Thanks for hosting, Steve and thanks for the chat, Kas! From reading many of the comments, I'd just like to throw this in: the primary purpose of a deload is to REDUCE FATIGUE, NOT to INCUR TRAINING ADAPTATIONS. If you want adaptations, the time to make them is during an accumulation phase. During a deload, doing anything much except for resting and recovering is probably unwise. - Dr. Mike
If I summarize my divergent view here as well, it is that in order to reduce fatigue from on particular type of stimulus doesn't not always require complete inactivity, but only a significant enough divergence of activity. After all, inactivity also results in adaptations, we are never in a state of not adapting, we are always adapting to the current stimulus, whether that be from active stressors or inactive periods. This creates the opportunity to make a deload from one type of stress, a time period of positive adaption from another, so long as it is divergent enough not to interfere with the recovery. The way we often program, we don't see any reduced recovery from fatigue, if anything the opposite, but we also program differently. In the case that the body is in a very global state of fatigue, a deload of inactivity may be wiser, because there is no place to diverge the stimulus to. Which may be more often the case the way Mike trains. So either way you have to consider the way you train when choosing how you deload. We do still use traditional deloads as well. I am looking at fatigue and adaptation in a less general way, and when I feel there is an opportunity for someone to improve in another area, I try not to miss it, and make the most out of all 52 weeks of the year. Even if the result is just a slowing of the loss of conditioning and deterioration of health markers, I'd consider it time well spent as it should pay off down the road.
Can I propose a content idea for RP & N1? Why not run each other's program for 6 months documenting progress, feedback, thoughts, etc. Then at the end of each block you have a dialog critiquing each other's programs, what worked, what didn't, and why. You can even fly to each other's gym for the first and last session. That would be a must watch series!
My question is how long do these adaptation stick for and whats their decay rate? Is 2 weeks enough time to make adaptation that will last for another meso with a different stimulus?
@@georges7146 depends on the specific adaptation, and also how much if any stimulus you are continuing to get from the current meso. For example, any cardiorespiratory adaptions you have at the beginning of a meso are going to stay around longer if there is some demand on that system, but if your meso is very low reps, and lots of isolation movements etc that don't really ever get your HR up for a good amount of time, you would lose them slower. This is the same for strength if you switched from a very low rep meso, to a very high rep meso. In the context of this discussion I'm using adaption very general, and I would say Mike even more than I, so that we can focus on the main topic. But when it comes to the adaptations occurring during training variations, they can be quite complex, so grouping them according to the performance they correlate with is useful for discussion sake, but you'd have to pull that apart to look at specific timelines, and the data we have on some is minimal at best. For the most part, Cellular Metabolic adaptations seem to come and go the fastest (from near instantaneous to hours and days) the change in protein synthesis machinery comes and goes a bit slower (days-weeks) , global changes in metabolism and hormones is even a bit slower yet (weeks), some cardiorespiratory adaptations are quick, and some very long, so it can range from days to months. IDK if that's helpful, but hopefully it at least gets the brain juices flowing if that is an area of interest for you. I find it interesting, but you are dealing with a lot of mechanistic processes at that point.
Kasem, could your method be considered somewhat an analog to the old Westside concept of GPP? As I understand what you've been saying, as you accumulate volume and therefore stress, your general capacity to do work drops. Your cardiovascular system, for example, might degrade a bit because it isn't being directly trained. Your endurance might suffer. So your method, it seems, is to throw a bit of endurance training in to improve that aspect. That way, you'll accumulate less fatigue when you get back into your muscle hypertrophy focus. Louis always said that as you get into sets of 1, 2, or 3 your overall capacity to do work is dropping. Simply, you'll just get more tired because you don't have the conditioning. You might miss weights you are "strong enough" to lift because you're just too tired since you've got no wind anymore. I know it's a different application, but it occurred to me that your method sounded familiar.
Certainly conditioning is very much overlooked by many bodybuilders, and it's entirely possible that they could be getting better results from training, especially if getting signs of fatigue from daily life. Heck, if puking between sets of leg press, that might be a sign it's a lagging area. I'm not entirely sure just getting in a daily step count is sufficient, nor a reduction in body fat, particularly when often enhanced lifters are using the most drugs precontest anyway. Lifelong endurance athletes probably grow less in some cases just because of their often smaller structures, slower twitch muscles and training preferences. On the other hand, some grow quite well and certainly benefit from their cardiovascular base and increased ability to do work and recover from it. It's unlikely that being in marginally better shape will blunt growth at all or desensitize the body to future muscular adaptations, plus health seems to be the biggest reason why those on the enhanced side of things stop the sport nowadays. So perhaps putting a premium on that is worth it.
Good points. What type of conditioning work do you find that works best in conjunction with hypertrophy training? with the least interference and the best stimulus to fatigue ratio
Well said. Totally agree. Anecdotally, our novice clients with active lifestyles tend to grow slightly better, on average, than the sedentary ones. It seems like being in better cardiovascular shape helps them build muscle more easily. I hope Mike is wrong on this one. The couch potato bodybuilder lifestyle doesn't sound all that inspiring.
@@gustavolealgomes5448 anything but running...and unfortunately I really like running! The impact definitely doesn't do recovery any favors. But I still get in 3-4 miles a week or so. Not much, but enough to keep in ~5:30-5:45 mile shape. That and my higher volume training as well as 10 years as a distance runner is enough to be fine. But normally, I'd say whatever you prefer, I wouldn't worry about stimulus to fatigue ratio, for most people the limiting factor is just getting it done, so do what you enjoy (or at least tolerate).
Excellent debate. Personally I have found I have the best progress when I take 1-2 weeks off entirely as a 'deload'. When I come back I have lost zero progress, sometimes I'm even stronger. I also get pumps/soreness etc off like just 2 sets once I resume. I've tried that standard deload ideas, but a pure block of time off just seems to work so much better. I just use the time to focus on stretching and mobility work. It really refreshes my passion for the gym each time too.
