I think I understand now the nature of confusion. Muscle fibers tense when they are called into play - this is how they work. The proponents of the mechanical tension hypothesis say, in effect, that in order to grow muscles need to be exercised in a strenuous manner. It is just like saying that a body needs energy in order to survive. So, I don’t argue with their general principle that in order to grow the body needs to be exercised in a somewhat strenuous / tense manner. However, I was more concerned with specifics being fully agree with a general principal
I don’t recall reading anything from him on the subject of muscular friction.
My recollection is that the idea of internal friction in the muscles was suggested to explain differences between eccentric, static, and concentric strength. That would have made some sense in the context of the sliding filament model, which was probably fairly novel at that point. Internal muscular friction doesn’t seem to get discussed much anymore in the current literature, at least not that I can recall; I thought it had largely fallen out of favor with physiologists. I think more modern explanations of the difference between concentric and eccentric strength focus on differences in how cross bridges form and break, and on the unique stress-strain responses of titin structures in the muscle, which become heavily engaged during eccentrics.
I’d be surprised if he dismisses intensity of effort as unimportant, just because his model for developing high muscle tension requires that one be exerting a high intensity of effort in order for the right things to happen.
Yes, I do think it matters. If I could regularly add 20-30 lbs to my lifts every 12 weeks, and do that for a year or more, it would likely make a significant difference. To discount this seems to dismiss the value of progressive overload, which seems like one of the better established training principle.
Of course, once you have trained for awhile, and gained a noticeable amount of strength and muscle mass, adding 20 lbs to a lift, or 5 lbs of muscle tissue to your body both become very difficult to do, regardless of what you do on the stimulus side. Those stalls have less to do with the effectiveness of the stimulus, and more to do with genetic limits, and the regulatory processes that want to keep you from adding too much muscle (because it is metabolically costly).
I don’t think that necessarily follows. While the details are still being worked out, it seems pretty well established that mechanical tension on muscle fibers will trigger the release of signaling molecules that are related to muscle growth. But that doesn’t mean it is an on/off switch, one that triggers maximum adaptation with a single exposure to tension. You could have a dose response relationship. More volume could mean more signaling, and more growth. And as the body adapts, and builds resistance to adding muscle, perhaps ever increasing amounts of volume are required? Again, it is an evolving area, so much remains to be learned.
On the first point of adding 20lbs or whatever the number in 12 weeks or so: my own experience achieving that on several occasions with different exercises shows that it does not work. Many in HIT community especially who tried MM’s consolidation routines will attest to them - without exception they increased their loads with nothing to report in terms of muscle mass. Body easily adapts to increased loads by other means.
Sure, over the short term, people can get stronger, and move more weight without having noticeable improvement in muscle size. But what about longer term?
Is your training experience that you routinely gain lots of muscle without getting stronger? I guess I’d wonder what the point of that would be?
From the research that’s out there, high rep, low load sets to failure produced the virtually same hypertrophy results as low rep, high load sets to failure, but the low load group had much worse strength improvement. So if you’re looking at it strictly from a Bodybuilding standpoint, you could probably be good going at it either way and could likely be beneficial to work in both zones.
I think this is why periodization is useful, still being able to grow without beating your joints and connective tissue up as much with max loads and also getting a fresh stimuli. But hey, I’m only 26. I’m basically figuring this out as I go and learning from a lot of different people and resources.
This whole conversation went from a much anticipated “bro science” argument into a highly sophisticated discussion on motor unit recruitment and anabolic chemicals.
+1 respect for the @t-nation community
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We can’t think of ‘stimulation’ as an on off switch though.
Tension as a stimulus doesn’t mean ‘create tension growth is on’ it means create tension signal factors are on ‘while’ the tension is there. More like turning up a faucet, the longer it’s on, the more water that flows. Tension + time = stimulation.
I suppose when discussing method, the hypothetical question would be better framed as:
‘How much muscle can one add?’
I think we can all think of a myriad of athletes and other folks who got totally jacked without relying on heavy lifting. They clearly built muscle. But how much? And is there a ceiling on it? My inclination is that the average male is unlikely to add more than 20 lbs to his frame using bodyweight, pump, time under tension types movements (e.g. gymnastic rings) even with good genetics. However, I plucked that figure out of the air and may be way off the mark.
I doubt that average guy will add more than 20 lbs of muscle mass naturally (without steroids) irrespective of training tools and methods during his lifetime, not counting for gains as a result of maturity, and staying with single digits bodyfat. So, for a light framed guy with small wrists with a height of 5’8" (174cm) the maximum natural cap is about 74kg (163lbs).