Question to You Guys: What Do You THINK is the Main Driver for Muscle Growth?

Training
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It’s a weird time to be living in when it comes to information for growing and getting stronger.

I grew up in the “bro mag” era. And despite all of the science nerds (not all, but MANY) who made fun of that time, I knew more jacked dudes then that I do now by a long shot. Because we weren’t sitting around debating all the nuances of what worked and what didn’t based on some study with 20 college aged kids with less than a year of lifting experience.

Does it ever hit you guys, the ones of you who keep spouting off about “science”, that these studies aren’t hard science??? It’s just guidelines. And often times, not even practical ones.

There was a longer version of that article where I broke down half a dozen studies that looked at all of the details of them. Several of the studies, ones that get propped up as “fact” about growth, used programs that NO ONE would ever use. If something isn’t practical, and no one is ever going to use it, then why on Earth are any of you citing it as something to be useful? It’s not, really.

And that’s why it’s important to break down a study and not just read the abstract. To understand what the methods were and if they are even applicable to you or the general population.

Does anyone really think they are going to be doing 30+ sets of squats in a week? Does that seem logical at all? And second, if the researchers believe this is the best way to train, then how come so many of them would never train this way?

And why do so many believe that heavily muscled guys train with an enormous amount of volume when I don’t know a single one that does? I’m not saying some don’t, I’m just saying all the guys that I know, that are truly jacked (natural or not) don’t train with these enormous volumes. None of them.

So it’s mind boggling to me that so many spout off about this kind of “science”, which is really a soft science, that isn’t meant to be used as “factual”. Just a guideline or to give insight about a protocol. And the truth is, some of it is really BAD science. Jeff Nippard using EMG to create “science based routines” is a prime example of it.

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If you want to get technical, your responses give the impression that you are upset.

But apparently “sound” matters in a forum.

You are completely missing the point. Their guidelines of volume per session are the exact same as yours, and Krieger says that 1.5-2 per week frequency is optimal, which is approximately the same as you are recommending. You don’t even realize that I am agreeing with you and instead you get angry and focus on the wrong things.

You need to rethink your public relations strategy.

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If you watch my podcasts, you will often see that I’m laughing when I am debating something. But if that language was put on paper, it would most likely come across as confrontational. Again, there’s no “sound” on here, so it’s your perception that I’m “upset”. Trust me, I’ve been at this for a long time on the net and these topics do not “upset” me. Please.

Second, I’m not missing the point. At all. If you look through the rest of the data points in those IG posts you’ll see a LOT of problems with it, i.e. STILL referencing the Schoenfeld study that was totally misrepresented by the researchers, i.e. 45 sets a week DID NOT show any substantial growth compared to the lower volume groups. It’s amazing to me that so many in the evidence based community just keep ignoring this fact. Guess who was involved in that study?

We agree on the volume per training session and weekly frequency guidelines and that’s about it. The rest of the stuff in those two posts I mostly do not agree with. It’s kind of all over the place when you look at it as a whole.

To circle back to agreement, I really do think that if guys narrowed down their total volume in a SESSION to something between 8-12 working sets, they would see far more progress. However they want to split that up is really up to them. But limiting the total work sets to 8-12 in order to preserve the system taxation would be ideal.

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I find it amazing people still quote Schonefeld, when this guy’s studies were so many times proven to in one way or another provide missinterpreted results. Schonefeld is basically a walking definition of how you should NOT set/interpret studies on muscle growth/strength.

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I think Brad has done some great work. But the “45 sets a week” is not one of them . It’s a total shit show in the way it was presented.

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Yeah there were some differences and similarities between the two. Dante actually sites Dorian in some articles written in the early 2000’s (I believe) saying he was on to something basically lol

DC you’re still doing 3 failure sets just on one movement and in a short time frame. And normally with a very heavy weight. Squats and a few other rowing movements though yeah 1 set and going balls out. I’ve seen ranges saying use your 14 rm for 20 which means grinding reps. I’ve done them plenty of times I can’t say I’ve used 14 rm every time but it was very painful to say the least.