Great discussion. I've tried both methods of deload and prefer Kassem's - seem to get better pumps going in to the next meso and feel a bit more conditioned, and still feel recovered. I think their discussion about deloads doesn't rlly take into account their training styles. If you do Mike's training and ramp up to do 0 RIR every single set in the last week for a TON of sets, yeah a more traditional deload probs makes sense
I think that in general I agree with the notion that having a baseline level of cardiovascular capacity is good for the longevity of an athlete. If the argument is reversed I think that most could agree that a marathon runner could benefit from having a baseline level of strength and muscle mass to maintain structural integrity. From my understanding most endurance athletes do perform some amount of resistance training while not the main focus, creates enough to get baseline benefits without negativity affecting endurance adaptations. I think the same can apply for athletes on the other side of the energy demand spectrum. I agree with Dr. Mike that I don't think that any benefits to hypertrophy will be seen in the short term but do think this is A WAY to approach keeping the long term cardiovascular health of the strength/bodybuilding athlete in mind.
I don’t understand how what Kassem defines as a deload is deload. There are a few things that just don’t make sense to me. I’m not sure the benefits of switching training styles for two weeks outweigh the week spent deloading. I don’t see how it saves him time losing fat in the long run if you go to maintenance during de loads like Mike recommends I also don’t see how you can still accumulate enough mechanical tension to grow during his version of a de load while also resensitising to hypertrophy. I think they’re contradictory of each other? But I’m sure he has a lot of really good answers to those questions but based on what I know It doesn’t make sense to me.
I am absolutely no hypertrophy expert, but what about psychological recovery? I worry that with Kas' method, we don't get a mental break. Mesos are also mentally taxing and switching things up for the "deload" would not give us that time to simply recover our energy and mental capacity to push hard.
Sometimes just a switch up in routine is enough to get you feeling fresh. When you're relentlessly progressing on a specific program, just the repetition can be fatiguing so it's nice to have a change every now and then mentally
The systemic protocol is not designed to be that difficult from a RIR standpoint, the limiting factor is systemic endurance (breathing hard, heart rate). From a mechanical tension standpoint these workouts are not very demanding and you're operating at a much lower intensity (% 1RM) than real hypertrophy training. So in a sense, these workouts are a break in comparison to mechanical tension biased training.
I would love to hear the people who think Mike and RP overcomplicate things to hear how Kassel does things. Deloading a certain training style based off your stool type and frequency just seems needlessly over complicated
They're just a couple of bio feedback markers amongst many others. All depends on what bio feedback markers the individual in question gets when overtraining/fatigue starts to appear
@@ReviveStronger There is a big difference in what we do when in coaching someone versus an experiment where data collection and analysis is the goal. You want as many data points as possible will your trying to evaluate variables and their effects, but in coaching it can be something as simple in looking for someone logging bad sleep or poor digestion a few days in a row without an environmental cause. Whatever you decide to track, we're just observing trends, and using them to navigate the progression and periodization on a more individual regulated level. We've done 1/10 scale, or have clients rate (poor, normal better, than normal) and many other very simple iterations, and this literally pops off an alert in the algorithm for the coach to take a look and see if a deload might be appropriate. It literary takes the client less than a minute to answer a few multi-choice questions, and the system I used only alerted the coach when trends immersed so it actually decreased the time it took on the coaches side as well.
Some thoughts, if say this mixed deload scheme works, what then is too much/too little? How does this affect connective tissue damage, psychological fatigue/desire to train, RFD of subsequent weeks? There seems to be a lot of guessing, that while doesn't seem unreasonable is left without as much evidence as the former method. I'd also like to point out that in competitive inhibitory pathways are much more complex then the degree of sensitivity especially when you are considering mTOR/AMPK are at the tip top of those cascades. They also have a plethora of downstream effects that can't be simply assumed to be uni, bi, or even tri-directional. You observe the sum average of these pathways not the individual effects, so unless a stimulus is chronic (relative to the kinetics of the pathways) there is no real net effect except in the reduction of the magnitude of the inhibitory pathway.
Get done with a hypertrophy block, do Kassem's deload for 1 week, then do Dr. Mike's deload for a week. This way you let off the gas pedal rather than slam on the brakes getting to the intersection of your next mesocycle.
Great debate, thanks for all of you! Putting all this to context I recommend listening Peter Attia on mitochondrial health and effiiciency regarding training. After what I'd heard from him I integrated about 3 hours weekly of zone 2 cardio (brisk walking, easy jogging) with nasal breathing. I think it's hilarious and nonsense to think that our homeostasis would allow building up serious amount of lean tissue if there's no cardiovascular or mitochondrial background for it. So I'm on Kassem's side basically in this debate. If you look at many of the greatest pros of the past, most of them played some endurance type or hybrid sport (ball games or fight sports) before lifting. Mitochondrial health is more basic for general human well being then muscular development. And always you have to build up the basics first.
Altough I respect Kassem and learned a lot from him. Sometimes it seems to me that kassem is trying to defend a position that does not seem logic or right to him anymore (just to not lose his face?). I may very well be wrong, but sometimes it seems as if his own statements do not seem logic to himself anymore. 😄 Has anyone had that impression too?
What type of conditioning work do you find that works best in conjunction with hypertrophy training? with the least interference and the best stimulus to fatigue ratio
When attempting to find the best type of conditioning work, we must ask ourselves "conditioning for what?" If the "what" is "hypertrophy training," then "incrementally more difficult hypertrophy training is probably the best way to condition for it! - Dr. Mike
I watch quite a bit of Mike’s content, but respectfully, I feel this debate is missing the forest for the trees. The difference that the type of deload you do, over the course of a lifetime of training, falls so far down the list of things that are important, that it matters little. Most regular people end up missing a fair chunk of training through sickness, injury, gyms shutting down, family and work commitments etc - most people deload by default. Both systems obviously work for each of the speakers to some extent - otherwise they would be feeling super fatigued and beat up all the time.
