The Banks plan

songbyrdsweet · April 2009

Hey Banks,

I love the plan and it's really nice of you to take the time to post something like that up for the new people.

But there are a couple things that I would suggest based on how the body adapts to exercise.

-Lifting one day a week, unfortunately, won't cause lasting adaptations. De-training occurs after about 3 days, so lifting once a week will give you 6 days of de-training. You won't garner any benefit because you won't be stressing your system frequently enough to cause neurological or physiological changes. It's akin to just running one day a week and not doing any other cardio. You won't be able to improve your time or oxygen consumption efficiency. Even beginners should lift 2-3 days per week. What changes in time is the duration and intensity, and then you can add days as well.

-The ACSM recommends that you actually perform 90 minutes of exercise 3-5 days per week to maintain, and only 60min 3-5 days per week to lose fat. So cutting way back on cardio really isn't necessary once you're at your goal. Plus, the same de-training occurs in cardiovascular activity, although not as quickly as resistance training. It's still important to get that aerobic training in 3-5 times a week to maintain your level of conditioning.

Granted, everyone works differently, but our bodies still follow the same blueprint, so these are guidelines that will work for beginners as well as highly trained individuals.

SHBoss1673 · April 2009

Hey Banks,

I love the plan and it's really nice of you to take the time to post something like that up for the new people.

But there are a couple things that I would suggest based on how the body adapts to exercise.

-Lifting one day a week, unfortunately, won't cause lasting adaptations. De-training occurs after about 3 days, so lifting once a week will give you 6 days of de-training. You won't garner any benefit because you won't be stressing your system frequently enough to cause neurological or physiological changes. It's akin to just running one day a week and not doing any other cardio. You won't be able to improve your time or oxygen consumption efficiency. Even beginners should lift 2-3 days per week. What changes in time is the duration and intensity, and then you can add days as well.

-The ACSM recommends that you actually perform 90 minutes of exercise 3-5 days per week to maintain, and only 60min 3-5 days per week to lose fat. So cutting way back on cardio really isn't necessary once you're at your goal. Plus, the same de-training occurs in cardiovascular activity, although not as quickly as resistance training. It's still important to get that aerobic training in 3-5 times a week to maintain your level of conditioning.

Granted, everyone works differently, but our bodies still follow the same blueprint, so these are guidelines that will work for beginners as well as highly trained individuals.

All valid points, I didn't really get into my reasoning behind my plan, simply because it was long enough already.

I'll explain. To the 1 strength day part, that was my recommendation to beginners simply to mix up their routine and get them thinking outside the box. It will keep them from getting their muscles to used to one specific type of training. I'm trying to moderate somewhat, I wasn't really looking for them to add muscle or increase their oxygen intake at this point, more to just get them to work out 5 days a week without too much boredom. This part was for people who are pretty far into the obese category, so anything they do at this point should (IMHO) be for fat loss as opposed to increasing muscle or conditioning. While I understand that resistance is good at any level, I realize that a lot of people are really new, and I'm trying to get them to drop some weight and just feel good about themself first, before we throw them to the gym and say Go!

The second part, agreed, 3 days of cardio isn't an issue for me. I do 2 days of straight cardio, but see nothing wrong with 3. Although I did say 1 is in the realm of possibility, I'm hoping (maybe I should be clearer on this) that there will be some HIIT type training as well, this should perform the dual action of aerobic and anaerobic activity, and thus count towards those recommendations set forth by the ACSM.
So essentially, I'm assuming, at this level (maintenances...etc), you are integrating more then just straight cardio a lot of the time, that was my thinking on that.

smadag1 · April 2009

bump

jtintx · April 2009

Ripping up may be what you want, if it is, focus on lighter weight more reps, if more definition and larger muscles is what you are looking for, higher weight, lower reps, working to technical failure is what you want.

I thought getting ripped was the same thing as increasing muscle mass and definition....???

SHBoss1673 · April 2009

Ripping up may be what you want, if it is, focus on lighter weight more reps, if more definition and larger muscles is what you are looking for, higher weight, lower reps, working to technical failure is what you want.

I thought getting ripped was the same thing as increasing muscle mass and definition....???

Ripped means getting leaner, and more definition, not mass. When you rip, you essentially remove fat, and make the muscles more dense and defined, not bigger.

I.E. a body builder will try to bulk for weeks or months before a competition, but a few weeks before, he'll switch to a ligher weight set, and do more reps to make the lines stand out more.

Dave198lbs · April 2009

Ripping up may be what you want, if it is, focus on lighter weight more reps, if more definition and larger muscles is what you are looking for, higher weight, lower reps, working to technical failure is what you want.

I thought getting ripped was the same thing as increasing muscle mass and definition....???

Ripped means getting leaner, and more definition, not mass. When you rip, you essentially remove fat, and make the muscles more dense and defined, not bigger.

I.E. a body builder will try to bulk for weeks or months before a competition, but a few weeks before, he'll switch to a ligher weight set, and do more reps to make the lines stand out more.

also to get ripped the bodybuilder will virtually eliminate carbs (not all but most) for 2-3 weeks before the competition
and eat lots of protein

SHBoss1673 · April 2009

Ripping up may be what you want, if it is, focus on lighter weight more reps, if more definition and larger muscles is what you are looking for, higher weight, lower reps, working to technical failure is what you want.

I thought getting ripped was the same thing as increasing muscle mass and definition....???

Ripped means getting leaner, and more definition, not mass. When you rip, you essentially remove fat, and make the muscles more dense and defined, not bigger.

