OnFitness Magazine - May/June 2022 - 72

WWW.ONFITNESSMAG.COM | VOL 22 NO 6 | 2022 72
MUSCLE SCIENCE
ONEHOUR?
G
Garret Keyer
o to any gym and
you'll hear
comments and
ideas that have been passed
down for decades: spot
reducing, super slow
training, odd ideas about
nutrition, a hundred ways to
get biceps and calve muscles
to grow.
One such idea is that
those weight workouts that
exceed one hour are
detrimental to training
performance, whether from
a hormonal or neurological
perspective.
The hormonal side of
the one-hour limit came
from a study in which participants cycled
at sixty percent of their aerobic capacity
for two hours. Testosterone declined
between one and two hours during the
exercise.
Many coaches and exercise
professionals then took that observation to
mean strength training should not go
beyond one hour.
Unfortunately, the broad application of
one study is not uncommon in the fitness,
strength, and conditioning fields. So what
we have is another case where research has
been taken a bit out of context. The
premise that the hormone response is
modified with long and/or intense work is
true, but the hard one-hour rule might not
be.
For example, contrary to the one-hour
limit, if you've had previous strength
training experience, you may need to
increase the volume (sets and repetitions)
and volume-load (sets, repetitions, and
load) to continue to see gains.
Countless studies have found that one
set is not as effective at increasing strength
as multiple sets in trained individuals.
Multiple sets take more time to perform,
sometimes longer than an hour.
Therefore, while the one-hour mark is
not a hard rule, if nutrition is not managed
during a long and intense strength training
bout (over an hour), cortisol levels might
increase.
Unlike testosterone which builds
muscle, cortisol takes muscle apart to be
recycled into glucose or energy. If a
strength training session is intense and
long, circulating glucose will drop and
cortisol will increase in an attempt to
maintain blood glucose.
Therefore, if you train for more than
an hour, the solution is simple: eat.
Eating a high carbohydrate, high
protein meal two hours after exercise will
promote muscle anabolism instead of
catabolism.
Therefore, from a metabolic
perspective, an hour is not important, but
understand that the more volume and the
more time spent working out equals more
energy used and less time spent
replenishing it. So simply replenish energy
during and after performing high-volume,
intense bouts of strength training.
The other side of the one-hour
argument is the neurological perspective.
While hormone levels can be manipulated
by nutritional means during training, the
neurological system will suffer a bit more
with high volumes of intense strength
training. If the neurological system is taxed
too much, performance will start to be
limited by a variety of central and peripheral
factors which are still being researched.
If strength and power gains are the
focus, too much fatigue accumulated early
in a training session will affect the quality
of work and performance from complex or
strength-focused exercises done later in a
session.
For example, performing four sets of
triceps extension before bench pressing is
not a good idea if you want to maximize
the neurological system during strength
work for your chest while benching.
If the triceps are fried, you won't clear
the sticking point of the bench, and instead
of completing five repetitions per set, you'll
only accomplish three. Your chest could
have continued to work, but was limited
by the triceps fatigue, and so an
opportunity to learn how to recruit chest
muscles more effectively was lost.
Another example might be a training
day where an ascending pyramid was used
during squats. Sets were of ten, eight, six,
four, and two. By the time the last set is
reached, when you should recruit your big
muscle fibers to increase strength, fatigue
has already set in because of all the
repetitions in previous sets. Thus the last
set of two is either at a reduced load, or
zero to one repetition is done instead of
two. Quality is lost.
So in the case of the neurological side,
one hour is also not a hard rule. What is a
hard rule is the organization of the strength
exercises and sets which minimizes fatigue
for the primary muscles to be training
during that session.
Don't be afraid to curtail a strength
training bout if the quality of work is
dropping. In other words, don't push
through a bad set of squats with a lower
load just to get the work in if strength
gains are the focus.
Remember that strength is motor
learning. Like riding a bike, the more you
ride a bike, the better you get. You then
ride a bike on dirt, which is a new
challenge, so you figure out a way to move
your body when the tire skids. You learn.
However, learning to ride on dirt your
first day or after a strenuous two-hour ride
might be a bad idea and reduce your ability
to learn how to ride on dirt correctly or at
all.
From the neurological side then, it's
not about the amount of time you spend in
the gym, as long as the quality of work
matches what needs to be accomplished,
whether strength or power.
Bulgarian Olympic weightlifters are
known for their multiple training sessions
per day, up to three or more in some cases.
The Olympic lifts or weightlifting exercises
(snatch, and clean and jerk) are quality
neurological exercises, and thus the
Bulgarians might only train for thirty to
forty-five minutes per session.
If the training sessions were one and a
half hours, then the quality of work might
decrease and potentially elevate cortisol
levels. However, it was the volume and
quality of work that dictated the time spent
in the gym, not trying to stay below some
magical number like an hour.
So is there something magical about
not training over one hour? No, but
understanding the goal of the strength
training session and the volume and
volume-load that will be used is. The more
volume and volume-load in a strength
training session, the more recovery and
effort to maintain blood glucose must be
made.
Neurologically, fatigue and volume
must be managed properly in order to
maintain a high quality of work and allow
your body to recruit muscles correctly and
with the magnitude needed to increase
strength and power. Z
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