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Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#91

Post by Retric »

safety1st wrote: post #85
armcat wrote: post #4

I thought it was already well understood/researched that it's not the weights that matter, but effectively taking your sets to muscular failure. While one might think "I can do 50 reps with low weights" there is practical aspects to this - you don't wand to spend hours at the gym, and doing heavy weights at 5-7 reps is sufficient as long as you are close or at muscular failure.

There are a few issues with taking every set to failure, the most important being that it will substantially increase your risk of injury. It sounds great until you consider compounds like the deadlift that can ruin your back if your form is bad, and by definition, going to failure means your form will be imperfect at some point. There are lots of macho powerlifters out there with permanently ruined spines who will p…

2 reps in reserve is fine and far less painful, but you need to go to actual failure often enough to know where failure is on each set. I’m nerdy enough to suggest rolling a 20 sided die for each set, and on a 1 take it to failure it’s not that complicated and keeps your predictions honest.

As I understand it taking a set near failure works reasonably anywhere between 5 to 30 reps, but 30 well controlled reps with good form * 3+ sets for each muscle group gets really boring.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#92

Post by toshinoriyagi »

mahdi7d1 wrote: post #84
slashtmpslashme wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's _painful_ you are doing it wrong https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bx3gkHJehRCYZAF3r/pain-is-no...

If it's not painfull you are not exerting enough effort at least that's the case in the gym. People who are refreshed and more energetic after going to the gym are the same people who won't improve beyond intermediate levels. The ones who let go of the any set at the first feelings of unease and never take a set close to failure. It's actually fascinating how an ancient proverb could line up with modern science so pe…

It certainly does not need to be painful. I think most people will make a distinction between the burn of acidosis, or what you call unease, and actual pain indicating damage is occurring.

But yes, if you never train close to failure you will not grow, not past beginner gains, unless you take steroids.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#93

Post by siddboots »

safety1st wrote: post #85
armcat wrote: post #4

I thought it was already well understood/researched that it's not the weights that matter, but effectively taking your sets to muscular failure. While one might think "I can do 50 reps with low weights" there is practical aspects to this - you don't wand to spend hours at the gym, and doing heavy weights at 5-7 reps is sufficient as long as you are close or at muscular failure.

There are a few issues with taking every set to failure, the most important being that it will substantially increase your risk of injury. It sounds great until you consider compounds like the deadlift that can ruin your back if your form is bad, and by definition, going to failure means your form will be imperfect at some point. There are lots of macho powerlifters out there with permanently ruined spines who will p…

I think the total volume idea is more flawed than you realise. Pretty much everyone would be able to achieve greater volume, on any exercise, just by decreasing the weight, so your high rep caveat is covering up for quite a lot. This is true mathematically for an Epley style model for example.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#94

Post by henning »

Yep, lots of different ways to get jacked. That means if you couldn't care less about strength, you can do pretty much any decent exercise that targets the muscle(s) you want to grow in a very wide rep range. Most people want a combination of both size and strength, so you can just do some sets of 5-10 if you aren't already. If you want to have a strong deadlift or squat or whatever, you should train that movement. Not as complicated as fitness social media people want to make it seem: train for what you want.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#95

Post by Nevermark »

ed wrote: post #82
AstroBen wrote: post #34

> Healthy, recreationally active but untrained young males Yeah this is why. Anything you do as an untrained person is going to get you newbie gains. It's just really easy to improve initially. Doesn't mean it'll work after the first 6 months

this wasn't a study of absolute growth (sure - newbie gains), but rather the difference between high and low load programming within individuals.

> the difference between high and low load programming within [newbies]

Fixed that.

As the comment you replied to noted, newbie gains are remarkably sensitive to any stimulation, and insensitive to the type of stimulation. Because going from zero to any resistance training is a massive stimulus increase, on a long-term under stimulated system.

The study does confirm that. The data it produces is useful.

What this study doesn't do, is help newbies (or anyone) choose the most effective practices to adopt. Because 10 weeks is way too short to identify best practices for any sustained program.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#96

Post by conception »

bglazer wrote: post #87
worthless-trash wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to persistent hunt to failure, ended up with bulky calves and tibialis.

Where were you doing this? Were you ever successful? How did you do it, like what were your tactics? So many questions! I’ve never heard about modern people doing serious persistence hunting, except for a stunt that I read about years ago. I think it was organized by like Outside or some running publication that got pro marathoners to try and they failed because they didn’t know anything about hunting

Right? Where’s the well written blog post on this I want?

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#97

Post by timr »

AstroBen wrote: post #34

> Healthy, recreationally active but untrained young males Yeah this is why. Anything you do as an untrained person is going to get you newbie gains. It's just really easy to improve initially. Doesn't mean it'll work after the first 6 months

Perhaps there's some unmeasured influence, but this study was looking only at the difference between growth within subjects vs between subjects. If the subjects were all "newbies", then that doesn't explain the results.

They're essentially saying that individual genetics explain the majority of the variation seen as a response to muscle stimulus in their test subjects, not the mass used, because the variation within the test cohorts was greater than the variation between them. You can argue that, if they didn't test experienced lifters the results might be different in that population, but you can't dismiss the results on those grounds.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#98

Post by throwaway173738 »

mf_tomb wrote: post #29
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

I know it's practically de rigeur to jump into the comments and immediately complain about methodology for any study that makes it to the front page, and I want to emphasize I don't distrust their findings, but I would like to see an equivalent study go out longer than 10 weeks. When I've been taking weightlifting seriously I feel like I don't even start to notice hypertrophy until 8-10 weeks. I feel like 6 months is…

This is par for the course with exercise science. It's mostly fake. No blinding, small sample sizes, researchers with agenda, low duration, low funding etc. The good news is that doing almost anything works.

Doing almost anything works better than doing nothing.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#99

Post by LorenPechtel »

exq wrote: post #89
nnutter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone really ever walked to failure on a regular basis? I typically have to stop because of blisters not muscle failure. (The furthest I've done is 12 miles with +10% weight.)

I backpack often (usually 8-13% bodyweight in my pack) and during long summer days I can comfortably push well into the 30 mile per day range if there isn't too much vert to slow my pace down. My feet get sore, brain gets tired, and I run out of daylight well before any sort of muscle failure in my legs. If you aren't used to walking from sunrise to sunset doing so would build muscle, but your time would be better sp…

Yup, I have never gone that far (but my summer hiking is entirely at high elevation with lots of climb) but I have never found anything like a failure point--I wear out because of time (not even daylight--I've made navigation errors that left me out there well past sunset), not muscle failure.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#100

Post by LorenPechtel »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #77
nnutter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone really ever walked to failure on a regular basis? I typically have to stop because of blisters not muscle failure. (The furthest I've done is 12 miles with +10% weight.)

Check anybody that has done the AT.

You think they hike to failure??

(And you should be looking at the CDT, anyway.)

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