Quick Q on S&S

C

charliehcf

New member
Hello ladies and gents,

Starting up Pavel’s S&S again after nearly 3 years of Pavel’s Naked Warrior training (just felt like changing it up).

Curious if any of y’all know the reason why he doesn’t want this workout to be a circuit?

I’ve done circuit training for nearly every single form of lifting work mainly because I’m focused more on cycling (road, track, and MTB racer). The circuit training helps with the endurance.

Also, he says to use your strong arm first. I never agreed with this…

Just wanted to get some opinions.

Thanks!
 
@charliehcf I'm not saying I necessarily agree with everything Pavel says - I'm not qualified to determine that as I don't have a science degree. But here's what he says to the best of my recollection:

He says strong arm first because he believes there's some neurological priming that goes on that then benefits your weaker arm.

He's against it being a circuit because he wants your heart rate to lower before the next round of swings (talk test). TGU is also a deliberate purposeful movement You're not meant to rush.

You're not meant to rush any of it, except on the test days.

The reason he states is that rushing is bad for max power development / expression due to insufficient recovery. And there's a bunch of other effects of glycolic training he deliberately wants to avoid for some scientific reasons he gives. The training is deliberately anti glycolic except on test days. This is meant to have both power and endurance benefits.

In cycling terms, it's like the swings are a brief Z5 effort and the rest is Z1/Z2.

Also, as a former cyclist who used to ride 15+ hours every week, the last thing you want your strength training to be is more endurance work. The main benefit of strength training for cycling is that it's not endurance work, but the exact opposite.

Edit: I misspelled science.... lol
 
@andy0 The antiglycolytic training always falls flat when I read about it. This article made me severely disappointed and was underwhelming. I don't know if the author of the articles knows this, or not, all metabolic pathways will have metabolites. That's the entire point of biochemistry. But, in this article the author states things like this:

Essentially, AGT focuses on training bouts that push the ATP/CP system

(pocket money) right to the edge of its capacity, but stopping the bout

before glycolysis (debt) kicks in fully, basically avoiding the burn.
Click to expand...

All of these energy systems will be all running at the same time. Some will be going at higher rates and others at lower. The heirachy of energy goes something like:

Spare ATP -> creatine phosphate -> anerobic pathway (glycolysis) -> aerobic (oxidative phosphorylation)

The mechanism for replenishing ATP and creatine phosphate is via the aerobic and anerobic pathways. Saying that we're going to only hit the ATP/creatine phosphate modality of training to avoid breaking down sugar is like saying I'm going to drive my car without gas/batteries.

After all of this, I took a stroll into the annals of research and there's a lot of evidence that metabolite build up is a stimulus for hypertrophy. I'm not convinced about the entire paradigm of antiglycolytic training thing.
 
@jekyll Thank you for the resources and knowledge drop. I'm going to read through. I definitely don't have an opinion on this stuff one way or another, just trying to convey what S&S says.

For my own training I tend to stick to more conventional sets and rep ranges, sets of 5x5 presses, high rep rows that kind of thing and had good results
 
@jekyll Every book I’ve ever read with an anti-glycolytic bent has acknowledged that all energy systems are working during exercise. I think the point is to deemphasize the glycolysis by emphasizing the ATP/CP system and the oxidative system. This isn’t anything new and has been delivering the desired results for over a century. It’s about less glycolysis, not none. It’s the reason that history’s strongest men are smaller than history’s most mediocre bodybuilders.

Regarding hypertrophy, S&S is not a hypertrophy program. It’s strength and endurance. Pavel does have programs that give more hypertrophy, and they all dip more than just the pinky toe into the acid bath.
 
@dawn16 In my comment I already addressed that you're going to replenish ATP and creatine phosphate with glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. The way that they're applying this is concept is not correct.

My question to you is what's the difference between a strength and hypertrophy program?
 
@jekyll So does that mean you don’t believe there’s a significant difference between a typical HIIT workout and, say, S&S in terms of energy systems utilized? I have to say, a lot people with a lot of experience in both are going to disagree with you. You said it yourself, that while all energy systems will be working, some will be working harder than others. And since it’s not random, there are conditions that actually cause one system to work harder than another. Only using ATP/CP for roughly ten seconds and then taking your foot off the gas pedal will allow the oxidative system to do a larger percentage of the replenishing, avoiding the biochemical cue that would keep you anaerobic for longer. Less glycolysis is desirable for many people, it just depends on their goals and where they’re at with their training.

