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

> it is possible that the type I fibers of subjects were underdeveloped in comparison with the type II fibers as a result of training methodologies. The type I fibers therefore may have had a greater potential for growth compared with the type II fibers

Maybe a mix of both types of training would be best then?

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 test cohorts was greater than the variation between them. You can argue that, if they didn't test experienced lifters the results might be different in that population, but you can't dismiss the results on those grounds.

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.

"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 significantly higher total volume.

> 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.

Well, yes, but training with lower weights and higher rep ranges does not automatically translate to "not training hard".

Having gone through a period of really high rep training, including for a short period doing 1000 squats per day as an experiment, mostly bodyweight, that was far harder exercise than when I 1RM'd 200kg. But the effects are different.

I much prefer Stronglifts and Madcow but because I favour strength over size, and it's far more time efficient, not because you can't also get results with more, lower-weight reps.

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.

I know I’ve definitely seen the difference training with a personal trainer telling her I want to train for aesthetics vs strength and vice versa.

There is a strong correlation but it’s definitely not 1.

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

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

IDK. When I powerlifted the goal was to move the weight. I've almost passed out from heavy deadlifts, but was rarely out of breath. I also almost never chat in the gym because it's my meditative place, not because I couldn't chat :)

Bent over rows being and easy example: at a 5RM upper back is giving out as desired, but past 10RM my lower back is the issue. If my goals are bent over endurance in my core then higher reps will force adaptations where I’m weak, if I’m trying to get my shoulder blades sexy and humpy I gotta keep the stimulus where I want results. In addition to manipulating reps something like a snatch grip can provide a leverage based answer to the same targeting needs.

Proximity to failure is key, targeting and maximizing that proximity is individual and highly goal dependant.

[As a bit of a physio case I’ve found General Gainz (/r/gzcl on Reddit), to be a highly productive RPE based system with very happy adaptive approach to hitting personal limitations mid workout; no “failures” or broken spreadsheets = motivation = consistency = progress; strong recommend to check out]

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 people than one could assume), 2. Only the change produces this feeling, and change cannot be sustained forever.

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

I also feel the need to control this entity of excitement with the rest of my life, my studies, career and romance.

failing to lift is not the same as lifting until failure.

Consider, if I load up the bench press to 200kg I won't get a single rep. If I try to rep it I'll fail but I'm not lifting until failure.

If I load it up to smaller weight lets say 100kg and crank out rep after rep I'll get much closer to "lifting until failure."

When I reach the end, the last rep is a rep I won't make. But I'm still not at a point where I can't do no more, just the weight is too big, so I must reduce the weight and go again. When I do this I get even closer to "lifting until failure".

It's like integration, the smaller the infinitesimal the closer to the true value you get when you sum up (integrate) all the parts.

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 to train it's eventually counterproductive.

And if training with lower weights you tend to end very far from failure if just following a program without knowing what you are doing.

First intensity. Then recovery. These two dictate the volume. If volume exceeds recovery injury and burnout will follow.

Not true at all, its well documented that volume is the biggest predictor of progress. there is obviously an intensity floor, and when its not feasible logistically to stack on more volume, intensity is your other knob. But to say volume doesnt matter is an odd claim, maybe i misunderstand.

> you want the maximum intensity with minimum volume to have less wear and tear

Not a helpful way of thinking about exercise induced adaptations. unless you are doing pro athlete amounts of training, would ignore this completely.

It can work.. the problem is that if you do too little you get no result, if you do too much you burn out. So you have to manage both volume and intensity so that you have a progressive overload. This is difficult.

Easier way is to just ignore the volume in the first place, train as hard as you can (so go to failure, or very close), for maximal effort, i.e. increase the intensity then RECOVER then go back to the gym when you're no longer sore.

This is much easier routine to follow and it will produce development assuming other factors (quality of sleep and nutrition) are in check.

