The Science of Exercise

[ORD]

Halb said:

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I don't mean that facetiously.
The blogspot I posted is one of the best, if not the best repository of lifting knowledge on the web.
Bill Starr knows a thing or two, and he knows long sets build strength, he's not a cardio guy or an inexperienced lifter either.

Edited by Halb on Wednesday 28th February 13:47

Sort of true. Greg Nuckols' analysis suggests that all rep ranges result in fairly similar hypertrophy (all else being equal), but even then very high rep ranges are less effective for strength increases.


https://www.strongerbyscience.com/hypertrophy-rang...

I nonetheless think very high reps are unlikely to result in much of a strength increase for most people (if they are remotely trained), for 3 reasons:

(1) Judging how close you are to failure becomes very difficult once you are above about 20 reps. Could you do another 2 reps? Almost always. Another 5 reps? Who knows! And high rep work is only worth a damn if taken to failure (the studies definitely show this). Participants in high rep studies are forced (almost with a gone to their heads) to get all the reps they possibly can. It is not a typical workout.

(2) Very high rep work with anything like a big enough weight to generate a reasonable amount of mechanical tension is extremely hard work. If you can do 60 reps, the first 30 will be very easy indeed but the last 10 will be utterly horrible. As in point (1), I don't really see most people getting to true failure.

(3) Related to reason 2, there must be a relatively high risk of injury if you are doing this kind of thing with any real weight - those last 10 reps out of 60 are simply bound to sloppy. My own experience is that I almost always injure myself slightly when I do very high rep work. Nothing major, but little pulls here and there. And I am a form Nazi! I imagine that your average gym bro would tear himself to pieces to get those last 10 reps.

All that said, I put a fair amount of faith in the experience of very successful lifters, and a lot of them say that throwing in some very high rep work is useful. My own guess is that this is because it trains the lifter to tolerate discomfort (which is helpful for mid-range rep work) and builds muscular endurance, allowing the lifter to lift more and get more reps in the more fruitful rep range of around 5-15 reps.

A huge caveat to this last point, though, is that a lot of these guys are massive juicers. Nothing they say about hypertrophy can be taken to heart without bearing in mind that a juiced lifter is a different creature from a natural lifter. What works for a 300 pound bodybuilder may not work for me and you.

[Halb]

Well we'll just disagree. Can't find the article now, but Starr was stuck in a place over winter with a stty garage gym with (can barely recall), 100 pounds of weight or something similar, he arranged his sets respectively and got stronger

I also follow (and have followed) an old wrestling air squat system myself, which I know delivers strength/power.

[didelydoo]

Any work will get you stronger given effort and time- some people react better to some stimuli than others do- but generally everything works. It comes down to effectiveness and bang for buck given restraints such as time.

I never write a particular thing off, because, at some point, everything has it's place. There are things I used to think silly, but as I grew my knowledge, I can see how they have their uses- perhaps not mainstays or cornerstones, but useful none the less. I love pressing in the smith machine now for instance.

I've found my training groove, for now, but should aims change, training will shift accordingly.

[popeyewhite]

ORD said:

I nonetheless think very high reps are unlikely to result in much of a strength increase for most people (if they are remotely trained), for 3 reasons:

Largely correct, but mainly
because the largest muscle fibres are fast twitch.. type IIa and type IIb. (the ones that are utilised more when lifting heavy) Of the two the biggest, type IIb. is anaerobic (non-oxidative). Both contract quickly and tire quickly and are used for short fast doses of power, such as sprint starts, or powerlifting, or bodybuilding. These fibres won't respond to high reps.High reps are unlikely to make much impact on strength, although, as has been noted, muscle hypertrophy is easily possible so I suppose slight strength increase are as well, but it's not optimum....it's just that you're not stimulating the largest amount of muscle fibres - they respond best under 8 reps for strength and under 12 for muscle hypertrophy. So what I'm saying is if you want to increase strength meaningfully you work the fast twitch type IIb fibres - and for these high reps are pointless as they tire too quickly.

[ORD]

popeyewhite said:

Largely correct, but mainly
because the largest muscle fibres are fast twitch.. type IIa and type IIb. (the ones that are utilised more when lifting heavy) Of the two the biggest, type IIb. is anaerobic (non-oxidative). Both contract quickly and tire quickly and are used for short fast doses of power, such as sprint starts, or powerlifting, or bodybuilding. These fibres won't respond to high reps.High reps are unlikely to make much impact on strength, although, as has been noted, muscle hypertrophy is easily possible so I suppose slight strength increase are as well, but it's not optimum....it's just that you're not stimulating the largest amount of muscle fibres - they respond best under 8 reps for strength and under 12 for muscle hypertrophy. So what I'm saying is if you want to increase strength meaningfully you work the fast twitch type IIb fibres - and for these high reps are pointless as they tire too quickly.

The fast twitch fibres are brought into play eventually with very high reps (in accordance with the size principle and reflecting fatigue).

But, as I say, I doubt most lifters would exhaust their fibres optimally with very high rep work.

I agree with DD, though, that everything works at least a bit and at least for a while. Most of us would probably benefit from shaking it up.

[Halb]

didelydoo said:

I never write a particular thing off, because, at some point, everything has it's place. There are things I used to think silly, but as I grew my knowledge, I can see how they have their uses- perhaps not mainstays or cornerstones, but useful none the less. I love pressing in the smith machine now for instance.

