by AstroBen
12 subcomments
- > 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
- 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.
by formichunter
8 subcomments
- Why is this article showing up on New Year's Day like the flock of newbie gym customers attracted to the gym only to quit 30 days from now? Every year without fail.
Let's ignore this article for a moment.
Overall factors that REALLY matter building muscle:
1. Consistency - Working out each muscle group at least once a week....every week.
2. Diet - Making sure you are consuming enough protein in your diet, 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.
by Analemma_
1 subcomments
- 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).
- Not sure why it gets attention here. The "finding" is the long standing assumption as it is, absolutely nothing new discovered here. It could be notable if it was of some particularly high quality, but here it is 20 untrained individuals doing some dubious exercise regime for 10 weeks and finding out that on average one dubious exercise pattern wasn't particularly better than the other, and overall exercising seemed to be good for all of them, although inter-personal coefficient of variation is up to 28.3%… Like, really? That was the study that impressed 211 upvoters?
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.
by weinzierl
6 subcomments
- 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).
by randysalami
3 subcomments
- I just do light weight nowadays with my strength training. It’s easier mentally. Rather than push myself to go higher on bench, squat, and deadlift, I stick to 1 plate for bench and squat and 2 plates for deadlift. Every single time. Instead of increasing load, I increase rep amount and focus on my form. Honestly, I still find myself sore after most workouts and the simplicity is nice. I’m 25 for reference.
by westurner
1 subcomments
- What about Time Under Tension?
"Equalization of Training Protocols by Time Under Tension Determines the Magnitude of Changes in Strength and Muscular Hypertrophy" (2022)
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2022/07000/equal... :
> 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.
by DiskoHexyl
4 subcomments
- Age: 22+-3
AND with that weight to ffbm ratio not only untrained, but at least slightly (I’m being generous here) overweight.
With these pre-requisites it almost doesn’t matter what kind of physical activity one does- the muscles will grow anyway. It’s when you are older and/or accustomed to some kind of physical training, that you really noticeably benefit from resistance training.
And still, that ‘almost’ part does a lot of the heavy lifting here.
I don’t believe it’s really possible for a couch potato without any experience to correctly assess their 1RM. People with no experience with pain and effort typically can’t 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
by bethekidyouwant
1 subcomments
- The group that did lower reps with higher weight, had the better one rep max at the end of the study, but they didn’t 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.
by btwnplaces
1 subcomments
- What feels counter-intuitive here is that the variable most people obsess over, load, turns out to matter far less than who you are. Intuitively we expect optimization to work like engineering. Change the input, change the output. Lift heavier, grow more muscle.
- As a natty bodybuilder for over 30 years for anyone aspiring towards fitness and starting at the gym my most important advice is
"Put the phone away and bust some ass"
I see way too many people (the great majority) completely sabotage their training by putting the weights down when it starts to get hard and get on their phone.
When the weights get hard is when the real set begins. If you don't do the hard reps you deny yourself the stimulus required for adapting to overcome the stress, I.e the growth.
- I am afraid of trying to lift to failure.
never once been in a gym, or trained for anything except marksmanship, but have alwayse been physical, with a lot of what I call "dirty lifts" in the course of getting things done,pushing 60 now.
I do notice that after a stretch of realy hard work, and taking a day or two to rest and EAT, I will bulk, but nothing is by the numbers, except the day I took over the old blacksmith shop and we took the gentlmans anvil down, and lifted mine up, each of us grabing one end with one hand, my anvil weighs 460lbs, he was in his 80's and I was in my late 20's.
I muscle everything around, steel, wood, round bales,but follow the philosophy of "just because you can, dosn't mean you should"
which I believe is especialy true for realy big guys, because while you can build huge muscle, your cartlige and coligen is no better than an size small office guy with that florecent tan, where I have seen in the same frame, a big guy pushing 40, not moving good anymore, and foccused dweeb gettin his lunch zipps right through, doesn't even see the hulk.
my point, if I have one, is that nothing counts, unless you can style it
- For beginner lifters that might be true initially, but eventually weight will matter.
- This is consistent with my experience.
I've had great results, and every workout I do consists of an exercise I can do at least 20 reps of for the first set, sometimes going up to 50. I can still gain strength by increasing the weight slowly week by week but maintaining a high level of reps. I don't think it takes longer at the gym -- just do 2 sets per motion instead of the more common 3-5. The breaks in between sets at the gym are the real time sink. Plus, you get lean muscle with high endurance, and virtually no injuries. Last tip: put your phone/music in a locker while you're at the gym if you want to both improve your workout, save time, and practice being more present.
by dr_faustus
0 subcomment
- Has this not been common knowledge for a long time? The argument for high load/low reps has always been that it a) saves time and b) will increase your strength (vs. muscle size) more. Both of which are important factors, especially if you are doing strength training not for cosmetic but health reasons. The number of 8-12 reps to muscle failure has been promoted because a too low number of reps (too high load) seems not to induce as much hypertrophy and is bad for your joints, etc..
