Exercise Science is Killing Your Gains

[Oldwhitedude]

Here's my question for those who follow the science

They say mechanical tension and effective reps stimulate growth (the last few reps of a set close to failure). They also say volume increases growth up to a point, which makes sense, because more sets per week means more effective reps.

If this is true, why is progressive overload needed?

Person a works chest each Monday bears the book he will grow...

Person b trains chest each Monday but takes a random exercise, but does the same amount of sets to failure as person a...

They both basically have the same number of effective reps and train just as hard. Why is person a going to grow more?

It'll help you if you think of the stimulus for growth as 'mechanical stimulus' rather than mechanical tension. The reason being that stimulus is the combined sum of both

Intensity + volume

So in practice, all this means is that to progress you need to provide sufficient stimulus to cross the threshold of where the body responds with growth. The more advanced you are, the more robust the stimulus needed (combination of intensity (the signal) + the volume (the magnitude).

Usually that's going to involve doing a little more than last time.

So in your question there, they are both likely to grow because the intensity is high enough, and as long as the volume is reasonable also.

 

[1fst400]

Here's my question for those who follow the science

They say mechanical tension and effective reps stimulate growth (the last few reps of a set close to failure). They also say volume increases growth up to a point, which makes sense, because more sets per week means more effective reps.

If this is true, why is progressive overload needed?

Person a works chest each Monday bears the book he will grow...

Person b trains chest each Monday but takes a random exercise, but does the same amount of sets to failure as person a...

They both basically have the same number of effective reps and train just as hard. Why is person a going to grow more?

My best understanding is that over time as you adapt to using a certain weight x rep your body will adapt, which necessitates that you progressively overload. The bar keeps moving once you reach it. I like Roman’s take on this, that progression more like that stock market rather than linear.

 

[qbkilla]

Gotcha. So basically, using the same exercise and adding weight or reps over time....is the simplest way to ensure we are making progress?

We can make equal progress varying exercises and even rep range/load each time we hit a workout....as long as we are doing enough hard sets (to failure)...but it is harder to ensure/track progress this way?

 

[danieltx]

Gotcha. So basically, using the same exercise and adding weight or reps over time....is the simplest way to ensure we are making progress?

We can make equal progress varying exercises and even rep range/load each time we hit a workout....as long as we are doing enough hard sets (to failure)...but it is harder to ensure/track progress this way?

You're not going to make equal progress if you vary exercises each workout.

This is the simplest way I can explain making progress with training:

• Find movements you feel best in the target muscle - disregard what everyone says and find what you feel hits the muscle best
• Each workout try to get more reps (even just one is great) with the same weight or close to as many reps with increased weight (if you go up 10 pounds but get 2 reps less than last week that's a totally fair trade off)
• Stick with these exercises until you have multiple weeks where you can't progress in reps or weight - then change exercises

I'd say 75% of the movements I do are ones I've been doing for years. Constantly changing things up is bullshit - find what works really well for you and stick with it until you absolutely cannot progress no matter what you do. This is where things like GymPins become extremely useful.

 

[KillerStack]

Changing exercises every workout is a great way to trick yourself into thinking you're making progress all the time. Making progress is actually very rare after the initial nervous system adaptation. Most of our time is spent maintaining, losing and regaining lost size. You are not making progress most workouts after decades of training as many insist, which should be obvious, but isn't. Compare to your all time bests on exercises, not last week. I never see anyone making this "black pill" point lol.

 

[Oldwhitedude]

Gotcha. So basically, using the same exercise and adding weight or reps over time....is the simplest way to ensure we are making progress?

We can make equal progress varying exercises and even rep range/load each time we hit a workout....as long as we are doing enough hard sets (to failure)...but it is harder to ensure/track progress this way?

Essentially, yes.

At this point, it's probably important to recognise that historically most pro's have NOT trained this way. I remember a podcast a few years back with Foaud and he was absolutely blown away that people had routines they would repeat week after week! That was just completely alien to him.

