What is your kick with ethics and other people’s characters?
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Lol. I just thought having ethics was a good thing. Maybe I am way off base.
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It’s literally human nature. We’d have died off without the ability to quickly place new information into our worldview. Sometimes it’s inconvenient (like my body protecting me from starving when I want to look good at the beach). This doesn’t make them bad human beings.
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This. 100%. I’ve asked this question behind the scenes with a LOT of guys in the evidence based field, and they acknowledge it happens. Menno is on the whole “volume drives hypertrophy” bandwagon too. So why wouldn’t he support Brad’s shit show of a paper? In fact Menno did a dismissal of the study I covered by asserting that “they went beyond their MRV on a per training session basis” as to why the higher volume groups did worse.
GTFO of here. Clearly they made progress, but it was less due to the fact that the degree of volume pushed right up against their recoverability. There was only a tiny gap left there for the adaption. Duh. This isn’t THAT HARD to figure out, rather than try to finagle a way to explain why your chosen training ideology keeps failing in studies.
Do you guys not pick up on the fact that there’s a lot of guys in the evidence based area that keep trying very desperately to prove that more and more volume equates to more and more growth? Despite the fact that it’s been shown repeatedly in other studies, that there’s a point of diminishing returns with it? And that the ideal amount of volume has more or less been settled for quite some time now???
So why do they keep doing studies to try and prove that more volume means more growth, when over and over again it’s shown not to be true? And that each time they do it, they group that does the minimal or moderate amount makes better progress?
It’s part business too.
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Yeah, they are full of shit. It’s funny, Mike Israetel was on of my main sources for training info until recently, he seemed so credible that I hardly questioned his advice. Around the same time this thread started he posted on Facebook that he would be teaching a course together with Brad Schoenfeld, who he referred to as “best of the best”. I already figured out that Schoenfeld was bullshit a long time ago, and then next thing you know Paul was explaining how their studies and recommendations are mostly nonsense.
Those guys are like some kind of fitness cult, the Church of Fitnessology or something like that. And most of the so-called fitness experts nowadays are affiliated with them one way or another. Look at one of my earlier posts in this thread, Brad’s MAX Muscle book is being translated into Italian but his and his friends’ recent research shows that the program in this book is far from optimal. Rather than rewriting the program or coming out with a new book, he continues selling garbage.
It makes them liars and pseudoscientists.
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There is definitely a more or less “exclusive club” there. You get a PhD…you can get in, and basically from there on out, few people question what you tell them. Lyle broke down the high volume study for the shit show that it was and so did quite a few other people. From it not being blinded at all, to a total misrepresentation of the data. But the “in crowd” totally supported it even though the study was not done very well at all, and was totally misrepresented in terms of what it ultimately showed.
This is why it’s important to actually read a study and not just the abstract.
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I saw an interview with Brad at an NSCA conference where they discussed various hot topics in the training world. The Dr was answering questions based on research. Some of it was his and some was him interpreting the results of other studies. The parts that I remember and thought was useful (I might be wrong) was in regards to protein consumption and timing.
The takeaway for me was that 40g of protein ingested post-workout resulted in more growth than 20g of protein. No surprise there. He also addressed the timing of nutrition. Brad stated that ingesting 40 or more grams of protein every four hours would fuel protein synthesis.
I’ve been using that to determine if and when I need to eat in relationship to my training. If I eat breakfast and have 50g of protein at 0900 and train at 1100 then I don’t worry about forcing myself to chug a shake or eat before I lift. I just wait til I’m done and then chow down.
Is any of this information valid or useful? Surely Schoenfeld has some things right…right?
And my last takeaway from the interview was that BCAAs are a waste of money as long as you’re eating right.
I know this is getting down to the finer details and probably doesn’t matter a whole lot, but I’ve been basing my nutritional approach off of the statements he made about nutrient timing. I try to eat 40+ grams of protein every 3-4 hours which is really just eating four to five meals a day in even increments.
I’m really just posting this because I’m curious about the validity of his statements.
Would love to hear some feedback on this as well.
Brad has a ton of really great studies. And he’s correct on a lot of what he reports. This protein stuff there is spot on IMO and a good guide to use. My only complaint ever was that one study.
There’s a huge bias towards training volume right by the evidence based community and it’s weird to watch unfold because the science doesn’t support a lot of the data they keep referring to.
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It actually is NOT difficult.
How so? Simply by looking at what good to excellent bodybuilders do. And even if some of them do higher volume with modest effort, are they sporting more muscle than the ones who do less with more effort?
There you go.
Go look at bodybuilders from the 70’s to 90’s. Do they look like they needed “researchers” to tell them what to do?
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The Emperor wears no clothes
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A bit of a sideways step – but I honestly think reading a study is an artform. And it takes a certain mind to work them out. Not being elitist but it’s a skill. Unless you know how to read them – you can get turned about and feed shit easily.
I mean many people don’t get the importance of rigorous experimental procedure. Being an engineer its part of my job. And I find it hard when studies are some obviously crap. Like no statement of how they are kept double blind or at least blind.
Studies can also be misleading without intending to be:
My example of this is the guy a little while ago with the “CNS fatigue is not real” thread and claimed to be back up by science and quoted a load of studies.
But he was wrong. All the studies proved were CNS fatigue is poorly named. And is does not affect the CNS system. Its still “real”. But could be called “lifters flu”.
Any way that’s my bit on that. I’m not saying that people should not read these studies. But always take it with a pinch of salt.
Don’t forget – there was once a peer reviewed scientific paper that claimed the Earth was the centre of the universe.
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^ this is why when people post a study and it’s just the abstract I want to punch them in the dick.
You can’t really know the limitations of a study or what it REALLY showed unless you dive into it, and understand the verbiage. I’m not an “expert” at it…yet. But I can go through one and have a fairly good idea of the limitations and if it’s practical to even talk about, i.e. the Schoenfeld study with the high volume isn’t even a practical ROUTINE. Even if the data showed it did produce more results…NO ONE IS GOING TO TRAIN THAT WAY.
Mike said in a recent IG post that he got to a weight of 270 pounds with 25 percent body fat before using roids. If I recall correctly he’s 5’7” or 5’8”. At that body comp he’d have 202.5 pounds lean body mass. Does anyone know of a drug-free bodybuilder with that much muscle at that height?
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You see that all over the place in Middle Earth.
Mike Isreatel, Son of Gimli, Son of Gloin!
He’s shorter than that, I think about 5’4"-5’6". He also lied about steroid use since then, he had one post where he was saying he would never use steroids because they are illegal and so on, I gave him the benefit if the doubt but now I think he was lying all along. There were numerous other occasions where he flat-out denied steroid use when he was looking pretty far from natural.
Now whether 270 5’8"-ish 25% bf is naturally attainable, I think so but not for everyone. I’m 5’9" in the mid 250’s, not sure about bf% but not as fat as Mike was at 270, and I never took any form of PEDs. I’m also not really focused on hypertrophy since I compete in powerlifting, if I went full-out bodybuilding then I could see myself carrying more lean mass than that.
Paul - I think we are singing from the same hymn sheet. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
It isn’t.
Mike is NOT 5’8". At the very best he’s 5’6" but most likely 5’5". And we’ve hung out a lot and I like Mike as a person. I don’t agree with a lot of his training philosophies but that’s ok.
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Training today BTW…
Chest press machine - 2 sets - 6 and 7 reps
Incline Side Laterals - 1 cluster set
Active Motion Incline Press - 2 sets (love these)
Cheaty ass side laterals - 1 set of 8
PBN - 1 set of 12
Triceps Extensions - 1 set of 15
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