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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

#321

Post by com2kid »

samiv wrote: post #219
unaindz wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While technically true getting very close to failure is only useful if you don't need optimal results and lack the time to do more volume. The damage by going to failure will make high volumes maintained over time impossible. Ideally you would leave 1-2 possible reps. I think it's important to train to failure to know your body and learn to gauge your reps to failure but other than that and very little time per week…

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.

For a couple years I did a super low weight time under tension routine.

Almost no hypertrophy, but I was able to step into a BJJ gym and roll for hours, I was still ready to go long after everyone else had gassed out.

The adage that you get good at what you train at is true.

Train to lift a ton of weight 3 times and you aren't going to be able to compete with the calisthenics peeps who can rep out 100 pullups and literally dance mid air.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#322

Post by raducu »

eastbound wrote: post #194
raducu wrote: 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…

Why did you stop? It seems you did, but since it made you feel excellent, it seems strange to “choose to stop”. It’s not an innocent question: Gains and feeling extremely well and confident and serotonin-boosted are only useful if it can be sustained in life. The two alternatives are: 1. It pumps you but tires you very fast and you get fat down the line, and your overall life is ~obese (seems to happen to way more pe…

Not just one reason, but I stopped because I more or less maintained my physique for 7-8 years afterwards (probably being in your 20s helps) and my life circumstances were in a goldilocks zone; my dad (a doctor) was adamant I'd destroy my heart with all the muscle mass I added.

The thing that motivated me to start was the fact I was not very successful with girls and gaining 30 pounds of muscles in early 2000's Romania was intoxicating, if anybody told me before that girls would send kisses in the subway, grab my arms in the bus and start conversations with me or ask for my number in clubs, colleagues ask me to dump my girlfriend I would have said it's impossible.

I'm ashamed to say, but all that validation was even better than the way lifting made me feel and the primary drive to weight lifting.

It's only now that I remember how good weight lifting in itself made me feel, I never did give it much thought back then.

But now it's very hard to find the time or motivation to start it again.

I'm not really scared of getting fat down the line, I'm in my early 40s now and I've never been fat.

You could be right, that it's only the change that makes you feel amazing, and I only ever went to the gym for some 6 months total, but I have my doubt that it would ever go away, I've been on many, many drugs, NOT ONE ever made me feel good for 6 months straight, they all downregulate very fast.

Now thinking about it, I get a renewed motivation to re-start weight lifting

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#323

Post by giardini »

spectralista wrote: post #205
formichunter wrote: post #190

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…

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…

spectralista says >",,it is: 1. Genetics."

I learned this young. Our smallish high school had several exceptional athletes who achieved all-state level in their freshman years. They were great but they had to work for it. In basketball we had the usual mix. But one day Dan showed up:

Dan was short but extremely muscular. He was "recruited" by our all-state level fullback who lived in the same neighborhood (circa 1960's). Dan worked at his dad's gas station and didn't want him playing basketball b/c that was one less worker. but Dan loved basketball and played every chance he got, even though his dad would beat the crap out of him regularly for being away from "work". Coach didn't have to be asked again once he saw Dan play - he was a fricking Bob Cousy on the court. Nobody could lay a hand on him - a truly phenomenal player. Coach talked to Dan's dad, worked out a deal and got permission to try a few games.

Our first game with Dan was incredible: like being a soldier alongside Achilles as he slaughtered Trojans! "Pass the ball to Dansy" and the magic happened!

Dan showed up for two games (Dan won them both) but his dad wouldn't allow more.

So Dan was inherently muscular and strong and very coordinated, far more so than any person I'd ever met, with astonishing reflexes, and also a hell of a basketball player. I asked him if he lifted weights and he said he never did.

I concluded that people are different, sometimes very different. Other than that, maybe regular hellacious beatings can make you an incredible athlete.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#324

Post by dredmorbius »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #287
eudamoniac wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this advice is mostly harmless and not contraindicated, though some of it is incorrect, but point 5 in regards to soreness is harmful advice. Soreness is not a goal and does not indicate anything other than that you did a lot of eccentric lifting to which you were not recently adapted. Soreness means you waited longer than what was necessary to exercise that muscle group again. If you are getting sore beyond the…

+1. Point number 5 is probably the worst part of their post. Beginners should focus on form, consistency, and linear progression of weight. If you can stand the boredom do the exact same program for a year. Probably 2-3 full body workouts that hit each body part twice. For intermediate+, hitting a body part once a week is suboptimal for most. People who care about results and progression/growth should be progressing…

RIR: Reps in reserve.

https://blog.nasm.org/reps-in-reserve>

0RM: One rep max. This is the (actual or theoretical) maximum weight / resistance which can be moved on a given lift. ExRx has a good calculator as well as several tables for calculating resistance at specified reps:

https://exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax>

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#325

Post by dredmorbius »

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 ...