So therefore a shortcut summary is to forget about the volume, focus on the intensity and then make volume follow your capacity to recover. Avoid injuries and burnout while precipitating growth.

Using the bench press example again, in a volume program I might do

6 sets of 6 reps for a total of 36 reps. Since I'm doing so much volume it's clear that my first 5 sets will not be challenging because with this amount of sets I HAVE to save my energy for 6 sets. MAYBE the last rep or two in the last set will be what will start challenging me. So I'd say that with this volume workout you get 2 reps out of 36 that are "progressive". That's 5% and 95% of my work is just junk that produces only wear and tear.

In high intensity method I continue with drop sets after I fail. So.. let's say I do my initial set, 8 reps until I fail, I drop weights and do 3 more reps until I fail, I drop the weights and do 2 more reps. And then I'm done and that's the workout. My total reps are 13 but there are at least 5 reps that are in the zone that challenges me. That's 5/13 for 38%.

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.

Most people don't build up to such a stimulus, so its not surprising if its uncomfortable, if all youve ever done is 20 rep sets.

With DB side raises, take too high of a weight, and you will feel like you can't do anything productive done (can't even raise to an appropriate height). With lower weights you can get a proper range of motion and can really feel the burn and get the target (sic!) muscle exhausted.

Additionally, too high of a weight doesn't feel good on joints.

Similarly with squats (or deadlifts). Squating with 5-10RM is fine. But 30RM?.. Theoretically it gives the same stimulus as doing 5-10RM, but practically everyone who suggests putting such sets to a program should be medicated and put on a suicide watch. The taxationvon all systems of your body is just so huge (especially the more advanced you are).

Heck, mere squating true (!) 20RM (just one set!) is considered a crazy challenge that most will never do. I have done crazy stuff in my life, but I am not embarrassed to admit that this challenge is beyond me. Simply doing 20RM leg extensions is hard enough for me.

These require the practical experience. Take barbell/dumbbells, try yourself and no more explanations will be needed.

Fixed that.

As the comment you replied to noted, newbie gains are remarkably sensitive to any stimulation, and insensitive to the type of stimulation. Because going from zero to any resistance training is a massive stimulus increase, on a long-term under stimulated system.

The study does confirm that. The data it produces is useful.

What this study doesn't do, is help newbies (or anyone) choose the most effective practices to adopt. Because 10 weeks is way too short to identify best practices for any sustained program.

Particularly as you get older you become more injury prone and your recovery time slows down. This necessitates being cautious about how quickly you increase weight and how often you go to failure.

The better goal to target is increasing volume, where volume is defined as Sets x Reps x Weight. The literature doesn't conclusively establish that any one of these is "more important" than the others for hypertrophy. The only real caveat when you follow this rule is that at a certain extreme of low weight / high reps (like 50 reps) you wouldn't actually be doing resistance training anymore, it'd be cardio.

As I understand it taking a set near failure works reasonably anywhere between 5 to 30 reps, but 30 well controlled reps with good form * 3+ sets for each muscle group gets really boring.

So optimal in terms of personal preference is defiantly worth considering alongside optimal in terms of results, but optimal in terms of returns on effort defiantly has a place at some point in our lives.

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.

Its unfortunate that people say deadlifting "wrong" causes injury, while the evidence does not support it. People should not be turned off from lifting heavy by such statements.

As I mentioned in another comment a possibile way to mitigate the risks is to reduce the load and make the exercise harder and increase the time under load by slowing down the exercise.

Also it's a good idea to swap from a higher risk exercise to a safer one to crank out the last reps. For example from squat to leg press.

I’m not sure this is true and it might be the opposite. Lactic acid will build up with light weight while trying to hit a volume number that will make it hard for people to finish.

I tried various combos of weight* reps, and in the end the optimum was somewhere in the middle because no matter how light the weight there was a limit for me at about ~150 reps.

In my case, the curve would be: total volume increases quickly initially at you go from max weight/1 rep to something like 20/30 reps, then something of a plateau as things equalise, then it goes down again as you reach the max reps threshold.