When making leaps in the field they have to look at the minutia because they’re arguing for the sake of taking the sport of bodybuilding to the next level. I think they do mention how it doesn’t matter for beginners. I think most of what they’re talking about is for advanced athletes
@@Alex-pe7of if you’re an advanced bodybuilder, 99% of your gains have been made, and any discernible difference in physique is not going to come via a different version of a deload. Of the 0.01% of bodybuilders this might apply to, they are likely not watching this video. In my opinion, it was more of a situation of who could mentally win an argument, rather than being that helpful to most of this audience.
Deload by default is relevant for a lot of people but it doesn’t serve its purpose when the reason for the training break is a high stress event or series of events in my experience with clients. It’s still worth scheduling them for 9/10 people IMO - Harry
I really don't see how the idea that cardio kills gains has any validity in terms of a tiny amount of endurance training destroying hypertrophy - CrossFit athletes, wrestlers, martial artists, and numerous other athletes take endurance training to the absolute extreme and still experience significant hypertrophy. Now just sprinkle in a tiny amount of endurance training for a couple of weeks to potentiate a mechanical tension based program and a bodybuilder should experience very little negative effect. If you're breathing excessively hard in between sets of hack squat, you will not be able to do as many reps across multiple sets or multiple exercises. Period, it's seriously that simple. The systemic training addresses this by giving us a baseline of fitness (remember GPP?). The local lactic AMPK training is meant to potentiate further mesocycles. 8x8 with shorter rest periods will improve your endurance, so when you do more of a balanced program with moderate rest periods and higher intensity you will be able to tolerate more volume and workload per session.
Cardio doesn't kill gains, that's for sure. But its pursuit can decrease their magnitude. All of those athletes that you listed are indeed very jacked, but if they decide to become more muscular, they, almost to the man, reduce cardio in their programs. And if you're breathing very hard between sets of hack squats, you could either be in very bad shape or very strong. Lastly, the best way to increase fitness for a task is to do that task in a progressive manner. Thus, the best way to become fit for hypertrophy training is to do hypertrophy training. In this case, it's the training that gets you jacked that also gets you in shape to do more of it. There's no compelling reason to cross-train that I'm aware of. - Dr. Mike
@@RenaissancePeriodization I agree with everything you said. I think maybe Kas is being misinterpreted? He's only advocating a very short-term course of mild endurance work to improve work capacity in place of a deload where you simply lift extremely light weights. It's the same concept as GPP work. Perhaps some psychological benefit from a variety standpoint, joint stress relief, and a time to bring up conditioning before a hard meso? I do think the local lactic AMPK focused program can have a similar benefit - and this is not new (Dan Duchaine advocated periods of higher rep metabolite work before going into standard heavy training). An 8x8 protocol with 30 seconds rest will build some serious work capacity, so when you go into a more reasonable system (4x8-12 with longer rests) you will not get as much dropoff in performance across multiple sets. Keep in mind, for advanced lifters, these programs are supposed to be very short-term, not something that is done for so long that it would be detrimental to hypertrophy goals long-term (which I agree with you on, combining hypertrophy with endurance training is suboptimal long-term). My point in bringing up other hybrid athletes being jacked - if they can get that way doing a metric shit-ton of endurance work, then I don't think a 2-4 week course of a very mild form of it will have a negative effect.
@@ApolloStrengthGarage thank you for the response. A few of my thoughts: "and a time to bring up conditioning before a hard meso?" Your conditioning should already be superb from the last meso you did. The deload should drop fatigue such that your high conditioning can now express itself. Your conditioning would be higher if you did more conditioning work during the deload to be sure, but there are two potential interesting points on that: a.) Working on conditioning during a deload prevents you from dropping as much fatigue as you could have, which is job #1 of the deload and b.) You are supposed to start every meso with much less work and effort than you ended the last one, getting a chance to slowly ramp up over the course of the meso to reach an all-time high at the end. Being that your first week of the next meso after a deload is supposed to be pretty easy, is there really a purpose for trying to get conditioned for it? You should be way over-conditioned for it, if anything, just from having done previous mesos. "An 8x8 protocol with 30 seconds rest will build some serious work capacity, so when you go into a more reasonable system (4x8-12 with longer rests) you will not get as much dropoff in performance across multiple sets" The thing is, hypertrophy training occurs in the 5-30 rep range with anywhere between 10s and 5min of rest between sets. 8x8 with 30s rest falls squarely into hypertrophy training, so it doesn't offer any better of a conditioning stimulus than just regular hypertrophy training. It does offer a better conditioning stimulus than, say, strength training (sets of 3-6 reps, 2-5 min rest between sets), so maybe a phase of such training is better for strength prep than hypertrophy prep? "I don't think a 2-4 week course of a very mild form of it will have a negative effect." Maybe. But maybe it's missed time you could have spent just training for hypertrophy. And the discussion here is about doing such training during a deload, in which case less fatigue is dropped and that may indeed have a marginally negative effect on your ability to work as hard as possible in the next meso. - Dr. Mike
Hanson's idea of a deload is train for another almost opposing adaptation but don't do it long enough to get much of one, then go back to your primary goal having tortured yourself possibly to your own detriment for no good reason. Take a break for a week or two, do the minimum amount of volume to maintain your current mass and focus on recovery, plenty of food and rest mixed with enjoyable low stress activities, its not that complicated. Bro don't want to admit there is a easier more efficient way and his current practice is poorly thought out, so he is doubling down and overly complicating this to justify himself. Constantly painting himself into a corner. Was this an intentional hit job to humble this guy that was too proud to learn from the intervention? Or did a well intentioned interview go off the rails. Mike is in disbelief that this guy is so thick, Steve is like a deer in the headlights. Hanson is just wanting to escape with his dignity, sadly too late for that. 😮
Kassem can more than speak up for himself, but it's my impression that Doug refuses to debate Kassem face to face. That being the case, it's a bit of a stretch to claim to have exposed someone if you won't even confront them. And from my (insanely over-educated) perspective, Kassem knows like 10x the biomechanics that Doug does. - Dr. Mike
@@RenaissancePeriodization that's a simpleton statement of course you can expose somebody without getting into a face-to-face debate you should know that.. as far as being overly educated I would say look the proof is in the pudding, Mike you seem like a smart guy but you aesthetically are not a bodybuilder you're more built as a powerlifter and kaseem is both neither a bodybuilder or a powerlifter aesthetically. The fact of the matter is Doug is 60 years old and between him and his followers and even me included are aesthetically better body wise than both of you guys, that's just the fact, that you might be all sciencey and that's cool but that does not always translate to real life situations so you Mike and your little sciency pack of people like Brett and Brad and that guy who I forgot his name who harassed these woman couple years back , times are changing and the proof is in the pudding and honestly you guys speak a good game but I've had more much more ,100% more improvement following most but not all a brignoles recommendations than I did following you guys and your bro science that your group perpetrated on the internet the last 10 years.
