The BBM general model

[KyleSchuant]

If a young, healthy male has been lifting for five years consistently and Texas Method is being programmed, I think you can say the approach is wrong.

I've always said: results count. I'm not with the people who say that a world record holder is doing their snatch wrong. If they got someone to press 300lbs, they did something right. And remember the guy's not entirely healthy, he's diabetic. Might that be a confounding factor? But as I said: you can't judge an approach by just one lifter, there are too many factors. There's a reason studies don't just have 2 subjects in them.

I don't know. I mean, TM for a 5+ year guy seems dumb to me, but I don't know. I've never coached a young healthy male who lifted consistently for five years. Nor have I trained a type I diabetic for 5+ years. Nor have I got anyone to press 300lbs. Have you? Has Feigenbaum? Has Rip had any for 5+ years beyond Chase? On how much data are we basing our assumptions about training 21yo diabetic uni students who train consistently for 5 years and press 300lbs, here? Or any one of those things?

I think Rip probably wouldn't know what to do with the guy. But I don't think any of us would, either. A 21yo diabetic uni student walks into your gym with a 300lb press and wants to get stronger, what do you do with him?

Me, I'd refer him to one of the PTCs, which are competitive powerlifting gyms around here. But if there were no-one better around then I'd just muddle along and try some things and see what worked. And you talk to experienced coaches in person and they tell you that this in fact the usual approach - in person they say that, online of course when they're trying to be gurus they'll be more dogmatic. Well, you know, gurus and brands, what can we say.

[perman]

Don't get why hypertrophy blocks or work to increase mass for further strength gains comes across as a revelation in some quarters

Reminds me of this notion that SS never admitted that volume has to go up over time. They’ve always said that. The difference is that BBM emphasizes this earlier (ie no TM style peak before moving on from a novice program).

They've also said most people remain intermediates for life, and that Texas Method is the best program for intermediates.

[simonrest]

7) SO, the bottom line: Waiting as long as humanly possible before increasing someone’s training volume and frequency (or, *decreasing* it) means you are also 1) Waiting as long as humanly possible to develop the necessary work capacity to 2) TOLERATE the amount of training necessary, in order to 3) Stimulate enough anabolism and therefore gain enough muscle, in order to 4) Keep increasing long-term strength potential.

for me it's less about work capacity and more about availability of time to spend in the gym. I'm going to have to get smarter about how I use that time to increase volume

[convergentsum]

It all leads back to the SS dogma that volume under 80% or so is junk. If you don't question that, then we're forced to use workouts that fatigue us for longer than 48 hours, which forces us to devise programs with light days to be completed in a state of fatigue.
I don't get what's "simple" about that, btw. If i were looking for the simplest possible program, i wouldn't be drawn to the ones with overlapping recovery cycles between sessions. A certain amount of that is bound to happen, but we don't have to let it dominate our programming philosophy!

[ChrisMcCarthy1979]

Gotta say I agree with Kyle on the subject of Chase's Lifts - there are any number of reasons why a 21-Year Old Kid may have had a shit training cycle...having said that we'll see what happens going forward.

Still won't prove a lot either way, mind.

[stevan]

Really respected BB coach:

If you liked the above excerpt, consider buying both of Rippetoe's books. Mark is
increasingly becoming an anti-scientist as research is falsifying many of his claims, such as the
magic number 5 or his conservative approach to training volume. However, he’s one of the
few people in the industry that understands how strength training programs should
fundamentally change as a trainee becomes more advanced and his books provide great food
for thought.

[PatrickDB]

I find it hard to believe he would write that knowing the full extent of what Rippetoe believes. Menno is not a dumb guy and understands that the MPS response attenuates as training age advances, for instance.

[quikky]

If a young, healthy male has been lifting for five years consistently and Texas Method is being programmed, I think you can say the approach is wrong.

I've always said: results count. I'm not with the people who say that a world record holder is doing their snatch wrong. If they got someone to press 300lbs, they did something right. And remember the guy's not entirely healthy, he's diabetic. Might that be a confounding factor? But as I said: you can't judge an approach by just one lifter, there are too many factors. There's a reason studies don't just have 2 subjects in them.

