Oh, yeah. Good. You did understand what I meant. Sometimes people miss those points because I write too much. It's not the way I would design it for the actuall effects I would "expect" from things like that. That can be part of the problem too. You expectations can lead you to design things a certain way.

Without very much science at all if you look at week one and week two you can see that those are very different training stimulus that will cause very different training effects. Maybe competing training effects or complimentary depending on how you program it. If anything I would just think of the high rep week as a "light" week if it is programmed in a short weekly fashion like that. Because, IMO, about all you can really expect is some active rest from one week of doing that, if the week before is sufficiently heavy or different, which it is.

Anyway, I wanted to point out, so that Ross didn't think I was going off the deep end, that I have read about this "fiber saturation" concept before as it relates to the blood pump. The idea being that it does something to the type 1 fibers. But it doesn't really make a lot of sense and there is no way this can be backed up in an actual human, of course. But that is how it is related to the pump...the blood being forced in, etc..is supposedly causing some physical change in the fibers.

Even then you would need more than a week to see ANY sort of real and lasting training effect. So it depends on how you think of it. Short periodized which IMO sucks or a med, light, heavy type thing which is great if it makes sense for the individual. So that may effect your expectations or perceptions but in the end all that really matters is what happens.

interesting stuffs...good question ross :)

There is also the pump to stretch the fascia crowd. That is just another way of trying to tell people that light weights, high volume, and short rest periods will lead to massive growth based on some magical thing it does to fibers. You know it's really been your fascia holding you back all this time. I'm talking like 7 sets with 1 minute rest, lol. You WILL be pumped!

Some info to help with what I've been saying:

Adaptations to Endurance Training

• Little/no increase in CSA of all fiber types

• Fiber type shift

– Increase % of Type I and Type I/IIa hybrid fibers

– Decrease % of Type IIx fibers (fast - days)

– Decrease % of Type IIa fibers (slow – years)

• Increase in muscle oxidative capacity

• Increase in mitochondrial density

• Increase capillary to fiber ratio

• No increase in glycolytic enzymes

– Possible increase in very intense training

• Increase in fatty acid oxidation, increase intramuscular lipid stores

• These changes lead to a delay in the onset of metabolic acidosis, increased resistance to fatigue, increased VO2max


Adaptations to Resistance Training

• Increase in muscle CSA (hypertrophy) in all fiber types – including Type I (usually)

– May be increase in fiber number, but size is most change

– Increase in number of nuclei per fiber (maintain nuclear domain size)

– Satellite cell proliferation

– Increase in muscle power

• Fiber type shift

– Decrease in % Type I fibers

– Increase in % Type IIa fibers

– Decrease in % Type IIx fibers

• Metabolic changes

– Decreased mitochondrial density, but due to hypertrophy, not fewer mitochondria per fiber

– No change in capillary:fiber ratio (but may be decrease in capillary density)

– No change in VO2max

• Fluck and Hoppeler, 2003

Everyone likes feeling bigger, though personally I despise the obsession with "pump". I go into to move weight. Pump is a side effect.