Search results

As one of many signs that I'm getting old, I still remember the original controversy surrounding the Dr. Ken Leistner training video back in the early cyberpump days. Long story short, it was a 53 year old dude who squatted 405 for 23 reps and strict-ish pressed 253 for a few, along with...

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/738/4564609 Full text of the study in question in O&G's post above in case anyone is interested. Strictly speaking, I think it's pretty clear you don't need a caloric surplus to gain muscle. And protein (leucine in particular) seems super duper...

I just wanted to say Bryan I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on the subject. I'll definitely need to take some time mentally digesting this :) This has always been one of the questions in my mind that I've never seen quite answered, and this is an interesting...

I should go back and read all the older HST FAQ stuff again, it's been years I think. In terms of figuring this out from the practical/research end, I still think a study with this kind of logic is needed as we previously discussed...

Not quite sure what you mean here, to be honest. 85-90% of what? Research has shown comparable hypertrophy effects from something like ~30% 1 RM (something like a 30-35 rep max) to ~85% 1 RM (something like a 5 rep max) as long as both are to failure. So heavier to failure is no better than...

To expand slightly on what Ron is posting above, the confound here is relative effort, or "how far away from failure we are" in a given set when considering the role of load. The number of reps in reserve we have on any set. For example, in a standard HST type setup, I might do 2-3 sets of 10...

As a separate issue Bryan, since this thread seemed to get your attention, I was hoping you could shed light on this HST principle a bit more. As Ron and I have discussed, I'm not sure what your thoughts are on this HST principle in light of more recent research, namely that pertaining to...

This thread wasn't really meant to be prescriptive in terms of do X sets of Y weight for Z RPE, but rather trying to figure out the big players on the practical end (sets and reps stuff) for hypertrophy. E.g. the little picture I made was just an illustration of the concept of RPE vs...

I thought about adding a disclaimer. Fatigue is a combination of a few different things, depending on how we define it. There's the literal metabolic fatigue the muscles experience, obivously, but you can kind of throw in central fatigue and even muscle damage in the same bucket. Something...

I made this really terrible graph (I'm no Ron) to illustrate the "effective sets" idea, putting it together with the S-shaped curve Israetel spoke of and relating it to fatigue. The red curve essentially represents the amount of stimulation we get from the accumulation of reps. So the first...

Nice. So my head is kind of still in the same place after reading Greg's article. The different contexts also lead us to some nuance in our recommendations. So I think the "effective sets" model I introduced still explains what we should be doing about as well as anything. As per Greg's...

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/effective-reps/ New article by Greg on the topic. I'm reading now, but as per usual will share thoughts as I have them :)

A few quick thoughts for you... Agreed about failure probably working better in novices due to their poor ability to judge effort/RIR. I agree with your general logic, but the thing that gives me pause is papers like Carroll which aren't getting THAT close to true failure and actually...

For a video on this topic from Nippard: He gives a pretty good overview of the different studies to date on benefits of failure vs. not to failure. Two interesting points that caught my eye: * Failure probably works better in the context of overall lower volume, which has a certain "no...

On the one set to failure thing, I've had an idea in mind I'd like to see tested in research at some point. In fact, if you know of any examples of something like this being tested, I'd love to see it as I'm not sure I've come across it. I'm not sure how many bodybuilders you've known, but one...

Good thoughts as per usual Ron. I agree in principle about some fibers growing and not others, but I'm not sure how practically true this is, and I still think back to some of Bryan's comments on the subject. I.e. the idea of the tension of one fiber affecting neighbors etc. Under normal...

Sorry Ron! I actually did read these posts, and looked at that old study you posted. I'm not sure what to make of it per se, other than it's kind of more evidence that per-fiber tension doesn't meaningfully change in the context of it actually being recruited in the first place, as you said...

It is for sure a really good question. As I said above, that Sampson paper that's most commonly cited on failure vs. not to failure was actually with elbow flexor exercises, essentially isolation movements. The Carroll study did use compounds, however, but I need to look at that more to see...

For the logic I outlined previously with the bench, the triceps (or shoulders or whatever) are actually a prime mover. But the deadlift is an interesting example, ditto squat, because, in theory, the spinal erectors aren't (or shouldn't be) causing any actual bar displacement. For the...

This made me laugh for some reason. I assumed we weren't talking about the same thing RPE-wise. To be honest RPE isn't even the greatest term, and I'm not entirely sure the original usage of it even by Tuscherer matches what most people are now treating it as. I should have clarified more...