One of the tricks of hastening recuperation is to not surprise your muscles too vigorously. There is a fine line between stimulating your muscles with new exercises, more intensity, and added sets -- all for the sake of keeping them growing -- and the obvious mistake of going all out with these tactics and reducing the likelihood of adequate recovery.
Let's take an example. Imagine you have always done six sets of fifteen reps with your calf work, and you decide you need to jolt your lower legs into growth by trying something new. Well, you could add on three sets of donkey calf raises. That would give the calves a new exercise, and you would also be making the overall calf work routine longer (more sets). But suppose you wanted to give those calves a real surprise. How about suddenly doing the new donkey raise movement for twenty sets? Wouldn't that be better? Would such a change not shock them into growth? The answer, of course, is No! You would be lucky to walk the next day -- let alone boast additional leg size -- and you would probably not be able to train your calves again for a week or more!
Let's get back to Mentzer. The high-intensity, low-set exercise he advocates will definitely hasten recuperation. Once the body has become used to this method, your recovery from workouts will be brisk. Mentzer said: "When I was using ten sets for every exercise I felt constantly tired. Progress was slow. Now, with my heavy-duty program, I recover very quickly after workouts."
Still under debate, of course, is whether full intensity workouts are right for everybody. Does everyone gain from these heavy-duty workouts? Chris Dickerson, Mr. Olympia '82, is one of the many champions who does not agree with training to failure. Joseph Miller, a sports medicine authority, wrote the following in Muscle and Fitness Magazine:
"Physiological research indicates that the adrenal glands can become thoroughly oversaturated and exhausted if they are forced to overcome maximal stress for any period longer than 2-3 weeks. If high intensity effort is sustained beyond this time, the adrenals will be forced into total remission, and training efforts at that point will illustrate this."
The knack, of course, is to train the body without fatiguing it beyond its power of swift recovery. If you do not "heal" between workouts, you will not grow. The possibility of overtraining looms ever present with the competitive bodybuilder (especially when doing leg work), so we must perform the minimum amount of exercise that will stimulate continued muscle growth. Doing more sets than are necessary to induce growth will only hold back the recuperative process.
Peary Rader, the publisher of Iron Man magazine, has spent almost forty years advocating "abbreviated" training programs. The reason? To effect better recuperation. Following a workout the body must recover and replenish what was used up during the workout. It is only after full recovery has taken place that growth can occur.
If you use high intensity (forced reps, negatives, etc.), then you will be fatiguing your body to a greater degree. This increased intensity causes your body to produce increased amounts of latic acid -- hence the greater fatigue. Therefore, when you adopt a more severe program, slide into it by steps. If you increase the volume and intensity of your workouts gradually, your recuperation will likely keep pace. There is no doubt that a body which is coaxed into handling more will also "learn" to recuperate more quickly. It adapts by becoming less fatigued as your workouts continue. In short, the bodybuilder who keeps to his training and follows sensible health rules will develop the art of fast and efficient recuperation -- within limits, of course.
(Reprinted from “Beef It! Upping The Muscle Mass”, by Robert Kennedy, copyright 1983)