I don't know. I mean, TM for a 5+ year guy seems dumb to me, but I don't know. I've never coached a young healthy male who lifted consistently for five years. Nor have I trained a type I diabetic for 5+ years. Nor have I got anyone to press 300lbs. Have you? Has Feigenbaum? Has Rip had any for 5+ years beyond Chase? On how much data are we basing our assumptions about training 21yo diabetic uni students who train consistently for 5 years and press 300lbs, here? Or any one of those things?

I think Rip probably wouldn't know what to do with the guy. But I don't think any of us would, either. A 21yo diabetic uni student walks into your gym with a 300lb press and wants to get stronger, what do you do with him?

Me, I'd refer him to one of the PTCs, which are competitive powerlifting gyms around here. But if there were no-one better around then I'd just muddle along and try some things and see what worked. And you talk to experienced coaches in person and they tell you that this in fact the usual approach - in person they say that, online of course when they're trying to be gurus they'll be more dogmatic. Well, you know, gurus and brands, what can we say.

I agree that results are ultimately what matter. Individuals are just that, and two people can have different, yet successful approaches.

That said, looking at underlying patterns is important for understanding what drives progress in general. I don't think it is a stretch to say that as you adapt to a stress more and more, you need more and more of it, over time, to keep driving adaptation. After all, biologically speaking, if the stress remains the same, or even decreases, why would your body keep adapting to it long term?

The hard part is knowing how to best apply the stress, especially when accounting for individual variations in trainees.

In terms of the 300lb press, the question is, what level of stress got him that level of strength? If that stress is no longer driving his press, the stress has to go up. Of course, the devil is in the details, so the exact prescription takes some expertise. But, we can reasonably say that in order to get to say a 350lb press, there will have to be more pressing, one way or another. The body has to have a reason to get stronger.

[Allentown]

Lookit losers, Rip said that SS is the only folks doing the science in regards to getting stronger. That’s why you’ve seen such drastic changes to the Rx over the past decade!

LOL

I feel like the thread took a turn here.

[mgil]

Lookit losers, Rip said that SS is the only folks doing the science in regards to getting stronger. That’s why you’ve seen such drastic changes to the Rx over the past decade!

LOL

I feel like the thread took a turn here.

How dare you!

[PatrickDB]

@Austin just posted some supporting papers:

[...]

In order to reject our hypothesis, any single one of the following will need to be convincingly shown:

1) Evidence that within-individual changes in muscle size do not significantly result in increased strength performance.

@Austin, I'm posting this mainly to troll you, but see "Correlations Do Not Show Cause and Effect: Not Even
for Changes in Muscle Size and Strength," by Dankel et al., 2017. There are some stupid statistical things done in that paper (in particular, removing data points because they're within some small range of the baseline is INSANE), but consider it a prelude to an upcoming paper, now under review, which makes the same points but with better statistical work.

In general I think we should be careful distinguishing between between-person and within-person comparisons. The questions, "In a population, does X significantly predict (correlate with) Y?" and "Given some person, does an increase in X cause a significant increase in Y?" are different in subtle but important ways.

In particular -- and again, I'm sort of trolling -- this may affect your conclusions about the importance of testosterone within the normal range. For example, Jordan likes to post that study showing a weak correlation between testosterone levels of Olympians with their performance (or something like that, I can't find it right now). But there are a billion sources of between-person noise there and it doesn't really convince me of his conclusion. The one study I could find that used a within-person design -- suppressing endogenous testosterone production and injecting subjects with varying levels of exogenous testosterone, then measuring changes in muscle size -- found a roughly logarithmic dose-response curve, and makes me think the difference between being "very low normal" and "average" might be practically significant. Probably you've already seen this, and of course there are other issues with it, but I'm not going to pass up a chance for statistical pedantry...

[timelinex]

Don't get why hypertrophy blocks or work to increase mass for further strength gains comes across as a revelation in some quarters

It’s not. SS have been saying for as long as I can remember that hypertrophy is necessary to continue getting stronger. The difference seems to be that SS believes heavy high intensity work + food emphasis does enough to promote hypertrophy in the intermediate population, whereas BBM emphasize doing more volume etc.

