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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy
DiskoHexyl wrote 30 min ago:
Age: 22+-3
AND with that weight to ffbm ratio not only untrained, but at least
slightly (Iâm being generous here) overweight.
With these pre-requisites it almost doesnât matter what kind of
physical activity one does- the muscles will grow anyway. Itâs when
you are older and/or accustomed to some kind of physical training, that
you really noticeably benefit from resistance training.
And still, that âalmostâ part does a lot of the heavy lifting here.
I donât believe itâs really possible for a couch potato without any
experience to correctly assess their 1RM. People with no experience
with pain and effort typically canât push themselves hard enough, so
the entire exercise turns to a half-cardio anyway.
And gauging 1 rep max in a bicep curl is especially difficult (saying
nothing of a risk of injury).
I understand the complexity and difficulty of researching the subject,
but this entire article is no good and is hardly applicable to most of
the population IMO
padjo wrote 1 hour 13 min ago:
The quality of evidence in exercise training is generally pretty
terrible. 10 week study with untrained college students tells you very
little about what happens over a lifetime of lifting. Personally Iâve
found that switching rep range on an exercise is a great way to break
through plateaus.
Ultimately youâre engaged in an n=1 study and general advice is of
limited use. You need to learn what tools are available, how your body
reacts to different stimuli, what keeps you consistent etc. Everything
is context dependent, trying to find some universally âbestâ way is
a wild goose chase.
leonflexo wrote 2 hours 20 min ago:
I thought hypertrophic focused routines were their own subset. Starting
with a high rep, like 20, decreasing something like 2/week while
increasing the weight. You technically can increase load, but in my
experience it isn't strictly necessary. 10-12 weeks down to 1-2 reps
then 3-4 off to reset. This isn't a strength routine, simply for size
relative to lift.
chistev wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
Firas Zahabi on focusing on consistency over intensity in training.
HTML [1]: https://youtu.be/_fbCcWyYthQ?si=gf39MLiqid9e6Szu
westurner wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
What about Time Under Tension?
"Equalization of Training Protocols by Time Under Tension Determines
the Magnitude of Changes in Strength and Muscular Hypertrophy" (2022)
[1] :
> Abstract: [...] In conclusion, training protocols with the same TUT
promote similar strength gains and muscle hypertrophy. Moreover,
considering that the protocols used different numbers of repetitions,
the results indicate that training volumes cannot be considered
separately from TUT when evaluating neuromuscular adaptations.
HTML [1]: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2022/07000/equaliz...
coffeebeqn wrote 2 hours 53 min ago:
So could I just do one super slow (some minutes) squat per week at
like 60% and get all the benefits still?
henning wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
Yep, lots of different ways to get jacked. That means if you couldn't
care less about strength, you can do pretty much any decent exercise
that targets the muscle(s) you want to grow in a very wide rep range.
Most people want a combination of both size and strength, so you can
just do some sets of 5-10 if you aren't already. If you want to have a
strong deadlift or squat or whatever, you should train that movement.
Not as complicated as fitness social media people want to make it seem:
train for what you want.
esperent wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
I don't think this is true. I've been following a fairly standard
progression on several of the standard exercises over the last year
and half. I've seen steady progression on leg press, which is a
strongly stabilized and isolated exercise. I saw the same rate of
initial progression on squats but then it dropped off and I haven't
really seen any progression for six months.
The issue is stability. I have to provide the stability for squats.
The machine gives me stability for leg press. I won't get the
stability I need for further progression, at least not at an optimal
rate, just from squatting. I need to do complementary exercises.
landl0rd wrote 6 hours 13 min ago:
You can do the goofiest workout you can possibly imagine as a young
untrained male and put on muscle. You will do so at roughly max rate
regardless of what you do as long as itâs vaguely productive. This
isnât useful research ngl.
Imanari wrote 8 hours 45 min ago:
For beginner lifters that might be true initially, but eventually
weight will matter.
Sporktacular wrote 8 hours 59 min ago:
So resistance is futile?
claytongulick wrote 8 hours 54 min ago:
When < 1 ohm
AstroBen wrote 9 hours 0 min ago:
> 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
andreareina wrote 4 min ago:
Brad Schoenfeld felt the same way, so he did the study on trained
participants, and made the same finding:
HTML [1]: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2015/10000/Effec...
goodpoint wrote 15 min ago:
"HN dismisses study without understanding it"
matwood wrote 42 min ago:
Yeah. When was powerlifting seriously I spent months with my deadlift
stuck on 525 pounds. I would measure progress by how many times I
could just get the weight off the floor, then how far off the floor,
etc⦠The newbie gains were long gone.
olalonde wrote 1 hour 47 min ago:
Also, it's more difficult to reach true failure with lower load,
people tend to stop too early.
