Gentlemen,
I apologize in advance for the oversimplification that you will find in this thread but please bear with me for just a moment as I explain.
We have discussed what the most important factor for muscle growth is on numerous occasions and often times end up with a debate between "tension is the most important thing so you must lift heavy" vs. "tension on the bar is merely a means to the end, each fiber can only generate the tension it feels, so lifting heavy is not what's its cracked up to be". I belong to the second camp and here is why.
What I am having a logical problem with is the fact that almost no one's best growth experience comes from routines that maximize tension. When we look at ourselves or the hundreds of people whose training we have observed, very few people's favorite routines seem to be maximizing tension.
If we wanted to maximize tension heavy singles would be the best. How else can you maximize tension? OK now don't shoot me on the spot saying that some metabolic work is required and that we as bodybuilders have to perform more than one rep. If so, you can do multiple singles. Do you find it undesirable to do a single max rep, then wait, then do another one? Don't you have time for that? Fine, Mike Mentzer suggested a long time ago that we can do a single max rep, rest 10 seconds, reduce the weight just enough so we can do another rep and finish as many of such reps separated by 10-second intervals as we desire. The method has been around for quite a while and will surely maximize tension more than any other method I can think of (please correct me if I am wrong and explain what other method could expose the muscles to more tension). Many people have tried it as did I, but not a single person I know stuck with it. Sure, if one searches hard and long enough, one can find some posts on message boards where people say "they really liked it" but how many people stuck with it really? So tension is maybe not all that it is hyped up to be, or else Mentzer's version of the rest-pause should have produced wonders...
HST proponents may say that tension is all good and fine but the muscles become conditioned after a while and some sort of strategic deconditioning is needed. If such were the case, people would be having great growth at least for a while by either doing heavy singles or Mentzer's rest pause as described above, but after asking and observing a relatively large number of people who tried this method, I fail to see even such short-term evidence.
Also, a lot of you are personal trainers or train friends and family members. Think about it for a second: If an actor came to you and said "I need to buff up for an upcoming movie and we're starting to shoot in 3 weeks. Add as much muscle to my frame as possible in 3 weeks" what would you do? Getting conditioned to heavy weights is not a problem because he is only concerned about short-term growth. Would you train him with maximal tension in that case?
Or another question for you all: You will be going on vacation for a month and will have no access to a gym. Before you go, you wish to train as hard and productively as possible so that when you come back you still have as much muscle as you possibly can. In that case again, conditioning is basically a non-issue as you would get decontioned during your time-off anyway. Would you use heavy singles or rest pause in this case?
As far as I can see, the answers to these questions are usually "no". So there seems to be a good amount of disconnect between what people think should work (tension) and what the same well-educated people do in real life.
Your ideas on this would be greatly appreciated...
Sub7
I apologize in advance for the oversimplification that you will find in this thread but please bear with me for just a moment as I explain.
We have discussed what the most important factor for muscle growth is on numerous occasions and often times end up with a debate between "tension is the most important thing so you must lift heavy" vs. "tension on the bar is merely a means to the end, each fiber can only generate the tension it feels, so lifting heavy is not what's its cracked up to be". I belong to the second camp and here is why.
What I am having a logical problem with is the fact that almost no one's best growth experience comes from routines that maximize tension. When we look at ourselves or the hundreds of people whose training we have observed, very few people's favorite routines seem to be maximizing tension.
If we wanted to maximize tension heavy singles would be the best. How else can you maximize tension? OK now don't shoot me on the spot saying that some metabolic work is required and that we as bodybuilders have to perform more than one rep. If so, you can do multiple singles. Do you find it undesirable to do a single max rep, then wait, then do another one? Don't you have time for that? Fine, Mike Mentzer suggested a long time ago that we can do a single max rep, rest 10 seconds, reduce the weight just enough so we can do another rep and finish as many of such reps separated by 10-second intervals as we desire. The method has been around for quite a while and will surely maximize tension more than any other method I can think of (please correct me if I am wrong and explain what other method could expose the muscles to more tension). Many people have tried it as did I, but not a single person I know stuck with it. Sure, if one searches hard and long enough, one can find some posts on message boards where people say "they really liked it" but how many people stuck with it really? So tension is maybe not all that it is hyped up to be, or else Mentzer's version of the rest-pause should have produced wonders...
HST proponents may say that tension is all good and fine but the muscles become conditioned after a while and some sort of strategic deconditioning is needed. If such were the case, people would be having great growth at least for a while by either doing heavy singles or Mentzer's rest pause as described above, but after asking and observing a relatively large number of people who tried this method, I fail to see even such short-term evidence.
Also, a lot of you are personal trainers or train friends and family members. Think about it for a second: If an actor came to you and said "I need to buff up for an upcoming movie and we're starting to shoot in 3 weeks. Add as much muscle to my frame as possible in 3 weeks" what would you do? Getting conditioned to heavy weights is not a problem because he is only concerned about short-term growth. Would you train him with maximal tension in that case?
Or another question for you all: You will be going on vacation for a month and will have no access to a gym. Before you go, you wish to train as hard and productively as possible so that when you come back you still have as much muscle as you possibly can. In that case again, conditioning is basically a non-issue as you would get decontioned during your time-off anyway. Would you use heavy singles or rest pause in this case?
As far as I can see, the answers to these questions are usually "no". So there seems to be a good amount of disconnect between what people think should work (tension) and what the same well-educated people do in real life.
Your ideas on this would be greatly appreciated...
Sub7