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.

I’ve never heard about modern people doing serious persistence hunting, except for a stunt that I read about years ago. I think it was organized by like Outside or some running publication that got pro marathoners to try and they failed because they didn’t know anything about hunting

All of which I have done is legal, I do not hunt native animals, only introduced species. I apologise for anyone who may find the following details grotesque, the damage that these animals did was often quite nasty.

> Where were you doing this?

Central Queensland, Australia. I had to get permission from farmers and national parks and wildlife if I was to go on their property. I started this when i was around 5 years old , doing walk hunting which is just the same thing but for a full day. I think this prepared me as a child to 'long distance' the tracking. Knowing what tracks looks like, mud and fur on trees, how animals traverse rivers, where to start and stop looking for tracks so that I don't waste time looking at the wrong spots.

I have also done this on properties in Daintree, in far north Queensland (tropical). I found rainforest hunting much harder because finding tracks was a challenge and I had to spend time worrying about crocodiles and snakes and poisonous trees, being prey myself.

I might be doxing myself, however I don't think many of the kids I went to school with end up on HN, but I've been wrong before, if you know who I am, please stfu.

> Were you ever successful?

Regularly, almost every time that I found tracks I was able to catch at least 1-2 animals, largest take down was about 13 animals, I would say less than 10 times over the course of 5 years I came home with nothing. I would hunt almost every other weekend.

I followed the steps taught by my father, who is a australian bushman who seems to know every tree and animal, can see and hear animals hiding in the bush that I can only see after trying to look for 10 minutes, my mother is equally as good in the bush but with less hunting and more capable when it comes to the people side of things.

> How did you do it.

I hunted with my brother and father and sometimes mother.

Basic equipment: - Knife - Arm guard(s) - Water - Dried meat - Backpack - Matches and lighter. - Tourniquet - First aid kit (not always)

I did use a modern knife, I don't know if that is cheating or not, but I feel like strangling or bashing an animal to death was a bit cruel. I have hunted with dogs a few of times, but you can't bring them on national park land so this limits the success.

I sometimes wore leather guards (leather vambrace ? made by my mother) on my arms and ensured i had some kind of leather scarf around my neck because cats get scratchy, dogs get bitey and pigs will try to gore you with tusks. I once used a kickboxer arm guard but it had holes and I was bitten through the holes, so not doing that again.

I did not wear shoes when hunting in the central Queensland, it seemed safe enough and I didn't impale myself too often, feet adapt.

I mostly hunted pigs, dogs (not dingos), large cats, or deer. I have successfully only caught deer less than handful of times.

> like what were your tactics?

This is the 'ideal' situation, it doesn't always work this way but it's what the goal is, one needs to adapt to the changes as they happen.

Tracking phase:

Walk an area that had prints, track the prints, follow the freshest ones. These paths you can use later, because animals will frequently go back to an area they know if you lose them.

Usually the best place to start tracking is around crops and other large animals, pigs and cats will separate the young offspring from the group and kill them for food.

By paying attention, you can get a good idea of their behavior, the animals will repeat successful behavior that gives them food and water.

This usually, but not always means that they will be going for water at dusk and dawn. The first step is denying them that water, wait near the place they get water.

Hunting phase:

GOLDEN RULE: NEVER UNSHEATH THE KNIFE UNTIL YOU ARE CLOSE ENOUGH TO GET THE KILL. (I have had friends come hunting and cut themselves slipping down an embankment with the knife drawn, infuriating!)

SILVER RULE: DRINK WATER, ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH FRESH WATER SOMEWHERE.

BRONZE RULE: If you get lost, do NOT just start wondering, you idiot, relax, don't panic and listen, drink some water, look for smoke and light.

You (the first) will need to be there before they get there, so this often means being there well before the sun rises. Stay downwind so that the animal doesn't smell you and not come to the water.