RickyLahey wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
this is peak gym bro science
zahlman wrote 3 hours 1 min ago:
From my recollection, this is a quite common issue with studies in
this topic area.
throwaway713 wrote 3 hours 4 min ago:
> Yeah this is why.
Guys, the study has been refuted by AstroBen. No need to read it.
nezi wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
This paper isnât saying that it doesnât matter what program you
do, itâs 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
wouldnât from training both at a lower intensity.
timr wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
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
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.
raducu wrote 3 hours 14 min ago:
> 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.
bendtb wrote 3 hours 2 min ago:
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!
matwood wrote 40 min ago:
Same. Finding heavy lifting changed my life if Iâm honest.
The strength gains, body comp, and how I felt was amazing.
sedivy94 wrote 3 hours 35 min ago:
The activation energy or stimulus required for hypertrophy in
untrained individuals is so low that itâs hard to differentiate
the results. Studies like this absolutely need to be done in
trained individuals if you want reliable data.
bluGill wrote 45 min ago:
Most people are untrained so this is useful reliable data for
most people. However for those who actually care about results:
they are trained, or soon will be andthis data doesn't apply.
ed wrote 6 hours 2 min ago:
this wasn't a study of absolute growth (sure - newbie gains), but
rather the difference between high and low load programming within
individuals.
Nevermark wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
> the difference between high and low load programming within
[newbies]
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.
foldingmoney wrote 6 hours 34 min ago:
exactly. when you're new, virtually any type of lifting you do is
going to create sufficient stimulus to trigger maximum muscle growth,
because you're going from 0 to 1. unfortunately, since the only
people that researchers can usually convince to participate in their
studies are untrained, this has led to an enormous amount of junk
studies where they try to extrapolate the results to people who are
not untrained.
mmmilanooo wrote 9 hours 29 min ago:
It does matter. It's the only objective way to measure progress. A
study doesn't negate that.
yjftsjthsd-h wrote 8 hours 49 min ago:
I don't think so? If last week I could do 50 reps @ 5 lbs, and this
week I can do 50 at 6 lbs (or 60 at 5lbs), then that's measurable
objective progress
justatdotin wrote 9 hours 4 min ago:
isnt the 1RM the measure of progress?
SoftTalker wrote 7 hours 32 min ago:
If that's what you're training for, sure. If you just want to be
strong, you can achieve that and avoid the highest injury risk by
sticking with 5 reps or so.
amelius wrote 9 hours 34 min ago:
Wait, why are we figuring this out only now?
overhead4075 wrote 9 hours 9 min ago:
A paper doesn't necessarily mean the information is new, but that
there is now some/more evidence to support it.
amelius wrote 8 hours 7 min ago:
True, but this kind of information is so basic it almost fits in
the "world is round" category.
cubefox wrote 9 hours 35 min ago:
> Twenty healthy young male participants completed thrice-weekly
resistance exercise sessions for 10 weeks.
Not sure how much can be concluded from this.
cubefox wrote 5 hours 54 min ago:
I think the downvoters need to read up on underpowered statistics.
Torkel wrote 9 hours 41 min ago:
I.e.
No pain, no gain.
slashtmpslashme wrote 7 hours 6 min ago:
If it's _painful_ you are doing it wrong
HTML [1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bx3gkHJehRCYZAF3r/pain-is-no...
mahdi7d1 wrote 5 hours 59 min ago:
If it's not painfull you are not exerting enough effort at least
that's the case in the gym. People who are refreshed and more
energetic after going to the gym are the same people who won't
improve beyond intermediate levels. The ones who let go of the any
set at the first feelings of unease and never take a set close to
failure.
It's actually fascinating how an ancient proverb could line up with
modern science so perfectly.
toshinoriyagi wrote 5 hours 28 min ago:
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.
cyberax wrote 9 hours 2 min ago:
This is really terrible advice that just discourages people.
You absolutely can get significant improvements without (much) pain.
DOMS during the initial stages is going to be the most uncomfortable
part. Once you're past it, you don't need to push yourself to a
breaking point, just to the point of mild exhaustion.
