I understand, the heavier the weight = the more type II muscle fibers recruited therefore the more myo hypertrophy occurs, and the less sarcoplasmic hypertrophy occurs.
I also understand people generally regard the 8-12 rep range as being a balance between the 2 types of hypertrophy and the best for size.
And that progressively increasing volume rather than load increases strength although not as effectively and also with a ceiling effect on volume/sets.
From what I have gathered I assume Type II myo = accommodates strength, and sarco accommodates potential strength, and is the reason PLers use lower rep ranges but sometimes need to mix in higher rep ranges and train for some hypertrophy specifically.
With that said, I have been trying to find studies on rep ranges between 5-15 and hypertrophy effects, I could not find any to give me the information I was after. As they dont mention relevance between the 2 types of hypertrophy occuring and the potential ones dont include the credible 12-15 rep range but instead use the less effective 20-25 rep range.
What I did stumble across although unsure of is that bodybuilders appear to have a lot of Type I hypertrophy in comparison to PLers which I think is something people dont expect.
Something that is obvious is if you look at a PLer and a BBer who both have the same 1RM the BBer is A LOT bigger and I mean A LOT.
Having seen a beginner on strength programs like Starting Strength being able to bench 3/4 of their bodyweight for reps yet literally not even look like they have stepped into a gym and seeing the likes of 300lb Ronnie Coleman DB pressing only 4/3rds of his body weight as a work set, has me think sarcoplasmic hypertrophy accounts for a lot more of the size aspect than myofibrillar than what people believe.
Another thing of note, is when people say 65%-85% of 1RM being between 6-15 reps, how the hell do most people do 9 sets per bodypart at ~10 reps in a workout session and still remain above 65% 1RM. I am unclear on whether these studies refer to static 75% 1RM (straight sets of ~7-8reps) or the current moment's 75%1RM (Dropping the weight down each set to achieve a weight that would fail on the 10th rep).
With all the above taken into account it appears as though strength is not a big limiter of size, and that training in the 12-15 rep range close to failure at the expense of more progressive overload would give better results for pure hypertrophy than say sets of 8 reps and concentrating on stacking on more weight each cycle/workout. This would be assuming that most natural BBing trainees are too geared towards strength than size and have more of a PLer muscle structure.
Its hard to get anecdotal evidence of such because most people assume simply, more weight being lifted = more size being built. Also its a matter of fact that the more reps you are doing each set the smaller increments of weight you can increase by not because higher reps are worse for strength(not saying they are not btw) but a 5kg increase of 1x15 is a much bigger strength gain than a 5kg increase of 3x5.
I feel as though whenever this topic has been bought up on other forums it is written off as pedantic/over analyzing, but I feel it is very important as I believe it is what separates BBing and PLing, and its a lot more than just 2 rep ranges (1-5 and 8-12).
Due to no typical rep range inbetween concentrating only on either strength(neural adaptation), myo or sarco, as its been shown to all be shades of grey in terms of what each rep range specialises at, I dont buy into the tired response of "use every rep range that is the best", training in 5-15 should in a way stimulate the same % of strength, myo and sarco as sticking to the 8-12 rep range.
So the questions that are running through my mind are, does CSA(cross sectional area) in studies account for Sarco. hypertrophy, is progressive load really that important to size(as oppose to progressively increasing sets over a long period of time), and what is the real ideal rep range(or %1RM as they are 2 different things) for size(totally disregarding strength) if you had to choose 1. And please correct me with any misinformation or misinterpretations I may of written.
I also understand people generally regard the 8-12 rep range as being a balance between the 2 types of hypertrophy and the best for size.
And that progressively increasing volume rather than load increases strength although not as effectively and also with a ceiling effect on volume/sets.
From what I have gathered I assume Type II myo = accommodates strength, and sarco accommodates potential strength, and is the reason PLers use lower rep ranges but sometimes need to mix in higher rep ranges and train for some hypertrophy specifically.
With that said, I have been trying to find studies on rep ranges between 5-15 and hypertrophy effects, I could not find any to give me the information I was after. As they dont mention relevance between the 2 types of hypertrophy occuring and the potential ones dont include the credible 12-15 rep range but instead use the less effective 20-25 rep range.
What I did stumble across although unsure of is that bodybuilders appear to have a lot of Type I hypertrophy in comparison to PLers which I think is something people dont expect.
Something that is obvious is if you look at a PLer and a BBer who both have the same 1RM the BBer is A LOT bigger and I mean A LOT.
Having seen a beginner on strength programs like Starting Strength being able to bench 3/4 of their bodyweight for reps yet literally not even look like they have stepped into a gym and seeing the likes of 300lb Ronnie Coleman DB pressing only 4/3rds of his body weight as a work set, has me think sarcoplasmic hypertrophy accounts for a lot more of the size aspect than myofibrillar than what people believe.
Another thing of note, is when people say 65%-85% of 1RM being between 6-15 reps, how the hell do most people do 9 sets per bodypart at ~10 reps in a workout session and still remain above 65% 1RM. I am unclear on whether these studies refer to static 75% 1RM (straight sets of ~7-8reps) or the current moment's 75%1RM (Dropping the weight down each set to achieve a weight that would fail on the 10th rep).
With all the above taken into account it appears as though strength is not a big limiter of size, and that training in the 12-15 rep range close to failure at the expense of more progressive overload would give better results for pure hypertrophy than say sets of 8 reps and concentrating on stacking on more weight each cycle/workout. This would be assuming that most natural BBing trainees are too geared towards strength than size and have more of a PLer muscle structure.
Its hard to get anecdotal evidence of such because most people assume simply, more weight being lifted = more size being built. Also its a matter of fact that the more reps you are doing each set the smaller increments of weight you can increase by not because higher reps are worse for strength(not saying they are not btw) but a 5kg increase of 1x15 is a much bigger strength gain than a 5kg increase of 3x5.
I feel as though whenever this topic has been bought up on other forums it is written off as pedantic/over analyzing, but I feel it is very important as I believe it is what separates BBing and PLing, and its a lot more than just 2 rep ranges (1-5 and 8-12).
Due to no typical rep range inbetween concentrating only on either strength(neural adaptation), myo or sarco, as its been shown to all be shades of grey in terms of what each rep range specialises at, I dont buy into the tired response of "use every rep range that is the best", training in 5-15 should in a way stimulate the same % of strength, myo and sarco as sticking to the 8-12 rep range.
So the questions that are running through my mind are, does CSA(cross sectional area) in studies account for Sarco. hypertrophy, is progressive load really that important to size(as oppose to progressively increasing sets over a long period of time), and what is the real ideal rep range(or %1RM as they are 2 different things) for size(totally disregarding strength) if you had to choose 1. And please correct me with any misinformation or misinterpretations I may of written.
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