Edited by Massimiliano Ratta
Although science and the knowledge of physiology give us indications of what the body's reactions to external stress are, we continue to argue that body building is not an exact science, that is, there is no right working protocol to to refer to, because what will work wonderfully for an individual, will not work at all for another.
On this theory a myriad of discussions have been developed with consequent schools of thought, however I agree with those who consider it simplistic and hasty.
If we refer to the concept of cause and effect, it is as if we sustain that not all people who sunbathe for 20 minutes a day three times a week get tan.
If not, not all people tan the same way: there are those who are more receptive due to a greater production of melanin, and some less for the opposite reason. But the physiological reactions to sun exposure will be the same for everyone: they will tan. What will essentially change will be the time it will take to reach a certain degree of tan compared to another person.
The same goes for training. The substantial difference can be explained by two main factors such as: genetic predisposition and individual capacity for recovery (in turn influenced by many variables such as age, lifestyle, stress, character, psychological attitude, etc.).
In fact, we see athletes getting great results even from long training tables, in that case they are people with great genetic potential, and an excellent ability to recover, but have you ever wondered what they would get if they changed their training with a short, intense and uncommon?
The experience and the road paved previously by Artur Jones, Mike Mentzer, Stewart Mc Robert, Claudio Tozzi (BIIO), people whose discussions have been a constant point of reference for me all these years, have shown us that training short, intense, infrequent, it is the optimum, because it is based on absolutely scientific criteria such as:
1) Intensity and volume of work are inversely proportional (the more intense the training, the shorter it will necessarily be).
2) The greater the intensity of the external stimulus, the greater the damage to the muscle fibers, with the consequence of a greater adaptive response (hypertrophy).
3) The reduced volume of work, involves the use of energy substrates only against phosphates and in any case, a lower expenditure than "volume" training, (which especially for a natural athlete involves a considerable dispersion of energy, enormously lengthening the processes of recovery and supercompensation).
Attention, I'm not demonizing "volume" training, which is also useful at certain times of the year, or during training phases where you have the physiological need to "detach" from high intensity training, and in any case expected in the unloading phases.
The total recovery between one training session and another, will be the ideal context in which the body, following a damage, first compensates (recovers), then super compensates (adapts itself to cope with the subsequent workload), through the fixation of new proteins on the myofibrillar structure.
Naturally, this alternation between training and recovery must be organized and programmed, based on the person's age, lifestyle and metabolism.
Furthermore, without going into the specific topic of programming (there are already very interesting and exhaustive articles by my colleagues in this regard), this approach will necessarily have to be alternated with periods of work that are more volumetric and less intense (discharge), being part of a planned planning of the annual training periodization.
We therefore conclude that the saying "a methodology may not work for everyone in the same way" is improper and somewhat simplistic.
If anything, to a given methodology, one will have to observe a difference in the application, frequency of training and recovery time from one subject to another.