The only thing Doug exposed was the inaccuracies in some of his own work, which is why he spent over hours responding to my comments, and perhaps more importantly his lack of objectivity when his methods are challenged. Doug refuses to discuss the matter, and chose to resort to lies and personal attacks as the only form of discourse both privately and publicly. It's great that you have found something productive for you, but you should really find something better to do with your time than to follow me around the internet for 6 months now. IDK how many times this has been explained to you, but maybe the 100th time is the charm. It doesn't take winning a medal at the Olympia to understand math and physics. I am not nor have I ever been a bodybuilder, or a powerlifter, and even if I was, genetics, time, and effort, drugs would all be factors in that success beyond my training knowledge. It fair, I should drop some body fat, and I am, but I also like the idea that my ideas and methods stand on their own, and are sought out by professionals and athletes in the industry with great success. There is no training secret in the universe that will turn Dr Mike into Jared Feather. You are right, times are charing, and more people understand that just because a person looks a certain way doesn't mean what they are doing will make you look or perform that way. If you want to be successful, you have to do what works for you, and again, congrats on finding something that works for you. Maybe focus on celebrating that more, rather than being upsets that other people aren't doing the same thing...
@@TheCatseyepub It's true that you can expose someone without going face to face, but it sure looks bad when you duck a face to face debate. When I disagree with Kas, I show up. When Doug does, he's nowhere to be found. If the proof is in the pudding, I give you RP's Jared Feather, IFBB pro. If you really think the aesthetics of an idea's advocate determine their validity, consider yourself a member of our squad now, not Doug's. Myself, Bret, Alan, and Brad are not "little sciencey people." We're the world's leading thinkers and peer-reviewed authors on muscle growth (apologies for sounding cocky, but this is literally true), while Doug is a guy with a self-published book full of wild contradictions and non-sequiturs. You claim that we do bro science, but all of the people you mentioned are actual published scientists and academics. Is Doug a peer-reviewed study author? How many publications does he have compared to just Brad Schoenfeld alone? We're the opposite of bros. And please do remind me, what is Doug's professional degree in the field of Kinesiology in? My apologies for being curt, but if you start that shit, then shit, you will get. - Dr. Mike
Thanks for hosting, Steve and thanks for the chat, Kas!
From reading many of the comments, I'd just like to throw this in: the primary purpose of a deload is to REDUCE FATIGUE, NOT to INCUR TRAINING ADAPTATIONS. If you want adaptations, the time to make them is during an accumulation phase. During a deload, doing anything much except for resting and recovering is probably unwise. - Dr. Mike
If I summarize my divergent view here as well, it is that in order to reduce fatigue from on particular type of stimulus doesn't not always require complete inactivity, but only a significant enough divergence of activity. After all, inactivity also results in adaptations, we are never in a state of not adapting, we are always adapting to the current stimulus, whether that be from active stressors or inactive periods. This creates the opportunity to make a deload from one type of stress, a time period of positive adaption from another, so long as it is divergent enough not to interfere with the recovery. The way we often program, we don't see any reduced recovery from fatigue, if anything the opposite, but we also program differently. In the case that the body is in a very global state of fatigue, a deload of inactivity may be wiser, because there is no place to diverge the stimulus to. Which may be more often the case the way Mike trains. So either way you have to consider the way you train when choosing how you deload. We do still use traditional deloads as well. I am looking at fatigue and adaptation in a less general way, and when I feel there is an opportunity for someone to improve in another area, I try not to miss it, and make the most out of all 52 weeks of the year. Even if the result is just a slowing of the loss of conditioning and deterioration of health markers, I'd consider it time well spent as it should pay off down the road.
Can I propose a content idea for RP & N1? Why not run each other's program for 6 months documenting progress, feedback, thoughts, etc. Then at the end of each block you have a dialog critiquing each other's programs, what worked, what didn't, and why. You can even fly to each other's gym for the first and last session.
That would be a must watch series!
My question is how long do these adaptation stick for and whats their decay rate? Is 2 weeks enough time to make adaptation that will last for another meso with a different stimulus?
@@georges7146 depends on the specific adaptation, and also how much if any stimulus you are continuing to get from the current meso. For example, any cardiorespiratory adaptions you have at the beginning of a meso are going to stay around longer if there is some demand on that system, but if your meso is very low reps, and lots of isolation movements etc that don't really ever get your HR up for a good amount of time, you would lose them slower. This is the same for strength if you switched from a very low rep meso, to a very high rep meso. In the context of this discussion I'm using adaption very general, and I would say Mike even more than I, so that we can focus on the main topic. But when it comes to the adaptations occurring during training variations, they can be quite complex, so grouping them according to the performance they correlate with is useful for discussion sake, but you'd have to pull that apart to look at specific timelines, and the data we have on some is minimal at best. For the most part, Cellular Metabolic adaptations seem to come and go the fastest (from near instantaneous to hours and days) the change in protein synthesis machinery comes and goes a bit slower (days-weeks) , global changes in metabolism and hormones is even a bit slower yet (weeks), some cardiorespiratory adaptations are quick, and some very long, so it can range from days to months. IDK if that's helpful, but hopefully it at least gets the brain juices flowing if that is an area of interest for you. I find it interesting, but you are dealing with a lot of mechanistic processes at that point.
