If Iām reading this correctly , and thatās not easy , it sounds like this backs up 30 10 30 in that you donāt need to go to failure but close to it to cause hypertrophy ??
Scott
Lots of Interesting ideas in that article. It is one I had not seen before, so thanks for posting.
Hereās a thought. Arthur speculated that failure was likely not a requirement but that since measuring āalmostā failure was difficult, going to absolute failure would assure one of having done whatever was needed to stimulate progress. Perhaps Dr Darden has figured out a way to measure āalmost failureā. And if you buy into inroad theory, failure is only a means to the end of inroad and again, what I think Dr Darden is after? Inroad to stimulate adaptation without overdoing a stimulus that is too difficult to recover from. Iām beginning to ramble so stopping now n
That is a reasonable explanation, but not entirely in sync with Beardsleyās world view.
As I understand him, Beardsleyās main point is that for a rep to be stimulating, it has to be high effort. You have to be trying and failing to move the weight quickly. The slow speed of movement canāt be deliberate, it has to happen because you just canāt produce any more force. Under these conditions, you are maximally recruiting fast twitch fiber, and the contraction velocity is low enough to permit a lot of cross bridging.
You can get to this state by lifting a heavy weight, or taking a lighter weight to a sufficient degree of fatigue, such that it starts to feel heavy. In the latter case, you will inroad deeply and approach failure. But the deep inroad and approach to failure are by-products of getting to the point where conditions are right for hypertrophy, they are not the trigger. As to why you might not want to go all the way to failure: recovery. He would say going to failure and inroading deeply unnecessarily deplete you, and significantly increase recovery requirements for relatively little extra hypertrophy. The alternative: use heavier weight, stop short of failure, donāt inroad so deeply, and do more sets. The downside: it takes more time.
I donāt know whether he is 100% correct on all of the above. But there are people, mostly power lifters, who rarely go to failure, and still end up pretty muscular.
Mr. Beardsley cites outdated/wrong information regarding muscle cross bridges. This phenomenon occurs in milliseconds which allows reflex activity. Slowing exercise rep speed down by a few seconds has little effect on muscle cross bridge activity. This is an old SuperSlow lie.
His book certainly does not recommend slow eccentrics for muscle growth as standard operating procedure. Nice try!
Itās pretty simple really.
If Dr Dardenās 30-10-30 interests you then give it a try.
If it doesnāt, then simply do not do it.
If you are currently using it and noticing positive results , then continue with it.
If not ,then either stop doing it or adapt it to what you know about your response to exercise (productive TULs /volume etc) .
Never let studies dictate the direction of your training.
Use your own mind , observe and note the response or non response of a particular method and take it from there.
Science can tell you why something may or may not work , but due to the huge amount of variables , irrespective of the calibre and integrity of the study , it can never tell you what methods work best.
Mark
I think you are pretty much spot on Rich.
Mark
@markh501 absolutely bang on. So many people need to read that.
On the heavy vs light weights to reach failure/near failure each has its pros and cons and will suit different people depending on their preferences.
Negatives of too heavyā¦
Technical failure before muscular failure.
Higher injury risk.
Harder to keep tension on target muscle.
Negatives of too lightā¦
Stopping a set before failure due to boredom.
Stopping a set before failure due to lactate.
As always the middle ground/ mixture of both is probably the best bet and its a sliding scale depending on what you prefer and what maintains your motivation.
== Scott==
This is probably why I see so many of these big guys seemingly stopping short of failure with heavy weights but banging out many sets . Time doesnāt matter to them as they practically live in the gym anyway.
Slow and fast are nonquantitative adjectives. Slow doesnāt necessarily mean a 10 second or 30 second or 60 second excursion. My impression is that Beardsley defines slow and fast in terms of the strength-velocity curve for force development. (Caveat: I havenāt bought his book yet.)
In any case, it would make sense to have a pragmatic definition for rep speed: Slow would be a velocity where you can develop force at a level approaching that which can be developed with an isometric contraction. Fast would be a velocity where your ability to develop force is significantly less than an isometric contraction.
Iām also curious: If cross bridging can happen in milliseconds, why does the force velocity curve exist? What else is responsible for the decline in peak force as the rate of muscle contraction increases?
That is an excellent philosophy. Studies are fun to read for some of us. But the final test is to try the idea on yourself. Heated arguments over theories that are incomplete or still in flux are mostly a waste of time.
It is cool, though, when you find a theory which seems to explain why a wide range of training methods work pretty well.
In general, the more predictive and/or explanatory power a theory has, the better the theory is, just from a purely pragmatic point of view. In the end, theories are not reality, they are maps of reality, useful to the extent they help you navigate.
An interesting scientific study review from 2019. Fairly easy to read and understand. In short: There are many ways to Rome, and lots of scientific evidence is still missing. Most of what you believe in seem to work, with few exceptions. HIT is not explicitly represented, but they do mention accentuated negatives as an option.
This can indicate that proven experience over time is as reliable a source on resistance training, as the current science.
I couldnāt find any details proposing fast negative reps as superior, though. Merely yet another technique among others.
== Scott==
Iām guessing in some scientific study It can be shown that a faster negative does produce superior hypertrophy but how to safely use that in a typical workout is another question and then we are back to that ever present question, what is considered fast ?
From the paper:
āConclusions: Due to insufficient evidence, it is difficult to provide specific guidelines for volume, intensity of effort, and frequency of previously mentioned RT techniques and methodsā
So in the absence of science, I guess we have license to try everything and decide for ourselves what works!
I donāt know about papers or studies but I do know I put my trust in Ellington Darden. If he sees something good about 30 10 30 or whatever I trust his experience over anyone else.
Scott
For years SuperSlow claimed 10 seconds allowed more cross bridge activity. However, muscle twitch activity occurs in milliseconds. Therefore, artificially slowed reps could not appreciably increase muscle cross bridge activity. This was a critical logic error in SuperSlow dogma, and quite simply destroyed the basis for this methodology. Brian Johnston showed with force plate readings the continued fallacy of this method of training.
Neither the graph nor the article says anything about how the velocity of muscle contraction affects the amount or number of cross bridges that are formed in a working muscle.
The graph shows that when stimulated by a twitch, muscles fibers can respond quickly by creating some cross bridges rapidly. But the peak of that curve does not represent peak muscle tension. That requires a repeated stream of twitching, which takes more time, meaning that summation to reach full tension would be a slower process.
As far as I can tell, the sliding filament theory is still part of the fundamental framework of muscle physiology. Physiology texts still contain the same explanation for the force velocity curve, which is this:
" What is the physiologic basis of the force-velocity relationship? The force generated by a muscle depends on the total number of [cross-bridges] attached. Because it takes a finite amount of time for cross-bridges to attach, as filaments slide past one another faster and faster (i.e., as the muscle shortens with increasing velocity), force decreases due to the lower number of cross-bridges attached. Conversely, as the relative filament velocity decreases (i.e., as muscle velocity decreases), more cross-bridges have time to attach and to generate force, and thus force increases."
(http://muscle.ucsd.edu/musintro/props.shtml)
As far as I can tell, the proper way to interpret this is that:
- When myosin and actin are in close proximity and do form a cross bridge, that happens rather quickly.
- But the total number of cross bridges that actually form depends on how rapidly the muscle is contracting. At high velocities of contraction, the probably of cross bridge formation decreases, i.e., myosin and actin segments are more likely to slide by each other without forming a cross bridge.
If you have references which show that this explanation has been replaced by something else, Iād love to see it.