yeah I don’t think a pump as part of the stimulus means a person has to do ‘pump training’ (light weights no progression). And also don’t forget, ‘tension’ as a stimulus also doesn’t mean it has to be heavy loads. Anytime a fiber is highly active ‘it’ is producing it’s maximum tension and stimulation is a ‘per fiber’ scenario. When a pump occurs, usually we also have ischemic and hypoxia conditions, which are for sure known to stimulate some of the signaling factors that can lead to hypertrophy
The internet tells me that the best way to get a pump is to lift weights, especially lift weights with a lot of reps and sets. This causes lactic acid build up and a lot of blood flow to the muscle. This, of course, is how a lot of bodybuilders train, and those guys tend to carry a lot of muscle (if they have good drugs and/or good genetics).
So it might be easy to conflate getting a pump with building muscle. But separating cause and effect is not that easy. It is quite possible that the things you have to do to get a pump (work the muscles under tension) are actually the primary trigger for muscle growth, and the feeling of the pump is just a side effect of a particular way of working the muscle under tension. In other words, it might be an effect of training in a certain way, but not the cause of growth.
Most of the recent literature appears to support the idea that mechanical tension is the primary trigger for muscle growth. Other mechanisms, like metabolic stress, can also produce adaptations, but those may be secondary triggers or facilitators.
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I don’t doubt your logic here. But whether its a cause or an effect of something else, it doesn’t really change the outcome - which is hypertrophy. The same argument could be applied to lactic acid: is it the cause of a spike in growth hormone? And then, does the rise in growth hormone lead to any ‘gainz’ or is it something else?
Poliquin highlighted the effectiveness of such training with his ‘German body comp’ programmes.
In relation to tension as the primary trigger: if it is the only or key factor, it will inevitably make muscles grow each time there is a tension in place, which is apparently not the case. We see a lot of people training in different styles, with different poundages, many of them training with high intensity, others with high volume and high weights, but not all of them (I would say few of them) achieve hypertrophy beyond certain point. Many studies are done on undertrained subjects who will grow on any program to which they are not accustomed to.
I’m sure he can speak for himself, however, the point he made, correctly in my view, is that the literature consistently identifies mechanical tension as the primary driver. This means across an array of studies using different study populations. Brad Schoenfeld has written a lot about this subject, which includes some of his own studies. This is not to deny other metabolic pathways. They still exist!
I have a feeling that the whole discussion goes into direction of “either/or”. I think life is more diverse, especially in such aspect as hypertrophy. Although, I know a plenty of situations where there is truly “either/or” or “black vs white”, if you want, but for me this one doesn’t look like one.
No, you are bang on. The fact is, provided lower load training is taken to failure, there is not a huge variation between them when it comes to hypertrophy.
True to you. Even such a huge proponent of mechanical tension as a primary driver of hypertrophy hypothesis as Lyle McDonald clearly states that lower loads with higher reps and moderately high intensity (I don’t think he advocates training to failure) will lead to the same results, albeit with more energy expenditure. However, LMD’s reasoning is that there is a need for a sufficient work (number of effective reps per weekly volume) in order to trigger the growth response.
I’m currently reading through “High Density Training” by Brian Johnston now. I think he has some pretty solid concepts. His method remind me a bit of Fortitude Training
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Andrew Shortt once said: “What Jones was to exercise equipment and the variable of intensity, Johnston is to exercise prescription and performance. Johnston has collected and analyzed all the various aspects involved in the somewhat complex and diverse subject of physical enhancement. He hasn’t just categorized and prioritized, but pulled it all together in a cohesive manner. A read through his, as Dr. Ellington Darden calls it, “compendium” “Exercise Science: Theory and Practice”, makes it clear that Johnston understands the greater picture. That picture being: How all elements are interdependent and interactive to varying degrees, and it is not only important to know this but to be experienced with understanding it, as well”.
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With a reference to this thread’s title, High Density Training (HDT), or any of the Zone combinations for the matter, is the perfect example where you can have your cake and eat it too. The best of both worlds: high intensity and high volume/pump. So, this is a method to explore(for those who haven’t tried it yet and who doesn’t want to sacrifice either of two.