Reminds me of this notion that SS never admitted that volume has to go up over time. They’ve always said that. The difference is that BBM emphasizes this earlier (ie no TM style peak before moving on from a novice program), believes that volume accumulation at a lower intensity makes more sense than near maximal fahves, and uses more variation and autoregulation to achieve it.

There’s many real philosophical differences, no need to get cult like, assume the worst at all times, attack strawmen.

+1 Too many strawman. They are working with a population that they admit basically never makes it past month 5. I disagree vehemently whenever they blow off other volume based programs as wrong (since they are then not considering other populations). But doing the same thing onto them doesn't make "us" better.

@Austin just posted some supporting papers:

[...]

In order to reject our hypothesis, any single one of the following will need to be convincingly shown:

1) Evidence that within-individual changes in muscle size do not significantly result in increased strength performance.

@Austin, I'm posting this mainly to troll you, but see "Correlations Do Not Show Cause and Effect: Not Even
for Changes in Muscle Size and Strength," by Dankel et al., 2017. There are some stupid statistical things done in that paper (in particular, removing data points because they're within some small range of the baseline is INSANE), but consider it a prelude to an upcoming paper, now under review, which makes the same points but with better statistical work.

In general I think we should be careful distinguishing between between-person and within-person comparisons. The questions, "In a population, does X significantly predict (correlate with) Y?" and "Given some person, does an increase in X cause a significant increase in Y?" are different in subtle but important ways.

In particular -- and again, I'm sort of trolling -- this may affect your conclusions about the importance of testosterone within the normal range. For example, Jordan likes to post that study showing a weak correlation between testosterone levels of Olympians with their performance (or something like that, I can't find it right now). But there are a billion sources of between-person noise there and it doesn't really convince me of his conclusion. The one study I could find that used a within-person design -- suppressing endogenous testosterone production and injecting subjects with varying levels of exogenous testosterone, then measuring changes in muscle size -- found a roughly logarithmic dose-response curve, and makes me think the difference between being "very low normal" and "average" might be practically significant. Probably you've already seen this, and of course there are other issues with it, but I'm not going to pass up a chance for statistical pedantry...

I don' consider this a troll post and I appreciate seeing thought and skepticism being put in study analysis.

If a young, healthy male has been lifting for five years consistently and Texas Method is being programmed, I think you can say the approach is wrong.

I've always said: results count. I'm not with the people who say that a world record holder is doing their snatch wrong. If they got someone to press 300lbs, they did something right. And remember the guy's not entirely healthy, he's diabetic. Might that be a confounding factor? But as I said: you can't judge an approach by just one lifter, there are too many factors. There's a reason studies don't just have 2 subjects in them.

I don't know. I mean, TM for a 5+ year guy seems dumb to me, but I don't know. I've never coached a young healthy male who lifted consistently for five years. Nor have I trained a type I diabetic for 5+ years. Nor have I got anyone to press 300lbs. Have you? Has Feigenbaum? Has Rip had any for 5+ years beyond Chase? On how much data are we basing our assumptions about training 21yo diabetic uni students who train consistently for 5 years and press 300lbs, here? Or any one of those things?

I think Rip probably wouldn't know what to do with the guy. But I don't think any of us would, either. A 21yo diabetic uni student walks into your gym with a 300lb press and wants to get stronger, what do you do with him?

Me, I'd refer him to one of the PTCs, which are competitive powerlifting gyms around here. But if there were no-one better around then I'd just muddle along and try some things and see what worked. And you talk to experienced coaches in person and they tell you that this in fact the usual approach - in person they say that, online of course when they're trying to be gurus they'll be more dogmatic. Well, you know, gurus and brands, what can we say.

We have personally talked about this before.....It's much easier to just shit on someone elses method and act like a guru online, than it is to have honest discussion against a persons "steel man" argument.

[Austin]

@Austin just posted some supporting papers:

[...]