I.E. a body builder will try to bulk for weeks or months before a competition, but a few weeks before, he'll switch to a ligher weight set, and do more reps to make the lines stand out more.

also to get ripped the bodybuilder will virtually eliminate carbs (not all but most) for 2-3 weeks before the competition
and eat lots of protein

true enough. Although that's for a different reason then bulking.

Eliminating carbs gets rid of all the glycogen stores in the muscles, making them ketogenic. Which gives a leaner appearance short term, but it's not usually sustainable (unless you can live without carbs, which some can, for me that would be a slow painful torture).

Dave198lbs · April 2009

right
I said it was to get ripped
not to bulk

and those guys are not interested in long term

I cant see how what they do is healthy but they do it and the Magazines picture these ripped guys and to get that way just isnt healthy

kimss · April 2009

bump

Phoenixflame · April 2009

Ok, serious question

About the two-three days of cardio. Would a 45-minute spin class count, if I was busting it out like no one's business?

Because I've been in a mentality that I should be doing cardio almost everyday. But I'll get tired and not do it "as well." Or I'll be pissed because I'm thinking of how I have other things to do, or that I don't want to have to go the gym 6 days a week when I'm maintaining, and it puts me in a bad mood.

So, for someone who's in that "final 10" stage and looking more to shed the last jiggly bits and gain more muscle, would 2-3 days a week of balls-out cardio be enough? I think I'd have a more positive outlook on it...but I'm worried I'd start putting the pounds on again, because I'm neurotic.

How long/what level would a really good stairmaster cardio session be? What about treadmill?

SHBoss1673 · April 2009

Ok, serious question

About the two-three days of cardio. Would a 45-minute spin class count, if I was busting it out like no one's business?

Because I've been in a mentality that I should be doing cardio almost everyday. But I'll get tired and not do it "as well." Or I'll be pissed because I'm thinking of how I have other things to do, or that I don't want to have to go the gym 6 days a week when I'm maintaining, and it puts me in a bad mood.

So, for someone who's in that "final 10" stage and looking more to shed the last jiggly bits and gain more muscle, would 2-3 days a week of balls-out cardio be enough? I think I'd have a more positive outlook on it...but I'm worried I'd start putting the pounds on again, because I'm neurotic.

How long/what level would a really good stairmaster cardio session be? What about treadmill?

So, here's my thinking on this.

If you're doing cardio, it should be cardio. By that I mean, straight, middle of the road, work up a decent sweat but don't kill yourself, cardio. Where as if you're doing anaerobic stuff like HIIT training or weights, then it should usually be to technical failure. By technical failure I mean that each set, or rep you do should leave you very close to unable to continue until you recover your ATP stores (which usually takes about 20 to 60 seconds.

Cardio is a decent weight loss program, to me, it's kind of like a good microeconomics class in college, you won't be able to solve the world's financial woes at the end of it, but you'll have a good foundation to continue forward, and you can continue to practice the techniques for life.

The anaerobic stuff is where you really do body shaping. And yeah, this part takes a long time. Heck, I've been at it for about 10 months and really, the changes come slow, but they are there, I'm a better athlete now, I know it, and my chest and triceps look better, and my stomach is finally tightening up.

So Pf, to answer your question, IMHO, 3 days is plenty if you're doing real high intensity stuff, but I still think you should add 2 days of weights or other type of resistance in. Here's my weekly schedule (the days of the week change sometimes, but the amounts don't)

day 1: run, about 4 miles, decent pace for me, but not overwhelming)
day 2: upper body weights to failure and core
day 3: HIIT training
day 4: Lower body weights to failure and core
day 5: HIIT training again (a different one this time)
day 6: run again, long run day, usually about 6 miles, sometimes 7 if I feel good.
day 7: rest and play baseball. If I'm pitching that day, I might only do about 3 miles the day before, just because pitching actually expends a lot of calories (in the neighborhood of 500 to 800)

It seems to be working, my body fat % has been steadilly dropping for the last 2 months, and I have been slowly increasing my HIIT length, I'm almost at the elite professional level now (8 reps of 20 seconds on 10 seconds off, followed by 1 minute rest then another round of 6 reps). And of course my weights have been on the rise, I hit a wall about a month back, but have sinced passed it.

SHBoss1673 · May 2011

Damn, I totally forgot about this post. LOL!

I have since changed my thinking on how much resistance obese people can/should do actually, I now firmly believe 2 or even 3 days of hard resistance training is fine, even better than 4 to 5 days of cardio, I.E. I think I'd rather see an obese person doing 2 days of heavy weight training and 4 days of cardio than 1 day of weights and 5 days of cardio. I'd probably like to see 3 cardio, 2 resistance, 1 HIIT training for obese people.

Boy, my spelling was atrocious on the original post, my apologies for that folks.

ladyhawk00 · May 2011

Damn, I totally forgot about this post. LOL!

I have since changed my thinking on how much resistance obese people can/should do actually, I now firmly believe 2 or even 3 days of hard resistance training is fine, even better than 4 to 5 days of cardio, I.E. I think I'd rather see an obese person doing 2 days of heavy weight training and 4 days of cardio than 1 day of weights and 5 days of cardio. I'd probably like to see 3 cardio, 2 resistance, 1 HIIT training for obese people.

Boy, my spelling was atrocious on the original post, my apologies for that folks.

lol I thought it was a good one for general info - and the reply from someone else talked about more resistance, so that offered more info.