Very often an individual's progress ceases entirely because he failed to account for a very important consideration: that during periods of physical-muscular progress the body is not static, it is in a process of change; and that as the body changes training requirements change. (This was only touched upon briefly in Heavy Duty I; but elaborated thoroughly in Heavy Duty II.) In fact, this is the most important issue in bodybuilding science once the fundamentals of intensity, volume and frequency are grasped.
A properly conducted bodybuilding program is essentially a strength training program. Or, in other words, if one wants to grow larger he must grow stronger. When someone starts to argue with me on this point, I say, "What is one supposed to do to grow larger, get weaker? As one grows stronger, i.e., as the weights grow progressively greater, the stresses on the body become progressively greater; and must be compensated for. (This is the conceptual link that high-intensity theorists have been missing; and which explains their inability to answer the question of sticking points.)
Perhaps the easiest way to understand this phenomenon is to observe the stresses on your body when performing a warm-up set of Squats compared to those experienced during the actual workout set to failure. On the heavier workout set, you immediately recognize the much greater stress on the bones compared to that with the warm-up set; then the much greater demands on the cardio-respiratory system, and so forth. (Not available to conscious awareness are the physiologic-metabolic stresses.) Now simply extrapolate that into the situation over time, as you lift progressively greater weights workout to workout.
As the stresses grow progressively greater, they will eventually reach a critical point such that they constitute overtraining. The first symptom will be a slow down in progress; and if the individual continues with the same volume and frequency protocol, the stresses will continue to increase until there is a complete cessation of progress, typically referred to as a "sticking point." One need not ever experience a slow down in progress, let alone a sticking point, if he bears in mind all the while that as the weights grow progressively greater so do the stresses; and he must do certain specific things to compensate for them.
Within two to three weeks upon embarking on a Heavy Duty, high-intensity training program, a bodybuilder should begin inserting an extra rest day or even two at random beyond the suggested every fourth day workout so that he's compensating for the increasing stresses; and, then, with increasing regularity until he is training but once every five days with an extra rest day or two added beyond that.
To quell any fear about the progressive reduction of training frequency, consider this. An individual making progress training once every fourth day, i.e., whose body is overcompensating--(i.e., growing stronger and larger)--cannot lose anything by taking a further day or two of rest. If his body is overcompensating on day four, how is it that he would decompensate on day five or six? So, while there is no risk of a negative, no threat of a loss, by inserting an extra day or two of rest, there is the actuality of a positive; which is - with the extra rest day(s) you have that much greater certainty that enough time has elapsed between workouts to allow the body sufficient opportunity to complete both the recovery and the growth processes. The implication here is that if the individual trains again before the body's growth production process is completed, it will be short-circuited; and less than 100 units of possible progress realized.
Once the individual is training once every seven days, I suggest a reduction in the volume of training as outlined in my new book Heavy Duty II: Mind and Body. Reduced volume will necessitate switching from the Suggested Workout #1 to the Consolidation Program. With a consolidation routine, there is a decided shift in emphasis to predominately compound exercises, i.e., ones that involve multiple muscle groups, such as Squats, Dips and Deadlifts, etc. A workout program consisting of compound exercises still works all of the major muscle groups, but with fewer total sets, making for a minimal inroad into recovery ability. (Ideally, growth would be stimulated with zero sets; then none of the body's limited recovery ability would be used for recovery, it would all be used for growth production; and you'd grow so fast as to stagger the imagination. At this juncture, however, no one knows how to stimulate growth with zero sets.)
Following the above advice, you'll never hit a sticking point; you will experience unbreached progress with your training. As I have written before: if scientists can send a man to the moon and bring him back safely each time, we should be able to succeed with every one of our missions to the gym here on earth. Building bigger muscles should be a cake walk compared to moon walk..
