Please clarify my understanding of hypertrophy

First of all let me give you the infographics through Chris Beardsley
1- Chris Beardsley on Instagram: "Here is a very simple overview of how hypertrophy happens. When we take into account the physiological mechanisms that affect muscle fiber mechanical tension (the force-velocity relationship and the length-tension relationship) there is no need for the hypotheses that metabolic stress and muscle damage contribute to muscle growth. -------------------- #sandcresearch #strengthandconditioning #strengthtraining #strength #sportsscience #biomechanics #exercisescience #research #sciencetopractice #performance #science #infographic #infographics #hypertrophy #muscle #musclegrowth #muscledamage #fatigue #peripheralfatigue #mechanicaltension #metabolicstress #forcevelocity #forcevelocityrelationship #lengthtension #lengthtensionrelationship"
2- Chris Beardsley on Instagram: "When strength training at the force end of the force-velocity relationship, the muscle fibers (and the whole muscle) experience high levels of tension. This high level of tension stimulates specific "tension-related" adaptations that lead to greater maximum strength. When strength training at the velocity end of the force-velocity relationship, the muscle fibers (and the whole muscle) experience low levels of tension, but high contraction velocities, and a fast detachment rate of the actin-myosin cross-bridges. These factors stimulates specific "velocity-related" adaptations that lead to an improved ability to produce force at high speeds (also known as greater high-velocity strength). -------------------- #sandcresearch #strengthandconditioning #strengthtraining #strength #sportsscience #biomechanics #exercisescience #research #sciencetopractice #performance #science #infographic #infographics #hypertrophy #muscle #musclegrowth #mechanicaltension #mechanicalloading #hypertrophymechanisms #forcevelocity #ratecoding #motorunitrecruitment #motorunit #forcevelocityrelationship"
3- Chris Beardsley on Instagram: "Although most experts assume that the mechanical tension that is experienced by muscle fibers is caused by the magnitude of the weight on the bar, this is not the case. In fact, the mechanical tension that is experienced by muscle fibers is determined (largely) by the force-velocity relationship. When muscle fibers contract more slowly, they exert a higher force. This important study shows that proximity to failure determines the bar speed irrespective of load. This means that activated muscle fibers will experience the same mechanical tension when they are at the same number of reps in reserve regardless of the weight on the bar. -------------------- #sandcresearch #strengthandconditioning #strengthtraining #strength #sportsscience #biomechanics #exercisescience #research #sciencetopractice #performance #science #infographic #infographics #hypertrophy #muscle #musclegrowth #muscledamage #hypertrophymechanisms #repsinreserve"

now here it clearly indicates that no other factor than mechanical loading is needed to explain or understand how hypertrophy occurs
First of all the Size Principle indicates high threshold motor units only recruit under a heavy load (Challenging enough) or through fatigue,
then there is Afferent feedback which indicates that central fatigue during strenght training can prevent full motor recruitment.
based of these factors using a light weight will only work because of fatigue and will prevent full motor recruitment since the only reason you recruited slow contractile muscle fibers was because of fatigue.
so the weight has to be challenging enough that you can’t do around 15 reps with it, it’s no use, why do 15 reps to fatigue yourself over the course of 3 sets? you guys keep saying that volume is needed and intensity is not the main driver of hyperthropy well I agree to that you need enough sets, doing heavy reps for 1 set is not enough, other research suggest that 3 to 8 sets per workout for a certain muscle group or 15 to 20 sets for a muscle group per week is optimal for growth but still doing 3x15 or 3x12 are higher in total reps than doing 3x5 but at the end of the day all those extra reps you did only got you fatigued with Afferent feedback so it prevented full activation via fatigue and doing those extra repetitions (which is also extra volume) were just a waste of time since all that matters is recruiting the slow contractile muscles for an optimal amount of sets,
in my opinion based off these sources of information and they make quite a lot of sense to me, why doing 3x10 a total of 30 reps would be better than 3x5 a total of 15 reps?
the only positive thing I can see here is because it is less heavy it might put less pressure on your tendonds,bones and ligaments ? which is not even a bad thing since they can adapt, I get it if you do 3x10 as a assitance exercise since doing a heavy 3x5 is enough pressure on your bones that does make perfect sense.

I don’t mean to say you guys are wrong but I really think these make sense and I really just can’t understand this repetition thing I don’t think more volume with repetitions are better, yes if you want to add volume you could do more sets per week to that muscle group but as long as the weight is challenging but that should be the only way to add more volume since as long as you do an optimal amount of sets for an optimal amount of reps (5-10) there is no need to do more repetitions to increase volume since you can’t even do more reps without lowering intensity.

5x5 is good because it has 15 sets per muscle group per week and when you can no longer recover from the last workout to add 2.5 kg to the bar to progressive overload more slowly you switch to 3x5 so when you add 2.5 kg to the bar now it’s for only 3 sets and now since you’re doing 9 sets per muscle group you can add assistance work to every lift like 3 more sets for that muscle group right after you did that lift.

what do you think ? is it better to perform an assistance exercise for squats after you squat when you’re still tired or maybe at the end of your workout when your legs recovered a bit more ?

what are gdp days that you do in the bridge program and why 7 minutes of back work or arm work ?

why is it so hard to overtrain your arms but easy to overtrain quads?

where did you guys learn about all these things about lifting ?

you talked about doing more training days as you get more experienced to trigger more muscle protein synthesis since it starts to last not that long as it did when you were new to lifting, how do we know when to increase training frequency and how do you optimize recovery for that?

which programs you guys using right now?

what do you think about the concurrent program?

what do you think about the madcow program ?

listening to your videos all day long you guys are awesome !!!

