Nope. I have not seen this sentiment expressed before by anyone that is actually educated on the subject. It’s something I see on forums, right up there with “just eat more peanut butter” and “get high so you get the munchies” in terms of weight gaining advice, but most of the stuff I’ve seen on weight gaining has been pretty big on high volume.
EDIT: Like, even the low volume/abbreviated mass gaining routines like 20 rep squats still press high reps as being vital, and the 5/3/1 3 month challenge is very volume heavy.
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
This is hard to answer considering there have been men who have built mass with reps of 1 to 20! [/quote]
Exactly right. So many folks fixated on the rep range, as though it’s the only variable involved in obtaining results, when in reality, many other variables can be manipulated to have some sort of impact.
I could do a set of 3 reps, and those 3 reps could build power, strength, speed, endurance, or hypertrophy depending on how my training is structured.
I did t say anything about volume, I said people say you need to lift heavy (implying you are t lifting heavy even though they have never seen you train) and eat big
In the Matt Kroc article, I didn’t actually see him advocating any sort of specific lifting approach. It seemed far more oriented toward nutrition, which is definitely worth considering, especially given it tended to move away from the “eat big” mentality and actually gravitated more toward detail work in nutrition. The Dan John article seemed more of an overall perspective of all of the avenues involved in the process rather than being an article in and of itself detailing the methods of getting big.
Perhaps I misunderstood your original statement. I thought you were saying it was every article that was providing a method on gaining mass was advocating a method of lifting heavy and eating.
The first few lines of Matt krocs says it ‘lift heavy’
Dan John says it ‘lift heavy and eat’
No wonder people get upset on these forums…people put words in your mouth.
‘Man this chicken is so tasty.’ ‘Oh my god this guy says he doesn’t like beef.’
[quote]Liam M wrote:
The first few lines of Matt krocs says it ‘lift heavy’
Dan John says it ‘lift heavy and eat’
No wonder people get upset on these forums…people put words in your mouth.
‘Man this chicken is so tasty.’ ‘Oh my god this guy says he doesn’t like beef.’ [/quote]
In the Matt Kroc article, he is using “lift heavy” as a metaphor for hard work in terms of dietary prep. Heavy lifting, as it were. I cannot imagine his intent was that it would be taken at literal value as advice on specific training necessary for mass gain.
The Dan John article does have the words “lift heavy and eat”, yes, but much more as well. I think there was a great amount of value to be had there.
It appears I misunderstood your original post. It led me to believe you were saying that “Every article written about gaining mass says to lift heavy and eat. Then at the end it says ‘oh but don’t neglect higher rep work’” referred to the entirety of the advice, rather than just select pieces contained within. I definitely agree that the value of heavy lifting and eating definitely is a part of the advice presented when it comes to weight gain. I apologize for the misunderstanding.
High training volume is not the same as “higher reps”.
A strength program demands constant strength (poundage) progression in a (more or less) fixed rep range (usually moderate to lowish) and uses the appropriate training volume/frequency to get the job done. It isn’t for “quick” gains in size but for consistent gains in size/strength over a lifter’s life.
A lot of misguided people who constantly train exclusively with very low reps AND low overall volume end up increasing weight (sacrificing reps) to the point of ending up doing a top set of 1-2 reps and little else - and call that “progress”. Thats more like “peaking” and NOT progression. Thats also NOT a strength program.
If someone wanted to just gain 5-10 pounds of “wet weight” in a few weeks for a special event (and cares little about how long that will stick around or if it will continue) OR he just wants to make certain muscles “pop better” as quick as possible for a shoot or whatever, he would do a program with higher reps AND frequency for obvious reasons.
[quote]Liam M wrote:
But then they turn around and say that you need higher reps to build muscle.
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I’m not sure I agree with that as Doug Hepburn trained using very low reps usually 5 reps max and became one of the strongest men in history.
Could you expand on this as knowing me I’ve probably just misread it lol
A heavy squat for someone may be 405 pounds while another person can hit 405 for 20+ Reps. “Lift heavy” IMO means to lift as heavy as YOU possibly can for any given rep range.
Lifting “heavy” for you 1-6 rep range (big 3 maybe?) is different than lifting “heavy” for curls or incline DB’s. It’s all relative and definitely not worth arguing over.
[quote]gregron wrote:
“Heavy” is a subjective term.
A heavy squat for someone may be 405 pounds while another person can hit 405 for 20+ Reps. “Lift heavy” IMO means to lift as heavy as YOU possibly can for any given rep range.
Lifting “heavy” for you 1-6 rep range (big 3 maybe?) is different than lifting “heavy” for curls or incline DB’s. It’s all relative and definitely not worth arguing over.[/quote]
And along with that, I think it demonstrates the value in not basing your training decisions around a sound bite. “Lift heavy eat big” isn’t a bad mentality, but it’s no gameplan.