This will provide you enough resistance to gain muscle mass and
improve the bone density to healthy levels.
strken wrote 8 hours 40 min ago:
Yeah, "no pain no gain" is probably the worst advice I've ever
received. It encourages sedentary people to go hard for a week and
then quit, which is the exact opposite of what works: starting with
consistent easy sessions and adding progressive overload.
Dynomight has a good blog post about this[0], but applied to
running rather than resistance training.
[0]
HTML [1]: https://dynomight.net/2021/01/25/how-to-run-without-all-th...
bethekidyouwant wrote 9 hours 42 min ago:
The group that did lower reps with higher weight, had the better one
rep max at the end of the study, but they didnât measure if the
higher rep group had greater endurance. Which seems a bit odd,
considering their conclusion is both groups grew the same amount of
muscle which fine but if the muscle is adapted for something different
in each group, you would want to capture that.
wiether wrote 1 hour 38 min ago:
> both groups grew the same amount of muscle which fine but
The focus was on hypertrophy, so 1RM or endurance doesn't matter in
their case
weinzierl wrote 9 hours 49 min ago:
If I read this correctly the gist is that it does not matter if you use
heavy weights with few reps (common body builder wisdom) or lighter
weights with more reps. As long as you always exercise to
complete muscle fatigue you'll
get the maximum for your genetics (which itself varies a lot).
bob1029 wrote 7 hours 44 min ago:
There's no way this works in practice. A lot of heavy lifting
(maximums) is about neurology and mind-body training. You cannot
develop the ability to deadlift 405lbs by spending 2 hours using a
cable crossover machine every day. Picking up something that weighs
2x more than you do requires your brain to send an extremely strong,
synchronized signal. This is something that takes a lot of practice
to develop. You have to consistently push your maximum voluntary
effort in order to expand this capacity.
toshinoriyagi wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
There is a minimum weight you must use to create a training
stimulus, but yes, you can increase your 1RM with higher-rep sets
(again, to a limit, they can't be sets of 100, the weight is too
light).
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.
jjj123 wrote 7 hours 39 min ago:
Right, but this post is about hypertrophy (big muscles). Not about
heavy lifts.
bob1029 wrote 7 hours 24 min ago:
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.
paulmooreparks wrote 6 hours 32 min ago:
Body mechanics, leverage, and neuro-muscular connection
definitely come into play. I could deadlift 430lbs for reps at
my peak, and I while I was no string bean, I also didn't look
all that muscular compared to the other lifters at my gym. I
have ridiculously long arms relative to my height and
relatively shorter legs, which gives me an advantage for
deadlift. I had monstrous-looking guys watch me lift and then
ask me what stack I was on. They didn't believe me when I said
I was natural.
MattRix wrote 8 hours 47 min ago:
Unless Iâm missing something, this has already been known, though
the hypertrophic benefits start to reduce beyond 30 reps.
rorytbyrne wrote 8 hours 49 min ago:
> heavy weights with few reps (common body builder wisdom)
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.
NooneAtAll3 wrote 8 hours 34 min ago:
is "8-12" not "few" for you?
solumunus wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
No thatâs definitely considered to be a moderate rep range.
Roughly speaking low is 1-5, mid is 6-12, high is 12+. Above 20
is practically irrelevant.
SoftTalker wrote 7 hours 36 min ago:
3-5 reps per set for powerlifting training. Competition lifts are
a single rep.
throwaway6734 wrote 7 hours 37 min ago:
1-3 is few
rorytbyrne wrote 7 hours 48 min ago:
Relatively speaking, no. Strength training (as opposed to
hypertrophy) calls for fewer reps, around 5 per set.
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.
toomuchtodo wrote 9 hours 24 min ago:
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.
[1]
HTML [1]: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/lilly-terminate-obesity-t...
HTML [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...
toshinoriyagi wrote 5 hours 33 min ago:
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.
QuercusMax wrote 2 hours 5 min ago:
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?
tormeh wrote 36 min ago:
Yeah, muscles are mostly about genetics, just like anything
else. A mouse won't become a rhino by lifting. Humans are so
incredibly genetically homogeneous that it can sometimes be
tempting to ignore this, but even between humans the
variability is quite large.
stuffn wrote 6 hours 56 min ago:
The reason no one has found a better way is because hypertrophy is
because itâs well understood and thereâs no âbetterâ
solution. mTOR is the primary hormone pathway.thy increase the
adaptation ceiling by increasing RBC, reducing protein breakdown,
etc. Thereby reducing rest needed, so mTOR is heavily unregulated.