@@N1education thank you for the time to reply. Im currently in the metabolic phase section in the program your design course 2 . Great course
Always a pleasure guys. Thanks for hosting the discussion.
Thanks for coming on Kas!
- Pascal
Kasem, could your method be considered somewhat an analog to the old Westside concept of GPP? As I understand what you've been saying, as you accumulate volume and therefore stress, your general capacity to do work drops. Your cardiovascular system, for example, might degrade a bit because it isn't being directly trained. Your endurance might suffer. So your method, it seems, is to throw a bit of endurance training in to improve that aspect. That way, you'll accumulate less fatigue when you get back into your muscle hypertrophy focus.
Louis always said that as you get into sets of 1, 2, or 3 your overall capacity to do work is dropping. Simply, you'll just get more tired because you don't have the conditioning. You might miss weights you are "strong enough" to lift because you're just too tired since you've got no wind anymore.
I know it's a different application, but it occurred to me that your method sounded familiar.
@@caleb_wesman this parallels part of the reasoning, yes.
@@N1education Thanks for responding!
Thank you Steve! It's never enough to hear these two guys debate. MORE PLEASE!
More coming :)
- Pascal
Certainly conditioning is very much overlooked by many bodybuilders, and it's entirely possible that they could be getting better results from training, especially if getting signs of fatigue from daily life. Heck, if puking between sets of leg press, that might be a sign it's a lagging area. I'm not entirely sure just getting in a daily step count is sufficient, nor a reduction in body fat, particularly when often enhanced lifters are using the most drugs precontest anyway.
Lifelong endurance athletes probably grow less in some cases just because of their often smaller structures, slower twitch muscles and training preferences. On the other hand, some grow quite well and certainly benefit from their cardiovascular base and increased ability to do work and recover from it.
It's unlikely that being in marginally better shape will blunt growth at all or desensitize the body to future muscular adaptations, plus health seems to be the biggest reason why those on the enhanced side of things stop the sport nowadays. So perhaps putting a premium on that is worth it.
Good points. What type of conditioning work do you find that works best in conjunction with hypertrophy training? with the least interference and the best stimulus to fatigue ratio
Well said. Totally agree.
Anecdotally, our novice clients with active lifestyles tend to grow slightly better, on average, than the sedentary ones. It seems like being in better cardiovascular shape helps them build muscle more easily.
I hope Mike is wrong on this one. The couch potato bodybuilder lifestyle doesn't sound all that inspiring.
@@gustavolealgomes5448 anything but running...and unfortunately I really like running! The impact definitely doesn't do recovery any favors. But I still get in 3-4 miles a week or so. Not much, but enough to keep in ~5:30-5:45 mile shape. That and my higher volume training as well as 10 years as a distance runner is enough to be fine.
But normally, I'd say whatever you prefer, I wouldn't worry about stimulus to fatigue ratio, for most people the limiting factor is just getting it done, so do what you enjoy (or at least tolerate).
@@BonytoBeastly yes I've experienced the same. if someone has been a couch potato they're a bit behind, not ahead!
Very good takes Geoffrey!
- Pascal
Excellent debate. Personally I have found I have the best progress when I take 1-2 weeks off entirely as a 'deload'. When I come back I have lost zero progress, sometimes I'm even stronger. I also get pumps/soreness etc off like just 2 sets once I resume. I've tried that standard deload ideas, but a pure block of time off just seems to work so much better. I just use the time to focus on stretching and mobility work. It really refreshes my passion for the gym each time too.
Great discussion. I've tried both methods of deload and prefer Kassem's - seem to get better pumps going in to the next meso and feel a bit more conditioned, and still feel recovered. I think their discussion about deloads doesn't rlly take into account their training styles. If you do Mike's training and ramp up to do 0 RIR every single set in the last week for a TON of sets, yeah a more traditional deload probs makes sense
Very true!
- Pascal
Killer!!! Kassem, Mike, two of the industries best!! Thanks for sharing this with us all!!!
Thanks for listening!
- Pascal
I love the debates with these two beasts. Keep them coming Steve! Great job
Thanks!
I swear I love all of these so much free information and thanks to you steve for putting in the work and getting great guest on all the time
Thanks a lot Tyler!
- Pascal
Kas trying to kill 2 birds with one stone while those birds are flying in opposite directions
47:00 the answer to that would be "when all or most of your fatigue has washed out and there is no longer a reason to be in a deload"
I think that in general I agree with the notion that having a baseline level of cardiovascular capacity is good for the longevity of an athlete. If the argument is reversed I think that most could agree that a marathon runner could benefit from having a baseline level of strength and muscle mass to maintain structural integrity. From my understanding most endurance athletes do perform some amount of resistance training while not the main focus, creates enough to get baseline benefits without negativity affecting endurance adaptations.
I think the same can apply for athletes on the other side of the energy demand spectrum. I agree with Dr. Mike that I don't think that any benefits to hypertrophy will be seen in the short term but do think this is A WAY to approach keeping the long term cardiovascular health of the strength/bodybuilding athlete in mind.
Agree!
- Harry
Wow! Had to watch this one twice for sure! Best video so far by far!Thankyou guys!
Thanks man!
- Pascal
Great podcast, these discussions are very nuanced but still super valuable!
Hey Steve
Thanks for the informative and thought-provoking discussion; love the format, congrats.
Cheers Leo!
- Pascal
@@ReviveStronger Hey Pascal 👍🏼
I don’t understand how what Kassem defines as a deload is deload. There are a few things that just don’t make sense to me.
