season, etc.), and in each phase you'll incorporate a training technique to continue, forcing the body to adapt and improve.

The idea is for you to reach your peak or be at your best when you compete (or go on vacation, attend an event, or for the following summer).

First of all, the new techniques are based on some of the basic principles of exercise science, mixed with the experience of the best bodybuilders, along with a series of opinions about what leads to muscle growth.

So are these professional bodybuilders and fitness gurus wrong?

  • Far from it, the human body is extremely complex, and what they've done is take traditional exercise science techniques and modify them to make them applicable.

Training program: do you track it?

To begin with, if you're aware that you want to progress and perhaps increase your level at some point to remain recreational or competitive, you should track your progress.

What you should avoid is simply walking into the gym and calculating how much you should lift for each set, or doubling the number of sets you've done in the past. Do you understand?

The ideal way to approach a workout is with knowledge of what you've done in the past and a plan for progressing, which doesn't simply mean increasing your weights or repetitions, sets, circuits, etc., etc.

If you never track your progress and don't have some kind of reference point to compare what you've done in the past for a specific exercise, how do you know you're improving?

Regardless of whether or not you work with a personal trainer, you could improve significantly by planning what your training program would be, along with its variables and periods / methods.

Training program: the variables?

Well, before discussing those methods, you should analyze the most important variables to consider as you begin training.

Since you want to accelerate your size gains instead of spending more time than necessary, research clearly shows that there are certain ways of training that are more effective than others.

More specifically, some exercises are better than others, some loads are more optimal for developing maximum size, and certain training styles and training volumes can set you on the path to muscle growth, regardless of your biological individuality, as long as you are a beginner or intermediate.

To be clear, you can break all the apparent “rules” here and still succeed, but before leveling up, build a solid foundation.

Here’s how to properly manipulate your variables within your training program so that your progress is more effective.

Variable 1: “moderate” intensity

Training intensity is possibly the most important exercise variable for stimulating muscle growth.

Commonly expressed as a percentage of your one-repetition maximum, or 1RM, intensity corresponds to the number of repetitions you can perform with a given weight; the heavier the weight, the fewer repetitions you can do, but this is a biological phrase.

  • Moderate repetition ranges of 6–12 per set have been shown to optimize the hypertrophic response, with loads below 65% of 1RM not considered sufficient to optimize muscle growth. [1] /2
  • Studies with intermediate bodybuilders performing multiple sets of 6–12 repetitions have demonstrated increases in metabolites after exercise, such as lactate and hydrogen ions, which have a significant impact on anabolic processes [1].

Muscle damage is also related to muscle soreness, as is mechanical tension, because although some damage may help maximize gains

However, the goal should not be to cause excessive muscle damage because it can lead to slower recovery.

Excessive damage disrupts training quality and volume.

Both testosterone and growth hormone are elevated to a greater extent with a training program that uses sets of 6–12 repetitions compared with high-intensity sets using lower repetition ranges.

This range is ideal for causing fatigue across the full spectrum of muscle fibers, maximizing increases in muscle size [3].

Is there a time and place for strength-focused training with fewer repetitions?

  • Of course, but if your goal is muscle size, moderate repetitions most of the time will lead to results more predictably.

Variable 2: “high” volume

Higher-volume multiple-set protocols have been shown to be superior to single sets with regard to muscle hypertrophy [4].

A high-volume training program that generates a significant amount of glycolytic activity raises hormone levels.

In this case, testosterone and growth hormone levels are affected to a greater extent than with low-volume routines [5].

For this reason, a split session, in which you perform several exercises for a specific muscle group, may be more beneficial for a hypertrophic response compared with full-body routines.

Split sessions allow you to focus on one or two muscle groups per workout, maintaining the total weekly volume but with fewer working sets per session compared with a full-body workout.

Since you will train each muscle group only once or twice a week, you will also have a longer recovery period, provided you nourish yourself properly.

Spacing out training for body parts can allow the use of heavier training loads in each workout.

This generates greater muscular tension (a marker of hypertrophy), potentially increasing the acute anabolic hormonal response.

Variable 3: exercise selection

When it comes to muscle size, multi-joint exercises are key, and we all know this… they simply require more than one joint to work simultaneously to move a load…

Compound exercises (multi-joint exercises) recruit a large amount of muscle mass, which has a major impact on the hormonal response [6].

This doesn’t mean you can’t include single-joint movements in your training program.

  • These so-called isolation exercises are excellent for targeting lagging muscles and improving muscle symmetry.
  • However, targeting individual muscles can also produce different neuromuscular activation patterns and may increase overall muscle development [7].

So, from this perspective, you save some time in your workout with push-ups, leg extensions, or biceps curls, but if muscle hypertrophy is your goal, don’t make them your primary exercises.

Variable 4: the rest interval

Rest intervals between sets can be classified into three categories:

  • Short: 30 seconds or less.
  • Moderate: 60–90 seconds.
  • Long: 3 minutes or more.

Short recovery periods do not allow enough time to restore muscle strength, making it possible to continue training hard.

On the other hand, extended rest intervals compromise metabolic stress, another marker of hypertrophy.

Moderate rest is better for maximizing the hypertrophic response.

Compared with short and long rest periods, moderate rest intervals are associated with greater metabolic accumulation.

This leads to a major increase in anabolic hormones after exercise, which is one of the key factors in hypertrophy [5].

Variable 5: muscle failure

Muscle failure is defined as the point during a set at which a muscle can no longer produce the force necessary to lift the weight for another repetition while maintaining proper technique.

Training to failure (or technical failure):

  • It activates a greater number of muscle fibers,
  • It also enhances exercise-induced muscle stress (the third marker of hypertrophy), increasing the hypertrophic response [8].

You also shouldn’t think about training to failure all the time in your training program; however, you should include it in some training sessions to provide the necessary shock and stimulate the muscles.

Progression, the key factor

Progressive overload must occur continuously to induce adaptations and changes that result in muscle hypertrophy.

This can be achieved through several methods:

  • Increasing the intensity of the exercise or the resistance/weight used while maintaining the same range of sets and repetitions,
  • Increasing volume with a greater number of sets and/or repetitions using the same or greater weight.
  • A change in cadence (time under tension) and speed.
  • Different rest periods.
  • Grip and other variations.

Clearly, both training frequency and exercise variations play a major role here; these should be incorporated over time, always trying to avoid overtraining and plateaus.

References

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