4 ms·

To Build Muscle, It's the Sets That Count

73 points by mhb 3y ago

dhcifndaksbdb 3y ago
I don’t know, the study seemed rather flimsy (even if better than many other fitness studies) and the results drawn from it fairly weak. As with most fitness/nutrition advice, you’re probably better off talking to your local gym bro who looks like you want to and go from there. I’ve personally gotten a lot better gains from more gym sessions at slightly reduced length, which results in overall more volume. Pack as much volume as you can recover from targeting the muscles you want to grow. Simple concept, hard to implement.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  This has the added advantage of setting yourself up to meet new people.
throwaway22032 3y ago
There is a pretty glaring logical inconsistency in this article. - One set is enough to build strength - Multiple are better to build muscle size - Strength is a combination of muscle size and neurological signalling These three can't all be true. I suspect that they mean that one set is enough to build the nervous system.
- monkeycantype 3y ago
  but that observation is consistent with the prevailing beliefs of powerlifters v bodybuilders on weight v volume for strength v hypertrophy, both get strong and both get big, but Powerlifters prioritising strength lift heavier weights at lower reps (1 - 6 reps to failure or near). Bodybuilders prioritising hypertrophy lift only slightly lower weights than powerlifters at slightly higher reps (e.g 6+ reps a set to failure or near) (source, random opinions of gym bros and sisters at doherty's and derrimut gyms)
  - throwaway22032 3y ago
    I agree with all of this but the reality is that it's somewhere inbetween because you need both. Powerlifters are not doing one set and calling it a day.
    - kelipso 3y ago
      It's one rep per set not one set, and they work up to the one rep starting from lighter weights, and do the one rep set for many sets.
      - throwaway22032 3y ago
        Yes, I agree. The article doesn't say that, though. "Doing four sets didn’t produce notably bigger strength gains than one set" - direct quote. Which is, frankly, complete bollocks. Maybe it can produce CNS gains sufficient to lift the maximum your muscles are capable of (basically newbie gains), but no serious competition lifter is going into the gym, doing one set of squats, one of bench, one of deads, and then going home.
        kelipso 3y ago
        True, this is the experiment they did in the original paper: > Eighty-five older individuals [41M/44F, age = 68 ± 4 yr; body mass index (BMI) = 26.4 ± 3.7 kg/m2] had one leg randomly allocated to a single (1)-set and the contralateral leg allocated to four sets of unilateral knee-extension RT at 8-15 repetition maximum (RM) for 10-wk 2 days/wk. Pre- and postintervention, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and unilateral knee-extension 1-RM strength testing. Which, okay, it's old people who will get fatigued quickly and their recovery will be worse. Looks like some of them got tired and didn't recover well, while for others more sets were better because they recovered well, so when averaging those out this result is seems pretty believable, but I wouldn't generalize it to everyone. My takeaway is if you get really exhausted/tired lifting, and you're doing 5 sets of 5 reps or 3 sets of 5 like you did when you were younger, maybe try 1 set of 5 instead, and you might find you recover better for the next lifting session. I personally have gone from 5 sets to 3 sets of my max weight a while ago because of exhaustion.
- RealityVoid 3y ago
  A lot of the strength adaptation is nervous system signaling.
- cheald 3y ago
  Strength is more closely correlated with muscle density than size: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32768372/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32768372/ Powerlifters who train for strength generally train low-rep, high-weight progressive overload programs and often end up with very dense musculature, while bodybuilders prioritize high-rep sets for large amounts of total volume, which produces relatively more muscle size but not necessarily superior muscle density. The two modes of training produce different hypertrophic effects. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3057312/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3057312/ > It appears, though, that bodybuilders, relying on a high repetition training system, in contrast to Olympic weight- and power lifters, display a small increase in number of capillaries per fiber. > Bodybuilders, as opposed to Olympic weight lifters, power lifters, or other power athletes, tend to display a relatively high percentage of slow switch fibers.
nadermx 3y ago
This is interesting but kinda goes against the original 3x10 saying 3x10[0] gains diminish quickly after that max amount. [0] https://physicalculturestudy.com/2017/08/04/3-sets-x-10-reps-the-history-logic-and-reasoning/ https://physicalculturestudy.com/2017/08/04/3-sets-x-10-reps...
- RealityVoid 3y ago
