Live data from Hacker News

Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

251–260 of 371 posts

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't intend to convince you, but for onlookers: 1. As a young male, 1 plate bench/squat and 2 plate deadlift is extremely weak. Please strive higher than this. Anyone can achieve this in 6 months of intelligent training max. Many men start this strong untrained. The majority of young men can squat 1 plate untrained. 1. Soreness is not an indication of anything other than that you did a lot of eccentric loading. It…

My max used to be 425 on deadlift back when I was taking it more seriously. Doing 5x8 of 225 on deadlift is enough to be strong to be healthy and active. You can only push yourself on a limited number of things in life so some things are just good enough.

Sure, and 400 deadlift is decent intermediate for the average man, but let me suggest a counterpoint. Strength is the greatest indication of health among the elderly. A strong old man doesn't break his hip when he falls, he doesn't fall at all actually because strength is balance, and he doesn't have trouble getting off the toilet, and he doesn't need a cane. These are serious QOL issues.

It's a mindset issue. If you're 25 and have already declined from 425 to 225 deadlift, that doesn't bode well for your decline into old age. Strength slowly tapers off once you stop lifting, as most eventually do. You want to be as strong as possible while entering middle age so that you can be a strong old man. Strength is like a retirement account in this sense, and in this sense you are advocating for working minimum wage throughout life because it's easier. For a young man, whose training is most efficacious of all age groups, I recommend getting as strong as possible, at least 400 deadlift and symmetrical equivalent in other lifts (but most can achieve 500), and then maintaining that strength as long as possible, not cutting it in half immediately. If you can lift 350 at age 55 you're pretty much guaranteed to never break your hip or have a bad fall; that entire class of osteo related issues vanishes.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#252
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by there’s no difference? The difference is in the relative load needed in each example.

Well of course you change the load, but the stimulus is interpreted the same way by the body. I didn't think the question was at that level.

> but the stimulus is interpreted the same way by the body

That may be your intuition, but it’s certainly not everyone’s, hence the studies… Many people will intuit heavier weight = more effective.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#253
post #62
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but this post is about hypertrophy (big muscles). Not about heavy lifts.

Well one thing can lead into the other over time. If you can lift 405 once, 315 for reps becomes pedestrian and 225 becomes boring. Lifting that much weight will turn you into a monster faster than if you had not pushed for that capacity. I've seen people who can treat a 225lb barbell as if it's unloaded and 100% of them look like dragon ball Z characters.

Again, not relevant.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we replicate the process of reaching muscle fatigue/failure to spur muscle growth without the strength training or anabolic steroids? Think GLP-1RAs but for this specific biological pathway. https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/lilly-terminate-obesity-t... https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...

Steroid use has been shown to increase muscle in untrained males by around 25-30% I believe, without adding any exercise. That doesn't accomplish too much. If you want any worthwhile results, you will still have to train, although the steroids produce significantly more results for the same investment.

It’s infuriating that this gets parroted so often. The study you’re referring to measures “fat free mass”. Anabolic steroids acutely increase water and glycogen retention. All that study is showing is that taking steroids increases your body weight due to increased muscle fullness.

You won’t gain any significant amount of muscle tissue from taking steroids without training.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got back from the gym and it was surprisingly empty. Actually, more empty than normal. My experience from lifting now for 30+ years and seeing thousands of people lift is it is: 1. Genetics. Everything else is a distant second or third. This was actually something that was widely understood in 90s bodybuilding magazines. Lifting is mostly a display of genetics. That worked when you could sell magazines of gene…

> My experience from lifting now for 30+ years and seeing thousands of people lift is it is: 1. Genetics. Also in first place: steroids. The bodybuilding magazines loved to talk about genetics because they didn't want to say the quiet part out loud. Nowadays people are more willing to talk about it.

Steroids, the main excuse of lazy people who are searching for excuses, without realizing that the main problem is their own attitude based on the mistaken pattern of comparing yourself to unreachable elite instead of to ordinary folks and to your former self.