In order to reject our hypothesis, any single one of the following will need to be convincingly shown:

1) Evidence that within-individual changes in muscle size do not significantly result in increased strength performance.

@Austin, I'm posting this mainly to troll you, but see "Correlations Do Not Show Cause and Effect: Not Even
for Changes in Muscle Size and Strength," by Dankel et al., 2017. There are some stupid statistical things done in that paper (in particular, removing data points because they're within some small range of the baseline is INSANE), but consider it a prelude to an upcoming paper, now under review, which makes the same points but with better statistical work.

In general I think we should be careful distinguishing between between-person and within-person comparisons. The questions, "In a population, does X significantly predict (correlate with) Y?" and "Given some person, does an increase in X cause a significant increase in Y?" are different in subtle but important ways.

In particular -- and again, I'm sort of trolling -- this may affect your conclusions about the importance of testosterone within the normal range. For example, Jordan likes to post that study showing a weak correlation between testosterone levels of Olympians with their performance (or something like that, I can't find it right now). But there are a billion sources of between-person noise there and it doesn't really convince me of his conclusion. The one study I could find that used a within-person design -- suppressing endogenous testosterone production and injecting subjects with varying levels of exogenous testosterone, then measuring changes in muscle size -- found a roughly logarithmic dose-response curve, and makes me think the difference between being "very low normal" and "average" might be practically significant. Probably you've already seen this, and of course there are other issues with it, but I'm not going to pass up a chance for statistical pedantry...

I agree with you here, and actually clarified that “point #1” in one of the FB threads recently, because I should have said that better - I agree that increases in muscle size certainly do not *guarantee* an increase in strength performance due to the multifactorial nature of force production.

With that said, I have no idea how a study could show that it increases “long term strength potential”, which I think is true (and the underlying point we’re trying to make).

[cgeorg]

Can someone post a reference to official Aasgard material recommending volume increases? I haven't seen it.

[timelinex]

I agree with you here, and actually clarified that “point #1” in one of the FB threads recently, because I should have said that better - I agree that increases in muscle size certainly do not *guarantee* an increase in strength performance due to the multifactorial nature of force production.

With that said, I have no idea how a study could show that it increases “long term strength potential”, which I think is true (and the underlying point we’re trying to make).

Thought experiment. Will bodybuilders that spend some time optimizing their neural development (and peaking their muscles) be competitive against similar sized power lifters?

[mgil]

Thought experiment. Will bodybuilders that spend some time optimizing their neural development (and peaking their muscles) be competitive against similar sized power lifters?

Two examples off the top of my head:

Ronnie Coleman had some big numbers in the gym, albeit in a suit.

Stan Efferding totaled 2,303 at his best and is primarily an IFBB pro.

[timelinex]

Thought experiment. Will bodybuilders that spend some time optimizing their neural development (and peaking their muscles) be competitive against similar sized power lifters?

Two examples off the top of my head:
Ronnie Coleman had some big numbers in the gym, albeit in a suit.

As far as I know, regardless of his BB status, he was always know for valuing doing "heavy ass weight" throughout his entire career. So I'm not sure he is the best example. There are alot of powerlifters that would probably make great bodybuilders and vice versa. No doubt.

Ultimately I am not looking for anecdotal cases, but rather a discussion of the theory and the implications being made.

[grapesherbert]

Thought experiment. Will bodybuilders that spend some time optimizing their neural development (and peaking their muscles) be competitive against similar sized power lifters?

Two examples off the top of my head:

Ronnie Coleman had some big numbers in the gym, albeit in a suit.

Stan Efferding totaled 2,303 at his best and is primarily an IFBB pro.

Bryce Lewis and Marisa Inda also started out with bodybuilding before switching to powerlifting IIRC

[Savs]

I'm not going to pass up a chance for statistical pedantry...

Rock on, dude. I would actually appreciate some ELI5 statistics posts assuming you want to write them. I think we could all benefit from learning more about statistics and probability.

[HouseHorse]

Here is Greg Nuckol's thoughts on the matter(albeit from 2015):

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/power ... ybuilders/