School me on strength gains in a deficit.

DatMurse

Muscles are made up of fibers, the majority of which are unreactive or dormant in a sedentary individual. As you regularly place increasing strain on your muscle, they compensate by activating more fibers over a period of time, increasing your ability to contract or extend a muscle, making you stronger.

According to the HST documentation, studies showed all fibers are activated when an untrained individual tries to lift their maximum.

What's HST? Doesn't really correlate with anything I've read nor my own experience.

http://hypertrophy-specific.com/

I apologize, it's been a couple of months since I read through (back in April) so I don't remember the specific location of the study he cited.

I'm not sure how your own experience involves perception/knowledge of which individual motor units are being recruited.

And it also doesn't really make sense that your body would bother to keep around muscle units that never get activated but still need to be fed all the time. Since they are recruited in the same order every time, it would mean some of them would never get used. Considering the above non-controversial "use it or lose it" nature of muscle, it only makes sense that they'd all be recruited even by beginners.


Also, on the topic of how long you can go gaining strength on a deficit, my upper body peaked within a few months. My lower body seems to have finally peaked after about 8 months. (And when I did a short bulk, my strength did increase for a short while at that point, and then went back down when I returned to a deficit.) YMMV but that was my experience so far.

I was under the assumption that not everyone can utilize 100% of their muscle fibers in terms of strength.

That strength is the ability to recruit X number of muscle fibers

timbrom

Can someone give a basic rundown on meal timing? I know I can find huge long articles to read, but is there a tl;dr version?

I basically skate by great on newbie gains, but it would be nice to know if a change in when I eat what could be worked in easily. I'm not into all the micro-management involved in completely serious weightlifting, but I do try to do it 'right' within my version of reason

The tl;dr version is eat carbs pre workout, carbs and protein post workout, try to keep fat lowish. Not that it makes a huge difference, especially at the novice level.

cafeaulait7

Awesome, thanks!

ninerbuff

Can someone give a basic rundown on meal timing? I know I can find huge long articles to read, but is there a tl;dr version?

I basically skate by great on newbie gains, but it would be nice to know if a change in when I eat what could be worked in easily. I'm not into all the micro-management involved in completely serious weightlifting, but I do try to do it 'right' within my version of reason

The tl;dr version is eat carbs pre workout, carbs and protein post workout, try to keep fat lowish. Not that it makes a huge difference, especially at the novice level.

Yep. And meal timing specifically works IF the training sessions were intense enough. A moderate bout of lifting weights or cardio and meal timing has no substantial effect.
It's still gonna be about calories in/out and just getting in the correct macros for your goal.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Cindyinpg

Bump to read later.

juliemouse83

Bumping for a great post-workout read. Good stuff!

LiftAllThePizzas

Muscles are made up of fibers, the majority of which are unreactive or dormant in a sedentary individual. As you regularly place increasing strain on your muscle, they compensate by activating more fibers over a period of time, increasing your ability to contract or extend a muscle, making you stronger.

According to the HST documentation, studies showed all fibers are activated when an untrained individual tries to lift their maximum.

What's HST? Doesn't really correlate with anything I've read nor my own experience.

http://hypertrophy-specific.com/

I apologize, it's been a couple of months since I read through (back in April) so I don't remember the specific location of the study he cited.

I'm not sure how your own experience involves perception/knowledge of which individual motor units are being recruited.

And it also doesn't really make sense that your body would bother to keep around muscle units that never get activated but still need to be fed all the time. Since they are recruited in the same order every time, it would mean some of them would never get used. Considering the above non-controversial "use it or lose it" nature of muscle, it only makes sense that they'd all be recruited even by beginners.


Also, on the topic of how long you can go gaining strength on a deficit, my upper body peaked within a few months. My lower body seems to have finally peaked after about 8 months. (And when I did a short bulk, my strength did increase for a short while at that point, and then went back down when I returned to a deficit.) YMMV but that was my experience so far.

I was under the assumption that not everyone can utilize 100% of their muscle fibers in terms of strength.

That strength is the ability to recruit X number of muscle fibers

Here's a good read:
http://www.setantacollege.com/wp-content/uploads/Journal_db/Neural adaptation.pdf

I have a hard time believing that my body carried around and fed muscle fibers that never contracted in 43 years, especially when the two times I had a limb in a cast and didn't use those muscles, they atrophied within a few weeks.

It is true, AFAIK, that 100% of the fibers in a muscle are not firing at the exact same moment (even in experienced lifters) because the force generated would be more than your tendons can take. (Which is why in emergencies people can have way more strength.)

Anyway the article above goes through a lot of cool stuff about what 'strength' consists of.

ssaraj43

Excellent post. Bumping to read again. Thanks

AdrianBry

gaining muscle is a totally different beast from losing weight. weight loss is about energy balance and depleting your fat storage (by basically eating less to burn stored fat and/or exercising more to burn excess energy or stored fat) -BUT

Muscle gain is all about...

