Not to mention one has to remain professional and not be an ass to other people if you want to get more interviews in the future.
You cant just have a guy like that on and go “hey dickhead, your volume studies are shit and its a shitty way to train people, I am way better than you” and expect him or anyone else to want to come on your podcast ever again.
Some pretty interesting timing but in his latest podcast, Greg Nuckols talks about some of the themes brought up in this thread (I haven’t had time to listen to it yet):
Note sure if I can post the link but it’s here: Q&A: CBD, Junk Volume, Eccentric Training, and Building a Following in Fitness (Podcast Ep7) • Stronger by Science
For reference, Greg doing single leg deadlifts:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx3QdVNFN2w/?igshid=fh68ipimycz4
Does anyone look at Greg and think “man that guy knows about building muscle” tho?
He can cite all the research he wants. If Greg dieted down to anything remotely lean he’d be 165 pounds. At some point there has to be some form of practical application to the theories someone espouses. Yes there are exceptions, but my God if you can’t get in shape, don’t write about dieting. And if you have no visible muscle mass try not writing about how to build muscle.
Honestly though, that right leg was a disaster. How could that not eventually lead to an injury?
Pretty sure the average person would look at guys like Louie Simmons and Dave Tate and think that they are fat as fuck. They have no business giving advice on how to build strength and muscle. Seems short-sighted to just look at a person and assume they have no idea what they’re talking about.
Eddie Hall is fat.
It doesn’t say that in Paul’s post.
This whole topic is about building as much muscle as possible.
If Usain Bolt was putting out articles about what it takes to win a marathon, would he be your go to source?
Yep, nail on head right there. If you can’t walk the walk, don’t talk the talk
I don’t think that anyone can say that improving PRs across the board won’t be the main driver for muscle growth? My Bench 6RM is 245, whenever this 6RM reaches 275/315/whatever I’ll be bigger and stronger.
Now when it comes to higher or lower frequency and volume - I like Thibaudeau’s approach where different persons will respond very well to different stimuli and adhere to one way of training that could seem totally dumb to others. Extremes would be guys that NEED to train like maniacs every day or so, and others who CAN’T train more than twice a week. Most people falling in the middle like any sort of bell curve e.g. 3-4x per week sounding optimal.
He would know more than me. He would have spoken to some of the top guys.
Wow is that all it takes now to be a good source of info.
when you have access to people who have achieved exactly what you want to achieve, why would you seek the opinions of people who haven’t?
Nobody knows everything and good sports people aren’t always good at teaching others. A lot of top football coaches were average at the sport. Some top footballers have been hopeless coaches.
Thinking a select few know it all and others know nothing much worthwhile is a very closed minded view of the world.
Ummmm Dave Tate HAS dieted down to single digit bodyfat. And Dave Tate has a metric butt ton of muscle under that fat and did compete in bodybuilding.
And I never said “strength”. Greg has proved himself in powerlifting many times to be a great lifter. He knows something about that.
The whole comparing this to coaches for other shit is an awful one and one that people use all the time that’s bullshit.
If a guy has a max deadlift of 405 are you telling me that you think he can prop himself up as a strength building expert? Really?
So if a guy goes out and runs a 100 meters in 20 seconds you’re going to listen to him when he starts talking about how to run fast?
Again, you don’t have to be some world champion but when it comes to things like strength, muscle, dieting then that person needs to have shown the ability to apply things and create outcomes for themselves.
Team sports isn’t the same thing because head coaches are really managers and are masters at strategy. It’s not even comparable. It’s apples and oranges.
I promise you that if you look at every big named prep coach you’ll see that they got themselves THEMSELVES into awesome shape many many times.
Even Eddie Hall has dieted down. So WTF are you guys talking about?
Apply some legitimate critical thinking here. Nuckols has done well with strength performance. But as far as I know, he’s never gotten anyone into legit single digit bodyfat, much less himself, and he’s never developed any significant degree of muscle mass, or done that for anyone else.