  > Eighty-five older individuals [41M/44F, age = 68 ± 4 yr; body mass index (BMI) = 26.4 ± 3.7 kg/m2] had one leg randomly allocated to a single (1)-set and the contralateral leg allocated to four sets of unilateral knee-extension RT at 8-15 repetition maximum (RM) for 10-wk 2 days/wk. The participants are old and it seems the rep range was not strictly controlled nor was weight or RPE. I can't confirm it though since the full study is paywalled.
lucisferre 3y ago
Brogrammers...
- EdwardDiego 3y ago
  Or, perhaps everybody might be interested, who knows. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838435/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838435/
- WalterSear 3y ago
  Brogrammers building the muscles critical to offset the profoundly detrimental effects of muscle loss inevitable with aging. There exists a deep-seated, verging on universal, culture of frailty. It's time we called it what it is.
  - wasteduniverse 3y ago
    [dead]
  - epiccoleman 3y ago
    > Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. As humanity has developed throughout history, physical strength has become less critical to our daily existence, but no less important to our lives. Our strength, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies. ... A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up. - Mark Rippetoe, from Starting Strength I've always loved this first paragraph of the book for how direct it is. Agree or disagree, that's fine, I'm not saying this is an incontrovertible truth or endorsing it necessarily. Just nice to see someone state their priors so unambiguously.
    - beryilma 3y ago
      Rippetoe should be required reading for anybody interested in strength training. I amusingly love his literal 60-page chapter on squatting alone. More seriously, I observed many times that the moment of starting to loose their muscle strength was the start of the end for older people. It is well known that, for example, older people who break their hips don't survive for too long...
throw0101c 3y ago
> A low repetition scheme with heavy loads (from 1 to 5 repetitions per set with 80% to 100% of 1-repetition maximum (1RM)) optimizes strength increases. > A moderate repetition scheme with moderate loads (from 8 to 12 repetitions per set with 60% to 80% of 1RM) optimizes hypertrophic gains. > A high repetition scheme with light loads (15+ repetitions per set with loads below 60% of 1RM) optimizes local muscular endurance improvements. * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927075/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927075/ One must also be clear on what one means when "build muscle" is said, as there are different types: > Human muscle fibers are generally classified by myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms characterized by slow to fast contractile speeds. Type I, or slow-twitch fibers, are seen in high abundance in elite endurance athletes, such as long-distance runners and cyclists. Alternatively, fast-twitch IIa and IIx fibers are abundant in elite power athletes, such as weightlifters and sprinters. * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8473039/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8473039/ * https://blog.nasm.org/fitness/understanding-fast-twitch-vs-slow-twitch-mucle-fibers https://blog.nasm.org/fitness/understanding-fast-twitch-vs-s... One can train to be 'bulky' to compete in bodybuilding competitions but not be as strong as someone who trains to be strong for powerlifting competitions, yet both have 'built muscle'.
- solumunus 3y ago
  > One can train to be 'bulky' to compete in bodybuilding competitions but not be as strong as someone who trains to be strong for powerlifting competitions, yet both have 'built muscle'. What’s often missing from this point is that the strength of power lifters comes from technique and CNS adaptation. They train to be strong at just three specific movements. Any pro bodybuilder who refocused their efforts into powerlifting would quite quickly be putting up impressive numbers.
  - mofeien 3y ago
    > Any pro bodybuilder who refocused their efforts into powerlifting would quite quickly be putting up impressive numbers. This seems interesting. Do you know of an example of a pro bodybuilder who turned to powerlifting? I wonder how their total muscle mass would change/redistribute.
tr8798 3y ago
This separation of the size of a muscle, specifically, the cross-section of an individual muscle's fibers, on a single individual from those same fibers' strength is new information to the world, if true. On a single individual, a muscle's size varies in direct, though not linear, proportion to its strength and visa-versa. Between individuals of course a smaller muscle may be stronger than the same muscle on another individual. Previous understanding was hypertrophy happened and as a consequence the muscle was stronger and, visa-versa, a muscle was stronger when hypertrophy happened and the two were consistently and directly related. But what this research is saying is that, for a given unit of hypertrophy, there can be varying amounts of strength increase, depending on what type of training effected that hypertrophy. Again, revolutionary, if true.