This is one of the view places where âif we could we wouldâ is
the correct answer. There is so much money in the space of anabolic
cheating, the clandestine scientists wouldâve already developed
it.
allan_s wrote 8 hours 44 min ago:
My understanding is that anabolic steroid are somehow close to what
you're thinking about? It's just that as anything taking a simple
shortcut , it comes with unwanted effects
zemvpferreira wrote 9 hours 38 min ago:
Itâs worth noting that muscle is not all the same. If youâre just
into bodybuilding then sure, proximity to failure is what matters.
For athletics though, there still seems to be a big impact in the rep
range you work in.
d-us-vb wrote 9 hours 5 min ago:
This. Muscles can be optimized for volume/endurance or power, or
some balance between them. Taking legs as an example: Powerlifters
obviously go for pure power, whereas runners need a bit of power
but mostly endurance, whereas cyclists need more power than runners
but more endurance than powerlifters.
All of these benefit from weight training, but depending on the
sport, the programming will be very different.
allan_s wrote 8 hours 22 min ago:
I think I know where they're coming from as I used to have a
similar wrong model. I thought strength = more muscle cells and
endurance = just better heart/lungs to deliver oxygen and clear
waste like CO2 and lactic acid.
Turns out muscle fibers mostly grow bigger rather than more
numerous, and there are different fiber types (slow-twitch vs
fast-twitch) that adapt based on how you train. So for the same
muscle, an Ironman runner and a guy doing heavy low-rep squats
will develop different fiber characteristics: you can't fully max
out both.
I'm simplifying, but learning this changed a lot about how I
understand exercise at the biological level.
kace91 wrote 9 hours 39 min ago:
It is actually common bodybuilder wisdom to go for the lighter
version.
Stereotyping, weightlifters who go for max numbers do 1 set of a
million pounds and rest three hours between exercises, while
bodybuilders do thirty exercises a day for 8 series of 15 reps each.
armcat wrote 9 hours 50 min ago:
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.
kombine wrote 1 hour 20 min ago:
Training to failure for me personally only brought injury and set
back my progress by weeks.
calmbonsai wrote 2 hours 57 min ago:
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.
vjerancrnjak wrote 1 hour 57 min ago:
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 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.
sedivy94 wrote 3 hours 31 min ago:
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 apparent anecdotally.
solumunus wrote 2 hours 46 min ago:
> bodybuilders will periodize their training to cycle through the
different flavors of stimulus
Some will, many wonât. Itâs clearly not necessary.
safety1st wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
There are a few issues with taking every set to failure, the most
important being that it will substantially increase your risk of
injury. It sounds great until you consider compounds like the
deadlift that can ruin your back if your form is bad, and by
definition, going to failure means your form will be imperfect at
some point. There are lots of macho powerlifters out there with
permanently ruined spines who will probably die earlier than they
would have otherwise, due to mobility degradation.
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.
acoard wrote 3 hours 56 min ago:
What about longer rest periods? For example if I wait 1hr between
sets I can do full weight again without dropping down weights with
a 2-5min break. In fact I can get multiple more sets in and
significantly increase my total volume if I spread a workout over a
day (which is easier with WFH). Any thoughts on this? Is there not
enough muscle fatigue with this approach?
travisjungroth wrote 3 hours 41 min ago:
Hard to stay warmed up that way. What youâre describing is how
people tend to get big without the gym (lifting heavy things
through the day) but they also tend be pretty active in between
(think farm work).
But as long as youâre not going so hard you risk injury, it
might be great overall. Could be really good for your mental
state.
siddboots wrote 5 hours 13 min ago:
I think the total volume idea is more flawed than you realise.
Pretty much everyone would be able to achieve greater volume, on
any exercise, just by decreasing the weight, so your high rep
caveat is covering up for quite a lot. This is true mathematically
for an Epley style model for example.
matwood wrote 35 min ago:
> Pretty much everyone would be able to achieve greater volume,
on any exercise
Iâm 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.
Retric wrote 5 hours 29 min ago:
2 reps in reserve is fine and far less painful, but you need to go
to actual failure often enough to know where failure is on each
set. Iâm nerdy enough to suggest rolling a 20 sided die for each
set, and on a 1 take it to failure itâs not that complicated and
keeps your predictions honest.
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.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote 3 hours 48 min ago:
Boring is subjective though. For some like me the ideal weight
gives endorphins where as too much feels like cortisol. Too light
is sort of nothing. So I aim for that "yeah I pushed something"
feeling. Which isn't failure.
