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…
It really is just mostly this, and social media has tricked people into thinking otherwise. I was looking at some photos of myself about 10 years ago. At the time, I had been hitting the gym hard, consistently, and intelligently. I had a huge bench press, squad, and deadlift, and was lifting 4-5 days a week, and managed every facet of my diet. Now, I'm older, have kids, don't sleep as much, and definitely don't make…
>social media has tricked people into thinking otherwise
I assume most fitness influencers on social media are on steroids.
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 appa…
They mostly cycle for health (injury prevention) and sanity (not to do the same damn thing).
I just do light weight nowadays with my strength training. It’s easier mentally. Rather than push myself to go higher on bench, squat, and deadlift, I stick to 1 plate for bench and squat and 2 plates for deadlift. Every single time. Instead of increasing load, I increase rep amount and focus on my form. Honestly, I still find myself sore after most workouts and the simplicity is nice. I’m 25 for reference.
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.
I find the goal of perpetual progress in resistance training strange. Yet it seems to be almost universal. If you are not lifting more today than you lifted yesterday, you are a failure. Gains, gains, gains. It is rather obvious that there are genetic limits on strength and size. Everyone is somewhere on their own spectrum of potential. Someone who doesn’t resistance train at all is likely near the bottom of their potential. Someone who works out 5 days a week, never misses leg day, eats enough protein (1g per kg in Europe, 1g per lb in the US) is likely near the top of their potential. Living in higher and higher ranges of your potential requires exponentially more ongoing effort, dedication/discipline/sacrifice, blood/sweat/tears/pain. Say my absolute maximum genetic potential in exercise X is to lift 100kg. Say I never do exercise X, so my current maximum is 40k. With some effort, like training 3 days a week for 4 months, I might get this to 60kg. Perhaps I could maintain that gain for decades by continuing to train 2 days a week. Or, I could keep pushing and maybe I could get it to 80kg in a few years. With an absolute all out effort, applying all the knowledge of the latest studies and perfect discipline, I could temporarily push it into the high 90s. Everybody can do what they want to do, but it seems to me that seeking the minimum effective dose of resistance training to look and feel good, and be strong enough to do what you like or need to do, is a reasonable approach. No need to push for more gains after that.
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 expl…
Asymmetry is normal and you cannot address it (outside of repeatability of movement, aiming for no form degradation during high load). As long as your movement does not degrade horribly, asymmetry is fine. Even before strength training, your one arm is dominant, more precise. But this has an effect on your leg as well. Doing unilateral work will never change that asymmetry. As you get stronger, due to drastically dif…
Even Smolov has clear discrepancies in the way his feet are positioned.
Volume itself is meaningless. The only thing that matters is the intensity of the workout. In fact you want the maximum intensity with minimum volume to have less wear and tear and more recovery while maximizing the growth stimulus. First intensity. Then recovery. These two dictate the volume. If volume exceeds recovery injury and burnout will follow.
Doing dumbbell raises to failure with 5repmax will bring more pain, discomfort and wear/tear than doing the same exercise with 20repmax.
Not sure what you want to say with 5repmax and 20repmax
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.
This is a common myth that came out of nowhere and has been debunked.
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.
> think most people will make a distinction between the burn of acidosis, or what you call unease, and actual pain indicating damage is occurring. There's not a discernible distinction for me. Which is why I always hate hearing shit like "It should feel uncomfortable but not painful." Like, no, it's FUCKING PAINFUL! It HURTS!
I understand you, I just think there is value in using a separate adjective, to avoid beginners thinking pain caused by damage to tissue is normal and you need to push through it to get gains.
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.
How about making muscles fail by stretching them under load?
There has been a lot of "long length training/partials" information/research in the past couple of years. A very useful information, you should research more (or ask more specific questions).
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.
Except that this is something that was well established before, making this study pointless.
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.
Andre the Giant said he never worked out, he just wrestled. He had some kind of growth hormone disorder, if I recall. Think about gorillas, who are pretty similar to us - they don't lift weights in the gym, do they?
I don't know much about Andre's strength feats. Was he exceptionally strong? Wrestling definitely involves lifting heavy opponents, especially in Andre's weight class. So, if he was extremely strong, I can see why despite no explicit resistance training, given his wrestling and increased HGH.
Yeah, this whole discussion is based on assuming human genetics. Every animal, without any resistance training, will develop an amount of muscle within some range. This can be massive, like for gorillas. Perhaps someday we will have gene editing that allows us to have the muscle building genes of gorillas, so we can all bench 1,000lbs with no training.
I wonder, do gorillas possess the mechanism for stimulating muscle growth via resistance training? How strong could one be with a dedicated training plan and coach?