73 points by mhb 3y ago

I don’t know, the study seemed rather flimsy (even if better than many other fitness studies) and the results drawn from it fairly weak. As with most fitness/nutrition advice, you’re probably better off talking to your local gym bro who looks like you want to and go from there. I’ve personally gotten a lot better gains from more gym sessions at slightly reduced length, which results in overall more volume. Pack as much volume as you can recover from targeting the muscles you want to grow. Simple concept, hard to implement.

brailsafe 3y ago
This has the added advantage of setting yourself up to meet new people.

throwaway22032 3y ago

There is a pretty glaring logical inconsistency in this article. - One set is enough to build strength - Multiple are better to build muscle size - Strength is a combination of muscle size and neurological signalling These three can't all be true. I suspect that they mean that one set is enough to build the nervous system.

monkeycantype 3y ago
but that observation is consistent with the prevailing beliefs of powerlifters v bodybuilders on weight v volume for strength v hypertrophy, both get strong and both get big, but Powerlifters prioritising strength lift heavier weights at lower reps (1 - 6 reps to failure or near). Bodybuilders prioritising hypertrophy lift only slightly lower weights than powerlifters at slightly higher reps (e.g 6+ reps a set to failure or near) (source, random opinions of gym bros and sisters at doherty's and derrimut gyms)
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  I agree with all of this but the reality is that it's somewhere inbetween because you need both. Powerlifters are not doing one set and calling it a day.
  - kelipso 3y ago
    It's one rep per set not one set, and they work up to the one rep starting from lighter weights, and do the one rep set for many sets.
    - throwaway22032 3y ago
      Yes, I agree. The article doesn't say that, though. "Doing four sets didn’t produce notably bigger strength gains than one set" - direct quote. Which is, frankly, complete bollocks. Maybe it can produce CNS gains sufficient to lift the maximum your muscles are capable of (basically newbie gains), but no serious competition lifter is going into the gym, doing one set of squats, one of bench, one of deads, and then going home.
      - kelipso 3y ago
        True, this is the experiment they did in the original paper: > Eighty-five older individuals [41M/44F, age = 68 ± 4 yr; body mass index (BMI) = 26.4 ± 3.7 kg/m2] had one leg randomly allocated to a single (1)-set and the contralateral leg allocated to four sets of unilateral knee-extension RT at 8-15 repetition maximum (RM) for 10-wk 2 days/wk. Pre- and postintervention, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and unilateral knee-extension 1-RM strength testing. Which, okay, it's old people who will get fatigued quickly and their recovery will be worse. Looks like some of them got tired and didn't recover well, while for others more sets were better because they recovered well, so when averaging those out this result is seems pretty believable, but I wouldn't generalize it to everyone. My takeaway is if you get really exhausted/tired lifting, and you're doing 5 sets of 5 reps or 3 sets of 5 like you did when you were younger, maybe try 1 set of 5 instead, and you might find you recover better for the next lifting session. I personally have gone from 5 sets to 3 sets of my max weight a while ago because of exhaustion.
RealityVoid 3y ago
A lot of the strength adaptation is nervous system signaling.
cheald 3y ago
Strength is more closely correlated with muscle density than size: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32768372/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32768372/ Powerlifters who train for strength generally train low-rep, high-weight progressive overload programs and often end up with very dense musculature, while bodybuilders prioritize high-rep sets for large amounts of total volume, which produces relatively more muscle size but not necessarily superior muscle density. The two modes of training produce different hypertrophic effects. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3057312/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3057312/ > It appears, though, that bodybuilders, relying on a high repetition training system, in contrast to Olympic weight- and power lifters, display a small increase in number of capillaries per fiber. > Bodybuilders, as opposed to Olympic weight lifters, power lifters, or other power athletes, tend to display a relatively high percentage of slow switch fibers.

nadermx 3y ago

This is interesting but kinda goes against the original 3x10 saying 3x10[0] gains diminish quickly after that max amount. [0] https://physicalculturestudy.com/2017/08/04/3-sets-x-10-reps-the-history-logic-and-reasoning/ https://physicalculturestudy.com/2017/08/04/3-sets-x-10-reps...

