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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

#111

Post by nezi »

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 paper isn’t saying that it doesn’t matter what program you do, it’s saying that other variables, not directly related to the method of weight training, matter more. It also assumes that you can extrapolate data from one individual training each limb with a different program to if that individual performs either program on both limbs. Maybe there are carryover affects to the lower load limb that you get from training heavier with the higher load limb that you wouldn’t from training both at a lower intensity.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#112

Post by raducu »

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…

> not the mass used.

Completely anecdotal, but when I was 18, in highschool, I trained in the gym in my hometown, supervised with a trainer, 12 reps per muscle group, very modest gains.

I move to university, start reading a fitness forum where people were saying do max 6 reps if you want big gains.

I also started supplementing with whey protein, and within 3 months the gains were spectacular, everybody noticed, I felt on fire, best time of my life, I miss so much how great I felt in my own body.

I've seen other colleagues and how they trained -- I can say there was 100% correlation that those people who were not training hard also did not have big gains. People who had enough breath left in them to chat in the gym simply did not gain as much as people I saw as training hard.

Also for me, the 6 reps to exhaustion felt completely different then 12 reps (again, to complete exhaustion) -- immediately after the training it felt amazing to be alive, the world became a comfortable place, my anxiety completely vanished, and in the night and morning after an intense training (especially the legs and back) the erections and libido boost were out of this world, something I never felt with the 12 reps regimen.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#113

Post by throwaway713 »

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

[flagged]

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#114

Post by bendtb »

raducu wrote: post #112
timr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> not the mass used. Completely anecdotal, but when I was 18, in highschool, I trained in the gym in my hometown, supervised with a trainer, 12 reps per muscle group, very modest gains. I move to university, start reading a fitness forum where people were saying do max 6 reps if you want big gains. I also started supplementing with whey protein, and within 3 months the gains were spectacular, everybody noticed, I fel…

Anecdotally as someone who strength trained on a recreational basis the last 20 years (and run a marathon just to see if I could), nothing beats heavy lifting.

A Strong lifts 5x5 program build around squat, deadlifts, bench and shoulder press can always make me feel pumped for the day!

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#115

Post by zahlman »

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

From my recollection, this is a quite common issue with studies in this topic area.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#116

Post by calmbonsai »

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's also the risk of injury.

At very low reps and high weight, particularly for highly coordinated motions (squats, dips, pull-ups, Pulver press back-extensions), there's a much higher chance for injury due to insufficient support at one or more positions within the entire range of concentric and eccentric efforts by all activated muscles. We all have, at the very least, minor intrinsic asymmetries that need explicit addressing.

There's also intra-set recovery. Roughly (very roughly) speaking, your endo-neuro-muscular system "adapts best" where there is a refractory period for a reset-to-quiescence between exertions.

There is real truth to "muscle memory" and the exclusive way to achieve that (and avoid injury) is through a sufficient amount of well-formed repetitions. The only way to achieve those repetitions is by using a resistance that's sufficiently low.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#117

Post by coffeebeqn »

westurner wrote: post #105

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 num…

So could I just do one super slow (some minutes) squat per week at like 60% and get all the benefits still?

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#118

Post by calmbonsai »

NoLinkToMe wrote: post #107
elevaet wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

True. Generally, the more isolated the exercise and the smaller the muscle the "safer" it is to train-to-failure at a higher duty-cycle.

Put another way, you can do crunches to failure every single day, but you'll want to keep some reps in the tank for squats and you'll want to plan on at least 12-24 hours of recovery between squat sessions.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#119

Post by coffeebeqn »

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?

Failure also taxes your nervous system and joints which don’t take as kindly to stimulus as muscles do and take longer to recover (or accumulate damage in case of joints)

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#120

Post by solumunus »

torben-friis wrote: post #13
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.

>While one might think "I can do 50 reps with low weights" The caveat is that you need anaerobic training. Low enough weight and it’s cardio, you don’t get giant legs by walking to failure for example.

Well you’re not applying much mechanical tension to the quadriceps when “walking to failure”. This is nowhere near analogous.
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