Retric wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
Letâs be realistic, everyone goes through periods when they
just donât want to work out.
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.
matwood wrote 37 min ago:
This is key to recognize. Even when you donât âfeelâ it
you still go and do your program. But, when you do feel good,
you go and push.
toshinoriyagi wrote 6 hours 0 min ago:
The weight does matter. You will never get bigger if you don't add
weight to the bar, and you will never get bigger if you only train at
1% of your 1 rep max, no matter the number of reps. Producing a
training stimulus requires placing the muscle under sufficient
tension (enough weight) enough times to be at or near failure.
landl0rd wrote 6 hours 13 min ago:
Fifty is excessive but youâre better-served doing 12-20 reps more
than fewer, heavier reps if youâre pushing hypertrophy and already
well-trained.
taneq wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
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.
hatefulheart wrote 4 hours 8 min ago:
Your trainers clearly never read Starting Strength.
fudged71 wrote 7 hours 34 min ago:
Brad Schoenfeld Has been on this body of work for a long time, and he
is "Mr. Hypertrophy" in the field. So yes
vasco wrote 8 hours 55 min ago:
> Loads for each set were adjusted to ensure that volitional fatigue
was reached within 8â12 and 20â25 repetitions for the HL and LL
limbs, respectively
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?
mnky9800n wrote 8 hours 37 min ago:
I feel like I would definitely notice if I went from 12 to 25 reps
on any exercise I do. Although typically I max out at 8 before
adding more weight.
Dylan16807 wrote 6 hours 57 min ago:
> 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?
pjc50 wrote 8 hours 46 min ago:
This is spoken like you've never done any reps at all?
vasco wrote 8 hours 25 min ago:
There's not much difference in hitting max at 12 and at 25, from
anecdotal experience. The study corroborated that as well, even
though with small n.
solumunus wrote 2 hours 40 min ago:
What do you mean by thereâs no difference? The difference is
in the relative load needed in each example.
amelius wrote 9 hours 32 min ago:
How about making muscles fail by stretching them under load?
mrob wrote 9 hours 19 min ago:
Depending on what you mean by "fail" and "stretching", that sounds
a lot like eccentric training [0] (a.k.a. "negatives"). It's
effective but notorious for causing delayed onset muscle soreness.
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]
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentric_training
jimbo808 wrote 9 hours 30 min ago:
Sounds like a great way to injure yourself, also would only work
for eccentric motion
amelius wrote 9 hours 28 min ago:
To me it doesn't sound much different than "taking your sets to
muscular failure".
jimbo808 wrote 8 hours 43 min ago:
Not all muscles resist extension, some do the opposite and
contract.
pasquinelli wrote 6 hours 44 min ago:
i don't understand what this means. the stretch feeling is an
involuntary muscle contraction that is happening to resist
extension on the opposite side.
kace91 wrote 9 hours 37 min ago:
>While one might think "I can do 50 reps with low weights"
The caveat is that you need anaerobic training. Low enough weight and
itâs cardio, you donât get giant legs by walking to failure for
example.
vjk800 wrote 1 hour 16 min ago:
I don't know. All cyclists I know seem to have massive thighs. And
these are amateurs who don't do any kind of strength training, just
hours and hours of cycling every week.
solumunus wrote 2 hours 48 min ago:
Well youâre not applying much mechanical tension to the
quadriceps when âwalking to failureâ. This is nowhere near
analogous.
nnutter wrote 6 hours 49 min ago:
Has anyone really ever walked to failure on a regular basis? I
typically have to stop because of blisters not muscle failure. (The
furthest I've done is 12 miles with +10% weight.)
exq wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
I backpack often (usually 8-13% bodyweight in my pack) and during
long summer days I can comfortably push well into the 30 mile per
day range if there isn't too much vert to slow my pace down. My
feet get sore, brain gets tired, and I run out of daylight well
before any sort of muscle failure in my legs. If you aren't used
to walking from sunrise to sunset doing so would build muscle,
but your time would be better spent on a progressive overload leg
routine in a gym.
LorenPechtel wrote 4 hours 21 min ago:
Yup, I have never gone that far (but my summer hiking is
entirely at high elevation with lots of climb) but I have never
found anything like a failure point--I wear out because of time
(not even daylight--I've made navigation errors that left me
out there well past sunset), not muscle failure.
UI_at_80x24 wrote 6 hours 20 min ago:
Check anybody that has done the AT.
LorenPechtel wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
You think they hike to failure??
