Training Frequency and muscle adaptation

I don't know if anyone can really answer this or not but I'm going to throw it out....
 
My oldest son ran into an old highschool friend that he hadn't seen in about 7 years or so..  After they talked for a while my son noticed that his friend had gained a significant amount of muscle and asked him if he started working out.. This guy replied no, but I did start a landscaping company about 3 years ago and I only have two employees so I still have to do a ton of heavy lifting.. All the muscle I've gained is due to nothing more than 2-3 years of doing physcial labor 5-6 days a week. 
 
So, here's the question.. according to my son, this guys added at least 2 solid inches to his Bi's, his back was thick and and you didn't know better, you would think he was hitting the gym hard... So how in the world does someone do a manual labor job 5-6 days a week, never let their muscles heal, yet have that type of muscle growth?  My thought is, and always has been, in order for a muscle to grow, it needs to be damanged, fed nutrients and given an appropriate time to heal.. Damanged + Nutrients+Rest = Growth??
 
Just to clarify.... How do people that have manual labor jobs that require them to do heavy lifting and moving heavy objects 5-6 days a week manage to grow large muscles?
 
Example: Furniture Mover, Brick or Stone Mason, Construciton Laborer, etc...
 
If we beleive that Damage+Nutrients+Rest=Growth, then wouldnt this be a total contradition?
 
Does this mean I can work my Legs, Back, Chest and shoulders 5-6 days weekly and still have growth?
 
If not, please give your explaination of why I can't, but people with those type of jobs can..   
 
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There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing

 

haha those are born bad asses. haha but i know what you mean cuz i have a friend that used to work for a tree servive company, relative to logging, and he was built like a damn man! he grabbed the brush guard to a jeep and could deadlift the damn thing. but that was from the waist up and yet he was only 17.

but no i cant explain it sorry haha

Theyre still recovering, just not optimally.  Of course theyre still gonna make gains.

working on explosive phase
vertical: 35
weight: 206

Big 3: 300/440/515

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

Assuming that he was truthful. (the friend, not your son)

It could have been a lot of things imo. A lot of guys dont really start to "mature" physically until they are out or well out of high school.

While he may have a physical job and work 5-6 days a week, I think its more comparable to someone like yourself going into the gym 5-6 days a week and lifting 10-30% of 1rm through out the day. At least thats what im guessing, im only going off of what I know about the body so far. I just dont see that work being even comparable to going into the gym and doing something like 5x5 squats/deads/bench at 75-90% of your 1rm.

While physically exhausting, I just dont think its the same as hypertrophy/strength gym training. And his recover sort of works like ours, he's never 100%, but he also does lift as much or hard as a weight lifter would. So it sort of becomes a more weight less frequency to a much less weight to a much higher frequency.

We also have no idea what his diet or nutrition was like. Perhaps he took up a protein shake habit, or his diet is in check and spot on be it accident or planned.

sleep habits as well.
stress
genetics

theres a lot of variables that are questionable or unanswered.

But I myself have done landscaping work, and know a few people who do it but dont really go to the gym, and they look like they work out some, pretty solid. And 3 years is a long time, I would say just doing landscaping with a good diet and good sleep habits a person could in great shape.

But im sure if you did an experiment with the above guy and compared him to a guy who did good training diet/sleep and im sure the weight guy could get a good 1.5-2x the gains/results...

anyway i have rambled on enough, im supposed to be doing homework...haha

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

Very true. Although hardcore physical jobs are not comparable to solid gym training, 3 years is indeed a long time for growth of the body. I guess his work is his form of exercise and he follows a well-planned diet and makes room to recharge. Guys who work for construction companies, landscaping enterprises and the like are in no surprise ripped, but i think this is not only due to their nature of work. There are I bet other factors that contribute to their impressive gains.

Get the Best Obliques

I grew up in West Virginia and absolutely wish I had biceps the size of a lot of the coal miners I had been around. My grandpas biceps (he's a retired coal miner) are still bigger than mine and my cousins and we are both personal trainers that have been training hard for years.

My cousin is a construction worker and has massive forearms, manual labor jobs are really under looked in terms of adding muscle mass.

Here is another question, we know prisoners don't get abide by strict every 2-3 hour professional diets and supplements, yet they are huge and probably train their 5-6 days per week and are still huge?

I can do barbell curls 5 days per week and will guarantee results. I can also arguably get the same results with 1/5 the effort by simply training them once per week. I think the moral of training muscles less frequently than 5-7 times per week is just a way to say "hey, you can do it, its not overtraining, it just isn't necessary".

ACE-CPT, NASM-CPT, AFPA-Nutrition Consultant 

I've said this a bunch of times, but I don't think in terms of "Damage+Nutrients+Rest=Growth".....I like to think about things more primitavely....You consistently lift heavy objects, and you will get bigger and stronger because your body will be forced to adapt.  The gym is just a fancy place, with conveinently shaped heavy objects to pick up.  Our bodies would work the same way if we were forced to live out in the wilderness and lift heavy rocks and logs.