But I do think that's the evolution of the sport. You look at the way Dorian just ran rampant through the ranks and one of his advantages was his dedication to progressive overload. Not saying that's the only reason he won, but it did set him apart and ensured every single workout was pushed all the way. I was around at that time, and people went wild for him because long before he was a pro he was just so good even in the amateurs we knew he was special.

The only trick is to find a schedule which is repeatable. I think some of the major tenants of this are:

1) Use great form. The goal is to maximise muscle stimulus and minimise stress on the joints/tendons. Muscles recover a lot faster, so there's no point in stressing out the joints and tendons unneccessarily. Good form and control is paramount.
2) Use a reasonable amount of volume. Again most people are moving toward more moderate volume in the grand scheme. When Nubret and Arnold would do 25 sets per session twice a week, that's trimmed down over the years and we're aiming to get more out of less to reduce wear and tear on the joints/tendons/nervous system.
3) Use rotations if you struggle to do the same exercise every session. This is pretty normal, so if you're doing a PPLx2 for example your first 3 days will include different exercises to your second 3 days, something like what Ronnie did.
4) Be open to mixing it up if something doesn't feel good on the day. Don't be so rigid that you train through pain all because of 'the plan'.

There's probably a bunch of other stuff but that's off the top of my head.

 

[svenrpb]

What I see a lot in my gym is that the ´progressive overload guys´ tend to do anything to get a rep more.

Form goes to shit and looks like nothing. I.m.o if oyu just train hard, with enough volume and sleep/roids, you will grow. People overcompliment this shit so much.

Also, one of the most imporant things. ENJOY your training. If you don´t enjoy doing topset/backoff sets to failure then don´t fucking do it lol.

 

[qbkilla]

You're not going to make equal progress if you vary exercises each workout.

This is the simplest way I can explain making progress with training:

• Find movements you feel best in the target muscle - disregard what everyone says and find what you feel hits the muscle best
• Each workout try to get more reps (even just one is great) with the same weight or close to as many reps with increased weight (if you go up 10 pounds but get 2 reps less than last week that's a totally fair trade off)
• Stick with these exercises until you have multiple weeks where you can't progress in reps or weight - then change exercises

I'd say 75% of the movements I do are ones I've been doing for years. Constantly changing things up is bullshit - find what works really well for you and stick with it until you absolutely cannot progress no matter what you do. This is where things like GymPins become extremely useful.

This is a good explanation and you are testament to how effective this type of training is if someone sticks to it.

Just curious...I don't follow bodybuilding much but when I watch pros videos they are always at different gyms I assume due to having to travel to events. If you were in their situation and didn't know what gym you would be at each workout, how would you adapt your training?

As different machines have very different strength curves.. example dip machine at one gym 200 feels different than 200 on another, even cables etc.

Would you use more free weights or employ another strategy vs beating the book?

 

[danieltx]

This is a good explanation and you are testament to how effective this type of training is if someone sticks to it.

Just curious...I don't follow bodybuilding much but when I watch pros videos they are always at different gyms I assume due to having to travel to events. If you were in their situation and didn't know what gym you would be at each workout, how would you adapt your training?

As different machines have very different strength curves.. example dip machine at one gym 200 feels different than 200 on another, even cables etc.

Would you use more free weights or employ another strategy vs beating the book?

For the pros it's a small percentage of their training. If they train chest once a week (52x per year) maybe they have 4 chest sessions a year that aren't at their home gym. The strategy there is find the exact same or very similar movements and take them to the same limit as your regular movements. Ex. normally you do HS incline press with 5 plates x 10, but at this gym on their incline press you can only do 4 plates x 10. This will not slow down your progress over the long term. This is where the intensity, pushing to failure, etc., components come in.

 

[Fa Seeshus]

Some of the best bodybuilding trainers in my area were dudes who learned how to lift while locked up in the 80's with only basic equipment.

You don't need to randomly change exercises when you are designing a training program. You can, with discretion, change where they go in the workout and the loading/set/rep/rest perimeters. You can see this with the workouts Kevin Levrone and Shawn Ray did.

For example I spent 6 weeks pyramidding up the top set of my DB shoulder press. After I did straight sets of these I did my laterals.

