A Fascinating and Alarming Study....
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songbyrdsweet
Posts: 5,691 Member
My exercise science teacher once said, "One day you will fall off an educational cliff. Everything you think you know will be proven wrong, and you'll have to start from the beginning again."
Well folks, IT HAPPENED ALREADY.
I'll warn you now that this is sort of long and might be boring, but for me it's sort of like someone discovering the earth is flat. :frown:
A recent study was published examining hypertrophy, or muscle growth. It looked at a few things:
What causes hypertrophy--low rep, high weight, or low weight, high rep?
Can we spot train? Do different 'angles' cause sections of muscle to get bigger?
It got a bit more specific than that, but for the purpose of this post, I'll just talk about this.
Most of you have read my posts about muscle growth--previous knowledge dictated that a certain rep range (10-12) would promote the greatest hypertrophy by recruiting many types of muscle fibers due to the rep range and causing the max release of GH. Alternately, low-rep work promoted strength but not hypertrophy by just using one fiber type and not causing much GH release.
Well, the study found that REPS DON'T MATTER. :noway: All that matters is how many muscle fibers you can recruit--in other words, you have to tire out a lot of cells by using multi-joint movements and working to fatigue (or close). You can do that with low rep, high weight, or high rep, low weight, or anything in between.
So periodization is the arrangement of training patterns over a given period of time, an usually goes Endurance, Hypertrophy, Strength, Power, back to Endurance. However, it looks like all of these can produce hypertrophy, and while we would normally use repetitions to distinguish between the phases, now we might have to just use volume. You can still train for Endurance differently than from Strength, but Hypertrophy is wide open now.
And spot training....well, it's possible :noway: , but it's different than how we view it. If we do an incline press, we think "This will work the top of my pec." It doesn't. But it may cause more growth at the origin and insertion points of the pec--so at the sternum and shoulder, the muscle will grow more than if you were to skip the incline press. Previously, we "knew" that the whole muscle fired, and would hypertrophy in a uniform fashion. But we have also seen this in the triceps muscle--one head can hypertrophy individually from the others.
And something else separate from the study but equally amazing...
We may be able to gain some muscle while in a hypocaloric diet. :noway:
It's a VERY small amount...not something that could account for an increase in scale weight in the short term. But a lb of muscle requires half the calories of a lb of fat to produce (because protein contains 4 cal/g and fat contains 9cal/g). So it may be possible to use fat calories toward protein production. Note- I am NOT saying that fat is converted to muscle. That is NOT possible. What's happening is that there is enough ATP (energy) to support some protein-sparing. However, you'd have to be in a fairly small deficit, be lifting regularly and promoting hypertrophy (meaning your workouts need to be very challenging). My prof and I discussed this at great length because I was very doubtful. It still needs to be studied much more carefully.....by me maybe hehe :bigsmile:
Well folks, IT HAPPENED ALREADY.
I'll warn you now that this is sort of long and might be boring, but for me it's sort of like someone discovering the earth is flat. :frown:
A recent study was published examining hypertrophy, or muscle growth. It looked at a few things:
What causes hypertrophy--low rep, high weight, or low weight, high rep?
Can we spot train? Do different 'angles' cause sections of muscle to get bigger?
It got a bit more specific than that, but for the purpose of this post, I'll just talk about this.
Most of you have read my posts about muscle growth--previous knowledge dictated that a certain rep range (10-12) would promote the greatest hypertrophy by recruiting many types of muscle fibers due to the rep range and causing the max release of GH. Alternately, low-rep work promoted strength but not hypertrophy by just using one fiber type and not causing much GH release.
Well, the study found that REPS DON'T MATTER. :noway: All that matters is how many muscle fibers you can recruit--in other words, you have to tire out a lot of cells by using multi-joint movements and working to fatigue (or close). You can do that with low rep, high weight, or high rep, low weight, or anything in between.
So periodization is the arrangement of training patterns over a given period of time, an usually goes Endurance, Hypertrophy, Strength, Power, back to Endurance. However, it looks like all of these can produce hypertrophy, and while we would normally use repetitions to distinguish between the phases, now we might have to just use volume. You can still train for Endurance differently than from Strength, but Hypertrophy is wide open now.
And spot training....well, it's possible :noway: , but it's different than how we view it. If we do an incline press, we think "This will work the top of my pec." It doesn't. But it may cause more growth at the origin and insertion points of the pec--so at the sternum and shoulder, the muscle will grow more than if you were to skip the incline press. Previously, we "knew" that the whole muscle fired, and would hypertrophy in a uniform fashion. But we have also seen this in the triceps muscle--one head can hypertrophy individually from the others.
And something else separate from the study but equally amazing...