As for the nutrition and rest part....well we all need to eat and sleep.  We know when it's time to eat when we get hungry, and we know when it's time to sleep when we get tired, so by listening to our bodies, we will do what is necessary to survive.

The "damage+nutrition+rest = growth" thing is just a way to optimize this phenomenon of adaptation as RS said.  But when it comes down to it, we are all just animals living in the wilderness.  All these places called "gyms" that have these things called "weights" are really just places of shelter with collected natural resources to move around. 

That's why I like Rippetoe's methods so much.  He works specifically with a barbell and weights, nothing else (other then maybe a bar to pull yourself up onto, but that could be compared to climbing).  That's about as primitive as it gets aside from actually going into the woods and lifting rocks and logs, and climbing trees and cliffs.

"True genius, in many fields of human endeavor, is often revealed in elegant simplicity."

- A smart man

Journal: http://www.wannabebigforums.com/showthread.php?t=117358

I know exactly what you're talking about. My friend Colin is a little taller then me but a good 40 LBs lighter (I'd say I'm about 4% bodyfat heavier) and while I am stronger then him, I'm 250% sure his strength to bodyweight ratio would destroy mine. He works physical labour, has all his life from when he was 16, he's now 20, he's not very big, but ****, he has some superfreak genetics. He grabbed my arm one day when I tried to walk away and he practically crushed it in his grip.

and im sure hes not lifting heavy **** every single day im sure theres multiple days where he doesnt have to lift

oh ya and Genetics, rest, does he smoke/drink, how does he eat etc...theres to many variables

YOU GOTTA EAT BIG, TO BE BIG!!

NASM certified trainer
NFPT certified trainer

Winter Bulk goal:245-250 by dec 31
Current weight: 235

This is sort of like asking,
"Why do great big fat people have huge calf muscles without doing calf raises?"

You don't have to be on a training program for bodybuilding in order to gain muscle. 

Ive seen it first hand my father works manual labour 5 days a week 8 hours a day and hes built way bigger than me.

Also which i find the most interesting is that when it comes to compound exercises im way stronger yet say when it comes to lifting a TV, a heavy box ect hes stronger. Weird

Its not weird, it makes perfect sense.

Your lifting for functional strength and strength training in the gym rolls over best to power lifting and sports.

Manual labor your training your body differently, its going to be more efficient at that. Its like going into the gym and training for a 1 rep squat max and 20 rep squat max, two totally different feats of strength.

He may be able to lift that tv a little easier but if you took him to the gym, you would have a much easier time with bench/squating/deadlifting etc... because thats what YOU have been training your body to do.

MoNey ShOt


Ive seen it first hand my father works manual labour 5 days a week 8 hours a day and hes built way bigger than me.

Also which i find the most interesting is that when it comes to compound exercises im way stronger yet say when it comes to lifting a TV, a heavy box ect hes stronger. Weird

6'3"  @213

Squat 1x20x275

press:200, Deadlift:475, Bench:300, P.clean:235, Squat:385

"The only failure that is final is to stop trying to improve"

When beginning weight training for the first time, it is important to understand that the increases in strength are primarily a factor of learning and coordination. An individual can even experience a neurological increase in strength within the first training session. In addition to novice lifters, exercises that are new to an experienced lifter will also produce rapid gains in strength do to neurological learning. All bodybuilders go through a series of chronological stages of adaptation:

Increases in inter-muscular coordination. This involves an increased cooperation between different muscle groups leading to an increase in the efficiency of coordinated movement. This happens during the first 2-3 weeks of using a new exercise or new routine.

Increases in intra-muscular coordination. This involves an increased cooperation between fibers within a muscle leading to an increase in force production. This continues for the following 4-6 weeks.
Increases in muscular hypertrophy. This involves adaptive restructuring of the muscle tissue leading to a functional increase in mass of the muscle. The muscle adds more contractile elements and increases its structural integrity. Additional connective tissue is also laid down increasing the tissue’s resistance to injury. This form of adaptation becomes prominent from 2 - 5 months after the initiation of adaptive resistance training.
Stagnation. (From 5 months on) The rate of structural and functional adaptation now begins to slow dramatically. For continued growth at this stage it is necessary to determine whether the stagnation is due to a lack of strength , a lack of volume and intensity, or a lack of the bodies current adaptive reserves (CAR) which last about 18-22 weeks (Zhikharevich,1976 & Sirenko,1980; sited by Siff & Verkhoshansky,1996). It is at this time that scientifically based training principles should be applied and a highly qualified coach be employed if necessary. Without the proper methods being applied at the onset of stagnation, injury and burnout will be the result of haphazard trial-and-error approaches to training.

YOU GOTTA EAT BIG, TO BE BIG!!

NASM certified trainer
NFPT certified trainer

Winter Bulk goal:245-250 by dec 31
Current weight: 235