I’m not sure the benefits of switching training styles for two weeks outweigh the week spent deloading.
I don’t see how it saves him time losing fat in the long run if you go to maintenance during de loads like Mike recommends
I also don’t see how you can still accumulate enough mechanical tension to grow during his version of a de load while also resensitising to hypertrophy. I think they’re contradictory of each other?
But I’m sure he has a lot of really good answers to those questions but based on what I know It doesn’t make sense to me.
Thought exactly the same 😄 some statements just do not seem logic to me
Consuming this pod riiight now.
Hope you liked it!
- Pascal
I LOVE listening to this stuff! Even though nearly all of it goes over my head I still feel smarter 🤣
It goes over our head too
- Harry
I am absolutely no hypertrophy expert, but what about psychological recovery? I worry that with Kas' method, we don't get a mental break. Mesos are also mentally taxing and switching things up for the "deload" would not give us that time to simply recover our energy and mental capacity to push hard.
Sometimes just a switch up in routine is enough to get you feeling fresh. When you're relentlessly progressing on a specific program, just the repetition can be fatiguing so it's nice to have a change every now and then mentally
The systemic protocol is not designed to be that difficult from a RIR standpoint, the limiting factor is systemic endurance (breathing hard, heart rate). From a mechanical tension standpoint these workouts are not very demanding and you're operating at a much lower intensity (% 1RM) than real hypertrophy training. So in a sense, these workouts are a break in comparison to mechanical tension biased training.
I went from barely deloading to taking regular weeks off the gym and it has done me very well!
- Pascal
Back to the old saying “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”
"on your way to Rome" :P
And to that I say "Yikes"
I would love to hear the people who think Mike and RP overcomplicate things to hear how Kassel does things. Deloading a certain training style based off your stool type and frequency just seems needlessly over complicated
They're just a couple of bio feedback markers amongst many others. All depends on what bio feedback markers the individual in question gets when overtraining/fatigue starts to appear
What's complicated is how this video was posted a day ago but your comment shows as 6 days.
But yeah what you said too.
I myself have to agree but I'm also a fan of making things as simplistic as possible.
- Pascal
@@muscleandmath2910 I'm a time traveller.
@@ReviveStronger There is a big difference in what we do when in coaching someone versus an experiment where data collection and analysis is the goal. You want as many data points as possible will your trying to evaluate variables and their effects, but in coaching it can be something as simple in looking for someone logging bad sleep or poor digestion a few days in a row without an environmental cause. Whatever you decide to track, we're just observing trends, and using them to navigate the progression and periodization on a more individual regulated level. We've done 1/10 scale, or have clients rate (poor, normal better, than normal) and many other very simple iterations, and this literally pops off an alert in the algorithm for the coach to take a look and see if a deload might be appropriate. It literary takes the client less than a minute to answer a few multi-choice questions, and the system I used only alerted the coach when trends immersed so it actually decreased the time it took on the coaches side as well.
Kassem/ rp strength
Much respect 🙌
Absolutely!
- Pascal
Some thoughts, if say this mixed deload scheme works, what then is too much/too little? How does this affect connective tissue damage, psychological fatigue/desire to train, RFD of subsequent weeks? There seems to be a lot of guessing, that while doesn't seem unreasonable is left without as much evidence as the former method. I'd also like to point out that in competitive inhibitory pathways are much more complex then the degree of sensitivity especially when you are considering mTOR/AMPK are at the tip top of those cascades. They also have a plethora of downstream effects that can't be simply assumed to be uni, bi, or even tri-directional. You observe the sum average of these pathways not the individual effects, so unless a stimulus is chronic (relative to the kinetics of the pathways) there is no real net effect except in the reduction of the magnitude of the inhibitory pathway.
Thanks Steve great discussion
Thanks for listening!
- Pascal
Excellent job Steve 👏👏👏
Thanks Ali!
- Pascal
Omg yes! So excited for this 😍😍
Hope you enjoyed it!
Get done with a hypertrophy block, do Kassem's deload for 1 week, then do Dr. Mike's deload for a week. This way you let off the gas pedal rather than slam on the brakes getting to the intersection of your next mesocycle.
Perfect video for my active recovery week starting on monday🔥💪 Great information as always :)
Great to hear!
Is anyone else thinking "What the hell is Kassem talking about" and "that doesn't make sense".
Lmaoo
All the time xD
There’s value for sure!
- Harry
Mostly everyone
Yea . Because seriously wtf. Kassem sounds like he's trying to get blood from a stone. This is all nonsense
Great debate, thanks for all of you! Putting all this to context I recommend listening Peter Attia on mitochondrial health and effiiciency regarding training. After what I'd heard from him I integrated about 3 hours weekly of zone 2 cardio (brisk walking, easy jogging) with nasal breathing. I think it's hilarious and nonsense to think that our homeostasis would allow building up serious amount of lean tissue if there's no cardiovascular or mitochondrial background for it.
So I'm on Kassem's side basically in this debate.
If you look at many of the greatest pros of the past, most of them played some endurance type or hybrid sport (ball games or fight sports) before lifting. Mitochondrial health is more basic for general human well being then muscular development. And always you have to build up the basics first.
I had to Google so many things here, and I still don't understand 🤓 they should have settled this debate with a fight and that's who is right 👍😂
LOL yeah lots of big words were used tbf, some things we don't know tonnes about - Steve
Happy Saturday
Thanks Meek!
- Pascal
As always great pod cast
Thanks!
Jesus, with that washed out downlighting Dr. Mike looks like if you were to end up in an interrogation room with a scary muscular Russian dude 🤣.
Hahahahaha! Yeah, I can totally see what you’re saying!
He’s auditioning to play Bane lol
He could interrogate me any day tbh
Hehehe
LOVE THESE
Hahaha! I think with this video, Steve deserves the Lamborghini now… haha!
Hehe and yes hasn't even a bike xD
- Pascal
great discussion thanks guys!
Glad you enjoyed it!
