1/
Muscle is the hardware and the nervous system is the software, this fact explains why two people can have the same amount of muscle gains and yet be unequal in strength. Three tiers, each with increasing gains in motor skills and connective tissue durability: Machines are easiest, BB/DB the middle, strongman and gymnastics the most difficult but offer the most strength gains. However it also means that progress in major muscle group growth is more lengthy and challenging. Machines are the easiest to maintain good technique thus easiest for progressive overload which is how you grow mass. If the primary strength goal is stamina (strength-endurance) then it doesn't really matter what method is used. All three methods have a complete system of compound and isolation exercises to fully develop all the major muscle groups of the body.
THREE TYPES OF HYPERTROPHY:
MYOFIBRILLAR:
Growth of the contractile tissue. Bigger engine. Stimulus is MECHANICAL TENSION FOR A SUFFICIENT AMOUNT OF TIME combined with PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD. Best training method is low volume with textbook technique taken to failure.
SARCOPLASMIC:
Growth of the energy rich sarcoplasm. Bigger gastank. Stimulus is METABOLIC FATIGUE. Best training method is moderately-high volume taken at or close to failure in a 10-20RM.
SARCOCOLLAGENIC:
Growth of structural support protein and collagen. More durable chassis. Stimulus is MICROTRAUMA. Best training method is traditional military training of high volume cardio+calisthenics with moderate intensities and ever higher volumes or manual labor.
2/MYOFIBRILLAR HYPERTROPHY PRIMARY GOAL OF YOUNG BODYBUILDER. Muscle fibers run from Type 1 (slow twitch, to Type 2A and 2B (fast twitch). Think of them as a pool running from the shallow end to the deep end (type 1 to 2A to 2B). Use Max-, Dynamic- or Repeated-effort method to recruit deeply into your pool of muscle fibers. The nervous system always tries to stay at the shallower end of the pool. Spectrum of motor units: Type 1 motor units (MU, neurons) are "low-threshold" and activate easily, each controls approximately tens of fibers, 2A MU hundreds of fibers, 2B (highest threshold) thousands of fibers; this is called "Henneman's size principle". This spectrum also reflects their capacity for growth (hypertrophy). When an MU is activated, it works as hard as it can, all fibers under its control are fully recruited, never partially, and pull with all force they can until they fatigue or are damaged. For the sake of simplicity, we can divide our muscle fiber pool into a shallow and deep half. Hypertrophy in the shallow half will tone up, while the deep half will blow up your muscles.
Didn't ask
yeah you were probably only interested in asking some dude for his number so you can BLOW HIS BENIS
3/
Most bodybuilding is based on the Repeated-effort method, where a sub-maximal load is taken to failure. Research has shown sub-maximal loads from 6 all the way up to 40RM work for myofibrillar hypertrophy as long as it is taken at or close to failure, though using the higher end of this range can be more taxing on the CNS and CVS. The type 1 fiber have low force production but excellent endurance and never really exhaust. 2A are your workhorse fibers that balance force and endurance, you work these with multiple reps, as they fatigue the body is forced to recruit more deeply into its pool of fast twitch fibers until finally it recruits all 2A and 2B fibers (this is why you take the set to failure). 2B fibers are the most powerful but fatigue easily, they will recruit abruptly and then stop abruptly. Once these fibers are recruited the real work begins. The primary growth stimulus of myofibrillar hypertrophy is mechanical tension, detected by sensors in the fibers.
4/
You then sustain this recruitment for a sufficient time under tension (TUT). Research shows that somewhere between 10-90 sec of TUT is needed to fully stimulate growth, with anecdotal evidence pointing to about 30sec. It's the individual fibers recruited, not the whole muscle group, that receive the growth stimulus. This explains why someone can workout with a lot of TUT with hundreds of reps, but if the recruitment is in the shallow end of the pool because they use a light loading or stop well before failure, they don't grow that much. Once the full growth stimulus has been received any work you do past that is just over-training. The reality is counter-intuitive: since fast twitch fiber has evolved primarily to deal with short but very intense moments of high loading or acceleration, one would assume that the max- and dynamic-effort methods would be the most efficient way to grow the fibers, but that is not the case, these methods help with growth but are secondary to the repeated-effort method in efficiency.
interesting upvoted
Thank you.
House of Hypertrophy has some good videos. Also Pirnciples pf Strength Training by Zatsiorksy is good. I hear Supertraining by Siff is good but I haven't read it.
