The Importance Of Variety

I went ahead and pulled the study. The setup is kind of odd. Scanning through the paper, I couldn't find anything about them actually progressing the weight. Instead, they look to be only increasing the volume. Weeks 9-12, have 9 sets of squats! Basically, adding in deadlifts (surprise, surprise) and lunges instead of just doing more sets of squats (apparently at the same weight) works better.

The test subjects were "physical active" but refrained from strength training 6 months prior. 21 of the subjects dropped out (that seems high to me), so they had 49 remaining.

Constant load ("intensity"), constant exercise:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 4 x 8RM
Weeks 5-8: 6 x 8RM
Weeks 9-12: 9 x 8RM

Constant load, varied exercise:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 2 x 8RM; Leg press, 2 x 8RM
Weeks 5-8: Squat, 3 x 8RM; Deadlift, 3 x 8RM
Weeks 9-12: Squat, 3 x 8RM; Deadlift, 3x 8RM, Lunge, 3 x 8RM

Constant exercise, varied load:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 2 x 6RM, 2 x 10RM
Weeks 5-8: Squat, 2 x 6RM, 2 x 8RM, 2 x 10RM
Weeks 9-12: Squat, 3 x 6RM, 3 x RM, 3 x 10RM

Varied exercise, varied load:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 10RM, 1 x 6RM; Leg press, 1 x 10RM
Weeks 5-8: Squat, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM; Deadlift, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM
Weeks 9-12: Squat, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM; Deadlift, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM; Lunge, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM
 
Clayton said:
I went ahead and pulled the study. The setup is kind of odd. Scanning through the paper, I couldn't find anything about them actually progressing the weight. Instead, they look to be only increasing the volume. Weeks 9-12, have 9 sets of squats! Basically, adding in deadlifts (surprise, surprise) and lunges instead of just doing more sets of squats (apparently at the same weight) works better.

The test subjects were "physical active" but refrained from strength training 6 months prior. 21 of the subjects dropped out (that seems high to me), so they had 49 remaining.

Constant load ("intensity"), constant exercise:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 4 x 8RM
Weeks 5-8: 6 x 8RM
Weeks 9-12: 9 x 8RM

Constant load, varied exercise:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 2 x 8RM; Leg press, 2 x 8RM
Weeks 5-8: Squat, 3 x 8RM; Deadlift, 3 x 8RM
Weeks 9-12: Squat, 3 x 8RM; Deadlift, 3x 8RM, Lunge, 3 x 8RM

Constant exercise, varied load:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 2 x 6RM, 2 x 10RM
Weeks 5-8: Squat, 2 x 6RM, 2 x 8RM, 2 x 10RM
Weeks 9-12: Squat, 3 x 6RM, 3 x RM, 3 x 10RM

Varied exercise, varied load:
Weeks 1-4: Squat, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 10RM, 1 x 6RM; Leg press, 1 x 10RM
Weeks 5-8: Squat, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM; Deadlift, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM
Weeks 9-12: Squat, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM; Deadlift, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM; Lunge, 1 x 6RM, 1 x 8RM, 1 x 10RM
Click to expand...
Thanks for posting that up. Hmmm yeah that is an odd setup... so relatively untrained people.. and I can't understand why they would increase the volume for the constant load group.. seems to be adding a variable in there which would clearly influence results..
 
Some more rambling:

"The volume load throughout the 12 week period was progressively increased...while maintaining the volume equated between the groups." So, yeah, they ignored increasing the weights.

"Our findings suggest (a) CIVE [consistent intensity, varying exercises] is more efficient to produce strength gains for physically active individuals; (b) as long as the training intensity reaches an alleged threshold, muscle hypertrophy is similar regardless of the training intensity and exercise variation."

"All of the experimental groups had significant increases in squat 1RM ("EScldiff"), CICE: 3.45-3.53; CIVE: 3.49-3.63; VICE: 2.16-2.23 and VIVE: 3.00-3.11). The way I read that, the consistent load-varying exercises got slightly stronger vs the constant load-only squatting group. Varying the rep ranges doesn't appear to help untrained lifters, and it actually looks detrimental. Perhaps those RM calculations were off.

"Whole Quadriceps Muscle Cross-Sectional Area" increases CICE: 11.6-12%; CIVE 11.6-12.2%; VICE 9.5-9.3%; VIVE: 9.9-11.6%.
So, squatting adds size, but adding leg press, deadlift, and lunges, appears to add a little bit more. And that patterns the above comment that varying the rep ranges doesn't appear to help untrained lifters.

"RF Muscle" only added size in the varied exercises groups. Leg press was just used in the first 4 weeks of the CIVE group, and deadlift the last 8 weeks, with lunges the last 4 weeks. The RM test was on a smith machine with a box underneath, so they were going to 90 degrees. Unclear how the squat workouts were though. I don't know how a full squat hits the RF.

Odd they would do 4 weeks (8 workouts) of the same workout. However, not actually increasing the weight actually still increased strength and muscle. So, this shows that it's okay to repeat workouts, and not necessarily bad if there is overlap between the HST meso-cycles. I'm assuming they had to be getting diminishing returns on the 7 workouts after that. So, the reverse (a normal HST progression) should be adding muscle over a 2 week cycle.

Even without increasing the loads, twice a week training adds muscle. (untrained folks, though).
 
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