- Pascal
So did Dr. Mike end up agreeing with Kas on AMPK?
Altough I respect Kassem and learned a lot from him. Sometimes it seems to me that kassem is trying to defend a position that does not seem logic or right to him anymore (just to not lose his face?). I may very well be wrong, but sometimes it seems as if his own statements do not seem logic to himself anymore. 😄 Has anyone had that impression too?
I'm making a conscious effort to talk slower. Sorry if it's not translating well. #introvertproblems
Dr Mike looking like he wants to kick heads in hahaha
We’ve spoken to him about this and he assured us he wouldn’t kick anyone else’s head in again
- Harry
1:02:03 Kas is right that the AMPK-mToR model Mike talks about is overly simplistic perhaps
What type of conditioning work do you find that works best in conjunction with hypertrophy training? with the least interference and the best stimulus to fatigue ratio
When attempting to find the best type of conditioning work, we must ask ourselves "conditioning for what?" If the "what" is "hypertrophy training," then "incrementally more difficult hypertrophy training is probably the best way to condition for it! - Dr. Mike
If by conditioning you mean cardio for a deload period. I’d go with walking 🙂
- Harry
Thanks Doc!
Sure thing, Harry
Kassem is good at talking and saying nothing
So many words with so little meaning. Just keep talking until people can't follow anymore and think that it probably must be true.
✝️💪
I understood almost everything one person was saying, and almost nothing the other person was saying. Maybe I’m dumb
I watch quite a bit of Mike’s content, but respectfully, I feel this debate is missing the forest for the trees. The difference that the type of deload you do, over the course of a lifetime of training, falls so far down the list of things that are important, that it matters little. Most regular people end up missing a fair chunk of training through sickness, injury, gyms shutting down, family and work commitments etc - most people deload by default. Both systems obviously work for each of the speakers to some extent - otherwise they would be feeling super fatigued and beat up all the time.
When making leaps in the field they have to look at the minutia because they’re arguing for the sake of taking the sport of bodybuilding to the next level. I think they do mention how it doesn’t matter for beginners. I think most of what they’re talking about is for advanced athletes
@@Alex-pe7of if you’re an advanced bodybuilder, 99% of your gains have been made, and any discernible difference in physique is not going to come via a different version of a deload. Of the 0.01% of bodybuilders this might apply to, they are likely not watching this video. In my opinion, it was more of a situation of who could mentally win an argument, rather than being that helpful to most of this audience.
Deload by default is relevant for a lot of people but it doesn’t serve its purpose when the reason for the training break is a high stress event or series of events in my experience with clients.
It’s still worth scheduling them for 9/10 people IMO
- Harry
I really don't see how the idea that cardio kills gains has any validity in terms of a tiny amount of endurance training destroying hypertrophy - CrossFit athletes, wrestlers, martial artists, and numerous other athletes take endurance training to the absolute extreme and still experience significant hypertrophy. Now just sprinkle in a tiny amount of endurance training for a couple of weeks to potentiate a mechanical tension based program and a bodybuilder should experience very little negative effect. If you're breathing excessively hard in between sets of hack squat, you will not be able to do as many reps across multiple sets or multiple exercises. Period, it's seriously that simple. The systemic training addresses this by giving us a baseline of fitness (remember GPP?). The local lactic AMPK training is meant to potentiate further mesocycles. 8x8 with shorter rest periods will improve your endurance, so when you do more of a balanced program with moderate rest periods and higher intensity you will be able to tolerate more volume and workload per session.
I agree, I think most people make it to something that they have no business worrying about.
- Pascal
Cardio doesn't kill gains, that's for sure. But its pursuit can decrease their magnitude. All of those athletes that you listed are indeed very jacked, but if they decide to become more muscular, they, almost to the man, reduce cardio in their programs. And if you're breathing very hard between sets of hack squats, you could either be in very bad shape or very strong. Lastly, the best way to increase fitness for a task is to do that task in a progressive manner. Thus, the best way to become fit for hypertrophy training is to do hypertrophy training. In this case, it's the training that gets you jacked that also gets you in shape to do more of it. There's no compelling reason to cross-train that I'm aware of. - Dr. Mike
@@RenaissancePeriodization I agree with everything you said. I think maybe Kas is being misinterpreted? He's only advocating a very short-term course of mild endurance work to improve work capacity in place of a deload where you simply lift extremely light weights. It's the same concept as GPP work. Perhaps some psychological benefit from a variety standpoint, joint stress relief, and a time to bring up conditioning before a hard meso?
I do think the local lactic AMPK focused program can have a similar benefit - and this is not new (Dan Duchaine advocated periods of higher rep metabolite work before going into standard heavy training). An 8x8 protocol with 30 seconds rest will build some serious work capacity, so when you go into a more reasonable system (4x8-12 with longer rests) you will not get as much dropoff in performance across multiple sets. Keep in mind, for advanced lifters, these programs are supposed to be very short-term, not something that is done for so long that it would be detrimental to hypertrophy goals long-term (which I agree with you on, combining hypertrophy with endurance training is suboptimal long-term).
My point in bringing up other hybrid athletes being jacked - if they can get that way doing a metric shit-ton of endurance work, then I don't think a 2-4 week course of a very mild form of it will have a negative effect.
@@ApolloStrengthGarage thank you for the response. A few of my thoughts:
"and a time to bring up conditioning before a hard meso?"
Your conditioning should already be superb from the last meso you did. The deload should drop fatigue such that your high conditioning can now express itself. Your conditioning would be higher if you did more conditioning work during the deload to be sure, but there are two potential interesting points on that: a.) Working on conditioning during a deload prevents you from dropping as much fatigue as you could have, which is job #1 of the deload and b.) You are supposed to start every meso with much less work and effort than you ended the last one, getting a chance to slowly ramp up over the course of the meso to reach an all-time high at the end. Being that your first week of the next meso after a deload is supposed to be pretty easy, is there really a purpose for trying to get conditioned for it? You should be way over-conditioned for it, if anything, just from having done previous mesos.