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I’ll be giving it a shot some time for sure! Thanks for the recommendation brother
We are talking about biology, so there is very likely not a single factor, but many factors which influence the outcomes of training. For every pathway that can trigger growth, there are likely other pathways that impose limits or constraints. Muscle tension triggers growth by releasing signaling hormones via a process called mechnotransduction, but myostatin limits how much can happen. Practically speaking, there is no training method that doesn’t eventually run out of steam.
I think you are equating high muscle tension to the use of high absolute load. But they really are not the same thing. This is a distinction I struggled with when I first read Lyle McDonald’s recent series of articles on muscle tension. It didn’t make sense to me until I then read Chris Beardsley’s description of what he thinks happens.
My present understanding, based largely on Beardsley, is that high muscle tension refers to having high tension on individual muscle fibers that are being fired and producing tension; it doesn’t refer to the overall tension on the entire muscle. The conditions of high muscle tension on active fibers happens when you get maximum cross-bridge formation during the performance of an exercise. Maximum cross bridging happens when the muscle is struggling to produce enough force to sustain movement, so that that the contraction velocity has to slow down. (You are approaching the point of grinding the reps.)
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to create this condition:
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Lift fairly heavy weights. This requires the body to recruit a lot of muscle fiber, and since you are moving a heavy weight, you have to move slowly to maximize cross bridging (to maximize force production).
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Training with light to moderate weights, but do a lot of reps and take the sets close to failure. As you get to the end of the set, and fatigued muscles start to drop out, you will be forced to slow down to maximize cross bridging, and continue the set.
I don’t think this theory rules out your preferred means of training (lighter weights, more reps). Note that moving deliberately slow with submaximal weights will not, by itself lead to maximum cross bridging. It only happens if the cross bridges need to be formed to sustain movement (i.e., you are exerting near maximal effort with the intent to move fast).
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Exercise science or Prescribed Exercise by Johnston?
He wrote both of them. One is more expanded version of the other, if I remember correctly. I can check if you want.
No, I don’t equate high muscular tension with the highest possible load. You can achieve such tension with different means including lighter weights, longer TUL and a set closer to failure. Am I right that Beardsley deliberately tries to avoid talking about intensity of effort and friction?
Don’t forget that a body adapts to the stress using the easiest possible way; repetitive bouts of tension in a similar nature (do you really think that two or three more reps or 10-20 additional lbs really count for the body?) would be quite an easy stress to deal with because body knows how to deal with it (it has experienced it before). Otherwise all people in the gym doing relatively hard exercises will be muscular up to the ears, which is not the case. SAID principle.
Another thought: muscle are contracted in all or nothing at all fashion; they can’t contract with some level of tension. If the tension is the culprit triggering hypertrophy, then the maximum tension achieved during all out effort with 1RM would be enough. However, we all know that lifting 1RMs even in multiple sets does not produce hypertrophy. For slow-twitch muscle lifting high loads in low reps is like doing 1RM - they will not grow despite of maximum tension. BTW, HIT is high intensity training, not maximum intensity training. Our perception of high tension may be very subjective, and I doubt that hypertrophy will be somehow related to our own perception of the high tension of muscle fibers. So BDJ was right saying that is not how much weight you use, but how you use that much weight
To note, muscle fibers can vary their tension, the all or none principle is in relation to how a muscle fiber fires not how much tension it produces.
Firing rates (rate coding) varies the actual tension a fiber is producing.
Here is an email reply to me from Roger Enoka
Good morning Ron,
It is important to realize that motor units are probably never achieve a fused tetanus during a voluntary contractions. The rate at which action potentials are generated is only ever sufficient to produce an unfused tetanus, which is less than the maximal force a motor unit can produce. Of course, the force produced by a motor unit during an unfused tetanus can range from low to high, but it is never maximal. We do not know why rate coding is never enough to achieve a fused tetanus.
I hope this helps.
Roger M. Enoka, Ph.D.
Professor
Room W205B, Ramaley
Department of Integrative Physiology
354 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309, USA