Ideally you want to be running them east so they are looking into the rising sun, not the biggest deal but if you have this option, take it. next best option is to have them running 'on the plain' , aka not in trees, this allows you to track them by sight.

If it is a herd animals (aka, everything in my list but cats), a small group will typically test the area first and the full group will join them when they consider it safe.

Wait till the full group appears, hopefully the sun is up enough that you will be able to see prints left behind.

You want there to be enough light that you can see the tracks, so sometimes this means letting them 'start to drink' before you begin the hunt.

You have to make yourself seen as the biggest threat possible, make noise, appear large, use a torch to make light, sometimes you can sneak up close enough and get the first kill by hand and then make a lot of noise (sneaky sneaky!) . This may mean shoulder checking the bigger animals, diving on them or booting them to get them moving.

Chase them (direct them if possible) towards the person hidden ~ 1000m away, be as aggressive as possible in the movement to keep the moving quickly. This -will- tire you out but the second person will continue giving chase.

Second must also be as 'aggressive' as possible while trying to keep the main group together.

The animals will USUALLY split, this is very common, but you need to make an educated decision on which animal to pursue. I've had most luck with the males (more reasons to follow).

You can usually hear the animals (and the human making noise) and catch up within 15/20 minutes at a moderate pace. We have 'woops' and 'aaahs' sounds which travel well and are clear over distance to signify left and right directions (if the animals are ahead / too quick). I believe that this is an older aboriginal hunting trick in some tribes.

Because the first person is trailing, it is usually a shorter path to catch up. Once caught up, the second take take a breather, give them some water and you keep going.

By this point you are usually at the 5.0/6.0 km mark. Your first animal will either collapse or stop in its tracks (easy kill). Some smarter animals will attempt to fight you when they realise they are tired.

If you find a log nearby, (some people carry a short staff/walking stick) you can hit it/throw it to spur it onwards, into further tiredness. You want them to be so tired they can't put up a fight. Pigs will often do this in an attempt to allow the sonder/mob to gain extra distance while you deal with it, but ideally you want to keep them moving together.

Large cats also will defend their group this way, usually this will give them time to get up a tree or hide, but you must keep on them so they don't have that luxury. Its quite hard to kill a large cat this way because they will try to claw you or get on top of you and attack you, bad times.

If you are lucky enough to have a third person, you hopefully position your third person in high ground nearby, so that whatever direction they need to go, the travel is downhill (it's easier, better visibility and you can adapt to changes when things change).

This should usually be the older person (or the newest) because they have the animals tired and need to continue to present a threat, but not too long.

By this time the animals will be out in 'new territory' and this is where risk happens, they will no longer be following the usual routes they know and can act erratically.

Here is where the persistence is, you kinda need to 'rotate' the front chaser, have someone who is has the energy to chase the main group, and the trail people shepard anyone who breaks free back to the main group. This can be anywhere from 10-20km. Keep someone at the front, continually giving chase, this person should make tracks as CLEAR as possible, footprints on mud and dirt, leaving arrows in the dirt, pointing to the direction they are going (when tracking humans foot position is NOT always the direction they are going).

This is where most injuries happen in people, do not ignore them. Rotate the people at the front, leave people behind that are too tired, hurt (but not dying), tell them to start a small fire, hydrate, and rest, do NOT keep going.

If animal group has any offspring, they usually can't walk by now and mum won't leave them alone, you need to make the decision on if you kill the mum + kids now (usually the first and second can do this) and the group continues on.

After a few rotations of slow jogging, backtracking and tracking, you will find even the most hardened of animals has tried to find cover/hide.

The cats go up trees, the pigs try to hide in logs/brush/wherever, deer will go to a thicket/grass and crouch and hide. You can usually just meet them where they are, let them try to take the first blow (on your armored parts) then go in for the kill. Most times though they are simply too tired, panting on the ground in a state of fatigue.