With evidence increasing that mechanical tension is the growth mechanism, it seems the truth is more towards intensity than volume but not necessarily to the extreme that Mentzer was advocating for.
so lift heavy, with reps of 5 to reach Type 2B for 30secs of activation. anything after that is overtraining? What exactly is "overtraining" and can it be beneficial?
>with reps of 5
No. The 1-5 rep range is the max-effort range, which typically lacks time under tension. Use sub-maximal loads taken at or close to failure. Typically it's a set of 10.
Overtraining is when you exhaust your nervous system, metabolism, and damage your tissues beyond the ability of the body to repair or beyond any benefit. By the time you get to around 30 seconds of TUT a full growth stimulus has been received by the body and you can't stimulate it any further.
Thanks, will look into these books too. So the whole 8 rep range thing is a fricking lie? How did people get big on it? I see plenty of poofy bodybuilders at the gym who do 8 rep range and high volume
thought it had something to do with TUT where you'd be maximising the TUT, where 5 reps might jam you into failure too quickly
Yes. Max-effort gives excellent recruitment from either the first or second rep onwards, but you hit failure so quickly and its so fatiguing that overall you don't get enough TUT to grow optimally.
Drop sets at decreasing velocities, dynamic loading, and other techniques exist to address this. WSB exists for a reason.
>Captcha: AYKMS
5/
Growth will stall over time. Muscle is the hardware and the nervous system is the software. Over time, growth of fibers under the control of 1 and the smaller 2A MU will meet the body's needs, and will activate fewer MU to generate sufficient force to complete the lift. Also the nervous system will adapt with improvements to intra- and inter-muscular coordination, rate coding, etc. With all of these adaptations your growth will stall. The remedy is Progressive Overload (PO). PO is done with increasing the weight (machines, free weights, BBE with bands and weight vests), or by decreasing the leverage (body weight progressions; gymnastics). This forces the body to once again recruit towards the deep end of its pool of muscle fibers.
6/
So, you recruit deeply into your pool of muscle fibers, sustain for a sufficient TUT, and from month to month use progressive overload. This is in my opinion best accomplished with a combination of low volume (typically at most 1-5 work sets per body-part), using sub-maximal loads taken to failure (and beyond), strong emphasis on quality technique, and increasing the number of rest days between any two workouts as the weights increase (initially 2-3 days, can become as much as 4-7). Though your tolerance for stress will increase as you become fitter, this is more than overpowered by the increasing stress on the body of lifting heavier and heavier weights (even using the same rep range). Eventually you come to an equilibrium of the anabolic and catabolic processes of the muscle, between how long it takes them to recover from the workout and how long it takes your tissues to grow, you will have then reached your genetic limit. The only way to go past this limit is anabolic steroids.
7/7
Example: Assume a "typical" set: Solid technique with a 3 sec rep tempo, 10RM taken to failure, which would be a 30sec set. We'll assume that we don't get into the deep end of the fiber pool until roughly the last half or third of the set. This means full recruitment is attained and maintained for about 10-15 seconds. If we take the anecdotal evidence that full growth stimulus is achieved with 30 seconds of TUT, then the set has given us around 1/3 to 1/2 of the work the muscle fibers need for a full growth stimulus, which would necessitate a total of 2-3 sets. This is the true significance of a set for myofibrillar hypertrophy.
Watching thread because I need to learn how to train the different systems optimally for balanced output and gains (athletic, not specifically bodybuilding).
Which systems?
8RM is very good for hypertrophy but can be too heavy for smaller muscles to handle safely.
High volume works for them because:
Their form is often sloppy, meaning they don't get enough recruitment time per set. They use momentum and gravity to assist instead of controlling the weight throughout.
Here is Yates using excellent form on the incline
You can also benefit from higher volumes if you are on juice.
Strength (force, F), speed (velocity, V), and endurance (time, T) - physiological components of fitness, broadly speaking, without regards to sport specific techniques. More specifically, there's aerobic endurance (maximal oxygen uptake / VO2max, lung capacity, aerobic metabolic efficiency, lactate threshold / buffering capacity, etc.), anaerobic endurance (lactate tolerance, glycolytic metabolic efficiency, glycogen storage capacity, etc.), muscular endurance (for each muscle fiber type (1, 2A, 2X), under different loads (low/medium/maximal), under different stresses (static, slow, fast)), speed (reaction speed, motor unit quantity, movement efficiency, motor signal rate, etc.), maximal strength (for all muscle types), and power (combination of speed and strength - may lean in different directions but dependent on unified contractile force output in dynamic loads). There are other elements, like adaptations in structural systems not addressed here (see: bone density and tendon growth), but this is as far as I'm aware of.