Once progress stagnated on the press weight, I switched to intersetting the press with the laterals and only going up to repping about 85 percent of what I was doing for reps in the strength phase. Also rest intervals are decreased. This gives my tendons and nervous system a break. In a month I will return to the pyramid heavier format and be stronger.

In other words, people are changing too many variables randomly, and as others have stated, not kept on eye on long term progress.

Someone also mentioned pros not being able to keep track of things in different gyms... not totally true. If you have ever seen Victor Martinez train you'd know that he was frigging a bit on the spectrum regarding which type of equipment gave what strength curve. The dude would be examining pulley angles and shit like a fucking engineer.

 

[qbkilla]

Below is something I saw on Reddit (lots of crap there but useful stuff too) one of the better summaries I've seen of the research

1. The goal of resistance training is to apply tension to muscle. Provided tension is applied, the modality used to do so does not make any difference. This is well established in the scientific literature, experimentally, and is also congruent with our mechanistic understanding of resistance training. People can build muscle with barbells, dumbbells, machines, calisthenics etc. This should be non-controversial
2. The "hypertrophy rep range" is actually quite large. Research has shown equal hypertrophy from low load and high load training, provided the sets are taken to, or close to failure. This has been demonstrated from about 5 to 35 reps. Reps higher than 35 still promote hypertrophy (iv'e seen sets in the 70's result in hypertrophy in research), but with a less robust responses, probably because central factors limit the set, and not muscular failure. Again, this is WELL established in the literature at this point, and is not considered controversial in exercise science. It has been replicated over and over again, is congruent with out understanding of the size principle, motor unit recruitment, etc., as well as supported by probably 100+ years of anecdotal experience by bodybuilders. Plenty of old school guys trained with high reps, well before steroids were available. Premise 2 should also be non-controversial at this point.
3. Training volume drives gains... to a point. Research looking at how volume impacts hypertrophy pretty reliably shows a dose response, albeit with diminishing returns. The more volume (as in sets close to failure) that you can accumulate AND RECOVER FROM, the better gains, on average, you can experience. ON AVERAGE, more weekly sets is better than fewer sets. Eventually you will likely encounter your maximum recoverable volume (MRV), which varies from individual and WITHIN the individual based on lifestyle factors. It's the point where additional volume will likely have deleterious effects. This is probably quite high for many people, and probably not usually limited my muscular capacity, but rather connective tissue, motivation, etc. This is also well established in the exercise science literature at this point. Your exercise selection has HUGE impacts on how much volume you can recover from each week.
4. Frequency is just a function of volume distribution. Weekly volume, regardless of the distribution, has a much greater correlation with hypertrophy than frequency. If anything, some research shows a trend for improved gains with high frequency, but I think this could be an artifact of a new training stimulus, and not due to frequency itself. The meta's on the subject don't support strong independent effects for frequency. There is research showing that distributing a given volume over more sessions reduces the perceived effort to complete the same volume. But ultimately, frequency is simple a function of volume distribution.

When we consider these points, it starts to make sense how a push up, or pull up, can provide enough tension on the muscle to elicit a growth response. As long as an effort threshold is met, ie a set is taken to, or close to failure, repetition range is not particularly important. While you do not have to train to failure to get a growth response, if an exercise it so easy that you are literally unable to hit failure with it even if you tried, then it probably does not have a lot of potential as a hypertrophic stimulus. As long as you can achieve failure with it, and that failure is the result of achieving muscular failure, then the movement still has potential to stimulate growth. As for progressive overload, our ability to do more is the result of the adaptions we experience from crossing this effort threshold- not the other way around. Doing more reps, doing them with better form, doing them weighted, doing more volume, doing them with better mind/muscle connection is a function of getting stronger.