Always aim for a one cut kill, go for the jugular and be sure, it is cruel to have to go for two, sometimes you must, but don't aim for it.

Since the group has split, circle back.. the footprints will be very easy to follow now because they will be deeper (since they are panicked) fresher (because today), and if there was a sow with piglets, they will be noisy. Usually they will not be resting not too far from the group. The sun will be about 10/11AM and they'll be hot, tired and thirsty.

If you can't find any, wait downwind for a few hours and see if they come back to the water at dusk, if they haven't had any water they will be very thirsty and this chase usually won't go on for more than about 1.5km.

Dragging carcasses back to civilisation can be a real pain in the arse, if you know there are other feral animals in the area, bury it deep or burn it. The fire can be a good method of finding/giving directions your hunting mates if you are lost or new.

Most of the pigs had some kind of worms (only good after being cooked, and then only for dogs), so the meat was not so great. The dear meat was 'passable' for jerky and cats and dogs were not worth the trouble.

I respect the marathon runners for even trying, its very different as you need to both plan, think, run and pace yourself. The whole hunting isn't a sprint, its a slow methodical paced plan, I have many fond memories of spending time with my family in the Australian bush, hunting and camping.

(And you should be looking at the CDT, anyway.)

The former group is endurance athletes with skinny legs and the latter group is more focused on maximum power. Similar to marathon runners vs sprinters.

The pro velodrome cyclists do tremendous leg training programs specifically to develop the muscles. It's not the cycling that builds that muscle.

Yeah uphill cycling or sprints probably go anaerobic at times, you can tell because you need to stop from the muscle burning/refusing to move, rather than going out of breath or general tiredness.

Some will, many won’t. It’s clearly not necessary.

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.

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 different activations of the nervous system between the sides, you will get slightly different adaptations.

Looking at powerlifters, most of them have visibly different sizes of hip, leg musculature between sides. They even have drastic flexibility differences where one hip goes deeper, or the musculature makes the barbell sit skewed on the back.

Long story short, failed reps get much more risky and problematic as the weight you’re lifting approaches your 1RM.

Note for the uninitiated: That figure is not even impressive or competitive with competition lifters. This is just “guy who put in the time and work” numbers.

https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/deadlift/lb

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.

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.

training to failure puts you at higher risk of injury and there are diminishing returns as you approach your 1 rep max and/or failure

hypertrophy can happen with more reps or more weight

strength gains are usually just focused on progressive overload

though, of course, hypertrophy will happen either way and contributes to increased strength, but this seems to be further confirmation that you can gain muscle size either way

for example, if someone new starts with low weight to work on proper technique and form, and adds weight each week they will continue to both get stronger and to gain muscle

i'd imagine the average person who is casually lifting might not even get to this point and could easily spend a couple of years before really hitting a spot where the nuance is more important

https://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5/intermediate/#rest-p...

Has a paper from 1976 but this seems in line with what I've read elsewhere

basically, 2-3 minutes is probably good for most of your lifting, you could go to 5 minutes if you are doing your heaviest lift of the day

this is also a reasonable way to make sure your workouts aren't going to take 3 hours at a time

some people really mix max this though if they're focusing on super heavy lifts. i remember being at the gym and watching people take 8-10 minutes between sets when they were putting up 400-500lbs on a squat. they also arrived before me and weren't done when i was leaving and, i'm assuming, they were interested in powerlifting competitions

i've actually started looking at reactive training system with mike tuchscherer who has a lot of interesting things to say about training, rest times, etc. been startin to build his stuff on RPE and fatigue percentages in to my training and it has already been super insightful and helpful

https://store.reactivetrainingsystems.com/blogs/default-blog...

https://youtu.be/DupQfkoI-Sc?si=QK_w2d99TcvNcQsD

In general YouTube is a good resource. There are a lot of respected coaches that also produce content.

Second potential issue is too much training vrt recovery.

A good way to add safety margin when training to failure is to reduce the weights and slow down the exercise and increase the time under load.