- 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 I’ve found that switching rep range on an exercise is a great way to break through plateaus.
Ultimately you’re 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 “best” way is a wild goose chase.
- You cannot be strong without being big and you cannot be big without being strong.
Of course there are levels to this, variations within “weight classes”… but in general this holds true.
Also consistency trumps any program.
- 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.
- Having only read the abstract... the conclusion makes sense to me. I've operated under the assumption that volume is the most important factor for muscle growth as long as you're lifting something like 1/3 or more of your 1RM. So 12 reps with higher load or 25 reps with lower load are going to be similar volumes (or at least similar enough given the other factors that the two protocols give the same outcome).
- 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.
- The study assigned different training regimes to different limbs of the same person. If you think their measured effects do not reflect your own experience, I'd be interested in your fitness status and your result when you do the same. Otherwise it sounds a little like you are disputing the study because it showed something different to your belief.
- I only scanned to article but did not see mention of the pre-trial condition of the subjects. Were they very new to resistance training? Or had they been doing it on a regular basis for a number of years? Because when you start out, doing just about anything is going to increase muscle mass
by mmmilanooo
2 subcomments
- It does matter. It's the only objective way to measure progress. A study doesn't negate that.
- Even if true, high rep is impractical, otherwise we'd see people doing body weight exercises only reach high levels of bodybuilding.
Even around 1900, it didn't matter if you were a genetic freak, you needed a barbell to win competitions.
- 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 it’s vaguely productive. This isn’t useful research ngl.
- Firas Zahabi on focusing on consistency over intensity in training.
https://youtu.be/_fbCcWyYthQ?si=gf39MLiqid9e6Szu
- > Twenty healthy young male participants completed thrice-weekly resistance exercise sessions for 10 weeks.
Not sure how much can be concluded from this.
by password54321
0 subcomment
- Ok this isn't a topic for HN so there is a lot of pseudo-intellectual nonsense in thread. Anyone into bodybuilding understands the following: You have two different types of muscle fibres, fast-twitch fibres and slow-twitch fibres. The fibres that get big from weight lifting are your fast-twitch fibres. Fast-twitch fibres only get get into use when you are near muscle failure (when your slow-twitch fibres aren't enough anymore to take on the load of the weight) or in explosive movement. The goal is to overload your fast-twitch fibres by lifting to near-failure as much as possible so you signal to your body it needs bigger fibres. So you want a good amount of reps and sets in. As for the specific exercise you do, this is generally an art-form. You can do pull-ups or you can do lat-pulls for your back. More importantly you want to overload on the exercise. This can come in the form of increasing weight, intensity or reps than you did in your last session after recovery. You can always change your exercise if you plateau. Beyond that it is just rest, diet (especially protein) and genetics (yes this is a big one). I have continuously gained muscle mass over the past 18 months. Consistency may be more important than anything else.
If you are just training really heavy and doing <8 reps all you are doing is training your strength which is more neurological than it is about muscle mass.
But the number 1 issue I see is that people seem to think exercise is the rocky montage where you just do a bunch of things and get tired or do 100 push ups every day. A lot of pop culture references to exercise look like this. Real world exercise unless you just want to burn calories is much more focused than that but it is also not complicated.
- Summary: train to failure. Duh.
by maieuticagent
0 subcomment
- Lift heavy things, lightly. Lift light things, heavily.
by Sporktacular
1 subcomments
- So resistance is futile?
by lifetimerubyist
0 subcomment
- [dead]
- [dead]
- tldr appears to be that if you work to fatigue it doesn't matter if you fatigue out with high weights vs low weights
- I.e.
No pain, no gain.
- Wait, why are we figuring this out only now?
by eudamoniac
0 subcomment
- I know this is not in the spirit of HN, but I feel it's my ethical duty to say something about this topic because of the impact the topic has on the psychology of young men. This study is misleading or more likely just false. I do not know what the flaw in their methodology is, but I know it is false, regardless of how many peers may have reviewed it. Please do not start lifting 20-25RM to gain hypertrophy, because it will not work well, and you will not achieve your goals.
No one in the history of lifting has ever achieved an impressive physique via light weights. It simply does not work. The literature, to the extent it exists, is wrong on this and on many other related topics. The traditional view, taken in general, is correct: lift big to get big. Strongmen and powerlifters are very hypertrophied below their fat. They do 3-5RMs. Bodybuilders may do up to 12RMs. No one successful, even moderately, does or ever has done 25RMs because that weight is too low to drive adaptation in the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle.
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