Steve, thanks for the reply again. I do take your advice in consideration, and as I said I believe you when you said it worked well for you and many others, I would probably even imagine it could work much better than whatever alternative I might be considering (like alternating or waiting longer etc). What I am still trying to make sure is that I fully understand why that would be, just because a lot of the sites you pointed out to me had a lot of interesting information but it was all a bit too descriptive/prescriptive without the level of justification and mechanistic explanation I might be comfortable with. But I haven't read through all the references in the periodization site so I am still hoping I might find out more from following the bibliography chain from those without bothering you too much.
A quick side note on some of your points:
It's not that I care that much about N professors proving that protein synthesis continues for a long time after workout, it's more that some of those pieces of information are useful to correct or disprove wrong assumptions. That might not always be a relevant piece of the main puzzle but you should still take it into consideration and at least explain why that might not change your strategy. If say the total amount of protein synthesis or some other parameter was lower from workouts too close to each other for example that would be interesting in the context of sorting out through multiple candidate schedules.
On the statistically overlapping results, remember that the paper I mentioned was an example I think people try to use to say there is no significant hyperplasia, because they read the study too quickly... but if you read the paper above the section I quoted, they did statistical analysis of variance and while on paper the numbers seem to overlap, when you consider how the numbers were measured, the increase is most likely a true increase rather than a false positive result (or type I statistical error), and the +/- around it is a bit misleading when you look at it without considering how those measurements and estimated errors were taken, in their words:
This post hoc analysis must be viewed cautiously, especially in regard to a type I statistical error. The calculation of estimated fiber number has the combined limitations of the procedures used to determine muscle CSA and fiber areas that were discussed above. Each of these limitations combines to increase the variability of values for the estimate of fiber number. There is no reason to expect any systematic error operated between pre- and posttraining in the measurement of any variable. Therefore, because the consequence of large variability is decreased statistical power to find an actual difference when one exists (i.e., increased likelihood of type II error), we feel confident that the significant increase in estimated fiber number in LH subjects is not the result of a type I error.
On the Fiber types transitions, I have a point a few paragraphs below.
Chris, yes I read your thread (and I thought it was nice within the context you wrote it in), I tried to read up on most of the pinned threads here within my limited time.
But I think there's an important point to be made here, which unfortunately is straying further from my initial question and from the general topic of this thread, but let me make it anyways.
I don't think the problem is doubting sources (unless someone was just going to take everything at face value).
Except in the rare cases where you really suspect someone is intentionally lying and creating false data, the real issue is that people should instead examine carefully the evidence, mechanisms, reasoning and data behind a claim or statement. In fact I would in general advise against using the source or authority as a real reason to doubt or believe a claim as that leads to all the familiar logical fallacies we want to stay away from (poisoning the well etc).
So I might show you a study has very well designed experimental setup with all the appropriate controls, tests all its assumptions by actually performing measurements and never claims more than what the evidence supports, has been peer reviewed and its finding have been reproduced independently by multiple scientists around the world, but you might say that you don't like scientists in general because you once met a really bad one who did poor research and tended to overreach and jump to the wrong conclusions, and choose to "doubt the source" of anything coming from peer-reviewed scientific journals. I am not saying that's your position, just saying you don't want to have that happening either. That's not ok if that's your only reason for choosing to ignore all that evidence, and if your only reason for believing otherwise is that you heard it declared a lot without any clear supporting evidence. If you at least had other studies or tests that showed conflicting results to it, and could show that nobody else could replicate one or the other, that would be a valid reason, again regardless of particular biases you might have for one source or group of people or another.
What makes well established, peer-reviewed scientific journals generally more useful is that they have a lot more stringent requirements for supporting evidence, every claim they make is likely to have a reference to the original studies or experiments that support that claim, be very conservative and cautious not to jump to the wrong conclusions, and can be reviewed anytime in light of new evidence.
On the other hand, in a lot of other publications (like random websites, training books etc) you unfortunately often find a lot of claims just being declared as truth without any reason given or any way to examine them rather than having to just believe it blindly based on authority (a VERY bad position to be in). That's a bit of the motive for some of my questions, a lot of things seem to be declared and repeated a lot and taken as absolute facts, they might well be completely true, but they are given without the useful reference of why and how we do or should believe that. For example saying something as "CNS recovers from fatigue more slowly" is very vague and doesn't say much about the how and why, what needs to be recovered exactly, why we know it's CNS and not hormonal glands, metabolism or anything else, etc.
Anything that has references or at least explains in details what was done to learn and be convinced of a particular claim is a lot more interesting to me regardless of the source. And that's good for everyone because it's easier to retest your assumptions and come up with better ideas if you know what they are.
I understand Steve's point that most textbooks he saw do not mention fiber type changes from type I to type II and might even strongly claim that it's impossible, again I don't know which ones or how many of them, but let's even assume that was the case for all current books on physiology of exercise.
Why do they make such a (strong) claim? What's the support for this? It would have to go back to some actual study or experiment, but if so what type of experiment was it, and how conclusive was it? Speaking generally, if could have been a study that just didn't see a change (a useful piece of evidence but not very conclusive, it's possible that someone could later improve conditions and succeed in producing a significant change).
And it's such a strong claim to say that muscle fiber types can't change (well I am glad you agree they can change from type 2a to 2b/2x at least), that it's really something that should have a reason, especially since fibers are more of a spectrum that could be divided in a lot more than 3 types, and that definition is a arbitrary one based on simple ways to visualize them (with stains etc) rather than more accurate biological features.
For example what exactly is the reason that would cause fiber types to be unable to change? Are they incapable of making the biological transformation from one type to the other, say, are they incapable of producing different myosin heavy chains and turn over their contractile proteins? No, that's again a well established biological process in all muscle fibers, and they can be turned from one type to another in vitro. Is it something that can only happen in vitro? No, that's something that happens in response to exercise in various animal models with almost identical muscles as ours (again see all the experiments I already referenced). Is it harder to show conclusively in vivo in humans? Admittedly, just because you can't do quite as long term or extreme experiments and you can't cut up the entire muscle to do precise measurements.
But the basic question remains why would you believe it in the face of all the evidence to the contrary and the consensus acceptance of these basic biological facts in the scientific community (although perhaps in a different field)?
I understand the first answer would be "I see it claimed again and again in the books or webpages I read", but the next logical question is then, why do those books believe it / claim it? And if you found a study they actually use as supporting evidence, how conclusive was it and were there newer studies that referenced it and later explained what might have been missed by that study?
