Mindconnection Brainpower Informational eNewsletter 2023-10-08

The adaptive response (to training) is a "repair and grow" mode the body goes into if correctly stimulated to do so. In this mode:

The endocrine system reduces cortisol and elevates testosterone. Both bone and muscle get built, more fat gets burned.
The immune system ramps up.
Anti-inflammation measures kick in.
Old cells are replaced by new ones at an accelerated rate.

The correct stimuli are:

Cellular damage in the muscle(s). You get this through intensity, for example using more weight or less leverage.
Time under tension. It's basically a function of how many reps per set and how many sets.
Metabolic stress. This is the most neglected factor, I will discuss it more in-depth.

The state of metabolic stress is often defined as one where you have used up all of your glycogen. You push into the anaerobic part of the energy spectrum. The body doesn't like being there, so it will try to adapt so the load that got you there this last time won't get you there again. Your blood cells might become more efficient, your heart might become a tad stronger, some new capillaries will appear, your lungs get a bit more efficient, and so forth. And generally, your muscles get stronger. But they also get bigger so as to store more glycogen.

Metabolic stress is uncomfortable, so people tend to avoid it. Those who avoid it get a muted adaptive response at best. The primary means of avoiding metabolic stress is to take your time when training, perhaps with long breaks between sets. By long, I'm talking about a couple of minutes. What you want to do instead is push yourself such that you simply run out of gas.

I recently trained with a friend I had not seen in decades. I told him it was chest day and that I do supersets. I told him I don't rest until I have to, and when I have to rest you can tell. I can never predict where this will be. What happens is I just hit a wall. I get a little woozy and feel like all of my energy is gone. I'm undergoing metabolic stress. It turned out he does the same thing, he was just using different terminology.

Many of us just have an intuition about metabolic stress. We know to drive hard, rather than pace ourselves. But when we hit that barrier, we allow ourselves to recharge a bit. Just a bit. I'll bend over or lean on something to catch my breath and recharge for a couple of minutes. Which I hope is enough for another super set. But I don't rest long enough to feel rested. Once I hit the metabolic stress threshold, I want to keep metabolic stress as high as I can for the remainder of the session.

When climbing, it's a different thing for me. I'm not training, I'm engaging in an athletic performance. I need the metabolic stress to go way down between attempts. For example, I climbed this route three times in a row: https://youtu.be/Tlwi8yeRYrY?si=WJxOAgS1aecYR1M5. I rested almost 10 minutes between attempts.

My friend I hadn't seen in decades is almost my age. His doctor told him to back off on his training, now that he's older. The idea is you can't recover as well so don't train as hard. My friend said the opposite is true. As you age, you need to stimulate the adaptive response even more. You are fighting age, your body is being pulled backwards by it. Throttling back on the only thing that pulls you in the opposite direction makes no sense.

Remember that metabolic stress is systemic. That means if your entire workout consists of isolation exercises, you probably are not going to get enough metabolic stress from that session. Start each session with at least one large compound exercise. I've been told you can't do that with shoulders, so I must be wrong. Well, you can. I start each shoulder workout with a super set. I tilt my hands kind of heel high and do dumbbell side laterals (standing) while tensing my abs and glutes. I immediately follow each set of those with a set of dumbbell overhead presses (standing). The trick with dumbbell overhead presses is you need to push those to the full extension. Most people use too much weight and can't do this, so they shortchange the exercise.

If you do come up with some routine where there's no chance for a compound exercise or you don't know one for that muscle group, then add one not related to working that group. You can always do a couple of sets of dumbbell squats or similar to kickstart your metabolic stress. But generally, it's:

Arm day (I don't do both sides of arm on same day, but it's a good way): Pull-ups.
Back/biceps day: Pull-ups.
Chest/triceps day: Bench press, but focus on squeezing the bar inward to put less emphasis on the delts.
Leg day. Squats or deadlifts.
Shoulders day: Pre-exhaust and then do overhead presses. Also consider handstand pushups.

Another good trick is to do more sets of the same exercise. It's commonly advised to do three sets of a given exercise. Robert Wichman teaches his students to do four sets, and that's at a minimum. If I'm trying to bring a particular part out better (for example, I want thicker lats), I will do five or even six sets of a particular exercise. With very little rest. This adds significantly to time under tension, but it's also burning more fuel and/or keeping me from going back to the normal aerobic mode. It can drive metabolic stress in a major way.

Remember, getting a sufficient adaptive response is the goal of each training session. You need all three stimuli to cross the magic line, wherever that happens to be. If you get only two out of three, you have wasted that training session. The single biggest mistake I have seen people make is they don't concentrate. They do a set, then check their phone. This results in a switching of attention, along with too much rest. Once you start your session, stay focused on it. Make each rep count, by doing it as correctly as possible. Make the total session count, by keeping rests short and repeatedly driving yourself into metabolic stress.

Mindconnection eNL, 2023-10-08

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