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What’s your pod cast called Paul?

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The Swoley Trinity. It’s with Scott Stevenson and Alan Aragon.

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That is the only point I was trying to make with those posts.

I don’t follow Krieger or JPS, I briefly looked over a few of their posts yesterday and about the high volume stuff they were saying that 20+ sets might be beneficial for a period of specialization for a particular bodypart or movement and most of the subjects used for those studies were young men, so even if there is some logic to that sort of training it is totally context-dependant. And again, I didn’t post that to include some sort of counterpoint to your argument, that just happened to be in the same post.

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Chris, what happened to the rts reactive training forums? You used to post there a lot but the forum seems to be filled with random spam now? Have they moved?

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Mike stopped posting and it got taken over by trolls and bots trying to sell garbage. Mike doesn’t seem to post much stuff online at all these days, he has some online courses and still coaches people but I’m not sure what he’s up to now. He moved to the Netherlands too, temporarily he said. It sounds like between the coaching business and online courses he’s doing good so he’s not looking for extra attention since most people in PL already know who he is.

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That’s the greatest pod cast name I’ve ever heard. Thanks man

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I am in the Netherlands as well. Seriously, you know where?

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Not sure. It’s not like me and him are friends in real life, I just used to talk with him online. I’m sure if you want to find him you can.

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All good my dude. And if people would stop over thinking this with all the various studies and just settle on a principle like “10 productive work sets in a given session” I think people would be far better off.

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I think that part of it is that long term bodybuilders develop a degree of mind-muscle connection where they may be flexing target muscles against 60% as hard as against 65% or 70% or 75%. Let’s say they do 10 reps each at 60-65-70 and 75%, during the set of 60% x 10, the bodybuilder is squeezing isometrically and using opposing muscles to make the force on the target muscles greater. If they had to, they could relax the antagonists and push up several more reps. The weight or machine is more of a tool to help them flex their muscles against resistance as hard as possible.

A problem with the mentality of training to failure is that for building muscle you want to make the lift harder for every rep throughout the range of motion. This is why my answer to the question of the “Main Driver” is a little different. It is “focus”. You need to develop a focus on the muscles during the movement. If you do that, you are at the edge of “failure” from rep 1 at least part of the rep. With practice, the reps have more focus, the sets have more focus and the workouts have more focus.

I’ve build most of my strength with 4 reps in the tank, but with power-style movements you try to make the lift efficient. With muscle building you try to make it harder.

I will add that I had trouble gaining muscle working each body part 1x/week whether I training high volume, or high intensity. I started to gain when I went to 2x/week, but this was not because I wasn’t stimulating growth, it was because I believe that the second workout helped the muscles recover because when I trained them 1x/week then they just stayed tight and congested with lymphatic fluid for 7 days between workouts. I think now that 1x/week would work but you need to have some kind of active recovery in between workouts. Mentzer thought that you should minimize activity between workouts (though he claimed that his best routine ever had him training each muscle group every 4th day on a 2 way split). Twice a week works IMO because there is a restorative effect of a workout at least during the warmups, so light training still has a place in recovery. If I was going for just muscle growth right now I’d probably do one intense workout per muscle group per week, but also do an active recovery workout for each muscle group in a week which could be built into the warmup for the next body part.

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Uhhhhh WAT???

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Inflammatory markers show that the immune system is activated after an intense resistance training session for about a week. Macrophages and T-lympocytes as well as other white blood cells accumulate around sites of microtrauma to remodel it. This results in an accumulation of lymphatic fluid in the lymphatic vessels adjacent to the muscle. (Some research I was involved in demonstrated that stretched lymphatic vessels due to lymphatic buildup after training are actually the direct cause of DOMS by the way as we showed that muscles with fewer lymphatic vessels showed less DOMS, that pain was at the site of the nerves adjacent to the lymphatic vessels and that trained individuals showed a decrease in DOMS due to desensitization of the nerves adjacent to lymphatic vessels).