For example bench press, do 5s down (eccentric), 5s pause (isometric) and then (optionally) 5s press (concentric). Your weights will go way down because this exercise will be so hard. But the stress on the joints and ligaments will be reduced.

1-5 reps for strength. 5-30 reps for hypertrophy.

I trained myself to do pull-ups using this method, repeatedly lowering myself in a controlled motion from the top position while I was too weak to actually pull myself up.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentric_training

But after that people started experimenting and researches started publishing a lot of interesting findings. And found a lot of applicable things that are based on the original SMH research and that is partly/fully explaining new findings.

Like is was found that it having only the partial range of motion, training the one when the muscle is lengthened is clearly better than training in a position of a shortened muscle.

Moreover, some research even found that doing such "lengthened partials" is better that doing the full range of motion.

Therefore, people try to utilize more of the lengthened portion of the movements (especially if it is impossible to work the muscle in both the lengthened and shortened positions, so one has to choose anyway), while some go as far as getting rid of the shortened portion altogether.

One would also expect it not to do as much for strenght, since adaptations are somewhat specific to the training.

I would argue both categories of the study are about low reps. I don't see how the body would tell the difference between 12 and 25 reps. If you said between 5 and 500, like it has to meaningfully take much longer, otherwise why would doing something so similar have any meaningful difference?

The way I think about it is that nature mostly reacts to order of magnitude changes. 12 to 25 is the same thing.

Like why not make a study to see if its more nutritious to eat dinner in 15 or 20 minutes?

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

Almost nothing reacts to changes smaller than an order of magnitude to anything. It's one of the best rules of thumb.

Obviously, for practical reasons the optimal range for each exercise will vary. For squat 5-10 is definitely better than 10-20 let alone 20-30. For DB side raises highter reps would feel better than the lower rep range.

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?

These journals keep publishing such studies, because there is nothing better to publish in this branch of, uhm, "science", and I would even argue it's not a bad thing, because something is better than nothing, and it's basically impossible today to do more impressive research in this field (because testing humans is far costlier and logistically more complicated than writing equations and running simulations on your PC). But it's funny that it gets someone's attention.

> although inter-personal coefficient of variation is up to 28.3%

Why does that matter? Isn't the entire point of this study's design to eliminate the impact of the inherent variability between test subjects?

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, approximately 1gram/pound of body weight...or near it or even best you can. Total calories consumed a day should match any online calculator for your age and activity level. 3. Sleep! 4. Sleep! 5. Vary your workout - some weeks high reps low weight and some weeks low reps high weight. Why? Never let your body know what you're doing and shock it as best you can. Always try to exert yourself enough to be sore within 48 hours of a workout.

Now multiply this over a few years.

Stop reading these studies thinking there is some optimal way! It's just hard work over time.

BTW: In winter I bench press 350 pounds or 159KG. I run 10KM or 6.1 miles twice a week and increase it a little bit in summer. I pull my body in two different directions because I love both.

In an ironic twist, you then proceed to peddle your own. In a single paragraph you added more contentious "advice" than in the entire article you're dismissing.

> Stop reading these studies thinking there is some optimal way! It's just hard work over time.

"Hard work" and "learning new things" are not mutually exclusive. Stop presuming you know what I think while I'm reading these studies.

My point is, simply doing it consistently, even if slightly less optimally, will trivially surpass anything else in the long run and there are no "silver bullets" in training.

The only importance is safety, avoiding injuring oneself.

Also, the article also states this: "RET-induced hypertrophy is mediated to a far greater degree by inherent endogenous biological factors"

I think many people tend to get stuck in premature optimization, which can take the fun away and thus you end up quitting. I did that a few times, so it might be a me-thing.

Nowadays I exercise 4x/week without really worrying about a strategy or about optimal protein intake etc.

But then again, nowadays my goal is just to live healthy rather than gain strength.