RealityVoid 3y ago
> Eighty-five older individuals [41M/44F, age = 68 ± 4 yr; body mass index (BMI) = 26.4 ± 3.7 kg/m2] had one leg randomly allocated to a single (1)-set and the contralateral leg allocated to four sets of unilateral knee-extension RT at 8-15 repetition maximum (RM) for 10-wk 2 days/wk. The participants are old and it seems the rep range was not strictly controlled nor was weight or RPE. I can't confirm it though since the full study is paywalled.

lucisferre 3y ago

Brogrammers...

EdwardDiego 3y ago
Or, perhaps everybody might be interested, who knows. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838435/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838435/
WalterSear 3y ago
Brogrammers building the muscles critical to offset the profoundly detrimental effects of muscle loss inevitable with aging. There exists a deep-seated, verging on universal, culture of frailty. It's time we called it what it is.
- wasteduniverse 3y ago
  [dead]
- epiccoleman 3y ago
  > Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. As humanity has developed throughout history, physical strength has become less critical to our daily existence, but no less important to our lives. Our strength, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies. ... A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up. - Mark Rippetoe, from Starting Strength I've always loved this first paragraph of the book for how direct it is. Agree or disagree, that's fine, I'm not saying this is an incontrovertible truth or endorsing it necessarily. Just nice to see someone state their priors so unambiguously.
  - beryilma 3y ago
    Rippetoe should be required reading for anybody interested in strength training. I amusingly love his literal 60-page chapter on squatting alone. More seriously, I observed many times that the moment of starting to loose their muscle strength was the start of the end for older people. It is well known that, for example, older people who break their hips don't survive for too long...

throw0101c 3y ago

> A low repetition scheme with heavy loads (from 1 to 5 repetitions per set with 80% to 100% of 1-repetition maximum (1RM)) optimizes strength increases. > A moderate repetition scheme with moderate loads (from 8 to 12 repetitions per set with 60% to 80% of 1RM) optimizes hypertrophic gains. > A high repetition scheme with light loads (15+ repetitions per set with loads below 60% of 1RM) optimizes local muscular endurance improvements. * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927075/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927075/ One must also be clear on what one means when "build muscle" is said, as there are different types: > Human muscle fibers are generally classified by myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms characterized by slow to fast contractile speeds. Type I, or slow-twitch fibers, are seen in high abundance in elite endurance athletes, such as long-distance runners and cyclists. Alternatively, fast-twitch IIa and IIx fibers are abundant in elite power athletes, such as weightlifters and sprinters. * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8473039/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8473039/ * https://blog.nasm.org/fitness/understanding-fast-twitch-vs-slow-twitch-mucle-fibers https://blog.nasm.org/fitness/understanding-fast-twitch-vs-s... One can train to be 'bulky' to compete in bodybuilding competitions but not be as strong as someone who trains to be strong for powerlifting competitions, yet both have 'built muscle'.

solumunus 3y ago
> One can train to be 'bulky' to compete in bodybuilding competitions but not be as strong as someone who trains to be strong for powerlifting competitions, yet both have 'built muscle'. What’s often missing from this point is that the strength of power lifters comes from technique and CNS adaptation. They train to be strong at just three specific movements. Any pro bodybuilder who refocused their efforts into powerlifting would quite quickly be putting up impressive numbers.
- mofeien 3y ago
  > Any pro bodybuilder who refocused their efforts into powerlifting would quite quickly be putting up impressive numbers. This seems interesting. Do you know of an example of a pro bodybuilder who turned to powerlifting? I wonder how their total muscle mass would change/redistribute.

tr8798 3y ago

This separation of the size of a muscle, specifically, the cross-section of an individual muscle's fibers, on a single individual from those same fibers' strength is new information to the world, if true. On a single individual, a muscle's size varies in direct, though not linear, proportion to its strength and visa-versa. Between individuals of course a smaller muscle may be stronger than the same muscle on another individual. Previous understanding was hypertrophy happened and as a consequence the muscle was stronger and, visa-versa, a muscle was stronger when hypertrophy happened and the two were consistently and directly related. But what this research is saying is that, for a given unit of hypertrophy, there can be varying amounts of strength increase, depending on what type of training effected that hypertrophy. Again, revolutionary, if true.