Are you just starting out? Doing a sensible routine that includes cardio, strength/hypertrophy, and tissue work will give you gains in practically all areas, at least for the first year or two, after which you would start to specialize.
Yes that is true, but it is simpler and a lot safer for most lifters to simply use sub-maximal loads. I don't recommend copying angry powerlifters who have trashed their joints.
I intend on base training to begin with since I'm deconditioned (used to do strict HIIT and volume calisthenics 6 years ago), but after that, I'd like to have some kind of strategy laid out for further improvement.
I do full body 3 times a week at 3x10 at 65% 1RM, last set to failure split into 3 antagonist supersets for squat / bench / OHP with minimal rest; plate changes frick up my shit. I also do incline sit-ups with weight between sets. Rest days are basic cardio because my body doesn't tolerate sprint training on AR days well. I'm weak, and the CNS fatigue gets me pretty badly. I'm not super well versed in this stuff, but I've been hitting the books to learn what I can.
Speaking of, isn't joint training partly a result of coinciding high-volume and moderate resistance work in a nearly full ROM and effectively static tension through it? If you're trying to train maximum output, you'd want maximal stimulus on 2X fibers, but you can maintain said stimulus by dynamically adjusting the load. This is easier with machines than free weights, especially if you consider the effect of time between reps / sets on muscle traits other than fiber development.
I think you're overtraining.
>Speaking of, isn't joint training partly a result of coinciding high-volume and moderate resistance work in a nearly full ROM
You mean for the connective tissues?
>you're overtraining
Probably. I'm still trying to see where I should be training at for maximum baseline growth. As I said, I'm used to volume, not intensity.
>for the connective tissues
Correct. Blood flow is shit to tendons and other connective tissues, so volume of movement would be necessary to correct that. Maintaining a constant load through full ROM would allow for maximum accumulated damage without risking structural problems (read: snap city) from peak forces in a short span of time. Am I correct in this understanding?
>As I said, I'm used to volume, not intensity.
What did you do before? Did you do a lot of volume with low intensity? Like how many sets per body part and at what estimated RPE/RIR etc?
>Maintaining a constant load through full ROM would allow for maximum accumulated damage without risking structural problems (read: snap city) from peak forces in a short span of time. Am I correct in this understanding?
As in reducing risk of injury by using smooth reps? Yes. jerking the weight with cheat reps is not a good idea.
>Probably. I'm still trying to see where I should be training at for maximum baseline growth. As I said, I'm used to volume, not intensity.
You really don't need a lot of volume if you take the sets to failure to maximize recruitment. One or perhaps two work sets for the compound then one or two more for each isolation, working in sensible rep ranges. You really only need to hit a muscle at most once a week.
Look into gymnastics joint preparation
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzQrWiZrUrI1qYYCpnQNL9Soab_jZ9BTg
https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/gst-rebuilt-knees/
https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/5-exercises-bulletproof-knees/
we need more monkey tank tops, shit should be mandatory for IST cbt threads
wiener and ball torture?
Orangutans are apes, not monkeys. You can tell the difference easily because apes don't have tails whereas monkeys do.
Woah, cool it with the racism bro
what about macaques?
Tell me something, gym sage. I feel anecdotally that dropsets, especially double dropsets & beyond, are just inferior for growth compared to just finishing your regular set & then doing a few partials, (or assisted reps if you have a spotter). Like fricking around with 30% of your 1rm all fatigued is trash compared to busting out some partials once your body is too exhausted to do another complete rep. What's the mechanism behind this? Or do you disagree with the entire premise
You can't do a drop set with more than 30% of RM?
By the time you hit failure you have only lost some force production. Drop the weight to around 60-90% of the original work set weight and do a few more reps.
picrel is an example of how abruptly 2B fibers click on and off, another 3-5 reps with a drop set and they're probably exhausted.
>Three tiers, each with increasing gains in motor skills and connective tissue durability: Machines are easiest, BB/DB the middle, strongman and gymnastics the most difficult but offer the most strength gains
Calisthenics guys tend to do pretty good in major lifts for their size. Is that the reason? I've seen 165cm skinny manlets bench pressing 100kg for reps
Yeah gymnastics progressions require much more development in motor skills, joint strength, etc but it slows down progress because of how challenging it is. Machines are basically moron-proof which is why they're so effective at progressive overload.
Gymnasts also do joint preparation, there are a bunch of exercises for each joint.