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Another fact I came across while reading about Greasing the Groove was that the strongest predictor of muscle growth was total weight lifted over time. So, you

by alecst 4y ago

Another fact I came across while reading about Greasing the Groove was that the strongest predictor of muscle growth was total weight lifted over time. So, you lift 5lbs 100 times over a week, or 25lbs 4 times a week, and you get similar growth. I’m sure that there are limits here, but this is the basic idea. If you take longer rests, you can usually do more reps in a day, and lift more weight in a week. I’ve put on around 10-12lbs of muscle this way, from doing light body weight movements somewhat often. I’ve also started taking 5-10 minute breaks between climbs and I’m climbing harder than ever.

vidarh 4y ago
There was people doing extreme rep amounts of bodyweight exercises at one point on that logic and writing articles about it, and to test how viable some of the examples were, I for a short period of time (few weeks) aimed for 1000+ bodyweight squats a day. It was brutal. It was possible (with the caveat that it was possible because I was young and was squatting 180kg+ for reps at the time). It took doing sets of 40-100 or so whenever I had a time. I squatted in the meeting room at work. I squatted everywhere. It seemed to work to an extent (did it too short to get a meaningful idea of long term impact). The main caveat to me that made me go back to my 5 set x 5 rep of heavy weights was simply that it took way too much time. But a less extreme variant, such as what you describe is absolutely worth considering for people, especially if the realistic alternative is doing nothing instead.
- dockd 4y ago
  I would be concerned that super high reps will eventually cause problems with your joints: repetitive motion injuries.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    Unless you make very unnatural motions I'm not convinced that'd it'd matter much relative to the increased protection from muscle gain to take more of the load. But frankly, I don't think anyone will or should keep up those extreme rep ranges anyway - it was brutal and took way too much time. Much better to load up a bar and get the same work done in a fraction of the time.

by alecst 4y ago

vidarh 4y ago

There was people doing extreme rep amounts of bodyweight exercises at one point on that logic and writing articles about it, and to test how viable some of the examples were, I for a short period of time (few weeks) aimed for 1000+ bodyweight squats a day. It was brutal. It was possible (with the caveat that it was possible because I was young and was squatting 180kg+ for reps at the time). It took doing sets of 40-100 or so whenever I had a time. I squatted in the meeting room at work. I squatted everywhere. It seemed to work to an extent (did it too short to get a meaningful idea of long term impact). The main caveat to me that made me go back to my 5 set x 5 rep of heavy weights was simply that it took way too much time. But a less extreme variant, such as what you describe is absolutely worth considering for people, especially if the realistic alternative is doing nothing instead.

dockd 4y ago
I would be concerned that super high reps will eventually cause problems with your joints: repetitive motion injuries.
- vidarh 4y ago
  Unless you make very unnatural motions I'm not convinced that'd it'd matter much relative to the increased protection from muscle gain to take more of the load. But frankly, I don't think anyone will or should keep up those extreme rep ranges anyway - it was brutal and took way too much time. Much better to load up a bar and get the same work done in a fraction of the time.