We may be able to gain some muscle while in a hypocaloric diet. :noway:
It's a VERY small amount...not something that could account for an increase in scale weight in the short term. But a lb of muscle requires half the calories of a lb of fat to produce (because protein contains 4 cal/g and fat contains 9cal/g). So it may be possible to use fat calories toward protein production. Note- I am NOT saying that fat is converted to muscle. That is NOT possible. What's happening is that there is enough ATP (energy) to support some protein-sparing. However, you'd have to be in a fairly small deficit, be lifting regularly and promoting hypertrophy (meaning your workouts need to be very challenging). My prof and I discussed this at great length because I was very doubtful. It still needs to be studied much more carefully.....by me maybe hehe :bigsmile:
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My exercise science teacher once said, "One day you will fall off an educational cliff. Everything you think you know will be proven wrong, and you'll have to start from the beginning again."
Well folks, IT HAPPENED ALREADY.
I'll warn you now that this is sort of long and might be boring, but for me it's sort of like someone discovering the earth is flat. :frown:
A recent study was published examining hypertrophy, or muscle growth. It looked at a few things:
What causes hypertrophy--low rep, high weight, or low weight, high rep?
Can we spot train? Do different 'angles' cause sections of muscle to get bigger?
It got a bit more specific than that, but for the purpose of this post, I'll just talk about this.
Most of you have read my posts about muscle growth--previous knowledge dictated that a certain rep range (10-12) would promote the greatest hypertrophy by recruiting many types of muscle fibers due to the rep range and causing the max release of GH. Alternately, low-rep work promoted strength but not hypertrophy by just using one fiber type and not causing much GH release.
Well, the study found that REPS DON'T MATTER. :noway: All that matters is how many muscle fibers you can recruit--in other words, you have to tire out a lot of cells by using multi-joint movements and working to fatigue (or close). You can do that with low rep, high weight, or high rep, low weight, or anything in between.
So periodization is the arrangement of training patterns over a given period of time, an usually goes Endurance, Hypertrophy, Strength, Power, back to Endurance. However, it looks like all of these can produce hypertrophy, and while we would normally use repetitions to distinguish between the phases, now we might have to just use volume. You can still train for Endurance differently than from Strength, but Hypertrophy is wide open now.
And spot training....well, it's possible :noway: , but it's different than how we view it. If we do an incline press, we think "This will work the top of my pec." It doesn't. But it may cause more growth at the origin and insertion points of the pec--so at the sternum and shoulder, the muscle will grow more than if you were to skip the incline press. Previously, we "knew" that the whole muscle fired, and would hypertrophy in a uniform fashion. But we have also seen this in the triceps muscle--one head can hypertrophy individually from the others.
And something else separate from the study but equally amazing...
We may be able to gain some muscle while in a hypocaloric diet. :noway:
It's a VERY small amount...not something that could account for an increase in scale weight in the short term. But a lb of muscle requires half the calories of a lb of fat to produce (because protein contains 4 cal/g and fat contains 9cal/g). So it may be possible to use fat calories toward protein production. Note- I am NOT saying that fat is converted to muscle. That is NOT possible. What's happening is that there is enough ATP (energy) to support some protein-sparing. However, you'd have to be in a fairly small deficit, be lifting regularly and promoting hypertrophy (meaning your workouts need to be very challenging). My prof and I discussed this at great length because I was very doubtful. It still needs to be studied much more carefully.....by me maybe hehe :bigsmile:0 -
WOW! Everything you just wrote went right over my head. So you are saying that it doesn't matter how many reps we do, just that we do them?0
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Can you recap this in simple terms?0
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:laugh: I'm glad I wasn't the only one that didn't understaind completely:laugh:
-Adrienne
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Yea, sorry, I got excited. :blushing:
Okay, basically:
We used to think that a certain number of reps caused muscle growth. Now we see that it's not the reps that matter. Hypertrophy is caused by how many muscle fibers we use, and we can tell if we're using a lot because we will reach failure--that means we can't perform another rep with correct form. We can reach failure with high reps or low reps by just changing the weight.
We used to think that we couldn't make just one area of the muscle grow. The incline bench wouldn't cause growth in the top of the pec. It still doesn't cause growth there. What we learned is that the places where muscles attach to bone CAN grow more than other areas of the muscle, and the middle head of the tricep can as well. (There are 3 sections to the triceps).
Also, we may be able to gain tiny amounts of muscle mass while we're in a calorie deficit. It's not going to cause weight changes in the short term, but over a number of years we might be able to gain a few lbs because muscle is so dense and holds a lot of water and glycogen. Even a little bit of muscle is heavy. The calories (a.k.a ATP, or energy) we get from breaking down fat can be used toward sparing protein. (But fat does NOT get converted to protein).
These are fundamental 'rules' that have been 'broken' by none other than science itsself lol...so I am now experiencing the phenomenon of things I learned as a Freshmen being obsolete now that I'm a Senior.0 -
I kinda get it. :huh: Song is a body builder, and it has to be exciting for her!
Song, are you working on this for your doctorate? Great subject for you to explore!
thx for the info.0 -
Yea, sorry, I got excited. :blushing:
LOL. Simultaneous postings...Thought you were excited ! . :laugh:0 -
I kinda get it. :huh: Song is a body builder, and it has to be exciting for her!