That's very true. I never write anything off now
I used to dismiss the grease the groove thing and other things, the smith is decent for calf work and other things.

edit
I think that time is probably also the factor, old timers were strong, with epic sets, they had the time, they didn't have Nintendo.
Or one could be like Charles Bronson and just stay indoors for 23 hours and get on those press-ups and bowel cleans

Edited by Halb on Wednesday 28th February 22:48

[popeyewhite]

ORD said:

The fast twitch fibres are brought into play eventually with very high reps (in accordance with the size principle and reflecting fatigue).

Makes no difference as the muscular contraction is neither fast enough, or the weight heavy enough, to force adaptation.

[LordGrover]

I'm pretty convinced that even some of the big guys (and gals) at my gym get decent results despite what they do, not because of what they do.

[ORD]

popeyewhite said:

Makes no difference as the muscular contraction is neither fast enough, or the weight heavy enough, to force adaptation.

Not sure that’s right. Decent hypertrophy has been shown to occur with weights as low as 30% of 1RM. But all the points I made above apply - I just don’t think most people would get good results with such low weights in the real world.

[popeyewhite]

LordGrover said:

I'm pretty convinced that even some of the big guys (and gals) at my gym get decent results despite what they do, not because of what they do.

Sure, there's science then there's genetics. You look at some guy's form and their size and it boggles the mind how they got that way. I guess some are just lucky.

[didelydoo]

popeyewhite said:

Sure, there's science then there's genetics. You look at some guy's form and their size and it boggles the mind how they got that way. I guess some are just lucky.

Branch Warren Springs to mind- trains in a way that everyone says is awful. Yet has crazy development and conditioning. He's not to my taste (looks like he's been stitched from bits)- but you cant fault what he made with his training methods that fly in the face of what body builders are supposed to do.

[Halb]

I have more faith in the 10,000 hour rule, than genetics.

---

anyhoo

how to empty one's bowels
Secrets of Bodyweight Manipulation, Part Four - J.M.Blakley
http://ditillo2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/secrets-of-...

High Rep Training - Dick Conner & Dave Wedding
http://ditillo2.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/high-rep-tr...

High, High-Rep Training - Greg Merritt
http://ditillo2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/high-high-r...

[popeyewhite]

Halb said:

I have more faith in the 10,000 hour rule, than genetics.

10,000 hr 'theory of practice'. Not sure it applies to bodybuilding/powerlifting anyway. The original work, done by a chap called Erikson, was based on research looking at whether musicians were born expert or developed expertise through practice. There were lots of 'rules' to Erikson's theory, most probably wouldn't transfer to how well a body physically adapts to exercise. It's an interesting concept though Halb... .

[ORD]

Genetic differences are absolutely enormous. The variety of responses to tightly regimented training in studies is typically massive. Identical training regimes and yet some participants will see loads of hypertrophy and others literally none.

[Halb]

popeyewhite said:

10,000 hr 'theory of practice'. Not sure it applies to bodybuilding/powerlifting anyway. The original work, done by a chap called Erikson, was based on research looking at whether musicians were born expert or developed expertise through practice. There were lots of 'rules' to Erikson's theory, most probably wouldn't transfer to how well a body physically adapts to exercise. It's an interesting concept though Halb... .

It's an interesting theory. From what I see, the work ethic, or shoving out everything else and training is the reason of existence, this is what gets a person to elite level. The epic wrestler, Aleksandr Karelin had an answer for how he won 3 (should have been four, but yanks) golds at consecutive games, "I train every day of my life as they have never trained a day in theirs" This is where the real genetics come into play I think, with people starting their journey on the spectrum. Karelin started off as a useless lump, but his dedication (like the rower, Redgrave) to sacrifice his life basically led to success,
I've seen this in the wrestling gym (and not just there), a single-minded brain is the best genetics to have.

[BMWBen]

This is my favourite study on aerobic exercise. The generally accepted position is that you can't have that much effect on your VO2max, and you basically get what you get (you have a fixed "engine size" if you will).

This study from 1977 throws it all out of the window, and managed to get significant linear improvements over a 10 week period.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/838658

The only problem was that the regime was so hard that none of the subjects would continue the study

The training plan was:
Training 6 days per week, one day rest.
3 days per week cycling - 6 x 5 min intervals with 2 mins rest in between, maintaining a VO2max output for the duration of each interval on a special static bike that varied the resistance.
3 days per week running - hard as you can for 40 mins.

The results were an average of 40% improvement in VO2max over the study, with linear gains week to week for all participants.

I'm not sure I could complete a single week cycle of that... so it turns out VO2Max *is* trainable, it's just very very hard to do so.

Most of the full text available here:
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/the-american-physiolog...

Edited by BMWBen on Friday 2nd March 14:36

[Halb]

The 'rest-pause' style as referenced by DD
https://www.t-nation.com/training/rest-pause-train...

[TameRacingDriver]

Halb said:

The 'rest-pause' style as referenced by DD
https://www.t-nation.com/training/rest-pause-train...

Funnily enough I decided to try that since it was suggested. Fairly brutal, but it doesn't add too much extra time to a workout. Mind on the squats I have to have a good minute rest as I was properly knackered after taking the first main set to near exhaustion.

[ATG]

bloomen said:

Why is every single aspect of diet and exercise knowledge such a hopelessly muddled stshow? Surely by now some obvious principles should've been established.

Because human body complicated and you can't perform the experiments required due to inconvenient things like people being unwilling to volunteer to be tortured.

Also half the questions asked for the sake of the exercise industry aren't of fundamental or medical interest, and therefore aren't pursued by serious science.

[didelydoo]

TameRacingDriver said:

Funnily enough I decided to try that since it was suggested. Fairly brutal, but it doesn't add too much extra time to a workout. Mind on the squats I have to have a good minute rest as I was properly knackered after taking the first main set to near exhaustion.

I'd avoid doing it with deads, and be very wary with squats.