This is what I find so interesting about the attempt to make everything science based.
And it also means ignoring the physiques built by gymnasts, who are certainly employing low intensity and high volume in their training. Or track cyclists, with massive legs built with low intensity and high volume.
The “I’ll tell Wendler that” thing is interesting when one considers that Paul initially was a guy that would send Jim questions and they’d reply to each other over e-mail.
In general though, I’m the kind of guy that will hear something won’t work and then go make it work out of spite.
Compounded by the problem that while some science seems to support his idea of ‘5 effective reps’, there is lots of science that doesn’t.
Exercise science is very interesting, but very little of it is directly applicable.
Not least because the method applied is:
1- hey this thing works, I wonder why
2- I theorise it could be because of this
3- test
4- either a it works or b it doesn’t.
If a - hey great, so this might be why it works. So what? Well keep doing it.
If b - hmm this doesn’t seem to be why it works. So what? Well keep doing it and we’ll try and find out why.
I still have to chuckle at the notion of the body’s ability to count reps.
What if I don’t lockout at the top. Does the body still count it, or does it go by powerlifting rules? If I never lockout, do I do zero reps, and therefore none of them are effective? If I’m only doing 3/4 reps, does that actually mean that, to get my “5 effective reps”, I have to do 6.66 reps (repeating of course)? Do pause reps equal the same as non paused reps, or should I count the time under tension during the pause?
Because the majority of the science based stuff is BS and just tries to prove what meatheads have known for decades. This whole effective reps is just another aspect of it.
It’s hard to keep a straight face when someone says only certain reps are effective when there are plenty of seriously muscular people who have never done those specific reps. All they did were common or garden reps, which don’t work. Apparently.
I don’t understand why it gets so heated discussing which reps are best. Surely whichever rep works is perfectly fine, regardless of what weight it was or how many reps after it you could have done or how it felt in the muscle.
It’s a weird psychological thing. People will experience success with something. They’ll have the results right there in front of them. By all accounts, they “know” that their method works. But when someone tells them it can’t work, they start to doubt everything they know and lash out or question everything.
It’s just like when you enjoy something and someone comes around and says it sucks. That ultimately shouldn’t matter to you, because you enjoy it, and it doesn’t matter if someone else does, but people will those their goddamn minds and have day long arguments desperately attempting to prove that the thing they like doesn’t suck.
I’m totally fine with letting stupid people be wrong about things. I don’t see a need to convert them.
I’m intrigued why it’s important which reps of, say, a 20 rep squat fest, were effective. If only 4 were effective, does that mean you can skip the first 16?
I’m really interested in Confirmation Bias. I also admit to actively seeking out arguments where I see my biases about Confirmation Biases being confirmed.
Dammit. I was really getting fond of that number five. I’d kind’of go into a happy place when I though I was entering the “last 5”, really feeling how I was getting all mechanically loaded an’ stuff. Now you’ve ruined it.
How do Olympic lifters have big legs? But they never do sets over 5 reps? They’ve never done BB work? And they train every day? How can they recover noooooooooooo