For my personal history... I've been training since I was a kid. Calisthenics have always been a huge part of my training, even when I was lifting. It's difficult to attribute what development was from what modality, and I don't think of it like this. I look at all exercise as a tool to apply mechanical tension, and I don't consider a push up to be, in that respect, fundamentally different than a bench press insofar as they are both tools to apply tension to the pushing musculature. To me, the question of trying to figure out what exercises account for what gains is really the wrong question to ask. It's all the same. Certainly deadlifts train more of the bodies musculature than pull ups, but they both can build pretty awesome backs.

 

[KillerStack]

For example I spent 6 weeks pyramidding up the top set of my DB shoulder press. After I did straight sets of these I did my laterals.

Once progress stagnated on the press weight,

Incidentally 6 weeks is what's cited as the time frame nervous system adaptations can drive strength gains in a "new" movement. So gains after those 6 weeks are more likely to be actual muscular adaptations (growth). But if you're stronger on the same first program when you return to it you probably have gained muscle, but often you again need to adapt to the movement for a few weeks to push for those PRs. That's why I said it's easy to kind of fool yourself into thinking you are making progress by changing the workout frequently.

Dorian said somewhere that his back workout was basically the exact same throughout his career.

 

[Oldwhitedude]

For those who have entirely lost faith in the current batch of hypertrophy research celebrities like Schoenfeld et al (as I have), there is still good science being done. It's just not as widely advertised.

 

[qbkilla]

For those who have entirely lost faith in the current batch of hypertrophy research celebrities like Schoenfeld et al (as I have), there is still good science being done. It's just not as widely advertised.

Good god...it seems like every big name not named John Meadows is so defensive, angry, long winded...but Lyle while brilliant is as annoying as Israetel and doucette. Quality content but I couldn't tolerate him had to scroll to the end to get take home point. So essentially he says only 2 studies...done by scholfield...say super high volume is best? He also speculating it's fluid swelling not growth and also questions scholfields intentions?

 

[Oldwhitedude]

Good god...it seems like every big name not named John Meadows is so defensive, angry, long winded...but Lyle while brilliant is as annoying as Israetel and doucette. Quality content but I couldn't tolerate him had to scroll to the end to get take home point. So essentially he says only 2 studies...done by scholfield...say super high volume is best? He also speculating it's fluid swelling not growth and also questions scholfields intentions?

The consequences of this critique is likely a lot more far reaching than that.

If I were to summarise I'd say the big issue is this:

1) All data from Schoenfelds lab, and anyone who is associated with him, is potentially bogus.
2) *Most* people only see research via social media, and therefore the only scientific research they are exposed to is from that group. Which is only a small portion of the total hypertrophy research. A small but very vocal portion.

This is a big problem, because essentially what has been created is a 15 year echo chamber of bullshit. A monopoly of lies, if you will.

Consequences:

1) We get threads like this where people are (rightfully so) opposed to hypertophy science. Science in any area should help us, but it seems the relationship between hypertrophy science and the bodybuilding population is on the rocks.
2) Genuinely good research is missed and forgotten, because everyone is focused (positively or negatively) on the more vocal research out there on social media.
3) We have to look at ANY research coming from anyone associated with Schoenfeld as bogus, and done primarily for monetary gain.

We are in the age of the hypertrophy research superstar.

View attachment 189005
Where it's in the researchers direct interest to be considered an authority in the area.

View attachment 189006
No conflicts of interest indeed...

View attachment 189007 View attachment 189008

The current crop of hypertrophy researchers are no different no Cybergenix - at last Santoriello was yoked.

 

[EnhancedFatGrappler]

Good god...it seems like every big name not named John Meadows is so defensive, angry, long winded...but Lyle while brilliant is as annoying as Israetel and doucette. Quality content but I couldn't tolerate him had to scroll to the end to get take home point. So essentially he says only 2 studies...done by scholfield...say super high volume is best? He also speculating it's fluid swelling not growth and also questions scholfields intentions?

Lyle is a bit of an acquired taste

 

[KillerStack]

I always said on here, for decades it seems lol, that Lyle is in a class of his own. But Lyle has also made me want to strangle him for the way he talks to people. He is a mentally ill nerd but he is also brilliant

Now one guy that rubs me the wrong way is Israetel. Lyle said Israetel has never ever trained to failure in his life, and Lyle put out a video of himself taking a set to "failure." Lol.