The muscle "shock" broscience has been disproven many times:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35438660/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349502442_Does_Vary...

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmOBmTZARq8

Basically work the muscle harder and get more jacked. It isn't that hard. Full body workouts are also great for this reason: you can hit a muscle more times per week and be fresher when you hit that muscle, so both the tension and time under tension can be higher vs a body part split.

It could turn out to be that the brain is coordinating hypertrophic biochemical cascades in muscles, and TUT is just a fairly reliable method for inducing this.

I was a competitive powerlifter and trained around pro bodybuilders for years, and in my experience, the only commonality between them was the intense all consuming drive to be absolutely monstrous (and they ate a lot). Some would train for 2 hours a day, some would train for 45 minutes 3x a week, some would use high volume in the 50-70% range and others would focus on 70-85%, some were explosive some were slow and steady, really it was all over the map.

I'd guess that drugs come into the equation if you were training around pro bodybuilders and that unlevels the playing field between each person because of how much they might have been on. And amongst the pro's, you're going to hit those genetic Mentzer-like freaks that can somehow grow on 45min 3x a week.

100% agree that drive and intensity is key, and there is more than one way to get big from a program POV.

I like to do a weight training as the consistent foundation, with a mix of heavy lifts, calisthenics, volume (bodybuilding) training and mobility training. Add in some yoga, rock climbing, biking, soccer. I feel this sort of mix balances movements out which helps with injury prevention and also makes sure you always have something active to do that you enjoy, which is definitely #1.

Progress is the weight on the bar increasing. Progress is not you being sore. Excess soreness is counterproductive during training, and should only be sought after if you are exercising as a penance for sins instead of training for some goal.

For more information read "Practical Programming for Strength Training".

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 from 5 up to 20 hard sets per muscle per week across the span of a few years. (Compounds hit multiple, so it's not necessarily 20 hard times the number of muscles!) What's "hard"? in the 0-2 RIR range, ideally some to failure. Most people do not know what 0RIR is until they actually go to failure on a weight, compute their 1RM and start to use the computed reps/weight load. For many people "0 RIR" is actually 3+ RIR because they stop themselves short. This is why I mostly only trust studies that take people to true failure (either an inability to move the weight any more, or a coach saying the person significantly broke form and must stop)

For advanced, as i understand it, they need to focus on weekly periodization like hitting 3RIR, 2RIR, 1RIR, 0RIR (test new 1RM), Recovery week kind of cycles. Plus more that advanced coaches can teach.

<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>

I believe this should be lean mass, not total mass. I think people tried to calibrate this metric since most people don't have scales that can measure composition... but if you're obese, you're going to be consuming more than you need to, which is counter productive if you're obese.

Every calorie you get from protein reduces your cravings for food significantly more then the equivalent carb and fats.

You still need to get over the initial insulin normalization though from reducing sugars. Nothing reduces that pain, no matter what you try.

So i think for long term weight changes it doesnt really help, at least not via its satiety response. Probably more through displacing other stuff from the diet and improved body composition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHLXank1PPk

Menno's videos are exceptional: science based and backed up by common sense.

However, after a nice home-made burger I won't feel hungry again until the next meal and am full of energy. This isn't a tiny burger, either, I'll usually slap an egg on a 150g patty with some cheese for good measure. Since this is an "I'm too lazy to actually cook" meal, this tends to go with some kind of potatoes. I think the only difference between the two is the quality of the ingredients (added sugar in ketchup = bad, tomatoes are plenty sweet).

I think the difference absolutely comes down to what I eat. I don't put sugar syrup or whatever makes the McDonald's sauces so sweet in my burger, just basic boiled tomato sauce (so that it's thicker and doesn't make a mess). And I think that not only typical fast-food places are guilty of this. I've had similar outcomes after eating in "regular" brasseries around Paris what, on the face of it, wouldn't be considered "fast food".

I found it needs to be skim milk. Otherwise the fat in regular milk seemed to prevent the meringue from setting up.