"An 8x8 protocol with 30 seconds rest will build some serious work capacity, so when you go into a more reasonable system (4x8-12 with longer rests) you will not get as much dropoff in performance across multiple sets"
The thing is, hypertrophy training occurs in the 5-30 rep range with anywhere between 10s and 5min of rest between sets. 8x8 with 30s rest falls squarely into hypertrophy training, so it doesn't offer any better of a conditioning stimulus than just regular hypertrophy training. It does offer a better conditioning stimulus than, say, strength training (sets of 3-6 reps, 2-5 min rest between sets), so maybe a phase of such training is better for strength prep than hypertrophy prep?
"I don't think a 2-4 week course of a very mild form of it will have a negative effect."
Maybe. But maybe it's missed time you could have spent just training for hypertrophy. And the discussion here is about doing such training during a deload, in which case less fatigue is dropped and that may indeed have a marginally negative effect on your ability to work as hard as possible in the next meso.
- Dr. Mike
Yeah I'm not going to do 3 weeks of endurance work after an entire meso of regular hard training and feel more recovered than doing nothing lmfao
Mike should have put on a bow tie.
We’ll let him know for next time!
- Harry
Now I wonder what method Steve uses.
Steve is a superhero. He’s never needed to deload. Not even once.
- Harry
Half of this conversation sounds likes gibberish.
Yeah Mike looks like a mad God who’s judging this other dude or a KGB officer
Lol, second time someone says something like it^^
- Pascal
lost me at capillary density
😂
Apologies!
- Harry
Hanson's idea of a deload is train for another almost opposing adaptation but don't do it long enough to get much of one, then go back to your primary goal having tortured yourself possibly to your own detriment for no good reason. Take a break for a week or two, do the minimum amount of volume to maintain your current mass and focus on recovery, plenty of food and rest mixed with enjoyable low stress activities, its not that complicated. Bro don't want to admit there is a easier more efficient way and his current practice is poorly thought out, so he is doubling down and overly complicating this to justify himself. Constantly painting himself into a corner. Was this an intentional hit job to humble this guy that was too proud to learn from the intervention? Or did a well intentioned interview go off the rails. Mike is in disbelief that this guy is so thick, Steve is like a deer in the headlights. Hanson is just wanting to escape with his dignity, sadly too late for that. 😮
Kassem doesn't make sense as conpared to Dr. Mike.
kassem hasn't been the same since Brignole exposed him.
Kassem can more than speak up for himself, but it's my impression that Doug refuses to debate Kassem face to face. That being the case, it's a bit of a stretch to claim to have exposed someone if you won't even confront them. And from my (insanely over-educated) perspective, Kassem knows like 10x the biomechanics that Doug does. - Dr. Mike
@@RenaissancePeriodization that's a simpleton statement of course you can expose somebody without getting into a face-to-face debate you should know that.. as far as being overly educated I would say look the proof is in the pudding, Mike you seem like a smart guy but you aesthetically are not a bodybuilder you're more built as a powerlifter and kaseem is both neither a bodybuilder or a powerlifter aesthetically. The fact of the matter is Doug is 60 years old and between him and his followers and even me included are aesthetically better body wise than both of you guys, that's just the fact, that you might be all sciencey and that's cool but that does not always translate to real life situations so you Mike and your little sciency pack of people like Brett and Brad and that guy who I forgot his name who harassed these woman couple years back , times are changing and the proof is in the pudding and honestly you guys speak a good game but I've had more much more ,100% more improvement following most but not all a brignoles recommendations than I did following you guys and your bro science that your group perpetrated on the internet the last 10 years.
@@TheCatseyepub sCiEnCy PaCk oF pEoPle!!!!!! Grrrrrrr
The only thing Doug exposed was the inaccuracies in some of his own work, which is why he spent over hours responding to my comments, and perhaps more importantly his lack of objectivity when his methods are challenged. Doug refuses to discuss the matter, and chose to resort to lies and personal attacks as the only form of discourse both privately and publicly. It's great that you have found something productive for you, but you should really find something better to do with your time than to follow me around the internet for 6 months now. IDK how many times this has been explained to you, but maybe the 100th time is the charm. It doesn't take winning a medal at the Olympia to understand math and physics. I am not nor have I ever been a bodybuilder, or a powerlifter, and even if I was, genetics, time, and effort, drugs would all be factors in that success beyond my training knowledge. It fair, I should drop some body fat, and I am, but I also like the idea that my ideas and methods stand on their own, and are sought out by professionals and athletes in the industry with great success. There is no training secret in the universe that will turn Dr Mike into Jared Feather. You are right, times are charing, and more people understand that just because a person looks a certain way doesn't mean what they are doing will make you look or perform that way. If you want to be successful, you have to do what works for you, and again, congrats on finding something that works for you. Maybe focus on celebrating that more, rather than being upsets that other people aren't doing the same thing...
@@TheCatseyepub It's true that you can expose someone without going face to face, but it sure looks bad when you duck a face to face debate. When I disagree with Kas, I show up. When Doug does, he's nowhere to be found. If the proof is in the pudding, I give you RP's Jared Feather, IFBB pro. If you really think the aesthetics of an idea's advocate determine their validity, consider yourself a member of our squad now, not Doug's. Myself, Bret, Alan, and Brad are not "little sciencey people." We're the world's leading thinkers and peer-reviewed authors on muscle growth (apologies for sounding cocky, but this is literally true), while Doug is a guy with a self-published book full of wild contradictions and non-sequiturs. You claim that we do bro science, but all of the people you mentioned are actual published scientists and academics. Is Doug a peer-reviewed study author? How many publications does he have compared to just Brad Schoenfeld alone? We're the opposite of bros. And please do remind me, what is Doug's professional degree in the field of Kinesiology in?
My apologies for being curt, but if you start that shit, then shit, you will get. - Dr. Mike