1. Compare only to former yourself (you can't even know your genetic potential until you start training). Did you improve? Yes? Great, continue. No? Change something.

2. Go 2-3 times a week consistently for years, hitting major muscle groups 2-4 times a week.

3. Work as hard as you can (with safe technique). Consistency and effort is the biggest problem why people don't see results. Most people in the commercial gyms are not training hard enough.

4. Progressive overload. Once you get stronger, your weights/reps/sets should also increase.

5. Eat enough protein. Eat calories according to your goal (gaining muscle or losing fat).

6. Reduce stress. Recover. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

It's really quite simple. Tedious, but simple.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#256
post #220

Why is this article showing up on New Year's Day like the flock of newbie gym customers attracted to the gym only to quit 30 days from now? Every year without fail. Let's ignore this article for a moment. Overall factors that REALLY matter building muscle: 1. Consistency - Working out each muscle group at least once a week....every week. 2. Diet - Making sure you are consuming enough protein in your diet, approximate…

The fact that you state that muscle soreness is necessary for hypertrophy shows that ignoring studies is bad advice.

Muscle soreness is not necessary for hypertrophy, but often enough (but not always) it is a good measure of the effort/volume/weight/technique (so a proxy for the mechanical tension, the thing that we want, but it hard to measure directly).

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#257
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider gains? Consider that this paper looked specifically at hypertrophy (size), not strength. While they correlate, training for one or the other can be very different.. "Traditionally" the rep ranges recommended for hypertrophy has typically been significantly higher than the ranges recommended for strength, but the number of sets recommended is often also significantly higher, often translating to s…

> Consider that this paper looked specifically at hypertrophy (size), not strength. I'm not sure where this idea came from that people do one or the other. Except for the advanced lifter, both will happen from either program. Show me a person who is really big and they are likely pretty strong as well (see Ronnie Coleman). Same with the other direction.

It is unreasonable to talk about newbies. They grow from anything. I mean, you put newbies on the stationary bike and their pullups increase (real study!).

So we should talk about at least intermed. trainees.

And in those, the correlation does not go both ways. Getting more muscles does increase the strength, but getting stronger does not necessarily increase muscle (technique, neurological adaptations, etc).

Simply speaking, guys with big pecs and triceps are going to be strong in bench (even if they don't train it), but strong benchers (especially if they mostly train in 1-3 reps range, outside of hypertrophy 5-30) don't necessarily have big pecs/triceps.

So yeah, the parent was correct in asking what the previous parent mean by having great gains. Because getting stronger does not necessarily mean that your muscles also grew substantionally. Also, if you gained weight also doesn't mean the muscle gain. Due to leverages, the bench and squat results increase even if all you gained was pure fat.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#258
post #114
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

To maintain my health I supplement with iron. In a form of barbells and dumbbells.

Shoutout to Barbell medicine. It is a good youtube channel by 2 lifting MDs (formerly associated with Starting Strength).

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#260
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't see any progress if you won't push yourself. It shapes your mentality, and running away from work is what will keep you at the same place. Soreness is not a sign of progression most of the time. Bump up the weights, don't run away.

They're increasing reps and therefore total load. That's still a form of progression ('pushing yourself'). This style will slightly favor hypertrophy gains over strength gains. At 40 I recently made this switch in style as well. The weight was getting so high that my anxiety was causing a mental aversion to working out altogether. Consistency is really 95% of exercise so I think this is a reasonable trade-off. That s…

You shouldn't be stressed of what's in front of you. Training also trains you for that other than muscle/power building. If you don't compete, you have no reason to be anxious. You should maybe dig into what's causing you that anxiety, if it's "I worry I won't make this weight", remind yourself that nothing will happen if you do, and if you do, it's part of the progression. I get this anxiousness also, but I always remind myself that.

I think that what you do in the gym will reflect on yourself.

Post reply on HN