No. You can get equivalent hypertrophy from sets of 30 as sets of 5 (or 8) and it’s not necessarily more fatiguing. You just have to do more reps. Also, there’s plenty of data suggesting even sets that are pretty light, say RPE 5 or 6, contribute to hypertrophy. Helm’s paper suggests equivalent outcomes between RPE 5 and 8. So…I’m not sure that I would agree with what you’ve asserted here.

you guys keep saying that volume is needed and intensity is not the main driver of hyperthropy well I agree to that you need enough sets, doing heavy reps for 1 set is not enough, other research suggest that 3 to 8 sets per workout for a certain muscle group or 15 to 20 sets for a muscle group per week is optimal for growth

Depends on context (population, nutrition, program, etc.) so no, I wouldn’t agree with all that range. The operating principle at present is that given a program that adheres to progressive overload, volume is single-handedly the most predictive variable for hypertrophy.

I wouldn’t agree

Ok.

but still doing 3x15 or 3x12 are higher in total reps than doing 3x5 but at the end of the day all those extra reps you did only got you fatigued with Afferent feedback so it prevented full activation via fatigue and doing those extra repetitions (which is also extra volume) were just a waste of time since all that matters is recruiting the slow contractile muscles for an optimal amount of sets,

Nope. That’s not true at all. You get full activation when you fatigue the muscle, even fast twitch muscle fibers that are cycling on and off. No differences in growth unless volume is different. All of that suggests your qualms are misguided.

in my opinion based off these sources of information and they make quite a lot of sense to me, why doing 3x10 a total of 30 reps would be better than 3x5 a total of 15 reps?

Might get more stimulating reps with less fatigue cost w 3 x 10 and you can also do more sets compared to more heavy sets of 5. Additionally, you get some stimulus from the submax work.

the only positive thing I can see here is because it is less heavy it might put less pressure on your tendonds,bones and ligaments ? which is not even a bad thing since they can adapt, I get it if you do 3x10 as a assitance exercise since doing a heavy 3x5 is enough pressure on your bones that does make perfect sense.

Why is 3 x 5 preferred? they’re just two arbitrary numbers…

I don’t mean to say you guys are wrong but I really think these make sense and I really just can’t understand this repetition thing I don’t think more volume with repetitions are better, yes if you want to add volume you could do more sets per week to that muscle group but as long as the weight is challenging but that should be the only way to add more volume since as long as you do an optimal amount of sets for an optimal amount of reps (5-10) there is no need to do more repetitions to increase volume since you can’t even do more reps without lowering intensity.

We disagree with you. It doesn’t matter if intensity is lowered.

5x5 is good because it has 15 sets per muscle group per week and when you can no longer recover from the last workout to add 2.5 kg to the bar to progressive overload more slowly you switch to 3x5 so when you add 2.5 kg to the bar now it’s for only 3 sets and now since you’re doing 9 sets per muscle group you can add assistance work to every lift like 3 more sets for that muscle group right after you did that lift.

That’s not progressive overload. That’s peaking. Would be not great for hypertrophy with lower volume and only focusing on compound lifts would miss a lot of potential hypertrophy for more experienced lifters.

what do you think ? is it better to perform an assistance exercise for squats after you squat when you’re stil tired or maybe at the end of your workout when your legs recovered a bit more ?

It doesn’t matter from a hypertrophy standpoint. From a specific strength standpoint, I’d want to tailor the programming towards those needs.

what are gdp days that you do in the bridge program and why 7 minutes of back work or arm work ?

I don’t know what GDP days are.

We explain why we do time priority training, at times, for accessory work in the supplemental text for the bridge, the beginner template, and all of our programs. In short, it’s an easy way to accumulate volume.

why is it so hard to overtrain your arms but easy to overtrain quads?

I don’t think it’s easy to overtrain either.

where did you guys learn about all these things about lifting ?

Books, studies, practical experience.

you talked about doing more training days as you get more experienced to trigger more muscle protein synthesis since it starts to last not that long as it did when you were new to lifting, how do we know when to increase training frequency and how do you optimize recovery for that?

You’ll need to train more as you get more trained. There’s no hard cutoff and you won’t “know” based on anything you can measure directly relating to MPS. When your strength slows down, you’ll need to adjust programming as needed.

which programs you guys using right now?

They’re custom programs, though they do adhere to the principles we talk about.

what do you think about the concurrent program?

There is no concurrent “program”, as this is a type of periodization. It can be a very effective way to program.

what do you think about the madcow program ?

I think if someone likes it and wants to use it to train, that’s cool, but it’s not great.

I appreciate the enthusiasm and the kind words. Next post, let’s cut the questions down to 1 or 2 :slight_smile:

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