If you are healthy fat percentage, just use your own weight. If you are a bit highter, and can financially and practically afford it, just use your weight as well. Won't hurt and might actually help a bit.

So it is only a concern for severely obese people. If you are 50+kg overweight, you can scale it down a bit.

Similarly, these obese people shouldn't use the "my current diet - 500kcal a day reduction" which is sensible for already lean bodybuilders. They should just use the "my maintenance diet if I were of healthy weight".

Yep it’s the most broscience myth that simply won’t go away.

I use this as a bit of a canary. If you see somebody making this basic mistake (like the post you're replying to did), you should be highly skeptical of their other claims too.

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 genetic freaks working out. Without the magazines you have to sell all this nonsense like 1 gram per lb of protein. Even though I know the early research was 1 gram per kilo and then Americans just changed that to 1 gram per lb. I mean it is just such obvious nonsense that the optimal amount would happen to be the exact integer amount vs body weight that is easiest to remember, how convenient for people who sell protein lol. duh.

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 it to the gym as much. I might lift twice a week - and don't try very hard or do progressive overload at all - and try to get in 3-4 days of cardio.

And I honestly don't look very different. Muscles are roughly the same size. In clothes, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Gaining it is hard and slow, but once you do it, you can easily maintain it with very low volume (1 time a week with very reduced volume/weights). And even if you don't train for years/decades, you still rapidly get it back once you start again.

That's why one of the best investments in people health should be weight training during the teenage years/20s. Getting muscles and strength is the easiest at that point of life, and you will reap the benefits for the rest of one's life.

You won't look like Arnold as there are genetic factors at play but people shouldn't be discouraged in thinking they won't be able to achieve a good body.

Another factor, that I think many men forget (I can't speak for women), is their testosterone levels. If you are following everything and have no results I recommend that you have your levels tested. Many men are suffering from Hypogonadism without realizing it. I had this issue for years and when I did my tests, I was at 7.6 nmol/L !

My doctor put me on HCG and it was like night and day.

I assume most fitness influencers on social media are on steroids.

We also don't account for the role of money in these things. Do you make enough to buy good food, afford a decent gym that you can visit regularly, afford a good doctor who can help you manage issues (such as, ahem, low testosterone)?, afford a low-uncontrolled-stress lifestyle? You're good. It's a lot harder when you get hit by roadblocks and don't have the money to resolve them before you've detrained.

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.

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.

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).

Bodybuilding as a sport now is in probably the worst place it's ever been. You now have "who can take the most drugs" as part of the contest and you're competing with people who aren't afraid to die at 30.

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.

Yes, once you get to the level of being able to compete with others, genetic factors will determine who will do better. This is true in any sport.

But that has no bearing on your average person deciding to go to the gym or not. Just about everyone will experience massive benefits from going to the gym regularly. Most don't have the capacity to compete, but that's not what 99% of people care about.

So the #1 factor is not, in fact, genetics, but doing the thing consistently.

As such, this is irresponsible nonsense to be spreading around.

>First published: 31 December 2025

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.

To increase your 1RM at the most optimal pace, yes you need to specifically train the movement so that you can benefit from improved technique and neurological adaptation. But if I do tricep, pec, and front delt isolation exercises at higher reps, to failure, and see significant hypertrophy in these muscles, my bench press will be stronger, other things constant.

It is strength training (not body builder) wisdom to use heavy weights with few reps. Hypertrophy (i.e. body builder) programmes usually call for 8-12 reps, which implies relatively low weights.

Many people advise spending about a year doing more sets of fewer (~5) reps to build strength, and then switch to fewer sets of more reps (8-12) when you want to build muscle mass.

Point being, the idea of doing lighter weights until failure is already kind of there in body building wisdom.

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/lilly-terminate-obesity-t...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...

Think about gorillas, who are pretty similar to us - they don't lift weights in the gym, do they?

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?

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