Song, are you working on this for your doctorate? Great subject for you to explore!
thx for the info.
It is exciting, and a little crazy...very surprising.
I'm not in grad school yet...:blushing: But I will be next year! Have to take time after graduation to pick up some classes I'm missing, like biochemistry and stuff. There is SO much available to look at for my future research projects...makes my head spin. :happy: I'd love to look at hypertrophy, there are several aspects I want to study.0 -
Sounds like life!.so I am now experiencing the phenomenon of things I learned as a Freshmen being obsolete now that I'm a Senior.0 -
I'm not in grad school yet...:blushing: But I will be next year! Have to take time after graduation to pick up some classes I'm missing, like biochemistry and stuff.
FUN! Biochemistry.....:sick:0 -
So classes like BodyPump, anyone know what I am talking about, actually build muscle? Everyone at the gym says the calss is cardio, but I saw my muscles tone. I knew it!0
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I'm not in grad school yet...:blushing: But I will be next year! Have to take time after graduation to pick up some classes I'm missing, like biochemistry and stuff.
FUN! Biochemistry.....:sick:
Yea...I'm taking Chem 101 next semester, so over the next year I'll take a Chem 102, Organic Chem, Biochem, Physics, and maybe Calculus. I'll see if the local community college has what I need.0 -
So classes like BodyPump, anyone know what I am talking about, actually build muscle? Everyone at the gym says the calss is cardio, but I saw my muscles tone. I knew it!
That's a bit different...what we are emphasizing is FAILURE, not reps. If you reach muscle failure by the end of each set, yes. If no, it's muscular endurance, not growth.
That's not saying that you can't grow...growth is still mysterious. I hypothesize that endurance can cause hypertrophy by increasing cytoplasm in the cell, but all we're sort of sure about is that endurance training causes changes in energy systems more than in the muscle cells themselves.0 -
Well, it makes sense to me since hypertrophy is created by overload.
I've done both P90X and the Slim Series. P90X focusing on lower reps with higher weights, and the Slim Series focuses on high reps with lower weights... but both encourage going to failure (or right on the brink)... and, you know, I actually got a little more growth from the Slim Series.
I think, like diet, it's a very personalized thing, as to how each of our bodies will react to different types of stimuli.0 -
Well, it makes sense to me since hypertrophy is created by overload.
I've done both P90X and the Slim Series. P90X focusing on lower reps with higher weights, and the Slim Series focuses on high reps with lower weights... but both encourage going to failure (or right on the brink)... and, you know, I actually got a little more growth from the Slim Series.
I think, like diet, it's a very personalized thing, as to how each of our bodies will react to different types of stimuli.
Yea, they found odd things in the study too...obviously you can't biopsy the same spot each time, so they had to take biopsies from different areas in the leg. Lo and behold, some places were hypertrophied and some weren't. :huh:
Of course we will all get different results since we're all born with different ratios of Type I/IIa/IIb fibers too, so you're absolutely right. That's another reason this stuff is so darn hard to study. :P
Also, the study only used bodybuilders. That's really cool, but they may be different from the normal population as well.0 -
OK, so in my own terms, working to shaky-can-barely-complete my last rep, either through heavy lifting or lots of reps is both good. . .and the fatigue is the magic ingredient.
Also, my increase in muscle mass while reducing my calories is actually possible, because my body can draw off of some of my fat reserves to fuel this.
Is that it? :flowerforyou:0 -
OK, so in my own terms, working to shaky-can-barely-complete my last rep, either through heavy lifting or lots of reps is both good. . .and the fatigue is the magic ingredient.
Also, my increase in muscle mass while reducing my calories is actually possible, because my body can draw off of some of my fat reserves to fuel this.
Is that it? :flowerforyou:
Yeppers. :bigsmile:0 -
Hooray! My brain still works!
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Hooray! My brain still works!
You said it better than I did LOL :laugh:0 -
That's a bit different...what we are emphasizing is FAILURE, not reps. If you reach muscle failure by the end of each set, yes. If no, it's muscular endurance, not growth.
That's not saying that you can't grow...growth is still mysterious. I hypothesize that endurance can cause hypertrophy by increasing cytoplasm in the cell, but all we're sort of sure about is that endurance training causes changes in energy systems more than in the muscle cells themselves.
All I know is the muscles on my thighs and calves are looking great--particularly my calf. And, it is muscle that has increased. And, I've done little to no weights because of the problem with weight gain afterward--it has all come from cycling. Of course, there is stress put on the legs muscles doing cycling, and I've often had "noodle legs" for a couple of days after a really long ride, so I'm assuming that load put on the muscles cycling is also some type of muscle failure at some point? Just maybe a stress over time instead of a stress over a few reps? Wouldn't cardio involving muscle stress/fatigue also cause growth? Or have companies that market machines like the Stair Master been lying to us? Companies wouldn't lie to us to just sell equipment, would they?
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