 

[qbkilla]

The consequences of this critique is likely a lot more far reaching than that.

If I were to summarise I'd say the big issue is this:

1) All data from Schoenfelds lab, and anyone who is associated with him, is potentially bogus.
2) *Most* people only see research via social media, and therefore the only scientific research they are exposed to is from that group. Which is only a small portion of the total hypertrophy research. A small but very vocal portion.

This is a big problem, because essentially what has been created is a 15 year echo chamber of bullshit. A monopoly of lies, if you will.

Consequences:

1) We get threads like this where people are (rightfully so) opposed to hypertophy science. Science in any area should help us, but it seems the relationship between hypertrophy science and the bodybuilding population is on the rocks.
2) Genuinely good research is missed and forgotten, because everyone is focused (positively or negatively) on the more vocal research out there on social media.
3) We have to look at ANY research coming from anyone associated with Schoenfeld as bogus, and done primarily for monetary gain.

Good stuff thanks. Particularly interesting about scholfields stuff because he is considered as an authority by the science guys.

The only part confusing...why are some studies and research not being talked about? Of course people are biased and will point out stuff that supports their views (high or low volume being good/bad) but imo any influencer goal is to get clicks. If they talk about studies that other influencer are ignoring, people are more likely to get clicks? People want to hear about stuff that's different. Maybe they ignore the studies that don't give any "new stuff?"

So a study saying 52 sets works gets clicks while a study reinforcing what we already know..10-20 sets is ideal, just gets ignored?

 

[Oldwhitedude]

Good stuff thanks. Particularly interesting about scholfields stuff because he is considered as an authority by the science guys.

The only part confusing...why are some studies and research not being talked about? Of course people are biased and will point out stuff that supports their views (high or low volume being good/bad) but imo any influencer goal is to get clicks. If they talk about studies that other influencer are ignoring, people are more likely to get clicks? People want to hear about stuff that's different. Maybe they ignore the studies that don't give any "new stuff?"

So a study saying 52 sets works gets clicks while a study reinforcing what we already know..10-20 sets is ideal, just gets ignored?

Well, I'll give you my theory.

Most research isn't really talked about in mainstream circles, from any area. I have friends who specialise in Zoology, the discovery and documentation of new species. No-one in the mainstream will hear about this stuff unless it's particularly significant. There is always a lag and that's how science should work. There needs to be time taken to establish a trend, before recommendations are given.

Let me show you, here are all the studies currently on Pubmed within the last year which are related to hypertrophy. That's over 4000 results. Have a look, have you heard of any of these people? I haven't: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=hypertrophy&filter=datesearch.y_1

I believe the problem comes back to what I said here:

*Most* people only see research via social media, and therefore the only scientific research they are exposed to is from that group. Which is only a small portion of the total hypertrophy research. A small but very vocal portion.

We are living in the era of the hypertrophy research superstar, these people (Brad included) publicise their work the very month after it's released and make very pointed recommendations based on that. Yet they are a very small representation of the totality of research, but the average person mistakenly thinks they represent the majority of hypertrophy research.

The regular fitness consumer simply does not read the full breadth of work out there, and get their bodybuilding information from social media.

You also asked:

If they talk about studies that other influencer are ignoring, people are more likely to get clicks?

Brad's group has formed a monopoly and is profiting from that. We need people like Lyle and others to come forward and break that bubble. Most influencers are regular people out to make money, so they can only profit from being nice to Brad and suck up to him so they can get on Milo Wolf's latest IG post, or Mike Israetel's YouTube channel.

All this does is reinforce the echo chamber.

 

[buck]

As most mainstream people or even those interested in performance improvements, are not educated in reading studies and understanding them. It takes a long time to decipher what they may mean. And for better or worse waiting till things are out there and vetted by experts and those that actually do the work it takes time to find things out.. And science moves on in the meantime. I am one of those that looks at the introduction then the conclusion and the stuff in between is not well understood much of the time. So without simply written conclusions the studies are less then beneficial for most.