... over doing nothing ...

... initially.

Progress, over time, tends to involve both variation in routine and specific methods, progression, programming, modalities, techniques, form, movements, etc.

One somewhat dubious 10 week study of newbies, as many others have commented, doesn't communicate much.

A further complication is that much of the hypertrophic adaptation is systemic, that is, relates to overall body stimulus and other factors (nutrition, rest, genetics, etc.). Among those effects is the net hormonal response (testosterone, HGH, ILG

Heck, there's a well-known phenomenon called cross education* where an untrained limb will see strength / hypertrophy gains when its opposite is trained:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_education>

(Other / similar terms: Cross-Transfer Effect, Inter-Limb Transfer, Motor Cortex, Activation, Contralateral Training Effect).

Body adaptation to resistance training is weird.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#326

Post by dredmorbius »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #175
samiv wrote: post #170

As a natty bodybuilder for over 30 years for anyone aspiring towards fitness and starting at the gym my most important advice is "Put the phone away and bust some ass" I see way too many people (the great majority) completely sabotage their training by putting the weights down when it starts to get hard and get on their phone. When the weights get hard is when the real set begins. If you don't do the hard reps you de…

This is why having a buddy/spotter is so important. On every lift my friend spotted me an extra 3-4 reps that I would not be able to do if I went just myself and kept going until the last rep was 95% him and 5% me. First guy to automate spotting is an instant billionaire.

If you're looking at safety, a power cage with the bars set will do the trick. Or swap out BB for DB for presses.

If you're looking at forced reps, you can do drop sets or add bands (assist rather than resist) to continue lifting for extra reps. For quicker drop sets, use some light plates (2.5# or 5#) which you can rapidly strip from the bar and continue a few reps.

For DB moves you can self-assist in some lifts using your other arm, or have lighter DBs to hand for additional reps.

https://dr-muscle.com/use-drop-sets-build-muscle/>

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#327

Post by Dylan16807 »

mnky9800n wrote: post #172
Dylan16807 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like I would definitely notice if I went from 12 to 25 reps on any exercise I do. To be clear, the implication is that 12 and 25 have different weights so they tire you the same amount. Do you think it would be a very strongly felt difference in that situation? What would the difference feel like?

Yes, this is why classic body builders like high reps because they get the pump but you can get the same growth (and there’s lots of research saying more) with training to failure with low reps and high weight but it doesn’t give you the pump.

Well the idea in the earlier comment is that a 2x rep difference isn't very much to be the difference between "low" and "high". It's not disputing that you can get a difference, but saying the study didn't try very hard to probe it.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#328

Post by machomaster »

Blackthorn wrote: post #291
machomaster wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 som…

What are you even responding to? I go to the gym and lift and cardio for my own health, but this is this and that is that. If you want to look like the guys featured in the magazines you need steroids. If you want to make a body transformation like actors do you definitely need steroids.

Looking at the genetically elite people in a magazine, imagining that self can become just as good if only by using steroids, is beyond dumb.

Imagine thinking that the only thing stopping self of become a new Michael Jordan is lack of access to dynamite attached to feet (in order to jump higher).

The dynamite aspect is not the biggest stupidity, even deciding to compare self to elite athletes is moronic. Use celebrities as inspiration, not as a manual.

Ordinary people thinking that they need steroids to look like celebrities is wild for many reasons. For one, no amount of steroids in the world is going to help an average ordinary person to be like people in magazines, let alone compete against elite (with or without steroids).

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#329

Post by machomaster »

oarfish wrote: post #301
machomaster wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Depends, its also an indicator of novelty, and that by itself isnt useful. Once you are used to a movement and training volume, getting sore is difficult unless you ramp up the volume continuosly. id say, never being sore at all is maybe a sign you dont do enough for optimum results, but frequently being sore means the load is too high. And for health outcomes it probably matters less.

Agree.

Re: Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy

#330

Post by lm28469 »

oarfish wrote: post #290
lm28469 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The muscle "shock" broscience has been disproven many times: Variety isn't to shock or confuse the body, it's just to make sure you actually hit all the muscles in as many ways possible. Take your average push/pull gym rat to a yoga class or a climbing wall and they'll be more sore the next day than they've ever been before, because they'll activate muscles they didn't even know they had.

Yes, because the stimulus is novel if youve never done yoga before (e.g. a bunch of isometrics). That is not an indication of it being useful exercise for the outcomes of interest.

Yes of course, but I assume people on hn are more health focused than big muscles focused
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