(And you should be looking at the CDT, anyway.)
worthless-trash wrote 6 hours 33 min ago:
I used to persistent hunt to failure, ended up with bulky calves
and tibialis.
bglazer wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
Where were you doing this? Were you ever successful? How did
you do it, like what were your tactics? So many questions!
Iâve 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 didnât know anything about hunting
conception wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
Right? Whereâs the well written blog post on this I want?
elevaet wrote 9 hours 42 min ago:
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?
coffeebeqn wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
Failure also taxes your nervous system and joints which donât
take as kindly to stimulus as muscles do and take longer to recover
(or accumulate damage in case of joints)
NoLinkToMe wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
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 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.
calmbonsai wrote 2 hours 52 min ago:
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.
nzeid wrote 7 hours 48 min ago:
It's definitely way more nuanced than that. You have to approach
exhaustion to get the body to eventually build strength. But you
need to carefully time your rests/deloads and handle plateaus with
more volume.
thatcat wrote 6 hours 49 min ago:
Where could I find more information on proper set timing?
matwood wrote 32 min ago:
It ends up being personal, but you want enough time to catch
your breath and be âreadyâ to go again, but no more.
Moto7451 wrote 6 hours 25 min ago:
Honestly from a personal training/lifting coach. When I could
spend serious time in the gym thereâs a lot to just having
someone with expertise for 30 minutes to give perspective. You
can do a lot of it over video today as well.
In general YouTube is a good resource. There are a lot of
respected coaches that also produce content.
teecha wrote 8 hours 12 min ago:
not an expert, 2 years of serious lifting, but this is probably a
good adage for the average person from my current understanding
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
wswope wrote 9 hours 23 min ago:
Thatâs a Pl/Oly mindset rather than a BB/hypertrophy mindset.
Totally valid advice in the right context.
Long story short, failed reps get much more risky and problematic
as the weight youâre lifting approaches your 1RM.
Moto7451 wrote 6 hours 16 min ago:
Exactly this. When I was in my best shape my deadlift and squat
were in/on the way to 2.5-3x my body weight. You donât want to
fail that without a lot of help and safeties.
Note for the uninitiated: That figure is not even impressive or
competitive with competition lifters. This is just âguy who put
in the time and workâ numbers.
matwood wrote 33 min ago:
Donât sell yourself short though. Those are very respectable
numbers ahead of the vast majority of the population.
kace91 wrote 9 hours 36 min ago:
Iâve never heard that, itâs usually the opposite- people do
strip sets and the like to reach failure
xnx wrote 9 hours 45 min ago:
Well understood, but not widely known. The myths and superstitions
around anything health related are frustratingly durable.
Analemma_ wrote 9 hours 51 min ago:
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 the actual period where results would matter, to me,
but I assume "subject compliance" is pretty difficult to get for such a
timeframe, if you're really watching dietary intake and ensuring
subjects go to failure (which, to its credit, this study did).
mf_tomb wrote 9 hours 14 min ago:
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.
throwaway173738 wrote 4 hours 22 min ago:
Doing almost anything works better than doing nothing.
hazard wrote 9 hours 53 min ago:
tldr appears to be that if you work to fatigue it doesn't matter if you
fatigue out with high weights vs low weights
andoando wrote 7 hours 15 min ago:
There is certainly a difference in a slow twitch vs fast twitch
muscle adaptation though
HTML [1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8139349/
teecha wrote 8 hours 24 min ago:
fairly new to lifting myself (2+ years taking it seriously) but this
thing seems to jive with what I've read across different areas
bodybuilders can build muscle size with high reps and lower weight or
lower reps and high weight as long as they do it close to failure
with only a few reps in reserve (rir)
powerlifters, or those focusing on strength, usually go for high
weight and lower reps because they might be training for a
competition that focuses on 1 rep max and/or the body can really only
handle so many reps when pushing it at 80-90% of 1 rep max
neither is inherently better but a matter of what goals you have in
mind, plus, hypertrophy contributes to overall strength, too
vlod wrote 9 hours 20 min ago:
I agree with this, but for those newbies be careful at what you
define as "failure".
I've f.up my MCL by not listening to my body and I have the stability
of a typical 85 year old while I try and 'heal'. It takes longer as
you get older (you're probably not 20 year old) and stupid stuff can
really take you out.
chrishare wrote 9 hours 47 min ago:
When training for muscle size atleast, but not strength. Presumably
there are increased injury risks overall when lifting heavy (based
on a brief search).
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