1. Breaking down your muscles
2. Eating enough protein to build your muscles back bigger and stronger
3. starting the process over BUT
4. you'll need to lift heavier weights, use more reps and/or sets to breakdown your NOW much stronger and bigger muscles so yes...

You can gain muscle on a defiecit if you eat enough protein but usually... It's tougher to do so if not enough carbs and fats are in your diet b/c you need carbs for workout energy + your body may use the excess protein you eat (and just maybe) it might use your current muscle mass to produce energy.

I think as long as you're not starving or eating less than 500 or 1000 caloriers per day you won't lose much muscle mass anyway (I got to find the study but...) You can go 72 hours fasting before muscle is even broken down.

Mr_Knight

From that article:

"Increased strength in the trained arm was associated with an increase in *both* muscle size and activation level."

sunshineanstars

Bump for later

rlinaresv

Bump

SezxyStef

Can someone give a basic rundown on meal timing? I know I can find huge long articles to read, but is there a tl;dr version?

I basically skate by great on newbie gains, but it would be nice to know if a change in when I eat what could be worked in easily. I'm not into all the micro-management involved in completely serious weightlifting, but I do try to do it 'right' within my version of reason

The tl;dr version is eat carbs pre workout, carbs and protein post workout, try to keep fat lowish. Not that it makes a huge difference, especially at the novice level.

Yep. And meal timing specifically works IF the training sessions were intense enough. A moderate bout of lifting weights or cardio and meal timing has no substantial effect.
It's still gonna be about calories in/out and just getting in the correct macros for your goal.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

So if I am going to lift in lets say 20mins I don't "have" to eat carbs unless it's an intense session. I ask because I am trying to get my protien up so I typically am eating protein and carbs pre and post workout (albeit cottage cheese etc).

SideSteel

Can someone give a basic rundown on meal timing? I know I can find huge long articles to read, but is there a tl;dr version?

I basically skate by great on newbie gains, but it would be nice to know if a change in when I eat what could be worked in easily. I'm not into all the micro-management involved in completely serious weightlifting, but I do try to do it 'right' within my version of reason

Here is my current opinion.

Structure your meal timing and frequency around personal preference and gym performance as your top priority. Those two aspects of dieting are going to have a much, much greater impact on overall success.

Once you've done that, you can consider getting some protein within a few hours of training if you care about potentially maximizing any theoretical benefits, but not if that decision conflicts with the bold.

Fortunately I think "most" people tend to eat a mixed meal sometime near their training, so even if you're not following a specific regimen where you slam dat protein shake immediately after unracking the weights, the differences between a relatively "normal" meal distribution (someone who eats multiple mixed meals per day) and what might be theoretically "optimal" are probably not that great.

cafeaulait7

Can someone give a basic rundown on meal timing? I know I can find huge long articles to read, but is there a tl;dr version?

I basically skate by great on newbie gains, but it would be nice to know if a change in when I eat what could be worked in easily. I'm not into all the micro-management involved in completely serious weightlifting, but I do try to do it 'right' within my version of reason

Here is my current opinion.

Structure your meal timing and frequency around personal preference and gym performance as your top priority. Those two aspects of dieting are going to have a much, much greater impact on overall success.

Once you've done that, you can consider getting some protein within a few hours of training if you care about potentially maximizing any theoretical benefits, but not if that decision conflicts with the bold.

Fortunately I think "most" people tend to eat a mixed meal sometime near their training, so even if you're not following a specific regimen where you slam dat protein shake immediately after unracking the weights, the differences between a relatively "normal" meal distribution (someone who eats multiple mixed meals per day) and what might be theoretically "optimal" are probably not that great.

Thank you! I am working on adding more protein to my diet, so it's great for me to try to get more after lifting. I have to eat things I don't want to anyway, lol. But I really do need more protein, no doubt.

LiftAllThePizzas

From that article:

"Increased strength in the trained arm was associated with an increase in *both* muscle size and activation level."

Yep. I'm not sure what that is supposed to be in response to, though.

Also of interest (and what might surprise a lot of people) is that they only lifted with one limb and not the other, and the limb which wasn't trained also gained strength, without even being used and without gaining any muscle mass.

RaggedyPond

bump

AnabolicKyle

Neurological adaptation, and engaging more of the muscle fibers that you already have (using all of your existing muscle instead of just some of it)

this^^^

aprivetera

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macro-math-3-keys-to-dialing-in-your-macro-ratios.html

helpful reading. good stuff in general on this site. don't be shy because of the name of the site. has stuff for everyone.

wilmnoca

Stay in a deficit and your body will just use your muscles as fuel. Yes, it's impossible.