To answer your question, a hypertrophy program focuses on increasing the size of your muscles while a strength program focuses on increasing the efficiency of your muscles. Much like with energy system utilization, you tend to get both hypertrophy and strength either way, but the focus of the program will determine which one you get more of.
 
@dawn16
So does that mean you don’t believe there’s a significant difference between a typical HIIT workout and, say, S&S in terms of energy systems utilized?
Click to expand...

Yes there are differences, but those differences are smaller than you think. I hope that people who don't study biochemistry in a formal setting think differently than me, LOL! For some reason, though, I have a feeling like many of the people writing Strong First articles don't have formal education in biochemistry, other than reading the Wikipedia article on them, because although they get some basic facts correct, they're largely missing the context of things.

Only using ATP/CP for roughly ten seconds and then taking your foot off the gas pedal will allow the oxidative system to do a larger percentage of the replenishing, avoiding the biochemical cue that would keep you anaerobic for longer.
Click to expand...

So this is not how that works. It's not going to be a binary the second that you stop doing an exercise that oxidative phosphorylation is going to immediately be the main stay here, glycolysis will be replenishing the a significant share of ATP and phosphorylating creatine phosphate. You have to keep in mind that creatine phosphate gets replenished via ATP with the enzyme creatine kinase and ATP is largely replenished from ADP through glycolysis or oxidative phosphorlylation with the use of ATP synthetase. Regardless of what you do you need to have use both pathways constantly for ATP replenishment. So again, when someone tells me that there is such thing as an anti-glucose pathway for exercise I think that's not totally correct.

Your body has ulterior pathways for energy utilization, namely beta oxidation. That process is extraordinarily slow in comparison to the above, which is why glucose will always be the go to for energy utilization.

To answer your question, a hypertrophy program focuses on increasing the size of your muscles while a strength program focuses on increasing the efficiency of your muscles. Much like with energy system utilization, you tend to get both hypertrophy and strength either way, but the focus of the program will determine which one you get more of.
Click to expand...

Not bad. I think it's silly for people to say something is a strength program when the best correlating factor for strength is the cross sectional area of muscle. You gotta be big to have big numbers.
 
@jekyll You replied to my statement that was all about using one system less and using another more by saying that it’s not binary. I agree with you on that, and I hope you can see that that was implicit in what I was saying. All the targeting of energy systems that is done in exercise is relative, as is the relationship between strength and hypertrophy. I think we can agree that nothing we’re talking about here is either/or.

You should understand though that while the Strongfirst guys you’re talking about largely do not have formal education in biochemistry, the sports scientists they’re referencing actually do. AGT is not a Strongfirst invention. It has been studied and developed for decades (or centuries, depending on how you’re measuring), and has been used to improve the performance of many Olympic-level athletes. When you say that targeting specific energy systems doesn’t matter as much as I think, you are simply incorrect. The practice has proven the theory many times over.

Speaking from personal experience, some regular folks like myself and the people I’ve trained with have had a much more pleasant experience with AGT when compared to training that is more anaerobic. A pleasant time directly translates to fewer workouts skipped, on average. You say the difference is not a lot, but it is enough to transform lives. Also, as a first responder, a training style that leaves me fresh instead of smoked while delivering similar results is a godsend. If I can’t swim out for a rescue in heavy surf because I’m too sore and drained from my workout, no one is going to want to hear my explanation that a guy on the internet told me that targeting specific energy systems doesn’t make much of a difference.

I’d actually recommend The Quick and the Dead by Pavel Tsatsouline to you. It goes a little more into the biochemistry as it relates to applied sports science.
 
@dawn16 Just to be clear, because I think I could have done a better job explaining my position so there is less ambiguity: if your goals are to maximize gains then hitting harder workouts with more metabolic stress is advantageous to not. If your goals are to stay fresh then I'm not here to tell people any other way. And sure if you want to find lifting less intense, then dude go for it, this should be your hobby you should derive happiness from this activity. I've said this many times in the past. Keep in mind, I have seen loads of people come into a fitness sub complaining that they're getting no progress only to find out that they're not pushing themselves enough to stimulate gains.

Now, where I have an axe to grind is that I often read, hear, watch fitness gurus talk about things that they clearly lack the understanding to talk about. In that regard I think "if this individual doesn't have the self awareness to not talk about things they don't understand then what else are they talking about that is completely wrong?"