So why would he be writing about those topics like he’s some kind of expert on them when clearly he doesn’t actually understand them from a practical standpoint?
Having finally read through this whole thread I just think people wanna disagree 
The vast majority of the logical conclusions Paul and others have made are widely adaptable, and so many “counterpoints” are really just hidden expressions of what people like Paul were saying in the first place.
You mean either passive aggressive arguments or the outright “I don’t like you so I don’t like your opinion” counter points?
Here’s the thing -
Right now, the science backs me up.
The evidence based community refuses to acknowledge the science because they have all been chirping about volume for a while now. God knows they aren’t going to admit they were/are wrong about it all. Not when they have been talking about “science” this whole time, when the science doesn’t even support them.
The anecdotal backs me up.
If you want to be bigger six months from now than you are right now, then you sure as hell better be moving more loading for more reps than you are now.
When you factor those things in together, this is what you end up seeing.
Low to moderate volumes beat high volumes for growth via not overrunning recovery. Mentzer was spot on in this theory. Once the stimulus for growth has been put into motion, more work doesn’t do anything but detract from recovery.
Progressive overload and strength increases in the appropriate rep ranges with a high degree of effort (training to failure) create the environment for growth and they do it much more efficiently than doing a bunch of junk volume with a bunch of reps left in the tank.
Frequency is a bit overrated. And I love Thibs, but he more or less keeps ignoring that data.
There was a study done showing that six times a week for a muscle group didn’t represent more growth than hitting it three times a week. And in every other frequency study it keeps showing that once a week is actually fine, twice a week is slightly better, and three times a week is diminishing returns.
That’s why I settled on twice one week, and once the following week. Funny enough, that’s what Dante found was best when he was creating DC training.
The only part of all of this that might get confusing to some guys is the length to tension relationship and bio-mechanics. That stuff is far more difficult to grasp and most guys train with REALLY shitty mechanics. Not just some, but probably 90%+ unfortunately.
I’ll give an example of this - How many of you guys think that chin ups are a great lat movement? I run into that shit daily. They aren’t. They are a great upperback movement, but they absolutely do not get the lats into a fully lengthened or shortened position in line with the fibers. Fact. Not even opinion. But guys will haw all day long over doing chins to build a wide back when it’s a very inefficient way to do that.
Deadlifts? I’ve covered that a multitude of times. They don’t lengthen or shorten the musculature of the back at all, and are incredibly neural/systemically taxing.
What do you see recommended over and over again to build a bigger back?
Chins and deadlifts. And guys get it in their head that this is gospel because they read it so many times. And it’s piss poor advice. Not based on my opinion but actual mechanics and the things needed to stimulate growth in those areas. Meaning, training them in the length to tension relationship in line with the fibers. Deadlifts and chin ups aren’t “bad” movements unless you’re using them for the wrong reasons. Technically chins are a great upper back movement, so I want to be clear on that one.
Anyway I’m rambling now.
The point is, the data is clear. The anecdotal evidence is clear.
This is how bad it’s been ingrained in so many guys. I’ve got guys in my recomp/hypertrophy groups that are smashing PR’s for reps while losing tons of fat…and are still having trouble getting their head around how that’s happening.
It’s called being brainwashed.
Neither, imho. You’ll say “progressive overload, particularly close to and at failure, stimulates muscle growth” and someone else will say “but 5 sets of 8 works”. Well yes, the latter would, but only because of those 3-4 reps of your fifth ssf where you hit failure.
Also that post you made needs to be some kind of sticky
How would someone learn about this?
Well that’s true. Which is how the argument about junk volume came about.
IF you’re doing 5 sets of 8 and only the last set has real effort what’s the point of the other four sets? That one set is getting the job done.
Its called cognitive bias. That’s the technical name for it. Genuinely an interesting subject but we’ll off topic.
Probably not, but a 315 single leg deadlift is damm impressive. Seems like a guy I should listen to.