Anyway, enzyme elevation after training indicates that lymphatic fluid is still being produces circa 7 days after intense training even if DOMS has abated. Lynphatic fluid can only be cleared mechanically as the products are too large to be removed through the bloodstream. (There are a bunch of t-nation articles about this, and why NSAIDs and icing are bad while heat, light training and massage are good). In addition the direct effects of lymphatic buildup, the pressure caused by inflammation can reduce blood flow. (Have you read about “feeder” workouts done by the Russians (pool work), Westside (sled work), or “double stimulation” coined by CT?

At any rate, from a practical perspective, when I started training each muscle twice a week, at 80-90% maximum intensity I started to make gains after having made very little gains in 7 years training once per week. In my case, twice a week training was the difference between a 225 and a 365 bench press for example. I had been stuck at 225 for 7 years training 1/week and just by switching to 2x/week pushed it to 285 in 6 months and eventually 365 (and rising). Oh, and I also dropped my intensity from 1-2 reps shy of failure to 3-5 reps shy of failure. Granted, strength, not hyptertrophy, but I can still do a lot more for a set of 10 with a 365 max than a 225 max. I also think that occasionally higher volume workouts can help build work capacity that can be used to build muscle at times when you reduce volume and go closer to failure.

In other words, building strength and building work capacity don’t require you to train within 3 reps of failure, and they may not directly stimulate hypertrophy, but they can make you a better hypertrophy builder when you train for hypertrophy.

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Yeah, I’ve read that study. I’m confused because what you’re typing and the study you linked are in conflict with one another.

There is little information on whether T-cells are involved in repair and adaptation to contraction-induced damage.

In this study, it was concluded that the degree of T-cell infiltration following eccentric cycling was too small to be practically significant (although CD8 and CD4 T-cells were elevated in the muscle post-damage).

More recently, a report was published on a group of trained ultra-endurance athletes who completed a 24-h-long bout of exercise (Marklund et al., 2013). This activity resulted in substantial muscle damage. One day after the exercise bout there was a significant increase in the number of CD3 positive T-cells in the muscle.

But that’s ULTRA MARATHON. Not lifting in the gym for an hour.

The function of these T-cells and whether they were detrimental, beneficial or passive observers to the muscle damage/repair process following contraction-induced damage is not known.

I mean at the conclusion…

The mechanisms by which T-cells aid in muscle repair are yet to be firmly established

A few studies have shown that T-cells also accumulate in muscle following damaging muscle contractions. More investigation is needed to determine the necessity of T-cells in muscle repair from and adaptation to damaging muscle contractions.

Dude…you weren’t sitting around congested with lymphatic fluid due to a one hour training session. Stop.

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The only reason I linked to that study is because I said that macrophages AND probably T-lymphocytes were involved. We have mounds of research showing macrophage involvement but wanted to also support that t-lymphocytes might also be involved. Even if t-lymphocytes are not a major player in resistance training, macrophages are and they still yield lymphatic fluid.

There is also confirmation that AST levels can be elevated for about 7 days after weight training (with normal ALT levels indicating a muscular source). If AST is still elevated to the level of giving a false positive 7 days after intense weight training then the immune system is still generating lymphatic fluid at that point since AST activates macrophages. Muscular exercise can cause highly pathological liver function tests in healthy men - PMC

Given that AST is elevated 7 days after training (and I’ve personally gotten the false positive myself, which is countered by a low ALT and also since it went away with 1 week cessation of training) then there is still going to be a macrophage mediated response going on at that point since macrophages will respond to AST leaking out of a muscle cell.

Whatever the mechanism, I recovered better training twice a week than once a week and I believe that training has some effects that restore muscles. Maybe it’s because it loosens up scar tissue or promotes blood flow or lubricates joints.
For me, training muscles twice a week made all the difference. Staying away from failure also was critical for me to get stronger. I may still do a block of training to failure (2-3 weeks) but when I use progressive resistance for strength, if I start to grind reps it’s time to back off 5-10%.