Also, another point I want to make, you generally need glycolysis to get to oxidative phosphorylation; there are exceptions to this rule, but that largely stands. So when people are saying anti-glycolytic training it still does not track with me in the slightest. This just comes off as sounding smart when, instead you're being specious.

Unfortunately, Pavel comes across as someone who is not enriching when it comes to kettlebells. I appreciate the book recommendation, though :)
 
@jekyll I appreciate the clarification. The pertinent question is, though, what kind of “gains” is one looking for? If it’s maximum muscular gains, then absolutely, hands down, you need acid, you need glycolysis. Strongfirst does not claim otherwise. If it’s pure strength gains though, as in optimizing your training to utilize more of the muscle fibers you already have while simultaneously practicing any skill component of the lift, then AGT has been the preferred method for hundreds of years. It is what made old time strong men exceptionally strong, and it is the source of what we colloquially refer to as “farmer strength”. It’s as simple as getting as many reps in as possible with a heavy weight while making each rep feel as fresh as possible. That isn’t simply a method of finding lifting less intense, as you said. Rather, it’s a different type of lifting meant to achieve a different type of “gains”. Marathon runners need strength for performance, but don’t want to carry an extra 20 pounds of muscle with them for 26 miles, so they utilize lower rep schemes and get stronger while avoiding the muscular fatigue from lifting that would induce hypertrophy. (Incidentally, they also do roughly 80% of their running in their aerobic heart rate zone - not because it is “easier” than anaerobic work, but because it is more effective for their performance, which is their ultimate goal. I’m including this just as another simple example of how targeting specific energy systems is used frequently, and to great effect. It’s how Olympians train.)

I think the main thing you need to know though, in order for your knowledge of biochemistry to peacefully coexist with that Strongfirst article you linked to, is that when a Strongfirst person or a sports scientist says “AGT”, they mean LESS glycolysis, not NONE (even if an article meant for popular consumption sometimes oversimplifies it and makes it sound like NONE). And that small difference can have profound results for athletes.
 
@dawn16 I want to again point out that glycolysis is apart of oxidative phosphorylation so saying that there's less glycolysis occurring is always going to fall flat for me with out significant nuance and qualifiers. I also don't believe that this is such a complex topic that is going to be hard for the public to understand, but if the author wanted to make this more approachable for public consumption then he shouldn't have gone into biochemical pathways like he did.

Again, I am not saying that the training is ineffective, I'm not saying that it is pointless to do. My original point was that a focus on having fewer metabolites build up is contrary to what should be the goal if gains are in mind. I genuinely don't think that the author understands the energy dynamics that are at play, even though his proposed system does have legitimacy. Unfortunately, even though he came up with a good conclusion the rationale to support his basis still does not track.

Here's a neat article on DOMS, if you're interested.

I personally think that ATG-like training works not because there's a lower dependence on glycolysis, it's because glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation are able to replete ATP and CP in a timely fashion. Essentially, you're able to catch up instead of having to shunt to producing lactate and it also gives your circulatory system more time to purge hydrogen via the carbonic buffer system and respiration.

If the author had written about his methodology the same way that Neupert does with Dry Fighting Weight then I'd be much more receptive to the article. Instead, we have a bad paradigm being the justification for an acceptable training protocol.
 
@andy0 Now we’re speaking my language! Thanks for the tips, and that makes a lot of sense (still don’t know about using your strong arm first, but oh well).
 
@charliehcf I don't think you guys understand what Pavel means by strong arm.

maybe need to go back and read the book a few more times....that's always beneficial!
 
@nac27 Yes he calls it the strong arm and the stronger arm. I know that. I just assumed TS meant stronger arm in this context.

But my point stands. For max effort testing he recommends using the stronger arm first for a neurological primer before testing the strong arm.
 
@charliehcf It’s strange, because when I was reading through the quick and the dead it said to use your weaker arm first, and to give it extra sets depending on your roll. The rest periods are slightly different from S&S though. The quick and the dead also alternates between push-ups and swings. Maybe worth looking into as an alternative.
 
@charliehcf I think it's a bit unfortunate that he chose to violate the principle of the least surprise. I recall that he was saying somewhere that at SF they don't use "weak" and "strong", but "strong" and "stronger" instead.
 
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