Somewhat unrelated but back in June I got my country’s equivalent to CSCS, and out of the ~15 something individuals present, 6 or 7 had never touched a weight.
That’s whack
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What really gets me is when some of these guys say shit like “there are no upper lats” for credibility while calling bodybuilders dumb. OF COURSE there’re no upper lats. It’s just a term people commonly use to describe the part of the back above the lat muscles.
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I’m actually a firm follower of solipsism which , I’ll admit, is a bit tricky when training in a public gym. Otherwise, it allows me to believe I’m the most jacked person in the world.
No offence mate, I have a degree in philosophy (it seemed like a good idea at the time). You are entitled to present your argument here like everyone else but you’re not the first to claim, wrongly, you have discovered a universal truth. Thomas Hobbes thought he’d squared the circle, but that ended badly.
Check out the writings of Thomas Reid, the so called common sense school of philosophy. This puts a lot of these types of debate in perspective.
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I got jacked at 16(1994) in my bedroom, using a York barbell set(the ones filled with sand) and a York bench which had a wee leg extension attached to it.
This is a simple pursuit. One that can be mastered by teenager boys with scant information.
Those were the days man. Minimal information complimented with maximal gains.
It always raises a wry grin thinking about how there has never been so much science and information available yet the 90s is still revered as the peak of bodybuilding
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It’s like, look, as an employer in a small firm I look at people’s resumes differently depending on the position required.
If I need a business development or account manager I only look for basic academic qualifications and more on experience and client accounts he/she’s previously held or currently holds.
If I need a media content developer, I ONLY look at his portfolio. Nothing else. I don’t care what qualifications you have if your portfolio sucks.
If I need a statistician, I look for someone with At LEAST a post graduate degree with less emphasis on experience(mostly because I can’t afford to hire someone with both lol but you get the point) because this is some complex shit he’s supposed to be doing.
If I want a trainer, naturally I look for the big dudes who can properly articulate their methods and provide clear hands on training. Any academic qualifications or the ability to quote studies is irrelevant to me.
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Then you joined a proper gym with machines and fancy equipment; got access to the internet and a wealth of training/nutrition information - and it was all downhill from there!!!
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Every time this subject gets brought up this movie clip comes to mind.
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One of the guys who set up the business with me went from a bachelors directly to phd in marketing science or some shit like that and was an associate professor while completing his studies. Which means he’s a pretty smart dude.
I’m gonna simplify this a lot cos not everyone here is in my industry so this does not reflect exactly what we do:
Whenever he constructs a complex marketing proposal with all sorts of academic fluff, it’s only when pitching to lower level, relatively inexperienced staff working for potential clients. For the seasoned guys in the upper ranks, he gives them relatively simple stuff that even laymen can understand.
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If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it.
I think a lot of the folks who don’t lift but quote studies are really appealing to authority. Our world seems to no longer value a learning journey, so everyone has to prove they know something
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And to add to that, the need to instant gratification completely over shadows what it takes to get to your end goal.
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For real. I think it just sucks to hear that there really isn’t a “better” way and it just takes the years of doing it
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Millennials want big muscle as fast as their google search.
Clint Darden said it right. Everyone wants to figure out how to make their workout easier when they should be figuring out how to make it harder.
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I think it’s safe to say there are certain science-based protocols you probably wouldn’t discover intuitively. The one that jumps out to me is Katsu training, or blood flow restriction (BFR). Now, there is also, what some might call ‘good science’, that actually shows this style of training does cause hypertrophy. Yet, how many meatheads actually use BFR? It seems, therefore, irrational not to employ a technique when it has been shown to ‘work’? Similarly, how many people stagnate, or spin their wheels? Yet they stick to the same methods? Again, it seems irrational behaviour (or ‘madness’ according to Einstein).
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Me neither. Everything has its place.
Using me for example: I’m a tech/college trained welder. I’ve skimmed the science enough to understand and apply some of it, but not nearly enough to write the rules on vibration limits in nuclear reactor design and construction for submarines.
I can safely say “Too much is bad.” though. And pass codes tests for some important stuff by going “Not too hot, not too cold, just right…”. Or “fuck it, crank it up. I have 150 ft. of rust and crud to burn through today.”.
Because I’m a mid level application/technician kind of guy.
Technology is applied science, with application being the key word. The science has already been figured out. It’s up to me to do it.
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Yeah, sure. I’m not saying that doing training choices only based on anecdotal/personal experiences would offer 100% solid training knowledge.
Just saying that if you’re doing something that contradicts scientific consensus, but its working, go for it.
Of course you shloud think why works or does not work. Because there are explanations, they can be hard/impossible to find, but its reasonable to try to figure out stuff.
There are also some limitations and problems within excersising science, which should be accounted for.
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I think rational evaluation of the evidence (note many studies are poorly conducted and interpreted by many, so great care needs to be taken in finding studies and interpreting them) is useful for setting boundary conditions for your training.
Empirical evidence can be misleading too, and I have been mislead by Flex magazine articles about pro BBer workouts and diets when I was starting out. It worked for Jay Cutler, so it should work for me, right? Nope.
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I understand that to a degree but I enjoy the journey as much as the result.
It depends on how these articles were written and interpreted.
ALL bodybuilders I knew in the 90s would pyramid up their sets to a top set for the heavy compound exercises. So when the article says:
Bench Press
5 sets of 8-12 reps
It’s really 3-4 sets ramped up to 1-2 all-out set(s). Which is pretty much like the 531 progression model used with more movements with higher reps done for the sets before the top set. You can go see Jay, Ronnie and lots of others actually do this in their youtube videos.
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Of course, I regard these studies as ‘interesting’ but they are open to all sorts of issues including data fraud, questionable subject reporting/compliance, etc…
I don’t see anything wrong with the pursuit of sports science. The issue is that people are often trying to reinvent the wheel. Maybe it’s just me but it seems like when it comes to strength/hypertrophy it all comes back to mechanical tension. Other methods work, for sure, but mechanical tension and the ability to contract the working muscle (mind muscle connection - especially for intermediate/advanced lifters) seems to be the key components. Negatives, loaded stretching, occlusion, pump training, slow eccentrics, etc, all apply too but the key is: mechanical tension.
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Just read through a passage in Schoenfeld’s book that might interest you:
“Mechanical tension alone has been shown to directly stimulate mTOR (113), possibly through activation of the extracellular signal–regulated kinase/tuberous sclerosis complex 2 (ERK/TSC2) pathway (188).”
Also
“Research indicates that mechanosensors are sensitive to both the magnitude and temporal aspects of loading… Peak tension was determined to be a better predictor of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphorylation than either time under tension or rate of tension development… an in situ evaluation of the rat gastrocnemius muscle showed a linear relationship between time under tension and the signaling of JNK, whereas the rate of change of tension showed no effect. This suggests that time under tension is an important parameter for muscle hypertrophic adaptations.”
MAPK is one of the anabolic cascade signalling systems
So yes, it appears that chasing mechanical tension as a primary directive rather than damage or tempos should be effective