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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

#101

Post by taneq »

landl0rd wrote: post #80
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.

Fifty is excessive but you’re better-served doing 12-20 reps more than fewer, heavier reps if you’re pushing hypertrophy and already well-trained.

That matches what I've been told by various personal trainers. 6-8 reps if focusing on strength, ~12 for all round, and 16-18 for size/endurance. Do three sets, weight should be enough that the last couple of reps on the first set are a bit of a struggle. Subsequent sets just push through as far as you can.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#102

Post by [deleted] »

pasquinelli wrote: post #70
jimbo808 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all muscles resist extension, some do the opposite and contract.

i don't understand what this means. the stretch feeling is an involuntary muscle contraction that is happening to resist extension on the opposite side.

[deleted]

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#103

Post by hatefulheart »

taneq wrote: post #101
landl0rd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifty is excessive but you’re better-served doing 12-20 reps more than fewer, heavier reps if you’re pushing hypertrophy and already well-trained.

That matches what I've been told by various personal trainers. 6-8 reps if focusing on strength, ~12 for all round, and 16-18 for size/endurance. Do three sets, weight should be enough that the last couple of reps on the first set are a bit of a struggle. Subsequent sets just push through as far as you can.

Your trainers clearly never read Starting Strength.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#104

Post by acoard »

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…

What about longer rest periods? For example if I wait 1hr between sets I can do full weight again without dropping down weights with a 2-5min break. In fact I can get multiple more sets in and significantly increase my total volume if I spread a workout over a day (which is easier with WFH). Any thoughts on this? Is there not enough muscle fatigue with this approach?

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#105

Post by westurner »

What about Time Under Tension?

"Equalization of Training Protocols by Time Under Tension Determines the Magnitude of Changes in Strength and Muscular Hypertrophy" (2022) https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2022/07000/equal... :

> Abstract: [...] In conclusion, training protocols with the same TUT promote similar strength gains and muscle hypertrophy. Moreover, considering that the protocols used different numbers of repetitions, the results indicate that training volumes cannot be considered separately from TUT when evaluating neuromuscular adaptations.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#106

Post by nrhrjrjrjtntbt »

Retric wrote: post #91
safety1st wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

Boring is subjective though. For some like me the ideal weight gives endorphins where as too much feels like cortisol. Too light is sort of nothing. So I aim for that "yeah I pushed something" feeling. Which isn't failure.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#107

Post by NoLinkToMe »

elevaet wrote: post #9
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.

What about the old gym adage "training to failure is failing to train" - is there any physiological basis for this, or is it mental, or just a myth?

It holds true, but with some caveats.

Generally training to failure is completely fine for say a set of tricep extensions. Generally safe.

However, training to failure on compound lifts like a deadlift or benchpress, or involving sensitive muscles like a shoulder press, isn't.

Technique generally suffers at the point of failure. Making a habit of doing thousands of repetitions in the next decade at the point where technique fails, on an exercise that can mess up your back permanently, or your shoulders, is bad advice.

For these exercises it's better to stop 2 reps short of failure. This is more safe. Also it requires moderate recovery getting you back in the gym quicker, meaning you can compound more incremental improvements in a given training period (say 5 years).

Even then, some still cautiously go to failure to keep an understanding of what their failure point really is. You could go for a PR once or twice a month for example and go to failure, with a proper warmup, spotter etc. But purely for hypertrophy there's not really a point, this is more for strength training.

Generally people that say they train to failure mean 2 reps in reserve. Training to absolute failure on all muscles is very rare and generally advised against.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#108

Post by travisjungroth »

acoard wrote: post #104
safety1st wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about longer rest periods? For example if I wait 1hr between sets I can do full weight again without dropping down weights with a 2-5min break. In fact I can get multiple more sets in and significantly increase my total volume if I spread a workout over a day (which is easier with WFH). Any thoughts on this? Is there not enough muscle fatigue with this approach?

Hard to stay warmed up that way. What you’re describing is how people tend to get big without the gym (lifting heavy things through the day) but they also tend be pretty active in between (think farm work).

But as long as you’re not going so hard you risk injury, it might be great overall. Could be really good for your mental state.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#109

Post by sedivy94 »

timr wrote: post #97
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 activation energy or stimulus required for hypertrophy in untrained individuals is so low that it’s hard to differentiate the results. Studies like this absolutely need to be done in trained individuals if you want reliable data.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#110

Post by sedivy94 »

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.

Novelty of stimulus is a huge factor, especially as training continues over years. Failure from a set of 20 is very different than failure from a set of 5, and bodybuilders will periodize their training to cycle through the different flavors of stimulus. I think a big contributor might be neuromuscular adaptation. Cycling through those different intensities over training periods measured in months will make this apparent anecdotally.
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